Tiddly Dee, Potatoes!

When we got to Dublin, we found our way to the house we were staying at and met our host, Rachel. She was so nice--immediately got us some tea when we got in. We then relaxed a bit and unpacked before heading into the city center to go to the Guinness Storehouse.

Pint of Guinness--sort of disgusting, but not as bad as I was expecting.

Slightly tipsy in front of St. James' Gate (never pint on empty stomach).

After Guinness, we headed up to Temple Bar district and grabbed dinner at Quay's restaurant (pronounced "keys"). The food was pretty freaking delicious--I just got a hamburger, but after having a pint, the hamburger hit the spot. Then we got the bus home (lame grandmas, we retire early).

Monday morning we left on a tour of Glendalough, Kilkenny, and the Wicklow mountains. Glendalough is home to the ruins of a pretty beautiful monastic city. Not to mention parts of P.S. I Love You and Braveheart were filmed there. Kilkenny is a cute town with a gorgeous park and castle.

At the site of the monastic city in Glendalough.

The views here were gorgeous!

Another view from Glendalough.

My hair is crazy from the wind, but that's pretty much what you get in Ireland.

We had lunch in Kilkenny and then I wandered off by myself to explore a couple shops. I bought myself some pretty delicious Irish fudge and then headed out toward the castle and strolled around the gardens for about a half an hour. By this time in the day, it was sunny and pretty warm, which made for a very agreeable afternoon.

Kilkenny Castle

The other side of Kilkenny Castle.

 When we got back to Dublin, Maddie and Angela suggested Pizza Hut for dinner (pretty freaking delicious). Then we got to bed early because we had an early early early start Tuesday morning for Blarney Castle (had to get a taxi to the city center at 6am).

On the way to Blarney Castle we also stopped in Cobh (pronounced "cove") which was the last port of call for the Titanic. There was a pretty cool museum about passenger ships that included information on the Titanic as well as those condemned to Australia and immigrants from the famine.

The first person through Ellis Island was this woman. There's also a statue of her in New York to commemorate the occasion.

 After Cobh, we stopped in Kinsale for lunch (again, yum) and headed out to Blarney Castle. I was expecting the castle to not be in... for lack of a better work... such ruin. The roof was mostly gone so it was raining all over the castle. Plus it was covered in moss and other greenery. It was actually kind of refreshing after seeing all these perfectly kept castles, and really cool. I would say that it's easily the most beautiful castle I've ever seen.

Blarney Castle!

Looking to the top of Blarney Castle.

There's the Blarney Stone right now!

If anyone is curious, I have footage of me leaning out of a building to actually kiss the Blarney Stone--though I almost ended up kissing the one right above it, which would have done nothing. Apparently I now have the gift of the gab--as if I really needed to be able to talk *more*.

Once again, we returned to the house fairly early. The next morning, we left for Giant's Causeway up in Northern Ireland. Our first stop was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which we were able to cross once the storm passed by us.

I'm pretty sure that's mainland Scotland in the distance there.

This is the rope bridge we crossed. It sits about 80 feet above the roiling Irish Sea.

On the tiny island connected to mainland Ireland by the rope bridge. It was pretty windy.

Rope bridge! Slightly terrifying, but actually wasn't that bad.

After Carrick-a-Rede, we headed over to Giant's Causeway which is essentially a bunch of basalt rocks that, when they cooled after a volcanic eruption, cracked in this really interesting way that is found nowhere else in the world, save the Scottish island that lies directly across from Ireland's Giant's Causeway. And even the Scottish one is not nearly as immense as that of Northern Ireland.

One part of Giant's Causeway.

The view from my perch--absolutely beautiful.

Some of the rock formations are REALLY tall. A couple kids were attempting to scale this.

After wandering about on the rocks a little on my own, it was time for a photo shoot!

Baby rocks!

In the process of getting to the top without falling in the Irish Sea.

King of the tiny mountain!

The sea was gorgeous.

Backlit and windy--yeeeeah buddy!

The sea by Giant's Causeway was really beautiful. There was a lot of seafoam that gathered at the edge of the rocks, and then the wind would pick it up and blow sea foam everywhere. It was actually pretty cool. After exploring the rocks, we headed back to the visitor's center and got lunch (Beef and Guinness Stew--yay!).

After our stop at the Giant's Causeway, we made our way back south to Belfast where we stopped for about an hour to explore the city a bit. We saw this really cool old bar and the most bombed hotel in Ireland (possibly the UK). Then we wandered around Mark's and Spencer's for a bit before heading back onto the bus and back to Dublin.

This is the most bombed hotel in all of the UK.

The trip was really pretty awesome. We saw lots of Giant's Causeway and our tour guide--Jim--was spectacular. He pretty much told us the entirety of Irish history in a day.


Thursday was our last day in Dublin, and our last day of vacation. We were beat. Angela and I were both sick and we were all exhausted. So we slept in, hung around a little bit, then headed into the city. We hit up the Hard Rock Cafe so I could get a guitar pin for my collection. Outside the restaurant, I saw a sign that took me back 10 years. (Story time!)

So 10 years ago (I think it was 2002), my brother and I went to London with my Aunt and Uncle. It was a pretty spectacular trip. One thing I'll always remember is going to Hard Rock Cafe (it's where my guitar pin collection got started!) and the sign that we saw in the window outside of the cafe: "No drugs or nuclear weapons allowed inside". My brother and I thought this was hilarious, so we took a picture (which I believe we still have).

So, back to Dublin, we walk outside and guess what sign I see. Hilarious. I immediately cracked up, though I don't think Maddie and Angela really understood what was so funny.

I wonder what incident made them think this sign was necessary.

Anyway, we were hungry and Maddie & Angela wanted breakfast, so we headed out to Temple Bar area and ended up eating at Quay's again. It was just as delicious the second time. Then we headed up to O'Connell street to check out the bus lost and found (Maddie forgot her rain jacket on the bus). After an unsuccessful romp to lost and found, we headed back toward the center of town. I found a guy selling claddagh rings so I bought myself one (this was my shopping goal for Dublin). Then we went to the tourist information center to see what else we could do. After hanging around for a while we decided to.....do nothing. So we went back home and ordered a pizza. In our defense, we had to be up at 3am the next day to catch the bus to the airport to be on time for our flight. And I still had to pack.

So our last day in Dublin was rather uneventful. Legend has it, though, that if you leave Ireland wearing a claddagh ring (ding ding ding!) you are destined to come back. So I guess: until next time, Ireland...

The journey home was also uneventful, but it felt good to finally be back in France.