So, so far, we've been lazy (and by we I mean I'VE been lazy) and haven't kept this going like we (by we I mean MOM) told people we were going to. My mom accidentally guilt-tripped me into feeling bad about not blogging, so I decided today to get a move on. I don't have pictures to put up yet, but I'll put them all up in the next blog with lots of captions (and boy, are we pretty).
At this moment I'm sitting in the front room of our third bed and breakfast, called Harmony Inn at Glena House. It's 9:00pm here, 4:00 at home, but its still completely light. It doesn't get dark here until really late, and I can tell it's messing with our sleep patterns. It's still fairly busy outside our window, as people are walking in the town of Killarney. Our street is mainly B&B's, but its only about a block to walk into the main part of town.
I think it's my personally favorite town so far, although the shopping area is incredibly touristy. There's a lot of people and everyone's really nice. We've been to a couple of other towns, but I can't really remember the names of them all (I'll remember more when I get our pictures). The ones I remember are Kilkenny (we saw a castle there, but it wasn't too interesting), Lismore (I slept through their castle visit there, but the B&B was really really nice), Cashel ( was an old chapel with some connections to St. Patrick), Golden (nothing to do there but drink, all the locals said to go to Cashel if we wanted something to do), and Blarney (home of course to the Blarney Castle, home of course to the Blarney Stone). Today we took a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry, a county of Ireland that is just absolutely breathtaking, and stopped in a lot of little villages and really nice looking-points.
Our adventure started with getting off the airplane. It was 4:30 am in Dublin, and we were exhausted. When we got off, all of our suitcases were present, except for Mom's and her golf clubs. The golf clubs, it ended up, were in a separate ring for over-sized luggage, but her bag had been left in Boston. That took about an extra hour of our time, but the customer service lady promised she could have it to us in one night. The second challenge was the rental car. There were two problems with our mini-van: one, we have faaaaaaaar too much luggage to fit in there. Katrina was the smartest (hers was a carry-on) but the rest of us weren't nearly as smart; we had to put the back seat down and stack them on top, and I sit in the back on the one seat we left up, but its still incredibly crowded and we can't see out of half the rear window. Number two with the car, Mom could not for the life of her figure out how to put the car in reverse. In the parking garage, we had to get out and push it backwards so we could navigate out. We stopped at the gas station nearby, and a kindly gentlemen explained that you had to pull up on the gear shift. Right as he left, Mom forgot how to do it, and asked another man, who called her a "silly-billy" (which has become a often-used insult for us now) and showed her again.
Driving, in itself, was and still continues to be a crazy adventure. Everything is switched: you drive on the left-side, driver is on the right side, the up blinker goes right instead of left, and the gear shift is on the left side. Plus, all the cars are manuals (otherwise I'd ask for a shot at driving, but I don't think I can concentrate on driving opposite while concentrating on the stick-shift). We've had to remind my mom twice now that she has to be on the left side (and the second time almost resulted in a collision), and we've also scratched up the left side of the van because my mom isn't used to the switched sides.
As I mentioned before, this is the third B&B we've stayed in. The first two we stayed in for only one night each, but this our second night at this one. The first one was right outside (maybe in) Lismore, and it's a shame that I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, because it was really nice. We had three rooms, Mom and Jen in one, Cass and Al in another, and Kat and I in one. The lady who ran it was really nice and sweet and had the cutest baby on her hip for the most of the time (Kat decided she wanted to steal an Irish baby and is having a hard time picking just one). The breakfast was delicious, and the entire house and grounds were really pretty. The second b&b, White Villa in Golden, was almost comical. It was nice enough (we had two rooms, so us teenagers in the room for four, Mom and Jen in the other), but some of the others were creeped out by the overly friendly inn-keeper, Peter. It led to lots of laughs as he said odd things like "I lock the naughty gals in the attic", and "Is anyone naked?" before he knocked on our door in the morning. His wife sure did know how to cook though. Now we're at the third one, and this one has more of a hotel feel. The others were modified houses, and this one seems more like it was made to be a hotel. It's very nice though, and the breakfast was sooo good.
My favorite thing so far has been the Blarney Castle though. It's the only truly medieval castle that we've gotten to see. It's a strong hold built on top of a small cliff. From the highest point you can stand on over the lowest part of the ground, its about 90 ft. When you make up through the stone structure on thin spiral staircases (I hate them so much) you finally reach the top, with spectacular views of the ground around you. (Kat and Cassidy are scared of heights, but we still got some fantastic pictures of all of us). You find out when you get to the top, that you've basically been in line the entire time to kiss the Stone of Eloquence, more commonly known as the Blarney Stone. There's about a foot-wide gap from the walk way to the stone, over the 90 ft drop I mentioned before, plus, the stone was like a foot and a half lower than the walkway. To kiss it, you have to lay on your back with your upper body hanging over the edge. A spotter (who works there) holds your hips as you lean all the way over and kiss the smooth stone upside down. There are bars a few inches under your head to keep you from falling, but it's easy to forget that they're there. It was kinda scary, but I'm really glad that I did it. Cassidy and Kat, being slight acrophobiacs, didn't kiss the stone, but I kissed it twice while I was down there and then kissed Kat, so she hopefully got some of the Eloquence (I'd say I'm pretty Eloquent as is). Allison told us that she heard that the locals will pee on the stone to mess with the tourists, but on further inspection, it was too public of a place for someone to get away with that.
So hopefully my Mom will get back soon from golfing with the pictures (that'll be my whole next post). After our bus tour, she went golfing and we went to get pizza and shopped a little before Jen, Kat, Cassidy, and Allison all went to see Larry Crowne at the movie theatre (I've already seen it and don't mind getting some down time, plus, I felt like I had to get this done). So that's that, for now. <3
Le grá go deo,
Kate Ford
