Day 27: Back to classes and updating posts

So today is Tuesday and I no worries, I am back to writing and updating my blog. I promise. So this weekend was full of surprises and lots of fun. Thursday we got up and had a nice big breakfast and then headed off to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. We had heard some terrible things about this blarney stone being gross and transmitting herpes or being pee'd on by the locals, but that is not the case. The Blarney stone is high up in the castle and under constant view by people in charge. The stone is all the way at the top of this castle with a narrow little circular staircase. Unfortunately it was a rainy day and when we got to the top of the castle we were getting rained on and had to lay on the wet ground, being held up by this man so all seven of us could kiss the stone. Phew I definitely feel like I have the "gift of gab" or "the gift of eloquence" (depending on who you talk to they will tell you different things). But overall, I did not get any herpes! haha. Although I did have a sore throat the day after and felt like I was getting sick so I joked around about it, but no worries, I didn't.


After Blarney Castle we were on our own to find our way to Killarney where we would be staying for the next two nights. We took the "larnrod Eireann" (Irish rail) all the way out there and had to make a stop over in Mallow. We thought that was awesome that there was a place called Mallow and that it must be where marhmallows came from!! Unfortunately, I do not think that is correct, but you can dream. We had finally made it to our Hostel Paddy's Palace (which was not much of a palace) and got our selves settled and ready for a yummy dinner out. I had my first burger in a while at The Failte Hotel (failte means welcome). This night was cut a bit shorter than others because we were all tired from traveling all day.


On Friday we had decided to go on a bud tour to Dingle. We stopped and did lots of interesting things on this tour like going to Inch Beach, stopping for photos at the farthest point west in Ireland that is directly across from Canada, going to Beehive houses that were made by the Celts over 2000 years ago and stopped in the actual town of Dingle for a late lunch and some shopping. Later that night we went on a pub crawl. This allowed us to get into three different places (some charging a cover, but we were free) and getting three different drinks for only £5. We went to a large pub with live music and got a shot of whiskey there and met a really nice French girl from canada. The second pub we got a free beer and played some pool, and the third place was more of a night club with live rock music and got a green apple shot. It was a good time and we met some great people while getting to listen to awesome music. Then, it was time for bed.


The next day I got up with one of the other girls and went to go see a castle. Unfortunately, the second we stepped outside it started raining, but we walked the whole 40 minutes to the castle getting soaking wet. Lets just say after that I went and got a real rain jacket from Dunnes. The Castle was pretty neat and right on this body of water! Pictures later. After that the whole day was filled with traveling unfortunately. We were not in a very popularized part of Ireland and were heading to a verrry far away town called Doolin. We started traveling around 12pm and got there around 7:45. It was a long day. We rested up in the nice bed and breakfast with much more room and comfortable living than the Hostel had. We went out to a good dinner of fish and chips and tried to plan out what we were going to do for the next day.


When Sunday came around we realized that we were not going to be able to do everything we had wanted. I did not get to go to the Aran Islands or the Cliffs of Moher, but I did get to Galway and buy my Claddagh Ring. The original creator of the Claddagh ring is Thomas Dillon's ( I promise I will put up the history later). That took up a good amount of time, but I am very happy with my ring. After all of that and a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch we were off back to Dublin by 5:15.






It felt so good to be back in Dublin after traveling and being gone for about a week!

Monday was back to classes and today was classes as well as visiting the National Museaum to see the bog bodies. These were bodies from around 300BC that had been sacrificed in rituals and buried in Bogs. These people were preserved so well they still had skin and hair. On one man you could even see his facial expression. Weird but cool.

Phew, that was a lot of writing. Like I said I will put up pictures later!
Miss you guys