To Ireland….

So we boarded our flight to Ireland without issue.  The plane was a large Aerobus 330 with a 2-4-2 seat arrangement.  I was impressed when I saw a pillow and blanket awaiting every passenger on their seat, how nice.  Of course when I later found out how much the tickets cost, a small gold ingot on the seat would have been reasonable as well.

The flight to Ireland was a full two hours shorter than the return trip, ONLY 5 and a half hours.  Aer Lingus does their best to make you happy on such a long journey.  They were very generous in their food offering which included snacks, drinks and a full dinner.  In addition they had a video screen for each passenger, similar to what JetBlue has but even better.  Not only can you watch tv on it but a number of recent movies and a large selection of games as well.

I took advantage of the system playing a bunch of video craps as well as watching the most recent Fast and Furious movie. (gets a B+ by the way)  All in all I thought the flight went pretty quickly for as long as it is.  Even so by the end of it my ass was plenty tired of sitting.

Because of the time change we had warped through time during the flight, when we landed we had lost 5 hours of time, landing in Shannon at the bleary eyed hour of 5:30 am.  It was an odd feeling to jump that many time zones in such a short period of time.

I was surprised at the relaxed security coming into Ireland.  Other than the desk where you showed the passport you walked by a mostly empty airport with tons of security equipment sitting unmanned and unsheltered from the public.

Once we emerged into the main terminal we ran into our next snafu, the rental vehicles dad reserved were not ready yet.  When dad made the reservations for the cars he signed up for them to be picked up at something like 10am.  Well it was only 6 am or so and Hertz said they didn’t have the vehicles on premise yet.

Dad bitched at them a bit but the bottom line was he wasn’t supposed to take possession of the vehicles for another 4 hours.  The clerk said he should be able to have the vehicles ready to go by 9am.  I understood dad’s angst. Despite being early, the Hertz guys could have at least used a more accommodating attitude.  Instead it was basically coming across as, “You’re early, tough shit”.  Dad again paid a HUGE premium for these vans, something that seemed inconsequential to the Hertz representatives.

So we now had roughly three hours to kill and went upstairs to a cafeteria to eat breakfast.  While we were up there I was fussing with my phone, trying to get the data service I paid for up and running.  Despite my best efforts I was unable to do so.  I couldn’t even get a connection to the local airport wi-fi working, damn it.

After breakfast we had our next drama, my step mom couldn’t find her camera bag.  She looked all around and couldn’t find it.  She feared it had been stolen but the likelihood of that happening at an Irish airport this early in the morning seemed remote.  She went to the lost and found desk but had no luck there either.  Luckily Damon found it when he went back up to the cafeteria area, it must have dropped off the cart up there.

Finally the rental vehicles were ready.  Originally dad had reserved two big 9 person vans.  Evidently they only had one such van and said they could give us a smaller 7 passenger vehicle.  They didn’t change the rental price though because they said they were giving us automatics instead of manual shift cars, gee thanks.  Needless to say dad left there not feeling very good about Hertz.

So my dad, myself and Damon were the registered drivers for the rentals meaning the three of us would be the designated drivers for our travels.  Dad took the wheel behind the big van and Damon drove the smaller vehicle.  We headed out for what we were told was a nearly three hour drive to the Dingle area.  Keep in mind this journey started at what equated to 4am eastern standard time.

Dad was having some issues driving the van.  Ireland like the rest of Europe drives on the left side of the road and it is not an easy thing to flip over to.  In addition having the steering wheel on the right side reverses the driving perspective that has been engrained in all American drivers.  Dad found himself driving too far to the left, coming dangerously close to the edge of the road.

After maybe an hour or so we stopped for coffee.  Teresa noticed that dad’s eyes were getting very tired so I eagerly offered up to drive the rest of the way. My initial experience with Irish coffee was not good.  Both the cup I got at the airport and the cup I got at the stop was pretty bitter but I forced it down anyway.

It didn’t take very long behind the wheel before I saw why dad was struggling.  As I drove through the town we stopped in we came upon a street that seemed VERY narrow yet it had cars parked on both sides of the road and was open for two way traffic.  As I was squeezing by a car I actually bumped the passenger side mirror on the mirror of a parked van.  Luckily the mirror was the breakaway variety so other than a scuff on the plastic body the mirror was intact.

The drive to Dingle was harrowing.  I found a spot on the windshield I could use as point of reference.  If I kept the center line more or less aligned on this mark I was ok.  Driving required near constant focus since the narrow roads with absolutely no shoulder left zero room for casual driving.   The cold and wet weather didn’t help matters much.

Ireland is not real big on traffic lights or intersections with stop signs.  Instead they utilize a ton of traffic circles.  Although they could seem confusing to someone not familiar with the area they did seem to do a decent job of keeping the traffic flowing.

The van was an automatic as Hertz said but not as an American car would be.  There was no PARK detent for the shifter.  You put the vehicle in neutral and apply the parking brake when stopping.  The shifter has both a manual and automatic mode.  In manual mode you change gears by tapping the shifter.  Automatic mode requires a tap in a different direction.

The shifting in the vehicle felt much different than any automatic transmission I drove before.  It literally felt like someone pushing in the clutch before changing gears instead of the instant shifts cars here have.

Speaking of the cold I was shocked when I first stepped outside the airport.  The temps felt like they were solidly in the 50’s with a constant light rain.  It felt way worse than most Florida winter days.  When I checked before the trip I saw the average August temp in southern Ireland doesn’t get out of the 60’s.  On the plus side it doesn’t get very cold either.  The huge surrounding body of water means the temperature swings between night and day are pretty minor.

Finally we made our way into Ballydavid the town the house was located in.  As we reached the area I noticed pretty much all of the signs and road markings were in Gaelic, the native language, weird.  The drive up to the house follows the coastline and passed by a dock and a pub that we would wind up frequenting often during our stay there.

As we turned the tight corner leading to the driveway we got our first glimpse at our accommodations, an absolutely beautiful, huge home.  The front of the house faced the ocean. The surrounding yard was separated by beautiful stone walls and the adjacent fields were filled with cows.  Wow we were a long way from NYC now.

We headed inside and checked out the inside of the place which was nice as well with a huge kitchen, reading room and bedrooms for all, most of which included their own personal bathroom.  My step mom took charge and  handled directing people to bedrooms instead of it becoming a point of contention.

Our room was at the top of the steps with a window facing the back and far side of the yard.  It had a bathroom that looked to be a converted walk in closet and a faux electric fireplace that produced heat and fake flames, pretty nice.

Despite being up for more than 24 hours at this point, well those of us that didn’t nap on the plane or in the car, we pushed on.   We had to hit the grocery store to load up on groceries for the week.

The differences between our country and Ireland became very evident inside the store.  Some of the same brands were available in Ireland but the sizes of everything was smaller, dramatically so in some instances.  In America where we have food choice overload and huge amounts of it to boot, it was kind of refreshing to walk through a store where moderate sizes were the norm.  It probably was not a coincidence that for the most part, the people I saw walking around in Ireland were more moderately sized than what we grow in the US.

I even managed to find Pop Tarts, the packaging looked similar although they rename their flavors.  For example what in America is Chocolate Fudge in Ireland is named Chocotastic.  With 12 people in the house there was a lot of food to buy, each group sort of just bought stuff for them selves with a few items being dubbed community property like eggs, milk and bread.

When we got back Ali and I headed down to TP’s, the pub nearby.  We heard they had free wi-fi and I was interested in figuring out why I wasn’t able to get internet access over 3G like I paid for.

We needed to know the internet password so we bellied up to the bar and asked for it after ordering a beer.  I managed to clumsily access an ATT webchat representative on my Iphone, hoping he could tell me how to get my service working in Ireland.  I was quite frustrated when my session disconnected in the middle.  I said f it and went back to the house.

I continued to futz on my phone and eventually came up a carrier screen.  I realized there were three different carriers available to me.  I chose one of the other two, named O2 and bang, it started to work.  That was a relief.  The plans I had to use my phone as wifi hotspot didnt work out, it was unreliable as hell.  Instead I just wound up configuring Ali’s email account on my phone and let her use it when she wanted to check mail or connect to the virtual world.

Later in the afternoon Ali and I laid down to take a nap.  By the time we woke up dinner was almost ready.  Dad had suggested that people take turns preparing dinner during the week to both cut down on expenses and encourage participation.  My sister Meghan made dinner the first night.  It was good stuff.

Saturday night Ali and I slept like rocks.  I think I slept somewhere around 10 hours which is an eternity for me.

Ali and I had swapped out our dollars for euros at JFK before we left.  I found the currency system rather interesting.  For paper money they have nothing smaller than a 5 euro bill.  Anything smaller gets broken down into coins.  They have 2 euro and 1 euro coins.  Then they have smaller cents coins as well, I saw a 20 cent and 10 cent coin, I am not sure if it gets any smaller than that.

I also discovered that my American Express card was nearly worthless in Ireland, nobody took it.  I think I got to use it once or twice, all my other CC transactions occurred with our Mastercard.  It also seemed in general that credit card use was not as commonplace as it is in the US.  Both gas stations I stopped at did not have pay at the pump capability.  Many stores relied on old, slow, stand alone credit card processing devices instead of the integrated units that are so common here.

On Sunday morning Ali and I went on a walk along the water with Torrin, Damon and their kids.  We wound up down at the beach area where we were joined by Patrick who just finished doing a run.  Pat is quite adventurous and decided it would be a cool feather in the cap, literally, to go swimming in the frigid water.  A few minutes earlier we witnessed a local don his swimming cap and go for a swim which blew our minds.

Pat wasn’t able to just dive quickly into the water, he had to wade out slowly and methodically because of all the stones under the water.  Finally he got to about waist deep and dove in.  Ali and I stared in disbelief.  Pat didn’t just go under and come right out, he actually swam around for a little while.  In total I bet he was in the water 10 minutes.  I thought when he emerged into the cold air temps (50’s) that he would want his clothes so I carried them over to him.  Instead he was content to just walk up to the house barefoot in his bathing suit.  He is something else.

We decided that a casual trip into Dingle on Sunday would be a good way to ease into our Ireland excursion since everyone was still a bit off from the dramatic time shift and jet lag.  We ate lunch at a small restaurant where we managed to push enough tables together to seat all 12 of us.  We were waited on by a young guy that wasn’t all that good.  He messed up various parts of the order and didn’t check back on us at all after the food arrived. Oh well, the fish and chips I had tasted good at least.

As we walked around Dingle we came across a large group of men dressed in women’s clothing.  They were carrying a bucket, collecting money for some charity, supposedly.  I found them funny so I threw the loose euros in my pocket in their bin.  For all I know the charity was their beer fund.

When we got home from Dingle we were greeted by a group of sheep hanging out in the yard.  Like I mentioned earlier, we already had a bunch of cow neighbors in the adjacent fields but now we had these sheep right by the front door.  I thought it was pretty funny.  Being an animal lover I was happy to have them hang out.

Sunday evening Ali and I walked up to the lookout shack so I could do a quick body weight work out.  I improvised using the shack and the surrounding stone wall for pull ups, leg raises, handstands and push ups.  It was pretty damn cool doing this as I looked out over the Atlantic Ocean.

Sunday night Ali and I were quite pooped and wanted to get some rest since Ali was going to do her 19 mile training run the next day.  Several of the group decided to go down to the pub, leaving the kids home.  Well the kids were extremely wired.  The last time I looked at my phone it was 1am and they were all still up.  Then when the crew from the pub returned they were equally loud.  As nice as the house was, one thing it did not have was thick walls.  Sound carried very easily throughout the entire structure.  Needless to say we didn’t get the quality of sleep we were hoping for.

So late morning Monday Ali and I got ready to go out on her run.  Patrick had offered to go with us which was very nice.  Prior to going out on foot we went out in the one vehicle and drove the perspective course to get an idea of direction and distance.  The weather was pretty damn miserable with a pretty steady light rain, wind and cold temps, somewhere in the 50’s.

So the plan was we would run up towards a nearby bed and breakfast that we heard rented bikes.  Then Patrick and I would take turns running / riding since neither of us felt like running 19 miles. My right knee was still somewhat swollen from run at Central Park.  Pat brought along his running back pack which we used to carry the supplies for the run.

So we head out the door and start running.  It didn’t take long for us to get a preview of what we would be facing during most of the  run, hills.  The run to the B&B was mostly up a long gradual hill, creating an exertion level that was not very comfortable right off the bat.

So we got the the B&B and asked inside about bike rental.  They directed us around the side of the building, saying someone would meet us out there.  An older guy with white hair and white beard was there.  We told him we wanted to rent one bike.  He asked where we were staying but little else, he never asked our names and just said when we were done with the bike we could prop it against the shed.  He handed us a thoroughly used mountain bike and we handed him 10 euros.  I was amazed at how casual the transaction was.

So we headed back out on the road and continued the run with me mounting the bike first.  Pat and I figured we could switch off every 4 or 5 miles.    The weather conditions went from bad to miserable as we continued.  There were periods of rain that were much stronger, stinging your skin with cold droplets.  It seemed surreal that it was mid-August.

As we went along we saw a number of funny road signs, Ireland seemed to be full of them.  They seemed to point out obvious things like don’t drive or walk off cliffs.  They made us laugh out loud more than once.

Patrick is quite the fast runner and was easily able to run ahead and snap pictures without falling behind.  He looked like he was hardly working at all.  Of course he also completed a 72 mile ultra-run a couple months prior.

As we were coming up a pretty steep section of the road I was cranking on the pedals pretty hard.  All of a sudden I heard a noise from the back wheel area that corresponded with significantly more resistance in pedaling.  Looking down I realized that the back wheel had shifted and was now rubbing against the frame, great.

Pat and Ali came back to me as we surveyed the situation.  Pat had the idea of just stepping on the wheel as the bike laid on it’s side.  Doing so seemed to pop the wheel back into alignment.  Unfortunately as soon as I tried to pedal with any considerable force the wheel would just pop back out.

Pat said he would ride the bike back to the B&B and grab another one so Ali and I could continue on.  I felt bad Pat would have to do that but he insisted he would rather do it than have me do it.

Ok so Ali and headed back out on foot.  Our pace was slow and steady as it had to be with the various hilly terrain we were covering.  Early on in the run we were in good spirits and appreciative of the wonder that we were running in Ireland.  As the miles drug on the wonder went away.

Ironically Pat rejoined us seconds after Ali and I had just expressed concern that he was ok.  Pat said he had to run the bike up the steep hills but was able to ride it for the rest of the trek.

Pat stayed on the bike as Ali and I ran along.  The weather conditions were worsening with more rain and wind.

We came to a section of back road that had a strip of grass running up the middle of it.  The road went up a long and steep hill that caused Ali to stop and walk until we reached it’s apex, it was pretty brutal.  We reached a spot that was a few miles from the house.  Pat said if we didn’t mind he was going to just go run ahead back to the house.  Riding on the crappy bike was aggravating his back.  I told him that was fine, I would get back on the bike and we would run/ride back to the B&B, by that time we should be getting closer to Ali’s mileage goal and I can just run the rest with her.  Pat let me keep his backpack to hold our stuff.

By this time Ali and I were completely soaked from the rain and chilled to the bone.  We made our way back to the B&B where I leaned the bike back on the shed as instructed.  Ali helped me tighten the backpack with straps that connected across my chest and abdomen to minimize movement.  We set back out on foot to get this damn thing done.

Unfortunately we had more mileage to do that I anticipated even after returning to the B&B, we needed somewhere around 5 miles yet.  Running with a backpack on was not exactly fun but it wasn’t quite as tough as I thought it could be although the constant noise of the water in the bottle bouncing up and down got maddening at points.

Those last few miles were in a word BRUTAL.  We were now running against a hard, wind driven rain.  I was doing my best to encourage Ali to push on, knowing she was miserable.  Finally we reached a turn around so the wind was now behind us.

I could hardly believe it when Ali asked me if I was ok with running MORE.  We already upped the distance to 19.75 miles to make up for the distance we walked up the hill.  However Ali also had a GPS snafu that resulted in her not recording about a half mile of the run.  She basically wanted to run until her watch showed a full 19 miles even though in reality we will have run more than that.  I wasn’t thrilled by the request but I certainly wasn’t going to let Ali finish the run by herself so off we went to scratch out that last half mile.

Ali’s watch clicked the last 10th of a mile just as we passed the front door of the house.  We dragged our soggy bodies inside.  We were both spent.  I probably wound up running 10+ miles which is the furthest than I have logged since the half marathon in March.  It was probably one of the most mentally challenging runs Ali or I have ever undertaken.

Doing all that running on a knee that was a stiff going in was not a good thing.  My knee was cranky the rest of the time in Ireland and was one of the reasons we scuttled the tentative plans to run a race in Cork later in the week.

After the run Ali thought it might be a good idea to use the frigid ocean as a make shift ice bath to aid in recuperation.  We hobbled down to the water and took our sneakers off.  Ali’s bare feet touched the water and that was all it took for her to call it quits, it was just too cold for her.

I decided to give it a go anyway and waded out until the freezing water was mid thigh.  Initially submerging my legs was painful, just like an ice bath is.  However after a minute or two my legs went numb and I was able to tolerate the temperature at least.  I probably stood in the water 5 or 6 minutes, that was good enough for me.

Monday after enjoying a really good dinner Pat prepared we headed back to the TP pub once again.  I wanted to at least drink one Guiness while I was in Ireland even though I don’t like the taste of it in the least.  I warmed up my palette by drinking a Heineken first, after doing so downing the Guiness wasn’t quite as difficult as I expected.  You still will never find me ordering one at a bar anytime soon.

The main reason we were at TP was so Pat and Meg could do some extensive internet research.  The two of them had decided they wanted to head up to Dublin for a day/night and they needed to find out how to do so via train.  They had lots of trouble on the Irish rail website, evidently it isn’t very user friendly at all.  They did manage to figure out there was a train leaving Tralee, about an hour away at 7:15 Tuesday morning.  Originally my dad had offered to drive them there but I volunteered my services knowing the difficulty dad had driving earlier.  I also thought dad would much prefer sleeping in then having to get up at 5 something to drive in the dark.  It was the least I could do considering the huge effort he put out to get us all to Ireland.

Patrick and Meg had written down directions to the station and were my navigators for the trip to Tralee.  The drive went fine and I got them to the station with time to spare.  I told them to have fun.

On the drive back to Ballydavid I stopped and grabbed some coffee at a convenience store.  Coffee in Ireland, at least every time I bought it comes out of a machine.  There are no coffee pots on hot plates.  Instead you grab a cup (they only ever have one size), stick it under the machine and hit your drink type (coffee, cappucino, tea)

Some of the machines actually had a built in grinder that would grind the beans right on the spot.  I found that the machines with a grinder generally produced better tasting coffee than the non-grinder variety.

I also found it fascinating how baked goods are handled in Ireland, loosely.  Most of the baked goods are delivered and displayed in open baskets, there is no individual packaging.  It just seems weird coming from the land of processed foods with infinite shelf life.  The baked goods were certainly good.  Ali and I both developed a taste for scones while we were there.

On Tuesday the group split again.  The people with kids piled in a van and went to an indoor water park and had a great time.  My dad, Teresa, Ali and I planned to drive the Ring of Kerry, a huge scenic loop, something the kids would not enjoy.

Early in the drive we stopped for coffee and scones.  As I was parking we drove by a guy in military garb standing on the sidewalk with his automatic rifle drawn.  WTF?  Once we got out we saw more military as well as two military SUV’s parked in the street, flanking an armored truck.  They were standing in front of a bank.

At first we wondered if the bank had been robbed.  From a distance Ali pulled out her camera and snapped a couple pictures.  The one beefy, angry looking soldier spotted Ali and her camera and made an angry gesture while yelling NO PICTURES!  Ali quickly put her camera down, afraid they guy might come and smash it.

After a few seconds somebody came out of the bank and into the armored truck.  The military escort jumped back in their vehicles as well and sped off.  When we got inside the restaurant dad asked the waitress what that was all about.  She said it was normal procedure for bank money pick ups in Ireland.  Evidently there has been a huge problem with the armored trucks getting hijacked, this was the solution for the problem I guess.

There was much beautiful scenery out there.  We made a few stops at designated pull offs where we saw other cars taking in particularly pretty spots.  At a couple of these spots we ran into people selling stuff or just sitting there with animals, hoping the tourists will toss a couple coins in a box if they take a picture of them.

The first example of this was a couple that had their small dog sitting on the back of a donkey just hanging out.  It was a pretty funny site.  Both the dog and the donkey seemed perfectly content to just stand/lay there.  There were a decent collection of coins in front of the young couple, it’s an odd way to make a living.

We came into a town named Waterville.  We stopped and walked up to a real old looking church with a graveyard surrounding it.  We were surprised the graves were so unkempt, most of them badly overgrown with weeds and vegetation.  Looking at the dates on some of the headstones revealed just how old some of the graves were, dating back to the late 1800’s.  Yea it is sort of morbid sightseeing in a graveyard but I found it interesting regardless.  I have always had an interest for things that are old.

We ate lunch in Waterville as well at an inexpensive hostel.  The food was surprisingly good considering the lower than normal cost.  After lunch Teresa walked down to the beach and picked up a couple souvenir rocks, she likes to collect them from various places they visit.

After lunch we stopped at another sightseeing spot higher up on a hill.  The temperature difference from Waterville was dramatic where I was able to eat lunch in just my t-shirt.  Once I stepped outside on the hill I immediately donned my sweatshirt, it was windy and freezing.

Again we ran across people that earn a living by just hanging out. The first was an old guy sitting on a wall playing the accordion.  His black dog was by his side.  Evidently this dog LOVED to play the pull game as he immediately presented his toy to dad and dared him to pull it away from him.  I played pull with the dog as well, he was very friendly.  Of course I tossed a euro or two into his bag.

The other guy was a little more on the weird side.  He laid on the ground on top of a filthy looking chaise lounge cushion in front of an old van.  He was just wearing a sleeveless undershirt, I couldn’t believe he wasn’t freezing his ass off.

Next to him in a chair were FIVE animals,  two small sheep, a goat, a dog and a cat.  It was hard to believe they would all lay on top of each other like that.

The guy had only a few teeth in his mouth but seemed pleasant enough.  Ali and Teresa said they detected the distinct smell of urine as they got closer to him, nice.

Another stop on the drive was place called the Staigue Fort.  The drive to get to it was pretty ridiculous.  The road leading to the fort was barely wide enough for one vehicle yet it was used for traffic going both ways.  When you spotted an oncoming vehicle one of the two of you HAD to find some sort of pull off area to let the other vehicle squeeze by.

Finally we made it to the fort.  It was quite large and from the information signs around it, quite old. What made the structure really interesting is there was no mortar used, just the careful stacking of thousands of rocks.  All of us took turns climbing up onto the walls and getting our pictures taken.  The exact age of the fort is unknown, they only could estimate it was created sometime post AD.

The drive out of the fort involved a minor driving incident.  As I came over a hill crest I saw another vehicle coming towards me.  I quickly steered left into a small opening.  Well the front passenger side bumped solidly into a low grassy bank that was there.  I was pissed, worried that I may have done visible damage to the car.

When we made our next stop I saw that the impact didn’t damage the bumper but it did pop the wheel well out from the fender and misaligned another piece.  Luckily later when we got home I was able to push everything back to where it belonged so the Hertz people wouldn’t notice.

Well the drive was taking longer than we expected.  It was getting late in the afternoon and we estimated we were still a solid 3 hours from home.  Ali and I were scheduled to make dinner that evening.  We decided to fast forward the rest of our journey and pretty much head straight home, just passing through a major site on the ring, Kilarney. I was fine with expediting our return, I had literally driven close to 300 miles by the time we got back and was ready to call it quits.

Todd and Damon wound up preparing the spaghetti for themselves and we made another portion for ourselves when we got back.  Ali felt bad she didn’t get to deliver a full meal to everyone as we promised.

So Wednesday we planned to go to Blarney Castle.  The trip was going to require some coordination as Pat and Meg were taking the train from Dublin to Cork where we would pick them up and then go to the castle.  The kids/parents wound up leaving an hour or so ahead of us and went straight to Blarney.  Teresa, Ali and I headed to Cork in the Peugot.

Todd had been told by a local that it only took an hour and a half to get to Cork.  We had looked up the route on my phone and it claimed a nearly 3 hour travel time.  Well the local must have had a few too many Guiness, it took a full 3 hours to get there.

Finding Pat and Meg in Cork was challenging. Driving on the wrong side of the road was weird enough on country roads, doing it in an urban environment raised the bar.

At first we thought Cork was like many of the other areas in Ireland that didn’t have any street signs. Pat later informed us that the street signs aren’t mounted on a pole, instead they are mounted on the corners of buildings.  Eventually using the Iphone GPS, text messages from Meg and a tourist map we finally picked them up after circling a bit.

After hearing from Todd that they were stuck in a long line at the castle we scuttled our earlier plans to meet up with the other group for lunch and instead we just ate in Cork.  Ironically we ate at a mexican restaurant, an odd choice I guess but I certainly didn’t care.  The food was actually quite good.

We then spent a little time walking around Cork taking in the city which was nice.  There was a lot of really impressive architecture everywhere you turned.  We had to cut the sightseeing short though since we still had not gone to Blarney Castle and we still had that lovely 3 hour drive home ahead of us as well.

Blarney Castle was pretty damn awesome.  Prior to going on the trip I never knew much about Blarney Castle.  For some reason I had it in my head that it was an intact and functional castle instead of the ruins of one and I also was sure the castle was on the coast.  Neither of those preconceptions were remotely close to true.

The grounds surrounding the castle are beautiful filled with majestic trees and luscious landscaping.  It took a little walk before the castle popped into view from behind the trees.  Wow, what an impressive structure.

Seeing something erected in the 1400’s standing in front of you is a rare opportunity.  Ali and I made the best of it, taking more photos of the castle than any other object during the trip.

We ascended the long spiral staircase that lead to the top of the castle where the Blarney Stone is located.  It was a steep climb in close quarters, people scared of small spaces would not feel very comfortable.

We emerged to the top wall and took a look down, a perspective Ali isn’t very fond of.  You got a great look at the grounds surrounding the castle from up there.  We could see the Blarney Stone spot around the corner, there were maybe 20 people in front of us.

As we got closer we realized they intentionally made it very difficult for people to get their own good shots of kissing the stone.  On the right side of the stone was the guy that guided you through the process.  On the left side was their permanent photo rig.  Trying to get a clear shot of the kiss required holding your camera out at an awkward angle and hoping to got the shot in frame, kind of lame.

So Ali went first, laying on her back and bending backwards as the old guy gripped her torso.  There are two bars you grab on to as you lean back.  The old dude kept repeating the same instructions over and over again.  “Ok, ok, lay back, grab the bars, ok kiss, backup, there ya go..”  it just sounded funny.  The thought of kissing the same spot thousands of other lips touched is a bit gross if you allow yourself to dwell upon it.  Luckily the thought just passed through my mind quickly.

After we exited the castle we took a quick spin through the poisonous garden,  a garden filled with beautiful but dangerous plants.  There was much more we could have seen but again time was our enemy, as it was we would be lucky to get home by 7pm, so we headed out.

Like I mentioned before, the original idea we had of doing the 5 mile race in Cork at 7:30pm had been abandoned due to my stiff knee and a lack of interest from Pat and Meg after a very busy day in Dublin.  In retrospect it would have been pretty damn awful running the race and then having to make that long drive back to the other coast.

I think we will cap this entry here and include the final three days and the epic return flights in their own glorious capsule.