IRELAND!!!

Please excuse me for the wait, but here are a few photos (a little out of order) and a brief review of the 10 days my parents and I spent in the Emerald Isle!

 Dingle Peninsula

 Blarney Castle

 On our tour of Dingle Peninsula

Tidy Towns - a bit of a competition between all the downtown areas in Ireland. Painted doors in all the towns help with the "Tidy Image" supposedly.

 Wesleyan Church in Kinsale

 The first thing I did when I arrived in Ireland - Cliffs of Moher

 Jaunting Ride through the Gap of Dunloe (our horses name was Billy and we all rode in that green cart)

Gap of Dunloe

When I arrived in Ireland, it was 7:00 am Ireland time, which made it 1:00 am Alabama time. My jet lag wasn't too bad, but it took me a couple of days to get on the Irish schedule. What I found out while I was there, was that the first hours of the morning are leisurely. No one really gets moving until around 10 or 11 am. They also drink a lot of tea and coffee, which I am totally ok with.

Dromoland Castle

Mom and Dad picked me up from the Shannon airport, rented a car (steering wheel on the right side of the car, driving on the left side of the road) and wisked me off to the place where we were staying for the night. A castle. Dromoland Castle to be exact. After we dropped our things and after I added a few layers, we headed to the Cliffs of Moher. I had on about 5 layers on top and 2 layers on bottom. The wind was blowing like crazy, but the sights were incredible. After we looked around for a while and took pictures, we went and got something to eat, saw people surfing in 50 degree weather, and then went back to the castle. We had dinner and walked around the grounds of the castle until bedtime.

We took a drive to Dingle Peninsula. Stayed at the Pax (Peace) House. Had tea and crumpets. Went into town to get something to eat (really good pizza). The next day we went on a tour with a guy named Dennis. We spent about 4 hours that day driving all around looking at some incredible and historical things. Beautiful weather, but super chilly (layers)! That night we got something to eat and went to an Irish concert full of some traditional Irish tunes. 

The next day we drove to Kenmare. We stayed at another Bed and Breakfast. (All of our B&B experiences were totally different but all good in their own ways.) We ate at some great restaurants and then took the Gap of Dunloe tour. We took a bus to the bottom of the Gap, got in a jaunting carriage which took us through the valley (pictures above), then we stopped at a little cafe for some lunch, got on a boat to take us back where we started. Very interesting, kind of cold and rainy that day.

Next stop was Kinsale for a couple of days. This was such a neat little harbor town. Tiny streets, lots and lots of history, beautiful sailboats, met the Methodist pastor, wife, and son, great pictures. Although, I did sleep on a cot at that B&B!

For our last place to visit, we took a trip to the Blarney Castle, where we walked up and up and up stairs to finally get to the top to kiss the Blarney Stone. Supposedly whoever kisses it will receive the gift of eloquent speaking. We'll see about that...

We had a quick lunch, looked in one last store, and made our way to our last place of rest, The Bunratty Hotel. After a good night of sleep, we got packed up and were ready to fly out of the Shannon airport by 6:00 am Ireland time. 

Marina at Kinsale

That was a whirlwind of a recap. There are a ton more details and more than enough pictures to help describe our once-in-a-lifetime trip. Mom, Dad and I decided this was such a great place with so much to see and that there is no way to see EVERYTHING this country has to offer in just 10 days. Hopefully we will have another opportunity to come back to this beautiful place and to see even more than we did while we were there.

Hopefully that gave you a little bit of an idea of what we were up to across the Atlantic! 

Gratitude goes out to: spending some quality time with my parentals, safe travels, seeing some incredible beauty that God provided for us, for the opportunity to travel, learning about the history of my family, their heritage, their culture and their country, my arm healing nicely, remembering how much I love home