Hello again

This took a little longer than I'd hoped, but don't worry, I didn't fall off the top of Blarney Castle. (It was a close thing, though. Seriously, Moms are going to freak out a little when they see the pictures.) Anywho, as you might have guessed, we've made our way to Blarney, Co. Cork by now. We spent the first day and a little bit in Dublin with its insane driving, and made it to Blarney late afternoon yesterday. We'll stay here again today til lunch before we head on to Killarney to start the Ring of Kerry tomorrow.

Dublin really was kind of crazy. You get off the plane. Take a shuttle bus to the rental car place. They say, "Drive on the left. Go clockwise through the roundabouts. Here's a map/gps" (Which may or may not be altogether reliable.) And off you go! It's wild! I can't even imagine how much more difficult it would have been had a) it been a manual and/or b) I had to drive! Ha! Because not only are you on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, but the lane markings are different (if they're there at all), the street signs are hidden and tiny (if they're there at all), and whatever road rules exist (if they're there at all) are seemingly ignored by the majority of the driving population. Bus lane, you say? Eff that bus lane, I'm driving my Fiat here! Motorcycles need to drive in vehicle lanes? Why would I do that when I can drive on the line between two vehicle lanes?? I tried to take photos of some of this insanity while poor Ben drove so you guys can get the full idea once we get home. I doubt I did it justice though. One thing's for certain, driving at home will now seem like a cake walk for both driver and (reluctant) navigator.

Aside from the adventure that is Irish city driving, Dublin is a cool old city. We didn't get to see much of it in our first day, for two key reasons. 1) We (ie, Ben) tried to drive as little as humanly possible. 2) The Guinness Storehouse tour takes Way longer than you'd ever expect. This could be because there was 'complimentary' Guinness involved, but I can't be sure. That place was huge and amazing and full of interesting facts and tidbits. I may not enjoy the taste of the stuff, but I certainly enjoyed the tour. (I can only assume Ben agrees with the latter.) Encompassing seven floors of the old Storehouse (modern day brewing takes place across the street), a discussion of all the neat stuff we came across could take up at least a whole paragraph of its own. Since we still want to get out and be productive today before we get back on the road, I'll just have to leave my description at that. We also explored Trinity College and St. Stephens Green before we hit the Guinness compound. We saw the Book of Kells and a few other religious artifacts as well as an exhibit on the College's medical school there. St. Stephens Green is this big beautiful park just smack in the middle of the city. It's one of those parks that's so rambling and natural that you really do feel like you've escaped the man-made city for something peaceful. There isn't this forced feeling you can get in other city parks I've seen, where you stay on the path and off the grass and you're only there if you've got something productive and healthy to do. Here, there were a good number of people doing that sort of thing, but more than that there were also plenty of people simply lounging on the grass, hanging out with friends after school, enjoying a picnic of take-away food from a nearby cafe, that sort of thing. When we stopped by, we still hadn't quite gotten our bearings yet and didn't really know what to do with our day, so we just plopped down on the grass with our gps and guidebook and people-watched a little while we figured it out. In the sort of chaos of the rest of the city, this park really seems like an asset to the locals.

As beautiful and interesting as parts of the city were, I think we were both glad to head out of it for a more rural setting yesterday afternoon. After hunting around for the elusive Cake Cafe for a late breakfast, we successfully got our butts out of the city and onto the M8 towards County Cork. By the way, the search for Cake Cafe was fruitful and completely worth the effort. We both had the most delicious (gigantic!) cream cheese pancake with some kind of strawberry topping and cinnamon and honest to goodness fresh lemonade. I took pictures. It was worth it. I already have plans to eat there before we catch our flight out again!

The journey to Blarney was certainly an interesting one. Ireland is apparently in the process of updating its major roadways so, although the gps got us successfully out of the city and onto the highway, there was a major swatch of roadway the gps didn't recognize. It assumed we were on some back country road, since we really were driving straight through the countryside, and even told us to turn onto "unnamed road" and "gravel drive" more than once as it tried to figure out where we were. It was a bit frustrating, but also kind of entertaining. We just stayed on the highway until it found us again, with Becky and GoogleMaps helping us over the phone from home. (Thank you!) Even once we got into the little town of Blarney, it was a struggle to find the Blarney Vale B&B. They don't seem to like formal addresses here, so we kept guessing at the street name. We thought we'd found it more than once, but with no luck. We finally broke down and strolled around town to the tourist office, where we got directions from the two friendly people inside. "You go out this way, and you're gonna make a right. But, you know, this road, it makes you go left, but you go right. And then you follow the road for a ways, just follow the road, and you'll pass two big garages, can't miss em, pass two garages and it's da tird house, on the left." Imagine all of this with the adorable local, a bit country, accent and lots of hand gestures from a slightly old gentleman. Add to that repeated emphasis on the two "garages" by the young woman who also worked there, and those were the directions we had. Now let me ask you, what do you picture when you see the word "garages"? Ben and I were both picturing essentially an autobody place, like a big garage where cars get worked on, that sort of thing. No. It took us passing the two gas stations we had passed at least half a dozen times in our earlier searches to realize these were garages! We kept following that road, as the old man instructed, and ran right into a big yellow sign for our B&B. Go figure!

After checking in and seeing our adorable little room (got a picture of that too) we walked (yay, no more driving!) back into town to track down the famous Blarney Stone. We got there with the place only open for about another hour and a half, so we made a beeline for the castle. The map showed a ton of other things to do and see on the grounds, but we didn't have time for that - we had a stone to kiss! The castle, being a castle and all, was cool and old and interesting and everything, but we can talk about that later. Right now I just want to tell you about the mental fortitude it took me to actually kiss the damn thing! So you walk to the top of this old castle, right? And you get to the top (finally) after lots of tiny, twisting, slippery stairs and you're strolling around the old battlements. It's high up. Like, really high up. And then you see the two guys manning the Kiss the Blarney Stone picture station - against the battlements, and, what's this? The big, fancy, professional camera is pointing down? Like, at the floor? Like at a big hole in the floor that's out over the Edge?? Yeah, that's where the Blarney Stone is, people. You lay down on your back, on a rubber cushy mat, the one guy supports your back, reminding you to grab on to the iron bars above your head, to just look at the wall behind you, and, oh yeah, don't look down. Trust me, old man, I am Not looking down. You scoot back (if you're me, you scoot back the tiniest bit until he nags you to scoot back more). You tilt your head and neck Way back until you see this stone on the Bottom(!) of this particular wall that you're holding onto for dear life that looks a little different than the rest - like, magically different. Ok, just kidding, calling it magically different would be "baloney" - calling it something more eloquent and subtle would be "blarney". I have yet to come up with that description yet, maybe a didn't kiss the stone long enough. Also, does anyone else find it weird that I'm fascinated by the apparent death-defying-ness of it all, rather than the fact that literally millions of people of indiscernible medical histories kissed this thing before me? Ben does. I'm just still impressed that I did it. Ben did it too, of course, like it was no big deal, like it wasn't just a couple metal bars, a rubber mat, and an old man keeping him from falling to certain death. No big deal. Tough guy..

That mission completed, we used the last few minutes the place was open to explore the garden beside the castle - the poison garden! Seriously, poison. There's a with a skull & cross bones before you walk in warning you not to touch anything or leave children unattended. Everything from nightshade to poppies to wolfsbane to poison ivy was in this place. There was even canibis! It was in its own cage with a friendly sign informing visitors that the plant had been temporarily removed from the exhibit - by the police! I literally laughed out loud. And took a picture of the sign. An ancient historical site got into trouble with the garda for growing weed? What isn't funny about that? What, not laughing? Well, too bad, it was funny at the time. And I have the picture to prove it! Ha. (Yeah, Ben just called me out for laughing about that again as I type this. Jerk.)

It was getting kind of late and we were getting kind of hungry, so we headed out of the park to grab dinner at the Muskerry Arms, a nice big, little pub in town. Dinner was yummy, they had lots of Guinness for Ben and lots of Irish cider for me, so we were both happy. I was being a jet-lagged baby and was complaining about wanting to walk back to go to bed, when the bartender asked - get this - if we were staying for bingo. "It's really good craic," he says. "You'll enjoy it." Bingo? In an Irish pub? What? I was somehow not tired anymore! It was like magic. We quickly learned that Irish bingo is different from American bingo and apparently taken quite seriously. There were a few other pairings of Americans nearby and I feel like we all won a little favor with the local bingo regulars for trying our hand - even if we never won a penny. The bartender apparently liked us because, when we finally said goodnight, he insisted we come back to say goodbye the next day. It seems like something little, but that was actually quite an awesome feeling. I'm excited to head back into town because of that.

Like, head into town right now. Ok, not right now, because I need to bathe and look a little bit presentable, but soon. Back to Blarney Castle to explore more of the grounds, grab one last meal and drink from the Muskerry Arms, say goodbye to our wonderful hostess, and get back on the road towards Kerry. We love you all, we miss you, we can't wait to bring you fun things and show you lots of pictures. Bye for now!