Ireland - Our first few days

Everyone's asked, "So how was your trip?" Amazing's how I've been starting my reply. I finally uploaded my photos yesterday and thought rather than doing one uber long post, I'd do a few of them. You all know I tend to ramble so I hope you don't mind indulging me a bit.

We arrived bright and early in Shannon, Ireland, picked up our rental car. My dad was the brave one who drove the entire two weeks. This is a picture of our ride, a Ford Ghia. It was the perfect size for us and also Ireland's narrow roads. The intial shock of driving on the opposite side of the road kept all of the backseat and frontseat drivers confused as we always thought he was turning the wrong way. Seriously though, until you have driven or even riden in Ireland, you just haven't experienced driving. And I feel like with having experiences in lots of places, this one makes it into the top 3 of crazy driving. More about that later.

We turned on our GPS, who we affectionately call Stephanie after a close family friend, drove to the Rock of Cashel. This site originally served the seat of kings for several hundred years. The original structures are gone but now it has brand-new (sense the sarcasm) 12th and 13th century cathedral, tower, graveyard and more.

It's just above town of Cashel where we stopped to have our first Irish coffee, as we waited for the Rock to open. Oh I should clarify we just had regular coffees, no whiskey (yet). They are really strong!

Once the Rock opened, we walked up the hill and went on a guided tour. That just makes it so much easier to learn all the details and important structures. As we walked around we noticed LOTS of large black birds. Must have been nesting season. You can see them flying above the large tower. This tower's entrance is 12 feet off the ground!

You can also see some scaffolds where they're doing repair work. We were lucky to be able to go inside the cathedral since later in the summer it'll be closed. One kind of strange thing are these ugly stone carved faces. Erin must have really found them interesting since she took a bunch of pictures (see left and not the one of me and my mom).

We left the Rock of Cashel and drove down to Kinsale where we spent our first three nights at the Old Presbytery Bed and Breakfast. We stayed at B & Bs throughout our trip. I'd never done that before but found everyone was really nice, helpful and it made it like having a home. When planning my parents used TripAdvisor for reviews a lot. Some places we stayed were chosen for food, others for location, others for the view but regardless, they were all wonderful. And this one was chosen for the view as well as the food. This is a view from our room. We had a two-floor suite with a spiral staircase.

My mom made good friends with the cat mascot at the Old Presby, Cookie. She acted more like a dog than a cat. Speaking of dogs. It seems like everybody in Ireland has dogs. And there's no leash laws. Little dogs and big dogs just wandering around. Cookie would follow my mom around the parking area just like a dog. They became fast friends and playmates.

On our first full day there , we went on the Kinsale walking tour. Our guide, Don Herilhy, wearing quite the traditional Irish cap and sweater, took our group of about 20 all around Kinsale. He gave us quite the history lesson which includes Kinsale's pirate and important geography and how America was able to win it's independence thanks to the English being distracted by the Irish (interesting slant) at the time was all part of our lesson. He definitely knows his stuff about not only Kinsale but the U.S. and rest of the world. It does always amaze me how much other nationalities know about our American history and geography and how little we seem to know about theirs.

Then we drove out to Charles Fort. We did learn quite a bit about this fort from Don, but chose to explore it on our own. The fort dates back to the 1670s was built in a star-shape. It helped to provide Kinsale with one of the most secure harbours. This fort was occupied by the British during their rule and used until the 1920s during the Irish Civil War. While walking around we had beautiful views of the ocean and fields surrounding Kinsale (you can see them in the distance with the walls of green). We did drive out as I'd mentioned since my ankle was still pretty tender at that time so afterwards we decided to visit our first pub.

We followed the twists and turns and detours back toward Bulman Pub. On our way out to the fort, we found that the road there was being repaired so we had to take a bit of a detour. It was a one lane, steep hill route. Luckily, we encounted native Irish drivers on our way to the pub so they did a lot of tricky manuvering and we were able to have our first pints and some had chowder. My mom rated Bulmans at the top of her chowder list.

At Bulmans we had our first Guiness. I need to take a moment to talk about

my strong affection for Guiness

and of Guiness in Ireland.

When I was in college, there was a bar that I reguarly drank Guiness. I've always enjoyed it but my goodness. True Irish Guiness is amazing. It's smooth and cold and light and just delicious. I never felt like I had here where I'd eaten a huge burger afterwards. I think if more countries, perhaps the U.S. included, rallied around one beverage, it would bring more people together. In Ireland, obviously there's other beers, ales, ciders and cocktails but I think it's something that brings them together. I also think that Guiness has a big affect on helping to heal my ankle. It's doing great and usually I'm a slow healer. From now on, when I injure my klutzy self, I'm headed straight to the local pub that serves Guiness. Fingers crossed though, that I'll only be ordering it for it's taste for a long, long time.

Another thing that started in Kinsale, was a Guiness War. My mom challenged Erin to taking pictures of Guiness signs. First it started as some friendly fun which then she turned into a "war." Erin and my mom took photos of everything Guiness. Winner to be revealed later.

After our Guiness and snack we went back to the Old Presby for a nap. That night we headed out to An Seanachai (pronounced ahhh shanna-key)We heard lots of fun music while in Ireland. We don't have any pics of the musicians we heard our first night at the but that's where we had our first pub grub. I had beef and Guiness stew. Yum! The rest of the Looneys who LOVE fish took advantage of fish and chips throughout the trip.

That's enough of a post for now. More Ireland to come!

Erin (and the rest of the Looney's) Go Abroad

Tomorrow the Looneys are leaving for Ireland. Two weeks filled with family, Guiness, green, Guiness, ocean, Guiness, fish, Guiness, music and sheep. Can't wait!

I'm in the final stages of packing which for those of you who know me well, be impressed because I'm just at 24 hours before departure. See...

I even have all the things for my carry-on ready to go too. My parents are in shock I'm sure. I hope this isn't some new extra-anal side of me coming through and instead just the fact that I've had some time to actually it since summer vacation started last week.

Packing for a two week trip to Ireland in June isn't too hard. The weather's pretty mild (60s for highs, 40s for lows, possible rain) and actually has helped me to think more about Brazil but my goodness still all the stuff to get. This is a picture of the current Brazil pile of stuff. Mostly teaching materials (aka "stuff"). From post-it notes, rulers, baggies, tons of books, markers and of course my notebooks. These are the beginnings of it.

Ug! That makes me feel a little overwhelmed. I don't think I should have looked at it, let alone take a picture of the mess. Please note it (the mess) was it was all in the clear box, I was on the hunt for a key.

One of my favorite new toys that I got for my birthday (thanks again Mom and Dad) for my move is an ipod deck/speaker. Love it! I can't get enough of it. And am looking forward to enjoying it in Ireland too. See even Buddha likes it!

My least favorite packing item has been an arsenal of first aid for my ankle. Most of you know I bit it on my last day of school wearing super cute new shoes. Some of you said you were going to find ways to keep me here, I guess you've succeeded. Thanks a lot!

So back to the packing. Things I've included: first aid kit filled with band-aids for the freezer burn/floor burn on it, wrap, ankle support brace, Icy Hot, bottle of ibuprofen...think that's it.

Once a klutz, always a klutz. It wouldn't be a trip abroad unless I injured myself before or during. Glad I got it out of the way and that I'm going to a country where Guiness is on the menu and I know will help my ankle instanteously feel better.