**The Luck Of The Irish!**

This past weekend I went to Ireland! It was absolutely beautiful!! I have pictures down at the bottom.. obviously there's TONS more but those are many of the highlights!!

We left on Wednesday night around 6 p.m. We drove from one side of England, to the other side of Wales.. we got there around 1 a.m. We watched a couple movies on the way there, and slept tons!! We caught a ferry from Wales to Ireland around 2 a.m. It was soo cold!! And I slept most of the ferry ride. I did however get up with like a half-hour left, tried to get up and got a bit dizzy so I just laid back down. We went to a little hotel in Rossalaire for breakfast.. it was very good!! We had eggs, bacon [which is really like ham], sausage, toast, and cereal. So it was amazing after our ferry ride! The hotel was right next to the port, so the views were amazing!! After that we got back on the bus to head off to Blarney Castle! The castle was very cool.. but the best part was Kissing the Blarney Stone! It was a little scary, but it wasn't as bad as it looks in pictures! You have to lay down on the castle, hold onto two bars and then slide down and hang upside down. There's a guy holding onto your stomach, and helping you find the stone. Then you kiss it!! It was pretty fun! After the castle we headed to our hotel in Killarney. Leah and I were roommates.. and our hotel was nicer then in England. The shower/bath tub was actually normal and you didn't have to jump out of it [[the England ones are higher off the ground, and you have to basically jump out of them..]] We went to dinner at a little restaurant and then did some souvenir shopping. We were extremely tired so we headed to the hotel early and called it a night.

Friday, we got up and went to breakfast. Again, we had the traditional Irish breakfast. Yay! We went on a tour of the Ring of Kerry. It's a 112-miles tour around the penninsula. We saw so many beautiful views of mountains and of the beach! It was gorgeous!! I saw tons of cows and sheep. The cows made miss Wisconsin! Lol. The sheep had markings on them, our bus driver told us what they meant.. blue=boys, red/pink=girls, green=irish. :) I thought that was funny! Our first stop was in Killorglin. The town is known for it's King Puck festival. They pick a goat, and he is "king Puck" for the three days, this is to celebrate the stampede of goats that warned the town of Cromwell's Army. And it's actually the longest festival in Europe [I believe it was Europe]. Next stop, was Kerry Blog Village. It's a little place that shows how life was like in rural Ireland a long time ago. The Red Roof Inn, which is known for it's Irish coffee is located here. For those of you that don't know, Irish coffee is coffee, Irish whiskey, and cream. Well, it was a very little cup, for 5 euros [[around $7]].. and I don't like coffee so I didn't get any. I did however try another girl's, and I'm quite glad I didn't spend the money on it. It tasted too much like coffee!! Lol. Dingle Bay was the next stop! We stopped on the side of the road and took pictures of the GORGEOUS ocean!! It was so beautiful! We stopped in Waterville next. There's a statue of Charlie Chaplain here. He used to "holiday" here all the time evidently. Leah and I decided to play in the ocean instead! We hiked up our pants, and splashed around in the FREEZING Atlantic Ocean! Now we can both say we've played in the Atlantic Ocean on both sides! We ate lunch a little place there, it was a bit expensive, but it's the only places around for miles! Sneem was our next stop on the tour. The houses are colored different colors. They say there's two reasons for this, number 1 --> so the ships can find their way in @ night. and number 2--> so the irish can find the right house when walking home from the pub. :) Haha. We went to Killarney National Park next. We stopped at the Ladies' View [[Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting stopped here during a visit to look at the gorgeous views!]]. It was amazing! There was a wedding party taking pictures here too! So that was slightly funny. We played at the Waterfall for a little bit too. It was soo beautiful!! I loved it there! After we got back to the hotel, Leah and I went to McDonald's for dinner, we figured it would be cheap. Well it wasn't!! Lol. It costed just as much for a meal there as it did anywhere else.. like 7 euros!! Uggggh! They had different food though too.. Double Big Macs [[and they think Americans eat too much!!!]], fish sticks, and orange coca-cola. Weird!! We didn't want to go to the pubs and waste money, so Leah and I hung out in the hotel room after some more shopping.

Saturday- Got up bright and early for breakfast. Then hopped on the bus @ 9am to go to Dublin. We stopped in Nenagh for lunch. When we got to Dublin, Leah and I went to the castle. We weren't too impressed with it, didn't look very much like a castle, so we didn't spend the money to go inside. Then we went to the Guinness factory. We got slightly lost.. lol. We had a map, but the position of the factory on the map didn't add up to the streets. So we weren't really lost.. the factory was just lost! We met some Canadians who were trying to find it too, and they asked some locals how to get there, so we just followed them. We had bought our tickets ahead of time, so we didn't have to wait in line! Thank goodness! It was pretty cool.. you walked around and looked at the different advertisements, different locations, how it's made. You got a free pint as well. We went to Eddie Rocket's for dinner, which was basically like Johnny Rockets if you've ever been there. Then it was time to go gift shopping again! We were walking along the side of the road, minding our own business and talking to each other when some Irish guy yelled at us.. he said "F*** off stupid americans." So we called him an a**hole and kept walking. We went to the gift shop, and then found the Hard Rock Cafe. After that we headed to the hotel and called it an early night again.

Sunday- We got up around 5:45am so we could be at breakfast @ 6. Then we left for the ferry place @ 630. Got on the ferry @ 8:30.. and landed in Wales @ 11:30. Again, I slept the whole way. :) We stopped in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales. It's the city with the longest name in Europe. It means "The Church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave." Let me tell ya, it's a mouth full to try to say!! Haha. We had lunch here, and then got back on the bus and headed off to school! We got back around 6:30pm. We had dinner and then headed off to finish homework and go to bed! Everyone was exhausted! It was an amazing weekend, but it felt so nice to be back "home."

And that was my trip!!

Check out the pictures and leave some comments!!

Miss you all!

Love,
Tiffany