Sunday April 12, 2009 (Easter)

Today we left Cork in the morning and quickly arrived at the Blarney Castle just down the road. The day started a little cloudy and wet but the sun came out eventually to make for a lovely Easter Sunday! The holiday didn’t keep anyone away from wanting to kiss the Blarney Stone…we waited in line (in Ireland, the “queue”) from the basement of the castle to the top of the tower where the stone is located. It wasn’t a bad wait because as when climbed the spiral staircase we were able to detour to side rooms along the way. At the top I wasn’t planning in partaking in the glamorized tourist tradition of kissing the Blarney Stone in hopes of receiving the “gift of gab” but ended up giving in. Later that day I came down with a cold and hacking cough that I’m going to blame on the germ infested stone.

After kissing the stone we explored the beautiful landscaped grounds around the castle and ventured into some caves at the base of the structure. The grass was bright green, lilies were in bloom everywhere, and little lambs dotted the far away fields making for a fairytale Easter scene.

Our bus got a flat tire so we had to wait around for it to be fixed in the town of Blarney. By now the sun was bright and families were getting out of Easter mass so we had fun people watching and chatting with others on our tour.



Back on the road, we spent the rest of the day headed in the direction of Dublin. Mike of course filled the trip with tales of Ireland and information about the towns we passed through along the way. We made a quick stop in a small town for lunch where we only had the options of a hotel restaurant or pizza…pizza it was. The pizza wasn’t anything amazing but it was a lot like the cheap pizza we eat all the time in college so we enjoyed the taste of home.

Our tour arrived back in Dublin around 5:30pm. We were all worn out from our 3 days of being on the go…we definitely got what we paid for. There’s a lot of students here in Florence that plan trips with only a day or two in each country as if they have a check list they’re trying to get through which is sad. If we had come to Ireland and never left Dublin, we wouldn’t have seen Ireland. It’s so different from the other places we’ve visited so far which made it even more beautiful.

At our Dublin hostel we met up with a friend from Florence, Karen, who had arrived in Dublin the day before. Together we did some more walking around the city of Dublin, stopping in a few shops and taking pictures along the way. Once again we sought out an Irish pub for Karen’s first Irish meal. At one pub the bartender explained to us they didn’t serve food and that a traditional Irish meal is a pint of Guinness. We weren’t convinced and moved on. A place down the street had a sign out front advertising, “traditional Irish food” aka “come on in tourists”! So we did and ended up ordering paninis and chicken curry…not so Irish haha. It was very good none the less so we were happy.

After our meal we went back to the pub we were at just before to have the liquid Irish meal the bartender suggested. We think it was a hotel because of the 3 story, multi-room layout. The atmosphere was very relaxed, full of locals sitting around talking. I’d imagine the place added energy as the night goes on. We found a small table in an old parlor to sit at for an hour or so while we finished our Guinness.

We were all exhausted and starting to get sick so we started back to our hostel walking back through the Temple Bar area. This time we decided to walk through the official Temple Bar to check out the scene and ended up running into a couple people from our tour. We chatted for a few minutes and then went home and quickly fell asleep.