I think that Friday was one of my favorite days in Ireland. We left our hotel that morning in Blarney and traveled to the 15th century Blarney Castle (photo #1). We arrived at the parking lot, went through the little gate where they collect your money, and then continued on to the castle. At that point, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, since Dublin castle hadn't been the most exciting place to visit, and most of the original castle is now gone (don't get me wrong, I liked it). When Blarney Castle came into view, I was almost ecstatic! That was really the fist castle I had ever seen, and I loved it immediately. We continued on to the base of the castle, where we entered through a door and began the ascent to the top. The stairways were so narrow, and there were many times when we would meet people going down as we were going up! When we reached the battlements at the top, we got in line to kiss the infamous Blarney Stone. This was so much fun! In order to kiss the stone, I had to lay on my back and then sort of bend over backwards while holding on to a rail (photo #2) They also have a guy up their who holds on to your legs so you don't fall...it's a straight drop down to the ground! I am usually pretty scared of heights, but I figured that I may only have this opportunity once, so I did it. The legend is that he/she who kisses the stone will be blessed (or cursed, however you want to look at it) with the "gift of gab", or eloquent and flattering speech. When someone has this kind of "gift", they are said to be "full of the Blarney". I have yet to figure out if it worked on me ;) After touring the castle, we ate lunch and did a lot of shopping at the Blarney Woolen Mills.We left Blarney Castle and journeyed to Killarney in County Kerry. We arrived at the Rivermere Hotel, took our bags to our rooms, and then went back outside to take a "jaunt ride" (photo #3). Kevin was our "jarvie", or driver, and we decided that he was definitely "full of the Blarney"! He had us rolling with laughter the whole time. Our jaunt ride took us through the beautiful Killarney National Park (photo #4), which covers 25,000 acres of Irish countryside (we did not tour the whole 25,000 acres). The ride was very peaceful and the weather was perfect. At the end of our ride, Kevin dropped us of at Ross Castle (photo #5), where we boarded a boat and took a ride on the Lower Lake, which is called Lough Leane (pronounced Lock Leen). The water looked black instead of blue, and the captain of the boat told us that was because the lake was 1/2 water and 1/2 Guinness :). When our tour of the lake and park was finished, we headed back to our hotel for a little bit of res before dinner. Again, dinner was mediocre, but I was hungry enough to eat it! After dinner, some of us walked down to Danny Mann's Pub to hear some really great traditional Irish music. Then, it was off to bed for another full day.
We left Dublin on Thursday morning to travel to Blarney with a few stops along the way. Our first stop was the Irish National Stud in Kildare, home to some of Ireland finest thoroughbreds. I really wasn't sure how interesting this would be to me, since I see horses quite often here in the States. But I was pleasantly surprised! These stallions were once champions on the race tracks, and they have also produced champion offspring (which is what determines the kind of fee that someone will pay to have their mare bred by a one of the stallions). If my memory serves me right, about 3,000 mares are brought to the farm every year to mate with the stallions. Our favorite "stallion", actually a pony, was Tommy the Teaser (photo #1). Tommy's has somewhat of a rotten job: he is there to help determine which of the mares are ready to mate. If he is placed next to a mare that responds to him, he is then taken (or rather dragged) back to his stall. Poor Tommy! But Dee, our wonderful guide at the farm, told us that they do bring ponies in for Tommy to play with :-) Also there at the Irish National Stud was a beautiful Japanese Garden that we walked through (photo #3).Our next stop was Cashel in County Tipperary to see the Rock of Cashel, which is a very old monastery that looks like a castle (photo #4). We didn't have much time here, so I wasn't able to walk all the way up to the site, but it was beautiful place. While we were there we ate lunch at a wonderful little place called The Rock Cafe where I had a Tuna and Sweet corn melt on Irish soda bread. It was absolutely delicious, and was one of the best meals I had on the whole trip.After lunch, we once again boarded the coach to continue our journey to Blarney, and made one more stop at a little port town called Cobh (pronounced "Cove"). Cobh was once known as Queenstown, but after Ireland gained independence from England in 1922, the Irish changed it back to it's original name. While in Cobh we toured the Queenstown Story, which is a museum that tells the history of Irish immigration to Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Just outside the museum entrance was a statue of Annie Moore (photo #5) an Irish girl who was the first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island, New York, at the age of 14. There was a really great display about the Titanic, which made a stop there before heading to New York; and there was also a display about the Lusitania, which sank near Cobh in 1915 after being struck by a German torpedo. There was a really nice little cafe in the museum, so many of us sat down to afternoon tea once we finished the tour.We left Cobh and finally reached our final destination, Blarney Golf Resort. This was the nicest place we stayed in Ireland, and I was sad that we only stayed one night! Once we arrived, we had about 2 hours before dinner would be served in our hotel, so we were able to just hang out in our rooms and rest. Our dinner was a bit more fancy than the previous nights, but there was no dessert there...I guess you either get a mediocre dinner with dessert, or a fancy dinner with no dessert! After dinner, Amanda, Sarah, Manda D. and I stayed down in the hotel bar for several hours, just talking and hanging out. After retiring to our rooms for the night, Amanda and I stayed up til about 2:30 am...not a smart thing to do, considering we had to be up by 7:00am! 
I awoke Wednesday morning to the sound of a ferocious wind howling outside of our hotel room. Really, I thought the trees were just going to fall over any second! After getting a nice shower, Amanda and I went down to have breakfast, which consisted of cereal, rolls with jam, coffee or tea, and juice. I had been in great anticipation of a rather hearty Irish breakfast, so the cereal was a bit disappointing. We then left our hotel to travel to downtown Dublin, where we met Sally, a local tour guide who took us on a "driving tour" of historic downtown Dublin. Some of the sights we saw included: lots of great Georgian architecture; the Ha'Penny Bridge that crosses the River Liffey (people used to pay a half penny to walk across it); a gigantic cross built for Pope John Paul II when he came to Dublin to say mass for over 1 million people in Phoenix Park in 1979 ; the location where Handel's Messiah was first performed in 1742; St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral; and the Guinness Brewery. My favorite place we visited Dublin was Trinity College. Trinity college was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. It is here that the famous Book of Kells kept in the Trinity College Library, which is the oldest research library in Ireland. The Book of Kells was written by Celtic monks around the year 800, and contains beautiful transcriptions of the Four Gospels. When I walked into the Library, it almost took my breath away! This library is lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves containing massive amounts of books. There are also ladders at each shelf that move back and forth on a track (just like "Beauty and the Beast!). It was the most spectacular library I have ever seen.After Trinity, our large group of 39 split up into smaller groups to go explore the city. It was lunchtime, and so Amanda took our small group to Leo Burdock's, a little fish and chips take out place. To borrow Amanda's expression, "The fish and chips combo is the size of a small child!" And she was right! After finishing lunch, we took a tour of Christ Church Cathedral, and we were able to go down into the crypt, which was really cool! We also toured Dublin Castle, which was a really neat place, and we got to see the room where the President of Ireland is inaugurated.After touring the city for a while, we got back on our coach to go eat dinner at a little Pub called Porto Bello, where the Irish were gearing up for a football (soccer) match between Manchester United and Barcelona. We had reserved seating for our group, and there were lots of Irish who were hovering over our tables, waiting for us to leave. I think we could have auctioned off our tables and made a lot of money!After dinner, we went back to our hotel for the night. Amanda, Manda D., and I went downstairs to the pub in our hotel to have a drink and watch the football fans go crazy while watching the game on t.v. It was sooo loud in there, we could hardly hear each other talk. I talked to a really nice Irish girl who was giving me tips on fun things to do in the different places we were going to be that week. We also met an obnoxious and quite drunk Irish guy who kept trying to get us to go down the street to the karaoke bar...we said no, of course. 
After about 9 hours of flying in various airplanes, I arrived in Dublin, Ireland, on Tuesday, May 26 at 10:30am. After going through customs and all that, I was greeted almost immediately by Amanda and Jane, my Kansas friends. I was delighted to see them! Most of the group had already arrived, but we were still waiting for one family, and they arrived about an hour after I did. We were then introduced to David, our lovely English tour guide (who turned out to be a most hilarious man!), and we headed straight outside to board the private coach that was to take us through Ireland for the next several days. We boarded the coach, and headed to a 5th century monastery called Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock). This was the first time I had ever seen the ruins of such an ancient place, and I was amazed that parts of it were still standing. There was also an amazing cemetery there, where thousands of people are buried beneath beautiful Celtic crosses. After walking through the cemetery and the other buildings of the monastery, we took a short little hike down to a beautiful lake, which was a great opportunity for pictures!
After our tour of Glendalough, we again boarded the coach and drove back into Dublin to the Abberly Court Hotel to get settled into our rooms and have dinner. I went to bed around 8:30 that night...the jet lag was beginning to take over, I think. That night, the wind picked up considerably, and I began to think we were in a hurricane...:) Enjoy the pictures, and stay tuned for Part 2!
