Ireland Day 5- Dublin

It’s friday, friday, friday and we’re off to do what we do best...putt around the city.  The name Dublin comes from the Irish name Dubhlinn or Duibhlinn, meaning "black pool".  Dublin was established as a Viking settlement in the 9th century, remaining under viking control until the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169.  Being that there was so much history to learn here, what better place to start than the Dublin Castle.  But before we can even cross the street, we’re approached by two local students working on a student project.  They offer to take us on a brief tour (10-15 minutes) and give some local history to some not as noticeable attractions… We were in! Without even having to take a step, the guide pointed to our right.  We turned and no more than 50 feet from where we were standing was our first sight, a part of the old wall that originally circled the city.  It was just a portion of the wall with no signs or anything pointing out its significance.  I probably wouldn't have even noticed it if they hadn't pointed it out. We then headed down with a slight sprinkle from the clouds to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  So beautiful!! It was founded in 1191 and is the largest church in Ireland, hosting a 140' spire.  

We then tooled around the Dublin Castle, including The Record Tower (the sole surviving tower of the medieval castle dating from c. 1228), the cathedral, the Dublin Gardens (aka the helicopter landing pad) and coach house entrance (where the horses used to be kept)… Pepe felt right at home there

The Record Tower

The Dublin Gardens

CathedralCoach house 

Next was the Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin’s oldest cathedral (founded c.1030) and home to Strongbow’s tomb.  I knew we were in a safe place upon entering the grounds due to the numerous signs posted about picpocketers in the area (I wonder if they have had a problem before?).  

                            

 One of the most fascinating parts of the cathedral was the crypt.  It is not only one of the largest in Britain and Ireland, but also the oldest structure in Dublin.  It stretched underneath the entire length of the cathedral.  Pepe’s favorite part was the “Cat and the Rat”.  It is believed that these two got stuck in the organ pipe whilst chasing each other in the 1860s and became mummified.  James Joyce spoke of these two in Finnegan's Wake when he described someone as being "...As stuck as that cat to that mouse in that tube of that Christchurch organ".  Pepe couldn't wait to get a picture with them.  Luckily, he did not get stuck and end up with the same fate. 

After that history lesson, Ray and I decided we were in need of a pint.  We could hear The   Temple Bar calling our names.  Such a cool, not so little place.  It seemed to go on and on for ever, with different rooms and various taps throughout the joint.  

We also had a special request

 to stop in at this place... 

The Bad Ass bar, bet you 

can guess who wanted in there 

 View of the city from the River Liffey...

For lunch, Ray and I had some delicious fish and chips (recommendation from our tour guide). We sat on some steps across the way from the Christ Church Cathedral and enjoyed our meal watching the life of city carry on around us.  We continued our adventure heading to Dublinia, a viking and medieval Dublin experience. Oh and BTW, we were passed on the street by a viking-ship tour hybrid boat-car, you know the ones that drive around on the streets and then drive straight into the water and sail around.  Everyone aboard had on horned viking hats… Classic!!!   Totally a tourist trap, and well worthy of a laugh.  Once inside Dublinia, we learned all about how Dublin was influenced by the vikings and how it became the city known today.  Pepe posed for a picture with Olaf the White from Norway, Dublin’s first foreign king.    

Another dose of history and another pint for Ray and I... We bee lined straight to the Guinness Storehouse for a much desired and well needed beer.  The storehouse was absolutely ginormous!! We walked for blocks upon blocks before reaching the entrance.  Once standing inside the building, we found ourselves standing right on top of a copy of the 9,000 year lease signed by Arthur Guinness. Looking up we then realized that we were standing within a huge pint glass (the worlds largest to be exact), standing at 7 stories tall and holding 14.3 million pints of Guinness.  That's a whole lot of beer!!

If anyone is ever in need of a pint of Guinness, just ask us... We are now officially certificated in being able to pour the perfect pint!!  Oh and FYI, for those of you who know me well, you would assume I didn't actually drink this dark beer since A) I do not like "dark" beer and B) I've always been a little scared to try a Guinness...

All I can say is #converted! Although this was my first Guinness (and Pepe too!), it is definitely not our last!! After pouring the perfect pint, all 3 of us went up to the Gravity Bar to enjoy it.  Super cool spot up there... Over looking the entire city.  Through the pouring rain, we could see many famous spots all over town, including Croke Park, where we head tomorrow for the Penn State vs University of Central Florida "American" football match.  We learned very early on that we needed to use "American" in front of football, otherwise people generally thought we were talking about a different sport altogether. 

As night time fell, we went to grab dinner at F.X. Buckley (a recommendation from one of the workers at the Guinness Storehouse) to pass the time until the rest of the crew arrived (some of Ray's colleagues from the London office).  We ended up sitting upstairs at the Butchers Bar and enjoyed some amazing food.  Not at all traditional Irish food, it more reminded me of some of the local spots in Hermosa Beach like Abigail or Mediterraneo.  Still waiting for boys, we stumble into a pub right across the street from our apartment, little did we know that we had walked into a raging karaoke bar.  The atmosphere was amazing! People were singing and dancing and just having an all around great time.  I think Ray has some video from there...

Being that we hadn't heard from the Londoners and it was much later than expecting, we pull ourselves from Tom Kennedy's karaoke madness and head back to the apartment... As we turn down the street, there they are, apparently attempting to throw bottle caps at the windows to get our attention (if we had been inside).  They drop off their stuff and we hit the town.  

Pepe was especially excited because he got to meet one of his blog followers in person.  I think Ed was just as excited to meet Pepe too.  He even devised a plan of attack to get Pepe on the field during the game tomorrow...

2 Americans, an Australian, a Slovakian and an Englishman walk into a bar....

It sounds like the beginning of  bad joke, but this was our reality since Friday night in Dublin.  After arriving in Dublin on Thursday night, some of my colleagues from our London office came over to join us on our adventure.  Simon, Ed and Mirko came over and we introduced them to American football.  We had a hell of a time doing it. 

We started our Friday with a tour by some local students, saw the Dublin Castle and ended up in Christchurch Cathedral and the viking exhibition.  Then we went to the Guinness storehouse and toured there, meeting tons of other Penn Staters.  We even got certified to pour our own pints of Guinness, there's a whole art to it.

After dinner while we were waiting to hear from the guys, we happened into a karaoke bar in the local neighborhood we were staying in.  Seeing a bunch of Irish people singing karaoke was rather entertaining.  Everyone was dancing and having a good time.  But, we still hadn't heard from the guys letting us know they were in Dublin.  So we decided to walk back to our place only to find them on the street throwing bottle caps at the windows of our apartment.  And so it began.

We headed out to the area of Dublin called Temple Bar.  It has a similar feel to Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Bars on every corner, people spilling out into the streets.  Everyone was enjoying the revelry and the excitement was building for the game the following morning.  We had many drinks with the guys, and ended the night the only appropriate way, with some filthy greasy kebab at 3 AM.  The guys working the stand were less than excited to see us, so Simon decided that they would love some artwork on the wall in garlic mayo. 

The next morning we were up around 9 and getting ready for the game.  We walked back down to Temple Bar and commenced the party again.  This time, everyone was super excited for the game, and we met tons of people.  We walked through the town, making our way to the stadium and stopping for beers in every pub along the way.

The game was great, Sarah and I took turns explaining the action on the field to our friends. I don't really understand how a stadium can run out of food before half time.  But, they had plenty of beer.  Go figure, it's Ireland after all.  The game turned out to be super exciting with Penn State emerging victorious on a last second field goal.  Afterwards, Ed, Mirko and Sarah wanted to get some pictures near the field so they walked down to the lower stands.  Apparently, Mirko asked the brand new president of Penn State if he could go get the Lion for him.  I'll have to let Sarah fill that part in as I wasn't involved with this mess, she has the pictures as well.  

The guys really got a kick out of the cheerleaders.  I would venture they were more interested in them than the game itself.

We woke up, the guys took off back to London, and we're currently on the train heading to Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Oh, and if you are planning on taking the train in Ireland, book it online.  It's almost twice as expensive to get the tickets at the gate.  Oops, lesson learned.

We're super sad to be leaving Ireland.  It's a great country.  We had a blast and all that this did was make us fall in love with it and wish to return.  I can't believe we've been gone almost a week.  It's crazy to think that we have 4 more to go.

 

Back where we started.... Dublin

So, here we are ... Day 3 or Day 4 or somewhere around there.  Kind of sad that we aren't even a week into this epic journey and I can't even really tell you what day it is.  I guess the outlook isn't good for the next couple of weeks.

We've seen so much and had a lot of fun so far.  First things first, Ireland is amazing.  The people are friendly, the scenery is beautiful.  The food is really good, how can you complain when they serve French Fries with breakfast??

So, after getting off the plane the first morning and driving two hours straight to Galway, we traveled south along the shore to find the Cliffs of Moher.  You can google and look at pictures all you want.  There is nothing quite like dangling your feet off the side of a 700ft sheer cliff to get your blood pumping, no guard rail, no warning signs, just a big drop to let you know you walked too far.

We passed from there onto a ferry to cross the river Shannon.  The through Connor Pass, the highest mountain pass in Ireland.  The scenery was stunning.  Single lane road winding up the side of green mountains with gorgeous waterfalls along the way. 

Then we came into the town of Dingle.  It was a cool little town that has a really strange obsession with a dolphin, Fungie.  But hey, everyone has to have something to latch onto. Our host at the B&B was hilarious and looked a bit like an Irish version of the guy from "The Princess Bride".  Which ironically part of was filmed at the Cliffs of Moher, Inconceivable!!

The next morning we got up and headed to the next town over.  Sarah was super excited to go horseback riding.  She kept assuring me that if I can ride a motorcycle, I’ll be fine on a horse.  WRONG!!  Motorcycles don’t bounce up and down when you’re riding them.  And they have handle bars.  I survived, but I don’t know that it’s something I would rush to find again, I’ll leave that for Sarah.

After that, back in the car and on to Blarney Castle.  We kissed the Blarney stone.  Which apparently gives you the gift of BSing.  I guess the queen of England sent a messenger to Blarney to take over the castle, and the Cheiftan Cormac MacCarthy kept entertaining the Englishman with beer and parties.  His messages to the Queen stated how he was in stiff negotiations with the Cheiftan, and three month later, he came home with no castle. The queen declared he was “full of Blarney”  and a legend was born.  Kiss the stone and you get the gift of gab.  So, in combination with my Putt genes, my kissing of the Blarney stone should give Sarah a hand full.

On from there… more driving.  You know, I was fearful of driving at the beginning, but after about a day it came pretty naturally.  I guess it’s easier when you see everyone else doing it.  But driving around the Irish country side really has been a great part of the trip for me.  I really enjoy driving and seeing the open road.  Irish talk radio is pretty funny as well.  

Kinsale is where we stayed last night.  It’s a beautiful little town.  We stayed in a little swankier place, because it’s a little swankier town, and basically it was the only room we could find in town.  We’re glad we did, what a great place with fun classy restaurants and bars with lounge singers.  It's a small town right on the harbor. Beautiful, even almost made me a little homesick for Annapolis.  

Then back in the car again… this time headed for Dublin.  FYI - if you need to get gas for a rental car in Dublin near the airport, there is one gas station on the way into(?!?!) the terminal.  Otherwise you'll drive around for an hour trying to find one, trust me I know.  

Anyway, here's a summary of where we've been so far.  Kind of neat to see it laid out on a map.  I think I'll do this every so often, since we don't know exactly where we will end up:

We’re here at our apartment now, got here around 7 PM.  It’s almost 1 AM, I should add more pictures and I will, I'm just tired.   First impression of Dublin: it’s vastly different than the small towns we’ve been in the other nights. 

We were sick of eating out so we got a pizza from the grocery store down the street.  Turned on the oven in our apartment and set off the fire alarm for the whole building.  Awesome, welcome to the big city.

On the other hand, we’re gonna be here for a couple days.  So it will be nice to get the lay of the land and not have to take off immediately again tomorrow.  Oh, and then on Saturday there’s this thing that kind of forced this whole trip to become a reality instead of just a pipe dream....

WE ARE!!!!!!!

Ireland Day 4- Kinsale to Cobh to Dublin

Looking for the heart of the ocean…

Today was a great morning, woke 
up to some beautiful sunshine shining over the tranquil Kinsale harbor.  Ray and I started the day off with a run along the water’s edge, which even though I despise running to this day, running there at least gave me some good scenery to look at.  Such a stunning place!!  I wish we had a little more time to spend there… guess this 
gives us a good excuse to come back.  I guess you can say I left my heart in Kinsale...

Back in the car and we headed to Cobh, a town on the south coast of County Cork.  Originally, Cobh was named Queenstown, back in the days of the Titanic.  It was the final port of call for the ill fated 

ship.  And of course they had a Titanic Experience which I was all over.  When we walked in they gave us a boarding pass of an actual passenger on board the ship.  I was Ms. Katie Peters (age 26) and Ray was Mr. Jeremiah Burke (age 19), both of which sailed from Queenstown in 3rd class.  Apparently, Mr. Burke wrote a message in a bottle that was found washed ashore after the sinking... it read "April 13 1912. Titanic, Goodbye all- Burke".  

They took us on a tour of where the actual White Star Line ticket office was located and where the final passengers boarded the ship. We even got to see a few of the only photographs taken on board the Titanic.  There are only about 75 photos that exist of the ship, taken by a man who took them before he disembarked at Queenstown.  At the end of the tour, we learned that both our passengers were lost at sea.  Of the 123 people that came aboard the ship in Queenstown, only 44 of them were saved.  From the cathedral above, we could actually see where the Titanic anchored since 

it was too big get into the harbor to dock. 

If you look close at this picture, Titanic would have been

anchored right behind the island just to the left of center.

Oh and St. Coleman’s Cathedral was unreal! It was absolutely breathtaking and it also had gargoyles which I always find fun.  

Leaving the cool town of Cobh, we headed up to Dublin.  Along the way, we spotted a full rainbow.  Still haven't found the pot of gold...

Ray and I dropped off our rental car (after driving around for an hour trying to find a gas station to fill it up) and hopped on a bus to our apartment.  Driving through the city, I thought to myself this place is huge... well, that is compared to the places we had been staying previously.  As we were exiting the bus, I wondered how we would ever find where we were supposed to stay... Then we hear a voice, "Are you Ray?"  We turn to the sound and come to realize that Patrick, the manager of the building in which we were staying, had come to meet us and take us to the apartment.  Phew! I'm not sure we would have found it otherwise.  We wind through some streets, pass by the gorgeous John's Lane Church  and up some stairs, finally we had made it.  It was nice to know that we were actually going to be staying in the same place for more than just one night.  Exhausted from all our travels so far and knowing that the weekend was going to be busy, Ray and I decided to grab a pizza from the store and stay in for the night... We didn't realize that attempting to cook in a new place (and also not knowing the last time the oven was used) was going to be somewhat of a fiasco.  Don't worry, we successfully were able to set off the fire alarm for the entire building within an hour of getting there... and its not like at our place where I can fan some fresh air over the smoke sensor and it will shut off.  We had to wait for about 10 minutes for a friend of the manager to come and shut it off for us... Luckily, my mom just happened to be on Skype with us at the time and got to witness this whole ordeal.  Once the alarm was all figured out, we did actually get to enjoy our first home cooked (well somewhat) meal.

Ireland Day 3- Fionntrá to Blarney to Kinsale

“To strive to seek to find and not yield” 

Today we putted around Dingle and Ventry Beach in the morning.  I started the morning off with some porridge with a shot of Bailey’s, breakfast of champions.  I might have to start making this myself when I get back home.  We stopped at the Slea Head Famine Cottages to get a dose of history.  The grounds served as a memorial to remind people about the famine tragedy, when Ireland lost about 2 million people as a result of death and emigration.  It was definitely a little eery walking around and into the peasant cabins, seeing small remnants about what life was life back in the 1800s.   

Pepe made himself right at home in the old horse stable…

Speaking of horses, Ray and I had an awesome opportunity to go riding on the beach in Fionntrá or Ventry Strand.  We pulled on our boots and strapped on our helmets and we were off.

 I am so thankful that my husband put up with riding a horse for an hour just because he knew how much it would mean to me, plus riding on the beach has always been a dream of mine. 

Pepe joined in on the fun too…

 Although it was cold, it was still so fun.  Oh and it started down pouring right as we were getting back... but then the guide allowed some of us to gallop around the pasture and we all know that I could't pass that up (even when it is absolutely raining cats and dogs!). I came back to the barn completely soaked, but I loved every second of that ride. Felt great to feel the wind at my face and the stomping of hooves beneath me.  

After riding we hoped in the car and drove a short distance before stopping for lunch.  Come to find out that the place we randomly stopped at called the South Pole Inn was originally started by Tom Crean.  (Remember the beer I had last night?).  Also learned that this Tom character was quite the explorer.  He went to Antartica 3 times and was on the ship “Endurance”.  He did more expeditions than Shakleton and Scott.  Pepe had to get a picture with this man…

 And I love the quotes we found on the benches near the statue.  

Next on our list, the Blarney Castle.  We hustled over to there and made it just in time before closing.  The castle grounds was absolutely huge, with numerous things to see and hour long walks through gardens or along a river.  Needless to say, we didn't have time enough to see everything there, but at least we were able to climb up into the castle, crawl through some crazy labyrinths, tip toe through the Poison Garden and stroll through the Rock Close.  

 Here Pepe stopped watch some moo-moos out in the field from one of the castle windows.

 And of course, we all had to kiss the Blarney Stone…

-Videos of Ray and I to come...But here is Pepe in action.

Even the Blarney Castle showed us some love too…

 Oh and by the way, this whole time, we had no idea of where we were staying tonight.  We figured we’d just wing it.  Being that it was now 7pm when we left the castle, we decided to head over to the town of Kinsale in West Cork.  I should also mention that Ray has really taken to this whole driving on the opposite side thing.  What once seemed so odd, now just seems, well, the norm, even though I still find him walking to the passenger side (driver side door in America).  He has figured out how to play off his mistake by just seeming like he was going to open my door for me (which I know is baloney since he never opens up my car door… ever!) The town of Kinsale is known as the ‘Gourmet Capital’ of Ireland and has plenty of restaurants up and down the streets of the harbor.   

Pepe definitely enjoyed his local Kinsale lager and 

some brown bread at dinner.