Erin's Sing Along Blog

The following is my journal entry (with pictures and video added) for Day 13 of my vacation to Britain and Ireland.

This morning was a late morning. Our breakfast was scheduled for 8am and our coach left at 9am. That's a full hour of sleeping in! :o)

Our typical English Breakfast (though this doesn't show it all). We got really tired of this after a while.

We traveled across the Kerry mountains and into County Cork. We stopped in Blarney for a few hours. They gave us plenty of time to explore, shop, and have lunch.

Kelli and I made a B-line to the Blarney Castle. We paid the hefty entrance fee and walked the beautiful grounds to the castle. Our first view of the blarney stone was from the bottom of the tower. Wow! The tower seemed to go up forever! It was a lot taller that I expected.

I zoomed my lens the farthest it would go to get this shot of the underside of the Blarney Stone. Soon we would be back-bending over this hole to kiss the opposite castle stone.

Kelli and I walked through the entrance, through the ruined rooms, and up the spiral stone staircase to the top. We stopped along the way to explore more rooms and take a little breather. The steps were STEEP and LONG!

Nearer the top of the staircase, it got really narrow. But nothing was going to stop us!

Once we got up to the top, we got in line and watched as the people in front of us kissed the blarney stone. I was SO EXCITED!! I didn't think about the height, the danger, or the germs! I just wanted that experience! :o)

While we waited, we took some pictures from the top of the tower.

It was my turn first. Kelli took pictures as I laid on my back, grabbed the hand rails, did a back bend down the tower wall, and kissed a stone. The old man there helped me back up.

Then it was Kelli's turn. Before she laid down, she asked where she was supposed to kiss (that's the difference between Kelli and I...I just charge in and do it, while Kelli asks the details and makes sure it's done right). The old man pointed to a stone lower than where I kissed. She proceeded to do her backbend and she kissed the correct stone. I took pictures along the way.

Kelli starting her back bend on her way to kiss the Blarney Stone.

Kissing the Blarney Stone...correctly.

There were a bunch of students behind us and I didn't want to make anyone wait, so we started leaving. But it kept nagging me that I didn't actually kiss the blarney stone -- just some random stone on the Blarney Castle. I turned around and saw the students grouped together to take a picture, so (with the urging of Kelli) I went back and asked if I could try again. The two old men were very nice and showed me exactly what I needed to do and where I needed to kiss. The stone was so low and I really needed to stretch, but I was successful the second time. YAY!! I seriously didn't want to have to buy the t-shirt that said:

I MISSED THE BLARNEY STONE (with the K crossed out and the M placed above it).

There was another man taking professional pictures, so we knew we had the option to buy those pictures at the castle exit. Kelli and I took the opportunity to explore the rest of the castle.

The spiral staircase down as wider than the one up.

Disinfecting my mouth after kissing the much slobbered-on stone.

We then ended up at the little shop and photo counter. We saw our pictures and decided we wanted to buy ours (I actually bought both of my pictures...the one with me kissing the real blarney stone, and the one of my coming back up).

Kissing the correct Blarney Stone

Here is a aerial picture of the Blarney Castle

While we were standing at the counter, I saw a few t-shirts and souvenirs but I knew there was a larger store at the entrance/exit of the castle grounds. I tried to ask the shop lady if we could buy the t-shirts down in the larger shop, but it came out:

"Do they have the same...um...um...that thing (pointing to shirt)...(Kelli steps in: 'T-shirt?')...YES! T-SHIRT! Do they sell the same t-shirts down in the other shop?"

The lady looked at me like I was CRAZY!! She said the Blarney Stone must have worked in reverse on me! Haha! So much for receiving the gift of eloquence.

Kelli and I walked the grounds a little before we had to leave to find some lunch. We tried to find another house we saw from the tower, but we couldn't seem to find it and we turned around after a while. We saw some cool trees and old stone structures.

Yeah....I'm not sure what I am doing here.

We also saw a poison garden with a lot of poisonous plants.

Finally we arrived in the exit shop did a little souvenir shopping. We bought the correct "I KISSED THE BLARNEY STONE" t-shirt and a few other things.

This is a store somewhere between the Blarney Castle and the warehouse shopping center. I had to get a picture of it. :o)

We headed for lunch at a big warehouse shopping center. The cafeteria style restaurant was very busy. It had a long long wrapped around the wall to the back of the building. While we were waiting in line, I tried to read the sign listing the specials. For the sandwiches, I read

"Cheese for your filligan from the fudge"
AND
"Cheese your head"

Huh? I think my eyes are starting to go bad. :o) I had to leave the line to move closer to be able to read the sign correctly:

"Choose your fillings from the fridge:
AND
"Choose your bread"

Funny stuff. Kelli and I had a good laugh and that.

After lunch, Kelli and I ran through the warehouse stores. We didn't have a lot of time left before the coach was scheduled to leave and we were pretty shopped out, so we were just racing through not really interested in anything we saw.....UNTIL....we stopped in the Waterford Crystal store. The Waterford Crystal Factory went bankrupt recently (about a year ago), so it closed down. It will never be able to reopen again because the kilns are most likely cracked and broken from not being used on a regular basis. The stuff in this store are some of the last stuff made from the factory. (UPDATE: I found out later that Waterford Crystal is still being produced in Germany and Czech Republic.) I've always wanted nice fluted glasses and I found a pair on sale for 19.99 Euros. We both bought a candy dish and Kelli bought a nice flower vase. They had a special where they would ship everything to our houses in the U.S. for free if we bought over 100 Euro worth of stuff. So we combined our purchases and had everything sent to Kelli's. We should expect that in about a month. At least we didn't have to figure out a way to take the fragile stuff on the plane safely. :o)

After our time in Blarney was up, we boarded the coach and headed east to Tramore.

We passed through Cork City, which has one of the steepest streets in Ireland (like in San Francisco). We also saw Cork's version of beer => Murphy's Beer.

We saw Cobh port where most immigrants left on their way to America or other places. That was also the last port of leave of the Titanic.

One interesting thing we learned is this: Most Irish immigrants informed the American officials they were from County Cork because that was the last place they left from. There are a lot of records stating home counties are Cork, but that may not necessarily be true. I know my dad has told me our ancestors were from County Cork. I wonder if that is still true. I need to do some research to find that out.

Some pretty landscape on our way to Tramore.

We arrived in Tramore and got situated in our hotel.

The beautiful beach of Tramore. You can almost see this view from our hotel room.

The optional excursion for the evening was an evening at a pub. We traveled a little way to Dunmore East and toured the city a little before heading to the pub. We stopped at a small port and took some pictures. Actually, this harbor is one of the five designated National Fishery Harbors in Ireland.

A memorial to those from this area who have been lost at sea.

Repairing a thatched roof...This wasn't at the port, but it was on our way to the pub. I thought it was interesting and wanted to include it.

Then continued to the pub. We had two "free" drinks (Kelli and I had sodas...I thought I needed to clarify. Ha!) and listened to a man sing and play his guitar. It was a neat way to get the pub experience. It was pretty fun too. And our tour members got EXTREMELY drunk! Of course there was more singing on the coach ride back to the hotel.

Today's ride back was the funniest one yet. We didn't sing along with a CD...no...Christina lead us in songs we knew. She had the microphone and suggested some songs, then started singing them. We started with "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean", first in soprano, then in bass. Basically we sang the first verse really high and the second verse really low. Then we say "Danny Boy", but no one remembered all the words, so we "la, la'ed" most of the song. Hahah! We sang a few more that way. Christina has a really HORRIBLE singing voice, but she sang the songs with all her drunk heart. Kelli got one of the songs on video again. But I think Danny Boy has a new meaning for me now after this trip. :o)

We had dinner at the hotel and had an early night. We were warned about our extremely early morning tomorrow, so Christina gave us an early night. Nice of her, right?

We have to be up at 5am to be out by 6am. We have to catch the ferry early, so that is why the super early morning.

Tomorrow we leave the Emerald Isle. I have really enjoyed myself here; I'm glad we came.

The only thing I am a little disappointed about is the lack of the Callahan name. I found more souvenirs with my name in Scotland than I did here. And I waited to buy that sort of thing for Ireland because I was so sure it would be here. Oh well.

I still got to experience SO MUCH!! From the Cliffs of Moher, to the Ring of Kerry, to kissing the Blarney Stone. All are great memories.

Tomorrow we head back to Wales and stay in Cardiff for the night.

The following is my journal entry (with pictures and video added) for Day 12 of my vacation to Britain and Ireland.

This morning we left Ennis and traveled south towards County Kerry. We stopped for a real quick photo op in Adare, a village known for its prized winning thatched cottages.

Thatched Cottages of Adare

A church in Adare

The highlight of the day was the Ring of Kerry. This 100-mile coastal panoramic drive was full of vastly different landscapes and scenery. It followed a road around the southwest corner of the island.

The day was a little foggy, so we didn't see all we could have on our trip around the Ring of Kerry, but what we did see was extremely breathtaking.

Some of the landscapes we saw include:

- Sparkling seascapes

- Beautiful lakes

- Mountains and hills dotted with farm houses

- Hills of heather and broom (yellow bushes in bloom)

- Windy lanes and stone bridges

Most of the time we enjoyed this beautiful scenery from the windows of the bus. A few times were were able to get out for photo stops. We took pictures of Dingle Bay,

the magnificent Lakes of Killarney (viewed from Ladies View),

and Waterville coast where a statue of Charlie Chaplin is displayed because this town was a favorite vacation spot for the actor,

plus Daniel O'Connell's birth home (which is now in ruins). O'Connell lived in the 19th Century. He is known as the liberator of Ireland. There are statues and monuments of him in almost every city in Ireland.

At one point, we stopped for a comfort stop at a store in the town of Killarney. There, Kelli bought herself a beautiful diamond ring and a Celtic knot necklace. The diamond ring is a Claddagh ring, one of Ireland's best known symbols. I am glad she was brave enough to buy her ring even though it was pretty expensive (I started feeling buyer's remorse for her, but she never did.) I bought a puffy scarf there...nothing too extravagant, but still fun.

We continued on the Ring of Kerry, then stopped for a quick lunch at a thatched cottage. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it was still very nice.

Close up look at a thatched roof

We passed the vast peat bogs which is used as fuel (once it is cut into bricks and dried). These bogs are naturally formed in the wetlands by a deposit of dead plant material. There is an industry for peat harvesting. Most of the time individual farmers cut peat for their own use, so there were a lot of bricks laid out for drying on different farms. It was an interesting place to see.

The Ring of Kerry started in Killarney and circled back to end in Killarney as well. Once we arrived back in this town, we were dropped off in the town center where Kelli and I participated in the optional excursion to ride the Jaunting Cars (horse and buggies). There were several cars waiting for our group to arrive. This seemed to be a popular excursion. I kept singing the song from the Disney movie, The Gnome Mobile as we were getting ready to ride these cars. Haha!

The charming Irish drivers were true Kerry men, who could charm the socks off of anyone and would not take no for an answer. In fact, I was even "proposed" to by our driver. He even jumped out of the moving cart, picked a blue bell in the forest, ran back and put it behind my ear. I saved the flower in my journal. My fiance's name is Billy. :o)

We were on the Jaunting Car for an hour and traveled through forests, next to lakes, near the Killarney Horse Race track, and to a castle. What is interesting about the race track is there is part of an 18-hole golf course in the middle of the track. Pretty funny!

A neat looking Methodist Church in Killarney

Golf course in the middle of the Horse Race Track

Two of our favorite Australians! These ladies were so much fun, were always making us laugh, and always kept us entertained. We enjoyed traveling with them!

We also saw a lot of wild life, such as deer and birds.

We stopped at the ruins of Ross Castle near a lake. We were able to get out and explore for 20 minutes.

Finally we traveled back to the town center where our coach was waiting to take us to our hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel and had a fairly early night.