After several FANTASTIC days in Scotland, including some awesome hikes, the Isle of Mull, Glasgow, and an exciting drive into England for some Hadrian's wall viewage, we are back in London...and heading out tomorrow. Hard to believe a month is over already!!! I'll post some summing up comments when I get home.
So much has happened! I'm update quickly...Dublin was fun but basically just a city. We enjoyed the readily flowing Guinness (of course) and some other sights in Dublin, including the Book of Kells and the National Gallery. We flew to Scotland a few days ago, met our friend Chris, and immediately drove to Edinburgh. I really liked Edinburgh - has a wonderful feeling of an old town, and the castle is of course breathtaking - and really, the city just didn't have that city-ish of a feel.
After Killarney we headed up the coast to the Cliffs of Moher - really beautiful and REALLY WINDY!!! and RAIIIIIN. But it was worth it. We found a neat nest of a little hostel and set up our tent in the back yard - then wandered around Doolin before heading to the Burren in the evening. The Burren is this great space of rock formations - I can't describe it, it was basically just milllles of rock in really cool shapes and textures, all along the beach. We really liked walking around and exploring. Yesterday, we hopped up and got on the road - getting lost many a time, inspiring some MAJOR rage - but we made it to Rush, just above Dublin. It was really cool seeing both coasts in one day. Our campground was literally ON THE BEACH - the ocean was the first and last thing we saw. After some Chinese dinner, we hit the sack early...and headed into Dublin this AM. Ready to go hit up some Guinness factory! YES!
Well. After an AWESOME ferry ride over (more on THAT later - too little time to type the awesomeness...let's just say it involves a free pint of Guiness, a group of old Irish men, and a songbook) we pulled into COrk. Needless to say, we were exhausted so the day there was pretty low key, walked around and chilled at the hostel. Yesterday we picked up our rental car and headed out to Blarney. That castle kicked my ASS - I hit my head on a doorpost then AGAIN on the stone itself and have a badass bump on my face. We all kissed the stone and I even got to learn about zombies from Peter and Annie in the queue. THen we hopped in the car again and headed out to Gougane Barra - my ancestral home, where my great-grandmother lived. It was incredibly beautiful. It was raining and misty, which gave the whole thing an ethereal quality - we walked in the woods and everything was so damp and mossy - I see how it's easy to believe in faires here. There were also waterfalls running down the mountains over the lake - breathtaking.
dislikes: george w. bush, getting mascara on my hands, setting my alarm for PM instead of AM, waking up, dropping my cell phone, listening to Amir burp, public nudity, incest, cinnamon flavored anything, falafel my dad made, stale anything, Jill's abnormal lesbian friends, not realizing when someone is being sarcastic, sleeping for less than 9 hours at a time, Duke, hypodermic needles, being a plane ride away from someone I love, coughing, stains, and dead baby jokes. likes: Wawa (Tastykake), coffee, your mom jokes, running water, irritating my cousins, Harry Potter, receiving mail, playing with my snap bracelet, sleeping bags, lemon water ice, punchy jokes, voicemail, climbing on rocks, sore muscles, St. Patrick's Day, irish car bombs, popsicle sticks, chipmunks, pocket knives, world maps, wind, Solitaire, and hammering things into walls.
