Cullen/Blarney/Cork... oh and Belfast, too!

Hey all!

First off, a little birdie told me that there may be a plus to the next sentence I write. Hey Uncie!

Anywho, yesterday was AMAZING! We woke up in Killarney to another Toast breakfast, which stunk, but that's alright, because right after breakfast Uncle Tadhg picked us up!! We drove to Cullen to vistit with some of Pat's relatives, which was really nice. We saw the cemetery where Pat's Great-Great Grandparents are buried, and as Jen said, If you have to lay somewhere forever, THAT's the place to be. It was SO beautiful.

From there we went to Blarney Castle! Uncle Tadhg was so so sweet and paid for ALL of us to get in, including himself!!! It was soooo cool going through the castle, including the dungeon!! At the top we all kissed the Blarney Stone! I now have the gift of gab ;-)

Uncle Tadhg then dropped us off at the Cork Gaol (the old city jail). The four of us did an audio tour of the place... it was actually VERY interesting! Creepy at times, but interesting all the same. That took longer then expected, so we walked into the city and had something to eat. I had this delicious potato with chicken and cheese in it. mmmmmmmm! We had enough time to walk to Patrick's Street to meet up with Uncle Tadhg just in time!!

We went back to the house in Glenmire (we were all very impressed with the house... Uncle Tadhg built the entire house... as well as some of the other houses the family lives in!). We had some lasagna which was SO yummy! After meeting some more family, we hung out with Pat's cousin Tara and the girls (18 months and 2 months,... SO cute!).

That evening we went to the Yacht club with Pat's Uncle to race the sailboat!! We were pretty much dead wait on the boat, but we evened out the weight in the front of the boat, sticking our legs over whichever side stuck up in the air. Uncle Tadhg said it helped, so, yay! The Lady T (Micheal's boat that we were racing... Micheal is Tadhg's son) won 2nd place!! Yay!! Only a few injuries occured, like jen almost getting knocked off by a sail and Dave getting smacked in the face with the other sail's ropes and banging up his nose and getting rope burn on his neck. He's a trooper... he took one for the team!! We hung out at the Yacht club for a bit, drinking while waiting for the results.

We then headed to Michael's and Tara's house to celebrate the victory and give them the prize ( a 12 pack of heineken lol). Unfortunately Cuiva (spelling?) was sick again... poor thing. Marie spent a lot of time snuggled in my arms, so I was quite a happy camper! We had a great time with all of them... I just wish we had more time so spend with them.

Back at Uncle Tadhg's, we sat in the living room, talked,drank, and hung out ( Auntie Merlin was there too!). It was so noce to hear all the stories they had for us. All four of us agreed that it was the best day yet in Ireland! We went to bed well after midnight, and we were able to sing happy birthday to Pat before we went to sleep.

On that note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT!!! We woke up this morning and had a DELICIOUS breakfast of eggs and sausage and toast and black pudding prepared by Auntie Merlin. We then had to say our goodbyes so we could get dropped off at the trainstation. We kept joking that we weren't going to leave...we'd just spend a month with Pat's family then go home! That's how much fun we had!

Anyway, all of today was spent traveling to Belfast. It was a 3 hour train ride back to Dublin since there are no trains up the west coast here... Everything goes through Dublin. Then we had a 2 hour wait til the next train to Belfast. That train was on the other side of town, though, so we walked all the way to the station and stopped for lunch on the way.
The train out of dublin was a bit delayed, but not bad. We talked and played cards (still trying to get the hang of Peanuckle) the whole way there. Last night Tara gave me a little cake with a hard chocolate coating on it and candles! It was so so sweet of her. 2 things though.. First, We didn't have matches and I couldn't find any in stores I went to. Second, the chocolate coating cracked apart in my bag, even though I tried to be gentle. It was too tough hiding it! Anyway, we made pat close his eyes as we unwrapped it and stuck the candle in. We sang to him and he blew out the non-existant flames lol.

When we got to Belfast we took a connecting train to a stop closer to our hostel. We were jokingly pessimistic about it, being in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK and it being gloomy out and all. We went to our hostel to check in: it's really nice here! Its part of a chain of hostels. Were in a 4 person room, so with the key cards to get onto the elevators and into the rooms, we don't have to worry about locking our stuff up at night. That's really nice.

We got dinner at a place called Laverys. We almost went to KFC wheb we saw this place across the street! Yay! No american chains whike were here!! Although, the KFC had pretty much no menu in comaprison to the US anyway...

Our waiter and the manager at Laverys were both so great! They spoke with us about our trip and about times they've been to the US. When the waiter heard it was Pat's birthday he brought us a free bottle of sparkling white wine!!! I loved it, as did jen and dave... Even Pat said it was pretty good lol.

Now we're just taking it easy tonight. We may or may not spend time here tomorrow before heading to the ferry to Scotland... Who knows?

Oh wait I know. Just looked up ferry times. Unfortunately we won't be goibg to Giant's Causeway tomorrow, but I guess we'll have to come back sometime! Ferry to Scotland in the AM!!

Check out pats blog for pictures. I update from my phone so I can't put pics up from here. Sorry everyone!

One country down, many to go ;-)