Take a good hard look at the ... Boat!
Ok so we just got on the ferry to Scotland. It's seriously like a cruise ship! Movies, cafes, bars, casino, arcade, lounges, nail salon.... We are SO impressed. We thought we'd be rocked around on a tiny little boat! Ah loving this!
Last night Phil helped us book our tickets. Phil os awesome. He's our hostel workin buddy. Such a great guy. We talked to him fopr like an hour after he helped us. He travels to Jersey a lot to visit friends and family so we're facebook-ing each other to keep in touch! Yay Phil!
Ok time to go enjoy the boat! Woot!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
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 ;-)
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 ;-)
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Killarney
- same deal... emailed but never went through... here's the post from Thursday Morning...
So Killarney is awesome. We got to the town and the hostel was literally a 2 minute walk from the train. The hostel was cool; exactly like the website showed.
We walked to the national park since it was too late to rent bikes (10 euros for 3 hours is way too much). I kind of preferred it that way though... We went through so many paths on foot that we wouldn't have been able to go on with the bike! In the park is Ross Castle, so we explored there and it was soo beautiful. We walked back along a stream and had fun!
We had dinner at a place called The Silver Fox. We all had shepherds pie, and needless to say it was delicious!! We stopped back at the hostel before we went out to find a pub with some music. The first pub was too empty. The second pub was too crowded, but the third pub was juuuust right! ...or something like that... Lol. We wound up at The Danny Mann Pub. There were these 2 guys called Celtic Whisper playing a guitar, a fiddle, and singing irish-y songs. It was just what we were looking for! Such a nice night! At the end we went up and spoke to them and took a picture. They asked us to find them on facebook and post our picture to their site! It was so cute to see all the old irish men singing along!
Pictures to come soon!!! Thanks for reading ;-)
So Killarney is awesome. We got to the town and the hostel was literally a 2 minute walk from the train. The hostel was cool; exactly like the website showed.
We walked to the national park since it was too late to rent bikes (10 euros for 3 hours is way too much). I kind of preferred it that way though... We went through so many paths on foot that we wouldn't have been able to go on with the bike! In the park is Ross Castle, so we explored there and it was soo beautiful. We walked back along a stream and had fun!
We had dinner at a place called The Silver Fox. We all had shepherds pie, and needless to say it was delicious!! We stopped back at the hostel before we went out to find a pub with some music. The first pub was too empty. The second pub was too crowded, but the third pub was juuuust right! ...or something like that... Lol. We wound up at The Danny Mann Pub. There were these 2 guys called Celtic Whisper playing a guitar, a fiddle, and singing irish-y songs. It was just what we were looking for! Such a nice night! At the end we went up and spoke to them and took a picture. They asked us to find them on facebook and post our picture to their site! It was so cute to see all the old irish men singing along!
Pictures to come soon!!! Thanks for reading ;-)
Yay Dad!!
- i emailed this but it never went through... it's from Wednesday Morning!!
So, my Dad is the best! He went to verizon for me last night and fixed my phone. My hero!
We had another roomie last night... Luciano from Buenas Aires. It was funny... Our other roomie told him she Loves Latin dancing and he was like "well, I can't dance!". They were both nice people.
The pub was so crowded and we couldn't find a seat to order food at, so we went to Happy Harry's fast food. I hope we get more Irish-y food outside of the city!
Breakfast included at the hostel was toast. It stunk. We missed the 9am train to Killarney, but just got on the 11. Its ok though. I had time to get the stamps I need and some fast food breakfast! Yay for Supermac's!
The train is awesome... We had to reserve our tickets online and our names are above our seats on a screen! Too cool! We're sitting 2 and 2 across from each other. We have so much leg room and a table in between us. This train makes me miss NJ Transit... NOT! Everyone in Ireland is sooo nice, too. We've been so happy so far!
So, my Dad is the best! He went to verizon for me last night and fixed my phone. My hero!
We had another roomie last night... Luciano from Buenas Aires. It was funny... Our other roomie told him she Loves Latin dancing and he was like "well, I can't dance!". They were both nice people.
The pub was so crowded and we couldn't find a seat to order food at, so we went to Happy Harry's fast food. I hope we get more Irish-y food outside of the city!
Breakfast included at the hostel was toast. It stunk. We missed the 9am train to Killarney, but just got on the 11. Its ok though. I had time to get the stamps I need and some fast food breakfast! Yay for Supermac's!
The train is awesome... We had to reserve our tickets online and our names are above our seats on a screen! Too cool! We're sitting 2 and 2 across from each other. We have so much leg room and a table in between us. This train makes me miss NJ Transit... NOT! Everyone in Ireland is sooo nice, too. We've been so happy so far!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Dublin!
Ok so the plane ride was SO long. we had to go to chicago first then off to Dublin. I was able to sleep a little bit, but unfortunately not much. The most important thig is that we made the second flight... we were getting so nervous looking at our itinerary since our first flight was delayed a little bit, but we made it thanks to the time zone change that was NOT accounted for in the itinerary!! The first plane I sat next to Jen and the second next to pat! on the other side of Pat was a really nice man traveling for business. I had the "window seat", and I say that in quotations because there wasnt actually a window in our row! It stunk!!
We got in around 9am, headed to Trinity College, where we saw the Book of Kells. That was really cool, as well as an old library that's been preserved. It's straight out of Beauty and the Beast... it's that big!! we then went to our hostel todrop off our stuff in the lockers. Then it was off to St. Stephen's Green, a BEAUTIFUL park. we got lunch at a farmer's market on the way. I had falaffels and hummus. Yes, family of mine, I ate it and enjoyed it :-P
We were on our way to the Guiness factory when we came upon St. Patrick's Cathedral! We lyed on the grass outside of there for a little while and I got a much needed power nap in the sun :-)
The Guiness factory was so cool! i think that Dr. Cathell should have brought us THERE this semester instead of the brewery in Princeton!! It was much bigger and explained all the things we learned about in Biotech! We got free Guiness at the end, too!!
On the way back, we went to Dublin Castle to explore. It was very cool looking! Pictures to come soon...
Now we are at the hostel. We needed to rest up before going to the pub next door tonight. I'm on the computer in the lounge here (and the keyboard is horrible, so I apologize for the bad typing!)... lots of people are in here and it's so much fun!! Music is blasting and everyone is nice :) We are in a 6 person room tonight with 1 other person from San Diego. She seems nice!! The only problem i have is that my phone is not working!!! I don't know if it's properly activated, so hopefully Dad can work on that for me :-)
Anywho, I'll update again tomorrow hopefully (and i hooope my phone starts working so I can update more often and in more detail!!
LOVING this trip so far!! Yay!!
We got in around 9am, headed to Trinity College, where we saw the Book of Kells. That was really cool, as well as an old library that's been preserved. It's straight out of Beauty and the Beast... it's that big!! we then went to our hostel todrop off our stuff in the lockers. Then it was off to St. Stephen's Green, a BEAUTIFUL park. we got lunch at a farmer's market on the way. I had falaffels and hummus. Yes, family of mine, I ate it and enjoyed it :-P
We were on our way to the Guiness factory when we came upon St. Patrick's Cathedral! We lyed on the grass outside of there for a little while and I got a much needed power nap in the sun :-)
The Guiness factory was so cool! i think that Dr. Cathell should have brought us THERE this semester instead of the brewery in Princeton!! It was much bigger and explained all the things we learned about in Biotech! We got free Guiness at the end, too!!
On the way back, we went to Dublin Castle to explore. It was very cool looking! Pictures to come soon...
Now we are at the hostel. We needed to rest up before going to the pub next door tonight. I'm on the computer in the lounge here (and the keyboard is horrible, so I apologize for the bad typing!)... lots of people are in here and it's so much fun!! Music is blasting and everyone is nice :) We are in a 6 person room tonight with 1 other person from San Diego. She seems nice!! The only problem i have is that my phone is not working!!! I don't know if it's properly activated, so hopefully Dad can work on that for me :-)
Anywho, I'll update again tomorrow hopefully (and i hooope my phone starts working so I can update more often and in more detail!!
LOVING this trip so far!! Yay!!
Monday, May 24, 2010
On our way!!
So, everything is booked, I'm all packed, and I'm on my way to the airport! The only thing I'm nervous about is not making our connecting flight on time! This is all so exciting... The only thing I can think of that I forgot to do is take my toenail polish off! Not a big deal at all. Anywho, I'll be updating later. Adios!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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