What's the Crack?

So...4 days home and then I was off again. This time with the family. We packed on Christmas Day and found ourselves on a plane to Ireland. Yippee. It was an amazing trip. A great way to celebrate the time between Christmas and New Years. We flew into Dublin and made our way around the southern half, to Cork, then to Kilkarney, then to Limmerick, and back over to Dublin. It was delightful.

Our first night we spent in a castle in Dublin. I made friends with some of the decorations. I was hoping this guy would be my lucky new years kiss, but I never saw him after this picture was taken. I am still recovering from the loss. We also saw many churches... this part of Ireland is Catholic, and I bet everyone can guess who their patron saint is. yes. St. Patrick. shocker. This particular church above is where Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, was buried. Pretty darn cool. I forgot to take my pic by his grave though...

Next stop....a castle. Can't remember the name, I should write them down, but I forget to bring pens on these trips. This castle's past legend had something to do with the Devil in a fit of rage, after hearing about a church that was to be built there in that little town, threw a huge rock and it landed on some hill and the Irish people lost no time to build a castle just to show him what's up. The legend goes something like that... Anyway this castle on a hill had such a BEAUTIFUL landscape and view. As one looks at these photos they see us bundled in winterware. It is F R E E Z I N G! But my some MIRACLE sent from above, it NEVER rained during the day the whole time we were in Ireland. Seriously. That's a big deal.

ANYWAY. Then we went to Cork, it was cool. I had a blast, the kids had fun, mostly. Walking around when it's cold isn't very fun when your little kids, but they were tough and made it through. Our next stop was another Castle in some other city. I think this one was Cork or on the way to Killkarney.

The aristocratic family that occupied this particular castle lived there until seriously 1920 or something. I just want to make one thing clear: I want to live in a castle. How cool, think of the parties. Anyway... That had a beautiful long grass field in front of it, it was pretty.

Before we reached Kilkarney we stopped at one more castle. My favorite. Blarney Castle, the resting place to the Blarney Stone. (Definition, Blarney Stone: It was said by some Queen of England that whoever kissed the Blarney Stone would be gifted in the art of speaking, the "gift of gab." It supposed to give you eloquence when you talk. I kissed it, I am SO eloquent.) The castle is amazing. It is so interesting to see how people lived back in past centuries. Banquet halls, women's quarters, a priest that lived with you, a kitchen with secret passageways to the servants' quarters. SO COOL!

The next place we stayed was definitely the most beautiful, if it's even possible to rank Ireland's beauty. It was a small town outside of Kilkenny or Kilkarney (they both ring a bell, i don't remember which one exactly. This trip was kind of a blur if no has noticed...) We stand in a town called Bellings-Kellings (Not sure on the spelling...). We stayed three nights in a cute little house 3 minutes walk from the beach. OF COURSE I laid out everyday in my swimsuit... We took our HUGE rental van around the "Ring of Kerry" and it was BREATHTAKING. And only a few minutes after the above picture on the bottom was taken our van seemed to find itself wedged between a stone hedge and the wall of a ditch full of mud. It took Greg's muscles, my brain(by brain, it was really Greg's brain and my nodding and my muscles or lack thereof, and Amy's legendary driving skills to dig ourselves out. It was...hilarious (only to me at the time. it was kinda cold).

We then took a little trip to Limmerick. I didn't take any pictures unfortunately. I was a little busy sleeping off a nasty allergy attack from the weeds I rummaged through while trying to get the van out of the ditch. But we did manage to write a couple of Limmericks.

There once was this place that was cold

and Rachel thought that she would be bold

so she left italy

for Ireland to see

and now she has cool stories to be told

I'm the next William Shakespeare or Emily Dickenson. (even though I don't think either of them ever wrote Limmericks. They would have been good at them to say the least, but not as good as I) After we spent one night in Limmerick we went back to Dublin and stayed one night there and flew out the next morning. It was in the Dublin Airport that I found a lonesome computer calling for my 2 euro to find out that THE UTES are the BEST!! My excitement could not be contained.

Well this trip was amazing. Ireland, of what I remember, I will never forget. Names aren't that important anyway. I mostly loved that everyone spoke English...some of them I didn't understand one word, but I was comforted anyway knowing they were speaking English. Probably the worst thing there was the traditional Irish Breakfast. The eggs and the sausage were yummy, but they had this stuff called "Black Pudding." It was pig's leftovers and Pig Blood in sausage ring form. Pretty much think of the grossest thing possible and put it in a huge sausage skin and you got Black Pudding. It was the best. On that note, it's nice to be finally home to stay. Ready to take a huge breath for a couple of months before our house is turned into a bed and breakfast when people come to visit.

(***So, I did some research before I posted this. Kilkenny is the city between Cork and Killkarney. The castle with the huge grass field is Kilkenny Castle. Home of the famous Butler family, named the Butler's because they were anciently the Butler's to the royal family in England. And the Queen I mentioned at Blarney Castle is the Queen Elizabeth I.***)