Blarney

Sorry, this took a bit longer than I expected. For some reason it did that thing again where it wouldn't let me upload pictures, but now it's finally working. So last Saturday we decided that it would be fun to go to Blarney. Luckily it's pretty inexpensive so we just hopped on a bus and spent the day there. It was nice and sunny the whole day. In fact we haven't had rain here for like a week and a half. Just lots of sun. Here are some of the pictures:

This is actually just some random building in the town. It was the first thing I saw when I got off the bus and I liked it a lot so I took a picture.

This is a restaurant that we passed on our way to the castle that we ended up getting coffee in a while later, but that's a long story.

This is actually within the castle grounds. This is one of Laura's classic picture faces.

We were walking along this path and all of the sudden we look up and there's the castle!

We ran into these people from the US who were studying in London but were visiting Blarney and they took our picture. From left to right: Laura, Kelly, Jenna, me, Mrijan (he's technically from Nepal, but he goes to school in Oregon and lives on my floor).

This led to the cells.

Creepy cave thing in the cell area. It was all wet and gross in there, but pretty cool.


Laura in the watch tower.



Mrijan and Laura taking pictures of each other. This happened a lot on this trip.


Me in front of the castle.

This was part of the castle grounds. We walked around them a bit before going into the castle itself.


Another pretty ivy covered building.

Kelly: "It's so green!"


This was the "exit" from the gardens if you went in and for some reason decided you wanted to leave.

Pretty waterfall!


This is the actual Dolmen rock formation.

So this explains that you're supposed to walk up and down these steps with your eyes closed (preferably backwards) while concentrating on your wish and it will come true.

Back of the waterfall from earilier.

So, I walked backwards up the steps but forward down them because I didn't feel like dying that day.



These are the roots from the tree above the Witch's Kitchen.

Laura on a rock.

Me in a cave.

Laura on another rock.

Mike on the biggest rock. Mike is another American kid. He goes to Virginia Tech and lives across the river from me.

In the staircase that leads to the top of the castle where the Blarney Stone is.

There were all of these crazy little windows that had amazing views on the way up.



We made it to the top. This is on the other side of the castle.

The old guy who holds you while you kiss the stone.

I did it! Sooo scary though!

And I have a certificate stating that I kissed the stone and now possess the gift of gab (though I'm kind of bitter because I had to pay 2.50 Euro for the certificate and then had to fill the whole thing out myself).

View from the top.




This is a little traditional music band that was playing when we left the castle.

Waiting at the bus stop. We waited here for over 2 hours. The first bus didn't come. Nor did the second. The third came, but it filled up before we could get on (even though we were the first people at the bus stop), then finally we caught the fourth bus. Mrijan actually made it onto the third bus and left us there so we sent him an angry text and refused to go to Tesco with him that night.

So, there you have it, all of my pictures of my trips are posted. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to put up an update of basic life in Cork and stuff about school. Hope you enjoyed!

Cobh

See! I really am posting more! These are pictures from Cobh (pronounced "cove") from last Wednesday. It was a total last minute trip. We had stayed up super late the night before because it was our last night of "summer" before we had to start getting up for orientation and such (it was also the first night with two of our 3 Irish boys), and it was around noon when everyone finally got up. We were all making lunch when Kelly (Jenna's friend from the University of Massachusetts who lives on the 3rd floor) called and asked if we wanted to take a trip to Cobh for the afternoon. It sounded like a fun idea so we set out to find the train station (which is not next to the bus station like everyone says!) and we were off! We were lucky and they have trains at least once an hour and it's only 5.50 Euro round trip for students. Here are a few of the pictures I got while we were there:

We were walking down the street from the train station and Kelly looked over and saw a pub called Kelly's and got all excited that she found something with her name and literally 30 seconds later I looked to my right and saw that we were standing in front of Kennedy park.

This is what the park itself looks like. It's beautiful.

This was our first view of St. Colman's Cathedral.

Cobh is extremely famous because it was the last port that the Titanic docked in before it sank. There is a "Titanic Trail" that you can walk through the city that explains all of the links between Cobh and the Titanic.

Just a little further down the street from Kennedy Park was Kennedy Pier!

This was the cruise ship that was docked there. I think it was called the Marco Polo.

The Titanic Restaurant.

The actual dock used for the Titanic...or what's left of it.




This is Kennedy Pier. Not too special, but still cool.

This is the town clock.

As we started the climb up to the cathedral the view was just incredible.


St. Colman's Cathedral

Row of houses.



From left to right: Jenna, Kelly, Laura, me.

Inside of the cathedral



Purple door!



This is the statue of Annie Moore, the first immigrant to be processed through Ellis Island, and her brothers who departed from Cobh on the SS Nevada in 1891.

This picture is actually back in Cork at our favorite pub, Sober Lane, that's about 3 blocks from our apartment. This is Black Pudding and Roasted Onion pizza. It looked pretty shady, and kind of was, but as the saying goes, When in Rome...or, you know, Cork... It was an adventure and I now know that I like black pudding (also known as blood sausage), but not so much on pizza.

So that was our little spur of the moment trip to Cobh. It was a really great afternoon and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Next up is our trip to Blarney!