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!