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Ireland and various
Feb. 18th, 2003 03:02 pmBefore I begin, my mother is driving me nuts. She's being all worried and shit because I'm over here during the "global situation." I didn't e-mail her while I was in Ireland because hello, no access there and then I e-mailed her last night and she e-mailed back all worried because I hadn't e-mailed for a while. I was in Ireland. I told her that. Oh well. Whatever. I basically just ignore her worried tirades and do what I want.
Ireland was fantastic. The pictures aren't up yet but the ones I'm going to use have all been resized and saved under the correct name in the proper format so it shouldn't be too long before I have those pictures up along with the others.
The ferry ride over to Ireland, however, was atrocious as it occurred at 4 am and I was the coldest that I have ever been in my life. Try sleeping on a dirty carpeted floor when a boat if moving and it's so cold that you can't feel your fingers because Tadd didn't tell you that a blanket was necessary just that it would make you more "comfortable." Damn Tadd and his nazism. Oh well. I survived it, that's all that matters.
After getting off the ferry and being fed breakfast, we drove to Blarney. I took pictures of the castle but they're on the regular camera so they'll be longer in coming. I did not kiss the Blarney Stone, mostly because it looked dirty but also because I figure that I don't really need any more eloquence. I'm a writer, after all, and besides that I like to keep my blunt tongue thank you very much. I enjoyed the grounds very much and we took a number of group shots and then headed back down to the town proper so that we could get some shopping down.
I'd like to take the time to interject here that I spent way too much money in Ireland. The figure stands somewhere around $500. But you have to remember that of that about $200 went toward Chris' ring. Some of the remaining $300 went to gifts for various people. The rest of it, of course, was spent on things I wanted and postcards which are winging their way to some of you through the mail as we speak. Jen finally did her shopping for Corey's birthday but we have yet to get down to the post office in Grantham so that we can mail it.
After Blarney, we drove to Killarny and got settled into our hotel room. Jen and I shared the room in Killarny. It was a great little room and Harlaxton provided dinner for us that night. After dinner we got together with some friends of ours and did a little tour of the town. Even came across a pub named Sheehans (my mother's maiden name) as well as a few little shops that Jen and I were extraordinarily interested in but never got the chance to get into. Jen and I retired to the room where we made tea and then watched The Ice Storm which is a good but very odd movie. They interrupted it with the news at 11:00pm and then resumed the film at 11:30pm. I thought that was kinda stupid but at least they put the film back on; Jen was worried that they had ended it altogether.
The next day we started out for the Ring of Kerry tour. Ireland is a beautiful country. If you haven't been there, I throughly suggest it because it is one of the most wonderful places that I have ever seen in my life. I took so many pictures while we were on the Kerry tour. In fact, those are the only pictures that I will be posting as that was the only place that I bothered to bring Simon along with me. I think I took over 200 pictures with Simon alone. I also took a large number of pictures with Moira (the APS camera) and once I get those developed they'll have to be scanned so I'm not entirely sure that I'll put those up anytime soon.) The first stop was the Bog Village where I had an Irish Coffee. Man, talk about potent. I wasn't tipsy or anything remotely like that but I could feel the whiskey in the back of my throat before I had even swallowed the sip I'd taken. Wow. There were various other stops that I'm not really going to take the time to go into because I don't remember the names of everything and it would be repetitious for some people reading this. Suffice it to say that I took a lot of pictures of a lot of beautiful scenery and that you will soon be able to share these pictures with me.
We got back into Killarny early that night so Jen and I set out to track down those little shops that we had seen and been so interested in. Despite the fact that they said they would close at 6 pm and it was only around 5:15 pm, they were already closed. We were more than a little disappointed and ended up in the Killarny discount mall buying nothing and looking at little. After that we rounded up a group of our friends and went to Burger King for Valentine's Day dinner. Yummy. I've eaten at a Burger King on every trip so far. After that we went into a little pub and Jen and I had one drink apiece. We wanted to stay for more but the group we were with was pretty anti-drinking, anti-pub so we left and went back to their room for some chilling out. We left around 11:30pm, made ourselves some more tea and went to bed.
The next day we drove over to Dublin. Turns out that we were staying there the day of the anti-war march. Lovely. Fantastic. Didn't have any real problems, though, and ended up buying too much and having some fantastic pizza. Didn't do any drinking again that night because our annoyingly stupid roommate Rebecca wasn't interested in doing anything past 10:30 pm except sleeping. Oh well.
Got back onto a ferry the next morning and rode back to Wales. This was a much better ferry and the ride was so much more enjoyable. I actually had fun on the second ferry. Spent some time in the Welsh city with the longest name in the world and then hopped back on the bus to return to Harlaxton. Got home, ate dinner, unpacked, did homework and crashed.
This weekend: North Wales.
Ireland was fantastic. The pictures aren't up yet but the ones I'm going to use have all been resized and saved under the correct name in the proper format so it shouldn't be too long before I have those pictures up along with the others.
The ferry ride over to Ireland, however, was atrocious as it occurred at 4 am and I was the coldest that I have ever been in my life. Try sleeping on a dirty carpeted floor when a boat if moving and it's so cold that you can't feel your fingers because Tadd didn't tell you that a blanket was necessary just that it would make you more "comfortable." Damn Tadd and his nazism. Oh well. I survived it, that's all that matters.
After getting off the ferry and being fed breakfast, we drove to Blarney. I took pictures of the castle but they're on the regular camera so they'll be longer in coming. I did not kiss the Blarney Stone, mostly because it looked dirty but also because I figure that I don't really need any more eloquence. I'm a writer, after all, and besides that I like to keep my blunt tongue thank you very much. I enjoyed the grounds very much and we took a number of group shots and then headed back down to the town proper so that we could get some shopping down.
I'd like to take the time to interject here that I spent way too much money in Ireland. The figure stands somewhere around $500. But you have to remember that of that about $200 went toward Chris' ring. Some of the remaining $300 went to gifts for various people. The rest of it, of course, was spent on things I wanted and postcards which are winging their way to some of you through the mail as we speak. Jen finally did her shopping for Corey's birthday but we have yet to get down to the post office in Grantham so that we can mail it.
After Blarney, we drove to Killarny and got settled into our hotel room. Jen and I shared the room in Killarny. It was a great little room and Harlaxton provided dinner for us that night. After dinner we got together with some friends of ours and did a little tour of the town. Even came across a pub named Sheehans (my mother's maiden name) as well as a few little shops that Jen and I were extraordinarily interested in but never got the chance to get into. Jen and I retired to the room where we made tea and then watched The Ice Storm which is a good but very odd movie. They interrupted it with the news at 11:00pm and then resumed the film at 11:30pm. I thought that was kinda stupid but at least they put the film back on; Jen was worried that they had ended it altogether.
The next day we started out for the Ring of Kerry tour. Ireland is a beautiful country. If you haven't been there, I throughly suggest it because it is one of the most wonderful places that I have ever seen in my life. I took so many pictures while we were on the Kerry tour. In fact, those are the only pictures that I will be posting as that was the only place that I bothered to bring Simon along with me. I think I took over 200 pictures with Simon alone. I also took a large number of pictures with Moira (the APS camera) and once I get those developed they'll have to be scanned so I'm not entirely sure that I'll put those up anytime soon.) The first stop was the Bog Village where I had an Irish Coffee. Man, talk about potent. I wasn't tipsy or anything remotely like that but I could feel the whiskey in the back of my throat before I had even swallowed the sip I'd taken. Wow. There were various other stops that I'm not really going to take the time to go into because I don't remember the names of everything and it would be repetitious for some people reading this. Suffice it to say that I took a lot of pictures of a lot of beautiful scenery and that you will soon be able to share these pictures with me.
We got back into Killarny early that night so Jen and I set out to track down those little shops that we had seen and been so interested in. Despite the fact that they said they would close at 6 pm and it was only around 5:15 pm, they were already closed. We were more than a little disappointed and ended up in the Killarny discount mall buying nothing and looking at little. After that we rounded up a group of our friends and went to Burger King for Valentine's Day dinner. Yummy. I've eaten at a Burger King on every trip so far. After that we went into a little pub and Jen and I had one drink apiece. We wanted to stay for more but the group we were with was pretty anti-drinking, anti-pub so we left and went back to their room for some chilling out. We left around 11:30pm, made ourselves some more tea and went to bed.
The next day we drove over to Dublin. Turns out that we were staying there the day of the anti-war march. Lovely. Fantastic. Didn't have any real problems, though, and ended up buying too much and having some fantastic pizza. Didn't do any drinking again that night because our annoyingly stupid roommate Rebecca wasn't interested in doing anything past 10:30 pm except sleeping. Oh well.
Got back onto a ferry the next morning and rode back to Wales. This was a much better ferry and the ride was so much more enjoyable. I actually had fun on the second ferry. Spent some time in the Welsh city with the longest name in the world and then hopped back on the bus to return to Harlaxton. Got home, ate dinner, unpacked, did homework and crashed.
This weekend: North Wales.
