okay, ireland photos are loaded and ready to go!
day 1: we arrived into overcast dublin and immediately found our way to the B&B, unloaded our shite, and took naps! oh yes, and we watched some tv, as we had been without for 4 or so days and my husband was foaming at the mouth. having a tv in our room was an exciting amenity!! after some R&R we decided to venture out. we walked around the temple bar area, a very busy and hip part of town loaded with restaurants and pubs. after much deliberation we decided on an italian restaurant where the food was great but the service was slow. {disclaimer: to avoid having to continue talking about the outrageous prices we encountered, i will say it once--IRELAND IS REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE!!} we found that we were quite tired after this and were going to stop in a pub directly across from our B&B for ONE pint, when we suddenly felt a surge of energy and ended up staying into the wee hours of the night. justin stuck to heineken all night whilst i sampled the fourteen or so different irish beers they had on tap (half pints of each, mind you, not full!). favorites: guinness (duh) and smithwick's. 
we also made friends at the bar, me a younger irishman who was there with his buddies and justin an older 'regular'--they both were very interested in us and had many stories to tell; problem was, we couldn't understand half of what they were saying through those thick irish accents! we did a lot of head nodding and simultaneous laughing. all in all, it was a great first day in ireland!
they really have done a good job with this: it's five stories of the history of guinness the man, guinness the beer, the brewing process, the packaging up process (including the era of wooden kegs), and other random but interesting information. the tour ends, of course, with a pint of the fresh stuff in the 'gravity bar', complete with a 360 degree view of the city. 
that night we stayed in a little town called new ross, ate italian food, and watched the oc on the tele. day 4: we went to a fortress called rock of cashel. it wasn't so much of a castle as it was a place symbolizing whatever family was in power in that area (it changed hands many times over). it was really impressive, especially that they built stuff like that back then without the use of cranes or whatever else we 'need' today. (although, lots of people probably died doing it, but hey...that's the cost of everlasting beauty, right?) nearby the rock is "hore abbey," which was rather amusing to me. it was once a benedictine abbey, but some guy had a dream that the benedictine monks were going to kill him, so he had them thrown out. it wasn't in too great of condition, but still interesting. then we drove to cork.
day 5: cork is a harbor college town. it seemed rather busy when we pulled in, but we found a B&B for a decent rate without much problem. we got in early enough on the last day to walk around and find a neat club (where, by the way, i had missed seeing the rapture by one day, and for only ten euro!) we heard some local bands play, which were mostly good, and drank a few pints. we actually ended up staying here until pretty late, making some friends with the locals.
this is the blarney castle, located just west of cork. the castle itself wasn't entirely impressive, as there was not a whole lot left of it. the grounds, however, were beautiful. but the drawing factor for tourists here is the blarney stone. this was named after king blarney who, according to queen elizabeth I, could always talk himself out of any situation. so if you kiss this stone, you are graced with the gift of gab for 7 years. kind of gross if you think about it, but justin and i both put our lips there along with the rest of the world. i'm just curious to know: what happens if you already had the gift of gab? does it then take it away? hmm...
day 6: we left from blarney to head toward the penninsulas on the southwestern corner. what's neat about this area was that the road goes right along the coast, so this is where we saw the most beautiful scenery. basically we spent all day driving along the ring of kerry and the ring of dingle, getting out to take little walks. there were a lot of times while driving that we couldn't believe we were actually on a two-lane road. sometimes we even had to backup to let people through. we did go over one mountain pass (which wasn't anything statistically huge...their mountains aren't that big) that was a bit scary; however, on the other side we came to a small waterfall and, after hiking up to find the source, found a still lake. it was a beautiful view! 
day 7: we headed back to dublin. it was about a 5 hour drive from the penninsulas, and we broke it up by stopping in limerick. for some reason, though, limerick was swarming with tourists, and this was also the first and only day that the sun was shining all day...it was HOT! so we didn't get out in limerick but for 5 minutes. we made it back to dublin safe and sound, though it took us 2 hours once in the city to find the car rental place; needless to say, THAT was frustrating. but we had a quiet evening, drank our last pint, and had a good night's sleep before flying onto...
NYC! (part three coming soon to a blog near you)-->you can view my many other photos from ireland here
