I kissed a legend!

Hello!!   What a fantastic weekend of traveling!

Friday at noon, I got done with school for our week long midterm break!!  Cassie, Brendean, Emily, Megan, David, and I took a weekend trip to Cork.  We took a bus out Friday at 5pm and arrived there at around 10pm.  It was a very long bus ride, but we each tried to sleep a little bit.  Then when we got there we went and met up with two girls that David knew from Texas named Heather and Kristin.  They were very nice.  We stayed at the pub for a little while and then went and checked into our Hostel.  Our hostel was called the Kinlay House.  The hostel was in walking distance from the center of town and the bus station.  We got lucky and had a room that only could hold the six of us instead of ten like we had booked.  That was great, because we left our clothes and things in there and took our valuables with us during the day.  It lightened our load.  The bathroom in our room was soooo tiny, I could literally sit on the toilet and wash my hands or brush my teeth at the same time.

Our Hostel

The graffiti on the wall of the hostel

our room: 3 sets of bunk beds!  

Saturday we took a trip out to Blarney.  Kristen and Heather came with us to Blarney.  Here we saw the Blarney castle and kissed the legend (the Blarney Stone).  The stone was at the top of the castle. It was quite the hike to the hop of the castle.  The staircase was a spiral staircase and it was very narrow and seemed to get more narrow the higher up we went.  In this castle there was a spot called the Murder Hole...see picture posted below for an understanding of what it is.  The view from the top of the castle was absolutely amazing!!  We were so high up!  Next was kissing the Blarney Stone.  This involved sitting down, grabbing two bars while leaning backwards down a whole, having a guy hold onto you, and then really lean down the whole and kiss the stone!  It was quite scary actually, but it was so much fun!  They took two pictures as we did this, and then we could buy them.  They are pretty funny.  After this, the rest of the group besides Cassie and myself, took the bus back to Cork to go on the Jamison Whiskey tour, but Cassie and I stayed at the castle and did some wandering and saw some amazing things!  We saw crazy looking trees, and went to the fern garden which was just awesome!!  After we finished there we took the bus back to Cork, and did some shopping/walking around town.  We didn't end up buying anything but we did go into many shops!  When the rest of the group came back we went to dinner at A14.  It was very delicious!  After that we went to two different pubs.  One was called the Old Oak and the second pub was called the Hi-B Bar.  The Old Oak was a HUGE pub! It seemed to never end!  When we went to the Hi-B Bar, it was so tiny and very crowded.  We all really enjoyed going to those pubs and spending the day with our new Texas friends, Kristin and Heather!  After the pubs, Emily did some dancing  on the street! It was so entertaining!  Then we went to McDonalds!  They have the most amazing chairs in the McDonalds here!

Blarney Castle

kissing the Blarney

sweet looking tree

at the fern garden

thats where the blarney stone

the McDonalds Chairs!

Today, Sunday, we didn't do too much...the town is basically shut down on Sunday's.  So we basically ate breakfast, wandered the streets, ate lunch and then caught a bus back to Galway.  Tonight, we are going to this pizza place that is close to our house and are going to watch a movie.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

<3 Amber