Last from Dublin

We're in the Dublin airport and maybe ten minutes from boarding our flight back to the states. Sorry we couldn't post more, but let's just say that internet access in Ireland still has a ways to go before it's up to par.



St. Finbarres' Cathedral in Cork, just a few minutes from our BnB. Cork is very much a college town, and most of the residences around the college reminded me of Oakland around Pitt, except that they were a bit smaller:





The castle on the Rock of Cashel. Alliterative.



The last picture of us in Ireland. We can state with certainty that this has been an Adventure with a capital A. I'm sure we'll be telling everyone all about it when we get back, but for now, our flight is boarding. Cheers from Dublin!

From Cork

Sunday we went to the Cliffs of Moher, and the weather probably has not been that nice in Ireland for a long time. This is one of our Postcard Shots.



This is the rocky beach in Waterville. Erin said that they were supposed to have the best beaches in Ireland, but all we saw were rocks. Erin readily admits that this isn't the first time she's been mistaken on this trip, but it was still beautiful.



The Ring of Kerry has the worst roads anywhere on earth. We haven't been to many other places on earth, but we're still pretty confident about this one. It does however offer some of the best views of the Irish country and coast, and the drive in to Cork was pretty as well. Again, there are tons more pictures to show everyone, and we'll try and post some more from Dublin if we have the time. Cheers!

Photos!

At last. It's taken me a while to find a cafe where I could use my laptop to upload these. We really just have a sample, there are many more than what we're putting up now.



Here's the three of us on the steps in front of what used to be the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham in Dublin. Now it's the Irish Museum of Modern Art.



Here's a view of the hospital from the immaculate gardens on the grounds. Erin says, "Look at that blue sky!" Serisouly, we had perfect weather for the Dublin leg.



This is the GPO, or General Post Office. It was pretty well destroyed during the 1916 rising. Erin was lucky enough to get a shot of it without the view being blocked by buses.



This is one of the lookout towers at the Clonnmacnoise Monastary, near Athlone in the west. They have several of the High Crosses that carried engravings based on scripture.



Erin and mum went for a walk on the beach in Roundstone once we got settled into Atlantic House. This boat was sitting on the beach in Dogs Bay, just over the hill from where we were staying.

I don't really know when the next time we can update will be, but we'll keep trying whenever we have the time. Driving in Ireland has proven to be an adventure all it's own, and today (saturday) is the first day that it's really rained on us, so the weather's been grand. Until next time.

Doh!

Well, our second day in Dublin is nearly over. This will be a somewhat short update and without pictures for now, because I've had a hard time finding wireless internet access that was reliable (and my debit card refuses to work. I don't know why).

Our first day here was somewhat brief, not because we weren't here long but because we were all soo tired from the trip that we slept away most of the afternoon. After a real adventure driving from the airport to the bed and breakfast, really we didn't feel like going anywhere. We did walk into Rathfahrnaim and have a good dinner, but then it was back to the room for the World Cup match between France and Portugal.

Today was our longest and busiest day of the trip, with breakfast at 8 a.m. and the rest of the day dedicated to bus and walking tours of Dublin. We stopped at Trinity College, several museums, and Temple Bar, a strip of traditional pubs that's as cool and colorful as you could want. Also Kilmainham Gaol (jail), which was big on the history of the 1916 rising, which Erin would be all too happy to tell you all about.

Tomorrow we'll be heading west, across the country to Galway. Perhaps on the way I'll have a chance to go over the photos we've taken so far.

Inside a week...

Let the countdown begin.

Acutally, we've been counting down for a while now. It wasn't really, real, until we could say "yeah, this time next week we'll be in Ireland."

So, for those of you who missed it, next week we'll be in Ireland.

We haven't filled every day with things to do and places to see and beers to drink, but that's fine. We're agreed that so long as we're all together, in Ireland, things will be fine. Although, my passport still hasn't arrived yet...

I might point out

that we're not leaving until July 4th. I put this up so we could "park" the name for the blog. I'm sure I misspelled it, and I'm sure Erin will correct me.

In the beginning...

we decided to go to Ireland this summer, instead of the beach that has become our second, two-weeks-a-year home.

"That's crazy," you might say, "who would give up a trip to the beautiful Outer Banks to go to some cold, wet, foreign island?"

Then I might respond by saying, "we would."

Welcome friends and family. Erin and I, and possibly mum, will be posting pictures and commentary from our trip in near real time, or probably delayed by a few days, provided I can find enough wireless hotspots and they don't cost more than an arm and a leg. I'd like to keep at least one of each.

If you didn't already know, our dad (hi dad!) has a tradition of collecting the photos from our family adventures and organising them in an album with some written commentary, from his trip through the Grand Canyon to my year of high school volleyball. And rather than carry a video camera with us like he really wanted, I've decided to update the whole album tradition with this here "photo blog", which I'll archive and save forever once we're done. But for now, it's accessable to everyone with an internet connection, so share the address and we'll share the experience.

Cheers!