On Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to catch our Paddywagon tour! We met 5 girls from North Carolina (we knew they would be there- two of them teach at Diane's school). They were really nice and we all had a fantastic weekend together.
Paddywagon tours are famous for being very lively and energetic. Our first bus driver's name was Shawney. He sang lots of songs and even persuaded us to sing a little Backstreet Boys with him. If you know me at all you'd know I was TOTALLY IN. I'm a true BSB fan.
This is just a small clip of Shawney singing to us.
Our first stop was at some sort of Abbey. It was interesting.
Then we stopped at the Burren. I think Burren stems from an Irish word meaning stone, which you can probably understand why from these pictures.
After this we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher! They were absolutely gorgeous! I've never seen anything like them. I wanted to just stand there and stare forever. I believe they're something like 170 feet high. We went past a sign that you aren't really supposed to go past, but I think the sign is just there to protect from any lawsuits. We got right up on the edge of the cliffs. It was kind of scary, but don't worry mom, we were safe ;) A couple stopped and asked us to take their picture, we ended up finding out they were from Indiana!!! They live in Avon, and the guy grew up in Brownsburg. What a small world! They were honeymooning, so of course Steph and I had to tell them we had gotten engaged here. It was so crazy.
Okay so we weren't supposed to go past this point, but we just HAD to! And seeing the next few pictures I think you'll understand that you'd probably make the same decision.
We were truly right next to the edge in this picture. A couple steps away would ensure a 170 foot dive into whatever body of water this is.
Being just a little immature here, but having fun of course:)
Then we headed to a beach in Galway.
Then we headed to Killarney, which is one of the most popular cities for young people. It was neat, but it was late and we were super tired so we didn't explore much. We trekked around the place trying to find something cheap to eat. We ended up getting sandwiches from a common convenient store called Spar. We then headed back to the hotel, and I unfortunately had some vertigo so I went to bed right away.
We woke up early again this morning, got ready in our glorious bed and breakfast, then made it back to the Paddywagon bus. Today we stopped at Blarney's Castle. This is a really famous castle and apparently if you kiss this stone you will get the "gift of the gab" for 7 years. I don't really know what the gift of gab is.. but I kissed the stone so apparently I'll have it. Discovery Channel lists kissing the Blarney Stone as one of the top 99 things to do before you die, so apparently it was important and worth my time :)
Kissing the stone was actually really scary. We were all the way at the top of the castle and could see down to the ground. You lay on this ledge and then bend your head backwards and kiss the stone upside down while this man holds on to you to make sure you don't plunge to your death. Okay, so maybe that was a bit dramatic- there are bars to catch you if you fall, but they weren't really THAT close together...
The steps to get to the top were SO narrow.
This is where guards would sit and watch visitors enter the castle. If they were unwanted visitors the guards would drop heavy rocks and things on them to kill the enemy.
We finally headed home after the Blarney Castle extravaganza. When I got home Eileen was there. Everyone wanted to know about my entire weekend. We talked and had a curry dinner Diane made. Then we had tea and chocolates and we talked some more. It was an awesome weekend. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment