I kissed the Blarney Stone ! :-)

(Note: This post is for Sunday, July 27, 2008.)

After a great breakfast this morning at the Killarney Plaza hotel, we were Cork-bound. Killarney has a huge national park, so on the way to Cork, we stopped several times along the way to see the sites. These included Ladies' View (an open area for viewing the mountains), Torc Waterfall, and the Muckross House, which is an architecturally beautiful mansion that overlooks a breathtaking view (and is part of the McCarthy family, Ev!). We then stopped at Molls Gap, which was an area that also overlooked the mountains, and happened to have the Avoca at Molls Gap shop. (I took pics for you, Ev.)

Just before arriving in Cork we stopped to visit Blarney Castle and to kiss the Blarney Stone. We toured the castle, which included crawling through a dungeon and climbing a LOT of tightly spiraled and narrow stairs to reach the top of the castle where we were lowered upside down by an elderly gentleman to kiss the Blarney Stone (let's home it brings me the gift of eloquence so I do well on my research paper for this class and the rest of the HESA program!). I got a picture ... I'll upload it when I get back!

We arrived at Cork just before dinner time, not too excited to arrive at the Jurys Inn since we'd had such a poor experience at the one in Limerick. However, turns out we were at the wrong hotel. We were actually staying at the Jurys Cork (which is owned separately from the Jurys Inn ... point WELL made by the employees); and Bob's comment of, "Wow this is a lot sexier than the other one," pretty much sums up that this one was MUCH better than the we expected. Moder, with a 4 star rating, this hotel is BEAUTIFUL. It's architecture is gorgeous, and there are the most comfortable, plush couches all over the place. One is plum colored and so comfy; I'd love to steal if for my apartment! As an added bonus, the room is brown and orange ... perfect for me! :-) We also have a shower and bath tube - best bathroom thus far!

Sabrena and I met up with Pam and Tony (our professors), Lorraine (another student) and David (our bus driver) to go to dinner. We ended up at Murphy's, which turned out to be the perfect choice - we had so much fun and great food! First off, we were mesmerized by the fact that all the tables had their own Guinness and Carlsberg taps in the center of them, allowing you to poor your own pints! For all you Irish beer lovers out there, this could get you in some serious trouble! Sabrena, Tony, and David decided to try it out, and David impressed us all by being able to make a shamrock in the foam on his Guiness. We had Irish beef hamburgers and chips of course (so good!), and were stuffed by the end of dinner. Conversation was great. It was nice to be able to talk to David about Ireland, and he had some funny stories to share with us. The best comment of the night definitely came from him. We were talking about festivals and David said, "You all are lucky because we're right in the middle of the Irish beer festival." Surprises and intrigued, we all looked at him and said, "Really?!" in unison, to which he responded, "Yeah, it starts January 1st and ends December 31st!" My stomach hurt from laughing so hard!

After dinner we walked around town for a bit to take pictures of the Cathedral, which in Tony's words was "very Harry Potterish." Sabrena and I then came back here, where we are clearly catching up on journals. Actually, I think Sabrena is uploading pics to Facebook ... check those out!