Ireland (May 2nd-7th)

On May 2nd, we arrived in Dublin, Ireland and picked up our rental car at the airport. I was actually pretty nervous about Shane driving in Ireland. Don`t get me wrong, I have always thought of him as an excellent driver, but this is on the opposite side of the car, the road, AND he would be shifting with the opposite hand. It didn`t help that Shane admitted to being nervous as well. But, we hopped in our little car and took off. We were pretty excited to have the freedom of our own car after weeks of buses and planes and guided tours.

For the next 5 days, we would spend A LOT of time in that car.We spent our first night (May 2nd) in Dublin and had a bit of a look around. But, early the next morning (May 3rd), we jumped back in the car to head south to start our roadtrip around Ireland. We were determined to make it all the way around Ireland.Our first stop was Waterford, Ireland, where Waterford crystal is made. However, I don`t think we saw one piece of crystal in the entire town. We only spent a couple hours there and then, we were on the road again.

We drove through a lot of little towns and villages, and some big ones, like Cork, also.We saw a sign for the Jameson Whiskey Distillery and decided we could use a break from driving and a tour sounded pretty interesting. We also liked the idea that we could just stop whereever we wanted, whenever we wanted. This distillery was in Middleton, and it is one of the oldest and biggest distilleries of Irish Whiskey. It is no longer in use, because they built another, more modern one right next to it a few years ago. It was a pretty informative tour, and at the end, I got chosen to do a whiskey tasting. I had to try Irish, Scottish and American whiskey and then choose my favorite. Of course, my choice was Irish!

We continued on our roadtrip, driving southwest and got to the town of Kerry. Now, we have heard about the Ring of Kerry our entire lives, but in all honesty, when we arrived in Kerry, we both realized that we had absolutely NO idea what it actually was. We just knew that we had to see it. Well, it turns out that it is this road in the shape of a U that is about 180 km long (if I remember correctly), and it goes along a sort of peninsula on the south coast. We decided to drive the entire length of it, and it took about 2 1/2 or 3 hours. It was a stunning drive...quite long...but well worth it. Just wait til I post the pictures...it was just gorgeous.

After leaving Kerry, we decided to try to find a hostel near Blarney, our next destination, so we could stay the night and wake up the next morning, and go to Blarney castel to kiss the Blarney Stone. Well, finding a hostel turned out to be a huge challenge. Shane and I have not had the best of luck on this trip when it comes to finding things we need (like food, hostels, streets...) It was in Ireland that we learned the value of booking hostels ahead. So, after looking for what seemed like forever, we decided to just give in and pay a little more for a bed and breakfast. So, we stayed in a lovely little B&B in Blarney, had our own room with a bathroom, coffee and tea in our rooms, a huge breakfast and we were pretty happy as long as we didn`t discuss the money. I tried to justify the extra cost of the room saying that we had breakfast included, and since Shane eats so much, and is hungry 30 min. later, it was worth it.

The next morning (May 4th) we got up and went to Blarney Castle. This is one of the first tourist attractions that we actually paid to get into, because we wanted a photo kissing the Blarney Stone. (We usually just take photos of the outside of important buildings, but never actually go inside, to save money...cheapskates I know) The castle was lovely and soon you will see the photos to verify it:) (Just on a side note, the photos of us actually kissing the stone were taken by Shane´s camera, and 3 weeks after we left Ireland, Shane´s camera was stolen on a train. So, in other words, we have no proof to show, but we really did kiss it!)

After leaving Blarney, we kept driving west and started going up the west coast. Our destination was a little town called Ennis that Shane had visited 3 years before, when he was in Ireland. We went to a place called Bunratty to see the castle there as well. Shane had already been there too, so this was more for my benefit. Of course, we made the same mistake of not booking a hostel ahead of time, and once again searched fruitlessly for a hostel, and once again, ended up in a B&B. This one was nicer than the first, but the woman who owned it seemed terribly strict. I think we refered to her as "the Nazi" at one point. We were a bit scared to come back past 11pm. But, she was actually pretty nice and this B&B had the best shower we had had up until this point in the trip (you can see where our priorities lie...we are constantly comparing showers, beds, and communal rooms in different hostels) This night, we ventured into the town of Ennis to try to find a place where Shane had heard traditional Irish music the last time he was there. We found the place, and there was a band, but not a traditional one. We were a bit bummed about that, but it allowed us to get back to the B&B pretty early, so the Nazi woman wouldn´t be mad.

The next morning (May 5th), we awoke and went to a place not far from Ennis called the Cliffs of Moer. Now, these cliffs were massive and so so beautiful. I know I say that a lot of things are beautiful, but WOW...you can´t really find words to describe this place. So, this is how our day started...and it was to be a very very long day. If you get a chance to look at a map of Ireland, you will understand why I say this. We started driving from Ennis (on the western side of Ireland and kind of in the middle) and decided to drive up towards Northern Ireland and find a hostel somewhere on the way to Belfast. Well, as you probably have already guessed, there were no hostels to be found. So, we drove for about 13 hours that day, into the night and arrived in Belfast around 11pm. We finally found one hostel, but they didn´t have any rooms, and the guy told us that no one in town would. Then, he called a hostel a little north of Belfast to see if they had rooms for us, and when they heard we were American, they said they had nothing. It was not a good day.

So, we made the decision to just sleep in the car and wake up and drive to Dublin the next morning and find a hostel there.We found a tourist info center, parked and wrapped up in coats and went to sleep. It was about 5 degrees Centigrade that night, which is quite cold in case you don´t know. I think my feet almost froze off. (Just for a little background...from May 2nd to the 5th, we spent A LOT of time in that car. We stopped and bought loaves of bread, cheese, meat, etc. and would eat while driving down the road. I was the cook, Shane was the driver. So, sleeping in the car was almost poetic. I actually filmed a little video on May 5th while driving through Northern Ireland, so hopefully I will find a way to post that soon. I give an entire tour of our car)

In the wee hours of the morning on May 6th (and I do mean wee hours, cause the sun rises at about 3:45 or 4:00), we started driving back to Dublin. We found hostel, (the 4 Courts Hostel) but we couldn`t check in until 1pm, so we went in search of a laundry mat to clean some clothes. However, being Sunday, nothing was allowed to open before 12, so we just walked around in the cold misty weather for awhile. We were pretty exhausted at this point. It was while walking around that we ran into the Australian lady, Karen, that we had met in Edinburg. We found out she was going to the airport early the next morning, and since we were also, we offered to pick her up and give her a ride.We saw a movie theatre and thought it would be warm, so we decided that Spiderman 3 would help us make it through until 1pm. We finally checked into the hostel, found a laundry mat and did laundry, and then went back to the hostel, showered and went to sleep. It was about 7pm and we slept until 3am.

On May 7th, we left the hostel at 3:30am, picked up Karen on a street corner, and drove to the airport. Our destination was London once more, where we were supposed to catch a flight to St. Petersburg, Russia. The only problem here was that we bought tickets from Dublin to London Heathrow, and we actually needed to fly to Russia from another airport, London Stansted. NO worries though, we had a 24 hour layover in London, so we had plenty of time to get to Stansted.

So, I will leave you here. My next post will be about May 8th, the day we arrived in Russia...better known is the day we realized that we would be completely lost for the next 8 days!!!