Dispatches from Ireland

Right now Andrew is asleep and I am checking my favorite internet sites I haven't had a chance to check on. He got up early for class while I slept until 10, not to mention after we got home from our afternoon excursion, I took a nap. So he was a little more sleepy than I was tonight.

Ireland has been a lot of fun! I've been here for a week and I'll be here until next weekend, so there's still lots of time to do stuff. Andrew took me to Killarney and we went to see Ross castle, which was very pretty (and cold). On the walk there, the weather couldn't decide if it wanted to be sunny or hail, so it did some of both. Probably the only day that I've been hailed on and got a bit of a sunburn too (on my face - just a little pink!). Ross castle was built in the 15th c. and traded hands many times before present day, which adds a lot of interesting information to its history. It had just opened for the season, so barely anyone was there. We had our own private tour of the castle, which was really nice. There were monastary ruins that you could get to by boat from the castle, but the boat drivers weren't there or it wasn't open; either way we didn't get to see the monastary ruins. Not as bad as missing the Sistine Chapel, but pretty lame.

Today we went to Cork city Gaol (jail... pretty phonetic). It was kind of creepy. I'm usually not a big fan of touring places used for imprisionment or torture, but at the same time I feel that the point of visiting these places is to make sure conditions and situations like those never happen again. We also hit up the Cork City Musuem. Pretty interesting to see the history of the city... although the exhibit did make a big historical jump from 600 BC to 600 AD in one glass case. I think they're probably just working with what they have, though.

Tomorrow we're going to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Exciting! Andrew feels weird about kissing a stone that millions of people have kissed before, but I told him he's pretty much doing the same thing every time he kisses me. Haha!

Tuesday is Dublin. Monday is St. Patrick's Day - there's a parade and everything! I'm excited. I should probably head to bed so I'm not tired tomorrow... although I seem to be tired more often here. It's probably all the walking. Much more than I'm used to, but not an extreme amount. It was about a 2 mile walk to Ross Castle, but it's also about 2 miles from Andrew's apartment into the city center. Anyway, more walking than just around the library bookshelves like I'm used to. More later. Love!