We woke up on Saturday, had breakfast in the hostel (toast with Irish butter and raspberry jam again...yum yum addicted) and found out we had a new driver. My first glimpse of him was when he was wearing a golf cap and drinking a juice box. So I figured he'd at least be interesting. And I wasn't wrong. His name was Mike (nickname Wally) and he was just fine. Informative, funny but still. I missed Shaun.
Anyway, today was the day we were heading back to Dublin and making a few stops along the way. Our first stop of the day was at Blarney Castle. The castle was cool and all, but by this point, I've seen lots of castle-looking things in ruins. But it was still beautiful.
The main attraction, of course, is kissing the Blarney Stone. And walking the Wishing Steps in the Rock Garden. And donating to the witch statue. But don't worry, I'll explain them all. First, castle pictures, since we walked around the castle first and went up to kiss the stone.
Castle on a hill - what a surprise
River running by it
To educate yourself
Ooh ahh
The very top of the castle
Me with the view into Blarney
The Murder Hole - the hallway is below this so that when intruders came, you could attack them from above
So once we climbed to the top, it was time to kiss the stone. It was surprisingly fast, easy and not that scary. So you follow the edge of the castle around to find the stone that's been built into the castle. You lay down on the ground, grab the iron bars and lean back to kiss the stone as an old Irish man holds you and helps you back up. Don't worry, it's pretty safe because there's metal bars that prevent you from falling through but still. It was awesome. And now, supposedly, I have the gift of gab. Impressed?
From the ground, all the way at the top, where that broken area is, that's the stone
Even from inside the castle, it's pretty high up
It's a one track system
Getting read to kiss the stone
Actually kissing the stone!!
Laughing as I come back up
So it was pretty unreal. You always hear about kissing the Blarney Stone and it's awesome to be like, "Oh yeah, I did that."
After we came down from the kissing the stone, we decided to go find the Rock Garden and the Wishing Steps. So, if you're uneducated about Blarney Castle legend, as I was, legend has it that a witch lives in the Rock Garden. During the daytime, she is imprisoned in a stone but at night, she comes alive and steals firewood from the kitchen of the estate. In exchange for this, she has to grant people's wishes if they follow certain protocol on the Wishing Steps.
The deal is, you have to walk down and back up the steps backwards, with your eyes closed, thinking of nothing but your wish the whole time. It's pretty difficult but I did manage to do it. And we found the Witch's Stone and I left her some pennies, so I should be covered.
Yup, these steps
Coming down
And back up
Creepy huh
After walking around the gardens, we realized we like had no time left to get lunch, so I grabbed a sandwich at the local grocery store and ate it on the bus. Then, we had a pretty long drive back towards Dublin and our last stop at the Guinness Storehouse.
We did make one stop along the way - we got to get out and see from afar the Rock of Cashel, some sort of monument of some kind. So I took a picture.
Yeah it was far away and sunny, leave me alone
That brought us to our last and final stop, the Guinness Storehouse. Not before singing on the bus though, so my mission of singing in Ireland was accomplished.
The Guinness Storehouse was pretty cool. The ingredients section wasn't that interesting. I mean, it was pretty and all, but there wasn't anything unique about it. We did, however, get to learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness, something I had been interested in all along.
Turns out there are 5 steps to pouring Guinness and this cute little graphic explains them, but I'll go into more detail.
Cute little graphic
Step 1: Get the right glass. Easy enough.
Step 2: Hold it at a 45 degree angle under the tap with the golden harp on the glass pointing directly down.
Step 3: Pull the tap handle all the way towards you so the glass begins to fill. When the line of Guinness reaches the bottom of the harp, tilt the glass so it's back to straight up and down. When the line of Guinness reaches halfway up the harp, stop and put the glass down.
Step 4: Let it settle so that the head can form.
Step 5: Push the tap handle away from you, filling the glass the rest of the way up until the head just goes over the rim.
DONE.
So naturally, we got to pour and drink our own pint. Delicious.
Getting started
Look at that pour
That is a pro right there
Delicious
The other cool thing about the Guinness Storehouse was the Gravity Bar at the very top. One of the highest points in Dublin, you can see the city all around. Unfortunately, we had wasted too much time on the lower, less interesting floors so we basically had time to run around, take a few pictures, and then race back downstairs. We ended up being the last ones on the bus but oh well.
View
View
View
After our stop at Guinness, we were returned to Paddy's Palace, exhausted but thrilled with the past couple of days. We ended up going to a pub up the street for dinner, where I got a baked potato with chili on it (delicious) and then passing out, since we had to get up early again for our flight back to Florence.
SUNDAY
After almost missing the airport shuttle and freaking out about the time change, we did make it to the airport, made it on our flight, made it back to Pisa, got the bus back to Florence and made it back to our apartment with little to no problems. I was able to go out and get groceries, which was nice and we spent the day recovering and sleeping.
MONDAY
We had the day off of class so I basically spent the day doing the same thing I did yesterday. Recovering, reorganizing, beginning to blog about my trip and preparing for registration. So nothing too interesting.
And that concludes my Spring Break posts. Finally.
Ciao!!
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