We’re having too much fun in Galway to post a new blog, but we will soon!  Rory arrived yesterday and tomorrow we are heading to Westport and to climb Croagh Patrick!

Slainte!

Jeannie and Tiffany

Galway has felt like the place on this planet I was born to be since the summer of 2007.  I’ve now returned every other summer, and today, immediately upon our arrival, I felt “home” again.  Then, within the first hour we saw both Stu, the bartender with one tooth I met back in 2009, AND my fav homeless man, who totally shaved his beard down!  And we ate kebobs and garlic fries from The Charcoal Grill while sitting at Galway Bay.  I took Tiffany on the main walk on Shop St. from the Bay to Eyre Square and back and I drove us up to Dunnes to get some groceries for our sick apartment.  It feels so good to be unpacked and it feels sooooooo good to be back in Galway.  I’m as in love with this place as I’ve ever been and we haven’t even been here a day.  The next two weeks are going to be amazing.  As the Black Eyed Peas say, I’ve got a feeling.

Tonight = Taaffes, The King’s Head, and Tig Coili I’m sure.

Jeannie

The Atlantic Ocean – it’s beautiful.  This is my first time in my life that I’ve ever seen any ocean (I know…I clearly had to fly over the Atlantic to get here, but that was in the middle of the night) and it is truly magnificent.  We are a very short walking distance away from Galway Bay and the ocean and I couldn’t be any happier.  I’ve already taken a ton of pictures and I absolutely cannot WAIT to go for a run tomorrow morning. A run. A long the OCEAN SHORE.  I can hardly believe it!  I am so blessed and I pray that each and every person in my life feels even half as elated as I do right now.  God is good all the time

Well, hello ocean...it's nice to meet you!

Well, let’s get right to it, shall we?  Our first week in Ireland (together of course…Jeannie’s going on week 3!) has turned out to be AMAZING so far! We arrived in Roscommon yesterday morning and headed straight to what I’ve been trying to see since I got here – A CASTLE. Roscommon Castle to be exact!  Although it was in ruins (not complete ruins, but definitely missing some key structural parts like the main walls…a roof…you know, the small stuff ) it was still a magnificent sight to see!  We explored every inch of the castle that we could and took lots and lots of pictures.  Afterwards, we checked into our hotel and then walked around Roscommon to do some sight seeing.  We came across the GORGEOUS church (Sacred Heart) and actually ended up going to mass there this morning.  I’ll get into how THAT went in a bit, but in the mean time I’ll update you on the rest of our day.  We had a beer at a bar next to our hotel (at which there was a wedding reception later that evening – by the way CONGRATS EDAN AND DONAL!) for yet another ice cold Guiness, came back to the hotel for dinner, and then rested up before heading out for the most fun evening of our trip thus far!  We ended up at a bar called JJ’s that we had seen earlier in the day because they had live music.   We got there about an hour before show time (Huey & The Hobgoblins was set to perform at 10PM) but the bar was showing the Klitschko v Haye fight first.  It turned out that the fight went all 12 rounds so Huey and his Hobgoblins went on a little later then planned. No matter. That just gave Jeannie and I even more time to drink.  Oh, and speaking of drinking…my new favorite beer is Galway Hooker.  It’s delicious and tasted very much like Great Lakes Burning River Ale.  It tasted like home   Anyway, there were all sorts of characters in the bar that evening and our favorite one by far was…wait for it…THE MILK MAN. At least that’s what we refered to him as. Why the Milk Man you ask?  Well, it’s because he drank 4-6 drinks mixed with Tia Maria ( a coffee liqueur that we’d never heard of until we started seeing it at every pub we’ve been to) and ice cold milk.  And this wasn’t over the course of an entire evening…this was like in a 30 minute window.  We watched him polish off a half gallon of 2% milk while the Hobgoblins played in the background…it was glorious and the perfect ending to the perfect evening.

This morning we both woke up with mild hangovers and headed to the church I mentioned earlier.  Now like I said…this church was absolutely stunning and I just knew that their service was going to be unbelievable.  Well, it was unbelievable alright…unbelievably loud.  The sanctuary was packed with a large number of antsy children  AND adults who wanted nothing to do with sitting quietly in a church pew for an hour. I don’t normally go around bad mouthing church services and masses, but that by far had to be the most underwhelming church service I have ever been to in my life.  Seriously, I can’t imagine that anyone got anything out of it because it was not only crazy loud and disruptive due to all of the children crying and running up and down the aisles…but the priest seemed like he couldn’t get through the response readings, prayers and homily fast enough! Overall, definitely not our best experience in Ireland thus far.  However, our Sunday was redeemed when after lunch we headed to Stokestown Park – home of the National Irish Famine Museum.  We took a tour not only of the museum, but of the Stokestown House and the beautiful garden outside as well.  It was incredibly informational, but also very emotional to see how the Great Irish Famine of 1841 changed Ireland forever.  It was definitely an experience that neither of us will soon forget.

After we left Stokestown, we headed to Chiuachanan Ai – a series of royal Celtic sites.  Of the 11 available sites that we could view (7 of which you needed permission from the land owner before accessing) we only really wanted to visit one – Oweynagat Cave.  Oweynagat Cave (Cave of the Cats) is said to be the entrance to the Celtic Otherworld and the one site we just had to see!  In order to get there we had to park on the side of the road and walked about 25 minutes down some very rural  roads surrounded by sheep and cows as far as the eye could see.  We weren’t entirely comfortable with the area we were in, but we pushed though and eventually came upon a gate opening ‘locked’ by barbed wire (which I undid with my bare hands by thw way! I’m so tough ).  We went through and after only a few feet we  found this little 2ft by 4ft opening in the earth  that led us to the Otherworld…that is if we would have actually climbed through the hole on our bellies and went in.  We both had on skirts and decided that army crawling through a hole to access a cave that neither of us knew what would be waiting for us on the inside was not how we were going to spend our Sunday afternoon. We took some pictures and went on our merry way completely and utterly satisfied with our accomplishment.  Immediately upon returning to the hotel I hopped on my laptop to write this blog and Jeannie did some research on what exactly is inside Oweynagat Cave.  She found a video that takes you through the cave and it’s really good! Apparently there’s a 30 foot drop once you crawl in the entrance – thank God we didn’t just go in there!  Anyway, the video is great and taking pictures of the entrance of the cave was good enough for us!

Ok, that’s it for now.  This is our last night in Roscommon and then we’re heading to Galway in the morning – woohoo!

Cheers,

Tiffany & Jeannie

P.S.  Have a happy 4th of July tomorrow, folks!  We’ll be thinking of you all and wishing we could see some fireworks while rocking to a live band in the King’s Head (oldest pub in Ireland) or tapping our toes to some trad (traditional Irish music) in Taaffes or Tig Coili.  Galway is Jeannie’s town and she’s ready to take it by storm and show Tiffany how Galway is done

roundtower in Kildare

Hey hey everyone! So I’m here to fill in the blanks and make a few small corrections.  We stopped at Powerscourt on the way to Wicklow Mountain National Park, not Kildare, but other than that I only have things to add.  Tiffany forgot to mention that in Kildare we climbed to the tippy top of the second highest round tower in Europe at St. Brigid’s Cathedral.  I will separately publish a picture of us at the door once we came down, a picture of the tower itself, and a picture of the view from the top – we literally stood on the top.  It was pretty scary at times climbing up but we made it!  Wicklow Mountain National Park was stunning!  And driving on the roads there was an adventure and a half, but I feel a bit like a driving champ now   We did have a slightly possessed room at the B&B — our tv kept changing channels by itself, landing on an evil clown at one point…as anyone who knows me will tell you that’s pretty much my worst nightmare other than an evil clown actually appearing in my room.  We survived though and I’d love to make it back to that area some day.  We also saw a commercial about the benefits of seasoning your chicken breasts by rubbing chicken bullion cubes on them…we have our doubts.  Tiffany also forgot to mention our exhilarating trip to Avoca, the place where they film the show Ballykissangel.  It had a weaving factory…we think…there wasn’t any actual weaving happening.  It was possibly the most uninteresting place I’ve ever been, but no adventure here is wasted time.  We are having a blast!  Tomorrow we are heading to the Famine Museum.  Can’t wait to get to Galway soon!!

Jeannie

So much has happened since we left Dublin!  We’ll fill you all in on the fabulous  details of our travels later, but in the mean time…here’s what we’ve been doing since Wednesday:

1.) Powerscourt House & Garden – We stopped here on our way to Kildare. Basically it’s a gorgeous house with an amazing garden (and pet cemetery!) that you can explore for hours.  We took tons of pictures and had an amazing time!

2.) The Meeting of The Rivers – 2 rivers met here. Yep. Oh, and they had a gift shop.  And there were some 10-year-old boys smoking cigarettes too.

3.) Wicklow National Park – We took a nice 45384573  km hike (well, it seemed that long!)  around the whole park.  It was mountains and forest as far as the eye could see with a gorgeous lake smack dab in the middle. It’s the type of place you dream about! Oh, and I conquered one of my biggest fears - heights – here as well  For those of you who know me you know what a HUGE accomplishment this is!  

4.) Greenan Farm & Village – I tackled another one of my biggest fears here – horses! I actually pet one on the head. That is until it got irritated and started kicking. Yep. That’s when I walked away. but there were lots of other animals there that weren’t nearly as frightening.  My favorite? The pigs   Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the Celtic Maze. It was made of super  high bushes and we went through as soon as we arrived on the farm.  Let’s just say that it was not at all as easy as we thought it was going to be!

5.) Japanese Garden & Irish National Stud – The garden was breath-taking.  The horses were beautiful.  And Jeannie made friends with a couple of birds that she kept feeding like the crazy homeless lady that lives in the park.

6.) St. Brigid’s Cathedral – Kildare is all about St Brigid and there was no shortage of Bridgit-esque related things to do and sites to see!  The pictures from this are awesome so we’ll be sure to get some posted some time soon.

Alright, we’ve got to get out of here.  We arrived in Roscommon not too long ago and it’s time to explore! We’ve already been to the Roscommon Castle (LOVED IT!) and now it’s time to see what else this city has to offer. Stay tuned…

T-$$ & J-Licious

 

wicklow mountain national parkwicklow mt. nat'l park

fountain at powerscourt

Leprechaun Masterpieces

Wicklow Mountain National Park

Wicklow Mountain National ParkWicklow Mountain National Park

Everything about Dublin has been spectacular…except for one thing that will disappoint all of you.  I made it to the final round of trivia at the end of the literary pub crawl only to be beaten by an 11 year old boy who made three guesses (I promise you he had no idea who Yeats, Beckett, Heaney or Shaw are/were) in the span of 8 seconds.  What did the 11 year old win?  I small bottle of whiskey.   And then I got booed by the pub crawl leaders when I said “technically, Heaney is a Northern Irish writer” — their response “It’s all Ireland?”  Where the hell were they the last two weeks??  Anyway, I successfully answered all the more challenging trivia questions that I asked myself   I was a bit of a crazy person.  Don’t let John Carroll know I lost to an 11 year old or they might give him my degree instead…the brat.

I’m over it though…really, I am.

It’s time to get back in the car (help me, Jesus!!) and head for Wicklow Mountain National Park.  Not sure what the internet situation will be there so you may not hear from us until Kildare (rhyme!).  Alos, Translations at The Abbey was awesome!

And I bought Guinness underwear.   Now you know everything of importance.

Jeannie