Day 3 continued...

Our journey continued on the way to Kilkenny. After the nice Petrol station lady helped us, we were able to follow the directions pretty well until we got to Kilkenny. Thanks to my mom's wonderful idea, we have a cell phone (mobile (mo-by-l for their pronunciation compared to our mo-bill) phone) and I was able to call the B&B. The VERY nice lady there sent her husband to come and rescue us and he lead us up to their location.

Kilkenny is a beautiful little town but the roads there are insanely tiny. There's barely enough room for 2 cars to pass and often times there are other cars on the side of the road so you have to let one side go first (or there are braver Irish people that just plow on ahead). I didn't have to drive through the town itself too much so that was a good thing. I'm not sure I could have navigated down those roads.

Nick and I were quite hungry after our 4-5 hour drive so we gamely took their map and walked into town to find dinner. The map said it wasn't to scale and, sure enough, it wasn't. We had to double back a few times to make sure we were going the right way (we were) and so finally I stopped a nice couple on the street and asked them if they knew where Italian Connection was. They didn't but they pointed to another Italian restaurant a few buildings up that we could try. (Little did we know that Italian Connection was right across the street!)

The food there was good, a bit expensive but it is in most locations here. After dinner we walked down to the castle (or at least what I think was the castle) and took some pictures. Then back to the B&B for some much needed rest.

The next morning the owners were so wonderful in helping us to plan our route to Kinsale. They even called the next B&B for us and wrote down the directions as well as showed us on the map. With their directions, we had no trouble getting to the town. Once we were in town, that was when we had some trouble...but that's for the next story.

I do highly recommend The Meadows B&B in Kilkenny (6 Greenfields Road, Bishop Meadows, Kilkenny City - 056 7721649) for anyone who wants a great place to stay. It was clean, quiet and they served an amazing breakfast!

Day 2 - Dealings with Dublin, a Surge Snafu and a Spectacular Sunset

After we got to the hotel and checked in, we weren't able to go to our room just yet because they only had smoking rooms available at that time. We decided to go into the heart of Dublin to purchase some food and have a look around. We were able to take the bus, a double decker one that was almost totally full so, much to Nick's disappointment, we weren't able to ride on the top level. We got off on O'Connell Street and on one side of the street was McDonalds and on the other side was Burger King. Nick wanted to go to one or the other but I was adament that we would go to an Irish cafe/pub/something and get food that didn't originate in America.


Picture of the monkey when we were walking around, trying to find food.

We walked all around and, finally, I gave in. He was cranky and tired and I didn't blame him. This was one of the battles that I chose not to fight anymore and we headed into McDonalds. The crew there was wearing shirts that either said something in Irish Gaelic or said "My boss is a clown." Who wouldn't want that shirt?! The meal itself was a little expensive but not too bad; around $14 for a Happy Meal and a 6 piece value meal. Nick and I decided to go upstairs and sit on the 2nd level. There was a mother and her 3 kids right behind us and the little boy was playing with his toy which flies. All of a sudden it came and hit Nick on the head, not too hard but it was noticable. The lady apologized many times but, since Nick wasn't hurt, I thought it was really cool to have an interaction with an Irish family like that.

Below are more pictures of the sites when we were touring Dublin.

A Bailey's sign for a certain person who loves the drink (and you know who you are)!


The River Liffey.


The bird Nick insisted that I take a picture of.


And the reminder to always look left for oncoming traffic (as a pedestrian of course).

We took the bus back to the hotel and were able to sit in the upper section; Nick was so excited!

Once we arrived back at the hotel, we were able to check into our room and bring the luggage up. I promptly tried to use my adaptor/converter and forgot to plug in the converter and fried my surge protector. When we left the next day, it still smelled fried. *blech*

Nick and I were both quite exhausted so we opted to have dinner at the hotel and were evel able to take it up to our room in order to relax.

Below are some pictures of the view from our hotel room.