Day 7: Scotland - Our attempt to find Nessie

Will have to write this later and basically just post photos. I slept a good 10 hours of the 12 hour journey as I did not feel all that well. But Glen Coe and Loch Ness area are super pretty.
Glen Coe

Glen Coe is striking, but does not really compare to Switzerland.

Loch Ness
(and no, we didn't see the dang monster, how annoying. I want my money back)

The waters are really dark. They say that, but when you see it, it is creepy.





This is as close to Nessie as we came.....so sad. What is even more sad is the people who have moved to this area, in desparation of locating the monster, which any sane person would say, does not exist.....


Also, the adventures of our Hostel, which was great, but made me feel rather old........and sharing a room with 15 people??? Let's just say I have become a snotty 5-star hotel chick!


Also, we saw this animal today....

Day 6: Dublin to Edinburgh

Sorry for the delay in photos....and many more to come. Still have issues with one of my cameras....
Dublin

There was this tour that you could go on around Dublin and wear viking gear. Aimee was very upset that we did not chose to do this. I for one, probably would have done it, but would have had to erase or burn any evidence of going on it or paying for it. But, we did not....promise....nope....we DID NOT go on this!

Famous Molly statue....

Book of Kells - Trinity College. Exhibition was really cool and a must see if you are in Dublin. It is a copy of the first 4 gospels, made by monks and beautifully illustrated by monks. I just remember reading how they had to make the colours and paper and such - it was fascinating. The blue was only from a Lapis Lazuli (stone) found only in Afghanistan at that time and the red was from a pregnant insect body, and the purple was from a flower in the Mediterranean or something, and the paper was made from cows and it still had hairs in some places....
The Long Room exists in Trinity College. It is a library. One amazing library. A place that made Aimee fall in love. She fell in love with the oldness. The masses amounts of books. The heights of the shelves. The cool movable ladders. The ceiling. The floor. It reminded her of a scene from Indiana Jones....Did I mention the books? Aimee decided she could live there, in the Long Room. It became her favourite part of Ireland, or at least Dublin, but may for sure be one of her favourite places she has ever seen).

We could not take any photos inside, but you can read all about it here. Book of Kells

Kilmainham Gaol
Where U2 filmed their music video for A Celebration. We learned a lot about the struggles for freedom over many years and the sadness of the famine and the sad petty crimes that got people thrown into this jail or beheaded.



Stalking of U2/Bono - yes, we did try to go see a few things U2 related......we will post those creepy stalker photos shortly (we did not break any laws, however, promise, but may have been fun had we done so).

Dublin semi redeemed itself to me. I loved the Temple Bar area and the city was charming, but honestly, did not feel any different than North Eastern United States, probably because places like Boston were heavily influenced by Ireland, but I expected Dublin to be cooler.

Day 5: Dublin - South Coast and City

Photos and more coming.......
We went to the South Coast and Powerscourt Gardens to start the day. Went through Sandycove, which is near where Bono lives, and an amazingly beautiful city near the Killiney Bay, which I could retire at, if only a bit warmer year round.
Sandycove area


I loved this cute little kid. He just smiled and laughed a lot.
Powerscourt Gardens
See some random photos. It was beautiful, but everything is pretty and green hear, so everything is kind of blending in.





Please note, that this estate is where Braveheart battle scenes were filmed in DUBLIN of all places.....


We also drove through The Scalp, which is a dramatic geographical fault - yippie....no photos were taken....


We then returned to Dublin and just hopped on a bus and checked out random sites. Saw Trinity College, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Temple Bar, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Guiness Storehouse, Phoenix Park and some other random sites. We didn't explore much, and will do that in the morning and go to Trinity College and to the Jail......

Oh and we saw the President of Ireland driving around:



Temple Bar


Dublin City

We go to Scotland tomorrow night....wahooo!

Day 4: Cork to Dublin

Let me first start off by saying the accident we saw on Day 3, was all over the papers and 3 people did die. Sad. Still grateful it was not us,but back to our travels......

Started off with Blarney Castle - one of the coolest places so far......




I look like a hobbit or a garden gnome. Whatever, I look extremely short. FINE! I am short, I know, but I am taller than a garden gnome.


Tried going to the Swiss Cottage in Cahir, but it was closed for 2007......could not even get near it to take a photo. Sad. But I guess, it probably isn't all that cool anyways.


Since we were in Cahir we stopped by the Cahir Castle. Did not go inside, but did take a few photos.....and we did have a nice picnic (more peanut butter sandwiches, yes)!



Rock of Cashel
Rather disappointing to be honest. For all the hype it gets in tour books and by people I know who have been there, it really is nothing much, and maybe it is due to seeing Cahir and Blarney on the same day that just made me not care at all about this. Although the Cathedral was awesome and it is rather impressive from the street.




We then were tired and decide to drive towards Dublin and if we saw something, we would have stopped potentially. However, we were all tired and other than a stop at an American-style truck stop (in a random, extremely small town), we just headed into Dublin. We arrived in Dublin around 17:30, which proved to be a rather horrific time. Not only was it rush hour, we did not have a good map, nor did we have any idea where we were really going. By about 18:30, I decided, I hated this town. We drove aimlessly around and around and around, crazy one-way streets, or two-way streets that you could not turn right on. It was awful. Also, so far, I have seen nothing all that redeeming about this town. The river/streams or whatever, are kind of ugly. The buildings are sort of blah....nothing all that cool. Now of course, it was frustrating. Due to the traffic, not knowing where we were really going, the random one-way streets and the random cannot turn right on streets, made our journey in Dublin to find our hotel over 2 hours. 2 freakin hours!!! Yes, now, I hate this town.........we'll see if actually spending 2 days here will change my mind and find the beauty of this place.

I did enjoy my dinner last night. Non-pub food. Enjoyed some carrots and asparagus and tomato soup - all things I could live on for dinner every single…..

Day 3: Limerick to Cork

Happy April Fool’s Day! Well, to start off, we ventured off to the St. John’s Castle in Limerick. Unfortunately, it was rather sunny and pictures proved a difficult undertaking based on where we were, and it was way too cold to be walking all that far just for a good shot. But here you go anyways, best I could do under the circumstances…..

(this was on the side of the Castle)


I did love Limerick!

We then drove to Ross Castle in Killarney. It was cool, but not all that impressive really.

Muckross House was also decent.

Loads of people driving around in horse and buggy…..felt like we were in Pennsylvania or something……

The worst part of our trip so far, came after the Muckross House, as we traveled through Killarney National Park in the Ring of Kerry. There were steep, long, windy roads that were so narrow, that our car did hit bushes on each side of the road, yet it was somehow meant for two-way traffic. We are supposed to also drive 100KM/H. Seriously, NO way you can go over 50KM/H on these freakin’ roads. There was also a curvy narrow bridge. It was scary. It was nerve-racking. Wish I had some Dramamine. I think so did the driver. But, you know what? We survived, and made it to our destination and that is all that really matters.

We did encounter this old ruin and lovely sheep....we had to nearly die walking to this area and Aimee threw a rock at the sheep to startle it, but we were laughing too hard to get a picture. And no, the sheep was not harmed since Aimee throws like a girl.....

Other horrific things of the day and so not an April Fool's joke……we saw a horrible accident on the way to Killarney. Two cars were mangled beyond recognition. No way anyone survived at all. After that, we recalled we did not say a prayer for the day, and immediately did so in hopes that we would not succumb to a similar fate today. In addition, we saw a house chimney fire with a firefighter in the chimney trying to put the fire out, and we sure hope he was OK and did not succumb to a horrible fate. Then we saw a forest fire, which hopefully no one died in. This I did attempt to take a picture of from our moving vehicle.

We did also encounter a really mean Irish asshole in the form of a bald man with a green button up shirt in a silver car who basically flipped us off, for doing absolutely nothing but was horribly rude and tried to run us completely off the road!! We all cursed at this point. We know it is a Sunday, and we should be much more reverent, but I think under the circumstances we were justified and have been forgiven.

Cool house which may or may not have been from Day 3.....but I am putting it here anyways.....actually I think it was from Day 2, but whatever......

Ok, now we did finally make it to the Staigue Stone Fort from the Iron Age. Please also note the signs!! They say STAY OFF THE TOPS......dumb cute German kids.....

Above is a random bone we saw on the ground at the fort....

Bantry House in Bantry

Almost tropical?

My favourite random signs so far on this journey. I really enjoy taking random photos of absolutely meaningless things that if you had a non digital camera you’d be pissed to waste a photograph on……

And I missed taking a photograph of a perfect sign saying “LENT….REPENT” – how awesome… Dang it!!! I so hope I see another one before I leave.

ok, fire assembly is not funny at all, however, this one is behind a fence and in the trees...have fun in case of fire.

For the tourists....kind of sad....where is 'this way to the pot of gold'?

The sign says it all
Don't remove the stones people....the old ruins of cool things would fall down.

At least they warn you that you could fall off and die.

We have been surviving on Peanut Butter and Nutella sandwiches and Orange Juice and Diet Coke. We are cheap, yes, but more importantly, stopping for food wastes valuable driving time.


That is all for the day pretty much......more tomorrow from Cork to Dublin......