Ireland

 Day 0
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We woke up a bit early because we were excited about the trip. Dad had gotten doughnuts, bananas and orange juice for breakfast.
I ran outside with mom to cover my car with boxes and a car cover. We tied down the car cover in 4 places. I heard that the next day was supposed to have lots of storms, and there was a high possibility of tornadoes in the area.
Mom dad and I all got dressed and packed up. My place was a bit of a mess because I had been packing to move. My whole room was boxed up and there was only standing room.

We were getting ready to get in the car when I realized that my roommate's bed stuff dad had borrowed was missing. We searched for a good ten minutes for it. Mom and dad had to undo their suitcases because we just could not find the bedding. Turns out dad had stuffed it in a box and put it in the entertainment center. Im not sure how he forgot that, but we searched for a while until I realized the box was in a weird spot.
Mom was freaking out about getting to the airport on time. I thought we had plenty of time because the airport is such a small airport in OKC.

We planned on parking in an undercover parking garage because of future storms. I did not realize that the lot could be full. We had to drive around for a while until we found one small spot that both sides of the spot had the other car parked over the line. Dad got us squeezed in, but we were worried about the other cars getting scratches on our car. So we unpacked the car and took pictures of the other cars. Then headed on our way.
The parking garage floor had slips of paper you could tear off to remind you where you parked. I knew I would remember 4, but mom took one anyways.
When we got to the keosk, it said that we could not put our luggage through because we were too late. Mom and dad were freaking out, but we went to go ask the front lady and she sent it through. Turns out we were 40 minutes too late. But, luckily, or boarding passes said pre-check and we got to go in a short line to get through security. Mom's hands got swabbed (of course). They said it was random, but it probably wasn't.

We made it to the gate and waited for a bit. Our first stop was Charlotte, NC.
I was really hungry so we stopped at a burger and fries type place called Bad Daddy's burger bar. It was awful. The place smelled like BO. Dad can't smell so I had to tell him where not to stand so people didn't think it was him. Mom got only sweet potato fries. I got a salad and dad got a burger or sandwich with tots. The food took a long time and was not that great.
2nd stop was Philadelphia. Mom's neck pillow was a memory foam pillow that was too hard to sleep on. So dad bought a pillow for both of us. I didn't believe in it, but it sure helped out a lot.
The outlets at the gate were awful as well. None of them worked. They either didn't have electricity or they were too loose so I couldn't charge my phone.
There was a kid who was on the same plane. I knew by his attire and stance that he was Irish, and dad went up to ask if he was. Then dad proceeded to ask about the phrase Emily Aran's dad kept saying was "Top of the morning to ya" and you were supposed to reply ... "and the rest of the day too ya". It was super embarrassing and I kept telling him not to do so. I think the kid understood my embarrassment.

When we were on the plane, and as it was backing out, there was a weird bump in the plane as we left the gate. Apparently the tug broke and they had to fix it. There was a rod that was supposed to have the tug release from, but it didn't work right. We all got off the plane, and then 20 min. later we all got back on. It was about an hour and 40 min. ordeal for them to get it all fixed up. Thankfully it wasn't an actual problem with the plane though.
The flight was about a 7 hour flight, a little less. I slept so well (well well enough for a plane ride). I woke up twice. The first time was when the stewardess (male) was handing mom dinner, and Immediately asked me what I wanted for dinner. I answered and then realized I wasn't hungry. I put it in my bag. It was a pasta dish with crackers, cheese, etc.

Day 1
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I woke up again when breakfast was coming around I woke up again. Since we were in the back of the plane we only had about 20 min until landing. They gave us muffin tops... just the top. and yogurt and granola for breakfast.

Mom woke dad up, which he was upset about, until he realized we had 20 min till landing and we saw the coast of Ireland. It didn't feel like I was landing on Ireland. It just felt like I was still in the US. And the coast looked like what I imagined England to look like.
We landed at the airport and it was the easiest customs ever. We just walked under a doorway that said customs, and that was it. There was a guy who checked my visa and asked why I was coming to Ireland. I replied "Fun" and then thought that was probably insensitive and said vacation ... but he was already looking at the next person.
Realizing that we had just "slept" and it was a new day... mom and dad tried to towel shower and brush their teeth. I just re-did my hair and called it good.
I saw biscuits at one of those airport shops. And there was a newspaper that had an article about a girl "who got blasted in the throat". She did survive, but there was a crazy person who came in to shoot someone or something. It all worked out but I thought it was weird that it published "Blasted in the throat."
There were a lot of celebrity magazines in the shop as well. I was surprised by that because I thought that was an American thing. About half the magazines were filled with American celebrities and the rest were people I had not seen before.
We exchanged some of our cash and then waited for the shuttle to take us to get the car rental. It was so calm outside. The air was peaceful. However, it seems like there are a lot more people who smoke.
The car that we rented was very very small. It didn't really fit our luggage and us at all. Mom and I laughed a bit about it. But they had heard that you want a small car for the trip.
There are a lot of roundabouts in Ireland. 
Our first stop was Shannon. It seemed quite a bit run down. We went to a mall and stopped at an at&t shop to get internet. The lady there was super nice and we were able to get a hot spot device and she told us how to work our phones. She was saving up to take her family on a trip to New York. I think we were a bit surprised about that because we have never been. She did have family there though.
We got back in the car and headed to Bunratty castle.

It was actually pretty cool. The site had brought in a bunch of old cottages and so as you walked around the park you saw a gradual time frame of cottages from medical ages to the 1860s. The person who currently owns the castle had started refurbishing it. He brought in furniture and artwork dated back to the time.

The furniture apparently could all be taken apart like an Ikea piece and fit through the tiny doorway.  The stairs in the castle were awful. I have no idea how people handled them at the time. They were steep and slippery. One of the tapestries in the castle dated back to the 14th century or something. There were people in the castle dressed in medieval type wear and actually knew a lot about the castle and the time frame. They limed the walls of the castle because it kept down disease. They didn't know why, just that it did. I didn't think they were legit because they looked like med fair people, but it is Ireland and they were actually legit.

 

The castle from the front looked really intimidating.The door is on the second story of the castle, there would have been a draw down bridge from the ground to the door.

This was the gate door to the castle. I thought it was a pretty cool door.

The walls are fairly smooth, but the windows going up were not straight. lol.

The stable door in the bottom of the castle.

The handle wheel is for the drawbridge. The hole in the floor is to dump nasty stuff on enemies.

The stairs were like this in ALL four corners of the castle. Top to bottom.

Top of the castle.

I believe this is looking SW of the castle from on top.

Dad took FOREVER in the castle. We were going to hit two castles that day, but he took FOUR hours in the castle, so mom and I explored the rest of the park. There were so many cute cottages along the path. Most of them were 2 rooms, the changing throughout the time was more and more christian stuff and different iron work for the "oven" or fireplace. We walked around the park and saw many cottages. the walk started with a bright blue fisherman's cottage and then the castle. After the castle there was a timeline from ancient times progressing to the early 1800s. However, there was minimal change for many years. Most the homes just had two rooms. Some later time ones had a loft with a removable ladder that extended to the main room. The eras advanced in the christian culture and many homes had orthodox type christian images and candles. The furniture was heavy and minimal. All the fireplaces were fires in a carved out section of the wall. The fire was the center of the home. The bedroom was always behind the fire.

This cottage was one of the first cottages, but it seemed to be used more as the grounds keep storage. I liked the contrast between the more modern machinery and very old cottage. 

This was the second or third cottage. It was a fisherman's cottage. It was fairly cold when you walked inside. I am not sure if most all fisherman's cottages were blue, but it is a very striking color on the small hut.

Another old cottage.

An old farm house.

We had tea and scones for lunch at like 3pm Irish time.

There were so many choices. And all were so yummy!

I had raspberry tea and a scone.

 The last house was a mansion called the Bunratty House built in 1804. It was a very Victorian style house.

"Downtown Bunratty Village".
There was a sweater shop that had an excellent sweater, but I know I don't need a sweater in Oklahoma.

The boy's school room. Behind the front wall was a mirror school room for the girls.

  We also saw two "mill"s. One was a typical stone mill that they called the vertical mill because it had a water wheel that was vertical in the water. The second mill was a horizontal mill because the wheel was level with the water and it had a pipe of water flowing over it pushing it with the current of the pipe.

After Bunratty we went back to the car and drove down to Killarney. Mom wanted to see the Killarney castle but we were really tired and the castle was going to close fairly soon. So we decided to eat. Mom and dad asked me what I wanted to eat and I replied "not seafood".
So, after my nap as we drove about 2 hours down to Killarney, we ended up at Quinlan's seafood bar. Mom got the fish cakes and they were really really good. I got the fried fish and chips because I was in Ireland and had to try it! The fried fish was MASSIVE. I thought it was pretty good. Dad got the chowder and something else, however it wasn't that great so I don't remember what his main dish was.
I went up to the bathroom before dinner. It was up a staircase and was fairly small. There were these weird white trash type boxes in all the bathrooms. I didn't know what it was for....
I really enjoyed the city. It reminded me of a Victorian-style street you would see in the movies except everything was bright and colorful and there were signs EVERYWHERE. We parked on a side street that was barely big enough for two cars to fit. There was this weird cat that sat next to a car for the whole time we were at dinner.

After dinner we went to the BnB. It was the Sika lodge B&B. It was by far my favorite place to stay. Serena, who runs the place, let us come in and she gave us a quick tour of her house. She gave us a map of the town and wanted to know what our plans were to see Ireland. She was really nice and invited us to read/watch anything in her library.
We had a room with a Queen and a twin. I showered and got ready for bed while mom and dad went out and walked around looking for a car charger. The room service left cookies in the rooms every night. They were chocolate mint cookies with a biscuit type middle. They were soooo good.
Dad said the house was a 2 million dollar house. The one right across the street was just as large, but it looked like there was only one lady who lived in it. She had kinda an average car. The next door neighbors to the Sika lodge had an Aston Martin.

Day 2
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We slept for quite a while.
For breakfast Serena had a menu already drafted up for the morning. She prepared jams and curds for different kinds of breads she had. There is always brown (soda) bread everywhere. And tea. we chose a lemon ginger tea and it came out in a cute cow tea pot. I drank soooo much of the tea. It was sooo good. Dad was really excited about her homemade lemon curd. When I tried to tell him it was just lemon juice, sugar, and butter... he wouldn't listen to me.
We chose the "Full Irish breakfast" which was:
bacon- which in our terms was like a ham slice with a bit of fat still on it
beans- basically liked our baked beans except the sauce was more ketchup like, and the beans were a white bean instead of a pinto bean
tomatos- a half of a tomato panfried cut face down
sausage - what we would call a sausage link
white pudding- what we would call sausage but cut into a disk
black pudding- it is sausage but with dried blood also cut into a disk
egg- a basic fried egg
The black pudding wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. However, I really was only a fan of the beans, egg, and tomato.

We went upstairs and got ready for the day.
We learned pretty quickly on our trip that there were almost no Irish type radio stations. I believe I only heard one Irish radio station and it spoke in Gaelic.  All the radio stations were just like the stations I listen to here in the US. I think the closest thing I came to listening to and Irish song was U2. The radio was exactly the pop music that was on in the US, and there was even country!

We drove just past Killarney on our way to the Killarney national park. Serena told us there was a place just across the road from the park where you could rent bikes. So mom was looking on the right and I was looking on the left. I saw a sign for bike rentals, but it looked like a crappy Chinese food place.  So I said, "Hey dad, it is right there." So he continued driving until we knew we had passed the park. So we turned around and I told them where it was. Turns out it was a Chinese restaurant. There was an underground parking area that had been converted to a bike rental place.
The guy running the place was from Poland. We chatted about how people living in different countries than their home-tongue tend to lose their language as they have families and get older. Which is kinda sad.
Mom and I had a hard time finding bikes. We kept finding things wrong with the bikes. When we finally picked a bike we went to tell the guy and mentioned that we like to bike at home. He was like "I can tell because it took you so long to find a bike."
I'm not sure if he was upset about it or not, but we had a good laugh.

That day they were having a bike race through Killarney. We saw the signs all over the town, but we never actually saw any bikers. I did notice that anyone outside biking or jogging had a high-vis vest on.  I thought that was pretty cool. I don't know if it is a law in Ireland to wear high-vis, but, I'm assuming it is not, I think it's pretty cool that the Irish culture has been cultivated to desire safety even on a mundane run/cycle.

We headed across the road/highway to the park. We biked along a sidewalk and we knew we wanted to go to the Muckross house. There was a little sign in some field pointing along the less traveled path. So, we took that path... which turns out it was the wrong path but it was fun anyways.

We first visited the Abbey.
On our way Dad found this little cute Chinese girl that he could take pictures of. She was about a quarter of a mile down a different path behind us. So Dad went down to talk to her and take her picture (... for her i guess...) I could tell that she was really weirded out by him. Mom turned to me and said "Dad really likes pretty girls". And it really really made me mad that dad would go around and make mom feel bad like that. And we had to wait ten minutes while he chatted with her... ugh. So, I just started biking forwards because he is such a pain.

We turned down the correct road for once and made it to the abbey. It was a really eerie place. It seemed so old, part of a different time that has been forgotten. And there was NO rhyme or reason to where people were buried. They were just buried everywhere, randomly. There were a few really old headstones, most the super old headstones were inside the Abbey. There were quite a few newer headstones (about 1950s till now) all around the grounds.

 The Abby seemed to be built a little hap-haphazardly. There were rooms everywhere and walls that just came out of no where. I really liked the courtyard of the Abby. It had a huge tree in the middle of it. I could just imagine druids taking really good care of the tree.
It was pretty darn cool. It looks like they started reworking it in the 1960's.
We headed back on the path and were definitely lost. We were told that it was a one way path for bikes and we got confused because the horse and buggie was going opposite of the direction we were going. We thought we make the driver mad...
But when we made it to the Muckross house it looked like we were going the right way.

The house is beautiful! and HUGE! and there are massive garden's in the back. It was built in 1843 for the Herbert family. It has 65 rooms! The Herbert family made a ton of improvements to the house and the garden in the 1850s because Queen Victoria was going to visit. She did visit in 1861, but the family had bakrupt themselves with all the work they chartered. After a few change of hands the estate was given to the Irish Nation in 1932. It because the first national park in the republic of Ireland.

We biked up to the house and took a few pictures. The view is breath taking.

The house is HUGE, and there is so much land. Right next to the house (if facing the house) to the right there are two HUGE rugby fields. (Well we assume that the fields were for rugby.) Then, just past the fields there was this gorgeous lake backed by mountains and hills.  Everything was soooo green and beautiful.
We wondered around until we found the tourist booth station. There was a older man running the booth and we asked him too many questions. He gave us a map of the park. Apparently there is a really cool lake called the Punch bowl that is really high up in the mountains. I really wanted to hike up there. The man said that we would have to drive to the trial head and it is a several hour hike. So we were not able to go.  Mom wanted to go into the house but I knew that it would take a really long time to tour the house and I was on a mission to see Everything! So, when she asked if I wanted to go in, I replied that all the interiors of all the old houses look the same. So, we already know what it looks like, but we only had a short time in Killarny and I wanted get the most out of our bike rentals. So we toured the outside of the house. The garden in the back was Massive.

To the end of our walk through the gardens we stopped to get a bite to eat. There was a little restaurant in the garden. In the picture above the right hand side (where the roof is more sloped) is a green house. The other-side was the restaurant.  I got a meringue with fruit and cream because I had seen so much of it on the Great British Bake Off. To be honest... I didn't really like it...

It is hard to determine from the photo above, but it was taken in the "rock garden" which was basically a man made hill "mountain" with tons of different rocks, trees, and shrubs everywhere. I think it was my favorite part of the garden because the paths were less traveled and a lot skinnier. 
After the gardens we got back on our bikes to go to the Torc waterfall, which didn't really make sense because we wanted to bike around the lake, but we had to bike couter-clockwise around it. Here is the map we used.

It was a surprisingly short bike ride and the waterfall wasn't that large of a waterfall. But it was pretty. Dad was really focused on his camera. Anyone taking a picture in our vicinity was visited by dad to discuss their camera, even though they were obviously not concerned about their own camera, let alone dad's camera because they were more excited about BEING IN IRELAND.
So after several awkward conversations about dad's camera we headed back to our bikes to bike around the lake.
We almost made it all the way past the Muckross house when we came to a fork in the path. Dad was like "Is it this way?" (And I replied "No" but he didn't listen) "Yeah, I know it is." And then I said "No, it isn't but we will go that way until you figure out it's not."
So just a minute later, while we traveling on a obviously not bike path, Dad said "wait... I don't think this is the right path." and I just kept my mouth shut. It turned out that the path we were on was just a short little path to an area in the woods with benches and there was a lady giving a lecture to a bunch of kids about nature-life safety.

So, at this point I mentioned looking at the map, and dad decided to look at it, while I biked on because I actually have an internal compass.

We passed the house and dad stopped to take a picture of the house surrounded by the driveway trees. Which ofcourse took forever. And then we followed me to the path around the lake. There were several parent-type stops where dad would say "This isn't the right way" and he would stop to look at the map and I would pretend like I didn't hear him because I they would figure it out (but later in the trip I realized I shouldn't have had so much faith in them.)

Dad was really excited about seeing this rock called Colieenbawn rock. Mom and I didn't care too much to see it, but he was just so excited.
So we made it to the rock.

There are these holes under the rock...

seems cool right?

Until you realize the holes are only about 1-6 inches above the water.

It looks pretty, but it is only about 11 ft tall. SO we climbed up to the top and dad took some pictures and we were off again.

 We went to the Bricin bridge which was really pretty.

And then we biked on the the meeting of the water and the double bridge.

It was so pretty. We sat down and watched the tour boats drive under the bridge for a while. And then we picked back up our bikes and carried them over the hill back to the path and biked to the end of the road where it met the highway.
Which kinda felt like we were going to die...
We eventually made it back to the park and I realized that there was a storm chasing us. We decided to book it back to the rental center and made it just in time before it started raining. The Polish guy was pretty impressed that we were able to all the way around and not actually get caught in the rain.
AND we were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thirsty.

Mom and dad decided that they wanted to go to Ross Castle before we went to dinner. But I was SOOOOOOOOO thirsty, I made them stop to let me grab a drink at a gas station. They didn't seem like they wanted to go in with me and so I was kinda nervous about going and buying something by myself. Turns out it was a lot like a gas station here.... except for all the products were different. So, I was a little confused, but I settled on a Carrot-Ginger-Orange drink. It was surprisingly good, and it was only 120 calories. It was labeled as Kcals, which freaked me out until I realized that we just drop the K in the US.... which seems kinda stupid that socially we just did that.
Anyways, the girl at the counter was freaking out because I bird got into the shopping area.I think it was just a crow. It was flying around the ceiling area where the walls were lined with windows in around the ceiling. The girl kept cry-whining when the bird flew by. As I was purchasing the drink I told her that the bird will go to the light, so if they turned off the lights and dimmed the windows somehow, the bird would go out the door. I am not sure what happened with the bird.
ALL the gas stations had a little ice-cream cone out front.

Sadly, we never actually ate one.

And we drove down to Ross castle. It started raining while we were at the castle. I don't remember why we decided not to tour the castle, probably because it cost a lot more money than we anticipated and we didn't want to stay for very long. So we went into the waiting area and read a lot of the information they had there. Even though we didn't go into the castle, it kinda seemed like that was the most informative part. We kinda felt like most the castles were pretty similar.

It was a lot smaller than the Bunratty castle, so it didn't seem as impressive. We walked around and looked at the lake. Something cool, or not cool, about the castle was that one of the owners didn't want to pay taxes on the castle, so he had the roof removed and the windows made skinnier so that it looked like it was built a long time before it was actually built. Apparently you didn't have to pay taxes on ruins on your land.

When we were about to leave, a girl in a wedding dress, her groom, and a photographer showed up. It was crazy cold and raining but she had a shoulder/sleeve less dress on. Seemed kinda insane.The bride and groom looked like they had quite a bit of money... but poor timing.

For dinner we chose Macs of Main street. I was really looking forward to trying some Irish soda bread and cottage pie. The server brought out some brown bread that looked super healthy. It was a lot different than the bread I had been expecting, but it was really good.
Our server was a Polish guy who had gotten on a train after a financial crisis in Poland and kept traveling until his money ran out. He stopped and got a job. He ended up in Dublin but fell in love with Killarney after a short weekend visit. He decided to move to Killarney and went ahead and did it. He has since saved up enough money to buy a house! He was just a waiter but the minimum wage was high enough he could save enough money to buy a house. I think that is just insane, and it really makes me want to just move to Ireland as well.
I ordered the cottage pie, which came with chips (fries), and it was pretty good.

We walked around downtown for a bit. Dad really wanted to find this one piece of equipment for his camera, so we looked for it at the local camera shops. I honestly love Killarney. The people we met were super friendly and the town is fairly small. It is a beautiful place that seems full of kindhearted people.

It was getting pretty late, but we had some daylight left so we wanted to use it. We decided to try out going to the Black Valley. I didn't really want to go because I was tired, but mom and dad insisted. So we drove out to the valley taking the Ring of Kerry road, and then drove through a few back roads and ended up at the valley.

On the road up, just past the last home, there was a spot that said "no motor vehicle beyond" but there was obviously a road beyond that spot, so we kept driving. We then found out why. The road was only a one car width road.
The sky was overcast and made the valley look a bit darker than normal. The road was just a two tire track up a ways and then into a bend. The mountains rose high above on both side. The vegetation was fairly short, limited to grass and short shrubs. There were ponds every so often in the valley. But what really made the valley feel so eerie was the lack of sound. As we drove through the rocks and over the really old bridges the sight was capturing. The horizon changed every few seconds. There were a few abandoned buildings on the road. One was a small farm house, but there were still sheep in the fences near it. One abandoned building look like a sort of hotel. There were four rooms with a fireplace in each. The roof had fallen in a long time ago and there were full grown trees in the middle of the rooms. Across from that hotel type building there was a old broken down house. There was a small creek that flowed by it and as I hiked around the creek I noticed odds and ends like someone was living there. Shoes, food wrappers, and a TV perched in the bushes.

There wasn't a sound, not a single sound of a bird. Even the creek sounded mute.

We drove through the valley for quite a bit. There were three bikers that went past us. They were biking really fast. Dad was super impressed. They wore that enhanced vis green color so we could spot them from far away. They sped down the hills super fast! Which was really scary because you didn't know if there was a car coming from around the bend!

Once we stopped at a ridge we could see far down the valley. There was a huge house in the middle of it. We later found out it was a hostel.

It was a beautiful valley, but really eerie as well. I was really glad to see it.

It started getting dark so we headed home. It was only about 9 pm ish when we got back to the B&B so we decided to take Serena up on her offer and watched a bit of Heroes before we fell asleep. I once again ate those chocolate cookie things the cleaner left on our water glasses.

Day 3
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We woke up and got ready for the day.
I was super excited for breakfast and bounded down in my socks, only there were a bunch of people at the breakfast area so I panicked and went back upstairs to wait for mom and dad to get ready.
Mom was a bit concerned about what we could eat because she didn't like the traditional Irish food all that much. I wasn't worried. Serena had a bunch of breads, jams, and cereals out. Plus, we had only tried one of her meals. Mom just had cereal and eggs. Dad had the salmon on toast plus other foods. I had the traditional Irish pancakes. They were basically crepes. They were pretty yummy, but I remember that I couldn't eat it all because there was just so much foods to try. Plus, we had the lemon ginger tea again, and I drank almost the whole pot! Traditional Irish breakfast always comes with half a tomato that was roasted on the open face.
That was our last night at Serena's place so we packed up our bags in the little car and headed off to Dingle. Mom wanted to do a drive tour of the dingle peninsula.