American Wedding Crashers in Ireland!

Amazing scenery!  That's the best way to describe the past 3 days.  Scott and I will try to summarize as best we can without every little detail.  Saturday morning we drove from Waterford to our next destination, Cork, and had lunch in a park in the middle of the city.  Outside of Cork is Blarney so we went to the Blarney Castle and yes, we kissed the Blarney Stone!  It is supposed to mean we have eloquence now but we don't really like that.  Instead we prefer to have good luck, so in our minds we now have good luck!  The area surrounding the castle was absolutely beautiful and walking around was very tranquil. 

That evening we went to dinner and when we came back to our hotel bar, we started talking to 2 Irish guys.  We found out that one of the guys, Jason, has a brother that lives in Quincy, MA (outside of Boston) so we instantaneously became friends!  Jason also happened to be at the hotel because his cousin had gotten married that day and he was there for the reception.  This is when we became American wedding crashers in Ireland!  Indeed we went to the reception, dressed in our finest North Face clothing nonetheless!  We met our new friend Jason's parents, had some Guinness, and came very close to getting out on the dance but realized how blatantly out of place we looked, so we didn't.  Before too long, Jason wondered off and Scott and I were sitting by ourselves.  Scott felt compelled to tell a stranger why we were there.  I started thinking this was all a big scheme somehow and was convinced they were robbing our hotel room (yes, I'm paranoid about getting robbed!)  We left after an hour or so and found our belongings perfectly safe in the room.  One thing we did learn from all this was that Irish wedding-goers also like to 'Do the Twist' as much as we do!

On Sunday we went on a drive south to Kinsale, which is near the coast.  We had lunch by the marina, walked around the little town, and visited Dresmond Castle (thanks for the rec Aunt Debbie).  Then we decided to drive toward the coast.  We had no idea what was there but when we arrived at an area called the Old Head of Kinsale we were shocked to find one of the most amazing golf couses that we've ever heard of, let alone seen.  Surrounding this golf couse were 300 ft. shear cliffs on every side as well as the narrow strip leading up to the course which jutted out into the Atlantic.  Brooke was amazed at how green it was!

Today we headed towards our next town, Dingle, on the Dingle Peninsula.  On the way, we stopped in Killarney for lunch and then went to Killarney National Park.  We hiked a small mountain and took in the great views.  Now we are in Dingle, which also rests on the coast.  We drove out to watch the sunset at the end of the peninsula where there are islands off the coast.  Wow!  I must say this area is absolutely breathtaking.  I can't wait to explore more tomorrow! 

Things that we've learned:

- They say that kissing the Blarney stone makes you eloquent.  (We politely informed them that they are incorrect.  It gives you good luck)

 - Bjork is "crazier than a box of frogs"

 - Kinsale is host to more ice cream cone eaters in one place than we've ever seen in our entire lives. (My oh my there were a ton of people eating ice cream cones - including Scott!)

- Restaurants close by 9:30 here (note - bars stay open much later)

- Irish wedding receptions include all the same boogying music as ours do.

Sidenote: As we've been writing this thing it has come to our attention that beautiful, breathtaking and like adjectives are almost too easy to use.  So easy that it almost takes away from how amazing some of the beautiful and breathtaking things are.  So if you're reading this you'll just have to keep this in mind.     

 Sunset off the coast of the Dingle Peninsula