green & stone

example of green

example of stone

it has come to my urgent attention that i need to plan for my future right now so as to procure (at least) a summer home in ireland for myself and my family if i invite them. everything here is shockingly beautiful. i've never seen so many shades of green in my life. and if it isn't green its rocky, which is just as beautiful. ireland has 8 million cows, 6 million sheep and 6 million people. i heard this statistic & laughed... after a day on the road i am a believer. i've never seen so many animals! the cows here are also much larger than normal cows in the states! my mission to hop a farm wall a pet a sheep continues.

today mom and i started our 3 days with a driver. so many things he could have been... a bad driver, a mean man, too old, someone i could become infatuated with... he is none of those: he is tony. and just like the frosted flakes tiger says he's grrrrrreat! im actually obsessed with him. he has a 27 year old son i'd love to meet just so i can be in tony's family. this man is so precious and a genius isn't a bad thing to have either. he's an encyclopedia. and i don't just mean about random ruins of castles. he quotes poetry, makes jokes, knows dates of history for all nations, talks figures. this man is an intellectual macgyver. i keep asking the most off base random questions i can think of to try and stump him. not possible! (photo of tony, and myself of course, to come).

we left the bunratty castle and thanks to our idiot travel agent our next hotel is 15 miles away... not much to see in that time window so we threw ourselves to the irish winds and they carried us to the edges of the cliffs of moher. hello breath, goodbye breath. literally could not breathe (it was the stairs...just kidding!) i've never seen anything like it except on planet earth. and seeing as this was a tourist spot yes, there were people with bad fashion sense, terrible manners, peace signs, multiple cameras, and audio guides, in large groups. (mom said i sound racist so  cant use asian as much) after that we got back in our car (which is a mercedes sedan, a car not built for excessive luggage... news flash we have excessive luggage.) and after some very careful maneuvering at the hotel everything fit. we left moher and headed toward galway which was an amazing drive through irish country side.  this car ride was peppered with info from tony, because he knows everything. it was broke up by mom snapping herself awake because she has car ride induced narcolepsy... she literally can not stay awake. she resorts to snacking to stay up and im sure tony thinks we're diabetic from the amount of snacks we eat. i've so far resisted any photos of sleeping beauty but i don't know how much longer i can hold off...

room view

once in galway we took a walking break and looked briefly around. this city has a university in it and so its a younger town. we had our first second of bad weather and it drizzled on us for maybe 5 minutes. other than that we've apparently been beyond lucky with the sunshine we've gotten. old castles are everywhere and they're so beautiful. some are being restored and turned into hotels like the one we will be in tonight. (thursday night) on the way to adare we stopped at another castle by way of the burren trail which is the rocky part of the landscape. dromoland castle was amazing, possibly nicer than adare manor but i'll never admit it. the adare manor is over 800 acres of land and is based on a castle. there are two 18 hole golf courses if that gives you any size reference. our hotel room looked out over a river and part of the golf course. this is the view looking out the right side of our windows.

adare hallway

grounds walk

we walked all over the grounds until it was too chilly to keep going. they offer horse back riding but we were short on time. you all know i love me some ponies. luckily we're making a trip to the irish national stud this week! during our room service dinner a family of swans swam by, evidently also having their dinner. one of the babies crawled up on moms back... she let it ride a while then threw it off. talk about being kicked out of the nest.

sorry about the delay on this post, i fell asleep midway through writing it, guess the castle life suits me well enough after all! an update on what occurred friday will come in a little bit, time to upload pics and charge the lappy.

adare manor! (i'm seeking mr. adare currently)