The Wonderful Land of Ireland...

I went on an all day excursion in Cork, leaving at 7:30 and getting back around 5:00, 15 minutes before the ship left port. We traveled by bus all the way out to Waterford – the Viking Capital, and toured a Waterford Crystal factory there. Both Andrea and I had signed up to go to Blarney castle and kiss the Blarney stone, but film and photo get first priority on excursions and got that tour before us. So, when shore excursions called for this Viking Capital tour, I thought that sounded interesting, although we really didn’t do very much or see anything related to Vikings. Basically we were driving all day and only stopped for a quick photo stop, bathroom stops, Lunch, and the Waterford Crystal factory.

The Crystal factory itself was actually a lot more interesting than I had thought, as we got to see the workers actually melting and blowing the crystal into pitchers, glasses, and bowls. We saw them wedge-cutting out the patterns onto the glass, and flat-cutting tops, as well as more artistic engraving of pictures into the Crystal. We saw past trophies they’ve made, and also, what I deemed the most impressive – the original millennium ball, with it’s 400 and something panels… 72 of which are replaced every year.

So yeah, I guess it was interesting, but I’m a little bummed that I didn’t get to see the Blarney Castle as well. Andrea actually did get to go there last minute, so I’m glad that at least one of us had the opportunity to do so.

In the port of Dublin, I got to visit my first and only castle here in Ireland, the Malahide Castle. This castle is famous for it’s fairytale-like appearance, with its many turrets and tall windows… so of course, I had to visit it – and I wasn’t disappointed. The castle was smaller than I would think a castle would be, but was beautifully preserved and fully furnished. Unfortunately, photography of any kind was prohibited, so I didn’t get to take any pictures of the inside. The many rooms, filled with portraits of the family that used to live there, the curving stairwell, and the bedrooms, all furnished and preserved in the ways you would imagine them to look – the same ways they are described in all my fantasy novels.

The castle itself was a small landlords tower to begin with, one that has been added to throughout the years, until it became the castle that it is today. One aspect that I found interesting of the place was the myth of the castle’s ghost. On the right-hand side of the dining room, there is a turret that belongs to the Malahide ghost. It has a small door at the bottom of the dining room and at the top of the balcony, four feet high, where the ghost lives, and can come and go as he pleases. Supposedly, he only comes out when something is going on inside the castle that he doesn’t like, and the last sighting was in the 90’s, when the caretakers tried to auction off the castle’s contents.

After the castle, as part of our tour, we stepped into an Irish pub for some Irish coffee. I sat with two guests from the ship, a man and his daughter who were sitting next to me on our bus, and they took a picture of me taking a sip of my Irish coffee. I didn’t have very much of it, one, because I hate coffee to begin with, and two, because I don’t think alcohol would make it taste any better since I hate that too. But hey, I’ll only be in Ireland once, and I should at least say that I tried the Irish coffee while I was there, right? So there you go, I tried Irish coffee, and some Guinness as well; where as Chuck, the guy from our tour I was sitting by, enjoyed drinking his Irish coffee, his daughter’s Irish coffee, and most of my Irish coffee as well. Not to mention the Guinness he got. Needless to say, he was pretty drunk the entire way back, and was rather hilarious to watch as well. His daughter and I kept exchanging looks every once in a while, trying not to laugh.

Finally, in Belfast, I saw the Ireland I came to see. Rolling hills and countryside, everywhere you looked. It was wonderful, and I was glad to know there was still some of the Ireland I’ve heard so much about left. The only draw back of this trip was all the rain. Of course, that’s why Ireland is so green, it rains most of the time… But it had been so beautiful the day before that I had neglected to bring my jacket. Temperature wise, I probably would have been fine, but when you added in the rain, I decided I shouldn’t stay out too long if I didn’t want to get sick, and spent the first hour inside our bus, talking with our tour guide and bus drivers as we watched the rain pouring down.

Once the rain began to let up a bit, I decided I’d try going out again, even if just to the shops, and ended up running into Andrea. Yay! We walked down to the Giant’s Causeway together, and had a great day. The rain stopped, we got lots of good pictures, and made a wish in the wishing chair. We bought some chocolate covered honeycomb – which I must say is very addictive. I even tried some red, chewy, dried seaweed, which wasn’t nearly as good. :/