I was not going to be home much though, because my plan was to check out Blarney Castle! I had made a post about it the day previous, but I had been waiting to hear back from people to see if they still wanted to go.
Turns out my phone sometimes does not like to send text messages, but I didn't know that at the time. I went to an internet cafe since the uni computer rooms were closed, and checked to see if anyone was still down for going... it was kind of confusing to organize, but Ruairi got a hold of me offering a ride up to the castle at least, so I took it. I met him outside the courthouse, and away we went!!!!
Now, in my Blarney Castle post on Couchsurfing, someone had offered to show me a secret back entrance to the grounds to save me ten euro! This was very appealing, and lovely Ruairi also had heard of this entrance. We drove by slowly, then into the parking lot. I looked at the fences in the parking lot. They were much taller, with pointy looking bits at the top. But there was a tree right by one of them, so it looked promising. I got midway up the tree, but it had a lot of tree goo, and it did not look like a pleasant jump down into bushes on the other side. Not worth it.
Ruairi was sitting in the car. He was contemplating going inside, but he'd seen it tons before and had a bunch of paperwork he was going to get done. He was so nice - he was going to do paperwork in the car and if I came back within a decent time, then I had a ride back also! What a nice guy! I told him that fence was not going to work, so we went to the other one. It was very low, and there was cover for the beginning. This must be the fence. I hopped it, then hopped two more while Ruairi went back to the car. These fences were right by one of the exits, but apparently nobody uses it, because I didn't see anyone the whole time I was in that area! Of course, after the third little fence I was already on the grounds, so even if people were there, it wouldn't have looked suspicious. I washed my hands in the river to get the tree goo off, pulled out my camera, and Voila! Now I was a tourist!
The grounds were beautiful! It was a big space, and the castle was much more impressive than I expected... I thought it would be ultra cheesy touristy castle, but it was bare stone, with vines and such growing on it... very raw and very pretty... you could go into practically every room and signs would tell you what it used to be. It was so so pretty...
The view from the top of the castle is quite spectacular, as you can see! After going up a tiny spiral staircase (and I mean squishy, someone ahead of me had to get out because it was too much for her... clausterphobics beware) you get to the top and wait in line to kiss the Blarney stone. They had a camera set up so someone took your picture while you kissed the stone, but it was like those roller coaster deals where you would pay 12 euro or so to buy your photos. Or you could get the old French guy behind you to take your photo with your camera, which is what I did.
Unfortunately, it is one of the most hideous photos of me ever taken (it looks like I have a mullet and messed up face). I am usually the sort of person that will put up a picture of me even if it's really bad, so I will, but I am making it smaller...
I told the french guy it was a good photo anyways. I mean really it's the experience that counts right?! So now I have the "gift of the gab". It's surprisingly tricky to get to that stone too, you can see I am laying down, you have to lean backwards while someone holds you to get to the thing. There are metal bars under you so even if someone falls back, you won't fall to the ground, but they weren't always there.
After kissing the stone and wandering the castle, I wandered the grounds a bit more. Ruairi had told me about a couple things that most people miss, and I wanted to find them.
and after some exploring, I did..
then my camera died. This new one likes to suck the life out of batteries compared to my old one, I need to change some settings...
Overall the experience was amazing :) I was happy it was all free for me too mwahaha. Ruairi was still in the car when I returned, which was also awesome.
It was such a nice day out, so the beach was on our minds. On a whim, he called a couple people, and we picked someone up in the countryside before heading into town to grab beach stuff!
I grabbed my other camera battery, my hula hoops and bathing suit, then we went to someone's house. Ruairi went to switch cars, so Michael (the one we picked up) and I went to get some food. We got sandwiches and ice cream yummmmmmmm... then it was back to the house, out to the car, but there was a delay. Things were left in the house, so three of us were waiting in the car.
Here we saw something unusual. Someone was standing on the street outside a used book store. He wasn't reading a book though, he was rubbing his face on it slowly. I have a picture of this...
We also saw someone dressed in a white jumpsuit thing with a white helmet just standing around talking to someone. It also looked ridiculous... we were all dying of laughter in the car.
The laughter did not stop when we started driving either... This group of people were so funny, my face hurt by the time we drove through Kinsale.
They put on "the final countdown". We ate cookies. and chips. When we got to the beach, it was gorgeous but windy so I ended up opting for hula hooping instead of Irish Sea. It looked coooolllddd!
Fergal, Antonia and Ruairi all went in the water. Michael and I watched them scream haha. I knew if I went in at that point, I would not be able to warm up afterwards, but I still felt silly not going in the water. Ah well.
As it started to get darker, we drove up to some cliffs!! It was beautiful; we all watched the sun start to set:
After the mini photo shoot, we headed back to the city. Ruairi was fed cookies while driving the whole way back, which was more funny than it sounds!
There was a gathering going on at Fergal's house, so we ended up there. It was a fun house party/gathering, I ended up talking to lots of rad people etc. All that sun had made me tired though, so I was very chilled out. eventually I got tired enough that I wanted to sleep, so Ruairi was kind enough to walk me to the empty house, where I fell asleep completely stoked on the crazy, random, jam packed, unplanned day that had taken place!!
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