Ireland

"Ireland, it's Mine." Yes the Braveheart quoting continued into Ireland (primarily focusing on Stephen of course). We took a puddle jumper from Glasgow to Dublin & the flight was very smooth other than Brandi trying to smuggle in some stolen artifacts from the baths (body wash from the gift shop). We got to our hotel & had 15 minutes to join our CIE tour. The next 5 days were a whirlwind bus tour filled with rain, changing hotels, Guinness, newlyweds, green, & more Guinness.

The city of Dublin also has a river running through it, the River Liffey. Apparently the city was originally settled by Vikings that floated down the river & stopped because they really liked Guinness. So if your Irish you may actually be Vickish..haha j/k sort of. Did you know at the end of this term (7 years) Ireland will have had a woman president for the past 21 years (see i know a little about politics:) We stopped at Dublin Castle which doesn't look much like a castle, maybe because members of the guard blew it up trying to stop a fire from spreading. We learned about this once priceless piece of sculpture, that now goes for about 25 euro,s thanks to a drunken stumble by Colin Farrell (he broke her right arm off).

Brandi laughed because as soon as the guide mentioned Colin Farrell I started snapping photos.lol.I never said I wasn't celebrity crazy. Miraculously inside Dublin Castle (this is a true story) we found this portrait of Thomas Eyere. We prefer to call him Brent's Great Great Great Great Great Grandpa. I mean seriously WOW!

Our first Irish pub was the Merry Ploughboy pub. We had a great dinner, several drinks & then it was time for the music. Excellent. The Ploughboys took the stage & engaged the audience with awesome musical styling. Unfortunately, they engaged me (remember I had a few drinks) too much. I was having such a good time I caught the eye of the bass player (damn those bass players) who brought me on stage to do a reverse strip tease ( i had to put a Merry Ploughboys t-shirt on). Another wonderful lizbon dance routine caught on video. Like I said..excellent.

We drove the 100 mile, Ring of Kerry, went to Blarney Castle (where we didn't kiss the Blarney stone b/c , it was cold, pouring rain & you had to flip on your back, grab bars hang your body out the side of the castle..besides Brandi & I already have the gift of gab), stayed in Kilarney for 2 nites, had a feast at Bunratty Castle (we could only eat with daggers & had Mimi from Drew Carey sing us traditional Irish songs). In Shannon we found the best pub ever, Durty Nelly's. Here we discovered Brent likes Guinness, alot! Sneem was quaint (i heart sneem), the Cliffs of Mohrer were awesome, the Skellig Experience was super interesting (i wish we could have taken the boat out to Skellig Michael). We learned that Guinness rules the world & there is a baby in every bottle ( i drank alot!). We saw a double rainbow & tried to win the lottery. We ate conveyor belt sushi at YO Sushi, and read several of the Twilight books.
Now I can't believe my trip is over.. At least I collected lots of passport stamps and I have my next 2 trips (with D, because not being able to share this trip with him was horrible) planned. Italy & Greece here I come...YIIPPPPPEEE.