Well, if I've learned anything these past two days, it's that jet lag is very real. I forced myself to stay awake yesterday until 7:00 pm, at which point I literally lost consciousness. I woke three times during the night, but I didn't get out of bed until 7:00 am the next morning. And guess what? I still nodded off on the three-hour bus ride to Dingle. Jet lag. Either that or buses, like cars, lull me to sleep.
Anyway, we got to a delayed start this morning because the hotel rooms didn't have clocks and one of the directors thought it was four in the morning when it was actually ten. Once we were all present, we headed off to Bunratty Castle, the first of many castles on our itinerary. And can I just say: Wow. I think people had to be quite a bit smaller a few centuries ago because I barely fit through some of those doorways.
Bunratty has three stories of central great rooms and four towers with six stories each. You climb up narrow spiral staircases to get to the upper floors and towers, but you have to watch your footing! There is also a North Solar and a South Solar, both of which are kind of like apartments, one for the resident earl and one for his guests.
Okay, highlights:
-the stairs. I'm in love with spiral staircases and mazes, so these were awesome because every new passage went off in a different direction and the stairways never seemed to end.
-the dungeon! It was a square pit with a barred opening at the top of one of the walls. If you got thrown in there, I'm guessing it was for life. The corridor leading to it was narrow enough to make me slightly claustrophobic.
-the parapets. What a great view!
Oh yeah, and I found the legendary Hound of the Baskervilles. Either that, or it was the dog they got to play Maximus in Tangled. This dog was the size of a horse. Pictures will be forthcoming.
So my first castle was a wonderful experience! We're going to Dingle now, and I thought I should mention that we just drove over a mountain that was covered in sheep and now we're waiting in one-way construction traffic. If your interested in things like mountains of sheep.
...and on that note, I'm off! More tomorrow!
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Cliffs of Moher
Wow. The gorgeous west coast of Ireland is partly made up of sheer cliff faces that reach 200 meters (approximately 600 feet) high. I just walked across the top of them, sometimes with nothing between me and the edge. Apparently lots of people died here. There were a couple of ancient watch towers that warned the locals when enemy ships were approaching. The view was just breathtaking! In the middle of our visit, I experienced my first real Irish rainstorm. Rain in Ireland is cold and wet and frequent! Now I'm back to trying to stay awake on a large bus that's driving on tiny roads. I will do my absolute best to post pictures soon!
Airport Adventurings
It's funny how my watch keeps telling me it's 1:30 in the afternoon. Cause, you know, it is. No one's told my internal clock that yet. It's only 7:30 am in Utah. I left SLC around 1:00 pm yesterday and have scarcely gotten one spotty hour of sleep since then. I am now embarking on an hour-long bus ride to the cliffs of Moher and trying desperately to stay awake. How? By blogging, of course.
I know everyone is wondering where the "adventure" comes into any of this. Well, don't get too excited. We almost missed our connection from London to Shannon Ireland. We arrived in London with about an hour and a half before our connection took off. Plenty of time right? And we didn't dally around or anything either. What we didn't count on was having to go through security again for a connecting flight. By the time they were done confiscating and discarding the mousse that SLC's security let me take (sorry, Mom),we had a half hour before the flight was scheduled to take off. This was about the time that they started paging us. We had at least three "last call"s before we made it to the gate. Heathrow could easily be compared to Daedelus' labyrinth, with long, twisting corridors that never end. We sprinted across two terminals and made it with twenty minutes to spare. Of course, the plane then proceeded to sit at the gate until twenty minutes after the scheduled departure time. Good thing we hurried. At least we got some cardio in, right? Of course, arriving in Shannon on time with all our luggage was more than the rest of our group could hope for. Six of us are here now, but eleven others were supposed to arrive before us and were delayed leaving Chicago. Which is weird, because our plane left from Chicago at about the same time and we had no problems. The rest of the group will be arriving around 10 tonight. I am. Very glad I was part of the small group that had to sprint through Heathrow Airport. Some preliminary thoughts on Ireland:
-it is wet, and it is green
-the roads are super narrow
-they have a lot of roundabouts
-it is completely normal to have a modern house twenty feet away from a dilapidated ruin that is thousands of years old
-it is beautiful!
Preliminary Pictures: Shannon Airport and Ireland!
Mckenna, Amber, Megan, and (Jessica) Palmer
One other thought. The customs officer at Heathrow said "cheers" to me when I thanked him. I don't know why this made me so happy, as the same thing hAppened at WDW every other day, but it did. I also saw the Thames from above, which was a little mind-blowing. Now I am looking at a wall of rain that is sheeting across the Irish countryside. That's really all for now. More on the cliffs of Moher later!
I know everyone is wondering where the "adventure" comes into any of this. Well, don't get too excited. We almost missed our connection from London to Shannon Ireland. We arrived in London with about an hour and a half before our connection took off. Plenty of time right? And we didn't dally around or anything either. What we didn't count on was having to go through security again for a connecting flight. By the time they were done confiscating and discarding the mousse that SLC's security let me take (sorry, Mom),we had a half hour before the flight was scheduled to take off. This was about the time that they started paging us. We had at least three "last call"s before we made it to the gate. Heathrow could easily be compared to Daedelus' labyrinth, with long, twisting corridors that never end. We sprinted across two terminals and made it with twenty minutes to spare. Of course, the plane then proceeded to sit at the gate until twenty minutes after the scheduled departure time. Good thing we hurried. At least we got some cardio in, right? Of course, arriving in Shannon on time with all our luggage was more than the rest of our group could hope for. Six of us are here now, but eleven others were supposed to arrive before us and were delayed leaving Chicago. Which is weird, because our plane left from Chicago at about the same time and we had no problems. The rest of the group will be arriving around 10 tonight. I am. Very glad I was part of the small group that had to sprint through Heathrow Airport. Some preliminary thoughts on Ireland:
-it is wet, and it is green
-the roads are super narrow
-they have a lot of roundabouts
-it is completely normal to have a modern house twenty feet away from a dilapidated ruin that is thousands of years old
-it is beautiful!
Preliminary Pictures: Shannon Airport and Ireland!
One other thought. The customs officer at Heathrow said "cheers" to me when I thanked him. I don't know why this made me so happy, as the same thing hAppened at WDW every other day, but it did. I also saw the Thames from above, which was a little mind-blowing. Now I am looking at a wall of rain that is sheeting across the Irish countryside. That's really all for now. More on the cliffs of Moher later!
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
30 Day Disney Challenge
Day # 15: The First Movie You Saw
Goodness gracious, how am I supposed to remember that? There has been no end of Disney movies in my life, so I can't even begin to guess which I saw first. So...best guesses. Here we go.
The Little Mermaid was the first Disney movie to come out while I was alive, so my mom and I agree that this was probably one of the first that I saw.
I know for a fact that by the time I was five I had seen Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But then, I'd probably seen most of the early Disney movies at that point. Fun fact! When I turned five, one of my friends gave me a giant, framed movie poster for Beauty and the Beast. It hung on my wall for many years.
Ah, the memories...
Friday, June 15, 2012
30 Day Disney Challenge
Day # 14: Best Kiss
Win, win, win, every single time. Can't explain it, just love it SO much.
2nd Place:
.jpg)
Um...Yeah, so I guess the moral here is that I have a REALLY hard time picking favorite kisses. All of these were fabulous. And...on that note, I'll just be going now. GOSH I love Disney. That is all.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
30 Day Disney Challenge
Ha ha...ha ha ha. Yes it's been a year. I won't point it out if you won't.
Day #13: Your Least Favorite Song
"Topsy Turvy" from Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's hard to find a song that I don't like, but this is definitely one I tend to skip. Nothing against the rest of the Hunchback score, of course. Much of it is breathtaking!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)