2008 - United Kingdom - Day 15 - Cashel, Cork/Blarney Castle, Limerick

We left our beautiful hotel this morning at 7:30. We drove SW for 2.5 hours to Cashel. They put on the movie Miss Potter for people to watch while we drove. I sat next to James McQueen on the bus today. He is a great guy. He bought dinner for mom and I at one of our hotels. We talked pretty much all of our traveling time today, which was around 5 hour’s bus time. He is traveling with his wife and daughter. Our first stop was to the Castle in Cashel. It was the home of the kings of Munster. It was more like a Cathedral though with an altar inside and the old cemetery all throughout the grounds. While we there, an older lady on our tour, 89, traveling with her grandson, was hit by a car. She was taking pictures and a car backed up into her. She was knocked down and he ran over her ankle. She screamed and he stopped right on top of her, not knowing whether to back up or move forward. This woman is from the Christian Science church and doesn’t believe in medicine or doctors. So when the ambulance showed up, she hobbled away from them. She eventually let them give her a look over but wouldn’t let them do anything else. She won’t take any pain meds. I know she was offered a blessing, but I don’t think she accepted it. This same woman also got lost at the British Library in London. Poor thing. She’ll have lots of stories to tell. We then drove another 2 hours to Cork to see the Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. The story behind this place is that Queen Elizabeth the first tried to make negotiations with the king there at the time, but he would just lead her on and flatter her and nothing was over achieved. She said of him, that all he spoke was blarney. So this stone in the castle, legend is that if you kiss it, you get the gift of eloquence. We walked through the gorgeous countryside to the very tall castle, and climbed the narrow windings staircases to the top of the castle. We didn’t really know what to expect. I had heard you had to lay on your back to kiss it. And I was a bit nervous to kiss it, knowing a billion other people’s lips had been on it. I was really wishing for some saran wrap ? We get to the stone and when mom sees what we need to do to kiss it, she backs out. You lie on your back, grab some hand rails behind your head and a guy lowers you over the edge of the rampart. The stone to kiss is the bottom stone on the edge of the rampart. We are about 8-10 stories up. It was quite an experience! Mom talked me into buying the picture they took of me kissing the stone. I hesitated kissing it, but I had to! I was in Ireland! After going down the steps again, we walked through the grounds. Wow they were really cool and different. It was like walking through an enchanted forest. We then ate our sandwiches for lunch and bought some ice-cream. Our bus then took us to Limerick, another 1.5 hour drive. Several people in our group had written limericks for the occasion and shared them. Most were really good and funny. A lot were about our breakfasts and crazy bus driver. We got to our hotel a little after 5:00. We watched The Mummy on TV, (mom didn’t like it) and I talked to my family on the phone. Then Jamie invited us to a pizza party in the lobby. They ordered several pizzas and sodas from Dominos and about 20 of us got together. It was nice.