It has been too long!!!

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yes, yes, yes....we didn't update like we said we were going to, but really we were just having too much fun and seeing too many things to be bothered with finding an internet cafe. It has been 11 days and oh how much we have seen. Just firstly, Ireland is amazing. If you are ever going to go anywhere in Europe, make it here! You must, however, rent a car like we did. Otherwise you won't see hardly anything. Aside from that we will mostly just run down the list of things we have seen with a little commentary.

The rest of Dublin: We hiked along the cliffs in the Howth Peninsula (and got kinda lost, but ended up in the right-ish place). We saw Malahide Castle, Tara's Childrens Palace (where they have the oldest known doll house from the early 1700s. We went to the Dublin Zoo (supposedly the largest in Europe, but we both felt that the Portland one was better). Most of the time we lazed about in our room and read because we needed it (we bought a couple books the first day here). We went to see a couple movies. We also went to Goat Castle, which had medieval reenactors who gave us the tour. It was cool. Best of all almost everything was free because we bought these cool cards (called Heritage Cards) for 8 euro a piece which got us into almost everything for free. Dublin was great, but we were ready to get out of the city. We rented a car until the 25th and headed out. Ireland is pretty much all rural except the four big cities. Once you are outside their bounds, it is country side and beautiful.

We headed to newgrange (a walk-in tomb which captures the sun rise only during the winter solstice and dates to about 3500 BC). We also went to Trim Castle (where Braveheart was filmed), and stayed in Kilkenny. We went to Dunmore Cave, Kilkenny Castle, and Waterford's Reginald Tower (we tried to make it to the Crystal Factory, but the tours stopped before we got there).

We then headed to Killarney, but we stopped at the Rock of Cashel, Cahir Castle, and Blarney Castle along the way. This was also the first and only day of real Pacific Northwest rain and only in the afternoon. We did kiss the Blarney stone and we have a good picture of Antonia doing it ( Steven was too quick for Antonia to take a good picture of him, plus he turned off the camera before handing it to her).

From Killarney on Steven's birthday we drove around the Dingle Peninsula were we stopped at an amazing beach and picked up cool shells and agates, and at a fort. It was so amazingly beautiful, but some of the roads were harrowing. We also went to Ross Castle, Muckross House and Traditional Farms, and saw Indiana Jones for Steven's birthday. Also, we went to a pub to watch the Champion's League Final for Soccer, which was two English teams, at a pub. It was really fun, a good cultural experience.
We left Killarney for a small place to the south of Galway and we went to the Cliffs of Moher along the way. We dropped the car off this morning in Dublin and took a train up to Belfast.

Ireland is amazing, end of story. Also, thankfully Irish rural roads are better than German ones and after a day or so of driving on the left it isn't that odd. Also, Also, people are super nice here and the food is amazing everywhere which makes it all the better. Hope all is well there. We can't believe we only have two and a half weeks left! Loves!

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Comments

[tony]

Fun
Hi guys it is hard to believe you will be home before you know it. Sounds like Ireland is great can not wait to see all the pics .See ya soon LOve Dad