Week 7: Blarney Castle and Galway

Hello, faithful friends and family! As you can see, Crystal and I have decided to write an actual blog for this week as we prepare for a big vlog of LONDON next week.

A couple weeks ago (on October 1, to be exact), Crystal, our friend Marlie, and I decided to take a trip to Blarney Castle. Of course, we all climbed the castle and kissed the infamous Blarney Stone.

For those who don’t know, the Blarney stone is said to grant eloquent speech to all who kiss it. Thankfully, the safety features have been upgraded throughout the years – tour guides (way back in the day) were said to have held those who wanted to kiss the stone by the ankles in order for them to kiss the stone. Now, as Crystal demonstrates in the picture above, you lay on your back, hold onto the bars for support and bend backward and down to kiss the stone – they even put safety bars in, which didn’t exist a couple years ago. After kissing the stone, we headed into the gardens and got to walk around and sightsee. I’ve put a couple photos below to show you around the gardens 🙂

As you can see, the gardens were absolutely gorgeous and it was relaxing to just get to wander around and take it all in. After we finished at the castle and gardens, we headed into Cork city for a couple hours. We went to a restaurant called “Scoozi!” where we devoured the best pizza ever. We plan on taking another trip to Cork so we can spend more time exploring the city.

Last Sunday (October 16), we took a trip with our ISA group to Galway. It was an adorable little town that didn’t let a cold, rainy, and windy day ruin its good vibes. We saw the Spanish Arch, which was built back in 1584, went to the biggest aquarium in Ireland, saw an amazing cathedral, walked along the beach, and stopped to chill at the COOLEST cafe ever – the Jungle Cafe. Again, since my writing can’t even begin to so the trip justice, I’ve put some pictures below to help you get a feel for the city and what we did.

 

With this week past, we’re now, officially, half way through our time here. Yikes! Time flies when you’re having fun. As you would’ve guessed, we’re having the time of our lives and almost dread coming back to the States. But I guess that’s the reason the Irish government requires you to buy a round-trip plane ticket – we’d never leave!

I hope you guys enjoyed our last couple vlogs, be on the lookout for more! Also, a quick reminder to all our MLC friends out there – we will be skyping during International Week – Nov. 7-11 – so be sure to stop by and say hi!

God’s blessings on your week!