Carrick-on-Suir

So our first day of the trip is over. It seems like we’ve been here for a few days though because it was such a long day. I’ve only had about 36 hours of sleep in the past two days so I’ll be glad to be able to get a full night’s rest tonight.

· We went for a walk around Carrick tonight. We saw the castle that belonged to Black Tom or Tim or something like that. He wasn’t really black of course. I assumed you figured that because there aren’t too many black Irishmen, especially with castles. It was given to him by Elizabeth the first. Cousin Jane made spaghetti for dinner and it was quite good. Definitely felt better in my stomach than the broccoli and cauliflower soup I had earlier today. That didn’t settle so well.

· After dinner we met up with Enda who is my grandmother’s second cousin. He lives here in Carrick and is an actor in theatre. We met him at the J. Lawlor pub for a pint or two. It ‘s only one of the many pubs in this small town. The pubs here aren’t like the bars we have for a few reasons. For example, the bartender or what they call the “bar-man” over here was actually a “bar-woman” and she was pushing 80 years old. I’m sure she had owned and ran the bar her whole life. A lot of the tacky decorations in the bar had been there for a while too. There was a cigarette machine that looked like it was forty years old. The cigarettes here so expensive, almost ten American dollars a pack. Another reason why is that they didn’t have Budweiser or Coors like they do in America. I ordered a pint of Guinness which was on tap along with Carlsberg and some other Irish beer. I was very surprised with how Guinness tasted. It was really good, the very dark appearance fooled me. When we finished our glasses Enda brought us to another pub downtown. I liked this one better. From the street it looked very small but it actually wasn’t at all. It was dark and filled with neat signs and pictures. The lounge went back like fifty feet with tables set up along the way. Next to the door that read toilets there was a door which led to an outside bar area with TV’s and a few slot machines. There was a patio and on both sides were round tables. We chose to sit in a little side nook that seemed to be the bar’s old kitchen because it had tile floors unlike the rest of the bar. We drank a few more pints and talked about the Irish sport called “hurling”. Which is sort of a mix between baseball, soccer, and hockey. Baseball because you carry a “hurley”... Soccer because you run around and play on a soccer field. Hockey because it’s physical. If I grew up in Ireland I would definitely be a hurler and not a soccer player. Enda even said soccer was a fairy sport. I agreed.

I’m disappointed that I can’t get on the internet here. There are a few spots with WiFi but they are all locked. I’m hoping the rest of Europe will be better in that way because I’d really like to be able to post on the blog and add pictures as much as possible. As well as facebook and chat with my friends and family who I miss a lot. Especially Courtney.. I love you very much.

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Long Morning in Dublin

So Papa and I arrived at the Dublin Airport around 4:30am. I was completely exhausted and sore from the long flight. We got our bags and Papa left me out on the street watching over the bags as he went and looked for somewhere to exchange dollars for Euros. He came back five minutes later with the money and we bought two bus tickets for Dublin City Centre (O’Connell St.) By the time we got off the bus it was still dark outside. It was strange seeing the beautiful city of Dublin for the first time in the dark with no one on it’s wide streets. I was able to take a couple of nice pictures though. Our plan was to find our way to the bus station and buy tickets for the bus to Carrick-on-Suir and lock up our bags in the storage area of the station. I was pretty weary of the whole situation because we didn’t really know what we were doing. We didn’t have money at the time because we spent it on the bus tickets, and we were both tired. After finding out the bus leaves at 1:30, we went back out to explore. By this time it was starting to get light out and I could really see how amazing Dublin is! The buildings are all so beautiful and filled with history. It makes it even better that I am half Irish so I could connect being in the capitol of Ireland with my families’ heritage. We explored the old town for about two hours. Stopping and taking pictures whenever I saw something I thought was really cool or different. I wanted to go on the internet really badly so we searched for a café or place with WiFi but we couldn’t find anything. Finally we decided to go into a McDonald’s Café and have a sausage mcMuffin with egg and some coffee. After that I felt a boost of energy and we started to explore again. We made it over to the Trinity College campus, which is utterly amazing. I’m actually typing out this blog entry from a little underground café In the center of the trinity courtyard. I took a lot of pictures of the campus so you’ll be able to see what I mean when I say it’s amazing. Another neat thing we explored was the park where I took pictures of Papa next to the Robert Emmett statue. He thought this was of extreme importance seeing how he was named after this Irish hero.

We're leaving later today around 2:00. I couldn't sleep at all last night, but hopefully I'll sleep the whole flight and be ready to arrive in Dublin tomorrow morning around 6:00 their time. I'm really hoping everything goes smoothly to start off this trip.

Leaving tomorrow!

Hey everyone.

This is my very first post and I'm very excited to say that my Papa and I are leaving tomorrow from Boston, Massachusetts at 6:00 PM. I plan to add a new post after every day informing you (the follower) about our adventures. I will also add as many pictures as I can.

-Cam C.