D is for Drinking and Dublin and Drinking

Our triumphant return to Dublin was filled with... (what else?)... Booze!

First a visit to the Guinness Storehouse:

They have a very education advertising exhibit...

...well in THAT case...!

The tour culminates at the Gravity Bar where you get your "Perfect Pint" of the good stuff! It takes exactly two minutes for a Guinness to settle before you should drink it. Learn something new every day!

Did I mention that the Gravity Bar is at the top of the building, has almost 360 degree views, and is supposedly the highest point in Dublin?

Pretty sweet place to have a drink...

I'm pretty sure Clara should be hired for all Guinness marketing...

And, of course, after you've had a drink or two, you conveniently pass by...

...where everything is Guinness, almost everything is awesome, and nothing remains in your wallet once you leave.

Where to next? Why the Jameson Distillery, of course! Where they have perhaps the most alcoholic chandelier ever made

Though we didn't take the tour, we did visit the bar and get ourselves some signature Jameson drinks

In case you are wondering, storehouses and distilleries aren't the only places to drink in Dublin. In fact anywhere is good! See?

Oh the things you find next to an ATM in Dublin...

Thanks for the fun, Ireland :)

Kylemore Abbey

Halfway through our Connemara-tour day we stopped at Kylemore Abbey, a beautiful castle/estate with amazing gardens.

These are some of my favorite photos of the year, in fact.

When his wife died, the owner of the estate had this mini-cathedral built. 

It's absolutely a cathedral, but oddly tinier than you think it should be. Cool building :)

They take their gardening seriously. We could have spent hours wandering around the gardens but had to catch a shuttle back. I got some exciting flower shots though. They're for my mom :)

I have no idea what this next flower is, but I love it:

Emily always finds furry friends!

While I was photo-stalking one bee (the one on the left), another one came to compete for the same flower! The intruder (the one on the right) won...

Out of place, but thriving...

Simple

As rain and clouds rolled in (well, more rolled in, there are always clouds in Ireland...), I got this ominous shot of the castle...

dun dun DUNNNNNNNNN!

:-P

Ponies and Puppies and Sheep, Oh My!

In planning our Irish vacation, it was insisted upon that at SOME POINT, we should have to stop our car to allow sheep to cross the road. 

WE FOUND PLENTY OF THEM! 

But we'll get back to the sheep later. Our day of driving through the Connemara region began at a little wharf (I actually can't even remember how we found this place) that had some cool run-down old boats.

And as we've already discussed, old run-down boats are fun to take photos of :-)

Aaaaaand we found an adorable puppy....

Anna had a high-fashion, windy photoshoot!

Then back in the car we hopped to drive around tiny country roads in the hills, staying significantly slower than (insane) posted speed limits, and stopping sporadically to take photos of incredibly Irish-looking vistas, like this one:

AND STOPPING FOR SHEEP!

There were tons of sheep, and twice, yes TWICE, we actually had to stop to let them cross the road. Mission: Accomplished!

We also stopped at little bays and inlets like this one in funnily-named-town #47: Letterfrack.

Twas pretty

and relaxing :)

And a visit to Connemara wouldn't be complete without ponies. Ok, well they're horses (I guess), but we still found them!...

And played with them!

And then my camera died...

(good thing we were just about to head home)

**Stay tuned! Also in Connemara we stopped at a cool castle with beautiful gardens - so many photos it clearly deserved its own post. That one is next!

This is a Post about Swans

Didn't want to beat around the bush about that one. 

We spent a day/night in Galway, a small but cool city on the west side of Ireland.  You know, just walking around, following the river, almost getting run over by a guy on a bike who ended up severely hurting himself, and seeing buildings and bridges!

Then we found baby swans (told you it'd be about swans).

They were cute.

Mom was SCARY! I managed to get an action shot of her SCREAMING at Emily.

But they still hung around, and the babies were cute.

Then we went to a pub for dessert. The most important thing to report was the amazingly ideal Irish man sitting by himself in the corner. The vest and tie, the hat, and the two pints of Guinness. I had no choice but to creep a photo.

And that's galway!

Rockin' at Cashel!

After Kilkenny, we headed Southwest and stopped off at the Rock of Cashel, a really old cathedral on a hill. 

We got out of the car with tons of excitement and were greeted in the parking lot by three other REALLY excited dancing folk! Emily and Anna joined the party, naturally!

And Granny's (adorable) Kitchen provided us with a nice boost of caffein for the day.

Climbed the hill annnnnd Ta-daaaa!

It was a glorious place for wandering around and taking scenic photos. WIN!

That tower is the oldest still-standing building.

Because it is a cathedral and chapel, the gounds became a sort of cemetery. Lots of cool graves there.

And crumbly old walls and stuff

and stuff to climb! DOMINATED!

and great views to enjoy while resting

All in all a cool place. Here's one of my favs:

(side note - I just discovered that if you click on a photo on my blog, it makes a full-screen slide-show of the photos in that post. Had you guys already figured that out? fun discoveries!)

More Ireland to come...

Oh My God, We Kilkenny-ed!

Anna, Emily, and I hopped in a rental car and started cruising (on the wrong side of the road...) around the country! First stop: Kilkenny.  It's a quaint little old town where Smithwick's Beer is brewed! 

It's a nice little town to explore, since you can find cool things like this really intriguing shop window:

...too bad the interior was much less curious than the name suggested...

Plus there were cool old churches and abbeys,

And Kilkenny castle! Which, by the way, had a charter of some sort on the wall of one of the rooms that had William & Mary on it! 

We found our way to an old church with a cemetery right as it started to rain. We took shelter in the vestibule outside the main door, which was beautiful.

Still smiling, despite the dreary, raining Irish weather!

After the rain cleared, we stumbled on the graves of the actual Smithwick family!

The things you find in Ireland....