Tuesday, March 27, 2007

We be Ireland bound!

Hey kids. Long time, no hear. Well, it's official. Mary Kate & I are Ireland bound this summer! We put the deposit down two weeks ago, passports have been applied for (expedited of course), vacation time has been requested, and calculating has been done [Goodbye money, I loved you ].
I think I'm gonna do the same as last year for my birthday (dinner and then hang back @ my place), but most likely it will be the weekend before we leave (either the 13th or the 14th). We leave on Saturday, July 21st (Many thanks to Erin & Mike for suggesting Dave's Best Limo Service. They're cheaper and MUCH faster than Amtrak) with an evening flight from JFK to Shannon, Ireland (which we'll arrive at on Sunday @ 6am GMT). And if I'm very lucky, the nice UPS man will come to my house before noon. (We leave the same day that the new Harry Potter is released.) I'll also be switching my cell phone plan over so I can still talk to everyone without it costing an arm & a leg.
Here's a list of where we're going & what we'll be seeing:
Shannon- The Cliffs of Moher.
Galway- Rathbaun Farm, Gaelic-speaking Connemara, Kylemore Abbey.
Knock- The Apparition Shrine.
Sligo -Birthplace of W.B. Yeats.
Donegal- [This is where I'll be for my birthday.]
Glenties- Glenveagh Castle and National Park.
Armagh- St. Patrick's Trian, an exhibition of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels."
Dublin- Kilmainham Jail, O'Connell Street and the Post Office (scene of the 1916 Easter Rising).
Kilkenny - Kilkenny City, Kilkenny Castle (ancestral home of the Butler Clan).
Waterford- Waterford Crystal Factory.
Cork
Cobh- Cobh Heritage Center.
Blarney- Blarney Castle [where I will NOT be kissing the Blarney Stone because the locals pee on it. Thanks for the heads up, Preston & Steve!], Blarney Woollen Mills.
Cork- Kerry Mountains
Killarney- Ring of Kerry, "Heaven's Reflex", Iveragh Peninsula, Kerry coast, Dingle Peninsula, Slea Head, Blasket Islands.
Bunratty- a farewell medieval castle banquet at Bunratty Castle.
From there we'll go back to Shannon for our afternoon flight back to the States. We'll get to JFK around 4:15pm EST on Wednesday, August 1st.
Many thanks to all the people who've been giving us travel tips & advice. Now, what does everyone want me to bring back for them? And no, I can't fit a good looking Irish Man/Women into my luggage. I won't have enough room for my own and someone else's.