We woke up at the crack of dawn for our first traditional Irish breakfast-we wanted to get an early start with everything we wanted to cover on the agenda for that day. This was my first experience with white and black irish pudding….I’ll try anything once, but I swear to you I will NEVER try THAT again! LOL The white pudding isn’t really pudding at ALL, it consists of pork meat and fat, suet, bread, andoatmeal formed into the shape of a large sausage-the black pudding is pretty much the same except it has blood in it, otherwise known as blood pudding. Gag me now! I tried it before knowing exactly what it was!!! A traditional Irish breakfast is VERY fulfilling! They definitely live by the “breakfast should be the largest meal of the day” rule-THAT’s for sure!! LOL I do have to say that I love their “bacon” way better than ours in the states. It’s basically a large chunk of ham…. 🙂 We didn’t leave hungry at ANY of the bed and breakfasts we stayed at!
On this particular morning, you can say that *I* didn’t exactly start off on the right foot…which set the tune for the rest of the day when I eventually fell down–rolled down a set of castle steps. First it started off with a COLD shower, because it is a house and not a hotel, if everyone tries to take a shower in the a.m. you’ll eventually run out of hot water…THAT WOULD BE ME!! THEN, in an attempt to try to blow dry my hair, I blew out the blow drier AND straight iron. AWESOME! Not that it mattered anyway, because it was rainy and cloudy outside so my hair would have never stayed straight but still! When we finally made it down stairs for breakfast, I drank my orange juice pretty quickly so I went to pour myself some more. Greg reached for the container and poured himself some first and took a drink. If you could have seen the look on his face it was priceless. I should have learned from his mistake but NOOOO, I had to take a drink as well…..which promptly made my eyes and throat feel like they were going to swell up. We apparently drank the concentrate that was supposed to be added to water. DAMN, was it strong…..I think I can STILLLLLL taste it! LOL
Long story short, we eventually get on the road and because it had rained the entire night plus half of the morning there were large and deep pot hots on the back roads. Me wanting to SEE EVERYTHING, I had my window open so that I could do some “drive by shooting”…when Greg promptly went thru a HUGE puddle and sprayed me right in the face! I had to laugh….considering the morning I had just had. I think I almost peed in my pants! hahahaha!! On our back road detour we passed thru a little town called Fern. We found a castle that was falling apart and decided to explore. We pulled over and literally broke into the castle…whoops! Erin started to climb the walls like a 10 year old and Greg and Jereme went directly inside to check out the joint. I lagged behind to take photos. After making it inside I realized everyone was upstairs. It was so dark in the place that the only light we had was from our cell phones. (Thank god for the flashlight app) On our way back down to the bottom floor, my left foot stayed at the top and my right foot made it’s way to the bottom. It was as if it was slow motion….I fell.down.the.friggen.steps!!! My knee swelled up and I thought, “ohh crap, I still have 5 more days to get thru”. I saved my camera though!! My knee hurt for several days but it made for an awesome story to tell Mallory one day. “Hey Mommy broke into a castle and fell down a pair of 800 year old steps!” haha!
As I was limping outside, we ran into two pre-teen boys. They literally scared the crap out of us because #1 we weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. They told us that it’s where they go to smoke their cigarettes-they were 12 and 13. After I told them smoking was bad (hahaa), we asked them about Halloween. They explained that “egging vehicles” was huge over there. I thought GREAT….watch my window accidentally be down again!! hahaah! We left the castle and found ourselves at an old grave yard. It was kind of cool considering Halloween was the very next day, we got out to explore and to take a few photos.
Next up, KilKenny Castle! is a castle in Kilkenny, Ireland built in 1195 by William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke to control a fording-point of the River Nore and the junction of several routeways. I’ll spare you the history since you can google it but trust me, to see in person is pretty awesome! We spent several hours inside touring the castle which worked out great for us considering it was raining outside!
Finally making it back into town, we discovered how fun the “round about’s” are! Greg made a rule, every time he came to one, he’d go around 3 times. Trust me, you just HAD to be there……hilarious! Once we arrived in Dungarvan it was dusk and the sun was beginning to set over the little coastal town. It was Halloween night and we were on a mission to wear our Halloween Costumes. We knew it would be very unlikely that anyone else would be dressed up due to the next day being a work day…but we brought our costumes all this way and darn it we were going to wear them! They were trick or treating when we left the bed and breakfast but we decided to go into town where the Pubs were. I don’t think we stopped laughing from the time we left the house until the time we got home…and you’ll see why!! HAHA! After having a few pints in the Pub and dinner, we headed back to the bed and breakfast to get a good night’s rest for the next day…..we were going to kiss the Blarney Stone! 🙂
Love the pics of the castle you snuck into, that must have been awesome to see, how fun! And the halloween pics….seriously hysterical!!