DAY TWO – KILKENNY IRELAND

We woke this morning after a decent nights sleep to birds singing and a chill in the air. The weather here is beautiful, averaging in the 60’s during the day with some cloud coverage (though no rain) and the smell of fall in the air.

After we showered and dressed, we went downstairs for our first “Irish breakfast”. There was so much delicious food, it was unbelievable! Coffee, Tea, Juice, Bread with butter, cheese, yogurt, fruit, nuts, cereals, eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding (not your everyday Jello pudding, blah!!), mushrooms, tomatoes and toast. Seriously, after eating a bit of everything (minus the black pudding) we were good until dinner time.

In the dining room after breakfast

We shared a table with a sweet young couple from Germany. We exchanged stories about our home countries, currency exchange rates, politics (minus the animosity as when talking politics back home) and our experiences in Ireland thus far. We so enjoyed their company and were sad to hear they were moving on to another county that morning. It would have been lovely to speak with them some more.

----side note--- Our lovely friend Kelly is the owner of “Otto” the monkey. Kelly sends Otto on vacation with her friends and had asked if we could bring him to Ireland. Otto has been to Burning Man several times and just recently got back from Dragon Con. Here are a couple of pictures of Otto chilling in our room. We are delighted he has joined us :-)

After breakfast Ty and I set off on a walk into town in search of an electronics adaptor. Our electronic devices are 110 and in Ireland they are 220. I tried to purchase one in the U.S. before we left, but the lady at Radio Shack sold me the wrong thing.

I could not use my laptop and I desperately wanted to e-mail my mom to let her know we made it safely. Val and Tom (our B & B hosts), had different suggestions of where to go to get one.

Our walk took us to Kilkenny center. Neither of their suggested stores had what we needed, but we still had a pleasant experience trying to find one.

The Irish are funny people, always with a story to tell and eager to help. They interrupt, skip around to various subjects and come back again… all during a single conversation. Their sense of time is always “ish” – for example breakfast is served at 9-ish. (“Sharon, I will be to work at 9-ish sharp!”)

Ty says he now knows I get these traits honestly and that I am not ADHD, just Irish. HA!! They all say Ty is quite the "jokster" too. Hmmm - all this time I just thought he was sarcastic. LOL

Irelands version of the Dollar Store (downtown Kilkenny):

We finally found a store with the correct adaptor and then decided to just mill around and take in the sights…

Kilkenny center:

Beautiful flowers on all the streets:

Ruins along the River:

Stairs leading down the path to Kilkenny castle:

Kilkenny Castle:

Hope in front of Kilkenny Castle

Ty in front of Kilkenny Castle

---SIDE NOTE: wanted to give a shout out to my friend Josh O’Brien (aka Sketch):

Hope’s shout out:

Ty’s shout out (yes, it is part of a tomb stone... you know from Ty the Jokster):

We decided to take a tour of the “craft circle” upon Val’s suggestions (plus we were tired of walking). So we hopped in the car and took off, destination, craft circle. Of course we got lost, because the roads are not well marked. Seriously, driving here is scary – cars fly down the road at ridiculous speeds and the roads are so narrow and winding. More about that later…

We popped into a candle shop where they pour their own wax. Then a pottery store where we could watch them spin clay to make pottery. It was cool to see the whole process, even the hand painting. I desperately wanted to go by the glass shop to watch the glass blowing. It was off the main road and so we once again got lost.

Bonus though, as we came across this really cool church and ancient grave yard :

We also saw some beautiful landscape and some SHEEP!!! (Autumn is obsessed with us walking with the sheep in Ireland.) We didn’t get to walk with them as they were confined to somebody’s land. We took a picture though.

We then came across another old cemetery and had to stop and look around again:

FINALLY, we arrived at the glass shop. They had finished with the glass blowing demonstrations for the day, but we enjoyed the shop anyway. I purchased a lovely item for my favorite girl and we headed back to the B&B.

We walked to town for dinner and ate at a pub called “The Playwright”. I had French onion soup and Shepard’s Pie. Ty had French onion soup and Beef Stew. Once again we drank a pint of Guinness and took these silly pictures as requested by our friend Henry:

We arrived back at the bed and breakfast sore and tired from all the walking. We were extremely happy though and really enjoyed our day. Our bed and breakfast is so relaxing, that arriving here each night is like a home away from home.

~~Hope