Today started out in a stark contrast to yesterday's 5:30 am wakeup. We managed to sleep until 8AM. After breakfast, oh, I felt like taking a nappy nap. Kris asked me, "What's wrong with that?" and imitated Bella's full body stretch, complete with toes pointed. I laughed, and fell asleep on the couch.

I woke back up at 10am when the doorbell rang. The hotel staff was handing me a bag of clean linens. Eh? Why? I guess since we were supposed to arrive on Sunday, Wednesday was an okay day for new linens.

I did manage, however, to sleep until 11:30 am. Up and out!

Kris decided that after two days of sitting around, followed by sitting for hours driving around for a little bit of touring, that we needed exercise. We REALLY needed exercise. He had found a hike in the guidebook, and off we went to Late Muskry.

We arrived just before 2:30 pm, an admittedly late start, having taken a short diversion at a marked viewpoint. As we were parking the car, Kris started backing up into a ditch. "Stop stop stop!" I cried out, stopping Kris before he drove over the edge of the road and into the ditch. To my horror, I watched as Kris drove forward and nearly drove into another ditch in front of us. I cried out again for him to stop.

He stopped, but not before nearly going over the edge. He wasn't able to put the car in reverse, so I ended up pushing the car back up out of the ditch, along with a man who happened to be working onsite.

Kris claimed he didn't go over the edge, he was "this close!"

We had to walk a good twenty minutes before I wasn't still annoyed.

Before we set off, the Irish man who had helped me push the car from the edge of the ditch, told us it was a long hike, that when it starts to get dark at six, it gets dark really fast. The book said the hike was a three hour hike, so we'd be done by 5:40, really. Right?

The weather was horrible on the way up, winds blowing in our faces, clouds coming in thick and wet, the sun disappearing and the gloom overwhelming. The way down, however, was all sunny and bright and light. An amazing contrast.

We started off on our hike at 2:40, and arrived at the lake at 3:50pm. We left the lake at 3:58pm, arriving back at the car at 5:00. For a three hour hike, I think we did pretty well. We would have made it back in two hours, except I had problems with my left knee locking. I ended up wrapping my knee with my shirt, to keep it from locking, and enabling me to walk down the hill.

Stupid knee.

We did see rainbow sheep on the way up, though. And herding dogs. Both were fun.

Happy birthday Andy!

Normally, this would be four or five posts for the day. I'm feeling lazy, so they're all in one.

Partially recovered from practically sleeping all day yesterday, we woke early (as in 5AM early) to start our first real site-seeing day. We had a slow breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate (read: coffee for Kris), downing lots of orange juice in hopes that hacky woman wouldn't adversely affect our trip.

Eventually, we managed to leave the house, and drove to the nearest big town: Waterford. I recalled visiting Waterford Crystal when Mom and I and an aunt and two cousins toured Ireland two years ago (yes, that trip turned out as well as you could expect a trip involving five related women, two generations, two weeks, and 1000 miles could turn out), and wanted to head over again.

We arrived just after 9AM.

Here's our tour:

Waterford Crystal is currently in Chapter 11, and had closed for tours. There were lots of angry signs around, "Keep Waterford in Waterford" and "Nationalize Waterford Crystal" and "NO TOURS."

I have to admit being disappointed. We found out later in the day, the factory expects to reopen next week for tours, which was funny, as next week is when Ireland "opens" for the tourist season.

So, we continued on We were heading off to Cahir as the next biggest city in the general direction we were heading today. On the way, we saw a sign for a castle, so Kris made a hard left, and we turned down the street.

Kris took a picture and declared, "Let the touring begin!"

Turns out, we turned into the Ormonde Castle, which wasn't open. We weren't sure about the place, if we were allowed to be walking around with the big lock on the gate. Kris suggested we walk around, see if we could see something, anything else. We wandered around, most likely scaring the crap out of the two old women we were walking along behind.

Once we had walked around, and were on our way back to the car, the two women we were following met up with another two couples in the neighborhood, and started talking neighbor talk. I felt a little envious of both the incredible proximity these people live to history and the closeness of neighbors, being able to just walk a few doors down and have good friends.

We continued to Cahir Castle, which was totally awesome.

Once we paid our entrance fee, we had full access to the whole place. There was one place where the steps up to the top of the tower required walking up the outside of the tower. Now, in the US, such a walk up would have been either prohibited or chained off to remove any form of "danger."

Here? Well, climb away! If you fall, it's your fault.

We scrambled around the castle, having a great time firing anachronistic weapons over the walls. Pew pew pew!

Okay, so we were 1 for 3 on our tours. At least we were 2 for 2 on the meals.

We decided to try for Kilkenny Castle as the last stop today, and started our driving. When we were in Scotland for our honeymoon, we would often just turn off the road when a sign for a castle showed up. We did much the same here, except that sometimes we didn't see any sign. There are hundreds of ruins just off the side of the road in Ireland. When passing one, one that looked interesting, I "asked" Kris to "Turn here! Turn here!"

We really weren't sure if we were allowed to be at this place. We were both a little uncomfortable, worried about tresspassing. We followed the signs to the ruins for the Kilamery Cross Abbey, which included a small cemetary next to it, and wandered around for a short while. It was nice to just walk around and be at the place.

After leaving and continuing to Kilkenny, we were a little worried about the timing of the day. We arrived after 3:30 in Kilkenny and hurried to the castle, only to realize that we had to go with a tour guide through the castle.

Now, in this castle, on the tour, you're not supposed to take pictures. Of course, you're not supposed to crawl all over the furniture, either, but that didn't stop the three year old on the tour. She nearly gave our tour guide an epileptic fit as she crawled over 16th century furniture like it was home.

You're also not supposed to touch the various pieces that said "do not touch" including a round table with roses and shamrocks and thistles, but that didn't stop the three year old's father from pawing it for a couple minutes when the tour guide was gone from the room.

No, you're not supposed to take pictures, but that didn't stop me either.

The tour consisted of three rooms. That's right, the tour of a three walled castle was of three rooms. Fun!

The last of the three rooms we toured is the second longest room in Ireland: a 150 foot long gallery. When we entered, my first thought was, "Ahh! You could do wind sprints in here!" My second thought was, "Damn, this room is 50% longer than our property is deep."

Car rental office
O.M.G. We're through customs!
Now I need to pee.

Arrived at Abbey
Nearly completely exhausted.
I think we should nap.

Slept until five thirty
Ready to go see some stuff
Hot chocolate first.

Sitting in the airport for a long time gives us a long time to read, surf and ponder. I suggested we write our vacation in haiku. To my surprise, Kris readily agreed, and provided the first haiku.

At Dulles Airport
Forty hours, now our new home.
Waitress knows our name.

Relaxation starts
With a security note
Read aloud ten times.

I offered a retelling of his arrival at the Dullest airport:

Kris called, reached me not.
He found me at baggage claim,
Mostly by my pounce.

Kris was, however, lamenting our long wait.

B gate fifty one,
Why do your doors not open?
Ireland beckons!

Stuck at the airport,
We expected to be gone.
Brynne suggests Carbombs.

Oh, my, oh, my god,
Are we really on the plane?
Ah, no, still at gate.

When we landed, I offered this haiku:

Crew walks down aisle
To wild applause from peons.
I'm rolling my eyes.

Flight was yesterday.
Airline had us stay the night.
ROFL cake pwnage.

And about that woman:

Sitting on the plane,
Wet hacking coughs behind us.
Pissed? You could say that.

I wonder how long we can tell this story in Haiku.