We're Home!! / Trip Recap

Hi Everyone!!

Well, we are home! We have been here since the 25th and have just been unwinding and unpacking since then. The trip home was actually very good, it is an 8 hour time difference from Alaska and Ireland but we experienced surprisingly little jet-lag. On our flight home from Dublin we had about a 20 hour layover in Newark and my brother drove up from Connecticut and we got to spend a couple hours with him just talking and catching up. When you live on opposite sides of the country face to face catching up doesn't happen often enough so it was GREAT to see him!! We were VERY fortunate to make it home. as you may have heard we have a volcano that has been erupting and causing airlines to cancel flights into and out of Anchorage. We got in on Wednesday and flights the 2 days prior and the 2 days after were cancelled, so we just happened to get in on the 1 day with no disruptions!!

Our trip was amazing! We feel so blessed that we were able to go and experience Ireland. In fact, we went there with the mind set that we would be able to check Ireland off of our travel list, however we loved it so much we would absolutely go back! It is a magical place where the only thing that outshines the beautiful landscape is the friendliness of the Irish people. The trip exceeded every expectation that we had.

On a side note I have to give a BIG kudos to Sherri. Almost the entire trip she felt horrible. She said that this was probably the worst cold she has ever had, yet she was such a trooper and still got out and did a ton of stuff! Now that we are home she is still feeling the effects of the cold, but is SO much better.

Thanks for "following along" on our blog, we really enjoyed logging on and reading everyone's comments along the way.

- Adam & Sherri

FYI: we have about 550 photos from our trip that we are uploading on-line soon, we will post the link on here once that is done and you can see all of our trip photos if you want! Stay tuned for that!

Monday...

Monday was our last full day in Ireland. How sad, but what a great day it was. Today we finally saw our first rain of the entire trip! It rained on us for about 30 minutes before actually turning into another nice day.

This morning we went and toured St. Patrick's Cathedral. Built in 1191, St. Patrick's is the largest church in Ireland. It was beautiful. the stained glass work and the detail were amazing! After St. Patrick's we went and toured the Guinness Brewery! It was an amazing facility that covers 7 floors with a bar on the top floor. The building is shaped to look like a huge Guinness pint glass, pretty cool! Sherri doesn't like Guinness (what is wrong with her!?!?!) so I got to have her, and my free drinks!! I was even able to pour my own pint of Guinness and I now have a certificate naming me as an official "Guinness Perfect Pint Crafter". I will probably be adding this to my resume soon. The facility was just awesome and was a main highlight of the trip for me. Any time you are allowed to have 3 pints of Guinness before lunch is pretty great.

After Guinness we went back to Temple Bar for lunch and to do some more shopping.

We soon went back to our hotel to start packing for our early morning flight back to America.

I will give a brief trip recap and wrap up in the next couple day but I can say that this trip has been amazing. Far above expectations.

Here are some pictures from our last day in Ireland:

(This is the Oliver St. John Gogarty Pub in Temple Bar)

(the pint I poured. It's perfect, the head crests the top of the glass but doesn't run down the side!)

(Sherri having fun in the Guinness store)

(me pouring my pint)

(this is an elementary school group that was touring the Guinness brewery. You know you are in Europe when...)

(inside St. Patrick's Cathedral)

(just a small part of the cathedral exterior, it was HUGE)

Sunday...

Sunday was our first full day in Dublin, and what a great day it was! We started the day in "Temple Bar" which is billed as the cultural center of the city. It is full of shops and pubs and restaurants and just has a very fun, busy feeling. We did some shopping, had lunch and walked around a bit before going to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a handwritten copy of the New Testament that was done in approx. 800AD. It is done in Latin and is VERY ornate and the detail and design is just amazing. To see something so old, that was made by hand that had such an attention to detail and design was just awesome!! After the Book of Kells we went into Trinity College's "long room", which is home to 200,000 of the colleges oldest books. It was amazing. The room itself was beautiful and to be surrounded bu thousands of the oldest copies of literature was just awesome. We sat for a while and just looked at the books and the surroundings. Photography wasn't allowed in the college or the long room so the picture below is one I got off of the Internet. After walking around Trinity College (founded in 1592 and alumni include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker) we went to the "Welcome Home Celebration" for the Ireland Rugby team.

Here is some background on that. Ireland is a HUGE sports country, I have never seen anything like it. I consider myself a sports fan, but these people put me and anyone I have ever known to shame. On Saturday night the Ireland rugby team was playing for the "Grand Slam Championship" of the Six Nations Rugby league. Basically the grand slam means that they not only won the league championship, but they beat every other country doing it. It is a HUGE deal, it had been 61 years since Ireland last won the Grand Slam. They were playing Wales and they ended up winning on a missed last second kick by Wales. This sent the entire country into a huge celebration. It was the main news story on every channel, it received 4 or 5 pages of exclusive coverage in the newspapers, it was the only thing people were talking about and we got to be there and watch it happen. Pretty cool. Anyway, while we were out walking around on Sunday we saw signs pointing to an area of town that said "Welcome Home Celebration" and so we knew that we had to go experience this. There was a crowd of over 20,000 people in the streets with live bands, huge TV monitors re-playing the game and just an amazing atmosphere. It was something I am very glad that we got to experience because we really got to see the passion that these people have, not only for sport, but also for their country.

After the celebration we walked around downtown a bit around sunset before heading back to our hotel.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

(The Long Room at Trinity College, home to 200,000 of their oldest books)

(sunset over the River Liffey that runs through downtown Dublin)

(a picture from the Welcome Home celebration, it doesn't show the crowd size but I love this shot of these boys)

(The Spire in downtown Dublin, it is just a huge spike that they built for the millennium celebration. 390 feet tall)

(Temple Bar in the Temple Bar district in Dublin, very well known pub in Dublin)

Saturday..

(house in Passage East)

(The Brazen Head in Dublin, Ireland's oldest pub)

(random ivy-covered castle alongside the road)

(St. Patrick's Cross from Cashel, dates to the 12th century)

(Celtic cross and landscape from Rock of Cashel)

(inside the Rock of Cashel)

(The B&B we stayed at with the Rock of Cashel behind it)

Hi!

So on Saturday morning we toured the Rock of Cashel, this was the home for the Munster Kings of Ireland. This is also the location that St. Patrick converted and baptized the King of Ireland, leading to Ireland becoming a "christian" nation. The castle is pretty well preserved and is very impressive. After we left Cashel we went to Waterford, home of Waterford Crystal and saw the Faithlegg house and church and golf course. Not sure of any connection to our last name but the Legg name descends from here and so it's always possible. After that we drove up the eastern coast through wexford and wicklow (where the movie P.S. I Love You was filmed) and it was a beautiful drive! We returned our rental car in Dublin and took a taxi to the hotel that will be our "home" for the next 3 nights. We got into Dublin early enough that we went into the city center for dinner and drinks. We went to The Brazen Head, which is Ireland's oldest pub and dates to 1198! We had dinner and a few drinks there before leaving and walking around downtown a little before heading back to our hotel. It was a great day but somewhat sad because were are saying "goodbye" to the rural parts of Ireland, which have certainly been the highlight of our trip.

New Posts...

Hi Everyone!!

Just to let you know there are a few new posts below to "catch up" on our trip. We appreciate everyone who is "following along" on our trip and we have enjoyed reading your comments! Also, we took the advice of someone who posted and tried to add a couple pictures of Sherri and I to our posts.

I will load the pictures from today (Saturday) soon and get another blog up, probably tomorrow. We will be in Dublin for a couple of days so we should be better connected now.

Thanks for reading!!

Want to buy a castle?!?!

So yesterday we were driving along and we saw a Castle in the distance, which isn't too rare here, we have probably seen 25+ castles in the past week, however what made this one so different is that it is FOR SALE!! I have to admit I have never seen a sign that said "800 year old castle For Sale". Of course my mind started racing, what could we turn it into, what could we make of it, how cool would it be to own a castle!!

So, here are some pictures and the contact info in the event you were in the market for a castle. How awesome is Ireland? Very Awesome!

Friday...

On Friday morning we drove from Castlegregory to Blarney and then to Cobh and finally on to Cashel where we stayed the night.

In Blarney we went to Blarney Castle, no we did not kiss the Blarney Stone because it was a long wait and we were on a bit of a tight schedule today, also, kissing the stone is supposed to give you the gift of gab, and I am pretty sure that is one thing I already have. The castle and the surrounding grounds are beautiful! They have really done a nice job preserving it!

After Blarney we drove to the small coastal town of Cobh. It used to be known as Queensland and it was the final port of call for the Titanic. Pretty cool. Also, it was the departure point for about 1/2 of the people who immigrated to America through Ellis Island. In fact the first person ever processed at Ellis Island was Annie Moore and they have a statue in Cobh of her and her brothers commemorating all of the immigrants who left for America. Also, the Lusitania, the British Luxury Liner that was sunk by German U Boats in 1917 sank close to the town and Cobh was where all of the survivors were taken. It was a beautiful town with some incredible history.

When we left Cobh we drove to Cashel. Cashel is famous for The Rock of Cashel, this was the castle that was used by the King of Ireland. I did some planning in advance and booked a room at a local B&B that had an amazing view of the castle right out of our windows! We got in kind of late so we grabbed dinner, walked around the town for a bit and made it an early night. We toured the castle the next morning, but more on that in the next post ;o)

(Titanic memorial in Cobh)

(Annie Moore memorial in Cobh, first person processed through Ellis Island)

(The view of the Rock of Cashel from our room window)

(view of downtown Cobh with the cathedral in the background)

(Blarney Castle)

(the grounds surrounding Blarney Castle, doesn't this look like a painting?)

(Sherri and I in front of Blarney Castle)

Thursday...

On Wednesday night we stayed in Adare and the next morning we toured The Adare Manor before driving to The Dingle Peninsula where we spent Thursday night in Castlegregory. A fun fact, the place we stayed at was AMAZING and the band Dire Straits, as well as some other famous actors and actresses have stayed there. It was easily the nicest B&B I have ever seen, it is one of only a few 5 Diamond B&B's in Ireland and we can certainly see why! And the French Toast with honey and banana for breakfast was the perfect ending to our stay there!

Thursday included a WIDE range of things, we walked on a perfectly sandy beach and collected shells (not something I thought I would do in Ireland), we toured a 2500 year old fort, we drove through some amazing scenery, we saw one of the first christian "churches" in Ireland and we toured a 850 acre mansion.

Here are a few pictures of that day:

(scenery along the coast, with sheep!)

(the view from our room at The Shores Country House. The beach was right there and we sat and watched the waves for a long time.)

(Dingle Peninsula, beach we walked on and collected shells, who knew Ireland had these kind of beaches)

(Gallarus Oratory, one of the first christian churches in Ireland, still waterproof after 1500 years)

(Sherri and I near a 2500 year old Fort above the ocean)

(Adare Manor, former home of the Earl of Dunraven and currently one of the nicest hotels in the world and a golf course that was names #4 in the world by Conde Nast Traveler, the manor covers 850 acres, we couldn't get the entire manor in 1 picture, in fact I'm not sure we could get it in 3 or 4 pictures, it was HUGE)

Update...

Hi Everyone -

It has been a couple days since our last update because we have not had Internet access. We arrived in Dublin a couple of hours ago and are checked in to our hotel here. We will be here for 3 days before heading home. The last couple of days have been AMAZING and I will post pictures and updates tonight!!

Thanks for following us, more to come soon!!

Cead Mile Failte!!! (a hundred thousand welcomes)

(The town of Adare, where we are staying tonight)

(some Celtic crosses at an old church)

(The Cliffs of Moher, almost 700 feet tall, amazing!)

(This is why I am glad we bought a GPS device, this is a typical group of road signs in a small town, how confusing, but it makes for a great picture)

(the ruins of a castle that we stopped at today, one of several we got to see!)

_________________________________________________

Hello Everyone!!

It was another amazing day in Ireland! Today felt like we actually got into the "real Ireland". We left the cities behind and drove through a lot of smaller towns on our trip to the Cliffs of Moher and eventually here to Adare where we are spending the night. We got to see lots of picturesque small towns filled with old Irish men wearing tweed caps, apparently this Ireland still does exist!

The pictures above are just a small sample of some of what we saw today. The weather was perfect again, not a cloud in the sky. We were told to expect cloudy and rainy weather and if we got lucky we may get 1 or 2 sunny days on a typical Ireland vacation, well we have had nothing but sunshine our whole trip and the forecast looks good for the next several days as well! Someone upstairs must like us! Sherri is still battling a head cold so we stopped into a pharmacy today and talked with a pharmacist and she suggested some things and Sherri said that she has been feeling better since taking the suggested medicines, so that is good.

Tomorrow we are off to the Dingle Peninsula where we are staying in the coastal town of Castlegregory. I will try and blog more tomorrow night!

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY FROM IRELAND!!!

(streets in downtown Galway, so much charm in each building and shop)

(during the parade)

(along the river after the parade, enjoying the sunshine)

(all of the local schools had their bands in the parade, cutest little outfits)

(Along the parade route, people even sitting on top of telephone booths)

(The view of the parade route from where we were standing)

Well, we made it to Ireland safely! We flew into Dublin early yesterday and drove across the country to Galway. It was an amazing drive and gave us a great chance to see some of the country (and lots of sheep). As you can imagine we were exhausted when we got here so we made it a pretty early night last night. This morning we were up early (about 6:30am) and had breakfast and then headed into downtown Galway for the parade and all of the festivities. Today has been the perfect day! I don't know how we can ever top this St. Paddys Day. The Parade was great, about 50,000 people turned out for it and it is such a festive scene. Everyone is dressed in their green with Irish flags and hats and faces painted. It is just such a fun atmosphere. We chose to spend today in Galway as opposed to Dublin because everyone we talked to said that Galway was very traditional Irish, where Dublin was flooded with foreign visitors and was more of a "show" and we are SOOO glad we chose Galway, it has been perfect! The Parade was great and then we did some shopping, Sherri bought a Claddah ring from the original store that invented and made them, pretty cool, and then we spent some time sitting next to the river enjoying the sunshine in downtown, it is about 60 here and perfectly sunny!! We are back at the hotel now after a quick lunch and later tonight we are going back out to watch the sunset over Galway Bay and then going to a local Pub for their traditional Irish Music night. So far the trip has been great, the people here are amazing, everyone is so nice and helpful and we could not ask for better weather. Sherri is battling a cold so that has been the only down side but she has been taking lots of medicine and is trying to get better (please pray for quick healing). Tomorrow we are off to the Cliffs of Moher and Adare and then the Dingle Peninsula the day after that. We will post more in the next day or two.

Off to Ireland

Hello!

In less than 48 hours we will be on our way to Ireland! We are planning on updating this site every day, or every couple of days with pictures and quick highlights of our trip so check back often over the next couple of weeks!!!

Snow Sculptures

Hello!

Today Sherri and I went and saw the snow sculptures that are part of the Fur Rondy Festival. Every year they have dozens of teams enter and their creations are always pretty amazing. Here are some of our favorites!

(Scrat from the "Ice Age" movies)

(A snowman on a hammock hung between two palm trees)

(A Kayaker taking a wave)

(A group of native whalers on 2 whales. The detail on this was AMAZING)