Plane ride wasn't too bad, didn't really struggle with jet lag as I was able to stay up but one hour through the nine hour flight. I really enjoyed the flight attendants on British airways as they were very helpful and polite. Once we arrived in London things started to get kind of difficult because we had no idea what the heck we were doing or where we were going. Apparently you have to fill out some sort of form as you go through customs just to have them approve of you in their country. The man at the customs desk wasn't so friendly, seemed to enjoy giving us a hard time and there is just something about those kind of people who take pleasure in making things harder for you that gets me feisty. As the man is grilling us with questions he asks, "Is this your first time here?" Stupidly I say "Yes...can you tell." Sheri at this point is cracking up as the man behind the desk sits in silence. Woops!
It hasn't been the easiest of transitions, the main reason being my pride and having to look like a moron everywhere I go. It's hard not knowing where you are going, relying on the locals to tell you after you've all ready asked them 20 times. But the Irish are very sweet people. Just as we would be walking along the street with our map people would stop us and ask us if we knew where we were going, with doubt in our minds we would ask for their suggestions. In our first full day here we took it upon ourselves to explore on our own. Feeling confident we trekked out to find the Blarney Castle, only to see that the route we had chosen wasn't for pedestrians. So we tried to follow along a narrow road that looked to follow the highway but soon found out that if we continued we might get hit by one of the many speeding cars going up and down this narrow road with no sidewalk. Came to this conclusion as we passed a couple of carcass's. So we walked back grabbing some lunch and trying to map out our plans to the rail station, we found the rail station and were able to see what our plan was for getting to Dublin on Saturday. As we left the rail station we were offered our first pint by two men, one I'm pretty sure was drunk in mid-afternoon, but we kindly refused. To finish the day we sat in a coffee shop, Sheri having tea and me a coffee, journaling and reading so that we might take time to reflect.
We were able to get to Blarney Castle today as we found a free bus that would take us there, pretty great if you ask me since everything is so expensive. What a fun and beautiful place, the hike up wasn't so bad. As you walked up the small steep stairway you could stop inside the different rooms, I took quite a few pictures out of the windows as we went. Once at the top I was so excited to kiss the stone. Had my camera out ready to take picture of Sheri as she went and so that she could take a picture of me too. Sheri did so great, she was nervous as she doesn't enjoy heights very much but after much "arguing" with the man he finally convinced her to just lean back and do it. The gap looked bigger as you were standing there looking at it than it really was as you lay on your back and held the bars to kiss it upside down. What a great start to our trip! As I said to Sheri as we were walking out of Blarney...."I shall never wash the lips again!"
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