Our three week trip to Ireland begins an eleven week journey. Miles will be flying home after Ireland, and I will be continuing on my own afterwards. With such a long time away, I decided that I would be best to have a slower pace, if possible, for posting blog updates.
We began by taking a day to drive to Washington, DC, and staying at an airport hotel. The following evening, we flew out to Ireland, with only an hour flight delay. We arrived about 6:30 AM the following morning and departed in our rental car to our first stop, in Navan. In Ireland, you drive on the left side of the road, and the cars have the driver's side on the right. I did not have any trouble when visiting Scotland or driving on my numerous trips to Japan. However, this time I struggled more than most, which was especially true when attempting to navigate the incredibly tight parking garage at the hotel. I predict that I will be having PTSD from this experience for years to come. On the second night, I simply decided to park on the street and wake up early to pay for the parking meter.
I chose Navan as a place to rest, that also had some interesting spots close by. This time I decided to pay for a room on the night prior to arrival so we could immediately get some sleep after our flight. After delaying my alarm numerous times, we ended up sleeping nearly six hours. After forcing ourselves up, I gathered us into the car and drove eighteen minutes away to see the castle of Trim.
The only way to see the inside of the castle and to visit the roof, we had to join a tour. The woman leading the tour was pleasant enough. We learned that this castle was used as a set for Braveheart, a favorite movie of my youth. It was used for a siege, but she also claimed that a room was used for a scene when Longshanks threw his son's lover out of a window. When viewing this scene on youtube, I could not find any identifiers.
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The room reported to be in the movie
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When we descended the steps to exit the castle, we spotted a bird that did not move away. I assumed it was injured in some way, but did not appear to be in any distress.
A short ride away was the Bective Abbey. Off in a lone field, we had the structure completely to ourselves.
When we returned to the hotel room that night, Miles discovered a rather large hole in the side of his shoe, so the next morning we walked a short distance to the small mall in town. I was hoping to go to the Skechers store, but it did not open til 2:00, so we went to a store that sold Regatta shoes. We ended up going with hiking high tops.
While in town, I attempted to find coffee that suited me. There were no less than half a dozen coffee shops in town. Unfortunately, their menus were always identical. Cappuccino, latte, flat white, caffe mocha, and caffee americano. A flat white is described as an espresso based coffee with steamed milk and microfoam. I asked one of the cafe owners why they don't have our filtered coffee, I could not understand his answer. I asked him to repeat it once, but I try not to ask more than once. Back at the hotel, they were nice enough to brew me a whole pot, but the woman that took the order at the reception desk wrote down americano as a backup, since she didn't know what filtered coffee was.
The one stop for the day was a tour at the nearby Newgrange monument and burial chambers. You could not see the sites without a tour. These Neolithic era structures were pretty interesting. First, we were bussed to Knowth. Only the large structure here was authentic. Smaller mounds were recreated using rock markers in the ground as guidance. The tour leader was long winded. The most interesting thing that I learned was that, although workers tried to cover the mounds in the winter to prevent from erosion, they are unsure if it actually did anything to preserve them. She suggested that it was done simply to make people feel like they were doing something, even if there was no end result.
There were steps to the top of the mound, but the chambers were sealed off, so there was nothing to see from the top.
Another short bus ride away and we were brought to the main site. The structure was enormous. We were split into two groups, to take turns going inside. Photography wasn't allowed when in the chambers. The small group filtered into a room with three alcoves used for burial, and a simulated light displayed an approximation of what you might see during a short time window in the mornings around the winter solstice. They have a lottery for people to attend these mornings, along with no guarantee that the light will enter. It is supposed to illuminate the room due to how the structure was created, along with the materials. The artificial light show that we were given displayed a narrow beam of light that crept into the chamber.
We packed our bags into the car and headed south, around Dublin, and towards the town of Roundwood. Just outside of town was Victor's Way, a small sculpture park. We began in an open field and wound our way through a forest and around small lakes. At the end was a room that showed pictures of the people in India that created the sculptures, before having them shipped to Ireland. At the end, a white man greeted us, which resembled the younger man in the pictures. He was very inquisitive about how our experience was.
The main event of the day was just nearby, with our appointment at 2:00. I had originally hoped for us to stop by the Seefin Passage Tomb, but I had not read carefully that it was an hour walk each way from the road. With this appointment, I couldn't risk potentially getting lost on that unmarked trail. We parked at the Alpaca farm and formed up with our designated group.
We were brought into a field to help shepherd the alpacas into a pen, where the guides chose a few alpacas to be led by each person. I was just interested in taking photos, so I opted out. Miles named his Alpaca "noodle," because of its neck and how it reminded him of a ramen noodle. I believe his actual name was Ted, but I forgot to verify this. His alpaca was more friendly and tame than the others. Our two kilometer walk was broken up by frequents stops by the alpaca. Apparently, they kind of go when they please, and once one goes, the rest follow. They spent the entire time eating grass. We were advised not to pet the heads, and to do the bodies instead. Near the end, people were given treats to feed the alpaca, before returning them to their fields.
Our hotel was just minutes away in Newtown Mount Kennedy, with a supermarket next door. We have been eating the ready to go meals from supermarkets so far on this trip.
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