Kilkenny

Last weekend, our group traveled to Kilkenny. The city is located in southeast Ireland and is known as the "Marble City." Our bus driver actually filled us in on a some little-known information: the marble that we see is actually limestone - the title of "Marble City" is just for the tourists! Michael Rooney drove our bus this week, and it is great to have a real Irishman carting us around - he knows the truth behind all of these Irish stories!

We left for Kilkenny on Saturday morning and stopped at two castles along the way. The first was in Cashel, which is a lovely little town in the middle of Ireland. The Rock of Cashel (the name of the castle) was quite a site. It had five main buildings, all of which were added on in the 12th century when the castle was an abbey. The entire area, however, can be dated back to the 3rd century. It was kind of rainy that day, and most of the tour was outside, but other than that, it was a really cool area to see. The Rock of St. Patrick is located there, and legend has it that if you hug it and can get your finger tips to touch on the other side, you will never have another toothache. It is a really unfair tradition for girls, though, because I don't know any girls who have long enough arms to reach all the way around - I certainly didn't! Looks like I'm going to have to keep going to the dentist.

After the Rock of Cashel, we moved on to Cahir Castle in Cahir, which was actually a lot like the first castle we saw. The interesting thing about that one, though, is that the tour guide only gave us a tour of the courtyards. We got to explore the rest of the castle on our own! It was fun to just go off by ourselves for a while and figure out how they got around in this medieval castle. Again, it was raining, so we opted for a lot of the indoor towers!

After the castle, we headed to Kilkenny. We got to the city just in time for mass. We walked up the road from our hostel about 5 minutes and stumbled upon this great little abbey holding mass. We found out the next day that it was actually the Black Abbey, one of the places that Kilkenny is most famous for! It was founded by Dominican friars in the 13th century and has an unusual "L" shape, suggesting that part of the building was lost at one point. The stained glass windows were beautiful and mass felt very much like what you picture masses in Ireland to be.

After mass, a group of us went to "The Field." It is a pub/restaurant named after the famous movie set in Ireland. I had a delicious bacon cheeseburger and chips (fries). A bunch of us called it an early night that night and went back to the hostel.

On Sunday morning, my friend Katelin and I went in search of coffee. In Ireland, people really do observe the Sabbath - hardly anything is open until noon. Luckily, we stumbled upon this little Irish cafe called "Nostalgia." I had a great cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin. The best part was that we were sitting next to three older Irish men who were out for their morning coffee and just sitting around reading the paper. I love picturesque moments like that over here!

We went on a walking tour of Kilkenny next, and I admittedly did not pay much attention. After that, we went to Kilkenny Castle, which is one of the coolest castles in Ireland. It was a lot more like Muckross House than the medieval castles, in terms of restoration and how recently people had lived there. One of my roommates decided that she is going to buy it one day - good luck! As you can see from the pictures, it is huge. They had it all setup for a banquet when we visted. I can just imagine how much fun it would be to host a big, fancy event there!

For lunch, three other girls and I went to Kyteler Inn. Alice Kyteler was found guilty of witchcraft in the 1320s in Ireland. Hers was one of the first witchcraft cases in Europe. The night before she was to be burned at the stake, she fled town. I wish our meal was as interesting as that story! I had roast lamb, potatoes, carrots and cabbage, though - not a bad Irish meal at all!

Next, we went to Dunmore Cave. It was a pretty cool place to see, but I have to say, the Black Hills do their caves better. It's just not what Ireland is known for! It was nice to do something different, though, after such a long bus ride and so many castles.

We finally made it back to the Park Lodge and we all actually did have to buckle down and get some homework done. The workload is nowhere near what it would be if I were back home, but it is definitely starting to pick up, so I am finding that I can stay pretty busy with school work. It was nice to only leave town for one night this past week. We finally got to experience a full week at the Park Lodge - the first one since arriving in Ireland, if you can believe it.

This weekend: Dublin! We have a pretty packed schedule, and as you can imagine, everyone has a suggestion or two of things to see and do in the famous city. I'm sure we will find plenty to keep ourselves busy.

How are things going for all of you?