This pic always cracks me up, hehehe. We wanted to save money by not paying for checked luggage and therefore only had one carryone certain size and weight in which we could pack our stuff for 4 days!!! And we made it work and then went shopping for new clothes and still were able to fit it all in! I bought two lovely dresses, two pairs of shoes, sweater, shirt, and two books. However I did have to leave my umbrella as it just wouldn't fit at all!
After arriving in Dublin where we had a 3-4 hour layover, we walked down to the tourism office and asked where we could travel to outside the airport. The lady directed us to a bus, which took us to Swords, which had its own wee castle in the little park and lots of little pubs. We had our first taste of REAL guinness in Ireland!
Hehe I am so thrilled!
Part of the castle wall
GUINNESS IN DUBLIN!!!! 
OUr little friend the ticket monkey 
Dirty mouth!?! Clean it up!
Absolutely an AMAZING Irish breaky. Positively delish been so long since I have had baked beans! 
The city was most definitely ALIVE!!! ;-)
Lots of pubs everywhere!
A Paulinor, lol, I know!!! It is a really yummy beer, rather sweet, but the funny thing is is that is comes from Germany, so instead of drinking Irish beer my first night in a Pub in Cork, here I am drinking a beer from Germany!
This night was hilarious! Rachel and I were having a lovely time laughing and giggling and at one point I looked up to make eye contact with a rather handsomely debonair Irish rugby player (found out later) and we winks and waves at me!!! Lol, so I ignored that because honestly I was so surprised, lol, and later that evening he comes to our hostel bar and literally sweeps me off my feet. ;-) He snuck up behind me and as I turned around picked me up and was carrying me around the bar, lol, much to the amusment of the other folks there. 
Next morning, we made our way to the Blarney castle!
Climbing the NARROW STEEP stairs was a bit of a thrill. And seeing the mist on the moor (?) was beautiful!
The above pic is proof that Rachel and I are indeed kindred romantic souls. We were both admiring the beauty and she told me to snap it quick. Love this shot!
So I got up early that morning to straighten my hair and then as it usually does in Ireland, it rained and here we dried drying it a bit under the hand dryers. :-D
There's the stone!! And yep, one has to bend over backwards to kiss it, definitely a thrill. I definitely got the tingles with that kiss. ;-)
Our lovely little picnic inside a room in one of the castles. Absolutely wonderful! We had baguetts with butter, meat, and cheese of course with wine, apples, and chips (as in american chips not fries). :-)
Our frolics around the grounds, wonderful little stroll.
This tree was my absolute fave! I loved all the roots showing through the ground. It grew on top of this HUGE boulder, it was amazing!
Dancing and twirling in front of the castle!
Haha, I was so giddy!
Here I am after I kissed the stone. Now I shall never be at a loss for words as I have the gift of eloquence bequethed to me by the stone, the gift of the gab. ;-)
Haha, in a purly giddy histarical mood, Rachel put on a sock show. T'was the "Bist du geil" couple and their bambino. lol . . .
St. FinnBarr's Cathedral
Hehehe, inside joke. We met our own Finnbarr . . . :-D
