So Many Cities, So Little Time

SO, right now we're on the ferry somewhere between Ireland and Scottand and I need to catch you up on everything we've seen since my last post. After we left London, we set off for the ancient site of Stonehenge. To be comepletely honest, it was not that impressive in person. You weren't allowed to go up and touch the stones, you could only look at them from a distance. After Stonehenge, we went to Salisbury and toured the famous Salisbury Cathedral and saw one of the best preserved copies of the Magna Carta. Finally, we concluded our day in Bath, where we took a tour of the famous preserved Roman Baths that are found there. I also went to the fashion museum, which was really awesome. They had an "evolution of the wedding dress" exhibit as well as corsets and hoop skirts you could try on.

From Bath we made our way into Wales. We toured Cardiff Castle, and then made our way through the Celtic countryside to Pembroke, where we boarded our ferry bound for Waterford, Ireland. The next morning we toured the famous Waterford Crystal Factory. It was really amazing to see the amount of artistry that goes into every single piece produced there. They even had a crystal replica of Cinderella's carriage. Don't worry, it only costs 30,000 euro. We had lunch in Kilkenny, a pretty little town, and then visited the Irish National Stud Farm in Kildare. It was cool to see all the horses, and the youngest of the foals was only 4 days old and named Appletini. I thought this was a weird name for a racehorse. But then again, her mother's name was Apple McFlurry. We rounded out our day by driving through the Curragh to arrive in Dublin. To get us into the Irish spirit, we went to an Irish cabaret, complete with Riverdancers, bagpipe players, traditional folk music, and an Irish comedian. It was some really good "crack" or fun, as they say in Ireland.

The next morning they took us on an orientation drive in Dublin, we saw he famous "Book of Kells" and then we had the rest of the day free to do what we wanted. I went on one of the free walking tours around Dublin. This is my favorite way to explore a city- to walk around in it, not to just look out through the window of a bus. Our guide was named Ricky and had some really cool stories about the city and the people. I met up with mom and dad later (they had gone on a different bus tour) and we ate dinner at a nice pub. After a little shopping, we called it an early night since we all had to get up at six this morning.

That almost catches you up to where we are now. We left Dublin this morning at about eight and drove to Bellfast, which is in Northern Ireland and is also where the Titanic was built. We were only in Bellfast about an hour, so there wasn't much time to see things. Then, we boarded our ferry bound for Scottland, and we'll spend the next two nights in Edinburgh, complete with Bagpipers, the Haggis Ceremony, and highland dancers!