Ross Castle and Torc Mountain in Killarney National Park

I have never had a picnic in a more beautiful spot. It was amazing. And who knew PBJ could be so international? We decided that we should take the opportunity to tour the castle standing right in front of us, and for 2.10 euros (like $3), it was totally worth it. It was built in the 14th century, and all of the furniture was from the 14th to 17th centuries. So cool. I don't think I could have slept on 4 inches of twigs for padding and I know I would have definitely tripped over those stupid spiral stairs more than once had I grown up there. Thank goodness for carpeting, mattresses, and straight stairs.

We wanted to go see a waterfall, and there's a fairly big one, Torc Waterfall, at the other side of Killarney National Park. Well, during our tour, our tour guide mentions that the park is 30,000 acres. Suddenly, we weren't sure we could walk that far. turns out it would have been about a 3 hour walk. We called a taxi. We had already been walking since 9 AM! The waterfall was breathtaking, and the scenery is just amazing. I think between the three of us, we have enough pictures to pretty much publish a book. There were these rock stairs built into the mountain curving behind the waterfall, so we decided to see if we could see the waterfall from higher up. Yeah, OK. ONE HOUR later, we finally start going down hill. We most definitely climbed a mountain. And I'm not exaggerating for once. We totally climbed a mountain. My hip flexor is starting to throb now that I'm sitting. But hey, it happens. The pictures and sights were completely amazing up there though, and totally worth the effort. And hey, we DID run a half marathon last year. We had to pause halfway up to remove jackets, adjust shoes and socks, chug some water, etc. We decided, because we're dorks, to check our heartrates. With a range of 125-170 per minute, I think you could say we successfully had a cardio workout today.

After we climbed down the mountain, we used our handy-dandy deductive skills (aka: a map and the sun's position in the sky - you can call us Jacques Cousteau) and figured out that the Muckross House was just 1.6 km 'that' way. We think 1.6 km roughly equals a mile, but if anyone knows or can google that while not paying for the internet by the minute, let us know. This house was HUGE, reminding me a little of a southern plantation, and the gardens were incredible. Again, more pictures, which we'll post if we can ever figure out how to do that. We caught a taxi back here, which required the use of a pay phone and some crazy Irish phone numbers, but luckily we figured that out the first time too. So now here we are, catching you all up to speed, planning the rest of our evening. Dinner is defintiely in order soon since the PBJ has long worn off from all hiking, and we're going to do some souvenior shopping before we leave tomorrow.

Oh, we decided to start a trip tally, as in the number of times we almost trip while we're here. I have bets out that I will not only win the trip tally, but that I will completely wipe out at least once. Today's trip tally has Sandy at 1 (2 almost sprained ankles, only one was a tripping incident), Kalee at 0, and me at a whopping 3. Yep, I am toooootally going to win this one.

The differences between the States and Ireland are amazing. For it being fairly American, it's still so different. Just a few little things: everything is on the left here, not the right - walking on the sidewalk, driving, light switches, everything. WE finally realized today that the reason people stare at us on the streets is not because we're great-looking American girls, but because we're on the wrong side of the sidewalk. Whoops! Although I'm sure it's partially because we're so good-looking. The openings in soda cans are so much smaller here than in the States, which is a small difference, but still noticeable. We keep hearing words like 'dodgy', 'cheers' instead of 'thanks', and strangely accented curse words. Not that we'd know what those are...