Saturday was a chilly, gray, misty day for most of the morning. I took the Luas into town to get on my tour bus and had my first experience with someone checking that I had a ticket. It's still so odd to me that you don't have to scan your ticket or anything to get on, it's just the honor system until someone shows up to check. I think the fine is about 40 euros if you don't have a valid ticket. The "ticket checkers" showed up and were speaking into little voice recorders - softly enough I didn't quite make out what they were saying but I think they were recording the ticket and the answers we gave - they asked where you got on and where you were getting off and looked at your ticket to verify that the zones you bought to travel in were correct. Odd.
The tour bus was very nice - a Mercedes coach - and the tour guide, Martin, was fun and gave us enough information without talking our ears off. It took about 45 minutes before getting to Guinness Lake, the first photo stop, and then it took some time to drive through the Wicklow Mountains - small roads on the sides of the hills but beautiful to see. One road we traveled on was called Military Road - it was built by the English after an Irish rebellion when many rebels escaped into the Wicklow mountains because there were no other ways to track them down without a road. The ground in that area is black because most of it is a peat bog - hundreds of years of decaying plant life but when dried out makes a great fuel source for fires. Some of the movie Braveheart was filmed in this area so naturally I had to download it and watch it the next day.
The monastery in Glendalough was next - Glendalough means Glen (or valley) of the Two Lakes. I only walked to the lower lake because it was closer but the area was so pretty. The monastery was founded by St. Kevin around the 6th century but most of the buildings that have survived only date back to the 10th century. The dates for St. Kevin's birth and death are a little unknown because if the two numbers are to be believed, he would have lived about 120 years so no one really thinks both dates are correct. I looked all over for a tombstone that said "Lynch" but no luck. In the afternoon we went to Avoca, a teeny little village that is known for its handweaving and little cafe. We ate lunch there (yum) and had a self-guided tour through the weaving shed. There are numerous Avoca stores throughout Ireland (one is in the City Centre on Suffolk St) and the foodstuffs and scarves, blankets, etc are so pretty (but a little pricey). When I got back to the city that night I went to Fallon and Byrne, an upscale grocers, to find pumpkin pie filling - it was the only place I could find the stuff! I also stopped at Butler's Chocolate Cafe (my new Doughnut Plant for those of you who heard about NYC) to buy some hot chocolate cups to make at home. Taste just as good but a lot cheaper.
Yesterday was very relaxing - went to see Breaking Dawn at 11 am but I'm glad I went then because I didn't spend as much money on that crappy movie. It's funny how the blood and gross-ness freaked me out but I can watch Braveheart no problem. Teresa said it was the worst movie she's ever seen haha so I told her definitely don't bother with the other ones! I was telling her about my blog and she mentioned wanting to start one so I set her up with that too....and then forgot to write in my own blog. Oh well. Just two more days at Farmers (in Dundrum again) this week when 3 day tour of Kerry!!!!! So so so excited and getting my camera charged with blank SD cards ready to go. I think this will make up for missing Thanksgiving.
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