the turquoise trail

{Tuesday October 7} We got up around 7a this morning to get ready and have breakfast at 8a. The lady of the house here is very nice and offered us quite a selection of breakfast options. I had an apple and pear green tea (delish!), strawberry peach yogurt, and Irish soda bread with black currant jam.  We left our bed and breakfast around 9a to frosty window's and a chilly 4 degrees, and headed toward Mizen Head. We saw lots of rugged landscape, cows, and the end of the rainbow! We arrived shortly after 10a; the signal station and lookout points didn't open until 10:30a, so we walked down the road and through a field to admire the coastline. Thankfully it had warmed up to 12 and was quite nice for a walk.  Mizen Head When it opened, we bought our tickets and headed towards the signal house. We saw a couple lookouts and crossed the bridge which was extremely high. The shoreline was very steep, tall cliffs around the point and up the surrounding coastline. ...

{Monday October 6th} Got up shortly before 8a this morning to have a shower and get ready for the day.   We left the house shortly before 9a and headed into New Ross. Our first stop was at the Dunbrody Emigrant Ship.  Since the first tour was going to be in German, the guy gave us a discounted entrance fee.   We headed out to the ship and met up with another tour guide and couple doing an English tour, so we joined them and got a tour after all.  The emigrant ship was built in Quebec to carry cargo, but carried many people during the Irish potato famine. 95 percent of passengers were second class and would have spent all day - with the exception of half an hour - below deck with absolutely no light.  25 to 50 percent of passengers died on route, hence why the ships became known as coffin ships.  They had two actresses playing the parts of a first class passenger and a second class passenger, who did a great job of showing what life on the ship w...

{Sunday October 5th} We got up around 7a this morning to get ready and head back to the airport. We checked out of our room and called the airport to confirm that the bag had arrived, which it indeed has...  always a good sign.  We got to the airport shortly after 8a and I dropped Paul off to go and get the bag. It a was about 8:40a by the time we left the airport, but we were glad to have the bag back.   From the airport, we worked our way towards the south end of the city, passing through some very nice neighbourhoods  and past Aviva Stadium. We found a little newsstand/deli to get some breakfast, which was a bagel with some bacon (peameal), sausage and cheese on it. It was a little sketchy, but it tasted delicious and fit in with our quest to not eat anywhere "recognizable".   Dun Leary Pier From there we continued on towards Brighton Hall and got to Laura and Elliott's for church around 10a. We were able to borrow a pair of scissors ...

{Saturday October 4th}  It's a full flight to Dublin aboard United Airlines, so sleeping will not be done in abundance or comfort. We were served our choice of cheese noodles or chicken (how American..) around midnight. The chicken tasted only slightly more appetizing than it looked, and was served with 'salad' (aka lettuce).  Time passed by reading my new novel 'The Life List'; sad but very good thus far. There were also in flight movies to enjoy, so I watched The Other Woman. I laughed. Out loud. A few times.  Right around the time I decided I should try to sleep for a while, was the same time that the turbulence started. Unfortunately it wasn't really the rocking-lullaby type, but more of the crazy-person-shaking-a-baby type. Thankfully it didn't last too long and I did manage to doze off for a while, and woke up around 3:30a Toronto time, to a beautiful sunrise over the clouds.    Irish Fields We flew over the middle of Ireland, and ...

{Friday October 3rd}  Following a short work day, I headed home to get ready to leave! Mom, dad and my brother Paul came to pick me up, and we left around 4:30p. After enjoying some typical Toronto traffic, we got to the airport shortly before 6p.  We checked in and received our boarding passes, and proceeded through customs and security. We went through entirely separately, as I have nexus and Paul does not. The lines were fairly reasonable so we met up again around 6:30p.  We picked up an autumn turkey sandwich - quite delicious, with the exception of one toxic blob of mustard in the middle of mine. While waiting for our plane to begin boarding, Paul discovered that he actually had my boarding pass. Upon further inspection, turns out that I also had his, and we had gone through customs and security with the entirely incorrect boarding passes. Hmm.  Our plane was late arriving and then the baggage guys took a while to get things loaded (so they cla...