Religion in Ireland

Sunday was a much more relaxed day for us. We got up a little early as we had decided to go to Mass Sunday morning at the Cathedral right near our hostel. Little did we know it was a Latin Mass with readings in English. The service itself was beautiful and uplifting, all about how God grants each person talents and how they should strive to use them for the good of the world. The boy's choir was amazing, they had apparently recorded a CD recently that was getting rave reviews all over the world. But before the service I had a very surreal experience. My grandmother died a few years ago, and due to summer classes I chose to not go see her at her death bed. It was a decition that I haven't really forgiven myself for ever since. A year later I went to Rome on a trip and started a ritual of my own. If I go into church and it has offertory candles I light one in memory of my grandmother. It's just what I do, and I hadn't explained this to anyone in my group, or anyone around me. I just noticed on my way into the cathedral that the candles where there. After my group set down I left my bag with them and went to the back. As I was kneeling to say my respects a woman comes up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "Today is her day" is all that she said to me before she lit a candle herself and kneeled down. At that I broke down in tears. For once though they were not tears of sadness, but relief and almost joy. I have no idea how she knew what to say, or even if she knew the weight of what she said. I was still in a strange state when we left so that is one place I forgot to take photos of.

Ireland Part Deux!

So one full week later I finally get around to this. I left off at the end of Friday night, right? Right. Saturday morning we got up bright and early to get on the bus that takes you to Limerick where we were going to change buses to go to the Cliffs of Moher. We had a slight freak out as we nearly missed the bus out of Dublin, but we didn't and had a fairly comfortable four hour bus trip. When we get to Limerick we realize there is something wrong. The bus to the Cliffs left just 10 minutes before we got there... and the next one leaves in a little over an hour.... but it wouldn't be getting back until AFTER our bus to Dublin would leave without us. Yeah. So we ended up just staying around in Limerick. A city we had never heard of. But it ended up being a very VERY cool place. We meandered into the best cafe in the world, Greene's. We all had Thanksgiving Dinner, no lie, only they called it turkey and bacon. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots and all of it was so tasty! I didn't have that, but a sammich with the turkey and salad and cranberry sauce. Goodness, it was so good I remembered a week later. Later in the day we went to King John's Castle, which was made fun by the fact that they let us climb all over every thing. AND the boys got to help the worker guy Sean launch the catapult into the river. I got a video of it, and here it is on Google Video. They'll be internet famous! If you listen closely you'll hear Sean say "thee" instead of "you" to Shane and Willie. He was pretty awesome. Sean let us climb all over everything we weren't supposed to climb on. We split up in the afternoon and Cassie, Shane, Willie, Emma and I went down along the river. The boys were looking for clovers. We ended up finding wild blackberries (Tasty!) and wild horses! Then it started raining. Hard. It was kinda terrible and then we lost the other girls, Katie, Shannon, and Alison. Cassie and the boys went down one side of the road and Emma and I down the other. Emma and I ended up going into a church to see if the girls had gone inside. Inside we found the nicest old ladies who hadn't seen our friends but chatted with them a little while. They told us to be careful, that Limerick wasn't what it used to be. We thanked them for their time and headed out to Cassie and the boys. When we all met up and went to a pub to watch the rest of the rugby game and warm up/dry off. Shortly after we headed back to the bus station, met up with the others and got on our bus home. We were probably the most annoying people on the bus, but it was a nice trip. Deffinately worth the bus trip, even if we didn't get out to the Cliffs of Moher.

I'm home

and dead tired folks. Full write up tomorrow morning.

Dublin tomorrow!

Last Call for addresses if you want a Dublin Post Card! Leave it in a comment if you don't think I have it and I'll do my best (as I will only be checking my email before work in the morning), I have to moderate the comments so I'll make sure the whole of the interwebs does not have it.
Work today was uneventful except that I was one of the first there in the morning and the last to leave. Which means I'm cool to leave early tomorrow afternoon so I can catch my flight! yay!
I still haven't found my computer cord, but I will have it by Sunday night. Come Hell or high water! I will also be on Skype and AIM at 5 pm EST for those who where wondering.
More stories to come at the end of the weekend.