Sept 7 - Killarney to Cork

Wow, ok so day 12 was a busy one so I will try to keep everything fairly brief. We left the hotel this morning at 8:30am and drove through the Ring of Kerry. It is this big forest area that is surrounded with water, hills, flowers, wildlife and trees. We were able to stop for 2min photo opt which was awesome and managed to pick the spot that was swarmed with thousands of little biting bugs. It was great. We really did just run out of the bus, took a couple of quick pics and then scramble back on. Only a couple hundred or so managed to make it on the bus so for the next 10min all you could hear was people slapping the windows and trying to kill them all. lol

Next stop, Blarney Castle where we had a couple of hours to have lunch, shop and go and kiss the Blarney stone. Now, I should say here that all of the rumours surrounding the Blarney stone are just that, rumours! Once you are actually there and see for yourself you understand why. We had to pay an entrance fee to get up into the castle (which is locked up every night). Once walking the 100steps up the very windy staircase to the top of the castle you can then see the people that are bent over kissing the stone. Their was 2 guys standing there, one which holds you so you don't feel like your falling, and other is there for the picture taking. They say that kissing the Blarney stone gives you the gift of gab (not the luck of the Irish), and I really didn't need the gift of gab but I thought why not. :) The topper for me was that the guy had a big bottle of sanitizer there that he says they use very often so that won me over and kissing I went. :)

I ended up having Irish stew for lunch. Everyone kept raving about how Irish stew was so great, but honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between great Irish stew and beef stew we get back home. oh well. I can't complain though.

After lunch we headed out to the Jameson Irish Whiskey Factory. We had a tour which was really good (better than the Scotch whiskey tour we had) and again got to try some whiskey. She was in need of some volunteers to be taste testers and well at that point no girls had volunteered so I figured I should take one for the team (ya right, huh?!?) and volunteer my services. ;) We ended up doing a tasting between Jameson whiskey, Scotch whiskey and Jack Daniels. You could 100% taste the difference and I can even tell you why (I was actually listening through out the whiskey tours, impressive huh?). The JD is made in the states and is distilled only once. The Scotch is obviously made in Scotland but distilled only twice. The Irish whiskey however is distilled 3 times and you can really tell because it was way smoother going down then the other 2. In the end she gave us all a little diploma and then we got yet another sample of the Jameson. I'm not a whiskey drinker but if I was, I would definitely be drinking that. It was smooth!

We arrived at our hotel and after supper went out for a night of bowling and pool. I didn't end up bowling because my knee had been hurting for a few days now and I thought bowling would really bugger it up more so I sat out. I did however end up playing some air hockey which was loads of fun but in the end, ended up with a pinkie finger air hockey injury. Don't worry though, I made it out alive and I can still type ok. ;) We then ended up playing some pool where one of the creepy guys in our group was taking pictures of a few of us as we were making our shots. Once I realized this though, I gave him a piece of my mind (not even kidding) and he left soon after. Seriously...he was just creepy! :{ Headed back to the hotel shortly after pool and in bed by 12:30. Good but busy day all around.