Castletroy Park Hotel Limerick

i have a strange feeling that i will not be staying on top of this until i get home...i've been crazy busy with school and trying to maintain somewhat of a social life. well anyway, my mom will be here on Friday! i'm so excited, i just can't wait. my aunt and my cousin are coming too and we're going to have so much fun! well time to get more work done so that i'll be able to have fun while they're here! love you all and i'll be home a month from today!

Today we went to Muckross Gardens. So get this. There was a picket line at the front of the park, and the strikers were all striking against "poor veterinary procedures" to animals in the park. We wanted to have lunch at this restaurant called the Muckross House and even after the 30 old men picketers asked us if we reallly wanted to cross a picket line, we figured why the hell do we care, we arent even Irish. So Nicole cannonballs through the picketline ...

so i haven't updated in a while and i have about 6 entries that i need to post, but i've been super busy with midterms! i miss everyone and this weekend i will hopefully be posting pictures and entries of everything that i did while i was in the UK. i just wanted to let everyone know that i'm ok and just trying to power through all this school work.

We got up early yesterday and drove down to Cork, stopping in Blarney on the way down. There Frank kissed the Blarney stone in Blarney Castle, ensuring him the "gift of gab"- we'll see!<br><br>We stopped in Cork and went to an art museum there and had lunch in the museum cafe. I must say we have been blessed with outstanding food on this trip.<br><br>From there we drove to Cobh, the port from which almost all of our ancestors emigrated from Ireland to the US, as ...

... cash. The manager had already sent a bottle of wine to our room (of course not knowing we do not drink). They have been trying to catch up to us for 2 days, with us off galavanting around the countryside. <br><br>The resort feels so bad that this happened here. Officer Buckley said it may be a staff member so they are eager to track it all down. As I offered my theories about ...

... find them, driving across a one way bridge over the Shannon &#8211; lights at either end and a spectacular traffic jam for such small towns. We drove back again too and decided to eat in Goosers, a wonderful pub with thatched roof and excellent food and drink, including, for Alison, Bulmers cider, now her favourite tipple, and this time in pear flavour. Nice.<br><br>Next morning&#8217;s breakfast was a good fry up, as expected, but the butter might have seen better days.

... when there maybe should be makes the roads here a bit of a joke!<br><br>That evening I dropped Cecilia off at Shannon airport so that she could return to work the next day, and had a bit of a look around the city of Limerick, it was mostly just having a look at King John&#8217;s castle from the outside and having a bit of a wander as there isn&#8217;t heaps of touristy stuff to see and being Sunday night is was rather quiet too.<br><br>

... person should enter and leave the wake house, as well as directions which the corpse should face when on the hag-bed and in the grave, but one of these customs is usually observed. Keening women (mná caointe) were often hired to mourn for the dead, and they were usually four or more in number. However, no crying or keening was allowed until the body was prepared, in fear that the Devil (or his dogs) would be alerted to the vulnerable state of the deceased. Prior to the death ...

... Irish Music with a tutorial (a semi-separate class which meets once a week for an hour) on the tin whistle, Software Testing, and Software Engineering Overall, the workload in these classes has been fairly light. That is, the required homework, studying for tests, and enforced reading has been minimal. However, they provide plenty of "suggested" reading references, and the self-motivated student could remain quite busy reading and doing exercises on his ...

... We took a different road back via Ballina on the Shannon. Not too different from Ballina on the Richmond except for size. A very pleasant spot. Lots of holiday makers. Two pubs on the riverside doing good business on this hot Friday afternoon. The bridge connecting it to Killaloe was a real bottleneck. It was single lane, controlled by traffic lights trying to control five roads entering from both sides. We took the N7 to Roscrea then to Birr and then home by 6pm.