Ireland

Sorry, i have 11 minutes of internet left, and i'm not going to try and be clever and creative. Pounds are very expensive. We are in Northern Ireland now, after a few days in Eire, which i really really liked. We have hired a car, and drove from Dublin (after a pint at the guiness factory) to Kilkenny and this amazing monstrous castle. I will i was clever enough to post the photos, but we honestly had to walk back the length of a football field to contain it all in a photo. And the inside had been painstakingly restored so the fabrics and patterns on the wallpaper and furnishings matched how it had been decked out when it was a 19 century home to the Butler family, who were quite definitive in Irish history, and their were a few familiar names from tudor steward history, the charles' and james' etc.
We went and looked at the tip of northern ireland yesterday, after a very unceremonious crossing of the border. But people do seem different here, slightly more guarded, less bonny. We had a look around the giants causeway, which is supposed to be about 6 million years old, a bunch of rock formations on the coast which smelt like red rocks with those dirty seals, and as Sally said, maybe not as impressive as the pinnacles at the south of the north island in new zealand. (They were after all the setting for the paths of the dead in the lord of the rings)
Today we are doing a tour of belfast, hopefully getting a good dose of that history that i learnt way back in 5th form. Actually it looks like the bus is getting ready to leave.
Thank you so much for your emails. i'm a little ashamed of those stabs of homesickness i get every now and again, especially when i'm trying to get hold of people on the phone and my timing sux....but the emails help significantly!
I haven't been drunk in ireland yet but there's still time. If i wasn't so bloody tired.....
Oh and i talked to jacob the other day, night, morning whenever the hell it was and he was so cute. Everything i told him, about the time difference, the castle, was "hoooooly". Usually it's quite difficult to get him animated on the telephone.
i feel like perhaps we've done more than this, but it's a quick glimpse at our whirlwind tour of ireland. We fly out early in the morning to glasgow. i'm quite excited about that, as both sides of my family are scottish.....although my family had been in nz since the 1860s.
I'm just trying to take it all easy, and just be in a place, rather than rushing around like a mad woman like in the US. i think that's the way to go.
xxx
b