"So, are you like the keeper of the castle now?"

Well, Claire is working on a lengthy post for you all, but it's late, and I am excitedly awaiting falling into the nice soft bed waiting for me here at the one (very) nice hotel of our time in Ireland! We are staying tonight in a lovely hotel next to a castle dating back to the 1300's. The coolest part of today has definitely been that the manager of the hotel gave us a tour of the usually locked castle. He took us up into it (it has a tone of floors, and all of the stone is still standing). It was SOOOOO cool! Non of our castles thus far have been safe to climb up in, but this one was, and he told us all about it. This was made even better by the fact that the manager was wearing a suit and Claire and I were in sundresses climbing up a medieval castle! At this point, I asked what should have been the silliest question of our trip..."so, are you like the keeper of the castle now?". This would have been a silly question, except the manager just answered "yes", as if it was a normal question! The castles here are great. They're just like the ones in fairy-tales from when we were little.

We've had lots of other fun today! We drove to the Buren (pronounced Burn), which was a beautiful drive along the sea. After stopping by our hotel, we headed to the Cliffs of Moher, which are a breathtaking set of cliffs that drop right into the sea. We took like a million pictures, and we only ventured a little past the signs marking the end of the (very safe) tourist part (but don't worry, lots of other tourists did too!). We then went for a nice hike in the Buren, which has a very peculiar landscape, much like the Aran Islands. Almost everything is made of very porous rock. There were beautiful views of the sea and the cliffs, and lots of strangely colored cows.

We then headed back to the hotel, where we both took long, luxurious showers in the very nice bathroom here, and had a 2.5 hour AMAZING dinner at the restaurant here. I'm sure Claire will tell you all about it, and I'm really looking forward to my bed, so I'll spare you ;-).

Tomorrow we will have a leisurely breakfast here at the Castle house, check out a bit more of the Buren, and then head back to Dublin.

My sinuses are much better, but my throat is not happy! Oh well, I'm not letting it ruin my fun!

Hugs,
Emily