Spring Break Day 6: Dingle to Dromoland

This is it, friends. I have stumbled upon heaven. I should elaborate, but I just... words fail me for once.

How the day in Dingle began -- rainy and kind of somber

Going to a famous Dingle church!

One of the really cool parts of the church was a fresco painted by a native, who did some really interesting things with the Last Supper -- Judas is a raven in the right-hand corner, and all the disciples & Jesus are modeled after natives in Dingle. Gorgeous.

Joseph. And St. Joseph. What a pair of winners.

The main attraction of the church: the Harry Clarke stained glass windows. So amazingly vivid and painstakingly done!!!!

Exterior of church

And some palm trees, chillin. No big deal.

The parents and Joe by the well the nuns used back in the day.

A crazy cool old tree in the graveyard.

Dingle Bay! Or, y'know, just the harbor. It's a functional, working quay, so we weren't really allowed out on it. C'est la vie. Still got a pretty picture from a distance.

One of the more frequent road signs: "More squiggly roads. OH GOOD."

Ma's favorite sign: "The redundant 'no passing' sign..."

Gotta love the ocean :)

Joe and Ma at lunch -- Joe hitting the mid-afternoon sleepiness.

Da and me <3

On the road again! On a very tight road, with a large truck coming at us, mostly in our lane. Good thing my da's an exceedingly excellent driver...

WHAT IS ALL THIS SPACE?!? THESE ROOMS ARE SO BIG!!! WE'RE IN DROMOLAND CASTLE!! AAAAAAH!!!

Ma and Da's king-sized bed in their suite

The bathroom -- when Da walked into it and asked Joe if he'd seen it yet, my da's voice echoed. Joe's comment was: "I could probably play baseball in here."

The lobby. I would love to have one of those chandeliers someday...

The Dromoland Castle crest -- see the lions? That's the O'Brien crest, where my mom's side of the family gets their Irish ancestry.

THE CASTLE.

See? CASTLE. And me, just after falling flat on my face. Fun fact.

They have some phenomenal trees here -- exhibit A.

The 'toddler-frowny-face-of-doom' came out when we spent too much time in the walled garden and weren't getting back to my archery time when we said we would...

The full side of the castle

Doing what I love most: archery practice with Pat, my new favorite person ever.

I got to shoot with two different bows for about a half hour. SO MUCH FUN!!

The one true bulls-eye I got during that half-hour -- my skill from the summer was not there :P

I even got Ma to try!!!! She didn't do too poorly either :D

All five arrows on the target! Hooray!!!

Meanwhile, the boys went out for 9 holes on the massive golf course...

Lookin' classy.

And speaking of classy, we had a VERY fancy dinner. Joe: "I don't think I've ever drank a beer while wearing a suit before..."

Look at all that cutlery. I didn't even know what most of it was for!!!! But it was there.

Course 1: duck leg. Almost fell off the bone. YUM.

Course 2: a scoop of peach and white rum sorbet. SUPER YUM.

Course 3, main course: LOOK AT THE LID. YOU CAN SEE ME TAKING THIS PICTURE IN THE LID!!!

Course 3: hake filet. It was really funny when they brought all our food out, and whipped all four lids off at once. I felt like applauding.

 The camera battery lamentably ran out before the dessert course, but HOLY WOW. There is just a pervasive sense of happiness and contentment in my life right now. I'm chilling with Joe in our upgraded suite (we both have a queen bed to ourselves) and are watching TV, blogging/using Interwebs, and digesting all that FOOD. It's generally awesome. Sadly, we're on the road again tomorrow, but it's back to Louisburgh/Westport, which is exciting!!! Because the day after tomorrow is the ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE!!!!!!! So I'll be reporting from Co. Mayo home tomorrow :) Until then!

-S