From rubbish to cubby holes to nappys

Cheers from Ireland -- the beautiful land of the drinkers!
Woweee... I'm sitting in a internet cafe in Ennis (a place where we were only planning to make a transfer... but hopefully more on that later). Man, there is sooooo much to tell! We have been in Ireland for 31/2 days now and it has been tiring, incredible, wearisome, unbelievable and always an adventure. Well, I'll see how much I can write in the 50 minutes I have left.
We had our first roadblock about an hour before we left for the airport to fly to England. Trish went to call our second hostel (it was the first one we were staying in, in Ireland -- for 2 nights) and she found out that they had given our beds away because we didn't confirm eariler... when she had told us to call the day before!!!!!! Man, I had choice words for that lady. So we had nowhere to sleep and we hadn't even got to Ireland yet! And as you might have guessed it.. yes, I had my first breakdown. :) Ah.. emotional me. But we can rejoice in God's faithful hand because both nights we managed to find a place to sleep for fairly good prices! Hallelujah! And we got to see some things we otherwise wouldn't have seen.
So yeah, after that emotional little ride, we managed to make it to England even though we had another scare because our plane was delayed. But we made it to our hostel by 1 in the morning so we were relatively happy! Then it was up again at 6 to make the train to Ireland. Yeah, no sleep. We took a ferry ride across the chanel inbetween ireland and england. Let me tell you... it was the WORST ferry ride I have EVER taken. There were people throwing up, yes VOMITING, to the left, right, front and back... and everyone else had barf bags in hand! Thankfully I had taken some gravol (yeah for gravol!) and I learned how to breathe with the roll of the rather large waves so I didn't throw up at all... The only good thing about the trip (other than either of us actually throwing up) was the breathtaking Welsh coast and the fact that we saw live dolphins!!!! Yeah, it was sooo cool! They weren't really close to the boat but we definately saw fins!
We also had our run in with our first troup of noisy, drinking, rowdy, but friendly Irish boys.. er men. They were on the ferry and surrounded us on the connecting bus. They were alot of fun though and really fun to talk to. Man those accents!!! I could melt.
Anyways, we have now spent two days touring the beautiful Ireland. My cousin once told me that he has never seen so many shades of green in his life in Ireland. I couldn't agree with him more. Ireland is all mountains, rolling hills of patches of different shades of green, surrounded by trees, with grazing sheep and cows. It is sooo beautiful here it takes your breath away.
In the past two days we have done so much! -- We went to our first castles (Castle of Cahir, Rock of Cashel and Ross Castle) all of which were soooo impressive. The Rock of Cashel was up on a hill so it stood as a huge fortress over all the city.. AMAZING. The other two castles were equally as wonderful -- Cahir castle was just kind of plopped in the middle of Cahir, and ross Castle we had a tour through old rooms and stuff -- really fascinating. We also went to an Irish Music fesitval which was very very fun! People filled the streets, celtic music was everywhere, there was an area where everyone was doing traditional dancing (an old man on the bus told me that if he saw me he would ask me for a dance... what is with me and old men??? But it was cute and no, I never saw him..) and there were vendors selling all kinds of Irish things. We also took a biking trip in Killarney. We biked through the paths in Killarney National Park -- Mountains all around and ruins and waterfalls and open water. It was indescribable. It was worth it, no matter how sore our rear ends were the next day (and after about 4 hours of biking.. they were SORE).
Today has been our first real let down day. We had planned to go to the Cliffs of Moher today and then travel to Dublin tonight. Well, we're still traveling to Dublin tonight but we're not seeing the Cliffs of Moher. We traveled on the train alll day today and got to Ennis (which is where I am writing right now). Ennis is a really nice town and it's kind of nice just to relax and walk around the town, but it would have been nicer to go to the cliffs. What happened was that when we got to Ennis, we found out that the bus from the cliffs wouldn't be back to Ennis until 7 and by that time we would have missed the train to Dublin. We also realized that we could have used our student cards for the bus system -- which we used all day Saturday, spending about 70 Euros -- and saved some of our money. So we had two big frustrations in one day. Not good for emotional Steph who is on lack of sleep. And so we kind of rode the trian all the way out to Ennis for nothing and now we have about 3 hours before the next one comes. Thank goodness we found this cafe so we could make good use of our time! I could have cried. Poor Trish has to deal with me right now.. not pretty. I can be kind of testy when put in these kind of situations on sleep deprivation, as some of you well know. But we will get through it and tomorow will be a better day! It's not a too big of a loss because heck, we're still in Ireland of all things and we're healthy and safe and there's lots to do in Ennis. But the student prices thing is a real real shame. It makes me really mad to think of it, but there's nothing we can do now so oh well.
Well, we're off now to go shopping. :)
Tomorow it's time to hit Dublin -- it will be nice to stay put in a city for a little bit.. we have been traveling every day so far. It wears you down after a little bit.
Anyways --- I could gush on and on and on about the wonderful and beautiful sites I'm seeing here (if you ever get the chance -- go to IRELAND!!!!) but we should be going.. I still have 18 minutes left and we want to do some other things..
Cheers
Steph (with imput from Trish, who sits here beside me)
PS. Go to my friend Joel's concert on the 10th of Sept. at Waterloo stage theatre!! www.joelg.ca (we'll be there so you can talk to us about our trip! there's incentive for ya...)