In the beginning of December Bran and I parted ways for two weeks. He went to Riverside, CA for his A&P class and I picked up Bea from the airport. First stop, Disneyland! This was her first time there and we had a blast. It was super quiet so we got to ride all the rides we wanted.
After that, Bran drove us to the USO at LAX where we spent the night. The next day we caught a flight to Scotland & Ireland with my sister, her boyfriend (now fiancé) and my best friend, Bea. We flew out on WOW air! The price truly was WOW. LAX-Ireland-NYC for only $380?! Yes please. Honestly, my expectations were low considering reviews, but they WOWed my low expectations. Anyway, we flew to Iceland and caught a flight to Ireland. That takeoff and landing was scary haha. Definitely the scariest I've ever had in all the flights I have done, but it was a low cost airline lol! We arrived in Ireland safely.
Here is an outline of what we did-Dec 5- Ireland parked in Dublin, are at a small fish& chips place in the strip mall. We ate dinner at a Indian restaurant and it was great. I had Pad Thai. Our Airbnb was interesting, when we walked in there was someone else laying on our bed, but on the bright side we got a free parking pass from a bystander on the street who lived in that neighborhood.
6- Flew to Gasglow, Scotland. Stayed in a B&B near the Cathedral on the outskirts of town. We ate dinner across the Shilling Brewing Co at the Japanese Restaurant & walked around the Christmas market! So Beautiful. We loved the mac, crepes, and mushroom potatoes from the Christmas market.
7- We woke up in Gasglow, got an English breakfast at the restaurant below our Airbnb. We then walked into town, and walked around. We hit both Christmas Markets again. My favorite part of the entire trip was all the Christmas Markets! That night we drove to Athlone, ate at the Del Rio. I got the potato gnocchi and Bea's pizza was as big as her head haha, we all LOVED dinner there. We stayed in Airbnb (they were so sweet) the Bastion B&B.
8- We woke up in the morning and went to the castle in Athlone, walked their Christmas market and bought all kinds of goodies, went to Birr & Leap castle and then stayed in Cahler Castle w/ Peter! AMAZING! He restored it himself and it was great. We went to Galway that night for the Christmas Market. We ate hot roast pig w/ stuffing and apple sauce. Christmas punch, Christmas Chimney with Nutella, & loaded fries.
9- The next morning Jess looked behind the stone at Peter's castle and it was a butt.THE BIG DAY!! We travelled to the Cliffs of Moher where Zack proposed to Jess. It was so beautiful Thanks to Peter we didn't have to pay to get in because there is a trail you can walk on. Then we stopped at the hazelnut chocolate factory, cheese factory and went downtown in Galway to McGinns. That was amazing food, best so far. I had mushroom and steak chibatta. We had chocolate fudge for dinner. After that we went to the crane bar and saw traditional Irish music it was so neat & then Bea asked for the bouncers email outside of Roshes Bar I think? And he came over later that night to talk to Bea! It was so crazy funny, but awesome. He was so sweet, but he said she asked for my e-mail what are we in the 90's? GREATEST THING EVER! What a day!
10- We left early this morning at 9 for the Kylemore abbey. It was a beautiful sight, but you could only see 2,000 sq ft of a 40,000 ft house which was a bummer. We drove that night down to Cork. Which was a 5 1/2 hr drive. Quite long. I’m Cork we stayed in an Aribnb near the town center
11- The next morning we got up and went to the Blarney Castle. It was nice because it was so quiet there. We kissed the Blarney Stone without even a wait. Then after that we headed to the Jameson distillery. We took a tour and the buildings were amazing to look at. Then got fish and chips before heading to Waterford.
12- We got into Waterford and stayed at the Waterford Marina Hotel. The receptionist was so sweet and upgraded us to the family suite. It was huge! We walked the town, through the Viking village, got ice cream and then went to Burzza. It was said to be one of the best restaurants, but we were not impressed.13- The next morning we woke up and ate at the hotel. The breakfast was amazing, an Irish breakfast. Eggs, beans, bacon and really, really good hash browns. We then went to the Tullamore distillery and the Guinness Storehouse for tours. That night we drove to Dublin and ate at Fanagan’s Pub. I got a crab and prawn linguine it was very tasty! We then drove to the airport and slept in the car there.
14- We then got up at 4 the next morning so Jess and Zack could catch there flight to Portugal. Our flight took off about noon, we landed in NYC at 1630. Bea's sissy Nanna picked us up. \
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