I’ve lost a lot of sleep at night while trying to come up with the best opening line for my first blog – Matt thinks I should be saying “Dear Diary, Matt is so awesome. I think I like-like him. He’s so preppy, like Dawson from Dawson’s Creek” while I’m leaning more towards “hello, world.” So let’s just skip that altogether 
ber 10th (Thanks Brad!) and we arrived without any hiccups (after a layover in NJ) a little before 7am in Dublin on Sunday, December 11th. We grabbed our rental car (after paying 4x as much for it as we’d originally thought we would), freaked out about the left-hand driving (and the left-hand shifting), and headed for Kilkenny, Ireland. We enjoyed an Irish breakfast (bacon, sausage, black + white “pudding” which isn’t pudding at all, tomatoes, mushrooms, an egg, and toast), walked around Kilkenny for a bit, went to mass, and then hit up the Kilkenny Castle. This castle was pretty neat – the grounds were amazing, and the art gallery was especially cool. There was a cute little holiday fair going on in town shortly down the road fro the castle, and I grabbed some hot cider to warm up as we walked around some more. We found a place to stay, grabbed some dinner at Matt the Miller’s pub (super good fish & chips), and then conked out for thirteen (13!!) hours since we were running on empty.
On day 2, we tried to find some big cathedral in town but after driving around for a solid hour and getting lost again and again (Kilkenny is not big at all, mind you), we gave up and headed to a few sights that Matt had picked out. The first stop was Kells Priory (we got lost on the way to this, too). It was pretty cool – basically a lot of ruins in the countryside. 
Across the river from the priory were some old mills with some neat riverside views. After that, we grabbed some lunch and headed to Jerpoint Abbey.
We got lost again – yay. When we finally found it, we asked the lady working the desk tons of questions about Ireland and the various sights – she was super helpful and, armed with her information and directions, we decided to forgo the rest of the plans we had for the day and head to Cahir to check out a more authentic castle than Kilkenny Castle, which was awesome but it was really more of a residence than a fortress. We got lost on the way to Cahir (are you detecting a pattern?) but eventually made it. We got there 15 minutes after the last entrance time for the Castle so we ended up heading up to Cashel for the night since we’d be heading up there in the morning anyway.
We stayed at an awesome bed and breakfast – Peggy O'Neals B&B. Jim (the owner) was 
awesome, but Daisy was the real charmer – their year old boxer. Usually Matt is the favorite amongst our four-legged friends, but Daisy LOVED me. Even when Matt was petting her, she still had her eyes on me. Totally fun dog – she made our night, since we're already missing Hans & Indy (who are having a GREAT time with our friend Maegan & Jason - thanks again guys!)
The next morning began Day 3 of the ‘mooner. Jim cooked us up the best Irish breakfast we’d had so far, and he was great company – very friendly. He was a retired member of the Garda (police) and told us how he looked after a few different US presidents during his time – Clinton and Bush for sure. After we gave Daisy & Jim our goodbyes, we headed to the 
Rock of Cashe
l. It was pretty cool, but soooo coooold. The wind was really picking up and it started snowing. Jim had JUST told us that it doesn’t snow in Ireland…guess we brought it with us! We booked it for the car, and then headed back to Cahir for the Cahir Castle. This was cool – we definitely both liked it better than Kilkenny Castle. It was more of what you think of when you think of a castle – rock stairways, rock walls, no frills. If you look closely at the photo on the right, you can see a cannonball embedded in the stone!
After that, we grabbed lunch in Cahir and headed for Kinsale – an awesome coastal town just southwest of Cork. We checked out Charles Fort – a 17th century star-shaped fort on the coast – before finding a place to stay and then heading to Dino’s for some great fish & chips. We’re currently hanging out at a random bar, enjoying some hot cocoa and baileys while figuring out our next move
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