Five days of Ireland in five minutes...

I wrote a "three days of Ireland in three minutes" post a few days ago, but my iPod decided it was hungry and ate it. Thanks, kid. 

Anyway, I will keep this short and sweet. It shouldn't be hard because the last five days went so fast it could have been five minutes...

It was pouring rain, windy, and freezing cold a second ago. 

Now it's sunny and beautiful.

So, the last few days I was with a tour group. I am never, ever doing that again. Yes, it was wonderful being with some friends and family and not having to worry about figuring out where to go or how to get there, but two minute photo stops and no more than two days in each town is like torture for a wannabe photographer that likes to meet locals and experience the culture. 

Basically, the last five days were spent driving across the entire country (about 20 hours of bus in the last few days,) and stopping every few hours for two minutes to take pictures, or a quick hour or two for tours. 

Most of the country looks like this:

With lots of little rock fences and fluffy white sheep: 

A few mountains and rivers:

And a few random castles:

Our few "longer" stops were mostly in cities that were very much like American cities- well dressed business people, and shops and cafes with items to satisfy every hearts' desire.

(Yep, they like green.)

And a few little old fashioned towns with cool brick buildings...

(Ring castle)

And some castles...

(Kissed the Blarney Stone on that one. Not sure why. Ew. Guess its the thing to do!)

(Daddy and Broface and me! :)

A sheepdog demonstration (it was pretty cool watching the dogs do all the work to move the sheep left and right and forward and back, all from a whistle from the owner.)

And an awesome stop at a racehorse farm! The most expensive horse is a stallion insured for 80 million with a stud fee of 70 thousand Euros. Those guys take better care of those horses than anything I've seen in my life...

We also stopped at the Cliffs of Moher. Unfortunately, we were only lucky enough to see a ton of fog around a little castle:

And a few random favorites:

So finally today, my friend Lauren and I said goodbye to our tour group and are on our own to brave the Irish adventure.

Phew. Okay, I hope that's a good summary for five minutes. Literally, in the time it has taken me to write this it has gotten sunny and turned to pouring rain about four different times. 

In the next few days, I promise I will be writing more and going into detail and answering all your questions you have been sending me on Facebook. It's just been crraazzyy go go go on the tour. 

The real adventure starts now. :)

And ps - since blogger ate my St Patricks day post...