I still cannot believe how quickly this week went by. One minute the whole family was here and the next they were gone. Having Mama Bear, Alyss, Auntie and Lindsay here was "great craic" as we say in Ireland, or as we would say at home was a GREAT time.

Our trip began early- how lucky was I to have an extra day with them! With impending blizzards to Boston and NYC all the girls were able to change their flight, even Linds was able to hop on an earlier flight, just making it because her cab driver got LOST on the way. Everything happens for a reason! Now of course this threw my plans off a little too, I was planning on baking and having a bunch of goodies ready for them on arrival since we were supposed to start strong and go straight to the Cliffs of Moher. Since they came in early I ended up hoping on a 7am bus to the airport to meet them with intentions of staying in Shannon for the night, but while I was on the bus I got a call with mom saying, "oh actually no we're going to come to Limerick." Oh, okay mom, let me just stop this bus that is conveniently going through Limerick right now…. And that is exactly what I did. I stopped the bus in Limerick like a mad woman and wandered around Limerick, ALONE, to find the hotel. Which wasn't too too hard! I get to the hotel and I felt as if I was waiting for them forever! I decided to go looking for the group, thinking they wouldn't be too hard to spot. Fortunately after looking for them for twenty minutes, I went back to the hotel and they were there! Thank God. Even though I haven't been in Ireland that long, and it's only been a little bit more than a month since I've seen everyone, in that moment if felt as if it was forever!

We spent this first day relaxing, wandering around Limerick and popping into a few shops and restaurants. We went to bed early and Lindsay had a conference call. For some reason we all woke up around midnight, got cocktails and hung out for a few hours. Welcome to Ireland!

Our driver Martin picked us up early Friday morning. I found Martin through a professor at UCC. We started our journey to the Cliffs of Moher in Liscanner, Co. Clare. The Cliffs were breath taking. They were so gorgeous, even in the hail and wild winds up there. We then ventured to Bunratty Castle and Wool Shop. After this long day and over five hours of driving, we headed to my dorm, grabbed my luggage, which luckily we were able to squeeze in and drove about two minutes to the beautiful Hayfield Manor Hotel. We unloaded, freshened up and had a lovely Valentines Day dinner next to the fireplace. It definitely was nice to be back on Lorena standards versus college student studying abroad for six months standards!

We started our third day early and drove to Cobh, Ballycotton, and The Jameson Distillery in Midleton, which are all part of County Cork. We had a perfect day of sunshine. We started our day in Cobh, which is pronounced Cove. Cobh is the last port the Titanic docked at and the last 123 passengers boarded. Cobh also has one of the deepest and biggest harbors in the world. Cobh is a quaint fishing village that is the quintessential European towns. The houses are all attached and different colors, the harbor was sparkling there are statues and a lovely park that is dedicated in John F. Kennedy's name. The boats were all anchored and different colors; one was even named the Alex! Of course I walked right on to get a picture and got yelled at faster than when I got on. Opps! While we were in Cobh, we went to the Titanic Experience Museum, which is inside the actual building the Titanic passengers would have waited in. When we got there we were given a ticket with a passengers name on it and at the end we found out whether or not we were saved. All of us survived except for Lorena and Lindsay. From this "powerful moment" we headed up a huge hill to the Cobh Cathedral where the view was even more beautiful. The cathedral was breathtaking and ornate. Our next stop was Ballycotton. Ballycotton is also a small fishing village where there is a beautiful lighthouse, small port and surfers! It was a perfect pit stop. We left Ballycotton and the surfers to hit the Jameson Distillery. The perfect way to warm up! We departed Jameson to head back to the Manor and relax a little since I was getting the family up early again the next morning! This night we had a lot of excitement. Alyss wanted to swim in the pool and sit in the sauna and Auntie, Linds and I wanted to go to the "packie" and get some wine for the room. We divided up the time and the three of us after swimming went to the packie that is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. This is usually a pretty busy street because a lot of the university is on it and what not. We get to the store at 9:56 and are told we have to purchase the liquor by 10:00:00- who knew you couldn't buy booze after a certain time here… I certainly didn't! We grabbed the closest thing and made it just in time. We accidently bought a sparkling wine… opps! We began walking back bottles in tote and we hear, "Hey ladies!!!!" SPLAT. We looked down and Auntie… Are you ready for this? Got EGGED. Yup. Sweet Auntie got EGGED. These boys threw an egg at us and it hit Auntie's lower coat. Can you believe that?! I've never heard of anything happening in Cork like that. We felt horrible. We got back, scrubbed her jacket, Mom and Alyss ordered some goodies and our room service boy, John, who had so much fun with us felt SO horrible that Auntie got egged that he brought us some truffles too. Talk about eventful! Oy. So eventful that we didn't even drink the wine and ate room service, truffles and drank tea instead!

Our next day started early as well, we were down at our delicious breakfast at the Library that they set up for us every morning, drank our coffee and by coffee I mean the two or more Mimosas Lindsay and I started our day with every morning (I sure did miss her when she left!) Today was our final day with Martin. We started our day off at the Butter Museum in Cork. It was very…quaint. Though it was interesting and Chef Alyssa loved it, it was in and out very quick. From the Butter Museum we went to the famous Blarney Castle and Stone! I was a little worried that we were going to have some members of the family wimp out because 1. The climb up the castle is a little dark and treacherous, 2. It's pretty tall and open, and to top it all off, when you kill the stone you have to LEAN BACK over the edge of the castle with a man holding on to you, you reaching back to grab bars and then slide back to kiss this stone that millions of other people have kissed. I was so proud because all members of the family smooched the stone! Though it took some convincing, everyone was SO happy that they did it. I took them through the poisonous garden- Rena loved that! From Blarney we ventured about a half an hour to my favorite spot in Ireland, Kinsale. Kinsale is my favorite village in Ireland. It is also the oldest fishing village as well and is the food capital of Ireland. Though Kinsale is small and quaint, it is so gorgeous. Kinsale is also the equivalent to what the Cape or Nantucket is for us. We went to the Charles Fort that over looks the harbor. We went to my favorite restaurant in Ireland, Fishy Fishy and my favorite café the Poet's Corner for a little dessert to bring back. I was so happy I got to share Kinsale with everyone, because it was not originally on the itinerary! We also may have played a few Lottory tickets, no winners sadly.

Monday was the start of Raise and Give Week (RAG Week) here at UCC, so the family got to see the campus in rare form. RAG week is a week of fundraising, events, parties and other fun activities on campus. I was really excited to show the family my campus because it is truly so beautiful. It's like a castle; it was built a couple hundred years ago and is really impressive. We toured around the campus, walked through RAG week and headed into the city. In the city I made sure to hit all my favorite spots. We went to O'Conaills, the best hot chocolate in Cork, Penny's, the best combination of Forever21 and H&M, the Opera House, a few other shops and then we went to dinner and a pub for some live music. Alyss just LOVED that. Not. She was not the biggest fan of the pub scene, but Auntie and Lindsay were! After an evening of Irish Music, the Irish Pub and some Irish drinks we walked back to the hotel (I kept these ladies moving!) and they got to see all of the college students out and about- Mama LOVED that…

The next morning was Lindsay's last morning and like all the other mornings we had our mimosas and started our day. We roamed the streets of Cork and visited the Cork City Gaol, which is an old jail turned into a museum. It was a little creepy! After the strolled around the Gaol and freaked ourselves out, we decided to go into town where we sat in the upper English Market Café grabbed a little "nosh." After strolling through town for a little we had our second family pub experience, met up with Holly and Hannah and went to dinner together. I was so happy that Lindsay and Auntie got to meet my friends!

The last day was so sad. I didn't want to see the family leave. As Lorena kept saying, "honey all good things have to come to an end." We had an amazing time while they were here. We saw many parts of Ireland and especially places in Cork, which was really important to me that they saw where I am living. I hope that they can come back soon and make some more memories! As uncle Gerry would say, "nothing's too good for the family!" I love you all, thank you for coming. I can't wait for many more adventures together.

Cheers,

Al

PS. Make sure to look at all the pictures!