After Kinsale on Wednesday, we had a few days before the weekend to paln something, so we planned a trip to Blarney Castle. Prior to that, we had to go to immigration in order to get our immigration cards. We walked into the city and then a little further into the outskirts to go to the Police Station, which is called Garda, to wait in line for immigration. We waited for almost two hours (a similar experience to the DMV), and I was the very last person to be seen before the office closed, so I'm glad I at least got to go. We have to go back in two weeks to actually pick up our immigration cards. We got really hungry from waiting and went back to Cafe Mexicana for lunch, where I got chips and guacamole, and then a cheese and chorizo fajita. Both were really good. We then decided at lunch that we wanted to see Blarney Castle over the weekend, so we planned for Sunday. We went into the city around 11 to get the noon bus to Blarney, which is about a half hour away. We already were given tickets for admission to Blarney through Quinnipiac. We learned that Blarney was built 600 years ago by a chieftain, Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy was the King of Munster, who actually lived in this castle. The King helped the forces of Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and this king then gave half the Stone of Scone to McCarthy to thank him. This is the stone that is now called "The Blarney Stone". There is also the Blarney House on the same property, as well as the Poison Garden. We walked around the grounds for a while, where there is a large piece of land, and made our way over to the castle. We climbed up a lot of really narrow stairs to get to the top of the castle, almost to the point where it was really claustraphobic. The view from the top of the castle was really cool, as you could really see into the distance. After we toured the castle for a while, we walked around the grounds a little more. We went into a cave as well. We got to see the Blarney Stone as well. When we left, we stopped for lunch at the Muskerry Arms Restaurant in Blarney. It was a very informal place and we all enjoyed our meals. We walked around the town a little bit, even though we had heard from other students that there really wasn't much to see in the town, and went into a few stores. Wool is a really big deal here so we got to see some of the wool stores with different cable knit sweaters and blankets. We then took the bus back into City Centre and walked home. A little later, I went to a 7pm Coral Evensong at St. Finn Barre's Cathedral. I went with two other people, and there were probably 3 other people in the whole Cathedral besides us. It wasn't a formal mass, it was more of the singing part of Mass with some readings to go along with it. The Cathedral was so nice, as are all the cathedrals here, so I'm really glad I went to see it.