On Thursday (March 5), Mom, Lianne & Glenn arrived in Cork after flying out of Boston on Wednesday night and having a three hour drive from Dublin to Cork. I was in the city with my roommate Hannah when they arrived in the afternoon, and we all met up for lunch. We went to the Cork English Market for a really good meal, a definite favorite of their visit. They then went to their hotel, The River Lee, where they would be staying for a night before moving on to the next travel destination. Once everyone was settled in and had a little downtime to relax, we all went out to Amicus in Cork for dinner, a place I really like in the city. We made our plan to leave for Kinsale in the morning, where we would be staying at the Actons Hotel. We woke up early to have breakfast at the River Lee, which was by far our favorite hotel breakfast throughout the trip (food being a priority). We then went to Kinsale where we walked around the harbour town. It was a little windy and chilly, but the weather actually got more windy as the week went on. We walked to Charles Fort (a pretty good walk) and got to see the grounds of the fort, where the cold winds sent us out a little quicker. We stopped at Bulman's Bar on our walk back to warm up. I got mussels here, and everyone tried some type of seafood. We got to see some flowers on our walk which made the walk a lot more enjoyable, since there definitely aren't many signs of life at home from what I've heard. We walked all the way back to our hotel area to look around at some of the shops and to try to look at some places to have dinner. We then went back to relax a little bit before dinner. We went to Max's Wine Bar for Dinner and had a really nice meal. On our drive out on Saturday morning, we drove through Old Head and saw the Lusitania Memorial, as well as looked for the Blessed Mother Statue in Ballinspittle. We then traveled onto Killarney and saw the Ross Castle as well as the Muckross House, where we took a jaunting car ride back to our car since it was pouring rain and windy. We ate lunch at Murphy's Bar. For dinner, we went to Cucina Italiana, which was such a great meal. On Sunday, we did the Dingle Peninsula Drive, which was a really scenic drive, similar to The Ring of Kerry. We stopped in Dingle Town to see the harbour and walk around the town a little bit as well. By the time we got back to the Killarney Towers Hotel, we were all pretty tired and I got a light dinner with Mom. On Monday, we went back to the Muckross House in Killarney to take a tour of the inside. It had been raining on and off, and we got to see a really pretty rainbow on our drive home. On our way out of Killarney, we stopped at Killarney National Park and saw the Torc Waterfall. On Tuesday, Mom, Lianne & Glenn went on a day trip to Cobh, which is also a harbour town. They liked the town and I met up with them again at night back here in Cork at the River Lee. On Wednesday, we drove up to the Limerick area and saw Blarney Castle, as well as driving into the town Adare. We walked around the little town and had lunch at Auntie Lena's. This area had a lot of cottages with thatched cottages, which is what the area is known for. For the rest of the trip, we would be staying at the Bunratty Castle Hotel. We got there a little before dinnertime, and went to the Creamery Pub for dinner. We planned to wake up on Thursday to go see Galway. It was a rainy day, but we made the best of it and went on a walking tour of the city. We ate at a really good market type restaurant. We then headed back to our hotel and went to Durty Nelly's for dinner. On Friday, we woke up early to head to the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Friday was definitely the nicest weather day, a perfect day to see the Cliffs. They were really pretty to see, and we were glad we went early in the morning since it got really crowded as it got later toward the afternoon. We stopped at a pub for lunch on the way back and then I headed to our room to pack up my stuff to take a bus back to Cork since the flight out was the next morning. We all had a nice time and a little change of scenery. It was great to have some visitors at the halfway mark, and I'm really looking forward to the next two months!