The first day in Ireland is summed up on a t-shirt. The four seasons of Ireland, winter=rain, spring=rain, summer=rain, autumn=rain. It was cold and windy so it was lucky that we were enroute to the Waterford crystal factory. I had this visit pegged as boring but how wrong I was. The full sized hallclock greeted as at the entry, siting opposite a crystal glass taller than me. We were toured thru the factory and saw how labour intensive this craft is. From the glass blowers thru to the manual hand cuts on every piece the tour was fascinating and gave us a totally new appreciation for why crystal costs what it does.

My favourite piece was a mirror with a price tag of $32000 euro. So close on $56000 nzd

The next stop was Blarney Castle. The story has it that if you kiss the Blarney Stone you will gain the "gift of the gab" (not that I really need it ) the catch is that the Blarney stone is located at the top of the castle, it's the stone that hangs out over the window. So we climbed the narrow dark spiral staircase with tiny stone steps put in place hundreds of years ago. With a person on every step on the spiral I did start to question the engineering design behind the construction of these steps. Surely in the 1300's the creators had never envisaged having so many people on the steps. It was a slow climb up as we were literally in a queue to kiss the stone. The views from the turret arrow slits were breathtaking over the manicured gardens, with just slivers of light creeping into the dim staircase the views were a welcomed sight. Arriving at the top of the castle a bit more hesitation came upon us as we saw the reality of kissing the stone. You lie down on your back, and grab some rails behind your head, and pull yourself outwards to the outer castle wall, which is protruding some 500mm from the castle. There are no safety nets, you simply have a guy sitting beside you holding your legs. Believe me, when you are lying on your back and have to put your head right back so that you can get your lips out to a touch a stone its pretty bloody scary. Take a look at the photos in the albums and you will understand my fear. I couldn't really get out of doing it, as Betty, one of our travel companions was in like Flynn, and as she was older than my mum, I couldn't find any excuses good enough not to follow suit. Glad I did it… but I wont be needing to do it again.

The day ended after a great meal, followed by a relaxing drink in the bar listening to a guitar player strumming some nice irish music. He even privileged us with a Crowded House song to recognise us as kiwi's . Nice