That's a huge post!

Okay, so first thing...ignore the fact that I'm a moron and posted my pictures backwards, chronologically speaking. They're from most recent to least, so if my tour of Ireland seems a little disjointed, that's because I'm ridiculous.

Let me see. I told you about the first day here and our adventures at The Barge. So the next day we took a bus out of town and stayed over night in a fantastic hotel called the Glenview. I didn't take any pictures of that, because that's weird to me. Because of the way I loaded the pictures, I'm going to tell you about the second day, which was...um...Thursday, the 8th of September, as best I can tell.

We went to Powerscourt Estates on our second day out of town. It's this huge place, think like the houses described in Jane Austen, only bigger and more magnificent. The house was...okay, I suppose, but the main attraction of the place is the gardens. I picked a few pictures to share with you guys.

This is a headstone found in the pet cemetary on the grounds. It reads "Kilfane, Irish Wolfhound. Died 20th October, 1911. Universally Beloved." There was also a gravestone to a horse, King, who was buried with his wife, Magic, and a cow's headstone that proclaimed she's given birth to 17 calves and produced over 100,000 gallons of milk. Weird stuff.

This is a picture of the Japanese tranquilty gardens, from one of the high footpaths. Directly beneath me while I was taking the photo was a small mountain sort of thing with six or seven windy footpaths to get down to the actual garden part. It had all kinds of little bridges and an Irish spring. Where they make the soap. It was said that the people who owned Powerscourt added this section of the gardens to add peace, tranquilty and balance to the grounds.

This is probably my favorite picture I took whilst at Powerscourt. I was standing on the second floor of the house, and this is looking out over the main part of the gardens. This is overlooking the Italian gardens and the Winged Horses and Triton Lake. It's pretty far away, but the statue in the middle of the lake, of Triton, was based on the fountain in the Piazza Barberini in Rome. Aren't you impressed?

On to day...one. That first day out of town we went to Glendalough, which is pronounced like the Gaelic term for it, Glen da loch, which translates into "Land Between the Lakes". And everytime someone said that, I thought about the butter. Whatever that says about me. Here we go!

This is the High Lake at Glendalough, called that because it's, um, higher than the other one. Also way bigger and much prettier. While we were there, I saw a high school boy skip a rock 15 times across the water, which was really impressive. Very big and peaceful and wonderful, really. I think it looks very Irish, with the mist and the clouds. Also, the town of Glendalough relied on this lake for protection. It's very long and low and kind of shallow, so it flooded easily, and made the town very difficult to reach.

This is a cross which was in the original gatehouse of the city of Glendalough. Brief history lesson. Glendalough was originally inhabitated by St. Kevin, who, like most saints, was more crazy than anything. He lived in a cave between the lakes and talked to birds. He never actually saw the city built there. It was just dedicated to him. Anyway, whenever a traveler passed this cross, he was automatically under the protection and rule of the city of Glendalough. They didn't have cement when this was built, so it's a combination of granite stone, charcol, horse hair, animal blood and limestone mortar. You can still see the hairs sticking out of it. Kinda icky.

This is the tower, one of the few whole round towers left in Ireland. It stood high above the trees that originally grew there, oaks and alders, and could be seen at a great distance. It was used as a look out tower and a bell tower. It was built in around 1150 and took around 10 months to complete. In the foreground there, you can see Jess and Dan, also taking pictures, along with a whole mess of gravestones. Weird thing, a lot of them said who paid for the stone above the name of the person who is actually buried there. Also, that big triangle bushy looking thing is a Yew tree, which the graveyard keepers planted there to keep the animals out of there. It's also what Voldemort's wand is made from. Interesting, eh?

And this is St. Kevin's cross. As you can see this is a Celtic cross, unique to the people of Ireland, who take it with them whever they travel. The cross faces east, which is important, because most everything faces east in the compound of the city. The reason there are rings on Irish crosses: 1. In that day, rings were given to victors, and obviously, Jesus was seen as a victor over death and evil. 2. The ring shape paid homage to the sun god that the pagan of Ireland used to worship. I guess they weren't quite ready to give him up yet. 3. The ring also represents life. No beginning, no end. Excellent.

So, there's my first couple of days. But I'm tired of writing now, and ready for supper. I'll post again maybe later tonight with what I did today. Love you all!!!