Time Tracking.

After two amazing days being whisked around the beauty of Ireland by the 'Jesus' cursing, joke telling, Irishman Colin with his infectious laughter, speed talking and fondness for rude Irish songs, I'm back in the bustling city of Dublin.

After assuming we were leaving tomorrow, we arrived at the hostel desk and welcomed by the familiar face of the lady who checked us in two days ago. After whizzing through the necessaries, she told us we were staying two nights, leaving on the 24th. Hmm, we were confused. 'what day is it today?' we asked her. She looked at us quizzingly, 'it's Sunday' she replied, clearly worried and confused by our inability to understand life basics. N and I looked at each other.

'Right, so, what date would that be?' We tried to ask as if we weren't dyslexic 5 year olds but to no avail.
'The 22nd.' she answered, straight faced and unblinking.

Looks like we're in Dublin an extra day then! Stoked, we get to see the city in daylight! Having arrived at night, left before the sun rose and arrived back in the dark tonight, we were going to be gutted to leave Dublin without fully seeing it, but now we can! A whole day to lap it up tomorrow.

Side note: I highly recommend Paddy Wagon tours. Amazing.
I happened to get super lucky and was on a bus with Australians, French (Reunion Island) and Bolivians and boy was it a good group! Most of the traveling was spent either a.) learning Irish jokes (most dirty), b.) singing Irish songs or c.) paying Colin out about his accent and his inability to stop saying 'Jesus'. Today I kissed the Blarney Stone (apparently I will now be blessed with the gift of the gab. Can't wait. Could come in handy for my Disney audition.) and it is actually kinda scary. You have to lie down at the top of the castle with your back to the wall, tilt your head right back so that your face to face with the ground 50 meters below you and practically hang over the edge from you butt down to your face. Luckily there is a lovely old man there to hold you (as well as conveniently placed steel handles, obviously those who built it in 1446 had good insight to it's future use.) However I would have loved to have seen how Winston Churchill (another kisser of the Blarney) got up the steps to the top. The sign at the beginning claiming any deaths or injuries experienced while in the castle were your own problem did nothing to reassure me of the stability to the miniature, steep and tightly winding steps.

We even visited an impressive rock outcrop at the top of a hill that gave us a 360 view in every direction (haha, clearly I'm tired), beautiful! It was a stunning view. Reminds me so much of NZ here! As did the morning walk to the waterfall that begun the day. We were luckily enough to get amazing weather all day, it didn't rain once and there was blue sky and sun the whole time. A true rarity in Ireland!

We even learnt Irish dancing at the bottom of the rocks as the sun was setting behind the greenest grass you've ever seen; linked arms and confused faces with 'the Galway girl' blasting out from the tour bus.

Thank you Paddy Wagon tours, and thank you Colin, for providing me with endless opportunity to laugh at you, when 99% of the time I had absolutely no idea what you were saying.