Today we were ready to see Bunratty castle. Love the word. You Bunratty! We grabbed breakfast or something resembling it. We had some bread left and there was free nutella at the hostel. We drove to Bunratty, a short distance from the hostel and airport. It was too much to pay the entrance fee so we walked around the castle on the outside and took pictures. We dropped by the Waterford store. There was a deal to ship to the US for free if we bought over 150 euros of crystal. Tempting. Very tempting. James talked me out of it. So we bought some gifts for the kids instead. The shopkeeper trying to hire us as nurse and teacher encouraging us to move to Ireland. Oh yes, nurses get paid very well here.
We had our last Supermac before the airport- curry fries and veggie burger. The counter woman told us of her own travels to US. She said, “The US is very scary place. It is safe here in Ireland. “We left and returned the car. The car rental guy told us we will love Edinburgh. He had been there. We were hoping it would be nice. But how could anywhere be nicer than Ireland? Check in was easy and we had time for 2 shots Irish whisky. I was very happy getting on plane.
Edinburgh- Wow, what an amazing city! It is intense, beautiful, classical, very hip, full of beautiful people, cool cabs, castles everywhere, and buildings of stone along the water. We were overwhelmed by the beauty. I felt as if I were in a fairy tale. James and I needed our princess and prince attire. Damn, we left that at home. Our hostel was uphill small cobblestone road. It was really an apartment. We wandered Edinburgh and phoned the kids. Liam sounded tired. We saw signs for the world cross country championships this Sat and Sun. Discussed attending. We visited the Edinburgh castle and wandered along cobblestone streets. We went to Holyrood park to check out the x country course. Maybe we could run it? We hiked up a steep hill up to the top. What a beautiful view of city. We saw lots of runners practicing on various paths. We saw a team from Brasil while discussing where we wanted to run in tomorrow morning. We did run a bit on the x country course camera and water bottle in tow. It was only a mile but lots of fun. I hadn’t run since Dublin and yesterday we had a day off form any exercise other than walking. The steep hike was a great warm up for our short run. It was dark now so we walked back to town passing the Scottish parliament. This place was incredible-very modern artistic building with bamboo. I thought it was the museum of modern art. We had dinner at a gourmet vegan restaurant-candlelight dinner of stuffed pepper with aubergine and adzuki beans, pistachio patty with curry, vegan ice cream and tart. We were exhausted and went to bed as soon as we returned to the hostel. The plans to go hear music at the pub were changed.
Byron would love this city. I want to return. We will plan to return for the xcountry championships.
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