The sink in the bathroom had a sick, soap dispenser, and hand dryer all in one. It was quite cool.
A park just outside Kilkenny Castle where James used to play as a child.
The River running through Kilkenny, just outside the castle.
The tour of Kilkenny Castle was great. It's a nice castle, unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures, with or without flash. Probably something to do with rights of owning the castle and such. He's the brief history of it that I learned on the tour: Kilkenny Castle was built sometime in the late 1100s and was built as a fortress. It was later inhabited by the Butler family who turned it into a sort of Victorian castle, because it was used as their home, and not a fortified castle. The Butlers lived in and owned the castle for just over 500 years. Then they went bankrupt, sold off most of the furniture and things, left the castle abandoned and moved to America. Later, one of the Butler family descendants came back to Ireland and sold the Castle to the people of Kilkenny. And now Kilkenny Castle is in the care of the state.
It was a pretty awesome tour for me to remember at least that much. And I learned other things as well:
-The Butler family had great influence over all of Ireland and had strong friendships with the Royals in England, including Prince Charles I and Price Charles II.
-There was a portrait in Kilkenny Castle of the Royal Children, when Charles II was only about 7 or 8. This was Charles' 'coming out' portrait. Apparently all children, boy or girl, wore dressed until they were about 7 when they officially were recognized as a woman or a man. If you were 'becoming a man', like Charles, you were finally allowed to wear trousers at age 7 because you were recognized as an adult in society.
Those are just some things I found interesting that I could relay from the tour. After the tour, we wandered about the grounds, and then headed off. Leaving Kilkenny was stressful because the car stalled out on us….on a very small street, with loads of cars behind us, in the middle of traffic. We got in started after about a minute of trying to start the car and having the hazards on, but it was still stress that James didn't need before driving to Dublin.
It took us about an hour and a half to drive to Dubin, but finally we got to our Hotel, the Trinity Capital. Here's where things get interesting. We went up to our room on the fourth floor and while I was surveying the room (noticing that there were flowers, chocolates and champagne set up on the table), James was getting down on one knee. I turn around and there he is….! It's finally happened! HALLA-FECKING-LUJAH! I'm engaged.
James trying to pop the cork out of the champagne.
My ring. It's a claddagh with my birthstone as the heart.
After I said yes….with absolutely no hesitation, we went out in Temple Bar(a very bohemian area of Dublin) and went out to dinner to celebrate. James let me pick the restaurant and he paid. I decided on this little traditional Irish place(where I had lamb stew--SO YUMMY!). Then we went to an irish pub across the street with some live music and had a drink.
(weird sidenote...I had this drink that tasted exactly like liquid Sourpunch straws...the blue ones)
After that we walked around the center of the city, surveying where we wanted to go tomorrow, then walked back to the hotel, set up our laptops in the lounge and had a drink while I blogged this whole thing and James fiddled around on his laptop.
Now….it's time for my fiance and I to head up stairs and celebrate. Goodnight.
No comments:
Post a Comment