Castles and Churches

Something inspiring about 800 year old castles. Gives me hope, even while the city around the castle is drowning in grafitti, garbage, and greed. Dublin was somewhat disappointing in itself, just another city and a dirty one at that. The hostel was nice though, Avalon house. But by this morning we were dying to get out of the city so we walked to the bus station and bought tickets to Kilkenny, a smaller city about 2 hours away. Perfect little Irish town, small old buildings clustered together, every other one a pub, with random shops scattered in between. Holistic medicine seems fairly common in Ireland, with herbal medicine, chinese health, and aromatherapy shops as common almost as common as the pubs. What they don't seem to have around here is any kind of outdoor equipment store, sportsmans, bob wards, REI type thing. I'm probably going to have to resort to my sister shipping me stuff from her local REI to pick up the few things I didn't get before I left. I did find the pants I want here, but at more than triple the price they are in CO.

So the vague plan for tomorrow is to rent a couple bikes and ride around the countryside. The Dunmore caves are nearby. Not allowed to take pictures inside though apparently. Spend the rest of the day site seeing, then catch a train to somewhere else tomorrow night, sleep a few hours on the train, and go from there. I know I need to post pictures with me in them at some point, but for now this is the best I got. Do have one of me standing on the wall around the castle grounds, but its on Joey's camera. I'll get it later. Paz