I found my new home

We took another tour with Driver Allen today. He's so awesome. We went on the Connemara Tour. Started off EARLY. We got in late from our dinner and music last night and had to be up and ready by 8:30. We got on the bus and some obnoxious Washington DC ladies had taken the front seats and made a remark about how they stole our seats. So we sat behind them, but we were on a big bus on little windy roads and I started to feel sick. It sucked. We stopped for coffee and I got some pepermint tea which seemed to help. A nice Scottish couple asked Brendan if his wife was feeling ok and he said Who? haha guess we're not used to that tag yet.
ANYWAY, I didn't throw up and finally we go on some normal roads and we saw some pretty areas. We drove through Galway and stopped at a shop that sells jewelry from the Connemara mines. It's this BEAUTIFUL green marble. It's just GORGEOUS. Or as Allan says "Garjus". We got to see the guys polishing it. They don't make big stuff with it anymore as to conserve the mines but there's a building in Philadelphia I think that has a lot of it.

We drove on, Allan told us to watch the movie the Field. He said its the best movie to come out of Ireland. Also saw a bridge from a movie called Quiet Man. The bridge is the Quiet Man Bridge. I guess it would be cooler if we actually had seen or heard of the movie. Most of the older folks seemed to know it. 

Onward we went toward an Abbey. We turned the corner and there it was. Kylemore Abbey. The castle was built by a man, Henry I believe was his name. He built the house and raised his family there. His wife Margaret I think got sick and he took her to Egypt to see if the change in weather improved her condition but she got dysentery and died within 6 weeks. So he had an awesome mini cathedral built on his property for her. Once it was finished he had her bodied moved from Egypt to Ireland. Inside the mini cathedral was beautiful. It has all this light tan sandstone inside and columns made of all the different marble in Ireland, white, black, green and red. 

One of Henrys children also died at Kylemore and he decided it was cursed and sold it. After changing hands multiple times, it ended up being bought by the Benedictine nuns. They still live there now. They opened a finishing school that just had it's last class last spring. So it's no longer a castle, but an abbey. They're reconstructing all the rooms and hope to have it finished in four years. It's also known for a massive Victorian walled garden. It was beautiful and they actually use a lot of the fruit and veggies grown there in the cafe food. Brendan and I had some fresh peppermint tea from the garden. Here's some pics and more info can be found here

Let's see what else have I forgotten? Oh we went to the weavers in Tuamgraney, the German wife wasn't very pleasant but the husband was awesome. He stopped working and chatted with us for a long while, asking where we were from telling us about his life. We told him we'd been to Dublin and that we went to the College and he laughed and said that was for old people, we could come back when we were old for that stuff. He wanted to know what pubs we went to and when we told him we'd gone to the Brazen Head he said that was wear he'd met his wife! He was telling us that in Dublin he had a friend who was the youngest of 23 (in Irish speak that's twenty tree). TWENTY THREE KIDS!??!?!??!?!  madness.
I'm bummed bc I thought I had my text blogging set up and had been sending these little messages but I just realized it hasn't been working! If i can fix it I'll post some of those old pics.
Tomorrow Brendan and I are going to explore Galway on our last day here. Then Saturday we pack up and leave :-( I'm heartbroken. I can't wait to see my dogs, my bed, and my loved ones, but I'm really really going to miss this place. If you haven't been to Ireland, go. It's amazing. The culture, the people, it's so so amazing. If you want some reading, try Morgan Lewellyn. Brian Boru and all that. I honestly would move here if we could, it's breathtaking and I feel so comfortable here!
Back to the real world in a couple days, but until then I'm going to enjoy this beautiful country!