WWOOFing Ireland

      I wanted to try everything when I traveled. I heard about this idea of WWOOFing and decided to give it a shot. The idea is, you work on these organic farms in exchange for rooming, food, and an opportunity to learn. I loved my experience and I feel like I learned so much about the vegan lifestyle (not all wwoofing farms are vegan, but it will say when you look at the individual page, I just thought I'd like to try it out) and a lot about Ireland and living on a farm. She had the two cutest pigs I have ever seen named Rebekah and Legend. I'm pretty sure they think they are dogs. It absolutely cracked me up. She also had a nice pony named Magic.
    I shared in many duties such as cleaning up equipment for making the place off grid, working on her Eco-friendly fence, helping out with her horticulture studies, and feeding the animals. We took a couple nights off and enjoyed Latin dancing in Kilkenny and we both learned a lot about the lifestyle differences from Europe to North America. You should absolutely check out her blog out at http://healingbyfranc.blogspot.ie and listen to her radio show here to learn more about what she knows. You might learn something!

I'm glad I was able to enjoy this opportunity.

Kilkenny Ireland

 Kilkenny is a green, beautiful town with a castle with beautiful grounds and so much to see. I could walk around this place for days!

 I feel like Ireland is so much greener then I could ever imagine!

 I love seeing the buildings nature is taking back. I wish I could've spent more time walking around more abandoned buildings.

 Everywhere you look in town you see old awesome buildings.

 This courtyard is so pretty.

 Even the public library is such a cool old building.

 Can you believe these flowers were in bloom in the winter?!

 Everywhere you look you see beautiful things.

It's hard to resist these streets. Don't forget to get a pint or an Irish coffee at the World's End!

Cliffs of Mohor Tour

 Ok so before I left Dublin I decided to take a tour to the Cliffs of Mohor via Wild Rover Tours.

 On the way, the bus stopped so we could take a picture of Drimnagh Castle, the only castle left in Ireland that still has a moat. I thought that was nice of them.

 The cliffs of Mohor would have been awesome, unfortunatly, the day was crazy foggy. Sometimes that happens, so you just have to go with the flow. I still walked along the edge and barely saw anything.

 I hiked up to Hag's head anyways.

 Since we couldn't see the cliffs, they let us stop and see the ocean below the fog. I thought that was a nice place to just sit and enjoy the view. If you end out here, please don't spend your whole time taking selfies. It is very embarrassing to the rest of the travelers who want the locals to not be completely annoyed by us.

      The burren is a really cool place that inspired JRR Tolken and CS Lewis to write their books. I would like to come back and hike this whole area to get inspired myself.

 Here you see a famine wall. It is really sad how England was having people build these while they starve to death. They separate nothing and lead nowhere.

 We finished our tour in Galway. It was a nice town to walk around.

 The Quay Street Kitchen was a really cool restaurant with awesome lamb and oysters!

Ireland- Malahide Castle and Howth

    Malahide Castle was pretty neat. I went there during a dublinsightseeing.ie tour, which was not my favorite of the tours I had been on, mostly because I didn't have much time to see very much because our group was larger and the castle stop was a bit too short. I still enjoyed it, but it was more of a sampler of a tour I would like to go back on my own and really spend time here later.

 I couldn't get over these grounds, if I get to come back I would love to explore this beautiful green area.

        I like that this castle stayed in the same family for so long that it kept to the original house and castle look on the inside. I'd much rather see that than a museum. I liked having the tour guide tell us about it rather then just reading plaques the whole time. They also had audio recordings in other languages.

      This is the oak room. The entire room is made of hand carved oak, there is a secret room in it that does not have a key to it yet so it will be a new discovery once they get it open. The original room was supposed to be made of ivory, but they decided it was too expensive, so they made it oak and painted it white. The smoke from the fireplace discolored the walls and they thought it was way too bright in there so they painted it black. It's a cool room and it smells so good.

This room had millions of dollars of paintings and italian marble in it.

 I so want that tub.

I just thought this looked awesome.

There even was a farewell peacock on the walls.

Howth is a cool fishing village full of neat shops, beautiful views, and delicious food.

This view is like a dream come true. I liked that I booked this tour for the coast part even if the castle part was a bit rushed because this town was the best part.

I had a fun time with my new friends I made on the free walking tour here.

Dublin Ireland

 Dublin is a HUGE city! There is a lot to see but it can be overwhelming. My first day I made zero plans, as usual, and when I was asked if I wanted to join a free walking tour. I'm SO GLAD I did! This is a great way to see the city, it shows you more of the city then you might have seen alone, and you learn of all the free fun stuff to do and see. At the end you should tip the guide. Above, you can see the only thing left of the original Dublin Castle from the 1200s.

As you can see there are many different eras of architecture, side by side, in this city.

Here is a view of the River Liffy that runs through the center of the city.

    I'd like to go back to Dublin for a day and hit up all the museums with my favorite history buff, but this city is just too big for me. The streets reminded me of those videos of New York in movies, and I don't want to party every night so I think Dublin is nice for a day, but I wouldn't stay there for too long personally.