Aer Lingus

Well...we made it! Finally on our honeymoon here in Ireland :) Our "red-eye" flight from Boston to Shannon Ireland took only 5 hours and with the time change we landed at 5:30 AM! We got our rental car and had a full day of excitement. Driving on the other side of the road (and sitting in the opposite seat!) of what we're used to in the states has been quite an adventure in itself - with one or the both of us saying "stay to the left, stay to the left!" at every turn. Andrew will be doing 100% of the driving and Casey is well, supposed to be doing 100% of the navigating but every once in awhile we're pulling over to double check!

First we stopped in the village of Knock where a vision of the Mary, Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist occured over a period of hours on August 21, 1879 and Catholics have pilgrimaged here every year since then. We then headed further up north to Sligo (where distant relatives of Casey's family are from) to check out the sights. We hiked up a huge mountain to Knocknarea Cairn, believed to be the grave of legendary Queen Maeve (of English folk tales). It took us about 45 minutes to reach the top but the view below was breathtaking and worth every step! After a short stop at the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetary (the largest Stone Age cemetary in Ireland) we headed just south of Donegal where we are staying the night at a simple hostel. I would say we are in the middle of nowhere except there is a pub across the street where Andrew had his first Guiness in Ireland! We drove the 15 minutes into Donegal to the famous "Chippery" for fried cod, haddock and chips!

Tomorrow we continue up north where we'll be spending Ulster "pounds" instead of "euros"!