Finally made it!

What a crazy couple of days… Didn't sleep at all Saturday night, then got to SMC by 4am, then to SFO. Our flight left at I believe 6:30 or 7, and landed in Newark for what was supposed to be a 4 hour (turned 5 hour) layover. We were all exhausted before our first flight even took off! Then, finally, we got on board our flight for Shannon! We arrived in Shannon at about 7:30 am Ireland time (about 11:30 pm California time!). The seats were tiny and I was super cramped and uncomfortable the whole time… So landing was definitely exciting for everyone! Right after landing, we went through customs and made our way to meet our bus driver/tour guide, Philip. We all got on board the bus and were super excited to find that it had wifi inside! Woo hoo!
One thing we noticed right away was that Ireland still had Christmas decorations up… everywhere!
From the airport, we drove straight to breakfast at Oak Wood Arms.  There we had a nice Irish breakfast buffet consisting of toast, scrambled and fried eggs, potato in a sort of condensed hash brown form, fruit, yogurt, black pudding (which, come to find out, is not pudding. It's a sausage type thing that is black from using so much pig blood.), bacon (or what the Irish call bacon), scones, cheese, sausages, delicious Irish breakfast tea… and most likely other things that I can't remember!

Then, from breakfast, we drove to Bunratty Castle. It is a reconstructed castle that dates back to the 1500's and was restored in 1954.  Super cool! We got to see how these people lived in castles and what roles each room played in castle life.  Then we got to explore the recreated village next door.  We got to see firsthand how people lived in Ireland so long ago, along with personal stories from Philip (our bus driver).  Oh yeah, and it rained. A lot.

We then stopped in Adare for a quick bite to eat, walked around a little bit, and walked right in and out of our first Irish pub.

 On our way to Killarney, we saw a rainbow!

We got to our hotel around 4:30.  The rain was so heavy we had to wait before getting off the bus to unload… After a quick change, Father Tom took some of us around the town for a quick tour of the area, with pubs on every corner we kind of knew what we would be eating for dinner.  So after some looking around, some of us ended up back at our hotel's pub.  Now sitting here at 9pm, I'm falling asleep… I think it's time for some serious sleep (it's been SO long!).  More photos and videos soon! :)

Dingle tomorrow!