Weekend in Kilkenny

Don't fret, I'm still alive! I realize I've neglected my blog the past few days, typical rookie blogger mistake. Please forgive me and keep checking in to hear all my adventures!

This past weekend (the 21st-23rd) Claire, Bekah, Nick, and I went on to a trip to Kilkenny. While we were there we visited the Kilkenny castle, which was huge and beautiful. I'm definately a fan of castles. We also saw a riverdancing performance/concert in the castle. It was a bunch of kids probably like 10-14 years old and they were really good! They all looked like it was the absolute last thing they wanted to be doing, but I enjoyed all the clogging and wierd musical instruments they played. Later on we took a tour of the town on a cute little train, the town itself was really small but none of us minded because Dublin is a little overwhelming sometimes. By the end of the trip we all knew our way around the town better than Dublin! We visited St. Canice Cathedral where we climbed the inside of a very tall tower, basically on a ladder, and got a great view at the top. We got to hear a lot of great live Irish music at the pubs, which is something I'd really been wanting.
But my favorite thing we did was learn how to play hurling! There's a pub called Lannigans that takes you to the hurling field in Kilkenny and gives you a two hour hurling lesson! Still don't know the name of the guy who taught us, he never introduced himself and I'm realizing that's pretty common here, but he told us all about his hurling experiences and showed us his gross scars. The game is basically played with a flat baseball bat and a baseball but the stitching is on the outside of the ball. There aren't too many rules to the game and fouls aren't very common. The players don't wear any protection except for a helmet and they seriously show no mercy. We learned how to pick up the ball with the stick, carry the ball, hit the ball, and some defensive moves. I was pretty good at carrying it but not so much at the hitting part. The guy who taught us how to play was also the manager of the bar so we went back that night and got free drinks! Kilkenny was the perfect place to really learn how to play hurling because they've been the defending champions for the past like 7 years! The next day we got to watch Kilkenny and Dublin play eachother and Kilkenny won by a lot! The game is so fast paced and really rough but fun to watch.

All in all it was another great weekend in Ireland!! Pictures will follow shortly.
HP