So this was a fun weekend. After work Friday we caught a train to Athlone where one of Paul’s friends was having a party for this birthday. It was a good time, lots of food, drink, and conversation. In fact, it was a very long, late, good time. We stayed up and walked down near the lake and actually watched the sunrise. I hadn’t actually seen it rise in ages.

Lots of sleep later, we (myself, Paul, and others including Tom and Meg and their 2 year old, Emmaline) took a drive down to an old castle by the river/lake to have a picnic. This was the first time I’ve gotten out to do anything like that since I’ve been here. I intend to do a whole lot more of it in the next few weeks, as I only have a few weeks remaining.

Anyway, we had to trek through many farmers’ fields to get to the picnic site. The place we were going is not a publib place though, well, it is sort of. There is apparantly another castle in the other direction (on the other side of town) that is a touristy type place that all sorts of people go to. This one is off on private farmland. The site, however, is a national historic site, so there is a sort of right of free passage to get to it, which is why we could all wander over the farm land. There were lots of sheep and a few cows, but mainly sheep. Also, lots of sheep and cow droppings, but I guess that is to be expected. We found a place near the castle (Rindoon Castle, a 13th Century castle) down by the lake (Lough Ree) on the Shannon River. After sitting and having a good lunch, and watching Emmaline be a two year old and getting food all over her face, we did something very spontanious and went for a swim. Nobody brought bathing suits so it was pants and/or boxer shorts for everyone. It was a warm day so the top of the lake was quite warm, while down where your feet go was quite cold, but a good time was had by all.

After drying off, we hiked up to the ruins of the castle. I do mean ruins, too. There really wasnt much left except for a few walls and the remains of the gate, draw brdige, the moat, and the cellar. More info can be found here though: http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/publications/rindoon/plan22.htm I have quite a few pictures of it which will be online shortly (yay new camera, boo having to get used to it).

I’d have to say though, probably the best part of it all was remembering doing this sort of thing as a kid. My mom and I used to hike through Germany and visit castles all the time. Most of them were restored though, it was fairly rare that we’d go see ruined castles, which were so much more intersting to me. Hiking through the ruins reminded me of all that and made me want to do it more. I think if I come back to Ireland some time on more of a vacation I may look for some of these places ahead of time and plan to do more of that. There are so many of them, and with working during the week there is hardly any time to see much of it. I think I’ll have to spend some remaining time doing more of that sort of thing as well, just not the touristy places. That was part of the fun too, it was just the few of us, not hundreds of other people.

Ah well, back in Dublin for the week. Maybe to Belfast or Cork or something next weekend. I’m gonna try to go a few places in the evening this week, with the camera, if im not too tired.

Some boston snapshots are up here: http://renstar.smugmug.com/gallery/1651822
I’ll post more when im less lazy

Edit: That less lazy time is now, the rest of the decent shots are up. I dont think any of them really qualify for more work as “art” shots. Also, im experimenting with a more automated workflow for snapshots, so ill keep improving these as I figure out a better way to automate things more betterer.

This weekend is off to Athlone again, so with good weather, hopefully some nice shots of the green Irish landscape.