Ireland, Day 1

We woke up at 3 AM to get to the airport this morning.  We flew from London Stansted, so it was only an hour away.  We parked in long term parking, as that was the cheapest.  Security wasn't a problem, we just had to get our boarding passes stamped because we have non-EU passports.  Boo--but we made it through quickly and got to the gate right as they opened it. This is important when flying RyanAir because they don't assign seats. When we flew Easy Jet last year, it was a race to get seats. We had people pushing apart our family and running to the plane.  It was crazy. This time, we were in line early and the people were much more relaxed about it.  We just wanted to sit together and we did.  No problems.  It was a short flight to Cork. It's right on the edge of the island, so basically as soon as we saw land, it was time to land.  We rented a car from Hertz and were on our way.
First we headed to Blarney Castle. It was a beautiful place. We were quite tired though and a bit hungry as all we had eaten were PB&J's and granola bars.  But we went to the top and Bucko, Tink, PC, and DD all kissed the Blarney stone. So we should now be endowed with the gift of gab. You see, Cormac McCarthy was "asked" by Queen Elizabeth I to bequeath the castle to the throne, but he was always able to sidetrack them with banquets or whatnot. When Queen Elizabeth would receive reports back, she said it was all "blarney." 

After leaving the castle, we stopped for some sandwiches and headed to Garryvoe beach.  It was pretty. Goofy took a nice long nap, which was helpful.  It was fun to people watch and listen to them talk.  There were quite a few redheads around. PC commented on all the Adidas paraphernalia and other track suits.  Everyone in Europe wears them.  It is true. 
After the beach, we headed to our hotel for some relaxation. We stayed at the Radisson Blu Hotel and Spa. It was very nice.  The indoor pool was very nice.  The kids loved it and would have stayed there the whole time.  They had lots of different relaxation spots around the pool to sit with the bubbles or lay down. 
There was a Pizza Hut across the street, so we went there for dinner.  Then we sacked out and watched "Bolt" on the telly.