Letter From Tracie

Our youngest is on a school internship in Ireland and having a blast. I thought I would post her last letter for fun.

Week 6 and 7 – July 20, 2008
Last weekend we went to Southern Ireland. Of course are first stop was Blarney Castle. Whenever you mention going to Ireland people always ask if you have kissed the Blarney Stone, and now I can say I did. There was a line to kiss the stone and when you get there, you just lie on your back, kiss whatever you can, and get out of the way.

The grounds were beautiful; I wish I could have explored them more. Our second stop was Cork. It is such a handsome modern city. We walked down the main street with all the shops and went to the English Market. We strolled around and ate some of the local cuisine. Unfortunately, the girl who planned the trip did not pick out things for us to see so we just walked up and down the main street a lot. That was a disappointment because Cork seemed like such a great city. The next day we went to Killarney National Park. We took a guided tour of Ross Castle, which provided us with many interesting facts. The spiral staircases are called stumble stairs because none of the step heights is the same. This was done so that invaders would have a hard time charging up the stairs. They even caught me a couple of times. The town of Killarney was kind of a tourist trap but still nice anyways.

The next town was Dingle in the Ring of Kerry. The bus ride there was terrific with so many shades of green. Dingle is a nice little coastal town with a rogue dolphin in its harbor named Fungi. We did not see the dolphin but we took a bike ride around the peninsula. There were breathtaking views everywhere I looked. The bike ride took all day so I was exhausted afterwards. It took four different bus rides to get home that night so I had a lot of time to sleep.

At work, our boss was out for the week so Christina and I took time to plan our Dublin trip. We made a list of forty things to Dublin and plotted them all on a map. We are going to flip a shit if one of the girls tells us they are bored while there.

Thursday was my birthday and I had a great time. The Women in Engineering Dean came and took us out to dinner that night and the girls pitched in and bought me a cake and chocolates. Then that night we went out to a new club and danced the night away. Overall, it was a great birthday.

This week is the Galway Arts Festival so there are many people in town. I volunteered for Circa, which is like Circ de Soleil. They had gymnastics, ribbon acrobats, trapeze artists, and the last act they had the woman walk over a man in four-inch heels! It was so good I volunteered for it twice. I also volunteered for a street performance of stilters. They have a moving dinosaur on them, head in front and tail in back. They run up and down Shop Street on their stilts and freak people out. It is good. Tonight is the Macnas prarade where I am in the Deadly Choir. I am really pumped.

She's a kick-in-the-pants ain't she ?