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To make it easier to read about our trip to Ireland, I have made a page that is just for that. There is a tab above for Ireland Trip 2014 or click on the Home tab to read my other posts. I have also created a new page for My Weight Loss Journey if you are interested in that, click on the tab above.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Ireland #13 Middleton and more

When we got back to the B&B the night before,
Dave and I talked with the owners about our itinerary
and realized that our plans weren't feasible.
Joe and Noreen were very helpful and gave us some   
great advice.  So we ended up going to Middleton.
We arrived right around lunch time and found a wonderful
little gourmet sandwich shop called Monty's.
My sandwich was fabulous!
"Spiced beef, leaves, horseradish mayo, gherkins on white bread"
This wasn't just any white bread, it was absolutely delicious.
I know the others enjoyed their sandwiches too.
Dave had a bit of Jane's and said he wished he'd gotten it,
it was one of the best sandwiches he'd ever eaten.
Once lunch was finished the other 5 made their way to the
Jameson Distillery.
I'm not a drinker at all and really have no interest in whiskey
of any sort, so they went and I wandered around town a bit.
Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture.
There really wasn't much to take pictures of.
I did find a discount store and wandered around in there 
and low and behold, look what I found!
One of our favorite kinds of candy!
We discovered Orange KitKats on one of our previous 
trips and fell in love with them.
We've never seen them in the States and they are sooooo good.
I picked up what they had, only a couple packages.
These were supposed to be to bring home with us,
I knew the kids would be thrilled to have them.
Ha! Fat Chance!
Now don't jump to any conclusions,
I shared them with the others!
And we bought more to bring home,
along with this other treat.
Orange Aero Bars, another candy we had discovered on
previous trips that we didn't have at home.
These both became a couple of our favorite little treats 
while traveling.
I spent a little alone time, writing in my journal and reading
and to be honest, falling asleep in the car.
We had a set of walkie talkies and Ed's voice woke me
up, they were on the way back to the car.
We needed to get to the 
Cobh (pronounced Cove) Heritage Centre 
before it closed.
We made it just in time.
This centre had exhibits about the emigration of people from Ireland.
Many left from this port.
Over a period of about 100 years, over 6 million people emigrated
from Ireland.  About 2.5 million departed from Cobh.
People were picked up here for the fateful journey of the 
Titanic. Cobh was the Titanic's last port of call where 123 
passengers embarked.
At that time Cobh was called Queenstown.
When the Lusitania was torpedoed and sank near Kinsale,
survivors were brought to Cobh and cared for in the local 
hospitals, homes and lodging houses.
This picture shows the building of the Titanic.
These next 3 pictures below depict life on the ships 
headed for British North America, now Canada, 
but the majority of those people settled in the 
United States.
From the late 1700s till the mid 1800s nearly 40,000 
convicts were placed on ships and sent to Australia.


Life on the ships was extremely hard.
There were no staterooms, people were packed into the hold of
the ship.  The food often was insufficient and often spoiled
there was very little fresh water and disease ran rampant.
For these people it was either board the ship for 
America, or face sure death in their homeland.
This was their only chance at survival.
This statue stands outside the 
Heritage Centre, it is of 
Annie Moore and her two brothers.
Annie Moore was the first ever emigrant to be processed in 
Ellis Island when it officially opened on January 1, 1892.
A similar statue of Annie can be found in Ellis Island.
She and her bothers sailed from Queenstown (now Cobh)
on the SS Nevada on December 20, 1891 and arrived after 12 days
of travelling in steerage.
After our enlightening visit to the 
Cobh Heritage Centre
we were off to Kinsale for dinner.  
This evening we ate at 
Kitty O'Se's and unfortunately we were not impressed.
The food was, at best, mediocre.
BUT we did make the best of it, enjoyed each other's company
and picked up some Magnum Ice Cream Bars
for our dessert.
And I must say the facade of the restaurant was beautiful.
Then it was back to Kilcatten Lodge for the evening.

Believe it or not, I have no 
Flowers of the Day 
for this day, the ones on the front of the restaurant 
above were the only ones I took any pictures of.
But, I can tell you a funny story.
When we arrived in Middleton earlier in the day,
Dave dropped some of us off on the main street,
mostly because I was not having the best of days and
we didn't know how far it was to park the car.
He and Jane went off to find a parking lot, 
while the rest of us would check out the lay of the land.
They found a parking lot and parked the car.
Many of the lots in Ireland are "Pay and Display" lots
where you go to a central "machine" to pay 
and receive a ticket to display in your car.
So they walked up to the Pay area,
the window said "in use" so they waited.
And waited some more, until they realized that it was
a public toilet that they were waiting at
not a pay machine and it was a free lot.
We all had a good laugh over that.
This is a picture of the kind of public toilet they were
waiting at.  This one is in Kinsale, but it's the same kind.
I actually used the one in Middleton.
You put in your change and the door opens for you to enter,
once you are inside, it automatically closes.
It's actually very nice and roomy inside.
The soap, water faucet and dryer are automatic.
Once you are done, you hit the 
"door open" button and it opens and you walk out.
Then the door is closed again and the entire inside is cleaned.
The walls, toilet and sink are sprayed down and dried
for the next person to use.
When you enter, the room is clean and fresh.
How cool is that?!?!
But it does NOT give you a ticket to park your car!

I hope you are enjoying my trip to Ireland.
We are about half way through the trip now.
Next post will be about a golf course that got in our way, 
the sad blue wall,
a pink elephant 
and this little piggy.

1 comment:

rebecca @ older and wisor said...

Now I need to visit just to use that bathroom :)