Kinsale...

Today I went to a small town about 30 mintues away from Cork called Kinsale. Kinsale has a large harbor and served as a large base for trading for hundreds of years. Kinsale is famous for its art (there are many art galleries and studios) and also it's gourmet food (which sadly, I couldn't afford). For one of my classes I had to research Charles Fort which is located in Kinsale. I was excited to see something that I had to do a presentation on! On my walk down from the fort, Is saw a sign for a wood studio that said "come on in!" so I decided to take a look. A very nice woman makes beautiful wood bowls, plates, wine corks, serving utensils and lamp bases out of wood from all over Ireland in her home studio. It was really neat to see but very expensive (the cheapest bowl I saw was 100 Euros).
After touring the fort, I went to Desmond Castle, a very small castle in the middle of town. Desmond Castle also houses the International Museum of Wine, which of course I was dying to see. It wasn't much more than a room of information and displays but it was still fun. Ireland played a large role in the wine trading/exporting business and many french wines are named after Irish familes.
I had some ice cream and read more of my book "Eat, Pray, Love," which is turning out to be a wonderful book. I was sitting on a bench in Kinsale when a group of teenage boys showed up. They all started rolling their own cigarettes and smoking. It was such an odd sigh to me to see these kids smoking...but then again EVERYONE smokes here in Ireland. I was shocked when I first arrived at just how many people smoke and how often they do. Smoking has been banned in pubs, but people smoke outside of them and outside at cafes/coffee shops. Anyways, these teenagers were acting pretty tough and were making me nervous (yes a group of 14 year olds scared me away) so I went and read somewhere else...
I will put up pictures a later time, because I am just too exhausted. Tonight is my last night at the hostel (thank goodness) and tomorrow I will take a bus up to Shannon to meet my Dad. I could not be more excited to see him and show him Galway. He and I will do things around Galway until Saturday, when we will go back to Shannon Airport to pick up our rental car and ANNE! I don't know if I will have any internet over the next 11 days...I don't know if I will be able to update my blog. I am going to try to keep some notes so I can update it when I get home. For those of you who don't know, after we pick Anne up we are doing a loop of the southern part of Ireland. We will spend two night in Dublin, go see the Rock of Cashel, Kiss the Blarney Stone, spend a few days seeing the Ring of Kerry, and then finish our tour on the Dingle Peninsula. Whew, we have big plans for the next week and a half!