#17 - Saturday 21/7 - In Kilkenny

After a 3am explosion - remember all the Guinness I drank... urge, not pretty, wheelchair bathroom or not - I woke ready to stab the person in the share room next door for their snoring. Arrrrggghhhh! After getting organised, I decided to just drive. I went this way and that until I saw a sign to Callan, Edmund Rice's home town.Could be cool I thought, so in that direction I went. I walked p and down the main street and it really had a country feel. Even tractors  and down the main street. An Edmund rice statue was also in the main street, as well as a Christian Brothers School plaque near where I parked the car. I said the plaque was the foundation stone of the first ChristianBrothers school, but it didn't really fit inmwith things, so not sure what it was dong! I had the nicest lunch with the freshest bread ever. Yummo! Along with a nice coffee, I set off determined to find a nice spot to eat lunch. I found a moulds concrete block seat by the river in amongst long grass. Perfect. Very Callan! It was very reflective, and the big run of a building (a church, I assumed) gave it a very peaceful, yet eerie feel. After lunch and peaceful contemplation (I know, there surrounds ,use have been good!) I walked over the see a running water well and the building ruin. It was an old friary for the 14 hundreds. Amazing - no buildings like that back home! It had no roof and grass/moss was growing on top of the walls. Stones had gave way and had fallen to the floor which again added to the eeriness of the location. After Callan, I journeyed a bit farther out of town, and (again) jagged seeing a sign to Westcourt, the birthplace of Edmund Rice. I went out there and saw the house I had seen in photos etc. which finished off the Edmund Rice experience, that wasn't really even planned! There was a chapel and museum place/thing and maybe even residences for brothers... I only took a few photos and took off! On my travels back in the Kilkenny direction, I saw a massive Hurling/Gaelic stadium and thought it would be great to see a game. Little did I know I would! On my travels I have seen so many kids roaming the streets with hurling sticks. More than Aussie kids walking with footballs. It's really cool to see them play their national sport wherever they can. I stopped outside St Kierans College and thought I'd wonder in as some cars/people had done. Kids outside the ages had hurling sticks and bags. A game was about to start. They were only hi school kids, which kind of scared me at first that kids could play this dangerous sport, but it all seemed to work out. Whacking the ball with wooden sticks on lush green grass was amazing - very skilled. The ball hardly went out! I was right in line with one shot - a pick up on the run, turn and whack over the bar and through the goal posts. Impressive. Upon my return to hell, I could not face my roomso sat in the bar, had a beer and slurped down some surprisingly good vegetable soup. My stomach thanked me. After blogging, I went back to Satan's lair and turned the Telly on - live Gaelic. Wow! What a sport day! Kenny ended up beating their oppo in a close game. I whacked on some shoes after dozing off during the game, and went back down to the bar (less friendly this time) and then into two to an awesome little Italian/mexican (I can't work out the link either but it seemed to work). The seafood meal was good, but I had to cruise for one more beer t a pub that lured me I with televising the Liverpool game. They didn't, so I left! Back to the hotel and off to sleep - snoring and all. Shut up dude! (During the night I got up and booked a five star hotel in Dublin. I had endured enough).