Day seventeen: The castle and another aunt and more cousins

At 2:30pm, I met my aunt, Marion (Joan's sister), at Bewley's. (I'm told my mom and dad used to go here a lot back in the day.) Marion was just as friendly and warm as when I first met her two years earlier. We chatted for a bit while she drank her cappuccino. She paid the bill and made our way over to her "house." 

When I was in Ireland in 2008, I was shocked to find out that my aunt lived in a castle. I mean, the thing has over 35 rooms. Actually...they don't even *know* exactly how many rooms it has. Can you imagine living in a house for many years and not knowing how many rooms it has?! Weird. Marion lives there with her husband, Jimmy.

Here they are in one (of many) living rooms:

 

I'd already explored the castle when I was here two years ago, so I didn't feel an urgency to see it all again right away, but I did want to get pics of the outside...which I didn't get to see last time because we arrived at night. Anyway, here are some pics of their land:

 

 

And here's the castle:

I ran back inside after 5 minutes because it was absolutely freezing.

The kitchen was warm.

Marion, Jimmy and I drank tea and ate raw snap peas and carrots and talked. Well...Jimmy talked and Marion and I listened and laughed. Jimmy likes to talk. : )

Here's a better look at Jimmy:

And here's Marion:

(Don't worry, she's just pretending to be annoyed.)

I was starting to feel a little wheezy and couldn't figure out why until I saw this:

And this:

Jesus! Have you ever seen such a fat cat in your LIFE?

In case you don't already know, I am deathly allergic to cats. I knew they had cats, but I was told that they spent most of their time outdoors, so I didn't think it would be a problem, but I guess because of the cold weather, the furry monsters were spending more time indoors. Oh well...that meant I had to leave and couldn't spend the night. Marion made a call to her daughter, Eimer (my cousin), who only lives 15 minutes away and asked if I could spend the night at her place. (Of course she said I could.) So for the next hour, I tried to ignore the fact that my lungs were constricting at a rapid rate. Luckily my other cousin, Colum (and his gorlfriend, Sophia) arrived about 45 minutes before I had to leave. 

Here they are:

Marion prepared some roast chicken, potatoes  and sauteed carrots. I ate quickly and then said my goodbyes. 

Marion drove me to Eimer's house:

I'd met Eimer once before, so it wasn't a complete shock when we saw each other again. We hung out and talked for a few hours about random stuff. She's awesome. Very fun. Time flew by. It was  already 11:30pm and Eimer had to get up at 5am for work, so we made our way upstairs to the bedrooms and went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning and took a few more photos of her place:

Here's the guest bedroom where I slept:

 

Here's a pic (of a pic) of my two cousins Colum and Eimer (brother and sister):

And that's it...for now: