Kiss the Blarney Stone - check!

I created a bucket list, consisting of 100 things I would like to see/do! They aren't ranked in any order of importance but the each have their own number! One day, my best friend Chris decided he wanted to make a bucket list and told me to make one as well. It took us a couple of days (well more like a week or two) to finalise it, but we now have a bucket list, each. They share certain things but there are also things on our own bucket list that isn't on the other's.
On 13th November this year, I completed number 9 AND number 66.
The day began at 9:15am when I left Whitehead to head to Belfast where Chris lives. I was so pumped, I could not wait for our adventure to begin. However, when I arrived at my friends house I found out that cork was not as close as I had anticipated. In fact, it was a 4.5 hour drive away from Belfast, and that didn't include toilet or food breaks. I knew I needed to be so much banter if we were to get through the long tedious journey.
Our first stop wasn't far from home. In fact, we had been driving no more than 10 minutes when we decided to stop at Newtonwbreda Tesco to buy some munchies for our trip and petrol, but most importantly munchies. We filled the car with petrol, crisps, chocolate, sweets, nuts and a sandwich for me, then began our journey once again. (The sandwich ended up being ate at 11am, who does that?)
We drove (well he drove, I just sat there being banterful) for about 2 and a half hours solid, before we had a break. Within those short hour many things happened. To start with we were just chatting and sing along (badly) to our mixtape.

Number 9 = kiss the Blarney Stone
Number 66 = create a mixtape and go on a road trip.

But with me being such a fun girl, it wasn't long before my first brilliant idea came to mind. This idea was sticking my head out the window. Keep in mind we were driving at very fast speeds on a motorway and it was raining, pretty heavily
So yes, it wasn't the best of ideas as it hurt A LOT. But it gave us a giggle and passed the time as, well, I was foolish enough to do it not once, not twice, but three times!
Many songs, conversations and brilliant ideas later we thought it was time for a break to stretch our legs and put more petrol in the car. We stopped at the next garage we came to which happened to be in a town called kill. We remember it as that one time we went to kill and survived. We each got a coffee and Chris also bought a bun and a sandwich. We spent about half an hour there before we decided to continue with our journey to Blarney.

In between the garage and our next stop, McDonald's, I came up with other ways to entertain us. I was being nosey and decided to go for a rummage about Chris' car. I found a lot of car park tickets and I mean a lot. So my first thought was to stick them all over my face. I sat with these tickets stuck to my face for a solid 5 minutes until they fell off but the conversations related to it lasted a lot longer. Again, Shannon bringing the banter to the road trip.Before I knew it we had arrived at McDonald's which meant only one thing, FOOD! I ordered a McChicken sandwich, yum! However, struggled to understand the girl's accent so I just agreed with everything she said. It was around 2:00pm with at least another 2hours journey time remaining.

I found so many pay and park tickets :)

Our journey commenced again. However, this time, I started to panic. I thought I had ran out of ideas to keep us occupied. Just when I thought we were gonna be bored, an idea sprung to mind, a game. We had to take it in turns to find each letter of the alphabet (in order) starting with A, then B, then C. It may sound boring but see for letters such as J, W and X, it was difficult to actually find the letters in signs, on vehicles, whatever. With me and Chris being very competitive we would joke about when the other couldn't find a letter by saying things such as "you've been awfully quiet recently" or "how's that *insert letter here* going" which made the game 10x better.

As we got closer to Blarney, the petrol gauge decreased further until we realised it was time to get even more petrol. So we searched for the closest petrol station and headed towards it. I the garage as an opportunity to find the letter I had been searching for. I searched the entire garage head to toe, but had no joy. Just as I was about to give up I found it, there was the letter Q. I nearly jumped for joy. Then, to top it off, as Chris was paying for the petrol I found a one dollar bill. It probably made me a lot happier than it should have but hey ho!

That was it, we were on to the last hurdle, we were nearly at Blarney. The pair of us couldn't hold back our excitement, we were 5 minutes away then BAM! We hit traffic. However, we didn't let this spoil our mood, we continued to be pumped for our arrival at the castle.

30 minutes later, we arrived at the castle. FINALLY! We rushed out of the car, put on our coats and headed towards the entrance. It was 4:30pm and last entry was 4:45, we just about made it. Phew! We headed straight to the castle where the Blarney Stone was.

We discovered that the stone was way at the top of the castle. So the dreaded climb began. It felt like a life time before we reached the top but when we finally did, it was worth it. The views were amazing. Then we seen it, right in front of us, the whole reason we were on this adventure, the Blarney Stone.

I went first. I sat with my back to the wall while the guy helped me lean back and kiss it. Then it was Chris' turn while I was left in charge of the camera. The journey and travelling was so worth it as I had completed number 9 (and number 66).

We stayed for another hour in the castle grounds exploring. However, we got very few pictures as it got dark but the memories will last a life time.

Kiss the Blarney Stone - check

Later! ♥