Don't anger the fairies

Saturday morning, I got up early again for a non-SSP bus trip to Glendalough, a 6th century monastery in the hills of Wicklow, and Kilkenny.  The scenery at the monastery was breathtaking.  The guide this day was much less grouchy than Trim Castle's, though less spectacular than one from the Hill of Tara.  I think the contrast between the two on Friday made the guy from the Hill of Tara seem better in comparison.  Anyway, on the bus ride to Glendalough, an hour(?) south of Dublin, we drove past a giant rainbow just sitting over this one valley. The rainbow count for yesterday was 5.  I'm still kind of waiting for the day when I start to despise rainbows.  I have stopped taking multiple pictures of them though.

Difficult to see, but amusing warning sign

Hint of rainbow included only because it was raining

But it quickly cleared up

A little crooked, sorry

Famous round tower

Then on the mountains:

It was very windy and chillier than Dublin, but altogether a rather nice day.

Kilkenny was a nice town.  After being there for about 20 minutes, we defected from the guided walking tour and got lunch at a pub called the Playwright.  After examining the menus for 10 minutes, a guy came over to our table and asked us, "Are you okay?"  It was really strange.  We responded that we were fine, and he lingered around just staring at us, not saying a word.  After a good two minutes of awkward silence, we decided (independently, through expressive glances) that he was the waiter and ordered our food.  It was a funny experience but it all turned out well and the food came incredibly quickly, granted we only ordered toasted sandwiches and wraps.

Kilkenny was very much still in its colors from last week's hurling final.

Denied.
Kilkenny would have been the only team in history to win 5 years in a row.  Here, there's a banner from each window with a year they've won: 06, 07, 08, 09.  But not this year.  Because they lost to Tipperary.

It was a pretty town and it had a castle with (I only suspect since we didn't have time to go inside) more than one room.  Always a plus for castles.

(The title came from the tour. The guide kept pointing out fairy trees in fields we passed.  It's extremely rotten luck to cut down a fairy tree.  You'd disorient and anger the fairies since they live under/in them, and you don't want to mess with the fairies.)