Day 4

Today is Independence Day! It is really strange not being in the states for the 4th- there has been no barbecues, no fireworks, and no American flags. But I have still at least tried to think about/be grateful for the fact that I am from such a great and free country. A few Irish people have even wished us a happy Independence Day which I thought was nice of them. Today we left the cool castle hostel at around 10 and drove to a place called Glendalough which is about 2 hours from Dublin. In Irish it is Gleann Da Loch, which means the glen of two lakes. It is ruins of a village with a monastery and a cool tower surrounded by a large graveyard, and then nearby are 2 lakes. So pretty! The monastery there was founded by St. Kevin, and supposedly at one time he went out to one of the lakes and stood in it for hours to show his devotion to God. Robyn and I felt the water and decided that even though it isn't that cold, it would probably get pretty chilly after a while. J We wandered around the graves for a while, and I even found a grave for Edward Cullen! I am guessing it is not the same one from the books for some reason.

After we had wandered around outside for a while we went into the visitor center and looked around at some of the exhibits. One of the tour guides started talking to us and asking us where we were from, etc., and it turns out he had actually spent 10 days in Utah at one point and gone to Temple Square and even down to St. George. Just as we were about to start having an interesting conversation he had to go and take some people on a tour, so I was kind of disappointed. But that place was beautiful! I was really glad we went to Glendalough.

After we finished there we drove to Dublin. That was the last of our bussing around the country. We had the same driver, Rob, the whole time. Apparently he had asked some of the girls earlier some questions about our church, probably because we did a devotional every day on the bus and he was curious. So that day we passed around a Book of Mormon and everyone signed it and wrote a little note/testimony in it. As he was dropping us off we gave it to him and he even said he would read it, which is cool. For dinner that night me, Robyn, and Marissa walked around and found a pub to eat at. The food was really good! But our favorite was that right by the entrance they had a Breath-O-Meter that you can measure your alcohol level before you leave. We took some pictures by it and the workers thought we were crazy, but I guess now both of us have a good story.