I'm going to go ahead and tell you guys something about myself that isn't exactly common knowledge to anyone outside of my immediate family. It's not something weird or even relatively exciting, but I think if anything it says a lot about who I am while simultaneously giving you a glimpse into my personality.
I love trees. When I still lived at home I was in love with this one huge tree that lived on this random corner in the middle of a farm in the middle of nowheresville Arcadia, Oklahoma. I would purposefully drive farther out of my way on my way to and from home just so that I could drive by it and see how majestic it looked. This beautiful, old, thriving tree just in the middle of all these smaller, younger trees, foliage, and man-made buildings.
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Image Information: personal photo of my favorite tree from adolescence;
winter 2010.
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This past summer I went on a trip around the British Isles, where I had the incredible opportunity to go to Cork, Ireland. And even more wonderful is that about an hour inland from Cork/Cohb, my means of train a bus and a lot of walking, is this amazing place called Blarney Castle.
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Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith Wright; photo of us approaching Blarney Castle; May 2015.
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Blarney Castle is said to be the resting place of the mythical Blarney Stone--a stone that blesses the ones who kiss it with the gift of eloquence. This stone resides on the uppermost level of the remains of Blarney Castle over a small hole in the floor (which was what apparently passed as a security measure in the 1400s and now primarily exists just to terrify tourists). To reach the stone you have to climb the entirety of the castle, walk through the whole perimeter of the castle's roof, and finally lay on your back over aforementioned hole a hundred feet off the ground while putting the entirety of your trust in this very sweet, very old man to hold your body up while you kiss the stone.
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Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith Wright; a picture of me attempting to kiss the Blarney stone; I look decapitated and that view was just as far down as it looks, very scary, just in case you were wondering; May 2015.
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But the journey to
the Blarney stone is much longer than just that. To even get to Blarney Castle
you have to walk through a good majority of the castle's gardens. The whole
grounds has approximately 60 acres of gardens, and because Blarney Castle has
been around for upwards of 600 years, there are plenty of beautiful, wonderful,
huge trees that make up a large part of the Blarney Castle grounds.
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Image Information: personal photo of one of the many creeks and many trees that lived on the Blarney Castle grounds; May 2015.
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Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith Wright; a picture of me and a beautiful waterfall on the grounds; May 2015.
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In
conclusion, I love trees and I have never seen a more beautiful place
with more beautiful trees than I did when I visited Blarney Castle and that is
why it remains my favorite place (in the world).
P.S. Enjoy some of these pictures of some of my favorite trees from the Blarney Castle grounds.
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Image Information: personal photo of another beautiful, old tree from Ireland; May 2015.
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Image Information: Taken by my Grandma Judith; photo of a very old, very large tree inside Blarney Castle grounds-me as a human reference; May 2015.
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Oh my gosh, what gorgeous pictures, Amanda! And it makes me want to go out side and hug a tree right now: we live in the middle of trees right now (it's sooooo soothing!), and I do have some favorite trees on our land that are very huggable. Maybe you will want to do a project for this class about trees! Or castles! Or Ireland! Anyway, you will find lots of points of intersection. And about trees, oh, there was this wonderful project about the Major Oak of Sherwood Forest (a real tree there!) ... when you get to the Storybook favorites thing later this week, be sure to take a look — I am sure you would like this one:
ReplyDeleteSherwood's Side of the Story
And here is a Wikipedia article about that very famous tree:
The Major Oak
I learned about that tree thanks to the Storybook project, which is something I love about this class — I get to learn new stuff all the time! Random stuff, admittedly, but as you will learn, I am a fan of random learning. :-)