Once we got into town we started looking on the hotel documentation for an address.  There was no address listed anywhere.  We stopped in a gas station to ask where the Horse & Jockey Hotel was and were given this response:

“Addresses don’t work here”

He followed this with a few directions but Mom couldn’t understand his heavy accent at all.  We smiled and nodded, got back in the car, and looked at the map again.  We thought it quite amazing that the next town down the road was named Horse and Jockey, Ireland.  Whoa!

We headed in that direction and found that Horse and Jockey, Ireland consists of a car dealership and the Horse & Jockey Hotel.  We checked in, Mom argued her way into some free money, and ate at their fancy restaurant.  It should be noted that Mom and Mary got a bit loud in the restaurant telling us about their travels.  The other patrons were staring at us by the time Mom shouted, “groped groins.”  Ask her for the details.

We made our way to their fancy pool (and got free swim caps).  Katherine learned how to dog paddle and I almost floated (I’m obviously too dense but nobody else believes me).  We visited their wet and dry saunas and decided that saunas aren’t very much fun.

The next day we visited the church in Thurles because Mary’s ancestors came from Thurles.  Maybe they went to that church too, who knows?  The pictures below are from that church.

We’ve done a few little things in the past week that didn’t get mentioned in previous posts such as:

Swimming!  Up until last Friday I had never been able to float in water and Katherine had never been able to adequately swim.  We went to ‘Ireland’s 1st 50m swimming pool’ since it’s in the rec center right next to our village.  We arrived the first time only to find we were required to buy swimming caps.  We arrived the second time with money to buy swimming caps.  Two hours later Katherine can float AND (kind of) swim, while Mark can only swim.  Katherine does not see the point in learning to tread water.

Cleaning!  Katherine’s roommates are all 17 and have yet to learn the finer points of being a big person.  Since almost all Irish students go home on the weekends (we don’t know why) they usually leave their kitchen messes behind and we live in filth Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  When they return on Monday things usually get cleaned.  Usually.  We have since resorted to keeping two plates in Katherine’s room – to be used only by us.

Gone to class!  We go!  We learn!  We love it!