A New Munster County, the Land of Crystal

Today I succeeded in traveling to a tourist destination. Sadly, given the past few days, this is an accomplishment. We went to Waterford by bus, about a 2 hour trip each way that went off without a hitch, further cementing my opinion that in Ireland bus > train. Waterford is situated on a river and is a fairly major seaport in southwest Ireland. The bus ride took us through Youghal and Dungarvan, both of which are pretty cool little coastal towns, so that worked out well too.

As the above picture illustrates, one of the stops we made in Waterford was the Waterford Crystal factory. We got a tour that involved being shown through their functioning crystal plant and watching their master craftsmen at work and eventually being herded into their gallery (the largest collection of Waterford Crystal on earth!) like sheep to look at very nice glassware that costs more than I make in a week (or, depending on the piece, a number of weeks). The tour itself was pretty cool for me because I have always been intrigued by glassblowing and other glass-related art. We got to see all their major production departments, including glassblowing, molds, cutting, sculpting, and engraving. All of them were pretty cool except for sculpting, although that may have been because we saw an empty room with nobody working.

The town of Waterford was pretty cool, on the larger side in terms of Irish cities I've visited. The river Suir, which runs through Waterford, is much larger than the river Lee, the river that runs through Cork. Waterford is also apparently the largest city in Ireland that retains its Viking name (it was originally a Viking settlement just like Dublin, Wexford, Cork, and most major Irish cities).

As a bonus, it didn't rain today until well after we returned home. And to close the post, a crystal mailbox!

ok so maybe no crystal mailbox, the picture upload thingy is being screwy. Use your imagination and maybe it will work tomorrow.