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IRELAND – Day 9 – Saturday, May 19, 2012 – Waterford So, today we learned that the Luas tram doesn’t run as frequently on weekends. We thought that an hour would be enough time to get to Heuston station, but with a 15 minute wait for the first Luas and more than planned walking, mom and I made it to our train departure at 9:07am, with only 3 minutes to spare! We were bound for Waterford today. The train ride was a relaxing 2 and half hours of reading and napping. We had one main attraction on our to do list which was visiting the Waterford crystal store and taking the tour. We ate lunch at their café. I had carrot and coriander soup and mom had a ciabatta sandwich. The desserts looked amazing! We had our tour at 1:40. It was amazing to watch the blowers and cutters work their magic on the glass. I believe the inside of the furnace was in the 1800 degree range. Of the pieces on display, the one that stuck out to me was the memorial piece to the fireman and officers who died during 9/11. I took some pictures and hopefully will be able to post a few. After the tour, we walked the town, but realized that it wasn’t very impressive. So, we headed to the Bishop’s Palace. Now, we were mostly just killing time at this place, so I have to be honest and say that I didn’t retain but a few things from this tour. Each of the rooms give insight into the Waterford of the 18^th century. One interesting story: when they were restoring the home, they found fabricated chairs that were badly damaged. They called a shop that happened to know where the chairs were originally from which was a store in Paris. That store still exists today, only 12 workers, and all family owned since the 1800’s. And even crazier, they had the order form from the original order of those chairs, and they were able to run the same exact pattern and restore it in the exact original dress. Also, during Napolean Bonapartes time, men would often wear corsets to slim the waist. Or even go as far as have ribs removed to slim down. When we got back to Dublin, we visited a Superquinn grocery store, picked up salads, olives, sundried tomatoes, and hummas with breadsticks. We had a google plus video chat with Dad and DJ. Tomorrow is going to be a kickback day of shopping and sleeping in.