Ireland Or Bust

Opus & Roscoe heading for The Leaning Tower of Pisa to meet the tour group heading to Ireland.
Photo by Opus & Roscoe

Several weeks ago I received an e-mail from my sissy Momo kitty asking if I would be interested in going to Ireland to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, she had been invited by Socks and his sisters, Scylla & Charybdis. I thought about that invitation for about a half a second and said yes. Sissy Momo also asked others to come along. Our group heading for the Ireland tour will be spent with our good friends Opus & Roscoe, Karl, Emil, & Mrs. Oz, Ruis, Asta, Stanley, Momo & Pinot, Charlie, Socks, Scylla & Charybdis. Now we have a wonderful adventure ahead of us and can hardly wait to see what fun awaits us around every corner. This adventure will lead us to the celebration of St. Patrick's Day in Dublin Ireland! We are meeting everyone in Italy by The Leaning Tower of Pisa so we can pick up Opus and Roscoe to come along on our trip.

Photo by Opus & Roscoe
Back row l-r: Asta, Stanley, Sassy, Momo Kitty, Opus, Scylla, Mrs. Emil, & Momo Doggie
Front row l-r: Socks, Charybdis, Charlie, Ruis, Karl, Pinot & Roscoe

Catching up with Opus and Roscoe we all went to visit around the city of Pisa and took this group photo, you can see the tower in the distance.

Photographers Asta & Sassy

After hicking around Pisa we decided to have lunch before we climbed to the top of the tower. We had a beautiful picinic in The Field of Miracles.

Photographers Sassy, Opus & Roscoe
Top Row l-r: Ruis, Pinot, Karl & Mrs. Oz.
Middle 1 l-r: Asta, Sassy, Socks, Momo Kitty & Momo Doggie
Middle 2 l-r: Opus, Scylla, Charlie, Charybdis & Roscoe
Bottom l-r: Stanley & Emil Photographers Sassy, Opus & Roscoe

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a freestanding bell tower in the Italian city of Pisa. Although the tower was intended to stand vertically, the tower began leaning to the southeast soon after the onset of construction in 1173 due to a poorly laid foundation that has allowed the foundation to shift direction. The Leaning Tower of Pisa has 296 or 294 steps, lost count; the seventh floor has two less steps on the north-facing staircase. The tower leans at an angle of 3.97 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is 3.9 meters from where it would stand if the tower were perfectly vertical. After we got down from the top of the tower one Italian man said that he thought the tower was leaning a little more than it usually did when we all were at the top. We thought that was a pretty rude remark and with that we left Pisa and headed to Ireland . . .

Photographers Sassy, Opus & Roscoe

. . . I am not sure where Opus and Roscoe purchased this wonderful van but it will get you anywhere you want to go without all of the long, long, long travel time. Ireland here we come!


Photographers Karl & Sassy

We are all waiting in the lobby for our room assignments and the keys to the rooms, Asta and Stanley have rented a little cottage for to get away for some alone time. We have decided to stay at the Fitzpatrick Castle in Dublin, a short hop from the city. This hotel has a four star rating and as a guest here we will experience the magic of an 18th century hotel castle while overlooking Dublin Bay.

Photographers Sassy & Momo Kitty

We all found our rooms were near each other and it seems that we had the same idea to look out of our hotel room and check out the beautiful Dublin coastline.

Photo by Sassy
In the pool l-r: Roscoe, Sassy, Ruis, Karl & Opus
Asta the life guard watches from the pool deck

After a long day of travel the executives of CCSI swim in the magnificent pool while life guard Asta looks on.

Photo by Momo Kitty

At the end of our busy day the four sisters enjoyed the quiet of the hotel room and caught up on some girl talk, little brother Pinot was asleep being babysat by Opus and Roscoe.


Photo by Karl
The remains of The Leaning Tower of Pisa as shown on the newscast

While the we were hanging out in the hotel room we turned on the television and to our horror saw a photo showing that something awful had happened to The Leaning Tower of Pisa. The police in Italy are asking that anyone with information that might be helpful in solving this mystery please contact them. There was a mention of a reward but we don't remember the amount because we all went into the state of shock. Oh, I do so hope that we really didn't have anything to do with that.


Photo by Karl

After the shock hearing about The ex-Leaning Tower of Pisa I decided to head for bed and settle down for the night when there was a knock at my door. Earlier in the evening when I passed Ruis and Karl in the hall of the hotel they mentioned that they were going out to visit some of the local pubs. I casually mentioned to Karl that he should get a beer to go and drop if off at my room when they got back. To my surprise Karl took me up on my request! What a great friend!! After having my beer it was truly lights out for me!

Italian Newspaper from Opus & Roscoe

Waking up from a restful night Opus and Roscoe ran into my room with an Italian newspaper in hand, they are having the newspaper forwarded to Ireland while they are here, and the front page story was about the incident yesterday in Pisa. The government is wanting to quickly solve the mystery of what happened and are at a loss for words, at this time, that something like this could have happened. Wanting to just put this Pisa incident behind me I will just focus on the Ireland tour.

Tomorrow will be another busy day with a lot to do. Be sure to stop back to see what fun things we will find to do. Also, be sure and stop by the other blogs to see what the rest of the tour group has been up to on this trip. Maybe you will even find out what happened to The Leaning Tower of Pisa.