Cork, Ireland – Day 2

Today we took a Paddywagon tour through the Irish countryside tot he Cliffs of Moher. On the way, we stopped at Burren, which was a rocky area along the ocean. We found something interesting out about the toilets there, which is that they take a while to refill after a flush. We slept on the bus ride, but also tried to listen to our tour guide as he talked about Ireland. He said that a lot of people emigrated during the famine, and a lot that tried died on ships, which were called coffin ships. We went up into a lookout tower at the Cliffs of Moher. The heights thing didn’t freak me out as much as I had thought it would . We wanted to see unpopular opinion puffin while we were at the Cliffs, but we suspect we may have been out of season for him. I mailed Nelly our first post card from Ireland. We bought it at the Cliffs and it cost 1 euro to mail. The bus driver had crazy skills driving on the narrow roads in the country. It is really something passing an on coming bus. When we came back, we stopped at a bar (Sin E) to listen to some locals play Irish music. There were more air instruments than there were last night, and the clientele was a bit older. So far my favorite beer has been Guiness, I think I’ve tried all the stouts I’ve seen here so far – 6 maybe? It seemed like the musicians were playing for drinks. I saw a store that sells seeds and vapes, we might stop there tomorrow just to see the inside. Next door is a kabob place that sells a kabob that Linda said tastes lik a Gyro, but every time she said that I thought she was saying Euro. It’s interesting seeing how different the cars are here. Some have the same name but they look a little or very different. Not many SUVs which I expected. We had fish and chips for dinner as well as chicken pita, which seemed a bit like a burger. The fish and chips was good but I asked for vinegar, whih Linda didn’t like. It came with spicey mashed peas which were good too. We’re going to go out to a beer bar with a lot of international bottles tonight still. We bought a ouple Lycamobile sims yesterday, I’m still trying to get our cell phones to work. We also saw Bunratty Castle on our way back from the Cliffs, but we didn’t go inside.

So, we went out to a couple more bars before calling it a night. First, we went to a beer bar called The Bierhaus. They had better taps than anywhere else, but only 6-10 that were different than other places. We had a couple stouts, one was XXXX, one that was a chocolate milk stout, and I think one was a black stout. We also had a Scottish Independence Ale, which was from an Irish brewery. The barkeep said we’d have to go to larger pubs in the city center if we wanted to keep drinking, so we walked down there. Linda didn’t let me go to a club because I was too scrubby, but we went next door to one. There was quite a different crowd there. We saw a guy and girl who are definitely going to bang tonight. We had an alcoholic ginger beer from England as well as a red that was on tap. We stopped at an Irish restaurant on our way home called Mac-Donald’s for a large fries. They didn’t give us much ketchup and we should have asked for salt.

Cork, Ireland

We’ve officially started on our honeymoon vacation. It was a long day of travel, driving to Milwaukee, flying to Detroit, catching a transfer in Amsterdam, to our final destination, Cork, Ireland. We slept on and off during all the flights, so by the time we arrive in Cork around 11:30 am, we were ready to start our adventure, and didn’t face many issues with jet lag. The first thing we decided to do was get back on the bus to travel to Blarney (about 5 miles from Cork). We stopped to have lunch at an Irish Pub. (We also stopped at an Irish Pub at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam so that Andy could have a Heinekin while in Amsterdam, but in an Irish Pub.) I think it was called Muskerry’s Irish Pub, which seemed to have traditional Irish meals. After lunch, we started our climb to get to the Blarney Stone. Andy was a little apprehensive on the way up, but after realizing it was too crowded to urn around, he made it through like a trooper I pretended to kiss the Blarney Stone so I don’t think that means I’ll have the gift of eloquence. After Andy’s story about drunk locals peeing on the Blarney Stone, I didn’t want to get too close.

Andy, however, decided not to sit down and lay down by the Blarney Stone. Afterwards, we walked around for a couple of hours, looking at the gardens, the waterfalls, the nature hikes, the caves, the lake and the Blarney House. It was beautiful with all that greenery. By the time we arrived back in Cork, it was time for dinner. We took a suggestion from the Kinlay House where we are staying and went to the Bodega for some more traditional Irish food. It was a classy joint, and we were a little under dressed, but it was a nice place to eat for dinner. We found out that the brewery across the street had opened up two months prior (July 2014) so we just had to check out the Rising Sons Brewery (only microbrewery in Cork). They surprisingly had a decent quality product. We ended the night by stopping for a drink at An Spailpin Fanach (the migrant worker) for a couple drinks of Guiness and traditional Irish music. We arrived just before they started, and it was crowded by the time we left. It was exactly the type of pub (atmosphere) that we were hoping for and looking for.