Category: European Honeymoon

So, we had a crazy time getting to Budapest today. (Spoiler alert – we made it) We woke up at the British ass crack of dawn in Stansted to catch a bus to the airport. We had some issues deciding which side of the road the bus should arrive on, so we wound up taking a later bus to the airport. Once we got there, we waited to check our bags, only to find out that we were at the wrong bag check. We went tot he correct bag check, but our line barely moved. For the longest time, there was no excuse, but we moved lines, and a guy from our first line wound up holding our line up by stopping his line from moving. He intended to check a bag, but didn’t realize he had to pay both ways. It was painful to watch. At any rate, I dropped Linda in the race to the gate in an effort that at least one of us would catch the flight. We both made it, and broke a sweat, so I bought a couple drinks from a vending machine for 2 pounds each, which works out to be $7.50. One of the guys at our bus stop had already cautioned us that London is a money pit. So we slept as much as we could on our flight and caught transit to our hostel. It seems that a mom and her daughter run the hostel, and they were very friendly. We mentioned having to catch an early flight, and they said the train wouldn’t be running, but that they would drive us for 60 euro. Linda had quite the expression on her face, and they said no, 16 euro. We headed out to catch lunch at Koleves. We split some tapas and a duck curry meal. It was very good. They gave me seltzer water with my coffee. The restaurant was Yiddish. We are staying near the Jewish neighborhood Andrássy út. After that, we walked past the Synagogue and walked past the Hungarian (Jewish) Museum and Archives. We went to St. Steven’s Bascilica. Linda convinced me to walk up to the top of it, which only cost us $4 USD, whereas the Shandon Bells were $10 euro, which is about $13 USD. I freaked out on my way up there, but we stopped (a couple times) so that I would collect my cool, and proceed. Once we made it to the top, I waited while Linda walked around. After that, we moved on to a market at the Vörösmarty tér metro stop. We moved on to take some pictures of buildings, and walk across the chain bridge. We grabbed dinner at the market on our way back and listened to street music. We had too much trouble trying to find our metro stop, so I convinced Linda to walk home. We stopped at a 0-24 store to buy water and wine, some of which we drank before heading to ruin pubs. (We were mistaken that Buda Castle wasn’t Parliament and we didn’t know Parliament when we saw it) The first ruin pub was Mika Tivadar Mulató, which didn’t seem too different. The ruin pubs are places that were thrown together with junk to make up tables, seating and ambience. The second ruin pub was much truer to its name. We went to Szimpla Kert. We saw quite a mix of furniture there, from a hodge-podge of a mix of chairs, to a snowboard converted to a bench, to a bathtub converted to a bench. They had hookahs, which I wanted, but we decided against. On our way in, a guy was getting bounced.

Andy told me I should mention that on our countryside tour yesterday, the bus tour guide told us that the house next to the Cliffs of Moher cost 200,000 euro, and that’s just for a shell, half covered. Today, we started out our day by visiting the Shandon Church to ring the bells. Apparently that’s what visitors do to announce their arrival. They don’t want people to ring nonsensical melodies in excess, so they provide sheet music. The first song we played was Amazing Grace. It sounded really cool. We then toured the rest of the tower, seeing the mechanics behind the four faced liar (supposedly all four sides of the tower have a clock which is slightly different from one another) and behind the bells. When we got to the top, we had a fabulous view of the city of Cork. Andy was a bit scared, but he still seemed to enjoy the view too. On our way back down, we rang the bells again, this time we played Kumbaya. He wanted to play another song after that, The Wedding March, and record a video of us doing it. But we didn’t. We peeked inside the actual service area and it was quaint. Small but nice. We then walked to the other side of the city to see the cathedral called Saint Fin Barre’s. It looks like it is the largest one in Cork. It had amazing stained glass windows and mosaic flooring. Andy kept telling me there’s a church in Milwaukee that looks just as good as this. Afterwards, we stopped for a cup of coffee next to the River Lee. Andy was sad that they didn’t have regular coffee, but I enjoyed the double espresso shots. We walked over tot he English Market to see what the buzz was about. It reminded me of Seattle’s market. We decided to buy some smoked salmon from one of the merchants (cooked, not uncooked). It was delicious. We tried to stop over at a pipe store but unforunately it was closed on Mondays. So we headed over tot he Franciscan Well Brewery to try a couple of beers. Andy had their IPA and I tried the Porterhouse Stout. One of the last things we did in Ireland was to stop and get some doner kebab at Crazy Kebab. I miss doner kebab! Andy loved his first eve doner kebab. We grabbed our packs from the hostel and waited at a bar, The Poor Relation, near the bus station to catch our plane to London.

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.

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.