Cork

Okay, sorry I'm so behind, but I'm lazy. What can I say.

So Cork. For those of you who don't know, my birthday was a week ago Friday, and I wanted to go to Ireland as it's fairly close to St. Patrick's Day. So that is what we did. My friends Sara, Alexa, Sam and I flew into Cork in the afternoon, got there, checked into our hotel, and made our way downtown via public transportation.

Our first experience in Ireland was, and this is the best word I can use to describe it, odd. We spent at least twenty minutes walking around, trying to find a restaurant to eat at (for my birthday dinner, whatever). We finally decided on this vaguely African-looking place called Zanzibaar Bistro, but the only African things about it were the decor and the names of the meals.

I got a Zanzi skyscraper, which was a burger with a lot of stuff on it. And it was nice and overpriced. Fantastic.

The next stop was, of course, a pub. You can't go to Ireland and not go to a pub. We found this really cool place called Slainte, which I think is the Irish equivalent of "cheers," but I'm not entirely sure. It was nice inside, dimly lit with candles stuck in sambuca bottles that were covered in melted wax. And yes, I got some Irish stout, two kinds actually. Guiness and Beamish. I liked the Guiness better.

And that was day number one.

Day number two was a lot more eventful. We started our day at Eddie Rocket's, a really awful version of Johnny Rockett's in the states (but I do love when restaurants in the UK try to plug themselves as American--they're probably my favorite places to eat as far as atmosphere goes). It might have been the cheesiest restaurant I've ever seen, with also probably the worst coffee in the world. We then made our way to the bus station downtown, to catch a bus to Blarney.

Blarney Castle was probably the highlight of the entire trip--this is where the legendary Blarney Stone is, at the top of the castle. Yes, we kissed it, and yes, I know the local boys pee on it. I didn't care, because I wanted to do it anyway. I haven't been struck by disease yet so I can't see too much wrong with it. But there was a guy who helped you kiss it, as you had to lie on your back and kind of hang upside down in order to reach it:

That's me, kissing the Blarney Stone. Sam got a terrible picture and I was kind of upset. But it's okay, because Sara got a video of me kissing it (though you still can't see me actually kissing it, but you can hear me yelling "MOTHERLAAAANNDDD!!" That was for my friend Erica, who is part Irish.

There was actually a lot more at the castle than just the stone. Before we even got into the castle, we investigated Badger's Cave, which supposedly has passageways that lead all the way to Cork, and we went through the dungeons and around the castle itself. There were the Wishing Steps, which you are supposed to climb down and up backwards, with your eyes shut, if you want your wish to come true.

And there was the Witch's Stone which was a stone that looked like a witch, a Druid Circle with an actual sacrifice altar (these were real, not just some fake exhibit they recreated), and various other magical places.

Also, there were a lot of ghosts there. It's a haunted place.

And for the record, I took another picture after each of these and there was no more mist there. It wasn't something on my lens, and you couldn't see this stuff with your naked eye. So HA!

Probably every person who was at this castle the day we were there was an American, with the exception of one German couple. It was actually quite incredible. And we were extremely lucky, as when we left, we stopped and just stared at the line that went all the way to the street, a good fifty yards at least. When we got there there was no line at all. Anyway. Here's a picture of the castle itself:

Oh yah, it was raining. That was awesome.

After the castle, we wandered around the city for a bit, with the plan of going to the Cork Butter Museum. Yes, there is a museum there entirely devoted to butter, because I guess Cork was the leading exporter of butter, or something. And it may have been the smallest museum I've ever been in. There were a lot of churns and documents under glass. And that was really about it, aside from this awesome old-fashioned radio with this awesome song playing called "Leave My Butter Alone." Sweet.

That night, we went to an early dinner and then another pub, called Clancy's. There was live music, a cover band that played such Irish hits as "Another Brick In the Wall" and "Sweet Home Alabama." It was great.

I'd also like to mention that Sam had five pints that night, none of which were the same, and one of which was a cider. This proved to be a bad idea, as we shall see.

When we were on the bus home, we made some drunk friends. Sam got along very well with them, and they even got off at the same stop.

Have you ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail? You know how King Arthur travels by galloping and his servant guy bangs the coconuts together? Well, that was pretty much what the night then turned into. The guys told us that galloping was faster, and proceeded to gallop down the hill and smack their butts like they were urging on a horse or something. And brilliantly, Sam followed suit. I blame this for his later getting sick and using up all the toilet paper in the bathroom. And you'd think after this that he would learn his limit, but not so. This very weekend I had to deal with him getting sick again, this time on a double-decker bus, and while we were pretty much lost, and the only other person there being his friend from home who was visiting and had no idea where we were going or where we were. So now I'm mad at him, though he did apologize. But I don't think I'm not mad anymore yet. I'd tell you the whole story, but it's really something I need to act out in order to tell it properly.

Anyway, that was Cork, and what a weekend it was. Happy birthday to me.