haha.. I don´t think Cork Ireland is known for cork or not, but it is the gateway for the Blarney Castle and the famous Blarney Stone. It is also access to the Ring of Kerry.
When we arrived in Cork, we got tickets to Blarney Castle and were able to make the next tour with time to drop off our backpacks at the hostel. The ride to the castle was short on what seemed to be a local bus, though it was full with tourists like us. The castle was cool with an erie look. When we got up to it there was a small entrance out front. A couple was going in and I asked what it was. Alan mentioned that it was a way to get into the castle, so we followed the couple in. Quickly things got dark as it was more of a cave than an entrance to the castle. None of us had a flashlight really and I tried to use my key light to light the way which it was doing badly in the pitch black darkness. A man with his 2 boys came along and they scooted ahead as they had a light and they were making jokes along the way like.. ¨This is the pit to hell¨ and "oh, there´s the skull of the last guy who came in here". It was funny and took the edge off of being in a small confined space in darkness. We crawled our way through to find the end where we learned that what we were in was the dungeon. haha. At the end there was space enough to stand upright and in the flash of a camera´s light you could see scrbbles on the walls and ceiling of the people who have been as far as we had. I took a couple of funny pictures of Alan and I in the cave. I was glad to get out and was happy that I didn´t get claustrophobic!
We walked through the Castle, which was pretty much an empty shell with several rooms. There were signs on the walls that would describe what the castle looked like back in the day. How amazing would it have been to live there.
We got to the top, where the Blarney Stone is and waited in a small line before it was our time to kiss the stone. It is a very interesting procedure- an old man tells you to sit down, lay back and grab onto these two iron rails. Then you have to stretch your neck out while upside down to kiss the stone which is about a foot away from the flooring, so you´re like hanging over the edge of the castle! (don´t worry, there are iron bars below to keep you from falling out. haha) I kissed the stone- I got way down the wall and kissed the stone. Legend says that whoever kisses the stone will have the gift of the gab. I guess now I´ll have a double dose. haha. Now, of course, to make it more touristy there is a giant camera snapping 2 pictures of you while you kiss the stone. I opted to take Alan´s picture and he took mine so we have our own version and wouldn´t have to pay the 12euro to get the pics, but we did look at them. Mine didn´t come out well as my hand was covering my face where I was holding on for dear life. heehee.
We toured the grounds and went through the rock garden. There were some rather strange and intersting plants- one that was a giant leaf. I asked a couple of people if they knew what it was, but no one seemed to know.
When we finished, we went back to catch the bus, but there were a million people in line waiting, so we went in to the nearest pub for a pint. I tried Bulmers for the first time. It is a cider beer and very good. I had seen many people drinking it in the UK. The couple that we met at the entrance to the dungeon were there drinking as well and so we chatted a bit about our adventures. The guy showed us pictures of when they walked into these other caves at the Castle and he said that it was so dark he couldn´t see, but he said he kept seeing this white bulb like thing on the rock and when he got to it he snapped a picture. When he looked at the picture, he saw next to the big bulb- a big spider! hahaha. So, he said he was a bit freaked out. haha. Maybe it´s better to go in without a light. We drank more pints and watched the futbol game (or was it soccer?) on TV. I would have to say that this game is much more work than our football games. These guys are running back and forth and back and forth trying to get a goal, all the while without breaks. I mean, they do have fouls and such where they stop to regroup, but it´s not like every 2 seconds like it is in American Football.
The bus finally arrived and we went back to the hostel to crash.
The next day we went to on the Ring of Kerry tour. We contemplated driving it ourselves rather than sit on a bus for 10 hours (yes-10 hours!), but it would have been more of a hassle and I know I wouldn´t have gotten the pics that I did. The Ring of Kerry is basically a 100 mile drive through the beautiful rolling mountains down to the ocean and back through. After a couple of hours you begin to feel like... ok, so we´ve seen mountains and ocean and more mountains, but it really is beautiful. The bus would stop along the way allowing us to take pictures and to eat. We sat in the back of the bus and met a girl named Rebecca, who is from Washington State. She was in Ireland as a live-in nanny for this couple. She had been with them for about 7 months and had intended on staying until 10 months. It amazes me how people stay in these countries for a long time, though obviously she had a free place to stay and didn´t have a 3 month time limit with a eurorail pass. haha.
When we stopped for lunch, I went to the restroom to get tissue to blow my nose and ended up twisting my back. DÓH! I was wondering when that was going to happen and was surprised it didn´t happen sooner. So, the rest of the ride was in pain. :-( The funniest part of the journey was on our last stop when we entered into a small town for dinner. The bus driver had mentioned a chinese food restaurant and Rebecca, Alan and I were in agreement to go check it out. It turned out to be an Indian-Thai restaurant. Odd combination, no? Once we sat down to eat we realized it would probably consume all of our time, which it pretty much did. We had an hour to eat and we were just a couple of minutes late back to the bus. As we were walking to the bus we were joking at how everyone would be mad at us for being late and all of a sudden, the bus started to leave! With my bad back, I started sprinting after the bus waving my arms over my head. I probably looked like the biggest freak as several people on the streets were looking at me. haha. Finally the bus turned a corner and I got the attention of a man that was sitting near us on the bus. He told the driver to stop and as soon as I got to the door, the driver said "glad you could make it, though I wasn´t going to leave you... I was merely moving the bus ´round- I was blocking traffic." haha. Too funny!!
We arrived back to Cork at about 10pm, said our good-byes to Rebecca and went to bed. The next day was our 16 hour ferry ride to Paris.
