Chocolate bars are much much better here. The birds are giant. Moss is growing on everything.
Everything that is old is probably a church, a jail, or a castle. Cork has been a city for over 800 years. That’s astounding to me. I’m sitting beside a wall that was built in the 1100s.
I have had chief custody of Alan’s iPhone during the days and almost don’t hate the keyboard now. Maybe that’s just because it gives me the Internets.
So it’s now Wednesday and I have four days to recap.
Sunday we toured about half of the Galway region. We went along the coast to we think Cashla Bay but we don’t really know because things in Galway are even more poorly labelled than the rest of Ireland. We then went north to Maam Cross (which we saw spelled two different ways on the local signage, both of which were different than the way it was spelled on either of our maps). Apparently this region of Ireland was J.R.R. Tolkein’s inspiration for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings universe. It was the most beautiful version of desolate I’ve seen in a long time.
The drive from Galway back to Cork took almost all afternoon but the sun was shining and there were beautiful clouds in the sky. We passed the most adorable herds of sheep with tiny little adorable lambs, and I really regret not stopping to take adorable pictures, but very few of the Irish roads have anything a North American driver would consider an acceptable shoulder. We also passed lots of pretty cattle herds.
Most of the cattle pastures tend to have a mixture of dairy and beef cattle. I’ve seen a lot of Holsteins and another dairy breed I didn’t know. They are slightly smaller with similar markings but a sandy brown colour… would need my Dad’s help identifying them. Maybe Brown Swiss? Most of the beef cattle seem to be Herefords or a solid black breed. No idea what they are. There are also some super ugly cattle up in the mountains that are shaggy and white and look malnourished buy probably aren’t. Other livestock we have seen are horses, donkies, and I think it was a llama but it could have been an alpaca.
In the mountains they spray paint the sheep at the rump and the top of their head. At first I thought it was so drivers could see them better but I hear it’s a form of branding. Anyways, the painted sheep are cute.
For a country that loves their pork products, we have not seen or smelled evidence of pork production. But I digress.
I forgot to mention that on Saturday we passed what I initially called a tractor parade. I wasn’t far off. It was a tractor run, and there were probably a total of fifteen tractors participating. They were raising money for Cancer research. This is all we know of the tractor parade.
Monday we went south to the Kinsale area because Alan wanted to see a lighthouse. Unfortunately the lighthouse we picked was on a private golf course. Luckily the view was incredible even from outside the golf course fence. There was also a castle. After the lighthouse search, we went to the Timoleague Abbey and the Drombeg stone circle which I have already told about.
Yesterday I was sick so I stayed close to the hotel. I did get out for about an hour’s walk but that was about it. And all I did on the walk was buy nail clippers. How exciting. Oh and the lady from The Weakest Link is an unbelievably monstrous bitch.
Today I tried to go to Kanturk because there was supposed to be some nice scenery and old buildings there, but I missed it completely and ended up in some little town that isn’t even on my map. I turned around and tried again but ended up in Blarney. I toured the village which is entirely composed of tourist traps, pubs and antique stores, and then went through some narrow and steep and terrifying Cork streets back to Ballincolig, and read for an hour or so while I waited for Alan to get off work.
Air space was closed for some of yesterday and some airports are closed today. Looks like I’m going to have to work on my Icelandic in order to appease the angry volcano gods.
My Dalek zippo
Friday I was tasked with laundry which wasn’t super exciting and didn’t result in many pictures. I did learn there is no such thing as a coin-operated laundromat in Ireland, that there are launderettes which are like dry cleaning services but with laundry. It costs more, and probably takes more time, but is pretty convenient if you hate doing laundry. I spent the day wandering through the super confusing streets of the city centre. It was fun, and I got myself a kick-ass Dalek lighter which will make my nerdier friends very envious.
Yesterday morning we headed off on our weekend adventure. I wanted to make sure Alan saw some cool things while he was here, and I’d heard from a few people about things to do that were further away than could be done in a day trip. We headed west towards Killarney to go through some pretty mountains, and then headed up to the Shannon Ferry, which was pretty cool. We ate lunch in a beautiful little seaside town named Kilkey, and then we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which everyone should go see; they’re incredible. We didn’t really get fantastic photos, but hopefully they’re good enough to get an idea.
Last night we stayed in Gort, and today we will be going to Galway and seeing other cool things in the area before heading back to Cork tonight. Tomorrow is the Bank Holiday, and we have planned to probably go to Killarney National Park for the day. No time right now to narrate the photos; make up your own story.
