in search of Blarney

#1 the obligatory castle photo










#2 one of many stunning photos taken from the top of the castle


#3 in Rock Close. I thought this was so cool, because it's literally hard to tell where roots end and rocks begin




#4 DAD!! After eating most of my lunch, the words on my plate were revealed: "Hi! I'm Larry. I'll be your plate for this course." (YOUR name is Larry!!)


#5 final shot of Cork-- like apparently all of the big cities in Ireland, it's got a river running through it. our hostel was on the left side; the city center is on the right














this weekend four of us went to Cork, Ireland's second- largest city. I took 87 pictures. I am worn out (but not from the picture- taking)

At any rate--

the higlight of the trip was-- by far-- visiting Blarney Castle on Saturday morning and, as is required of all tourists, kissing the Blarney Stone. I hadn't planned on making actual contact between the stone and my lips-- since I really didn't know much about it prior to visiting, it seemed that to kiss would just be a random hookup, devoid of a meaningful relationship and knowledge of the character behind the kiss. but everything about the climb to the top of the castle charmed me so much that by the time I emerged on the open roof I couldn't say no. so I made out with the stone, and then (after tipping the man who holds people's legs so they don't plummet through the hole that you have to hang over-- backwards-- in order to kiss the stone) took a ton of photographs from the top of the castle. we went at an awesome time-- relatively early morning in January, so there were very few other people there

after we left the castle, we walked through Rock Close, which is full of Druidic history and temples and is the site of a lot of folklore and general beautiful-ness. I climbed down and then back up the Wishing Steps with my eyes closed while holding a wish in my mind-- and according to the stories the Witch will now help my wish to come true within the year.

we took a bus back to Cork, walked through the traditional English Market (but didn't really pay attention because we were so damn hungry), and then got lunch at a small, cheap restaurant with an attitude that I appreciated-- displayed via funny little plaques on the wall, with sayings like, "why am I so brilliant and amazing?")-- this was the only meal we ate out the whole time, having invested in several loaves of bread and jars of PB & J-- surprisingly, I'm still not sick of the stuff

we went to a few other sites in Cork, but sadly found ourselves out of things to do by 4 o'clock (in the words of Emily's boyfriend's sister, "When you think you've seen all of Cork, you have"). so we chilled in the hostel, which proved to be a multicultural experience that concluded with our drinking ridiculously cheap wine and cider (from a nearby liquor store) with a dude from Holland, two guys from Dublin, a guy from Kilkenny, about 8 French people, a few Spaniards, and a dude from Finland. around 10:30 or so we went out on the town, and we had better luck than we did on Friday-- we found a big, traditional pub down a little back alley that had a cool DJ and a NON-club atmosphere, so we danced until sometime after 1, then walked back to the hostel and crashed before catching the 10:25 bus back to Galway