Woke up on Saturday and headed to bus for our scheduled group trip. Everyone was kind of tired. We get on this small bus, and the Irish guy there was excited. So the guy starts driving us around and talking about cork. He mainly says information we already know, but I learned about how Henry ford was actually irish and came to the usa, and there is a ford plant in cork. Cool. But then he took us up by the Shandon tower, which was lame. He had us take pictures of that. I asked him what Bally means in Gaelic, and he said Bailig means “place of”. This explains all of the countless Bally-towns everywhere. We went around the north side and he kept referring to Cork as “my beloved city”. He told us about the butter trade, and some other historical info, but we already knew most of it. We went down by UCC and saw st fin barres cathedral. He said that there is a legend that the world will end when the golden angel falls from the roof three times. He said that it has done it twice, but the second time was because kids at UCC kidnapped it and held it for ransom until the mayor got it back. Haha. Then we went towards kinsale. The guy was rambling on about the war, and Oliver Cromwell, and the good Friday treaty, and so on and so forth. But he did say that Craic is actually a combination of three words. We got to kinsale and drove past this lookout place. Andy said “Sure, we stop to take pictures of a tower 2 frickin blocks away from our house, but we can’t take a picture of that”. I laughed so hard about that all day, even though it was not that funny. Then we got to Charles fort, which I was excited about. The driver dropped us off and I walked in, and the lady working there said that I had to pay, and then i realized that we didnt have time to see the fort. I bitched about it for a while. Then the guy dropped us off in Kinsale. It was pretty cool, but we couldn’t get on the wharf to see the marina and boats, and we didn’t have enough time to walk to the point. We passed many stores, one called grandmas bottom drawer struck our interest. We called it “Granny’s Back Door” and lolled all day. We then went to this restaurant and tried to get fish and chips, but the lady said the chef doesn't do much till noon. So we waited. And sewed it shut. The fish and chips were 11 euro, so I declined. We then left and went to the bus. We traveled back through cork, and up to Blarney. The driver told us the story of the witch of Blarney, and used this high pitched voice to emulate the witch. It was so corny but funny. He asked “and what do you get when you kiss the Blarney stone” Andy, staring thoughtfully out the window, instantly replied in a nonchalant voice “herpes”. We got to blarney and damn was it a tourist trap in the gatehouse. They sold stuffed leprechaun dolls with red hair and a buckle hat. But the rest of blarney was good. I kissed the damn stone and probably got aids. We walked back by the lake, and skipped rocks on the ice and threw rocks in to document the splash in fast shutter speed. and petted this ginger horse, which was nice. Joked about him becoming dog food. Then we went back and made feast, of spicy chicken wings.
So on Sunday we all went to the gaol’s cross and lined up for hiking. I could not find the damn cap for my water bottle so it was very close to 830 when I got there. We stood around for a bit and then the 2 small buses came. People piled on like cattle because they wanted to go on the hike, and Brian said there were too damn many of us. I am not sure if anyone was turned away. There was this dumb kid with huge headphones that was blaring music. We kind of fell asleep on the way there, and when we got there we split into 3 groups, two normal ones and a fast one with the French guy leading it. There were like 4 Asians there, and thang was one of them. They all had huge dslrs and one had a really ugly purple brown and yellow jacket. They were basically walking stereotypes. After the hike, I heard one irish person say that they just took off after getting back down, and they didn’t seem to care for hiking. He said they all had like 70 quid Gators and other expensive gear. Quid is the irish term for euro apparently. We were in normal group #2, and walked around the side to go up. The fast group took the path and got up there really fast. The leaders kept intentionally slowing us down. It was annoying. We had to hop a fence, and saw a festering rat. There were these nasty bramble bushes that kept pricking us. The Irish people said there was a lake nearby, but it was a small drainage with a Caterpillar brand “digger” next to it. The irish people knew it was a cat, and this one guy put on a bear grylls accent and talked about the camel episode. The irish must love American tvBut they said we wouldn’t have time to climb it and get down before sunset, so we had to go the easy way. It was their fault that we didn’t have time (which we actually did) because they slowed us down. So we got to the top of the ridge and then climbed towards a frosty part of the hill. We got to the top and it was freezing! I could see the paps way off in the distance! It was cool to be on top of this mountain. MB and I talked about how this area beckons to us. Even though there are no trees, I really enjoy the openness of the hikes. I think it is because you can see everything, and you know that there is a change in Biome a few miles away. If I were walking in the middle of the great plains, it would freak out and get nervous. But not here. There is too much to see. We climbed down, and it got warmer. Seriously, it was like so cold and windy there I was freezing even with all the layers on. We sat in a little depression and ate lunch. I just had the Tesco Value chocolate and Tesco Value custard crèmes for like 1 euro total. They aren’t bad. The irish guy leaders were really funny! Andy mentioned seeing a seal in the Lee, and they guys said that it probably had human legs and donkey arms. Andy said donkeys don’t have arms, and the guy said “these ones do!” MB said she saw that same seal and the irish guy said “ It was a different one. The first one was dead by then.” The lee is extremely polluted. We ate lunch and walked back down, and I stubbed my toe millions of times and poked my legs with the brambles. It took like another hour and a half after we got down for the fast group to get back. We all sat on the bus and talked, made fun of things, and just had a good time. We went to Mill Street and I had fish and chips, and they had a show on in a pub about Ted Kennedy and how he fostered US and Irish relations. They left out the part about him drowning the hooker. Then we went back, and Matt and Hannah said they want to go para sailing in morocco. Awesome.
It's been a month plus on Study Abroad now. It went by really fast, but at the same time i feel like i have been here forever. We accomplished a ton in january. Stay tuned for Ring of Kerry stories, even though they will all involve how wet it is gonna be. Arg.
