2 hour later, our alarms went off and we all got up and went to breakfast. It was in the hotel again. I had eggs and cereal and toast with beans on it. It wasn't gross like I thought it would be. I liked it.
Hoping this won't make me fart up the bus.
We left the hotel today and had to drag our suitcases to the bus. Kaitlyn and I sat in the front and Mia and Maria sat right behind us. While we waited for everyone else in our group, the girls across from us (also in front seat) and us four swapped horror stories of Dublin. Maria told everyone about my pregnant lady getting up in my personal space, while the other girls saw a police officer dealing with some homeless guy that was foaming at the mouth. Brilliant!
Once everyone was on the bus and we took off from Dublin, our tour guide told us we should mix up the seating arrangements (he was really nice about it and very apologetic). It wasn't fair that the same 8 people kept sitting in the first 2 rows and I agree. But the view is so much better in front.
We left Dublin to go to Cobh. The drive would take 2 hours and we passed through historic stuff, the names of which I'd never remember. What I did remember was the Brigit Pastures. Ireland has 3 patron saints: St Patrick, St (whatever), and St Brigit. St. Brigit was a woman and the story goes that some guy was throwing shade at her, doubting her religious skills, and he was like "Brigit, I'll give you all the land your cloak covers." Which to me sounded very sexual but Brigit took of her cloak and spread it upon the ground and it covered like 5 acres. Instead of crying witchcraft they cried sainthood. And that's how we got the Pastures of Brigit.
A bloody miracle.
We drove on and saw the Rock of Dunamase but it was far off and on top of a hill so I didn't even attempt to get a picture. We had to stop at a gas station for a bathroom break and snacks. Normally this would annoy me since we literally had breakfast not even 2 hours ago but I got off the bus and wandered around. This was probably the nicest gas station I've ever been to. They had a cafe inside.
As we were leaving the gas station we passed by some trailers on the side of the road that had a few children and a mother outside one of them. At first I thought it was a mini trailer park but then I realized these people were Irish travelers (or the less favored word, gypsies). Tom said they were called by another less favorable word of tinkers. I love watching shows about Irish travelers or romani people and I was really glad to have seen real Irish travelers. I hope that's not racist.
Back on the bus we passed by sheep and cow. They were cute. A lot of people were falling asleep on the bus. The girls next to us, in the front, were sleeping and that kind of pissed me off. If you're going to sleep, why not go to the back and free up the seats that have the best view? A reason for their sleepiness might have been from Tom because he read us a page from Ulysses. I thought it was nice. Then just like yesterday with Camin, I wished my dad was there. I would rather hear what he has to say about the old castles we saw and hear his opinion of Joyce.
We arrived at a town called Cobh around 11. Tom our tour guide said it was on the beach and I was really excited to get there because of that. Once we arrived, it wasn't really the beach I had imagined. There weren't waves crashing into the pier or the call of seagulls. It was boats tied to a very small dock on a very low tide day and no sand to walk in.
We visited a museum dedicated to the Irish emigrants who died traveling via boat to a better future. The first thing we saw and my favorite of the whole museum was life size displays of the cabins to show what awful conditions people had to live in. It was like Disney but grim. They also had items recovered from Titanic and the Lusitania on display.
Just my style
Outside there was a monument to Anne Moore and her brothers. She departed from Cobh to America and was the first person to be admitted into the US at Ellis Island in New York. I remember visiting the Statue of Liberty and our guide there speaking about the immigrants. Seeing Anne's statue makes me feel like I've come full circle.
Once I was done at the museum I waited around for Mia, Kaitlyn or Maria. But then I realized, why. So I left. We had to be back on the bus at 12:20 and it was 11:50. I could see the town was a short walk away so I left on my own.
I think this was the first time I was truly alone this trip. The streets of Cobh go up and down because the town was built on a giant hill. I walked around by myself for a while, passing shops and people while looking out at the "beach". I was really not impressed by the beach. But every now and then the wind would blow just right and it would smell like the pacific ocean. And it made me sad. And happy.
I met up with Kaitlyn and Maria and we went to a candy store. I bought a mystery bag of candy for 2 euros and so did Kaitlyn.
It's a mystery!
There were a few pieces I recognized but most were a surprise. Then we went to a gelato store because Maria loves those. All the flavors had names like chocolate mint, or cookies and cream, peanut butter, and so on. There was on flavor called "Hello Kitty" and it had the Hello Kitty face on it.
"What flavor is 'Hello Kitty'?" I asked the shopkeeper. She went on to explain, in a condescending tone, that Hello Kitty was a popular cartoon character among the children of Ireland.
"Okay. What flavor is 'Hello Kitty'?" I repeated. It was strawberry which made no sense because they had another flavor of strawberry. I got the non-Irish cartoon character strawberry gelato. It was okay? Do gelatos have a hint of sourness? Mine tasted sour and I swear it wasn't the shop lady schooling me on JAPANESE cartoons. The gelato cost 1.50 euros
We all got back on the bus and left Cobh for Cork. I ate my candy on the way. It was a fun game of Is It Gross or Is It Good. None of the candy was great, some I had to spit out. I saved something that looked like our Airheads to bring back as a souvenir.
The drive was super pretty and green everywhere.
Tom the tour guide would give history lessons and a lot of people were asleep. He said "A sleepy bus is a happy bus" but I think all those sleepers were rude. Once Tom was done I read from my kindle. I downloaded a book a while back about Irish ghost stories. Real spooky stuff. I read that until we got to Cork.
We had about 45 minutes in Cork to grab lunch and walk around. Once we stopped, one of the sleeping people woke up and was like "Is this the hotel?" and I laughed so hard.
Cork didn't leave a real big impression on me. It was a bit more young and hip than everywhere else. Everyone but me was hungry and starting to get crabby. We went through this market place but all they had was uncooked meats and raw fruits. The mood among my small group was deteriorating and I felt like a mother trying to find a suitable place for her bratty children. We finally found a place called Soho that turned into a nightclub in the evenings. Once everyone sat down they played on their phones because we had free wifi. Mine wouldn't connect. Their attitudes improved once we got food. I ordered a chicken quesadilla for 10 something euros.
It wasn't awful but it wasn't good either. Too much cheese and peppers. Another group from our tour was there at a table a couple down from ours. While we all ate, 2 additional people from our tour group came in for a drink. We finished and payed, then hurried back to the bus to be on time.
On the bus there was some confusion over who was missing. Maria said the 2 people who had drinks were missing and she was starting to badmouth them for having drinks and being late but then I pointed to them on the bus. She made some comment about how they inhaled their drinks and I snapped at her to stop being judgmental. Then I felt bad because everyone heard us so I just kept my eyes in front of me and didn't say anything else to her. I have to remember to be nice. Maria and I still have over 3 weeks to go. I was worried her feelings were hurt but once we got off the bus again a couple hours later in next town she was happy so I didn't bring it up and I was happy too.
Kinsale is another seaside town. It was smaller than the other towns (or felt smaller) with cramped walkways and 1 car lanes. There were lots of little shops that were more artsy. Some buildings were brightly colored on the outside. Hot pink, cherry red, canary yellow colored shops. In Kinsale the four of us stayed together. We went into a bakery and everyone got a mini macaron but me (I love everything about macarons but eating them), then we went through some bookstores. Our group split when we rounded a corner and Maria and Mia were gone. Kaitlyn and I wandered around, kind of bored. We had an hour to waste and no where to go. I proposed we go to a bar and she was down.
The GreyHound is a bar in Kinsale where Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, had a drink at. It was a small, dark bar with a limited selection of alcohol. I've decided not to drink anymore beer on this trip because it's just a waste of euros. While trying to decide what to have we struck up a conversation with three guys at the bar. They were late 30's, early 40's, and they suggested we do rumplemintz shots and asked if we had tried it before.
"I don't like mint." I told them. They made more suggestions, all a little on the weak side, so I finally decided for Kaitlyn and I to have jameson. I feel a bit like a poser drinking jameson in Ireland because it's an Irish whiskey. But it's what I drink back home. We each did a shot, then we did another shot, then we had the guys' attention again. The guy doing most of the talking had just gotten back from Scotland yesterday so we talked about that. I told him how I was staying in Europe for a month and going to Scotland after Ireland. He assumed I was going to Paris and London after Edinburgh.
"Nope, Oslo and Stockholm."
Then we talked about that for a bit. Eventually they bought Kaitlyn and I a shot of Bushmill 16, a 16 year aged whiskey. I told Kaitlyn we had to sip this and she hated it. We only did three shots in the course of 15 minutes. Our bill was 16 euros total and we thanked the guys for buying us a shot and left. I was a little drunk and everything was super funny.
Get in my belly.
I've been reading and hearing a lot of Gaelic these past couple days. There was one word I knew before this trip; uisce beatha (whiskey=water of life). I learned that from listening to the song Finnegan's Wake by the Clancy Brothers. After we got on the bus I was zoning in and out pretty hard trying not to fall asleep. A funny thing happened. Tom, I don't remember why because I was not paying attention well, told us where the word whiskey comes from. Water of life. That was the last thing I remembered before falling asleep.
I woke up at our next hotel. We got our sleeping arrangements and Maria and I were with someone we didn't know in a 3 person room. The hotel was weird. It was like a little rabbit hole with skinny hallways that led to more skinny hallways that led to more skinny hallways. There were doors you had to push and pull open and signs pointing to rooms blah through blah. It gave the hotel character and I kinda liked it.
Then we got to our room and we didn't have wifi and I hated everything.
"Calla, do you want to share the bed?"
We had dinner downstairs (there's only 2 floors to the entire hotel with rooms on the top). We had an option of meat lasagna or roasted chicken breast. I had the chicken.
It was just grilled chicken and white gravy. Very little flavor. It wasn't bad, just not great. But again, it was free and I wasn't hungry so I should say it was great. We were also served dessert. It was these balls filled with cream (haha) that I forgot that name of.
I only ate 2 balls (haha) then passed them off on other people. I gotta start eating healthier this trip. These 3 meals a day with candy and gelato snacks will make me come home a big old fatty.
After dinner I took a shower. Downstairs there was some dance thing going on that Maria wanted to go to. She really wants to see "traditional Irish dancing" and be taught it by some "handsome Irish guy". The dance thing wasn't what she wanted (I think she just wants people to river dance) but it was increasingly mesmerizing to me. There must have been 60 people dancing. The dancing reminded me of those clocks where the little people come out and dance around symmetrically before going back into place. It was like that, very clockwork. But it wasn't clockwork, people were making mistakes and laughing and having a great time. Mia and I just kept watching them, I thought it was fascinating.
I left at 10 and went back to the room. The staff brought us up an extra cot so we didn't have to share a bed. I typed for what felt like forever but was more like an hour and a half. I went to bed around 1:30
Today was a more somber day. I got bummed out my dad wasn't here, nostalgic at the sea, and was a little mean on the bus. I have to remind myself that I'm fine and it was just the 2 hours of sleep last night and whiskey shots in the Greyhound.
Ginger count: I only counted on the bus leaving Dublin but I saw over 40, then I forgot to start counting again in Cobh.
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