Cork

Got into Cork and checked into our one hotel of the trip. Talk about some luxury digs. It was a real steal at only 69 eruo, including our "Full Irish Buffet" and access to a proper health club (not the typical hotel workout room). I went swimming twice while we were there. The rooms in the back have river views and we opened the door we were wondering if we would had one. The room and the bathroom were both enormous but when we went to check out our view we realised part of the reason our rate was so cheap. We had one of the 3 rooms on each floor that look out on an inner courtyard of air conditioning equipment. Oh well, no big deal for us.

We tried to connect with a guy who gives walking tours in the evening if there is enough demand, but didn't get a response by email or phone so took off on foot ourselves. We were definitely back in a city and this one has some serious hills.

More Cork pics on the jump page.

Food Porn

So some of you are probably wondering, "John, were are all the food shots?". Jan has a digital camera this trip so I've been less diligent about taking my camera to meals as I can always get the shots from her later. But I've collected enough now that I'll post a set. As advertised the "Full Irish" breakfasts are an insane amount of meat: sausage, red and white pudding (which is a grilled "meat product") and rashers (country ham) served with eggs, beans, grilled tomato and toast. Our two nights in Galway have been a pleasant change as they offered all sorts of other options - from oatmeal with Bailey's to a smoked salmon plate with scrambled eggs.

Also as expected, I've had more potatoes in the last week than I've had in the last year! Today on our tour were we stopped for lunch I opted for the seafood lasagna (pictured) which came with side vegetables: carrots, cabbage, and both mashed potatoes and roasted potatoes! At dinner tonight the Irish couple next to us both had meals that came with mashed potatoes and they got an extra order of french fries on the side.

Basically we're eating pub food because we can get a hot meal for 10-12 euro. To go into a restaurant prices jump to 20 euro and up. When we find a pub serving dinner salads we jump on them. Have had a good bit of salmon, as it is no more expensive to order than any other meat.

Lastly, I was about convinced that there is no artificial sweetener in all of Ireland. No where in all our breakfasts or all Jan's coffee stops did we see any of the yellow, blue or pink packets. But our gourmet breakfasts in Galway broke the rule. They had regular and raw sugar on the tables, but over on the buffet with the herb teas was a little tic-tac like container of Splenda that dispensed it in microscopic pill form.

I don't have Jan's pictures yet, so there will be another food post when I get back. Here's a sample for now.

Your After Eights

Oops, got this and the previous post out of order...

Got into Waterford with enough daylight for a quick run along the river. With all the walking we've been doing I wasn't sure my legs and feet were up for it, but it was the first time I'd seen a long pathway where I wouldn't have to be constantly stopping to try and cross a street.

Then it was off to find some dinner. First try was a pub that was the oldest in Waterford (maybe even Ireland neither Jan or I can remember but its been in operation since Medieval days). Well they are only open for lunch until high season kicks in a few weeks from now. So we asked for a recommendation and they sent us down the street. We walked in at 9:01 and they'd stopped serving dinner at 9:00. So they sent us on to an area with a number of restaurants. But again everything was closed except an Indian place. Well we decided that even though it wasn't Irish, Indian still qualified as food of the Empire and with the aroma of the cooking in our Kilkenny hostel still on our minds we went in. Wow, probably the best meal of the trip.

There was a young guy serving as our host and waiter. He was Pakistani and full of questions about the U.S. The economic troubles in Ireland are stifling his ambition and he's considering a move to America or Canada. It was interesting how many times the questions came back to crime and the police. He was particularly concerned about being beaten by the police as apparently in Pakistan they'll beat the crap out of you and ask questions later.

Jan picked up a box of After Eight dinner mints a few days back which we've been slowly working our way through. When he brought us our check, he presented it on a plate and said, "Your After Eights." We looked down and there were two mints for us. It's as if he could read our minds.

Waterford

There is a tower in Waterford that goes back to the Viking era (Waterford is the oldest city in Ireland) We were there for opening around 10 and they said we could take a self guided tour or wait 10 minutes and take the guided tour - no brainer - we'll wait. The visitor's center said there were only self-guided tours, so we were happy. Little did we know how lucky we were. We got a private tour from Catherine and she has to have been the best guide of the trip so far. At the end we got to talking and when we said we'd come from Kilkenny she asked us what we thought of the castle tour as they have just changed it. Bingo. I told Jan after that tour, I think they must have just switched from guided tours to posting the guides in some of the rooms either for budget cuts or because they get too many people in high season that they need to move them along faster. Catherine said it was a bit of both and also that some folks just really want to move through quickly, looking at things and don't want all the information. I told Jan when we left that castle that somethings was up because the guide just had all this information and was bursting for an opportunity to tell it but didn't know how. Our suggestion was that if they're going to stick with guides in just some of the rooms they should basically just announce they're going to give a talk about the room every 15 minutes rather than have to go around soliciting tourists who might be interested in hearing.

We finished in time to catch a walking tour of the town. There was a large group of retired English women, Jan and I. We've decided every walking tour should have some doddering older English or Irish women on it. Their ongoing commentary is just priceless. We made it back to the oldest pub for lunch, back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and then to the bus station with maybe just over 5 minutes to spare. We're starting to get more Irish about this - showing up at the last minute not worried if there will be seats.

BTW, the tower we toured is the round one in theWaterford pics not the one seen here.

Belfast to Dublin

Our hostel in Belfast worked out just fine, but the Internet was about $1.50 for 10 minutes and you had to go down to the lobby to use it (plus really didn't have time) so all I managed to do was download pictures off my camera, get them flipped the right way and resized. It's a little after 5 pm on Thursday and we're back at our guest house in Dublin. Turns out they did have free WiFi, but just like everywhere else the network wasn't accessible from rooms. So I'm down in the lobby to fire off a few posts while Jan does some shopping before we head out to dinner. Tomorrow it is up and out to the airport for our trip home. (Belfast City Hall pictured)

No Time To Blog

We have been touring non-stop so I haven't even had time to write posts to upload later. Tomorrow we are on a tour all day and then bus to Sligo - arriving around 10:30 PM. We'll get some sleep and then back on the bus at 8:45 AM to continue on to Derry in Northern Ireland. So no blogging tomorrow either. Since the last post we've been to Waterford, Cork, Kinsale, Galway and the Aran Islands. I'm just going to go ahead and upload a bunch of pictures to the jump page so you can get a sense of what we've been up to. Who knows, at the rate things are going, the stories may not get written and posted until I'm back in Durham. (Geez and I didn't even have time to get pictures posted from all those places)

On the Road to Kilkenny

After the jail we went back to our hotel and relaxed a little while in the lounge before walking over to the bus station. The bus station was only a block away which is nice for wheeling luggage. You can't make a reservation for the bus, so as you can imagine I was a bit anxious. We ended up being first in line. As we'd been assured the bus left the station only about half full. We picked up people along the way. Jan ended up with a lady next to her for a while, but fortunately I had my row to myself the whole way. A little less the 2.5 hours later around 8 PM we were in Kilkenny. Walked up to the hostel (pictured). Someone was cooking Indian food in the kitchen and it smelled so good I wanted to buy their dinner from them right there and then. We ended up in a pub and the couple next to us were from Maryland. It was there first day. They'd driven from Dublin and we're a bit taken back by the experience. The wife said, "I'm glad we bought all the extra insurance." Again, glad we're busing.