Drunken Debauchery in Cork and Miraculous Arrival in Killarney

okay i am SO BEHIND, I will try to type in as much as possible here, but oh man it is just getting harder and harder....

so this day I went hunting for jewelery display things for my earrings, to no avail. The computer rooms were also closed, but I ran into a couple people from the night before which was cool!

I walked about, and while walking was texted an invite to a garden party for the African Festival weekend celebrations! This sounded appealing, so I grabbed my hula hoops and headed out, thinking it was an actual garden...

of course this is Ireland, so it was a beer garden... however it was PACKED and I could barely get outside with my hoops! I managed to squeeze in and met Aidan. Now, Benny was coming back that evening, and had told me also via text that there was going to be 3 Croatian girls staying over as well tonight, so I wasn't all confused when people came over. Guess who were sitting in the beer garden!

This ended up working out perfectly, because they managed to grab the key from me and put their stuff in the house :) Meanwhile there was live music and live African dance performance going on, so that was cool to watch. There were also lots of African children running around the bar, something that you would not see back home...

They found the hula hoops

They almost broke them they went so crazy! There were a few that were much nicer to them, but some had no concept that it could break, and I had to supervise constantly to make sure they stayed intact.






They noticed my tattoo as well and one girl pulled the back of my halter down to look, but pulled so far she was grabbing my skirt and stockings too! The kids thought this was funny, and kept yanking... then one of them put her finger at the very top of my bum and said "I can see your bum!!!" It was entertaining but again at one point my shirt had made a slight ripping noise and I had to check that nothing had actually ripped...

After a while I had to take them away... and that was interesting. One kid actually held on for dear life, and I could not get him to let go before having to raise it up higher than him! It was intense!

The music went away, and most of the people did with it. We had a decent amount of people shown up at this point (minus the girls and Benny) so we stuck around and had a couple more pints!





I ended up hula hooping in the beer garden by demand... and then another girl brought poi which was wicked! We have a couple pics and vids of this:










I was not going toO crazy as you can see, since I'd had a few.





Next we were off to meet with Benny and stuff...I think. I remember going to one of the bars I'd ended up in the last time I was out with Ben, but I can't remember the name of it or if there was another one in between.

I do remember that I ended up attempting hula hooping in this bar as well; I am surprised that I didn't knock anything over in my state! There was a BBQ outside and I was eating a burger when my hula hoop came out of the bar in a broken state.

Aidan had been trying to hula hoop and the thing broke. Ahhhhh. The kids had warmed it up, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back! He felt so bad that he gave me 25 euro to buy a new one (which I LOST THAT NIGHT OH I WAS SO MAD AT MYSELF THE NEXT DAY!). I remember eating two burgers on two separate occasions so I was definitely feeling it. Don't remember taking this but Ben recognized the wall somehow when I showed him the next day hahahaha.


Ben and Anita and friends and I all walked home together, and I guess the burger saved me because I woke up okay! I was also impressed that I remembered my antibiotics, which kind of explained why I ended up so bloody drunk.

I was feeling like I had done Cork properly by now, and was looking at going to either west cork or Killarney next. I looked some stuff up online, and went to do a couple things while I thought about it. The jewelery place was not open when it should have been. It was a fair walk away, so by the time I got back Ben was on the computers again so I joined him and ended up booking two nights in a hostel in Killarney, and a bus ticket for the next day. There were very few couchsurfers in the places I was interested in, since they were rather remote and not very populated....

This was going to be the first hostel since that one night in New Orleans! Crazy! I went back to the house I think, and packed up my stuff. I remember laundry being a last minute thing, but it worked out. I tried to watch a German movie I had put on my computer in Montreal, but I fell asleep before it was over.

Benny gave me knodles (its the wrong spelling, its in German and I don't know where the accents are on this keyboard) for the hostel. It was very sweet. I had all my stuff, so I walked to the bus stop and off I went!

The bus ride was nice, not too long. I had booked at a hostel that was apparently RIGHT beside the bus and train station, aptly named railway hostel, so I only had to really walk across the street and there I was!

The hostel was clean, and it had a maaaaassive kitchen. At the time when I checked in, I was the only person in my ten bed mixed dorm! They also sold discount tours for the Ring of Kerry, which is what I was there to see (along with the national park).

I tried these knodles. They were weird, but yummy.

Decided I still had time so I took a walk around the city. I was only there for two nights, and tomorrow was going to be the Ring of Kerry, so when I got to the park I decided to wander that too. This was my one evening to do it.

I got a few pictures in, but unfortunately (for you) my camera died along the walk.







here I tried to steal a photo... see if that helps...


It was the most beautiful park I had ever been in - and that's saying a lot! I had a moment where I started breathing different because I was so affected by what I was seeing. I was walking towards Ross Castle and this guy turned around and told me that the other route was longer but much nicer, and wow was he ever right. I coudn't believe how pretty it was; it was feeling the closest to awe I'd ever felt and I have to admit it was quite a moment for me.

I was higher than happy. I had also bought a 3 euro plain grey t shirt and a pair of sunglasses from Penny's (I had lost my sunglasses as well as the 25 euro that night) and the colour of the shades were kind of like my old aviators. The old aviators used to make everything kind of look like sunset, or a duster movie, and these were doing something too... it took out a lot of the blue in stuff. Taking off the glasses for a second it didn't quite look as nice, but it was still unbelievable. I was so happy I went.

I walked for aaaaages until my feet were starting to complain and the light was starting to go. I walked by a Tesco and bought food for the tour tomorrow. I went online after that, made dinner, stayed online... talked to some people in the lobby thing and ended up being given this crazy veggie curry dish from these two guys from the States! It was pretty cool. I was invited out by these two girls, but I was tired and I had to get up early for this tour, so I ended up staying in and just going to bed early.

Tomorrow was the Ring of Kerry!

Breaking into Blarney Castle and Other Adventures

Benny was going to Dublin in the morning, just for the weekend, so I had the house to myself.

I was not going to be home much though, because my plan was to check out Blarney Castle! I had made a post about it the day previous, but I had been waiting to hear back from people to see if they still wanted to go.

Turns out my phone sometimes does not like to send text messages, but I didn't know that at the time. I went to an internet cafe since the uni computer rooms were closed, and checked to see if anyone was still down for going... it was kind of confusing to organize, but Ruairi got a hold of me offering a ride up to the castle at least, so I took it. I met him outside the courthouse, and away we went!!!!

Now, in my Blarney Castle post on Couchsurfing, someone had offered to show me a secret back entrance to the grounds to save me ten euro! This was very appealing, and lovely Ruairi also had heard of this entrance. We drove by slowly, then into the parking lot. I looked at the fences in the parking lot. They were much taller, with pointy looking bits at the top. But there was a tree right by one of them, so it looked promising. I got midway up the tree, but it had a lot of tree goo, and it did not look like a pleasant jump down into bushes on the other side. Not worth it.

Ruairi was sitting in the car. He was contemplating going inside, but he'd seen it tons before and had a bunch of paperwork he was going to get done. He was so nice - he was going to do paperwork in the car and if I came back within a decent time, then I had a ride back also! What a nice guy! I told him that fence was not going to work, so we went to the other one. It was very low, and there was cover for the beginning. This must be the fence. I hopped it, then hopped two more while Ruairi went back to the car. These fences were right by one of the exits, but apparently nobody uses it, because I didn't see anyone the whole time I was in that area! Of course, after the third little fence I was already on the grounds, so even if people were there, it wouldn't have looked suspicious. I washed my hands in the river to get the tree goo off, pulled out my camera, and Voila! Now I was a tourist!










The grounds were beautiful! It was a big space, and the castle was much more impressive than I expected... I thought it would be ultra cheesy touristy castle, but it was bare stone, with vines and such growing on it... very raw and very pretty... you could go into practically every room and signs would tell you what it used to be. It was so so pretty...







The view from the top of the castle is quite spectacular, as you can see! After going up a tiny spiral staircase (and I mean squishy, someone ahead of me had to get out because it was too much for her... clausterphobics beware) you get to the top and wait in line to kiss the Blarney stone. They had a camera set up so someone took your picture while you kissed the stone, but it was like those roller coaster deals where you would pay 12 euro or so to buy your photos. Or you could get the old French guy behind you to take your photo with your camera, which is what I did.

Unfortunately, it is one of the most hideous photos of me ever taken (it looks like I have a mullet and messed up face). I am usually the sort of person that will put up a picture of me even if it's really bad, so I will, but I am making it smaller...


I told the french guy it was a good photo anyways. I mean really it's the experience that counts right?! So now I have the "gift of the gab". It's surprisingly tricky to get to that stone too, you can see I am laying down, you have to lean backwards while someone holds you to get to the thing. There are metal bars under you so even if someone falls back, you won't fall to the ground, but they weren't always there.



After kissing the stone and wandering the castle, I wandered the grounds a bit more. Ruairi had told me about a couple things that most people miss, and I wanted to find them.



and after some exploring, I did..



then my camera died. This new one likes to suck the life out of batteries compared to my old one, I need to change some settings...

Overall the experience was amazing :) I was happy it was all free for me too mwahaha. Ruairi was still in the car when I returned, which was also awesome.

It was such a nice day out, so the beach was on our minds. On a whim, he called a couple people, and we picked someone up in the countryside before heading into town to grab beach stuff!

I grabbed my other camera battery, my hula hoops and bathing suit, then we went to someone's house. Ruairi went to switch cars, so Michael (the one we picked up) and I went to get some food. We got sandwiches and ice cream yummmmmmmm... then it was back to the house, out to the car, but there was a delay. Things were left in the house, so three of us were waiting in the car.

Here we saw something unusual. Someone was standing on the street outside a used book store. He wasn't reading a book though, he was rubbing his face on it slowly. I have a picture of this...


We also saw someone dressed in a white jumpsuit thing with a white helmet just standing around talking to someone. It also looked ridiculous... we were all dying of laughter in the car.


The laughter did not stop when we started driving either... This group of people were so funny, my face hurt by the time we drove through Kinsale.

They put on "the final countdown". We ate cookies. and chips. When we got to the beach, it was gorgeous but windy so I ended up opting for hula hooping instead of Irish Sea. It looked coooolllddd!

Fergal, Antonia and Ruairi all went in the water. Michael and I watched them scream haha. I knew if I went in at that point, I would not be able to warm up afterwards, but I still felt silly not going in the water. Ah well.








As it started to get darker, we drove up to some cliffs!! It was beautiful; we all watched the sun start to set:













After the mini photo shoot, we headed back to the city. Ruairi was fed cookies while driving the whole way back, which was more funny than it sounds!
There was a gathering going on at Fergal's house, so we ended up there. It was a fun house party/gathering, I ended up talking to lots of rad people etc. All that sun had made me tired though, so I was very chilled out. eventually I got tired enough that I wanted to sleep, so Ruairi was kind enough to walk me to the empty house, where I fell asleep completely stoked on the crazy, random, jam packed, unplanned day that had taken place!!