My trip to Cork!

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First Weekend away from Dublin

So this past weekend, Trinity sponsored a trip for the international students to Cork, Ireland. It is the second largest city in Ireland and famous for the Blarney Castle, the Blarney Stone, and the Jameson Distillery. We paid 80 euro and got our hostel, breakfast, the bus there and back, the bus to and from all our activities, and entrance to all of them so it more than paid for itself!

We left Friday night and got there just in time to go to a local pub and get adjusted. I went to sleep pretty early though since I am still sick. Saturday morning we got up early, had breakfast, and headed out to Blarney. It was SO much fun! My friends and I walked around the castle, went exploring in some random forests and found some really breathtaking sights. And then we made our way to the highlight of the weekend which was kissing the Blarney Stone. Apparently if you kiss it, you get the gift of gab which is the art of flattery or something. However it is NOT at all how I was expecting it would be. For some reason I envisioned the stone as just chilling somewhere in the castle and you would wait in line to kiss it. On the contrary, very few people who we actually saw go into the castle made it up to the top.

First you have to make your way through the ridiculously narrow staircases and on top of that, if you have even the slightest fear of heights, there are holes and windows everywhere which make you feel like you could easily fall out. Then if you make it to the top, which not everyone did, the stone can only be reached by laying backwards OFF the top of the castle, holding onto 2 bars, and reaching downwards to kiss one of the stones of the castle. I had made up my mind not to do it (as I am afraid of both heights and plummeting to my death should I let go of the bars), took pictures for friends, and started to go down the steps when I realized I would really regret it if I didn't kiss the stone. So I turned back, did it, and am so happy I did. It was scary but well worth it!

After that we went to another gaol (jail) which to be honest, no one really paid attention to as we were exhausted. After coming back from our days adventures, me and some friends walked around the city of Cork, shopped a little, stopped at a cafe for coffee, then found a really beautiful church that we went to for a bit.

On Sunday, we again woke up early, had our breakfast, and headed off to a small seaside town called Cobh. It is known for having a Titanic museum as the titanic had stopped there but my friends and I were much more interested in exploring the actual town so after about half an hour in the museum, we went exploring and saw some really pretty sights.

After Cobh we made our way to the Jameson distillery and at this point everyone was exhausted. I had never really had whiskey so I wasn't really that intrigued by the process however the chemistry of it all was pretty interesting to me. For example, whiskey gets dark because of the wood of the barrel it is stored in and the longer it is stored, the more colorful it gets and apparently the better it is. Not sure if I agree with this as they gave us a sample of a 12 year old whiskey (I had mine in ginger ale) and thought it was pretty disgusting. Had one sip and gave it to a friend of mine lol.

As soon as I got back on the bus to come home, for the first time I was actually home sick for Dublin. I missed my apartment, my school, and the city, so I guess I can safely say now I feel comfortable here. I did however start to get pretty homesick for Emory today for the first time as Theta had their bid day and got all the new girls. I hate missing out but then I reminded myself that I am only in Ireland for 5 months so I forgot about it and went and made some dinner with friends.

With respect to any other travel plans, I think 2 of my friends and I are going to try and go to Howth for the day on Saturday. It's a small seaside town about 30 minutes from Dublin by train so I think we're going to get up really early, take an 8 am train and come back around dinner time. And then for our 'spring break' type thing, I think my friends and I have finally come to the consensus of going to BUDAPEST! I am so excited, I have never been to Hungary or any other eastern european country for that matter. We were (and kind of still are) deciding between berlin/austria, budapest, prague, and switzerland, but I'm fairly certain my friends and I are going to book plane tickets soon for budapest (only about 130 euros I think!) So we'll be there from like a Saturday to a Wednesday. The last several places I know I want to go to but not sure when or how are: Kerry (the part of Ireland in movies... big green hills with sheep and cliffs and what not), Galway (another Irish city), Belfast (northern Ireland), and I want to spend a week during my month off exploring the UK more like Edinburgh and St. Andrews in Scotland and more of England and Wales.

That's all for now :)

oh and with respect to pictures, I've attached a few but you can see all of them by clicking this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044620&id=1113600318&l=84bee570d2

let me know if the link doesn't work!

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