Blarney Stone to London


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Europe » United Kingdom » England » Essex » Stansted Airport
June 2nd 2009
Published: June 9th 2009
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Ahhh people in the room kept coming in one at 1am one at 2am and 2 at 3am. HOw in the hell are these people getting around this time at night. I guess they could be driving but it sucks for ppl in the room for sure. Woke up and this dark guy beside me asks what time is it!!! Shit do u have any soap he says to me. AHhh sure here i let him use the bottle of soap i had. He runs off and says ill be as quick as I can but I wasnt worried my flight wasnt untill 930 I had a whole day to blow. I started packing trying to minimize weight for my discount Ryan air flight. I carry around a hell of a lot of paper I realize. Some things i wanna keep and some its just crap. So I threw out a bunch of stuff i didnt need. I had to figure out this ipod problem as well. So after the guy came back I locked up the bag in the storage area and set off for Blarney Castle and to fix the ipod if I could. Went to the cafe that I talked to everyone in. They didnt fix anything so they pointed me to an apple store just downt the road. Went there and they told me oh well this is a huge copyright issue so we cant touch this at all but its not that hard and im sure you could get it solved for like 7 euro whereas if he did do it, it would take awhile and it would be like 80 euro ha. What a crook. So i went back and they let me download all the software I needed just they didnt have the memory! Fuck i needed 40 gigs and there was no way i was gonna find that in your typical net cafe. Well i think someone up there was looking over me because i gave up without any hope, looked at the ipod to get the time in Canada and there were the songs again. It must have refreshed itself somehow when i opened up all the files or somethin. Dont ask me but i was happy as a pig in shit. Went to the bus but i didnt have any money left. Had to try and take some off the visa but Ireland doesnt do that. So luckily there was a computer in the mall so I put more money in my account. My mom paid a bill for me back home so I thought i had more left ha. Technology can be your best friend some days and some your worst. Got money out and went for the bus. Saw it pass me by as I was walking so I ran my ass after it like a dog after the postman. Caught up to it at a light and the bus driver was nice enough to change a fifty for my 6 euro fare.
Got to Blarney and found the castle no problem. Paid my 8 euro student fare with no card needed. Walked through the massive gardens through tons of paintings pitchforked into the ground on the path up. Another magic day in Ireland. Walked into the dungeon underneath the castle. It was weird cause they were all dead ends. They looked to paths to something but it was super muddy and you had to basically crawl through parts, so I went as far as I could and turned back. Walked around the castle wall and up to the entrance to the castle.
I was staring right at the thing but wouldnt find out untill i climbed the castle steps. Cool castle not very elegant very Irish ha. Narrow little steps up and very small rooms inside other than the massive front entertainment room which had no roof on it. Finally got to the top and walked right by the thing which was tended by two guys one to take the pic and another to hold you while you kissed the thing. It was acutally like a stone which was part of the castle so Im not sure how it all works. Some American guy wanted the stone to come to the states so bad he offered to pay the owners 1 million dollars back in the 1950's wow thats a lot of cash but no. The stone stays in Ireland. Walked right past the stone almost down the steps again cause I never saw it. Then it clued into me I thought they were taking pics of how high it was up but no there was a bloody stone there you kissed. Nothing magestic at all. HA the people before me were all worried about how many people have kissed this thing so they cleaned it off. Ughhhh it left an awful taste on my lips for hours. Got an American fellow to take my pic cause I wasnt paying 10 euro for no stinking picture haha. My pic turned out better than theres even had to do it twice cause the first time the pic never worked for some reason.
Walked through the gardens to see the Blarney house but it closed at 2pm now thats an odd time to shut eh. Took off and waited for the bus to get back to Cork. Great set as you can see in the gift shop kinda a tough shot to get when i was in line tho. Bought Bern a postcard i have to send to the boys back home. Got myself a snack at the shop by the stop. MMMM so much for healthyness I got myself some Bacon flavoured Crisps which were awful but I had a nice stout (Murphys). Got the bus and this little kid screamed the whole way to Cork. Oh well went up to grab my bag. Sat on the net for another longwhile. Went down to the same place where they had the kebab deal nice fellow. I asked for it spicy this time and it sure as hell wasnt. Quite the uni brow on him as well.
Phoned up Sare at work which totally shocked her. It was great but she sounded really different. I almost got a tear talking to her. Im a total wuss sometimes when I think of home. haha. I had a brain wave thinking about the flight cause I was super nervous with all the nightmare stories of Ryan Air. I didnt have a barcode on the page. It comes with this odd barcode thing on the sheet but for some reason it printed jpeg image. So i had a mad scramble to print it off cause my bus came in 5 mins. Luckily that move saved my ass later on that night.
Caught the bus and there was another couple on who were chatting to the driver the whole way. Got to the airport checked the bag and I was golden. Didnt have to be at the gate for another 1 and 40 mins so I went outside and tanned on the hill in front.
After I went to go through customs and they asked me where my barcode was because just to be smart I used the other page and had no problems checking in. Now i said oh ok sure and pulled out the other damn page. Im smarter than i look i guess. Got through no worries and went to fill up the camel back for the plane. Got on the plane by access through the runway . Kinda cool never done that before but Cork was a smaller airport.
The plane was cool it was a Boeing 737 typical but it was all yellow and there was adds that you could chat on your mobile on the plane. Never seen that ever. Sat in the middle seat and another fellow sat beside me. It wasnt untill the end of the flight which was only an hour to London that I started talking to him. I asked him if there was a nearby town that he could recommend to stay in. He says to me what you need a couch tonight!!! And I was like well yah if tahts possible haha. He says you know you could of just asked. HA not really that up front. So on the way out we conjured up our plan to meet out front because i had to grab my bag and he had to get his vehicle parked aways away. Breezed right through customs no one even talked to me at all. Turns out I walked one gate too far and I was screwed couldnt go back through there. NO BAG!!! ahhhh uh oh
I was supposed to meet John in 25 mins and I saw him coming through out to get his car. SO the lady said well you have to go to this gate and call the airline to escort you back to the bag pickup. They were not too happy with me Ryan Air wasnt and they wanted to know why the hell i forgot my bag. HA so i waited for a good 10 mins and luckily someone came to get me and another guy waiting. Wow i was lucky i thought it would take 2 hrs cause the guys says alright we will come get you when we have time. So I got through the scanners again and back into the bag area no problems. My bag was right in front as I came out spinning around on the conveyer. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Lucky so then I went out to find John and hope I wasnt too late. I went where he said to go and this lady beside me was on the phone and was told that they closed the entrance for cars now so you have to go to this other area. So she was nice enough to show me where to go. I just hope John would be able to get this info as well. So I waited for 10 more mins and he never turned up so I got nervous and walked back up to the other entrance. No one so I went back down and on the way helped these two ladies carrying packaged bikes with a lot of trouble.
JOhn turned up about 8 mins after that so I was golden. We had a great chat on the way back in his Land Rover. Wicked nice guy and he said that I looked like a real genuine person which was a huge compliment. He told me about his childhood and his work and it was like we were good buddies in no time. What a nice guy just having a total stranger in his house. Got to his place in like 40 mins and he told me about these boxes they have on the highways that photo you speeding if your doing like 5mph over and send you a bill in the mail, SHIT glad we dont have those yet. His wife was a little surprised to say the least. I would be too if that was me. Anyways he sat me down got me a drink offered the telly or the computer and I accepted both! Watched some blues brothers and checked my email. Tells me theres tons of food in the fridge dont be shy but i was still full from my kebab to be honest. He was impressed i had my own sheets and everything. Thanks again Raj wicked sleep set. One thing that caught me off guard was that he went off to bed and I was getting ready and I guess he was thinking to himself about this situ. COmes downstairs and asks to see my passport. I totally thought he was kidding but took it serious and showed him it in a hurry. I told him my name and everything so he just wanted to double check. Fair enough right I would be doing the same thing for sure. Did a bit more surfing then went off to bed. What a crazy crazy day this was, I pretty much laughed myself to sleep thinking about how lucky i was!





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stairs upstairs up
stairs up

very narrow
main dining hall roof missing!main dining hall roof missing!
main dining hall roof missing!

thank god it was a beauty day


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