Cork Life

---

---

Luck of The Irish
As you all know we have been living in the land of little green men. We are on to our 11th month living in Cork City come February. Moving here last April, Sam and I set ourselves up to just work hard, play little and save for bigger and better travels in April 07.

We set ourself up in a little one bed unit smack in the centre of Cork city. I wouldn't call it the Ritz but it did us alright. The walls are paper thin, and we're just around the corner from the "4 faced liar" (a clock tower so called because each face tells a different time) so we're woken up on the hour, every hour, by the bells, and also the 15 polish people in the one-bed flat above us! However, it did us well for time we were here.

It wasn't all hard work and no play in the summer of 06, apparently we had the best summer season Cork has seen in years. There's a few beaches a short bus ride from the city, so on the sunny days we headed down to a cute little town called Kinsale, and over to a place
called Garrattstown beach. It's hardly Baywatch but it's better than lying in a park half-naked. It was warm enough to swim in the water as well... Ok.... only for a few minutes at a time.

My mum came over after we got back from Valencia (see next entry), we hired a car ( I got to drive on the Irish roads, lucky me) and got out and about the Emerald Isle, Limerick, Galway where we stayed for 4 days and tripped over to Dublin to do the usual Guiness factory tour and see a bit of the city.
We took a trip out to the Aran Islands to the largest of the three called Inis mor, Gaelic is still spoken there and its the only island in the world with an inland lighthouse!!.....Irish!!
Visiting the fort Dún Aenghus which has stood there for 20 centuries, the most impressive cliffs we've seen to date.



We toured Blarney Castle home of the Blarney Stone, Sam kissed it but I heard the locals pee on it so gave it a miss!! Killarney National Park was also worth a visit too, home to many Angus cattle and impressive trails that lead to waterfalls, Its Ireland at its best - so much green!!

Here's a few facts about Ireland that you may want to know
It's the second wealthiest nation netting just over 30,000 millionaires.

It's the worlds largest exporter of computer software.
There are no snakes in Ireland (other than in pet shops).
Ireland has the fastest growing suicide rate in the world.
There are 8 times more people that speak Polish in Ireland than speak Gaelic.
The average Irishman spends £3500 on alcohol per year.
20 million cigarettes are smoked every day. With a population of 4 million, that's 5 fags per person per day. Smoketastic!
4 million pints of tea are drunk every day in Ireland.
All windmills in Ireland turn clockwise, & everywhere else in the world they turn anti-clockwise.
Ireland has the worst ATM queues. If there's not a queue, don't bother going to it, as it's bound to be out of order!

We've also compiled a short dictionary so if you ever travel to Ireland, you'll find the Irish dialect a little easier to understand.
*TANKS A MILLION - Thank you.

*COME HERE THEN SO - Excuse me, may I have your attention.
*UP YA BOYO - Used to show appreciation to musicians if a song was played well.
*YOUR MAN - That person.
*AFTER - No real meaning, just used to fill out a sentence I think.
*YOKE - An unnamed thing.
To put the last three in context - "YOUR MAN was AFTER talking about that YOKE the other day".
*GREAT ALTOGETHER - I'm fine, thank you.
*GRAND - Great.
*TURTY TREE - Thirty three
*TURD - Third
And so on....

---