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Published: April 15th 2009
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We did more today than most people do in a week of travel. We’re actually writing this blog later and just posting now, because we were so exhausted that we couldn’t write a word last night, except for a brief “hi” to our family and boyfriends. But… it’s good to be busy, and especially with a quick trip and so much to see.
We woke up yesterday morning with anticipation that had been built up for 10 years. We were going to the farm. Both of us remember when Derry would talk about the farm when he coached Erica. He used to compare the mud to “slurry,” telling Erica that she was lucky to be diving (as a soccer goalkeeper) in mud and not “slurry.” We had no concept of what this “slurry” he spoke of was, even when he explained to us what it was. For those of you who don’t have a moment to Wikipedia, slurry is a mixture of cow crap and water. It looks like mud, and Derry’s entire farm is covered in it. Today was the day - we were going to shovel it, prance in it, play with the animals in it and drive
the tractor in it.
Ruth made us a hearty breakfast of sausage, rashers, beans and toast (minus the bread pudding!) and we drove about 15 minutes up the road to where Derry grew up in Balihoolihan, Cork. We met his mother and saw the house he grew up in, and then eagerly put on our overalls and Wellingtons. As you can see from the photos, we got a full tour of the grounds, made some friends with Charlie the bull, Benjamin the dog and the goats. We then scraped the crap out from under the cows with some trenching tools and saw the tub where there was 250K gallons of cow crap, which was absolutely disgusting. We drove the tractor, which they call a “Digger” (remember this reference for later on). The whole thing was a lot of fun, and the best experience that we (well, not me anyway), will never do ever again. Derry’s mom Nora made us another breakfast of fried rashers, and we sat down and ate while hearing stories about Derry growing up.
We then took off to the “Mart,” which is basically an auction house for cows and goats. The animals are paraded
around while farmers bid on them, with an auctioneer yelling out the numbers that they are going for. Erica enjoyed this and said she could sit in the wooden hay stacked bleachers and watch all day.
After that, we took off to do one of the touristy things in Ireland - kiss the Blarney Stone. I didn’t really know what to expect, but we pretty much climbed up Blarney Castle and at the very top there was an area set up for you to lie down upside down and kiss the stone. Kissing it is supposed to bring you good luck, so both Erica and I made out with it. 😉
We then went to Cork City where we were going to tour around a bit, and drove past a Fire Station. Being that our Dad is a fireman, we only felt it necessary to go check it out and see if these firemen had been apprised of Dave Holland’s solar paneling over at Station 52 in San Rafael, CA. We were immediately greeted by a few fireman and told them where we were from. We proudly claimed, “Our Dad put solar panels on the very first fire
truck in America. They were not aware. They told us that none of them were paramedics, only basic fireman. Their trucks are a lot bigger, but according to them “too big,” as the roads in Cork are very narrow. Fireman Will then ran into the station and came back out with two calendars - that’s right ladies, fireman calendars. It was a mixture of shirtless O’Dwyers, O’Connells, O’ Malleys, O’ Rourkes…and any other Irish last name you can think of. We made Will sign ours, as he was Mr. February. He gracious wrote “To Andrea, and Erica. Love, Will.” As we were talking to them, their alarm went off and we actually got to see them get their gear on and go on a call. We saw 3 of them get on the truck…then 4…then 5….then 6…..then 7. Unlike Dad’s fire station, this engine had 7 guys on it per shift because there were only two stations in all of Cork City. Also, they do not do overnight shifts. They are basically on during the day, or during the night (9am - 6pm or 6pm - 9am). We told them that our dad is on a 2x4 schedule, where he
is on 48 hours and off 4 days, and they thought that was just “mad.”
Moving into Cork City, we visited the English Market, which in America is known as the Farmer’s Market. The most exciting event of the day happened here: Erica got a marriage proposal, a house and a job, all in 2 minutes! She was simply buying an apple from the local grocer, when he grabbed her hand and said, “If you move here and become my wife, I will provide you a home and you can work here!” What a deal, right? Then, he looked at her Claddagh ring and saw that she was already spoken for, by a gentleman back in the states. I was hungry and wandering around, when I came upon sausage heaven. Take a look at the photo - sausages of every kind imaginable. I chose the Mediterranean spice one and had a hot dog. Also, we went into a public bathroom that we had to pay 20 cents to get in, and then it had black lights… weird.
After the market and wandering around the town a bit, we took off to Kinsale. On the way, we stopped by
the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) field. This is equivalent to where the SF Giants would play back home. We walked down through the bleachers and got as close to the field as we could. Erica was in heaven just looking at the “pitch,” wanting to throw on some cleats and do a few dives in the goal. On our way out we ran into Donnicha, our friend from a few nights earlier who we met in the bar in Killarney. Donnicha plays GAA Football, and we were unaware of “what a big deal” he was when we initially met him. For comparison again, he would be like the “Timmy Lincicum (SF Giants)” of GAA football. Derry hadn’t even met him and was excited to talk to him, via our newly formed relationship. That’s definitely a cool thing about the professional athletes here - they are very down to earth and also have day jobs. They will take time out of their day to talk to us “minions.” Or again, maybe it was my leopard purse.
After Derry gave us both a change to drive, (on the left side of the road, on the right side of the car. It
was completely bizarre and took a bit to get used to), we made it down to Kinsale, which reminded me of Santa Barbara. It had a harbor with tons of boats, a great few, and was full of restaurants and little shops. We stopped into “The Fishy Fishy Café” restaurant and split an order of authentic Fish ‘n’ Chips, which were very good.
By the time we got home it was almost 11pm, and our last night in Cork with Derry and Ruth. We were taking off to Galway in the morning for two days. We had such a nice time staying with them. They were beyond accommodating and it was a great experience seeing how they lived.
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