Blogs from County Cork, Ireland, Europe - page 15

xxx... read more

at least until I have the time to go somewhere cool or I get so stressed and exhausted that I decide to make time. My birthday is in a few weeks, and it happens to be the day before a major assignment is due, which is the day before a weekend. So I may celebrate by running off somewhere, maybe wandering around some moors and resisting the urge to yell quotes from "The Secret Garden" . We'll see. An amusing thing about living in a foreign English-speaking country (I can think of at least four, probably more, readers who can relate to this) is seeing how long it takes your accent to register with new people. Recently I went to an Occupational Health Clinic to speak to a nurse about the fact that I haven't had ... read more

A pint of Guinness at Kelly’s Bar in the Irish town of Cobh – life doesn’t get much better than this! Docking at Cobh at 4pm today felt like we’d somehow been catapulted to celebrity status, which is in stark contrast to yesterday when little more than a handful of people, including media crews, farewelled the Titanic Memorial Cruise from Southampton. An estimated 30,000 people and a brass band had waited more than six hours at the shipping terminal and terraced streets behind to greet us. The disappointment of having the first of our shore tours – Blarney Castle & Cork City – cancelled due to late arrivals at Southampton and strong head-winds enroute to Ireland was soon forgotten as we disembarked and met the people of Cobh. What an amazing turn-out! The Titanic disaster’s 100th ... read more

When I was a kid, I read about Blarney Castle and its famous Blarney Stone in an "around the world" type book for children. All I really remembered was the phrase "full of Blarney" and a picture of a person being dangled by the ankles to kiss a stone on the side of a Castle. Even so, the prospect of visiting a place I had read about as a kid was very exciting. If nothing else, the town of Blarney is fully aware of the number of tourists, especially American tourists, that it gets. Everything is overpriced and signposted, the student discounts are tiny and in order to leave the castle grounds, you have to walk through a gift shop. They also have a professional photographer at the top of the castle so they can sell ... read more

It was such a beautiful day in Cork so Corey and I thought we should wander Cork a little bit more. We made our way past the Heineken Brewery in Cork and up to Shandon, Which was just across the River Lee. We walked down the main street and up small alleys following the Shandon Tower in the distance, until we reached the bottom of Shandon Tower. We payed our 2 Euro to the lady at the front door, who also gave us ear muffs for when we were up beside the bells. We climbed about halfway up when we reached the floor, where we could actually ring the bells of Shandon Tower. It was so much fun, pulling the numbered chords to create some amazing bell sounds. We followed directions in a book to play ... read more