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Published: September 28th 2006
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I was hoping to stay in Dublin for another couple days to try and see the city since I was feeling better, but some golf thing had filled up all the beds (hostels included) in town. So, I decided to go to Cork pretty much on a whim. The bus ride was pretty easy, and the highlight was beating the "express" bus that left 10 minutes before ours. Our driver was hauling some serious ass on the motorway. We must have passed the express bus four or five times. Each time we got off the highway to make a stop, we'd get back on and catch up to it and then blow by. It was pretty funny, because there had been a mad scramble to get on that bus in the beginning, and it was completely full while ours only had 15 people or so.
We got to Cork in one piece and I got dropped off pretty much in the center of town. Dublin is the largest city in Ireland by a large margin -- Cork feels tiny in comparison, but it's also a lot more approachable. I ended up staying at one of the two large hostels, called
Kinlay House. The hostel itself was nice enough, especially considering the size, but I was not too pleased with my roommates.
I've been traveling for three weeks now, and I'm starting to get into a routine at the hostels, but the people staying at this place just completely threw me off. First, there was the girl who went to bed at 8pm and got up before sunrise. Although I guess I missed the worst of it with her. Apparently, the morning before I got there, she used the blow dryer for 10 minutes at 6 am. That's just wrong in a dorm with 9 other people. Earplugs or not, you can't sleep through a blow dryer in the room. She wasn't the worst though. We had some sort of perv in the room. He got up a little bit after her, and stood around the room stark naked for nearly an hour. It was dark in the room and I never really saw that he was naked, but the two or three times I woke up and saw him, he didn't seem to have much on. I had no idea he was standing around for an hour though. I
thought it was maybe 10 minutes. Turns out just about everyone noticed him and they confirmed it was at least an hour and he was naked. What the hell was he doing? I guess you get all types in these dorms, but still. Besides these two stand-outs, there were plenty of other examples of more typical bad roommate behavior. Unpacking at 3 in the morning. Plastic bag rustling (the worst). Having a conversation at 6 am...etc. I guess you have to expect some of that at 15 euro a night, but still it seems like some people just never learned basic manners. So, the hostel was nice, but most of the people were shit. It was probably just bad luck. I haven't had any other experiences like this so far. Oh well.
I had fast food twice in Cork. I must have just been in the mood for some comfort food, because I don't normally eat at McDonalds or BK and I ate at both in Cork. It's funny how small some portions are here. For instance, when you order the Whopper meal at BK you get a normal whopper (it hit the spot, too), but they give you
a kiddie drink and fries. Come on, they're tiny. It makes no sense to me. I mean you're serving a full sized Whopper, you might as well get the rest right.
I did end up going out one night with a German girl from the hostel and her (guy) friend from the english school they're both attending. We went to a pub across the street from the Beamish brewery, and it was definitely a locals place, which was cool. We'd been in the pub for five minutes when this guy comes up to Eric and starts saying something absolutely incomprehensible (the accent gets thicker as you go west). It sounded almost like he was trying to pick a fight, but he kept repeating it. Eventually I picked out that he was asking Eric if he was the "DS". So, I ask the guy what the DS is and he replies it's the drug squad. It's at this point I noticed the gigantic marijuana leaf on his t-shirt (bringing back memories from Vegas) and I had to keep myself from laughing out loud. For some reason this guy was completely convinced that Eric was a narc. He finally wandered off though (probably to get more beer) and we all had a good laugh. The rest of the evening was pretty chilled out -- it turns out Eric was a really cool guy. After the pub Eric insisted that we get food, and he was set on BK, so that made the second time I had fast food in Cork. I hope this doesn't turn into a trend.
Stay tuned for Killarney...
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Veena
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Careful dude
ur comments on your roommates almost scared me..Be careful and watch out for perv's.. So any luck on leaving marks..