Life Across The Pond: Irish I Were Drunk-er

Last weekend was the first weekend of Spring Break. On Thursday, I left for Cork, Ireland with my friends Becca, Mary, and Jackie. We flew into Shannon (no, not my sister, but the city...) and took a bus down to Cork. It was at this point that I realized my camera was almost dead and I didn't bring my changer. Damn. On the bright side, our hostel was so cute, and right across the street from the train station which was nice. That night, we walked around downtown Cork which was nice, except everything closed so early!! (except for the pubs/bars which was most important). We went to a delicious burger place for dinner. In London, they simply don't know how to cook their meat, it's always so dry. It makes me miss Plan B but Ireland did a decent job. Then we went to a pub that consisted of one older couple in the back, a group of Asians, and your typical drunk, old Irishman at the bar. His words sounded like gibberish as he insisted we were from Knightsbridge...

That night we got a good nights rest and woke up bright and early for our Paddywagon Tour at 8am Friday morning. C'mon, who could turn down a tour that was called a paddywagon!? It started just a short walking distance away from our hostel and took us to Limerick where we got to see King John's Castle, the Cliffs of Moher with O'Brien's Tower, Galway Bay, Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, Bunratty Castle and Durty Nelly's. And of course in between we got to see the picturesque, little Irish villages which were so cute! Although I don't think I would be able to get any pictures on the way even if I had a charged battery since our insane bus driver was going SO fast down the little windy roads. Yikes!

The Cliffs of Moher were absolutely beautiful. We caught them on the most fantastic day with the sky blue and the sun shining. Plus, I was still able to get some amazing pictures despite the little battery I had. The bus stopped for about an hour and a half until we had to leave for our next stop, but I could have easily spent all day there! The views were absolutely breathtaking. We stopped at a pub for lunch after that in Doolin which was nice. The food was set up cafeteria style oddly enough, but it was quite delicious.

Our next stop was Galway Bay. On the way there, the road was so narrow and close to the water that if you looked out the window it was as if you were driving on the water! It was gorgeous though. We were able to get off, and walk along the rock which was amazing. I wish you all were there to witness it with me!

Then we got back on the bus though and all this one girl wanted to listen to was traditional Irish music, that the driver said he didn't have besides the slow classical, Gaelic stuff. So then she kept asking to play Enya. God help me...oy

Now on our way to the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. I had never heard of it, but it was pretty cool. It kind of reminded me of Stonehenge with the slab-like stones on top of each other.

Durty Nelly's was the next pub we stopped at, just in case we wanted a drink, but we were too tired...sadly. It was a cool pub though, with fireman and police badges covering the walls. It was right next to Bunratty Castle where you could go in for a Medieval dinner, but we only had 20 minutes so we had to skip out on that one.

All in all, the tour was pretty good. I just wish we had more time to spend in Ireland to truly enjoy its beauty and culture. But, then again, there's always next time!!

I got a tattoo that night though! Of a celtic knot on my left hip. I am so happy with it! And then I casually met up with the others at dinner at a Johnny Rockets type place, but it was called Eddie Rockets, nice. We went to a pub after that and then had another early night so we could wake up to take the train early to Dublin. Again, I wish we had more time there. It was such a cute city. A bit bigger than Cork which was nice, since I'm now used to the city life. We got a litttttlee lost getting to where we needed to go, but we ended up figuring it out like always :-)

This is where we did our souvenir shopping and went to the Guinness Factory. Still not a fan of Guinness but I drank most of the free pint anyways...And at that point it was time to head to the airport to go back to London. I'm disappointed that we only had Thurs-Sat in Ireland. With all the extra travel time you need to get from one site to the next, you would need at least a week to fully enjoy it. I DEFINITELY plan on going back at some point in my life. So let me know who wants to join!!