Cork and Kinsale

This past weekend my roommates and I planned a girls weekend to Cork in celebration of H's birthday! Girls only, so we left the boys at home. Now I know I am bisas about Limerick because it's my home, it's where I will be living for a year but Cork--wasn't anything to write home about. In fact, I felt less safe in Cork than I do in Limerick, who used to be known as "knife" city.

 So Cork, is the second largest city in Ireland, next to Dublin being the largest. 119,230 reside in the large city build on a hill. Build on the river Lee the city is divided upon this river. The entire city center is enclosed by the river making it an island. As you cross the Lee on Patrick street you see the large city center shown in the picture to the left. The streets were lined with people, shops and entertainment. Those guys who stand like statues, yep they were there too, making a statement like always and scaring little children if they get too close.

 Now we Limerick is only a little smaller than Cork and yet, I felt crowded and a little overwhelmed, Limerick is such a nice and small street that do not have as many pedestrian streets. However, Cork has an amazing McDonald, I thought I was at Red Robin.

By far one of the coolest parts of Cork was the English Market, which everyone told me to check out because it is a sight too see. It was. Much like Powells book store this farmers market took but almost an entire city block, it is carved out of a large building, with sloping walls, and there are tunnels made by stands piled high with food, fish, chocolate anything you can find.
This was a really cool place, deep within the market where second hand stores with one three story little store with everything you could think of from the 60's. I fell in love with this place, scarves, dresses, gody necklaces, hats and homey decor. This was by far a highlight of the day

So to end our first day in Cork we stopped at St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, which was beautiful. We couldn't go in because they were closing but just by looking at the outside you can see just how grand it really is. It was located right behind Elizabeth Fort which is a huge Gadia station now, it overlooks the city with stone walls and port holes for cannons. The fort was a safe heaven for Elizabeth, the English Queen, if there was a threat to her life she would flee here to be protected by the Irish.

That night we did what we came to Cork to do in the first place. Drink. We found a little pub just down the street from our Hostel and sat back for some old traditional music. Note (The video is a little weird because I was trying not to be a typical American who has to videotape everything) :D

The music was great "craic" (fun) my roommates and I shared pints and watched as some of the locals danced, sung and clapped as the musicians played their tunes. After our night of music and drinking we walked home to the Hostel set on the hill overlooking Cork City Center.

Now, this was my first experience in a Hostel and let's just say it was strange. For some reason I didn't think about the possibility of having male roommates within our room, I just thought the manager wouldn't put three girls in a situation to be alone with three different guys. But, low and behold at 3am three french gents crept quietly into the room, dressed for sleep and went to bed. This meant I didn't get much sleep, I was on guard which is ridiculous because they couldn't even speak English very well. Thank god I had my two french roommates because they could talked to them while I stood and smiled in the background.

The next morning we rose early, dressed and hit the town seeing as many Cathedral's as we could but as we walked around in the rain we realized it was Sunday, which meant all the Cathedral's were full of those seeking prayer from the Catholic church. So while taking pictures of the outsides we fled back to our car so not to disturbed the entire mass. At a loss of what to do now, because of the rain, one of my roommates said "Lets go to the beach."
Being, go with the flow kind of girls, we said "alright!" And so began the best part of the trip. Getting lost on a beautiful peninsula at the very edge of Ireland. With cliffs as magnificent as the Cliffs of Moher but what made them better was that they were all ours. We climbed over a fence into a pasture with cows and climbed down the cliffs to see the other side which was breath taking.

As the Atlantic Ocean splashed against the sharp rocks of the cliffs we stood in utter awe of what we saw and what many people might never see.
The Peninsula was called The Old Head of Kinsale. Kinsale is a tiny little town just outside of Cork, it has a large bay where all the ships stay and habor. Then downt he little 1 car lane road we found this.

 As we turned away from the cliffs we saw a rock structure standing above the grass and fences. It was a little watch tower, set high on the hill with a view of the ocean and then the city below. We hopped another fence and made our way to the tower to take some goofy pictures.

To finish off our trip we drove the coastal road leading all the way back to Cork. Be we couldn't stop without walking on the beach for a sort while. Ireland does not have many beaches most of the Isle is cliff faces and sheer drop-offs. So finding this beach was a treat.

The water was freezing and unlike Oregon beaches barely anyone was out because of the storm that was raging in the north. We didn't stay too long but did enough walking in the sand and collecting a little bit of Irish beach on our shoes.

 To end our little adventure, I did something that was very contorversal topic while I was home. To kiss or not to kiss the Blarney Stone, said to give you the Gift of the Gab. (Or speak like the Irish)
Well I am proud to say that after 67 steps, crawling through tunnels and doing the most uncomforable position of leanign back over a gapping hole in the floor, I kissed the Balreny Stone.

 Haha, it was grand! Not too bad at all, though I refused to look down because we were really really high! But the keep or castle was really beautiful, once at the top it over looked the entire Blarney estate.

Over all this trip was AMAZING! I had a great time with my roommates, they are teaching me bits of French while we traveled and it was great to be one our own discovering beautiful parts of Ireland that aren't the usual tourist attractions. For a total of 40 euros, I had an amazing weekend with the girls, one that will be remember for a long time.