The Cold,Cold Rain in Cork

Well I figure if I stop now I'll never get everything in before I leave for the Open on Friday and the pileup would make me anxious. (I know... surprise surprise the thing that was supposed to relieve my anxiety is causing it. Ain't that the way it always ends?) But I thought I would take a break, catch my breath, and let you get a snack or go to the bathroom or something before I continue. Consider this a commercial break in my life....

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

So Saturday morning after my parents left I got up early (try 6:30 early) to catch the train to Cork.  Kaitie wanted to go for her birthday so I promised to tag along and somehow we conned Cory and William into going with us.  So we caught a taxi and off we went to Dublin-Heuston. 

I love riding the train.  To book your trip you basically say "I want to take the train".  Though you book your ticket for a certain time, the stations aren't really sticklers about the time you actually choose to depart and you can pretty much get on any train you want no matter what your ticket says.  Its a lot less scary than flying (especially here after all the problems with AirFrance) and cheaper too. I would like to dub this particular train ride "controversial" not so much because we had any problems but because we literally talked about every topic you could think of that could possibly instigate a fight.  Those of you that know me know that this sort of bantering usually makes me uncomfortable because I don't like confrontation per say and it makes me nervous when people start yelling (or violently whispering) in public places. We talked about politics, foreign policy, the economy, and what we recommend that our obviously inadequate government due to right these issues.  Apparently their first step should be to talk to us since we know everything. Well, they should talk to everyone else that is, since I am shamefully uninterested (and therefore sadly uninformed) about all of the above a basically stuck to playing the game show host and took to yelling out "John McCain. Your Thoughts? GO." until everyone had pretty much talked themselves out and we moved on to significantly more entertaining topics like religion and race. Sounds horrible I know, and even though it ended with William whispering "I really want Cory to just come out and fight me." I actually enjoyed hearing everyone else's opinions and learning a little something as well.

Three hours later we arrived in the rain with no directions. It was only softly...but consistently...misting at the time so after we found our hostel we decided to walk around the city.  We stopped for lunch at a little place down the street and spread out all our tourist pamphlets to decide what to do. An hour and a half later, having scrapped the Ring of Kerry due to the torrential downpour that now covered all of Cork, we made the bright decision to just "see where the day took us." It took us to the beginnings of a flash flood.  The rain wouldn't let up for a minute and eventually we just gave into it and ran around soaking wet.  Though I can't exactly tell you what we did all day, we had a lot of fun.

After consulting the tourist office, and deciding against their recommendation to see the play Big Maggie, we ran back to our hotel to pull ourselves together before dinner. William had forgotten his jacket and an umbrella and was drenched from head to foot.  Kaitie and I's jeans were leaking water through the rolled up cuffs. In short, we were a hot mess.  We sent the boys home and ran to Penny's to fid pants for us and a coat for William.  I got a T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants for under 10 euros (Turns out I like to bargain shop when I have too), Kaitie got the same pair of sweats and we found William a cheap jacket.  Mission accomplished.  We ran back to the hostel dreaming about the dryer the hostels ad had promised.

As it turns out the hostel was doing laundry all day and had loads of sheets in the dryers so we couldn't dry our jeans.  I very literally just checked them and they are still wet.  Needless to say we didn't make it to anywhere fancy in Cork seeing as Kaitie and I were stuck running around in 5 euro sweats for the rest of the weekend.  Our hostel was relatively nice (meaning it had a private bathroom and our bed had sheets) and it had a bar in the basement. Good enough for us at least.  We attempted to dry ourselves off and we all took a little bit of a nap before dinner.  We got up and found this really great little burger place.  My burger even had guacamole on it (Oh how I desperately miss Mexican food.) and we sat and had appetizers and drinks and talked for a couple hours. Then we made our way over to a comedy club we had seen earlier and watched these 2 stand up acts.  They were hilarious...granted I might be a little biased because I love all stand up...but they really were great and the manager even let us in on some special student price. 

Sunday we got up early (again 6:30 early. What's a girl gotta do to sleep in around here? Jeez.) and caught the bus to Blarney.  It's a half an hour ride but we were the first ones of the day to kiss the stone.  We walked all around the Castle and the grounds and when the bottom 3 inches of my sweatpants became unbearably dirty I simply just cut them off.  Now I have new capris. 

We did a little shopping in town, ate lunch, and caught the bus back to Cork.  We got to the train station early and jumped on the train leaving 2 hours before our scheduled tickets.  No great conversation this time...we slept all the way home.  Now my clothes smell like feet from being in my backpack with my wet towel, my jeans are dirty, I'm exhausted, and my rooms a disaster since I'm in the middle of trying to unpack, but it was worth it.  I can't really adequately explain to ya'll why it was so fun...but rain and all we had a blast.  Its crazy to think I didn't know these people a couple of months ago...and in 2 weeks they'll all be gone.  

But we still have so much more to go really...UP NEXT: Belfast, the British Open, Beth and the BEACH!!!! 

T-minus 17 days and counting until Home. Mark your calenders!

.....E