Ireland Day 4

[This is going up a bit later than I had planned. The sun was unexpected so we took advantage before the rain came down again.]

I woke up this morning to the sun pouring through the windows! Great success!

We ran out of the hotel as fast as possible (note: more of a hurried shuffle, but those packs are heavy) in the hopes of making it to the coast quickly before the inevitable "showery"-ness. We hit the beach in about five minutes to a glorious display of sun and shiny sand. Strangely, I was the only person in shorts. Irish people don't believe in them.



The beach was nice but it was in a protected bay so I couldn't see any sort of swell despite strong onshore winds. I bet somewhere up North we'll hit decent waves.

The next stop was Cobh (pronounced "Cove", used to be called Queenstown). It was the embarkation point for most of the Irish heading to the US to escape the potato famine. It was the also the last port of call for the Titanic AND the home port of the Lusitania. Given all that history you'd think this place would really be something, neh? Neh...



Here I am with my luggage ready to emigrate to Boston. Oh wait, I already did that...

And yes, I rep HMV til I die. Full practice gear FTW!

The next significant stop was Blarney Castle. While overrun with tourists, the attention is well deserved. The castle itself is massive walls and parapets with little passageways and rooms that they let you climb over, into, and all around. It's a little kid's dream (or mine...). I even got to crawl into the dungeons, or at least as far as I could without a flashlight. You go up one of those cool spiral staircases all the way to the top to kiss the Blarney stone (it bestows eloquence to whoever kisses it). I had imagined a special stone out in the country somewhere, but it's placed square in the wall of the castle at an odd, particularly low, place requiring you to lay on your back, grab the rails they've bolted on, and be lowered by someone to reach it. You can tell it's the right stone because it's discolored from everybody kissing it. I'm sure I now have traces of every communicable disease in the history of man on my lips. Sorry Kat.



The castle.



Me in the old guard dog kennels. Woof.



My future summer house in Ireland. Where do you summah?

Random Thoughts:
The radio here blows. I don't understand what would make people actively enjoy this kind of entertainment. One of the self-promoting advertisements even replayed a listener's testimonial of how much she enjoyed a good balance of chat and music. Balance? It's all trivial, meaningless chat. They don't shut up. Not only do they not shut up but if/when they finally do shut up they play the shittiest music ever ("umbrella ella ella" or that one Journey song about the uptown girl, really?). Oh, Justin Timberlake is coming to Ireland? Thank you for reminding me 93 million times. They play his songs non-stop on every radio station except the yokel Irish station and classical station. Speaking of the hick station, the DJ has a lisp. I'm not kidding. Is that not the one job you can't have with a lisp? It's not nice traditional Irish music either. It's an inbreeding of bluegrass, country, and Irish to form possibly the worst music I've ever heard. Conclusion, the Irish have no future in radio.