I left Galway pretty early because I had just one day to explore Cork, since I had an early flight to Scotland the next day. I met a Swedish woman in the hostel who mentioned something called The Burren, so I thought I'd check it out. I wasn't very interested at first because I thought she said "the barn", which didn't sound worth driving out to see. But when she showed me the brochure, I found that it was a National Park with limestone formations.
For the most part, I was good at resisting taking pictures of the beautiful landscape, but when I was driving from Galway to Cork, I noticed there were no other cars around me, so I took a few shots. I can plead that it's all for the blog, right?
As you can see, I came across a lot of narrow one-way roads. At one point, I could see something on the road, but was nervous because I couldn't tell if it was in front of me or coming towards me. It ended up being in front of me and I was probably way more excited than I should have been to see a herd of cows. (Definitely a city person.) I wish it was sheep instead of cows, as it would have been more Irish. But it was cool - the dog kept herding the cows and the farmer was just walking alongside them. When he got them inside his land, he waved and smiled as I drove by. So friendly!
In my everyday life, I don't come into regular contact with livestock. So it's a little exciting when I even see them. But when I get up close and personal with livestock, I'm pretty thrilled! It amused me when some of the animals would turn and look at me and we'd have a staring contest.
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| I pretty much took this picture for my mom. She likes cow stuff for me since I was born in the year of the ox. |
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| The look on this cow's face made me laugh. |
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| When I first saw this horse, I was startled, because it reminded me of a KKK horse. But I was amused once I realized it was a rain jacket. I don't get why the other horse doesn't have one.. kinda sad! |
After coming down from the excitement of .. seeing animals.. (I realize how ridiculous this sounds as I type it), I found my way to the national park. I was confused at first, since there wasn't a a parking lot, the gate to enter was really narrow, and there was a car parked on the side. The only place to really park was the road, so I sat there for a while and I realized the park ranger's car was in front of me. I asked them what time it opened and they told me it was already open (oops). I just didn't see the entrance walkway, because it couldn't have been more than 3 feet wide. I didn't stay too long, since it was raining and I didn't feel like hiking in my rain boots. I was afraid I was going to eat it, which I often do, since I'm clumsy. (I didn't - yay!)
After that, I made it to my destination for the day, the Blarney Castle. The castle was beautiful, but it was raining so hard, so I didn't take the time to explore everything. Even though I had a rain jacket and an umbrella, it was so windy that my umbrella was pretty useless, since the wind kept inverting it.
Although kissing the blarney stone is something a lot of people do, I already decided that I wasn't going to. I've heard so much about how dirty it is - so many people kiss it and it's often been said that, after hours, people pee on it. The fact that it was pouring and have to be held upside down to kiss the stone only cemented my decision to definitely not kiss it. The stone is supposed to give you the gift of gab, and if you know me, you would know that I definitely don't need it.
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| I don't know why the trees are wearing sweaters. Although it looks like these are streamers around the tree, they're actually knit. |
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| Where this guy is standing is a cave I went to. I think it's actually a dungeon. |
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| I can be slightly claustrophobic, so it was slightly terrifying being in this really narrow space. Only one person could go in at a time. |
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| The top of the cave/dungeon. |
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| Inside the castle. |
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| From the castle window |
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| The silver box is the camera that takes the picture of kissing the blarney stone. One guy holds people upside down and the other takes the picture. I overheard people in front of me saying the guys were told that if they didn't come in that day, then they didn't have a job. This lady in front of me said that she couldn't wait to get the hell out of there and I wanted to chime in and say, "preach sister." |
It was about an hour drive until I made it from Blarney to Cork. There were a couple things I wanted to see there, like the butter museum (it sounds weird, which I love!), but the pouring rain made it really hard to do anything. My experience in Cork was similar to Galway - these smaller cities had little to do and definitely paled in comparison to Dublin. My hostelmate was so sweet and lent me a stamp - she was an 18-year old from Switzerland who had just graduated from high school and was taking a gap year. I haven't met any Swiss people in my travels before, so it was fascinating to talk to her. Apparently, the gap year, which is increasing in popularity in the US (Malia Obama is taking one) is very common in Switzerland. Anyway, I didn't do much in Cork because I had to sleep early for my flight to Edinburgh the next day. So here are the pictures, and end of post.
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| Your Irish slang lesson for the day. |
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