Put a Cork in it.

We got to Cork around noon on Tuesday. Or maybe it was 12:30… “half twelve!” Hahah I crack myself up. Either way, we immediately trekked from the bus station to our next hostel, Aaran House, which is not exactly centrally located, but adorable. It’s run by a woman named Tracy and her dog, Riley. We were in a 4 person room, but no one else ever showed up, so our living situation was pretty ideal. Fortunately or unfortunately, we did not spend much time in Cork at all… and even less time in our hostel.

Aaran House Hostel

Tracy gave us a great recommendation for lunch, and afterwards we hopped on a bus up to Blarney, to do the most touristy thing possible: kiss the stone. We paid for the bus, and we should have known we were going to get charged to climb the castle as well, but for some reason it still came as an angry shock. It was a steep, slippery climb because it rains sometimes in Ireland (just in case ya didn’t know). When we got to the top, we realized that kissing this stupid stone was no easy task. It’s actually the keystone of an arch in the castle, so you have to lay on your back and grab onto a metal bar as some guy dangles you out over the ledge. And then you kiss it. And with all the experience it has, you’d think it would be a little bit better of a kisser. (I’m on a roll with these bad jokes, aren’t I?)

Anyway, the deal with the Blarney stone is that when you kiss it, it’s supposed to make you eloquent. Becky kind of debunked that story, when the first thing she said as we were walking away was “…that sucked.” I had to agree, but I mean come on, you can’t go to Ireland and not kiss the Blarney stone! Maybe I’m just saying this because the whole thing was my idea, but I have no regrets.

Kissing the Blarney Stone... awkward, right?

I don’t even remember what we did for dinner that night, but I’m sure it was really overpriced and not that good. (See now that I’m broke I’m starting to reflect on these things.) We were hiking back to the hostel mumbling something about how we hate Cork, when Becky spontaneously asked these 3 guys if there was anything to do around there on Tuesday nights. They gave us the name of a bar where all the students in the area supposedly go, and marked it on our map for us. That’s when we were like ah-HA! We got showered and changed really quickly, and trekked back into town to see what it was all about.

Our goal for the night was to meet these beautiful Irishmen that the priest had advertised, and have them buy us drinks so we could save money.We met some boys, Tim and Max, they weren’t exactly beautiful and they didn’t buy us drinks, but they certainly were Irish. We couldn’t even understand half of the things Tim said, and Max looked like a leprechaun. But it appeared that this was the best we were going to do. At least we were making friends right? We went to the club upstairs with them, where we discovered that Irish people can’t dance. I felt like everywhere I turned, I was getting whacked with some sort of elbow or something. We made sure to get out of there as soon as possible to catch the earliest bus to Galway. Our hopes were still high.

Becky and Tim