It's been quite awhile since my last post! I've had essays due, and last week I had a very special visitor: my girlfriend, Cassidy, came to visit me for her spring break.
Cassidy arrived at Heathrow Airport in London on the morning of Saturday, March 7. I met her at the airport, then we took the Tube into London for a bite to eat before heading back to Liverpool Street Station to catch a 4:55 p.m. train back to Norwich.
Sunday morning we left Norwich for Stansted Airport. We flew to Cork City in County Cork, Ireland, one of Ireland's larger cities located in the southern part of the country. We didn't have time to do much when we arrived (because of ridiculous travel time to do rail work in England), so we found some dinner and walked around the the city a bit before heading back to the hotel and going to bed.
We found ourselves, for the next two days, spending most of our time outside of Cork. Cassidy had expressed the desire to see some of the Irish countryside, rumored to be very green and very beautiful. We had to see it for ourselves. Monday morning, after finding out how to get to Blarney, the home of Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone, we got some coffee and a blueberry muffin and found a place to sit and people-watch in the Cork city center. We watched the Irish people walk by, commented on the hats the old women wore and the fact that we could rarely understand a word that was said around us because of the thick Irish accents. Our favorite was a man who yelled profanities at at a bus that he missed with a daughter who we believed couldn't have been older than two-years-old in his arms. Expletives are given new life when yelled with a rough Irish accent.
We caught an 11:20 a.m. bus, right outside our hotel, to the town of Blarney. The short drive, no more than 20-30 minutes, was stunning. The fabled Irish countryside is just as beautiful as we had imagined.
The Irish countryside from the top of Blarney Castle
The town of Blarney itself is tiny and quaint. The castle is hidden behind trees until you enter the beautiful grounds, which are gorgeous and well-maintained. We explored the "Rock Close", a nice nature walk through some beautiful scenery near the castle.
The castle was incredible. At the base was a cave through which it is believed people would escape from the castle if it came under attack. It is believed that there were tunnels that led as far as Cork City. We explored the dungeons, also at the base of the castle, before making our way into it. It was incredible inside. There were a few rooms which were larger and more open then they would have been when the castle was inhabited as the timer floors were gone. The walls were rough, the floors uneven, and the staircase to the top of the castle was narrower than any I think I have ever been in. It was fun to explore the small rooms throughout the castle, and the view from the top was incredible (see photo above). Also at the top was the Blarney Stone, rumored to give you the gift of eloquence if you kiss it (Winston Churchill has kissed it). Despite stories of drunken Irishmen urinating on the stone in the dead of night for a laugh at the boneheaded tourists who come from all over to kiss the stone, Cassidy and I both kissed it. I have yet to notice a difference. I'll give it some time.
After our castle visit we made our way to a small pub in Blarney where we sat for a lunch and a pint. I tried Murphy's, a local favorite in Cork (according the Lonely Planet's book, "Europe on a Shoestring"). I also had Irish stew (lamb in broth) and vegetables. Cassidy had a veggie burger. We made our way back to Cork on the bus and fell asleep in our room (Cassidy was still jet-lagged, and I was tired from walking around all day!).
Blarney Castle
The next day we went to a bagel shop in Cork that we had noticed the previous day. Cassidy and I are huge bagel fans so we were excited to find somewhere to have a bagel. We then made our way to the bus station to get a bus to Kinsale, a small town about 17km south of Cork City right on the coast of Ireland. I'm not sure where I had heard about it, but it sounded like a nice place to visit so we bought two tickets and boarded the bus.
The bus trip ride was another beautiful one through the Irish countryside, however when we arrived, we had no idea where we were, so we followed the few other passengers down the road from the bus stop and into Kinsale, a town of colorful, two-story buildings on a small inlet from the Celtic Sea. We spent the day wandering the small streets, taking photographs of the picturesque views of the town and the surrounding green landscape. We found a small touristy shop where Cassidy bought an Ireland rugby shirt and we had a brief conversation with the man in the store, an Irishman with a habit of repeating everything he said at least twice. He was very kind and directed us to a pub for a bite to eat and a drink.
Kinsale, Co. Cork, Ireland
We found our way to the pub via a brief walk along the water. I had a sandwich and we each had a drink before heading back towards the center of town where we went to two more pubs (an impromptu, two-person, three-pub pub crawl) before catching the bus back to Cork. Kinsale, however, was exactly the little town Cassidy and I had hoped to visit. It was quaint and afforded a plethora of photo opportunities, both of the small, winding European streets that I have come to love and the green Irish countryside. We didn't visit any sites in Kinsale, did not take a tour of the town, and yet we were both completely satisfied wandering and exploring the town's nooks and crannies. We returned to Cork that evening exhausted but happy after a wonderful day.
Wednesday we took the the morning to explore a bit of Cork - and managed to find its less charming corners. We accidentally ended up in a meat market (whole cows hanging off hooks, butchers sawing at joints of meat: the whole nine yards)...Cassidy is a vegetarian. We wandered over to one of the city's main attractions, St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, one of the smaller, but none less beautiful, cathedrals I've seen. Unfortunately, there was a service being held in the cathedral so we could not enter, but we wandered around it, admiring its beauty from the outside. From the cathedral we wandered some more run-down streets. Stores with boarded windows, but I believe we both found this part of the city to be fascinating. The true character of a city comes out in its most seedy sections (which is why NYC lacks so much of the character it once had, but that's an issue for another time). We returned to Norwich, by plane, that night, exhausted. Cassidy was still slightly jet-lagged, and that much traveling can really wear a person out.
Thursday, we took the day to explore Norwich. We visited Norwich Cathedral, the market, the lanes and Elm Hill, home to my favorite tea shop in the city, the Britons Arms. It was a somewhat relaxing day after the crazy previous three days. That night we joined my flatmates for dinner at a Japanese restaurant for my flatmate Domneek's birthday. It was great fun to have Cassidy meet my flatmates and to spend time with them. I was very please with how well everyone got along!
On Friday morning, Cassidy and I caught a 10 a.m. train into London, both to see the city and to make it easier to get to Heathrow for Cassidy's 11:15 a.m. flight the following day. We arrived in London around noon and were not able to check into our hotel until 2 p.m., but they did let us leave Cassidy's bag behind the desk while we went out to see the sites. We did the big ones: Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and St. Paul's.
As all we had done all week was walk and travel, we were pretty worn out by the end of the week so only had the energy for the big sites. We returned to our hotel to check in and get settled. We capped off the day with a nice dinner in an Italian restaurant and a visit to "Platform 9 3/4", the place from which Harry Potter departs to Hogwarts at Kings Cross Station in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books.
The next day, alas, we took the Tube to Heathrow so Cassidy could catch her flight home. It was a travel- and sight-seeing-packed week, but it was fantastic to see Cassidy and to get to spend some time with her. Ireland was wonderful as I was very pleased to get to see some of the countryside and smaller towns after only seeing Dublin the last time I was there. It was also a nice brief break from university life and Norwich. Altogether: an amazing week.
Here are the pictures from the trip:
Hope all is well with everyone in the many reaches of the world!
