Kiss and Tell

I have now kissed the Blarney Stone. It was wet and cold (I think that part is staged.)


This morning I woke up earlier and headed down to the 8.45 bus to Blarney. The guy scammed me off of my student discount, but what's new? I headed to the Blarney Castle to see all of the wonderful sites there, and of course to kiss the stone. I laid a big fat slurpy one one that sucker. The Lake walk was closed, so I milled around some shops looking for Christmas presents until the 12:10 bus.
I decided to eat at the Quay Co-op, a vegan restaurant that reminded me of Stone Soup, for lunch. I had a great bean creole lunch, and I obviously ate too much. I finally found some Chai tea, so I bought that, organic fairtrade coffee, and a shopping bag. I headed back to the hostel in Cork to set my stuff down, and then headed back to the bus station. then i realized i had spent my bus money on lunch and the goods, so i had to run (literally) to the bank to get some cash. i passed a whole bunch of great shops along the way, and committed them to memory. that will be what i do tomorrow.


I hopped the bus out to Kinsale, what a great quaint ocean town. If the weather had been better today, it would have convinced me to move there forever. I milled around for about an hour and a half - looking at all of the 12C cathedrales, buying my grandma some Christmas marmalade and looking in cute shops. then i took the 2km walk out to Charles Fort - which is a rare and very old fortress built on the sea (its star shaped). I took a moment to write a bit in my journal (even though the air was so damp that my pen would hardly write) and watched the seals play in the ocean. There were awesome restaurants there. I mean really great - but I didn't eat at any of them. I am saving my money for Cafe Paradiso tomorrow. I thought I could get away with ordering dessert and a coffee somewhere - but there were so many options i couldnt make my mind up. So instead of eating anything at a restaurant (in which some were completely EMPTY because its off-season) i went to the supervalu and bought a cheap pint of ice cream for one euro. and ate the whole fucking thing.
now i am exhausted from touring and just want to go to bed. I took a sauna for about 20 minutes before i got on the computer and feel pretty relaxed and too full.


early for bed. and early for tomorrow. I'm heading out to the English Market in the AM to get some stuff for gifts for my family, touring the City Gaol, hopefully eating at the expensive vegan cafe, shopping and seeing some other Cork city sights before heading back to Limerick to study and work my ass off before my hellish Wednesday begins.