Pop the Cork Already!

Cork was an absolutely and utterly destructive weekend that I’m dubbing The Demolition Experience… I can’t wait to visit Eoin, Rick, and Tim again! I love the CouchSurfing network. I wouldn’t have nearly the amount of fun without it. It’s actually quite funny because they only signed up to promote their new business venture and I guess CS administrators sent them a notice that it was unacceptable. I didn’t know this when they accepted my request, but when I arrived they told me they had no intention of ever hosting anyone (I’m positive they were half kidding…). They saw my profile and I guess I’m that cool. We’ll see if they continue after a demolition derby weekend though.

City Centre

When I arrived in Cork, I made my way to their flat without any problems and… BAM… Rick walks out the front door as I approach. Timing couldn’t be better. Rick bailed to meet a chick he had never met before, good story behind that. Tim, Eoin, and I chat for a bit and then headed to the shops so they could scratch Mother’s Day off the to-do list. Conversation was immediately easy and fluid between all of us. Once Rick came home, the three of us sat around and shot the shit before the guys threw together some stir fry for dinner… delicious! We settled over some beers and then fired it up with shots before heading into town for a birthday party. Lots of drinking, conversation, and even a bit of dancing took place before heading back to the flat around 2 for an after party consisting of tea for some and vodka punch for the more adventurous. Well, not too long after that, we drank all the vodka. What’s that you say, “We have Jaeger! “ Now we’re out of Jaeger? I suppose it’s time to tap into the two buck chuck wine. We’ve now entered prohibition… I’m fairly certain I recall the time when I finally crashed being about 5:30a. I know this because at 4am everyone left and Rick performed a strip tease in the middle of the flat for Eoin and me, the lucky ones, to see him shake around his hairy ass. That’s when Tim (Who was sleeping at this point) came alive and jumped into the living room. Apparently, Rick decided to use Tim’s bed instead of his own to cap off his night.  Tim being the nice guy that he is felt obliged to leave the room for a bit. Solid night with a good story I’d say. For Tim’s sake, I hope the curtains aren’t as bad as I heard.

Rick

Tim and Eoin spent Sunday celebrating Mother’s Day with family. Rick and I were supposed to play a bit of rugby, which I was definitely looking forward to, but he phoned in sick with a broken ankle. Some people just shouldn’t drink until 5am. Instead, he and I hung out drinking in the flat all afternoon. He was holding out on us and had a secret stash of wine and cider… hair of the dog! I stuck around until I needed to make myself scarce for Rick to have a nooner with his night cap. That’s when I jumped out into the city for a walk around with a pitstop for more booze. It was about 2 hours later when I returned to the flat with a case of Stella and Rick answers the door with essentially no clothes on, love it but where’s my damn strip show? I dropped the liver elixir into the fridge and ducked back into the city again for some more exploration. While out this time, I ran into the same people I met at the hostel in Dublin, at the Guinness Storehouse, and crossing the river back to the hostel. How random is that? This was the 3^rd chance encounter with them and I made the decision to make evening plans for drinks and some live music. It’s just too small of a world to let that shit go. Anyway, I returned to the flat a couple hours later and finally clothes were on all around and it was time for the lass to meet some of her friends for dinner. Rick and I commenced our binge weekend and at some point he snuck away for a crash course in pillow cuddling. Tim and Eoin had returned by now and we kicked it for a few hours.

Bru Bar Festivities

Around this time, I started to hit the proverbial wall of tired. I tried to cancel my plans for drinks and music in town until Rick put on his game face. He smacked me and threw a can of Stella at me. We were ready to go again. This night took us to Bru Bar for some reggae… oh yea! It wasn’t great, but you have to love the mood reggae puts a group in. Tim and Eoin stayed in so after a few drinks, Rick and I brought the party back to the flat. Though there aren’t any good stories that came from this, a good time was had by all.

I did some touristy stuff on Monday while Rick hibernated and Tim and Eoin worked. I’m sorry guys but I can’t get on board with calling what you do “work.” Cork is small and fun with plenty to do but the people are really the big attraction. Once I got home, I cooked up some pasta with Italian sausage and sweet pepper marinara for the boys and we had a mellow evening of conversation. It was an excellent last night in the city. I left in the morning after the four of us chowed down on some porridge and tea. I’ll miss them but know that someday we’ll cross paths again.

City Centre - I did other stuff than drinking...

2011 Europe - Cork

Love Me Some Guinness

Tribute to the lioness cub :)

Oh Dublin… how I was not looking forward to you! You’ve left me pleasantly surprised. I was looking forward to visiting Dublin until the day I arrived. I don’t know why I was in such a downer of a mood, but I just wanted to drop kick the city in the ass and find somewhere fun. Turns out, I had already found it; I just needed to open my eyes. I arrived pretty late on Wednesday so I swallowed some dinner and hit the pillow to try and hit the next day with a better attitude. It didn’t really go quite as planned.

Bored on a park bench

I spent Thursday running around the city from museum to museum to park to galleries to lots more. I somehow managed to do all that after breakfast and before a late lunch. I should have packed and ate in the park, but I ended up back at the hostel around 2:30 with the plan of heading to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour and pint from the Gravity Bar and catch the sunset. Bad plan… Because I wasn’t in the greatest of moods, I ended up catching up on emails and a bit of blogging… 4 hours (Guinness closed at 5pm) later I forced myself to get offline for dinner. It was shortly after dinner that my weekend started to turn around. I jumped online to email my Cork hosts and had a really great chat with two awesome people that made me much happier. It must have come across physically because a group in the hostel struck up a conversation with me. There was one really drunk old guy hitting on the young girls and we ended up creating a fictional story about one of the guys being the owner’s son and told him to leave. Problem solved.

Oh, how I love me some Guinness...

Friday was really awesome. I thought I’d swing by the Guinness Storehouse and make a quick tour before checking out some live music over lunch in Temple Bar. I arrived at Guinness around noon and walked out the front door at 5pm. What can I say; they put on a good tour. And you totally get a free pint at the end. If you’re badass like me, some girl will give you her stub because she doesn’t drink beer. In all honesty though, you could get plastered on what people leave behind. It depressed me how many people would take one sip and then set the pint down and walk away. What’s wrong with you people! I enjoyed mine over a conversation with JR, a dude from Germany that was wearing a Texas Longhorns cap. A bit odd, but friendly enough. Randomly, 3 people that checked out of the hostel that morning walked into the bar and joined the conversation. Why do I mention this? Well, read on…

At the top... Gravity Bar

We all parted ways and I headed back to the hostel. I stopped to check out the Ireland Film Institute (Really had to take a piss) and saw a traveler sitting on the wall waiting around with her bag. I didn’t have anywhere to be so I decided to say hello and make friends. It turns out she’s CouchSurfing and obviously with better luck than I had being that I was in a hostel. She was due to meet her host in 10 minutes so I stuck around until then.  I continued on to the hostel and as I was crossing the river I see the same 3 people from the hostel and Guinness (Don’t worry, it gets better). We say hello and goodbye because they need to catch a bus down to Cork. Back at the hostel, I took a 30 minute power nap to some classical music, jumped into the shower, and hung out the rest of the night. A group of Brazilians was staying at the hostel semi long term looking for work and were having a bbq (I know, my mouth watered a little bit too). I picked up some beers and joined the festivities. It was tasty. They danced the night away and we shared some good stories.

2011 Europe - Dublin