First off, Cork had the worst hostel showers of the trip. I was not a fan. One of the biggest packing mistakes I made was not bringing a pair of rubber flip flops. Thank goodness for Jaci and Madi who let people borrow theirs every night. At least I only had to share with some girls in my program and not the whole floor. Anyway, the walk downtown was about 30 minutes and the street we took to get there was pretty ghetto. The main street was nice, but by the time we got done with dinner everything was pretty deserted and most of the stores were closed. Apparently Carolyn has some ancestors from Cork and her grandpa has been doing a lot of genealogy work with this line. There was one person who he was having a lot of trouble finding, so he begged Carolyn to go visit cemeteries in Cork to fine his grave. We all knew the chances of us finding him in a random cemetery was pretty slim, but just to make her grandpa happy we found a cemetery in a churchyard and searched for a while. Of course, we found nothing but at least Carolyn could say she tried.
Monument in downtown Cork
Beautiful church where we visited the cemetery.
The sun started to set while we were at the church so we decided to start walking back to our hostel. On the way home we ran into some other people in the group who had found a Tesco a few blocks away. We were all running low on breakfast foods and snacks (and for some people-underwear, since we still hadn't found a laundromat or had time to use one even if we had). It was getting dark, but we decided we had a big enough group that we'd be fine. As we were walking into the Tesco we passed by a couple of creepy looking guys. I didn't pay much attention, but girls in the back heard them say something derogatory and then say they should wait for us to come back out. We took our time in the grocery store hoping they would get bored and go away. When we thought the coast was clear we walked out, only to see them standing by a building next door which we would have to pass by. We walked as quickly as we could without looking obvious and luckily they didn't notice us until we were already in front of us. They start whistling and following us in their skateboards but we got out of there before they could catch up. Once we were on the main road there were a lot of people and we just ignored them until they went away. It was a little scary!
The next day we started our journey to Dublin, the last stop on our trip. I was sad that the trip was coming to a close, but also very excited to come home. By the time I got to Cork, I was feeling pretty homesick, honestly. I feel like this is not dramatic to say now that I'm married to Shawn, but I seriously just missed him so much. Scotland was doable because I had pretty consistent wifi to imessage, email, and skype him. The skyping was not the best since I was constantly surrounded by people in my program and the internet connection was not good enough for a smooth conversation. But I could count on hearing from him every day in some form or another. Only on the excursions did I sometimes not have Internet, and even then it was usually just a couple days. Ireland was a different story. We were constantly on the move and stayed at a different hostel every night. Most places did not have free wifi so I was pretty cut off from Shawn, my family, and friends back home. I remember the night in Cork actually shedding a few tears because I just wanted to go home. That seems so ungrateful of me. I mean I was in freaking Ireland! I kept telling myself to suck it up and enjoy it, which I did but between the homesickness and being followed by creepers, that night in Cork was not the best. Fortunately, I think Professor Wickman had some serious inspiration when planning the trip because the last four nights we stayed in Dublin in a HOTEL. Note there is no S in that word. HOTEL- NOT HOSTEL!!!! Oh it was glorious. To stay in a nice, clean place, not have to drive on the bus all day, have fairly reliable Internet, and stay in the same place every night was like heaven. But I'll get to Dublin later. Here are some pictures from the drive to Dublin and our stop at the Irish National Stud.
Look at that! It's my name AGAIN! I love Ireland. Oh also, I think this is my only picture of Ian, our bus driver so I'll say a word or two about him. He was the sweetest guy ever. A little weird, but he put up with all our shenanigans and endured the long bus rides- but didn't get to go on all the fun tours. Usually he'd just go find a pub and smoke a cigarette until we came back. When we stopped for the night somewhere we'd usually find him having a drink by himself somewhere in the city. Bless him. It would be a hard job doing what he does. I think I'd be a hundred times more homesick if I had his job. Toward the end of the trip he would tag along with us when we went to dinner all together and I thnk my professor paid for him to go to a fancy restaurant with us the last night of the trip. After our last bus ride he gave a little farewell speech and teared up a bit as he talked about how kind we all were to him and how it's been a dream to go to all these places that he doesn't have money to travel to on his own. It was pretty cute. We liked Ian.
Hello possible distant relative! (Or the employee of one)
Here are some pictures of the Irish National Stud. It has beautiful Japanese Gardens and is also a horse breeding facility.
Japanese Gardens of Tully
The grounds are supposed to represent the "Life of Man." The beginning has a tunnel which is supposed to represent birth, and then there are mountains to climb which represent trials, it splits into different paths which represent life decisions, etc. etc.
The baby horses were SO cute!
McCall, Kenzie, and I
Look at these beautiful flowers! (Photocredit-Madi Mackey)
Look at the little Shetland ponies! So cute!
It was such a random thing to go see, but it was a lot of fun and the grounds were seriously beautiful.
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