Ireland is one very green country.
After a few days in Dublin we planned on making a small loop through some of the country. Or tried to put plans together. It all started down at the ol’ bus station. The national bus company, Bus Eireann, advertised some sort of new deal where you can combo bus tickets and hostel vouchers together. The bus tickets then get valued at €12 per trip, and the hostel tickets are €14 per person per night. Sounds fair, until we looked at the hostel prices, and the average cost of the dorm rooms that these vouchers are good for are actually less than the €14 cost! It also turned out that many of the hostels were actually unaware of this deal, and did not know what to do with the vouchers (and consequentially, did not want to accept them). To top it all off, we then learned that buying a bus ticket in Ireland does not actually guarantee you a seat on a particular route — it just means that you are able to go from A to B on a given day. So you are supposed to line up, and get on the bus, and if there isn’t enough seats, well, I guess you have to wait and repeat on the next bus (whenever it is). And so with that, we set off from the bus station to see how much a car rental would be for a week, having been given the advice that it is more convenient, and the country is fairly small. Car rental: €630. SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY EUROS FOR ONE WEEK!!! That’s $1000 CDN! That’s a flight across the Atlantic!!!
So, we "suck it up" and go back for the bus tickets combo. The bus tickets valued at €12 are actually much cheaper than some of the bus routes that we are taking (by up to 10 Euro), so that’s actually useful. And for the bus tickets we bought separately because they were cheaper, they have a promotion where they give you a coupon for a free (Burger King) Whopper per ticket purchased. So that’s rather good. We shovelled off the hostel vouchers as soon as possible, and pretty much got face value for them, but at least we didn’t lose money on them.
We spent the weekend in Kilkenny, which is a quaint little town of about 18,000. The main core of the town consists of about 3 major roads, all packed with stores and pubs bearing that distinctly Irish flavour of storefront. Walking around, I was able to find stone walls covered with vines, or otherwise tinted green with moss (due to all the moisture), giving it an enjoyable atmosphere. To top things off, just down from the hostel was a cheap butcher shop with all kinds of marinated meats. We ate good for the weekend! And even got a rack of ribs for €3! I think this was the first ribs we ate on the trip!
In the hostel, we hung out after supper with 4 from Dublin who came to Kilkenny for an night at the pubs. Some point in the conversation, one of them had claimed "drinking isn’t all that we do, but drinking is socializing, and socializing is fun, so we like to drink!"
We saw the Kilkenny Castle, but couldn’t take photos, because they make everyone check their cameras in at the door. Something about fading the paintings, and not letting people know the configurations of the insides for ‘security’ reasons. This particular castle is 800 years old, and was used as a mansion for quite some time. Their restoration works have been coming along very well, and the place actually has a fair amount of original items from when it was lived in, giving you an excellent sense of how it was lived in. It was neat to see.
Fast forward a few days and we are now in Cork (population 180,000), which I get the impression that the slogan could very well be "Cork, the other capital city". Its actually an enjoyable upbeat looking city with a friendly feeling to it. Walking around the central city area on Sunday afternoon, live blues-y/jazzy music was blasting out of an empty bar, so we went in and enjoyed it for a while, and even got to swing dance for a song.
We bussed out to Blarney to see the well known Blarney Stone, which is at the top of a castle. While kissing it is supposed to bring you good luck, I declined, and Tiffany kissed it twice, because I didn’t get the photo the first time. So I kissed her after with the hopes that it balances out. We did find three 1¢ coins that afternoon, so who knows? We also lucked out with a store policy that resulted in us getting a free box of Haggen Daaz (or however you spell it) ice cream!
Stay tuned tomorrow for some exciting information…