Ireland: Cobh = new favorite city

I fell asleep last night shortly after we ate dinner. Then I proceeded to wake up at 6:45 this morning to take a shower. When I was finished, we went down to breakfast, but the hostel’s kitchen was still locked, so we had to eat at a picnic table outside. I just had a few slices of bread.

The Cork hostel

As we finished, our taxi pulled up and it took us to a train station on the other side of Cork. The other taxi was delayed because the driver accidentally took them to the airport, but they figured it out.

We took a thirty minute train ride, it was more like an aboveground subway, to Cobh. Once we got there, we wandered around the streets until we discovered St. Coleman’s Cathedral at the top of a hill. I felt like I was having somewhat of a spiritual experience while sitting in the pew, but not enough to make me religious, just meditative.

On the train to Cobh



St. Coleman's towers over Cobh

We walked back down to a park near the train station that overlooked the water and took some pictures. Then we headed across the street to go on a Titanic Walking Tour. The tour itself was kind of boring – just a lot of landmarks and statues related to the Titanic and Lucitania – but we were able to see a lot of the town. At the end of the tour, our guide took us to a pub called Jack Doyle’s. They served us lemonade, but it was orange and tasted like a sort of orange pop. While we were enjoying our juice, the tour guide talked to us about the Irish dialect of English. He said that craic (pronounced crack) means that something is fun or cool.

Our "lemonade"

On our way back to the train station, we tried to stop at a few places to shops, but most of the places were closed because today is a bank holiday to celebrate the beginning of summer. The only thing open was souvenir shops and I managed to find a cute bag that says Ireland on it, maybe I can use it as a school bag.

After taking the train back to Cork, we walked to the butter museum and looked at the exhibits. It was lame, but we all managed to get a nice nap in while watching a movie on the history of butter making.

A butter churn at the butter museum

Once we left, we started walking back to the hostel. We stopped in a shop called The Funky Skunk and looked around. It turned out to be a head shop, which mostly sold bongs and pipes. I didn’t buy anything and we continued to walk before stopping in T.K. Maxx. It was like a clothing store that we would have back in the States. They didn’t have anything cheap though, so we headed back to the hostel and made dinner. Tonight was spaghetti, so I actually had something to eat. I feel like I didn’t really help with the cooking though since I didn’t know how. I cut up the bread and figured out how to start the stoves because they weren’t automatic, but that’s all that I could do. It turned out okay though.

Amanda cooking meat for the spaghetti on the non-automatic gas stoves. I had to use a match to light the gas - not exactly the sign of a very modern hostel.