• About Me
    • Brand Work
    • Portfolio/CV
  • Family
  • Food
  • Health & Beauty
  • Home
  • Style
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
    • Shop My Amazon Picks
    • Shop My Instagram

Dreams + Coffee

North Carolina Healthy Living + Style Blogger

Cork, Ireland (otherwise known as Detroit, USA)

June 1, 2011 Comment : 1

While this may be a broad assumption, I will say that Cork, Ireland has been (and will be) my least favorite stop of this entire trip. After being in Dublin, where there was quite a lot of attractions to see and then being in Galway, where I found the traditional Ireland that I had pictured in my mind, Cork was less than fascinating to me. We arrived in Cork, after three train changes, and our immediate impression was that this was not a glamorous city. I personally found it to be very dirty, with litter and graffiti almost anywhere you look…highly disappointing.

To make our stay in Cork even more interesting, we were “couchsurfing” with an Irish local. Admittedly, he was a nice host, who showed us some fun in Cork…just about the only fun we had while we were there! He took us out to a local pub/bar on a Sunday night (who knew people were raging on a Sunday?!), where we met a bunch of new Irish friends and danced to some Irish music played by a local band (ever seen P.S. I Love You? It was just like the pub and band scene from the movie!). Then we got invited to the “after party”, where Michael taught an Irishman how to do an Irish Car Bomb (nope, Irish people don’t do those…true story) and I got hit on by several Irish guys.I think my hair color threw some of the guys off…I do look like an Irish girl…until I start to talk šŸ˜‰

New Irish friends

The biggest reason we decided to visit Cork was to go to Blarney Castle, which is in Blarney, about 5 miles outside of Cork city. Our lovely host told us it was “only 8k” to get to Blarney, and asked if we were going to walk there. Never one to turn down exercise, I said sure and went along with it. The first half was up a brutally high hill (at least the views were pretty!), and the second half had no sidewalk. So we were on the side of a busy road that had no shoulder, having to stop every time a car was headed toward us, in order to not get hit. Adventurous? Yes. Fun? Ehh, not so much at the time. To add insult to injury, when we were about 5 minutes outside of Blarney, it started pouring rain…and hailing. Luckily, we did have umbrellas, so only the bottom half of our jeans and legs got drenched. haha. Once the rain started, I knew we had an interesting story that we wouldn’t forget.I mean, (a) who can say they walked all the way to Blarney Castle from Cork (because only idiots like us would do that…HA), and (b) it was like a scene out of a movie: bad luck, then cue the pouring rain (more bad luck).

Kissing the Blarney Stone!

 Once that fiasco was over, the rest of the day ended up being gorgeous and we had a great time exploring Blarney Castle, almost forgetting about our insanely bad luck getting there! The castle itself was gorgeous, but the gardens really stole the show. With a bright blue sky as the backdrop (haven’t seen too many of those since we got to Ireland!), the grass seemed to be a radiant green color and the flowers were extra vividly colored. I think I took more photos of Blarney than I took of the entire cities of Dublin and Galway! And kissing the Blarney Stone, well, that just made it even better. Not everyone can say they’ve done that…which makes it even more neat! I admit that I was terrified to lay down backwards and lean over the turret’s edge…heights are not my friend! Its safe to say that Blarney is what made our stay in Cork worthwhile. I expected it to be quite “touristy”, but it really felt authentic and not nearly as commercialized as a historical site in the U.S. would be.

While we had planned to spend three nights with our host in Cork, we found out that the buses and trains to the airport do not start running early enough in order for us to catch our 6:00am flight on Wednesday morning, so we are currently camped out in the airport ALL night. Talk about an exciting evening. ha. Sadly, we were actually excited about spending out last night here in the airport, because we did not find Cork to be a very exciting destination. I hate saying that, but it is unfortunately true. I compared Cork City, Ireland to Detroit…enough said.

I can’t say ALL bad things about this place though, because we did meet some really cool Irish friends and partook in some authentic Irish things, like drinking and dancing to Irish music at an authentic pub. I’ll take it. Now we get to look forward to our next adventure: getting around countries that speak languages other than English! My biggest concern is getting around The Netherlands and Germany. I’m an intermediate French speaker, and from that I can understand some Italian, and I’ve had some experience with Spanish, so I am not overly concerned about those countries. Since Amsterdam, Berlin, and Munich are our next stops, I guess we’ll be finding out real shortly how well we can get around  those cities! Only a little bit longer before our flight leaves…maybe I should get some sleep…on the airport benches. My next blog post will be from Amsterdam! šŸ™‚

-xoxo                                                                                                                                                                                                 

hvar _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-20949449-1’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘https://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

Related Posts

  • Highlights of Dublin

    As I’m sitting here on the train from Dublin to Galway, I’m looking out at…

1 Comment Categories: Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Minko Chen says

    October 23, 2015 at 2:16 am

    longchamp handbags outlet
    nike mercurial
    chanel handbags outlet
    christian louboutin,louboutin,louboutin outlet,louboutin outlet italia,scarpe louboutin
    cheap nfl jersey
    mulberry outlet store
    north face outlet
    parajumpers outlet
    baltimore ravens
    christian louboutin outlet
    nike air huarache
    snapbacks wholesale
    boston celtics
    woolrich outlet store
    nike air huarache
    coach outlet online
    salomon shoes
    rolex watches,rolex watches,swiss watches,watches for men,watches for women,omega watches,replica watches,rolex watches for sale,rolex replica,rolex watch,cartier watches,rolex submariner,fake rolex,rolex replica watches,replica rolex
    swarovski crystal
    1023MINKO

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About Me

Hi y'all! I'm Brittany, a wife, mama to three little ladies and the creator behind Dreams + Coffee, a North Carolina lifestyle blog. Grab a cup of coffee and catch up on my latest family, food, health and lifestyle posts.

read more
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Categories

Search

Follow
BrandBacker Member

Subscribe

Follow My Instagram

brittanywboyce

Wife | Girl mama | Pure Barre & Peloton obsessed | Dairy + gluten free | Freelance writer | Owner @somethingbleuclt | CLT | Order GS Cookies ā¬‡ļø

Brittany | Mom Life + Style
When your cat loves @cleanjuice as much as you do When your cat loves @cleanjuice as much as you do 😘🤪
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Last week to this week āž”ļø We’re SO grateful Last week to this week āž”ļø We’re SO grateful for a quick recovery from pneumonia — having a sick child is scary enough, but to top it off with no space in our local hospitals’ PICU and being flown to Asheville, you can imagine we were beyond stressed last week 😩 So so grateful she’s back to normal and on International Women’s Day, it felt like a good time to celebrate Brynn 🄰 Thank you to all of our friends & family who reached out, lent a helping hand and kept us in your thoughts & prayers ā¤ļø 
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
We still have Girl Scout cookies 🄳 *Online ship We still have Girl Scout cookies 🄳 *Online ship-to-home orders* begin Monday, 2/27! If you’re not local to CLT and would like to place an order with shipping, I’d be happy to share the link - my girls would love your support 🄰Also, the newest cookie, Raspberry Rally, will be available in limited quantities online — I plan to place a bulk order and can deliver boxes locally in CLT if you’d like to try them 😘
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
45 degrees and snow tubing yesterday…75 degrees 45 degrees and snow tubing yesterday…75 degrees and windows open today ā„ļøšŸ¤·šŸ¼ā€ā™€ļøā˜€ļø
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
These beauties went camping at the @schielemuseum These beauties went camping at the @schielemuseum with Troop 2997 last night ā›ŗļø Proud of them for being brave because when I was their age, you couldn’t catch me sleeping away from home…ever 🤣
Finally took the girls back to our favorite place Finally took the girls back to our favorite place in Virginia — @colonialwmsburg ā¤ļø We loved it so much, we even took our engagement photos here back in 2011 šŸ˜‰
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Prolon Day 3 | The day started off really good — Prolon Day 3 | The day started off really good — I felt very clear-minded and awake this AM 🄳 Truly, I was nervous because today was a very low-cal day and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel šŸ˜… I did grab a plain iced espresso because my energy was depleting super quickly and that def helped šŸ‘ŒšŸ¼ After lunch, though, I started to hate depriving myself of real food and disliked that I couldn’t push myself in my workouts like I usually do šŸ˜’ After dealing with three kids who clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed šŸ˜†, slicing my hand open with a knife and being cranky and irritable because I’ve been hangry for 3 days, I caved. And sorry, not sorry āœŒšŸ¼ I just wanted a dang salad and some protein so I can lift heavy things šŸ’ŖšŸ¼ Moral of the story, listen to your body and what it needs. And maybe try a 1-2 day cleanse/fast because that’s about all mine could handle 🤪
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
@prolonfmd Day Two | Overall an easier day than ye @prolonfmd Day Two | Overall an easier day than yesterday šŸ‘ŒšŸ¼ Time went by faster and I didn’t have any nausea from being hungry…I looked forward to and savored all of today’s meals — the black bean soup for dinner was actually really good (esp with a little cumin + paprika!) šŸ™ŒšŸ¼ I did @pure_barre this AM and then a @onepeloton walk this afternoon…keeping it light because of how little I’m consuming this week šŸ˜… Not gonna lie, nervous for day 3 because it’s the lightest day of food and I’m already pretty hangry in general 🤣 Interestingly, I’ve felt pretty amazing today other than just craving a real meal šŸ‘ŒšŸ¼ Btw, was so hungry for dinner that I forgot to share it in the reel šŸ¤¦šŸ¼ā€ā™€ļø
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Load More... Follow Me on Insta
Design by SkyandStars.co
Back Top

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.