We just realized today is SUNDAY. Been here a week.

Pictures for today will go up later. We're hungry.

Quick update

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Dear Fail-Blog:

The Blarney Castle and stone is just like Disneyland: an over-priced tourist trap.

Love,
Kellie


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After settling into our hostel in Cork, we drove to Kinsale (a quaint, multi-colored "heritage town" 35 minutes south of Cork) and visited Charles Fort and Desmond Castle.

Charles Fort is a GORGEOUS, many-acred, star-shaped fortress on the ocean: full of secret gardens and places to climb, to gaze, and to get lost.


Purty.

Desmond Castle is an old war prison (called the "French Gaol"--pronounced "jail") converted debtor's prison, converted wine exporter, converted wine museum. With a few creepy looking mannequins littered about.

After causing quite a scene in the evening traffic (those streets are freakin small, okay??), we headed back to Cork. A few minutes down the road, as we wound along the curved coast, Colleen looked up from Albert (our Austrailian male GPS system) and said ... "You know ... Blarney's only three miles from our destination...."

"Do you want to go to Blarney, Colleen?" I asked.

She grinned sheepishly.

We headed to Blarney.

We knew the castle would be closed but we thought, like all the other Irish monuments/historical sites/things-to-see, it would be in the middle of town or in the middle of nowhere, so we could at least get a look at it, even if we couldn't tour the place.

But it turned out to be the tourist trap it's rumored to be. Not only could we not see it, but it was enclosed by an all-embracing barbed fence, a moat, and tons of un-trimmed foilage. You had to pay an arm-load just to LOOK at the place.

We drove the 35 minutes back to Cork only slightly upset: it's difficult to be upset when in the middle of all this green.


Bre's hungry. I'm a little hungry. I'm sure Colleen's hungry.
Time to eat.


Bye then!