Ireland, Day 1: Cork City

At 3:30 a.m. on June 12, David and I hit the road to Cork. Well, we hit the road to London Stansted, where we hit the air to Cork. Cork is the 2nd largest city in Ireland, 2nd of course, to Dublin....which I didn't care for AT ALL. Dublin was just a dirty, nasty big city with a real lack of the Irish charm you see in all the movies. Cork itself is not much better (a city is a city, after all!) but it did seem less crowded, a bit cleaner, a little less touristy, and best of all, was an excellent jumping off point for lots of other places. We stayed in Cork 4 nights, but we only stayed in Cork 1 day. Follow?
The first day in Cork was a very unorganized day. I didn't want to terrify our cousins Lisa and Joe by completely revealing my insane travel quirks right on the first day. When it's just David and I, I'm able to take full control, highlight routes on maps, write lists and plan an exhausting itinerary for the day. (Just wait until you hear about our upcoming 5-day road trip to Scotland... I have it all planned to the mile and the minute!) But it is one thing to subject David to this behavior, every day of our vacation, and quite another to expose poor Lisa and Joe to "the cruise director" right from the start. So we had an unplanned, casual, go-with-the-flow afternoon in Cork City. And it practically killed me. :)

We went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant, which Lisa & Joe didn't really want to go to, and didn't really think was very good, but for people who haven't been exposed to Mexican food for at least almost a year, it was simply irresistible. (Great, now I will have visions of  very tall girls with their ponytails slicked back and bright red lips dancing through my head all afternoon!)

Anyway, then we headed to the tours office and picked up some maps, bus schedules, and tips. We went to a Maritime Festival and caught the very end of a boat race, and a very very very strange acrobat program. Then we headed to the Street Performers World Championships at a park very close to our B & B.

This was really creepy! This guy just floated there, hanging on to his cane with his eyeballs painted onto his eyelids. Weird! David and Joe knew just how the trick worked, but I was perplexed.

We went back to our hotel for a little bit and then went out in search of a pub (we ended up choosing Bob Fox's) where we could watch the US vs. England soccer/football game. And... David had his first Guinness.

It was  very very hard to find a place to eat after the game! Everywhere that served food was either closed or had stopped serving already, but we were sent by a local girl to Liberty Grill and it was yummy. I had a Halloumi Cheese Burger, which was really a patty of cheese on a bun! With eggplant, peppers, etc. too, but I LOVED that cheese!!  I'm pretty sure we were all fat & happy by the end of this meal and we walked back to the hotel to get some rest for the Ring of Kerry Tour that was on the books for Sunday!