The trip continues...

Day 2--on to Cork. We weren't all that comfortable with the roundabouts yet, and spent half the drive down not knowing if we were on the right road, but we FINALLY made it, into the European Capital of Culture of 2005, the beautiful city of Cork. Completely spent, we found the first B&B we could find. Marianne, who runs the Parkview B&B, might be the most graceful generous creature in that entire city. She offered to park our car for us, and in what we Americans were not at all used to, handed us the keys to our room and said we would settle up in the morning. After a quick bite to eat at a great little pub where we had sandwiches, mine was corned beef, with egg salad. When the bartender asked us if we wanted salad we both said yes, assuming we would see some leaves, but when they say that, they mean egg salad on the sandwhich. It might sounds weird but it tastes delicious. After asking around a bit, we found Sin-E. Easily the coolest hipster-esque bar I think we visited our entire trip. With ceilings pasted with concert posters and souvenirs, and that lovely "Democracy We Deliver" poster in the front (yes, with the bombs being dropped, eerily reminiscent of our current political situation) we enjoyed our whiskeys. P.S. there is NO ordering whiskey and coke in Ireland. NOT that we ever considered ordering Jameson with coke. We are respectful. But if you order a jack daniels and coke, they give it to you in a tall glass for the whiskey, and a bottle (yes, a bottle) of coke. But we hadn't heard traditional music, and this was the one day we didn't hear traditional music, so we were off to find another. On our way to Sin-E we passed funeral procession. Around 9pm on a Monday night, bagpipes lead a hearse while around 100 people walked through the streets. It was hard not to stare, or be moved to tears; the bagpipes produce the loneliest, saddest music.
The Corner Pub was next, where, to our disconcert, a group of guys sat in a corner and played the Irish flute, banjos, etc. while everyone talked. They seemed unconcerned with the fact that they were drowning out this beautiful music. But I guess they're used to this, every day, every night, some group of fellas (never saw 1 woman) sits in a corner in some pub and tries to keep the tradition alive. And the last pub, for the night, doesn't have a name that comes to mind (you can imagine how many pints, jamesons no ice we were into the night) but, there was live music, just a guy with his guitar, but the last song he played was Ireland's national anthem. And we all stood. It was a nice moment, before we climbed Cork's San Francisco-like hills back to Marianne's abode, where her husband had wondefully parked our car so we wouldn't get ticketed (he would move it again for us in the morning, while we ate another Irish breakfastand played with Ellie, Marianne's dog).









A few quick thoughts:
The Irish Breakfast consists of: Bacon (which is just big cuts of ham fried a bit), white pudding (sausage of some sort), black pudding (the same sausage, but includes pig blood), one fried egg, brown bread usually on the side (they use soda water to make it, instead of yeast), and, if you're lucky, BEANS! that was my favorite part of the meal.

Thought #2:
On our drives through the countryside, we noticed that we almost always saw the moon and the sun, right beside each other during the day. It was if neither was willing to give up their view of this, what must be the most beautiful country I've ever seen. I envy them.