Katie and my friend Liz from Duquesne, as well as her friend, Sam, came for a little visit while they were on their fall break (they're studying at Duquesne's Rome campus). They were due in around 2 on Wednesday, so Katie and I went to meet them at the bus station. While there, someone stole my wallet. I don't even know how it happened, or how I didn't hear it happen! It was in my backpack, zipped, and on me. What makes it suck even worse is that I had just taken out a lump sum of money out of the ATM about 15 minutes beforehand for this weekend. All of my ID's were stolen, along with my immigration card (costs 150 euro...), so the thief definitely got away with a lot, as well as making my life miserable for the past few days!
So I went to the Garda and filed a statement. They said it's unlikely that it would turn up, but if it did, they would let me know. So I went back for lunch with Liz, Sam, and Katie.
We went into down and did a little shopping while I showed them around. Afterwards we went out to a few pubs and caught up :)
Early Friday morning we left for Cork, which was about a 4.5 hour bus ride. We arrived in Cork around 12:30, and caught a bus to the airport, where I thought our hotel was. We ended up passing the hotel, and getting the bus driver to drop us off at the side of the road. We made it to the hotel, dropped our stuff off, and went to Eddie Rockets (connected to the hotel) for lunch. I got a Hawaiian burger to the tune of 7.50Euro...which didn't even include fries. But nonetheless, it was still good. We grabbed a cab and headed towards the center of town, and got dropped off at the English Market. The English Market is a large farmers market of meats and produce. If I lived in Cork, I would definitely do my grocery shopping there!
It was downpouring all day Friday, and the jazz festival was also going on. We avoided both by doing some serious shopping, since the shopping is so much better than Galway, and even better than Dublin. I ended up buying a pair of new boots that go about 3 inches below the knee. They are really funky, and super cute...and decently priced. I also bought a dress that was on clearence :)
It was a nice to step back from all the touristy things we've been doing and just shop. The city of Cork doesn't really have many touristy things--but they make up for it in their shopping! We went back to the hotel and chilled for a while and got dessert at Edie Rockets.
On Sunday we headed back to Edie Rockets for FRENCH TOAST!!! Sooo exciting! We then caught a cab down to the bus station where we got a bus to Blarney town. We quickly headed towards the castle, which was bigger than I expected. It wasn't so much a castle, but a glorified watchtower.
After meandering through the castle, we got to the top where the Blarney Stone is located. You have to lay down, bend over through a hole with nothing below, grab on to the rails as someone lowers you down, and then you give it a quick peck and come back up. They say the locals pee on it at night, but I'm not sure how much I believe that, since it's located on top of a castle in a park where you have to pay an admission fee to get into. Anyways, I got the gift of gab, or rather eloquence :)
After meandering through the castle, we wandered through the rock glade where there were many druid and fairy areas.
We did a little shopping at the tourist shops, and got some lunch before heading back to Cork to catch the bus home to Galway. It was a good little getaway, and it was GREAT to see Liz. I missed her dearly <3 It was also nice meeting Sam, and Katie and I are both looking forward to visiting them in Rome in mid-November.
On the plus side with the wallet situation, I forgot that I had bought travel insurance with my airline ticket to Ireland. It turns out that it covers lost/stolen travel documents (being my immigration card). So if nothing else, they'll cover the replacement fees of that. I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and get documents faxed, but I'm hoping they cover some of the stolen stuff!
We're going to the market in a few hours...I've been looking for a Claddaugh ring. We are also going out tonight for a bit and doing some dancing (should be interesting).. Besides that I plan on doing homework. We also have a "Bank Holiday" tomorrow, so we have off school. Katie and I will be busy planning our trip to Paris/Brussels/Amsterdam for this weekend :)
Byeeee <3
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