baloney, i mean blarney

the next and final stop on our adventure was cork, ireland.
originally we had purchased plane tickets, but we realized we really werent going to lose much money or time if we took a bus, so we did that instead. it ended up being two euros more than we had expected because our student id's were not irish, and therefore didn't count. thanks dude. the driver was kind of a jerk about it too. seriously? we didn't know. nothing online specified anything like that. anyways.
it was a 4.5 hour bus ride through the beautiful countryside of ireland. chloe and i made a deal not to fall asleep.. but i accidentally failed at that for a little bit. oops. but it was so green! and i got to see cows :)

we arrived and lindsay picked us up at the bus station. we stopped by the apple company to pick up john and then headed back to her place where we chilled and drank tea on her super comfy couches and chairs. seriously. so comfortable.
for dinner, we went to what is called a chipper. basically its lots of super cheap rediculously greasy food. and because everything is small, you choose a few things. they were all joking that chloe and i bought have the store with our decisions. but we got like 7 things for only 10.50! sweeet. the food was good but so greasy that by the time we got to our onion rings, we just couldn't do it anymore. it was super good though. but later we were both craving a salad.
we just hung out for the rest of the night. lindsay and her boyfriend john and their two roommates are all hilarious and so it was a fun night in.
the next day we woke up early. it was the earliest of our entire trip. butttt it's because we were dropping john at work and then heading to blarney castle! before we even had the castle in our view though, we spotted swings. the five-year olds inside of us got super excited.

after that little break we did soon find the castle.

this place is beautiful though. really green with some water running through. i loved it.
there was even a poison garden.

though the marijuana was missing because it had been confiscated.

then. because i am just that talented, i lost my glasses... in the poison garden. i didn't realize at first and so we backtracked to where we had been before. not finding them, we searched the garden again. of course i would lose them in a place where signs warned you not to touch, taste, or even smell anything. and i never lose my glasses. seriously.
there were also some caves we checked out.

we made our way up the castle to see the blarney stone. kissing it is apparently tradition and brings people great eloquence. so of course we were all going to do that.

there were even signs teaching us new things along the way!

and of course we had to get a group photo at the top.

after we had had our fill of the castle and felt we had seen everything, we got some ice cream before actually leaving the grounds. i mean come on, how many times had we been lost on this trip? we deserved it.
then lindsay took us to the big toursit shop.. the mills i think? i forget the name. it really was very touristy with lots of flags and four leaf clovers. but my favorite was this shirt:

it was after this that lindsay dropped us off closer to town so we could explore the rest of the afternoon by ourselves since she had stuff to do.
we ate a pizza lunch in a grocery store to start out. we were so sick of the sad sandwiches we had been making for a week now.
then we checked out the university college of cork. it wasn't that exciting. but it did have a couch/bench for us to sit on. haha
next up we went to the park. i forget the name of it. when we discovered a playground, i'm sure you can guess what we did. that's right. acted like 5 year olds again :) i mean if there isnt a sign telling us were too big.. then why not?

tire swing!

eventually we even got around to seeing the rest of the park. i particularly liked walking by the river.

soon we found ourselves making our way to the old cork jail. we were so tired from the whole week of walking that it probably took us longer to get there than it should of. the outside was cool, and the first room we were able to peak into.. but we decided we didn't really feel like paying to see more than that. we did have fun outside though!

finally we walked into/around town. it was pretty cute.

we checked out a couple churches.. well the inside of one, which i thought was really cheesy with its plastic decorations, and the outside of another that we couldnt figure out how to get into.
when we found a casino, we decided to waste a euro so we could gamble. whooo first time gambling! too bad i didnt win. that woulda been cool.
then we went to a cafe. we asked for a large hot chocolate and the man was even nice enough to put it in two glasses for us! and then only charged us for a regular.. i didn't really understand that. how nice for us though.
then we met lindsay and her roommates at the siné put for drinks. we got some cider again :) yummy.

we went to some burger place for dinner afterwards since we were all starving. not the best burger i have ever had, but not bad.

finally we went back to the house to hang out for the rest of the night since most of them had work early in the morning. they really are an amusing group. though at one point i accidentally lumped ireland with the uk, and one of the irish freaked out and wanted to kick me out lol. whooopsss. i apologized profusely of course realizing that i had not meant to phrase whatever i had said that way in the first place.
before saying goodnight and goodbye, we of course had to get a group picture.. well minus one.

lindsay's roommate was nice enough to take us to the airport in the morning and we arrived with plenty of time for flight number one. without any problems we made it to london where we would be catching our flight back to lyon.. after 5 hours of waiting. ugh. it was annoying though because we couldnt just go to the next gate. we had to leave, then go through security again.
when we had finally gotten through all of that, we went to find something chloe could spend her one pound that she had found on. yea.. we werent to please when she found that, it coulda fed us more last time we were at an airport! but anyways. she ended up getting hand sanitizer because thats all she coulda afford haha.
finally we were sitting by ourselves having a perfectly lovely (ok we were dying to get on the plane and back to lyon..) time, when some random crazy dude comes and sits down next to me. he decided he needs to talk to me and keeps hitting (ok tapping) me in the process. i didn't really appreciate that. he even told me it was "so unusual to see someone with such blonde hair".. uh thanks? damn. maybe thats why he chose us to bother. he even offered us sandwiches.. uh no thanks guy who looks homeless. when i responded to his question of where i was from saying california, he responded with "you lucky bastard, you lucky bastard." whatta charmer. eventually we finally managed to get rid of him. and when we got up, decided we would not be returning to those seats.

finally flight time arrived. everyone boarded and we thought we were ready to go. orrrr not. AFTER we were seeated, they decided we were going to be delayed half an hour. something about the engine. i dunno. i just wanted to get back to lyon. i was sick of being in airports all day.
we finally arrived though and it was ridiculously hot when we stepped off the plane. we were so excited to have warm weather back. im pretty sure we even did a little dance.
by the time i had gotten home though, eaten a little yogurt, and gotten myself into the shower, it started pouring. thundering. lightening. what? the weather here is bizarre. luckily i was dry. chloe got stuck in the downpour on her way home. and so did my friends who it turned out had been on our flight. poor guys.

final thoughts on ireland and scotland though?
the scottish and irish are some of the friendliest people i have ever met.
when i dont understand what they are saying, i feel dumb because i know they are speaking english. but seriously, especially the scottish accent is so ridiculously hard to understand!
and i would love to go back some day... maybe in the summer though.