Home stretch!

Well I'm finally done with work here in Cork, Ireland for the time being. I had originally planned to get out of work early at about 2 or so, but for some reason I got roped into a teleconference with people in Puerto Rico, so I didn't end up leaving till about 3:30...but after that I was runnin' for the door. I had planned to head down to Garretstown for a little surfing with Morgan, but when we finally got there the surfboard rental guy was already gone apparently. We contemplated going for a swim, but with no wet suit, it would probably have been a pretty cold swim. We decided to do a little exploring of the surrounding bluffs instead though, which ended up being really cool. As you remember from my previous blogging, I had already checked out some of the bluffs around Garretstown, but we went the other direction this time to a place called Old Head and it ended up being a pretty good decision.

When we first got out to the "point" of Old Head, we came to a gate with a small tower that was the entrance to a private golf course. It was an amazing spot for a golf course, but I'm not sure how it could have possibly been more than a 9 hole course, considering the real estate it was working with. We decided that we probably shouldn't sneak onto the course, so we ended up parking a little up the street and took a walk to the edge of the bluffs.

We saw a small trail leading down a bit so we wandered a little more and then realized that with some effort, you could actually work your way down the entire bluff (which was probably over 100 feet high). After making our way down, we ran into a few people that had came down from another direction, but were looking for a little friendlier exit. We sent them to the place we came down from and decided that we would be a little adventurous and attempt to do some rock climbing up this insane spot that they had shuffled down from (the picture doesn't do it justice...this thing was really steep!) After a few minutes of pretending we were from the movie Cliff Hanger, we finally made it to the top and decided that we were now qualified to give low level mountain climbing lessons. Anyways...although we didn't end up going surfing, it still ended up being a cool time and the weekend can only get better as we're heading up to Dublin tomorrow morning for a little sight seeing and Guinness drinking. Plus, I'm done with work until Tuesday...woot woot!

P.S. Morgan went to Galway and the Arran Islands the past two days, but I'm not sure he'll be writing us another blog entry, so I'll just mention then he seemed to have a good time on the Arran Islands, but didn't enjoy Galway all that much.

Morgan goes to the zoo

While I was at work today, Morgan went on a small adventure and he has been kind enough to share his experiences with my devoted readers:

"I touched a Kangaroo in Ireland today before you even woke up. I'm not being a cocky bastahd...I'm just telling you like it was. It all went down @ Fota Wildlife Park, a Gaelic football's kick away from the city via train. 3 euro got me a round trip to this non-profit little park in..well Fota. My expectations where a little ehhhhhh for it being non-profit (give me a break! I'll explain in a second), the website and pamphlet weren't to promising, and to be quite honest a "zoo" in Ireland...what kind of interesting animals love cool, soggy weather!? Obviously the very first second I step through the gate...both feet enter my mouth. The place is THE best park/zoo/aquarium/place of animals of the wild variety...place...I've ever been to and probably will ever go to...hands down...or should I say flippers or talons or paws..hohoho.

Living in America pretty much sets you up for disappointment with all sorts of over the top commercials, advertisements, trailers, pamphlets..bombarding you with insane amounts of hype until the release date or when you purchase the item or watch the TV show. So with Fota being non-profit (Listen I know the Newport exploration center is bad ass BUT just hear me out) I didn't realy know what to think...I figured I'd take the train out and if worse came to worse I'd head back early and head off to Blarney Castle. The train actually dumps you off at the back entrance to the park which at first I thought was the front entrance reassuring my doubts. SO WRONG..in fact it was the best place to enter the park!

After entering and getting a bearing on my surroundings I soon realize this park is different then any other I've ever been to. Fota prides themselves in having a different sort of viewing policy/plan then any zoo I've ever been to. I think that's why the name is Wildlife Park because that's exactly what it is. A vast majority of the animals are free to roam around anywhere they please at anytime. The more unpredictable animals are tucked behind modest barriers yet still are so close...amazingly close and without having to view them through a fence or from a safe distance of 50 yards or more..I had a smile on my face the entire time and people were definitely thinking I was probably up to something. As soon as I step foot into the park I notice all sorts of animals from Geese to ducks to squirrels to these giant prairie dog things to Alpaca-lama-things to cappybara to kangaroos to...all sorts of little birds and critters. Little ducklings with there mums darted across the path. Large geese hissed at me if I got to close and gibbons swung all over, stared at me and whooping to the others the entire time I was there. Well alright I'm pretty much writing a novel and well the pictures speak louder then the words I'm typing. Check out the pictures...check out the videos(well as soon as B posts them) and realize the next time youre in Cork you realy realy need to go..I got there 15 minutes after it opened and it was feeding time and it was great. Ha.

Oh yeah went to Blarney...if you ever go bring a flashlight to explore Badger cave and the dungeon section...such a sick sick siiiiiiick place to go once you kiss the stone(Bring an extra battery pack or don't take a hundred picutres and video at Kota thus draining the battery thus when pulling out your camera to have the guy take your picture smoochin the stone it doesn't even turn on thus forcing you to buy a picture from them....but hey it's supporting the castle and it's a pretty slick little souvenir.) The Rock Close there...incredible. Such an amazing day. Well if you made it this far then congradulations...I'm not going back and proof reading so uh..it's probably a mess :) Leaving on a two day adventure tomorrow to Galway then an overnight on the largest Aran Island ..then to Doolin to hopefully get a glimpse of the Cliffs of Moher. Should be interesting..should be cold...should be wet....should be exciting. Back here to try to surf on Friday then finishing off the trip with an overnight in Dublin on Saturday till Beaker and I hop on a plane back across the pond to home sweet home. Need sleep...I'm out!"

Anyways, this is your regular host Brandon again, just letting you know that I'm nearly done with my stay here on the Emerald Isle, but apparently not for long as I will most likely be back sometime in late May. I may even end up in Puerto Rico in the not too distant future, but who knows. Maybe if we're lucky, Morgan will write another entry for us when he returns from his trip to Galway in a few days. Peace!

Zoo 2 in the house!

So last night I finally made it out to a pub for the first time in a while, which was cool. We started off at a pub with an Irish name that I can't remember, but it ended up being pretty good as there was a guy playing acoustic guitar and covering some decent oldies songs. We had a pint of Guiness there and decided to move to the next place. After wandering around for a few minutes, we decided to try our luck in this pub that I had been in a few times called The Old Oak. The place didn't seem to busy when we first walked in, but we noticed that they had a stage set up for a band so we figured we'd stay for a bit. We found out a bit later that it was a U2 cover band called Zoo 2 (very clever name I must say) and they were the self-proclaimed "best U2 tribute band around at the moment".

Once the band started playing, the pub filled up really fast, which was kind of impressive considering it's one of the larger pubs in Cork and it was a Sunday night. The band was decent...you can't really complain when you get to hear all U2's hits sung live for free. Most of the entertainment we got however was from certain individuals around us who seemed to be enjoying the concert a little more than everybody else. One hippy-ish guy was playing air guitar, air drums, air bongos and anything else "air"* he could think of on the table and got so excited that he fell backwards off his bar stool onto the ground. It was quite the sight, as he was right in the front of everyone and the bar stool was probably over three feet tall. Not to be outdone though was an old man who was trying to hit on some middle-aged ladies near us. He also decided that playing the air drums was a good idea, but also felt the need to dance around the whole time, thinking he was impressing the women. Overall, I must say it was probably the most entertaining Sunday night I have had in Ireland so far and who knows what else is to come this week.

*In case you're not familiar with the term, playing an "air" instrument is the exact same as playing the normal instrument...just without the instrument.

Where the heck is the Dromber Stone Circle?

I must apologize to all my devoted readers, but I haven't really had too much to blog about the past few days. I've just been working and relaxing in the apartment this week, mentally preparing for last week here in Ireland with Morgan. On Thursday night, for some reason I decided that I would volunteer to pick Morgan up from the airport in Shannon (about a 2 hour drive), even if his flight arrived in Ireland shortly after 6 A.M. When it comes to Saturday night however, I begin to have some second thoughts about this, as it means I will have to wake up at about 4 A.M. on a Sunday...something I don't think I've done more than once or twice in my entire life.

Anyways...I ended up waking up really early and heading up to Shannon and it didn't end up being too bad. I'm a little tired right now, but I can't really say anything when Morgan has been up for about 20 hours or something. After picking him up at the airport, I was going to try to cruise around Limerick a bit and check out the town, but then I realized it was 7 in the morning and nothing in Ireland is open till at least 1 P.M on Sundays, so we just headed back to the apartment. After a quick regroup session, we made plans to head out to Clonakilty and that's where our adventure began.

For a little background, Ireland generally has two styles of roads. There's the main roads that you can clearly see on the maps, which are generally pretty comparable to American highways. Then there are the rest of the roads, which can be compared most closely to American driveways to houses tucked way back in the woods. While attempting to get to Clonakilty, we had to make a few turns on to these "other" roads and I was forced to make a few driving manuevers that I wouldn't recommend at any other time of the day (when there are actually other drivers on the road). After making it to Clonakilty (it was still really early), we decided that we didn't really want to wander around town, so we looked at the map and saw this thing called the Dromberg Stone Circle that looked interesting...sort of like Ireland's version of Stonehenge. Now the road to this landmark made the "other" roads look like major interstates. If there was another car coming out of the road, one of us was going to have to reverse all the way to the other end, which definitely wouldn't have been a good time. When we got to the Circle, the parking lot was empty and the gift shop was an abandoned camper type thing. I assumed it would be a pretty quite day there, but I was wrong and immediately two other cars pulled in, probably tripling the attendance to this current landmark for the last month.

The Dromberg Stone Circle was pretty cool I guess, but we decided to continue exploring and wanted to find the beach near Clonakilty. After about a half hour of driving Ireland's back roads, we finally found the beach and did some exploring. The beach probably would have been a lot nicer if the weather wasn't so bad, but I guess it could have been worse if it was really raining or something. After leaving the beach, we were on the homestretch of our adventure when we came through the town Bandon (there's actually another town in Ireland named "Brandon" in case you were interested). On the way through Bandon while on to Clonakilty, we had seen signs for some race, but now while we were passing back through, we were actually able to see what all the fuss was about. We parked the car and wandered over to a road that had temporarily been closed off and watched some motorcycle drag racing for a bit...which was pretty awesome. Finally, after we had seen enough racing, we headed back home to call it a day for exploring. Hopefully we'll be heading out to the pubs in a bit...something I haven't done in about two months as I've had no one here to go out with.

Anyone for a shot?

So this past week I've had a new roommate. One of the guys I work with has been over working in Ireland so he has been rooming with me in the apartment...and he has no car so therefore I am his chauffeur. Anyways though, I ended up taking him to Kinsale to see the Charles Fort that I've already been to. Saturday night though, we went east to Midleton, a town where another guy I work with here in Ireland lives and the home of the original Jameson Distillery. When we first got there we went on the tour of the distillery, which was a really good time. I learned some interesting things about whiskey making, such as the fact that American whiskey distiller's are the laziest of the three (American, Scottish, and Irish), as they only distill their whiskey once, while the others distill theirs two and three times respectively. After the tour, we all got a complementary glass (shot) of whiskey, which was pretty cool. Because of the tour, I decided that I might start drinking more whiskey...however, I couldn't convince myself that I would ever feel comfortable drinking the bottle of 2000 euro (aprox $2700) Jameson whiskey they had in the gift shop.

After visiting the distillery, we ended up going to this great, but fancy restaurant called O'Donnovan's. I had some interesting carrot and coconut soup (not sure it's originally an Irish dish) which ended up being really good. The whole meal was awesome, until we got the bill of 200 euro (aprox. $270) for only 4 of us. I guess I'll be eating sandwiches at the apartment for a bit to make up for that.

ROME!, pt. 2

Just to backtrack a little bit...when I got to the hostel, the guy there gave me a map of the city. Between Saturday night and Sunday, I realized that I had pretty much covered the entire east half of the map. So naturally, I decided that Monday and Tuesday would be spent covering the West side of the City...plus a few sites I may have missed the previous days. When I woke up on Monday, I decided to go to a cool looking place that I had read about in my Rome guide book, the Santa Maria della Concezione church. This church was supposed to have a crypt where all the bones of dead Monks were used as decorations (I guess that's the word to use). I found out that the place was only a few blocks down from my hostel, so I got there bright and early and walked into the place only to realize that it was only a few rooms connected to a hallway, but it was definitely an interesting place. Each room had a theme, such as skulls, or collarbones, etc and the walls were covered in each. The didn't allow picture taking there, but I bought a few post cards and took pictures of them...hah. Overall the place didn't really meet up to my expectations, but it was still pretty interesting.

After that cheerful morning, I decided to wander around the southeast part of the city, which looked all green on the map. It turned out to be a giant hill that climbed up to a couple really awesome views of the city. I then took the rest of the day wandering past a few of the shops in the city, including a Bentley dealership, a Ferrari store, an interesting liquor store, and a fountain pen shop, which only some of my readers would appreciate. Later in the day I visited a couple other churches which were amazing and by the end of the day, I decided that I'd at least take a stroll past the Vatican to see what it's all about. It was quite the amazing place, but more of that to come later. The rest of the day was spent wandering down the river that's in Rome.

The last day of my trip I had planned to go to the Vatican City and check out the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's (or Basilica di San Pietro for one of my readers). I figured because it was no longer Easter Sunday or Easter Monday, that the lines wouldn't be as long for Vatican related things...wow was I wrong. I got into a line for the Vatican museum that didn't look to bad at first. I then realized that it wrapped around a corner...then a couple hundred feet down the road it wrapped another corner...then another corner...you get the idea. The wait ended up being about 2 hours, but finally I got to the museum. Unfortunately, I was worrying the whole day about making my flight home that night, so all experiences in the Vatican were shortened a bit. Anyways, the museum was amazing though. My first thought though when I saw the amount of people pouring in was..."Wow...the Vatican is never going to go broke." It was just insanity the amount of tickets being sold. The museum itself was very impressive, even at a high speed pass. Some of my favorite items were paintings such as these, which seemed to be a little newer than most of the other artwork,
Raphael's room's that were pretty much covered in paintings from top to bottom, and of course the Sistine Chapel. I then got inline for St. Peter's, which was luckily a lot shorter than the museum line. St. Peter's was an insane church...about twice as huge and glorious as San Giovanni in Laterno, which I had visited a few days earlier. After visiting the Vatican, I decided it was time to start making my way back to the train station and to the airport for my farewell to Rome. The flight home was uneventful and I was home at about 10:30pm Tuesday night. Overall the trip was amazing, but pretty tiring. For my next European trip, I might find a place where there's not so many historical sites to run around to...maybe a place where I can just sit out by a pool with a Margarita...but we'll see. My work is already asking me about coming back to Ireland towards the end of May, so it looks like I might have future chances to visit other cities in Europe. Until my next adventure...Buona Sera!

ROME!

So I'm back from my Rome trip and pretty exhausted, but it was a great time. I got there on Saturday night and managed to find the Hostel I was staying in for a bit, then realized it was just a door in a building with no sign, just a number on the wall marking the address. As a precursor to the next part of this story...when I left Ireland, the last ATM I had tried to get cash out of had denied my card and said that I needed to contact my bank, which was a problem considering it was Easter Weekend. I went to Rome with only 30 euros in my wallet, assuming I could use my credit card most of the time there. However, when I get to the hostel, the guy tells me that they only accept cash, and it's a lot more than I have. I go into mini-panic mode, wondering what I would do in Rome without a place to stay for 3 nights. I ask the guy where the nearest ATM is and luckily it worked...apparently the ATM in Ireland was just in the business of scaring people to death. So I pay for the hostel and the guy shows me my room, which is a tiny room about the size of a college dorm room...but with 6 beds. I have never stayed in a hostel before, so this was going to be quite the experience. After dropping my stuff off, I wandered down the road to the Trevi Fountain, which was pretty awesome, but really crowded. Apparently it is one of the top sights to see during the night time due to the lighting. It was at the Trevi Fountain that I got my first glimpse of Rome street vendors...something that I'll elaborate on later. After looking at the fountain, I went off looking for this "great" Italian food and found a small pizza place near the fountain. I had been warned that the food near the attractions was generally not as good, but I figured about a block away was a safe distance...I was wrong. The pizza was not good. However, I then went looking for some "great" Italian ice cream and somehow I found one of the places that this guide book I have recommends as some of the best ice cream in Rome...and it definitely did not disappoint. Awesome ice cream. When I got back to the hostel, a couple of people were in the room and by the end of the night, the room was filled up.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, I decided to skip the Pope's speech as I wanted to avoid the insanity that I was sure would be near the Vatican. I went to the Capitolina first, the Capitol building, which was pretty amazing. From there I took a walk down by the Roman Forum towards the Colosseum, which was the primary thing I wanted to see in all of Rome. On the way to the Colosseum, I saw about a hundred street vendors, selling sunglasses, belts, little dancing paper things, etc. Not only were there street vendors, but there was also people painted all gold, posing as statues and other strange things like that...very odd. Anyways, when I got to the Colosseum, I immediately saw that if I wanted to get inside, I would have to wait in a line for probably over an hour. Luckily, right away a woman asked me if I spoke English and then offered me to join a tour group where I would have to pay extra, but I could skip a lot of the line and would have a tour guide, so I went for that. It ended up being a really good decision, as I got in really quickly and the tour guide was very good. After the Colosseum, I wandered down the street to a giant church called San Giovanni in Laterno, which I must say wasn't that much less amazing than St. Peter's. The work that went into these churches is baffeling. Other hightlights of the day were starting to see that the Smart car is a favorite of the Romans and I got a few glimpses of why by seeing their parking techniques. I also saw my first Ferrari of the trip...and then my second and third. At the end of the day, I wandered to the north of the city to a giant courtyard that was spectacular. Here is where I saw the Ferrari Enzo, but also some of the best views of Rome that I saw the entire trip. That night I finally found some really good pizza, so I was excited about that and decided to reward myself with more Italian ice cream...which tended to begin the trend of having pizza and ice cream for nearly every meal.

More to come soon...

What happened to the weather?

Well for the past couple weeks, the weather here has been amazing. After the entire month of March being rain every day, this month has been ideal weather and today I made the most of it and we headed out for a round of golf after work. We played at the Pfizer golf course, a 9 hole course right down the road from the plant here and the weather was amazing...about 65 degrees with a slight breeze. For a nine hole course, owned by Pfizer none the less, the course was pretty good. A couple holes over a lake, some overlooking the Cork harbor, etc. After getting the first-round-of-the-season jitters out last weekend, my game improved drastically this time, so that was good.

Tomorrow I'll be planning my trip to Rome...trying to figure out which places are going to be open on which days and such. I've heard that the weather in Rome during this time of year is really nice, so I'm looking forward to more of the sun and warmth...something I hear isn't showing itself too often back home in Connecticut. My next post will be after I return from Rome, so everyone have a happy Easter weekend and I'll make sure to post my hundreds of pictures as soon as I get back.

Ireland sports...

Well, this weekend has turned out to be a very big weekend for sports in Ireland. Friday night, I headed over to the Cork City Rebels soccer match. They were playing Longford Town and were pretty heavily favored. The first half was pretty exciting...I have never seen a soccer match live like this before and we were able to get seats in the second row along the side of the field, so we were only a couple feet from the players. Cork took a quick 2-0 lead in the first half and then sank into a more defensive game the second half, ensuring their victory.

While the game was on in Cork, my buddy from work was listening to the Ireland v. England Cricket match on the radio. Ireland is in the Cricket World Cup for the first time and were trying to beat big rivals England, but ended up coming just short. At the Cork soccer match, the stadium wasn't sold out and that was probably due to another game that was on, the Munster rugby match. Munster is the region's team, so a ton of people were at the pubs watching them play...but they ended up losing pretty handily as well.

After watching and listening to sports Friday night, I headed out to Kerry (near Kilarney) for a round of golf with the Pfizer Golf Society. We played at the Ring of Kerry Golf Club, which was a very scenic golf course, overlooking the mountains and a big lake. The course wasn't in the greatest of conditions, as they are just gearing up for the big golf season, but it was still a good time. My score wouldn't suggest that it was a good time however, as I played pretty terrible golf, which I guess was excusable considering I haven't played in about a year and was using another person's clubs. At least I've used up all my bad shots for a while though, so maybe if I play on the Pfizer 9-hole course over here, I'll do much better. After 6 hours of golfing though, I learned an important lesson: Don't walk 18 holes, carrying your bag, in a brand new pair of golf cleats...unless you want really sore feet and blisters at the end.