The Blarney Castle

So, I haven't updated in a while. So here are some photographs of my trip to Cork, Blarney and Cobh. I went with about 118 international students from Griffith College. We went by bus and it took about 3 or 4 hours to get there. We stayed at a hostel. My first experience with a hostel actually. It sort of felt like a submarine or a some place you would sleep in a ship. There were about 3 bunk beds (to fit 6 in a room) with one bathroom. The room was long and narrow, but the bathroom was larger than the one I currently use in Dublin. However, I forgot that hostels aren't like hotels and forgot a towel for the shower, and only brought a washcloth, but made do with that. Anyway, the hostel was quite nice and the free breakfast is always a plus. Tea, coffee, orange juice cereal and toast was included in a seemingly unlimited supply. So every morning we loaded up so that dinner or a late lunch would be our only meal needed, with a snack in between.
So, the college had an itinerary planned out for the weekend, but if we got up early enough we could explore Cork and the nights were free as well.
Cork is a city similar to Dublin, but does not have as many people or vomit as far as I could tell. A river runs around the city center where the shops, museums and a couple gorgeous cathedrals. The hostel receptionist told me that in the Fall almost half of the heart of the city was under water from the heavy heavy rainfall that occurred. However by this time the city was back to normal and beautiful. On our first morning, me and a couple other Americans decided to go into town and the receptionist pointed out some places on the map to visit. I was the only person to ask so I chose the English markets which wouldn't be open the next day, Sunday. I truly enjoy markets because of the sites you see and the bustle that is created with buying and selling goods. Meat, cheese, bread, eggs, vegetables, chocolate and more is sold in the market which is covered and seen above in the photographs. There are also vintage shops and other shops in the market. I even saw a tiny gallery displaying art.
At night the city is quiet except for the pubs and clubs. Staying at the particular hostel we stayed at we got a 15% discount on drink at a certain pub down the street. On the second night it was Molly's birthday at midnight (my roommate) so me and a couple of people gathered a bunch of students and Griffith people and sang Happy Birthday at the top of our lungs. We also went to another club and the bouncer warned us it was an older crowd(meaning 30s) but we went in to have a drink anyway. On our way back a fight broke out between some guys and since Ireland doesn't really have guns, their weapon of choice was belts. We watched for a little bit until the Garda showed up and then broke it up, but the Garda does not carry guns either only batons. Nothing happened after that and we walked on. Below I'll talk about the adventures in the Jameson distillery and the Blarney Castle.