Cork Confessional

We’ve discovered that we enjoy the smaller towns and villages a lot more than the bigger cities...Cork was our first stay in a big city here in Ireland, and we experienced the brunt of culture shock here. Our relationship with Cork started on a rocky note, in that as we drove into the city, many of the roads were blocked off for a huge rugby event, so the rest of the town streets were chaos. Charlie got really used to shifting the car between first and neutral as we hunted around to find our B&B.

Once we did find our new home, Garnish House (which is an AH-mazing B&B. You must stay here if you come. This place is so amazing that it will get it’s own post on the blog), we ended up sitting and talking with yet another American couple who were traveling. We sat and talked with them, getting suggestions on places to see, what itineraries to follow, etc. We actually ended up talking to them for such a long while that when we left the house, at 5:15pm, EVERYTHING in Cork City was closed. And very few people were out on the streets. ON A SATURDAY NIGHT. The town was dead. No shops were open, no museums, no historical sites, nothing. Just restaurants and bars and even they were fairly empty.

Well, no problem for us, we had already picked out a restaurant that we really wanted to try that had gourmet burgers on the menu, but when we arrived, we were told that their next available booking was open at 9pm. Hmm....silly guidebooks making places more popular. So we wandered about for a good hour, trying to find food that suited our tastes, and ended up stopping at this super posh place called Soho. At Soho, you order raw food and then the server brings you a hot volcanic stone that has been heating up for hours and hours and hours in giant ovens, and you basically cook your own meal on the stone. So, yes, you are essentially paying to cook your own meal in a restaurant. That irony did not miss us. But whatever. Time for us to find some “trad” (traditional) music.

Here’s a little honest confessional here: I had been seriously thinking that we’d be hearing traditional music pouring out of the windows and doors of pubs all around Ireland. Regardless of where we were, we’d be hearing it every night of the week. Well...we certainly were wrong. Many places will have specific nights of the week where trad music is played, I guess to allow for sporting events to be aired on the remaining nights of the week. So what’s a couple to do early on a Saturday evening in Cork? Well, drink of course. And participate in the national pastime of engaging in “craic” or talking. But there was no one at the bars for us to “craic” with. And the vibe of Soho was too fake.

So we went back to our B&B and watched some good old Irish TV, which is mainly from Britain & the States. AHHHH.....

At about 9:45 that evening, we looked at each other, decided if we were going to push ourselves out the door, or if we were going to stay in for the evening. We weighed the options: stay in, get good rest for the next day’s adventure of sea kayaking, watch more Irish TV, read, blog, etc OR put ourselves way outside our comfort zone, find a pub and try our hand at craic with some good old Irish strangers.

So we left our B&B again, determined that we were going to do our best to have a good time. After wandering in and out of a few places, we ended up at a bar called the Old Oak and sat down to get a drink. A few minutes later a bunch of girls (actually, these women were probably in their 40s) wander in for a “hen” party and one of them stopped at the bar for a drink. And she gets milk. Strange. She’s definitely Irish, definitely in a bar, definitely there for a celebration and definitely drinking milk. So I gotta ask. But I start with “What are your costumes for?” My new friend launches into a description of a hen party, and then tells me that she’s “got a bit of the indigestion from eating dinner too fast and now she’s on the milk to calm her indigestion.” I say, “Wow, I hope you feel better” and she says, “Cheers!” and leaves. Shit. Not a long craic session.

Next it’s Charlie’s go: He asks the guy who sat around the corner from us at the bar how’s it going and we end up talking to Scott from Europe, originally from Vancouver, actually originally from California. (Each place was revealed a few more minutes into our conversation). We ended up chatting with him for a good long while about nearly everything: God, Jesus, the Old Testament, music, the differences between cultures, how he got to Europe (by playing music on cruise ships), where he grew up (central California). We chatted for quite a while, until we realized that we had to get back for some sleep.

So, thanks to Scott, our Canadian/Californian, Cork day one was rescued from being a total bust.