“Boloney is flattery laid on with a trowel. Blarney is flattery laid on with the lips; that is why you have to kiss a stone to get it.”

First of all, I didn't want to brag too publicly too early about this, but I feel the need to tell you all that it is currently over 50 degrees and sunny here in Dublin. The forecast for the rest of the week? Around fifty degrees and sunny. Every day. Brilliant (quite literally). I mean, who knows how long this will last, but honestly, Ireland, you haven't been living up to your reputation. One or two bad months does not a clammy climate make.
This weekend I went down to Cork, where it was actually quite cold (relative to the tropical paradise of Dublin, that is). It's sometimes jokingly called the People's Republic of Cork and has a friendly rivalry with Dublin. Budweiser seems to have chosen sides:

We stayed with Kelsey's friend, who's studying this semester at University College, Cork. We were extremely grateful for free housing, of course, but the sleeping arrangements were a bit odd:

We didn't spend a whole lot of time in the city itself. Saturday we took a day trip to the nearby coastal town of Cobh (pronounced cove). Cobh was the Titanic's final port of call; it's also where the Lusitania's victims and survivors were brought after the ship was sunk by a German U-Boat. It was pretty sleepy the day we were there, though.


On the way back to Cork, we stopped at Fota Wildlife Park. It was amazing--a zoo of sorts, but with the absolute minimum amount of fencing possible. We saw penguins, black swans, pelicans that came up to my waist, cheetahs (which, yes, were caged), zebras, monkeys, something that looked suspiciously like an anteater, and, well, basically everything that can survive in this climate. Just to show how up close and personal we're talking, here's a lemur I hung out with for a while:

Also, this was the second time in my life that I've come face to face with an ostrich. I wouldn't mind if that never happened again.
Sunday morning we headed out to Blarney Castle:

I had heard some pretty negative things about Blarney, but really, I found it to be thoroughly beautiful and enjoyable. I think a lot of the criticism comes from people who just rush up to kiss the stone and skip all the paths and trails around the castle. Also, I guess during the peak tourism season there's an unbelievably long line up to the stone. The day we went, we had to wait maybe three minutes. It may have been a bit chilly, but doing this thing in February was the way to go.
We walked the Wishing Steps--you're supposed to go up and down, backwards, with your eyes shut, thinking about your wish. A little tricky, but we managed.

There's also a hype about the Blarney Witch. Here she is in profile:

And of course we kissed the stone. Yes, I know all the stories about what people do to the stone, and yes, I know how many people have kissed it before me, but they do clean it, and we were there in the morning, and it's the off-season, so it had probably only been kissed 75 times before me that day. Actually, I did it wrong--the old man (who is a legend in himself, actually) was lowering me down (you have to lie down and bend over backwards, and there's only a couple bars between you and a loooooong drop to the ground), and I assumed that the entire wall counted, so I kissed it about three times on the way down to the stone itself. A little overeager? Apparently you're supposed to kiss it, not make out with it. I was mocked for that one. I don't know if that counteracted the effects of kissing the stone; however, if this is noticeably more eloquent than my former posts, you know why.
My botched job:

Tessa did it right:

In other news, I have officially been in Ireland for over a month. I have so much more that I want to do and see and learn, of course, but it's remarkable how much Dublin feels like home.