Yesterday was a fun if tiring travelling experience. I caught the train to Heathrow via Paddington, managed not to break one of those automatic check-in machines, and then after a walk of marathon proportions I reached gate 77 and my Aer Lingus flight to Cork.
I'm not really a fan of air travel, having experienced the hell of British Airways' own brand of cattle-class travel to Bangalore a couple of years back, but this short haul flight was actually quite pleasant. I also had a window seat, which breaks a long running tradition of my sitting next to Japanese businessmen who must pre-book a window seat, only to pull the shutter down and go to sleep!
The view on the way out wasn't that great, merely a blinding white from the sun reflecting off layers of cloud above and below. As we crossed the Irish coast the cloud started to break up though, and I got my first glimpse of the Emerald Isle. It looked suspiciously like Oxfordshire to me.
Rosie met me at the airport and we took the bus to Cork, where we signed in at the B&B. They greeted us with a tonne of scones and cakes and tea.
Saturday was quite a lazy day. We had a lie in, and then went for a wander around Cork city centre. I have to say that Cork is not a pretty city at all. It's a lot like Derby, except with a worse traffic system; this is really saying something. THe other thing was that the chains of shops were all practically identical to those in the UK, such as Waterstones, Argos, Tesco, etc and a few that seemed slightly familiar such as Penneys (Primark) and Milano (Pizza Express).
No lunch was necessary thanks to the huge traditional Irish breakfast the B&B had provided.
Having quickly exhausted everything that central Cork had to offer we decided to fill the gap before dinner by going to see a film, so we went to see Monsters vs Aliens at the multiplex in the city centre. The film was in 3D, hence the hilarious glasses.
Dinner was nice but it was spoiled somewhat because knowing the exchange rate from Sterling to Euros made me realise just how much everything was costing me. In order to try to save ourselves a cent or two we decided to get our desert from Tesco before we started the plod back to the B&B. In the end we settled on a box of Irish Solero ice creams. Trust me to find the only box that has obviously fallen off the back of a lorry.
Tomorrow we shall be getting out of Cork and going to Blarney Castle, so lets hope that the weather is nice for that.
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