Early morning wake-up call (seems like I say that every day, huh?) so we could check out of the Riverbank Park Plaza hotel and once again we were off in a Black Cab which amazingly fit all five of us plus all our luggage. Got to Heathrow with plenty of time to spare. Even though you go through way more checkpoints there, the security is so much faster, pretty impressive.
We were all ready to go, but we sat on the runway for almost an hour. Apparently they're not too interested in leaving on time at Aer Lingus! We arrived at the Cork airport around 2 and retrieved our bags and the rental car (a fab Skoda Octavia) which luckily had more than enough trunk space!
Michael took on the challenge of driving on the wrong side of the road and on the wrong side of the car, pretty nerve wracking when we got to our first round-a-bouts!!
The first stop on our journey was south from Cork to Kinsale. I'm not sure if it was because we got there kinda late for the lunch hour or because it was still the off-season or that no one in Ireland has any functioning taste buds, but there definitely wasn't any good food to be found for lunch in Kinsale!! There were many nicer restaurants but none open for lunch, so we were out of luck but managed to have a good laugh about it. Kinsale is a crowded little fishing village with something to see around every winding, hilly turn.
We got back in the car to make our way to the hotel with a detour through CrossBarry for Kevin. We decided that taking the more scenic coastal route was not the best plan since it would've doubled our driving time and with all of the bumps in the road and sharp turns I think we had had enough of the car after the first hour! I think I forgot to mention that the best part about Ireland so far was that the sun was shining when we left the airport!! Everything was lush and green and the blue sky just topped it all off. Surprisingly there were new housing developments popping up throughout the countryside which all had common space for the sheep, too funny!
Around 6pm we arrived in the city of Killarney. Our hotel, Arbutus Hotel, was tough to find since they had repainted the bright yellow exterior (that we knew about from their website) to some nondescript cream color! Once we checked in, we walked around the city which was quite big with tons of shops and bars/hotels and we found ourselves at Charlie's tavern for a drink and some cards. After Linda tried her first Guinness, we were on the prowl for dinner and found a place a few doors down called Danny Mann's pub which had tasty authentic Irish food and live music later in the evening.
We decided to find another more 'local' bar around 9pm and although we can't seem to remember the name of the place I'm certain none of us will forget the evening anytime soon! So hysterical...from the old men hitting on Kara (what else is new) to the VERY drunk guys who just sat down in our booth and started chatting it up...it was more entertainment than we could've hoped for! One man, named Ty sat or possibly fell into our bar and kept the laughs coming. He far exceeded the Irish teeth stereotype, a toothbrush should be on the top of his wish list! Ty probably had been drinking since noon and most likely hadn't worked since the last paycheck he showed us from the 70's.
And then there was Martin. Martin was also 'wicked pissed' and decided to get into a fight with one of his friends which completed Michael's perfect image of an authentic Irish bar experience. I decided to interrogate him for no good reason other than for pure entertainment value, such a fun night. Once we had our fill of the local color we mosied back to the Arbutus a little past midnight...oops, the door was locked and we had to get the night manager to let us in! Guess that means it's past our bedtimes!!
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