Cobh

April 14th
Cobh

Another Irish port today, the same one I’d visited a few years ago to visit Blarney Castle. I couldn’t get on the tour I wanted, so after sleeping in a bit in the morning, I got off the ship just to have a walk around the sea side village on my own. It was cold today, which wasn’t all that bad after you got used to it. And there’s something really charming about these Irish towns that you don’t get other places, so I walked as far as I felt I needed and returned 2 hours later to run into some friends on the street.
There’s nothing much to do in the small town of Cobh, so we ducked into a local pub and passed the rest of the day there. We had a night off tonight, so no one was too worried about having an extra pint of whichever Irish Stout we were drinking (I had Beamish). My only complaint about the city was that I couldn’t buy anything! There were literally no stores, pubs, cafes, or anything that would take my visa, apparently because of the processing costs. I wanted lunch, and after people had been buying me some drinks, I couldn’t let them buy my lunch too, but I ran into the same problem. My friends hung out at the bar while I roamed the streets trying to find someone who would accept my credit card, which ended up being a grocery store where I was able to buy some Chicken cutlets and a bag of chips (called Hunky Dorys). But even there I ran into a problem as they didn’t want to run any cards for less than 10 euro…my bill was 4. I explained my situation, that I had no euro, and the cashier made an exception and I was finally allowed to eat.
But that aside, it was a nice day where I was just able to relax on my walk and then hang out with my friends at a small, quiet pub in town. I guess that was really what the Irish experience should have been, hanging out at a pub and getting food from a “chippy”, as my Irish friend called the fast food place he ordered from. So nothing too exciting, but a nice day to kind of relax before the whole stress of packing up to go home hits. Thanks for reading!