Girls weekend in Cork
Three Brits, two Aussies and an Irish all walk into a pub on a trip to New Zealand. What happens next?
Yeah that’s what I thought you’d say, but apart from that, we all kept in contact and two years later the six of us all got together again for the Easter weekend in Jen’s hometown of Cork, Ireland.
We met Sarah and Emma on the Stansted Express at Liverpool St Stn – they literally arrived two minutes before it left. Kate got on further up the line at Tottenham Hale. The girls were only taking hand luggage but lija and I checked in my suitcase for the both of us. That was fun dragging through the tube – brought back memories of our first week in London. Kate had her bag searched and for the second time in a week i got frisked. So not cool. The most dangerous thing I’d be likely to carry is my knitting needles! Ryanair refused to note that the plane was delayed even though we watched it park and unload when we were supposed to be boarding. The girls got priority seat tickets and saved seats for us two.
The flight was relatively uneventful despite having a mum and baby in our row. Little Lula was quiet most of the way but the landing was bad for the both of us – she was expressing how l felt. I had a blocked nose so the pressure was pretty bad but l didn’t go deaf like when we came home from Split! Jen was there awaiting the imminent invasion and she had to make two trips to get us all home – luckily she lives about 8 mins from the airport. When we all got in we cracked open the wine, Jen got some chow on and we did what any group of girls does best – talked the night away! Jen’s Dad came over during the evening, as she said, he had to get a geezer at the invasion of Jen’s friends! He was nice, stayed for a bit of a chat, and then later on Jen’s sister popped around. All her family is down from Dublin for the Easter weekend staying at different relo’s houses. She usually has her nephew Kevin living with her, but she chucked him out over the weekend to make room for us! She’s the cool Aunt! Because I wasn’t well, Jen gave me her hot water bottle which sits in a big bunny’s tummy – don’t laugh! It’s so cute! And it gave me something to hug – I woke up still hanging on to it in the morning 🙂
It was a lazy Saturday morning at the O’Brien house; I didn’t surface till 11 because I jumped in the shower first. Two and a half Men was showing all 100 episodes this weekend so we got stuck into those for a while, and then decided to walk into town. Jen said it wasn’t that far but with 6 girls gabbing the whole way it took us a good 45mins. We walked out of the estate, down the hill, along the main road which goes over the freeway and past the lock and down into town – I’m sure glad we didn’t have to walk home! Cork is very pretty, lots of green grass in the countryside and walking into town was like watching a scene from Billy Elliott – yes I know it was shot in Northern England, but the houses have that same quaint feel, small grey concrete or brown brick with coloured doors, but funnily enough it doesn’t have that feeling that everyone’s living on top of each other, it’s more just a community that grew up several generations ago used to living in small places.
The town itself I thought was prettier than Dublin. Dublin has all the tourist attractions – the university and museums and gardens, but Cork has the people. It has a very laid-back relaxed feel to it, like everyone’s happy to be there. Our first stop was for refreshments, and Lija and I were oh-so-excited there was a Gloria Jeans there. GJs is the Aussie version of Starbucks/Neros, etc but the wife owner married a Hungarian man so there are a few in Hungary and Jen said there’s actually about three in Cork alone. However, it just wasn’t the same as back home. Not hot enough, not as strong a flavour as Neros which is my current favourite coffee shop in London.
We all split up for a while to wander around the shops – Cork also has another Aussie-known department store in Harvey Normans, and their Primark over here is known as Pennys. The price in Euros is a bit scary – Lija found some really nice tops in a shop but they were all 40Euros – too much! It was a nice day, the sun was out so we took our time. We caught the bus home which was not cool – we had a bunch of ragamuffins at the back with us, and Jen was about to clobber them. That, she said, is why she doesn’t catch the bus. After more Two and a half Men Sarah, Jen and Lija went out to get fish and chips for dinner, the perfect stomach liner for a night out on the town. Yes, six girls and you can imagine how long it takes for everyone to get ready, but because we were taking a maxi-cab into town, everyone had to be ready on time!
We went out to a place called Bar Soho, which wasn’t rocking yet because the last ten minutes of the footy was showing on the big screens. They were promptly rolled up and out when the game finished, and the DJ got into the act with a bit of house music. It was a nice place, and we all started with cocktails that were quite posh – my favourite Long Island Iced Tea – usually in a tall glass and that’s about as fancy as it gets! – was in a tall almost champagne-flute-like-sundae-ice-cream-shaped glass. Those were our one expensive drinks for the night each, but I had a really good time. We went on to this place afterwards, that’s a pub on the ground floor, with several rooms, and a club upstairs. We stayed in the pub for a while – there’s always a certain time that you have to wait till before you hit the clubs – and got stuck between a buck’s party, not cool. Bars have a funny service here where you order mixers, like a vodka and lemonade, and the bar staff will give you a glass with ice and vodka, and then the bottle of lemonade so you pour your own – bizarre!
We went up to the club just before midnight – 15 Euros to get in! But a few of Jen’s friends were there so we all had a dance. And just as we all got started and I really felt like I could go until dawn, the last song played at 2am and they turned the lights on and started shuffling people out. Hello? 2am = too early! The same guy in the mini-van happened to be close by so he took us back home, but before we got out we lost Jen for a while, who was trying to get her coat from the club but she got stuck between the bouncer and some guys he was kicking out and literally she ended up on her arse in the street! She was able to get back in, but meanwhile here’s all us standing outside going Where is she? Did she leave without us? I vaguely remember having tea and toast with cheese on it when we got home, and then everyone fell into bed and asleep.
Sunday was wonderfully super lazy, bacon, eggs, black pudding, baked beans for breakfast mmmm and then lounging around watching, yep, I don’t need to tell you. All day. Bliss. Some of the girls went out for a walk but I was feeling particularly laid back, so Em, Lija and I put Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café on DVD. It’s a Kathy Bates film, with a young Chris O’Donnell, it was really good. I had heard of it before, but never seen it. Of course, Lija’s sitting there going “I think this is the part where he’s going to die now”, just before he does argh. I could have slapped her! Ok, it was obvious, and I guessed it when I saw what was happening, but the whole idea of movies is to not have your suspicions confirmed until you see for yourself!
Tonight we went out for dinner at Luigi Malone’s. We had to take two cabs, even though Jen had ordered the mini-cab, and Sarah, Em and my driver was taking the piss the whole way. I knew he was taking us the long way, but I don’t know the shorter way and when I said Isn’t there a shorter way he kind of ignored me. Jen confirmed when we got there saying he did take us the long way. Oh well. I really enjoyed dinner. Lija and I had the set menu because it seemed to work out cheaper, although it was a struggle to fit pudding in! I had a prawn cocktail to begin, spare ribs for main and a Bailey’s cheesecake for dessert. We all got through three bottles of wine, and we were the last ones the leave the restaurant. I nearly had an accident walking to the toilets, I thought my shoes were still wet from the light rain we had outside, and I slipped and nearly went A over T on the floorboards, but when I got to the loos I saw that the small cap on the bottom of my heel had come off. It must’ve happened last night at the club, but I didn’t realise at the time. I had to walk out on my toes. I think I have spare cappy things so hopefully I can fix them. Kate and Em went off to bed, and Lija, Sarah and Jen had gone out to meet more of the family. I wasn’t really tired so I stayed up watching the end of Fried Green Tomatoes… and then Billy Elliott was on, so I was still up when the others came home.
Em, Sarah and Kate left early Monday morning because it takes them a lot longer to get home from London than us, we were on the 9pm flight, so Jen wasn’t able to rest yet! Because there were only three of us it was a bit more manageable so Jen drove us up to Blarney Castle, which we’d been nagging her about. It’s about 25 minutes out of Cork, but it was very worth it. It is a very sharp square castle, with big rough dark grey bricks, I can’t explain the difference between the castles we’ve seen in Europe, but it is very different and very pretty. There are lots of tunnels and caves at the bottom, and a river running by it. It is well kept and has some beautiful gardens. We went all the way to the top where the Blarney Stone is, legend has it if you kiss the stone you will get the gift of the gab. To kiss the stone, you have to lie on your back at the very top part of the castle and hold onto these two metal rods to pull yourself half hanging over the edge, throw your head back and kiss the smooth stone upside down. You can see the photo when I put it up but it isn’t pretty!
We went back into town to have lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon mooching around on the couch – the only bad thing about a late flight is that you have to wait for it! And of course being a Ryanair flight, wait for it and wait for it. Yep, we’ve had enough. Ryanair has lost us as customers, we refuse to take their flights anymore. They seem cheap to begin with and then the money just keeps adding on as well as the inconveniences of staff and delays. We were meant to board at 9am and take off at half past nine, but our flight didn’t arrive until then so we didn’t board until nearly 10. We got into Stansted at 11pm, but because it was Easter long weekend everyone was coming back at the same time and there were bad delays coming through customs so passengers were being held in the corridors to stem the flow of people going into customs. The ironic thing? We got held for 45 mins along the way, moving inches at a time and sometimes not at all, and when we reach customs we get to go through the side gate showing our boarding pass because all passengers from within Ireland and the UK don’t have to go through customs. Aghh!
THEN we went to get our suitcase and catch the bus, Lija went to get the tickets at five to midnight, and the lady got us on the next available bus to Stratford which wasn’t until 00.55am. So we sat inside the waiting room watching everyone board the twenty past bus, cursing them, and then about ten or so got left off the bus because it was packed. Lija ran into Bryce, one of our Croatia Aussie mates, who was coming back from Berlin with some mates. They were able to get on that twenty past bus luckily, but it was nice to catch up with Bryce who we haven’t seen since Christmas I think. We eventually got on the bus and got home at 2am. Five hours to get from Cork to Bromley-by-Bow when the flight lasts 40 mins? Ridiculous.
I had an awesome weekend in Cork though, and it was great to catch up with all the girls, and Jen’s going to come over for Sarah’s birthday bash – we’re going to Derby Day again, Lija and I will be celebrating our one year anniversary of being in London, and not long till we come home but still many more adventures to be had 🙂
Stay tuned, that’s all folks! Xoxo
(At 2,300 words I’ll be amazed at who reads this before I’m writing about the next trip!)
Tags: Travel
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