7/8/10 - Kissing stones, bus butt and Pink Floyd

Day 22. Similar to London & Edinburgh, we set up a bus tour so the kids can get out of the city and see the countryside.  There weren’t a lot of options so we settle on the Blarney Castle and Cork one knowing it will fall on the touristy side of things. 

Our bus driver is on the edgy side in terms of telling jokes that might be considered inappropriate. Our kids are the only kids on the bus so either 5 teenagers weren’t going to stop him from telling his jokes or he was actually targeting the jokes to them.  

We stop for lunch in Cork and one of the passengers asks him if there is anywhere they can buy weed in town. Oh the bus driver had a field day with that the rest of the day.  He tells us after lunch that the tour has been changed to the puff, puff, pass it on tour.  I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that Ireland is not as open to the concept of recreational pot as let’s say California, Washington or Colorado.  I’m thinking that the Irish government wouldn’t be thrilled having a gaggle of stoned Leprechauns running around scaring the hell out of all the tourists.

We know these bus tours involve a lot of driving but this one seems to have more than London and Edinburgh.  The problem is that Leanne and I spent the entire day yesterday on a bus.  So at this point, I think my butt is molded into the shape of a bus seat.  I’m convinced I’ll be walking around with bus butt the rest of the day. 

We go to Blarney Castle. Apparently the whole point of going to there is to kiss the Blarney Stone and get 7 years of eloquent speech (otherwise known as the gift of gab).  My kids are joking that they should charge twice the amount for 14 years of gab and 5 times the amount for a lifetime of gab.  I think to myself that they have a bright future career working for an Internet recurring service business.  

The first issue is that we are there 2 hours and you have to wait 1 hr 15 mins in the queue to kiss a rock. I don’t do particularly well waiting in long lines. In addition, I went with my mom in 1997 and kissed the stone. The deciding factor came when our bus driver told us that we didn’t need to worry about germs because they come and clean the stone every hour.  Wait, so if 2 people kiss the stone every hour, you have 120 people’s germs to contend with before it gets cleaned.  At Mass, they wipe the cup after every person takes a sip.  John, Ashley and I decide to pass on the tourist trap and walk the gardens and grounds.  I’m glad we did as they were really nice.  Leanne and the other kids got to kiss the Blarney stone.

We arrive back and it’s our last dinner in Ireland.  I said when we arrived in Ireland that I was not leaving Dublin until we had dinner with live traditional Irish music.  The first night, we got a late start and the pubs stop serving food at 10pm so we have to find the closest one which doesn’t have live music.  The second night we have dinner with Charlie so we go without music so we can hear each other talk.  The third night, we go an Irish pub with live music but it is more regular rock cover songs. 

So we are down to the last night tonight.  We find a place that markets itself as traditional live Irish music.  We get seated and settled and order drinks.  The music starts and the first song is…Pink Floyd. I’m confused.  I’m looking for songs like Danny Boy, Molly Malone, The Wild Rover and I get Wish you were here? That’s it, check please!  We’re out of here.  We go to another pub where the live signer has a noticeable Irish accent and he avoids English cover bands but it’s not what I was hoping for.  Oh well, I guess I’ll to wait until to next time I’m in New York and convince my cousin Brendan (who is amazing at playing and singing live Irish songs) to play for me.