Bestie Travels Part Three: Blarney Castle and Adventure

This is part three of four posts on Bestie L's spectacular stint seeing the land of the green.

After an epic road trip of galavanting around the country, L and I were pretty exhausted. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), we had a party at the house that night for all the gang to meet my American friend that I'd been talking about for weeks. Giddy from exhaustion, I think we made a good showing, but honestly, we were so pooped I don't remember that much. I might have been asleep after all that... 

Anyway, the next day we decided to stick around Cork a little bit. We slept in, took a walk, headed to town, and eventually, hopped in the car for Blarney Castle.

For all of you American readers, I certainly hope you've heard of the infamous Blarney Stone - by kissing the stone you're gifted the gift of the gab. Basically it just means that if you're brave or nutty enough to bend over backwards over a great height and put your lips on possibly the most slobbered-upon thing on the planet, then you will be as talkative as some of us are naturally. Good luck! 

Blarney Castle, Co. Cork

The boy came with us girls for the evening because, though he's lived in Cork for ages, he's never been to Blarney. So the three of us hiked through the castle, crawling over fading limestone and into narrow windows. We crawled through dungeons and caves and enjoyed hunting through various poisonous plants and potions in the poisonous garden. L and I threw some imaginary boiling oil over the boy's head through the hidden gate, and it was just generally a great day. 

Though L didn't make it quite to the top (in fairness, it's a pretty awful staircase, and it was wet from recent rainy footsteps...), the boy and I waved to her down through the floors of the open castle!

Peace out, L

And we ended the day by romantically gazing at a beautiful sunset (my idea) and an epic high five session. 

The moral of the story? Blarney Castle is beautiful and a great visit. But it is much better exploring it with friends x

Get ready for the best high five ever - note how L never looks at me and how somehow I can't stop laughing. 

A Weekend Southside- A retro post

Last night in an impromptu Skype session, my biffle M and I were baffling over the difference between six months ago and now. Our third biffle was still engaged, we lived in the same state, we were both single and crazy, and we were baffling over what to do with ourselves over the next six months. Now we are living more than 3000 miles apart and still managing to stay invasively involved in the other's life. I'd call that success.

But in thinking over our conversation, I realized that I never posted about our weekend Southside, visiting the bride-to-be and picking out bridesmaids' dresses last April. So as almost a year has past, I feel it is appropriate to share these pictures with you.

So, so, so sunburned. (That happened before we ever got down there, she can't blame our mutual activities.)

The biffles x

The biffles drink. There's a good story about the one on the right.... Stay tuned (it's included below).

Lovely.

Even lovelier

There's something about taking pictures right next to each other: You can't see what the two people beside you are actually doing. Be careful, you might end up cheesing it while your friends do... well who even knows what.

 The night we got down to E's neck of the woods, we hung out that the family restaurant for a few hours and then went to a chill bar to hang out some more. Obviously a little photoshoot erupted, but we didn't scare anyone away. So don't worry. 

And the mason jar story? Well, I went to the bathroom for a couple of minutes, and when I came back out, I took a sip of my beer in the mason jar. Totally normal thing to do, except I spat it out. Because suddenly my beer had become very hot. I don't mean that it was no longer ice cold, nor do I mean that it was like the best beer ever. What I mean was that it was spicy, very, very, spicy. 

With utterly straight faces, everyone at the table tasted the beer when I wouldn't shut up about the weird, new taste. Every single one of them told me they didn't taste anything weird, everyone except one. This one kind soul was the last to taste the beer. He took one taste, looked at me, started laughing and just said, 'Sorry, I can't do this. That actually tastes terrible!' 

When everyone started yelling at him for giving them away, I realized that my 'friends' had put Tabasco hot sauce in my drink while I was away from the table. They all proceeded to spit out the bad taste around the table, and someone bought me a new beer. 

'Friends'! Pah!

I taught them that monkey face.

The happy couple.

The happier couple.

The really happy couple.

 

 The next day, with sore heads and dreading hearts, we went bridesmaids' dress shopping. After trying on literally a hundred dresses (I don't know how we managed honestly), we finally decided. 

At the time, I remember consciously deciding not to post these pictures because I didn't want to ruin the surprise of the dress design. But since you've already seen all the wedding photos, I think it's okay.... 

Then, it was sadly time to say goodbye. With a bug hug, we hit the road.

M showing off her muscles. It's okay, girl, we know you're strong. No need to rub it in!

A New York Minute- Part A

 One of New York City's biggest charms is its residents. They're not known for their friendliness or even their cleanliness. But New Yorkers know how to appreciate time and the little things. Perhaps it's because they spend so much time commuting, errand-running, and on other lonely pursuits with their headphones blaring. When the opportunity for a New York minute arises, they'll run for it head-on. Often it means huge crowds, uncomfortable heat, long lines; but it's that moment when you realize that a huge crowd came for the same thing you did, that all these people are excited for the same thing, and that you're waiting with a million other people that is so impressive. A New York minute usually lasts a few hours thanks to the line and the commute, but the experience is always worth it.

Last weekend, I headed back up to New York to visit all my friends who still live up there and who can't understand why I left. I'm still a little confused about it myself. But after two days in sandals on the dirty streets, I kind of remember...  Anyway after a successful show for my little Broadway campers, I caught the bus and sat through almost 8 hours of traffic to finally make it (late) for my friends birthday dinner!

Our Broadway set, decorated by the campers!

So close to the city! Why couldn't the Lincoln Tunnel just expand and let everyone in?

Birthday cake!

After a few hours of wine and Italian (and a big piece of birthday cake passed around the table with a spoon), we split the bill 10 ways (though the birthday girl thought it might be cheaper to split it 11) and walked our separate ways.

Some of us stumbled upon the Canal Room...

A huge pile of checks...

There were big blow-ups of 90s pop singers all over the place.

Apparently, a friend's boyfriend told us, the Canal Room plays 90s music on Friday nights. We weren't sure what that might mean, so we wandered around until we came to this deserted looking room with a bar in it. Since they were playing "Black or White" we figured we could stay for a while, and before we knew it, the place was packed with Zack Morris' crew and Nsync's posse. It turned into a great night; even NYC's own Scottish lass Elise trekked down to join!

The cover band knew how to sing to 20 somethings who're still stuck in the 90s!

Completely unprepared for photo

So after a great and random night of singing Backstreet Boys and Blink-192 at the top of our lungs, we crawled the 10 blocks back to a friends apartment and fell right to sleep.

Saturday morning, I headed out and met a friend for Irish breakfast. Saturday actually turned into Sarah's Irish fest, but more on that later.

I had actually (sadly) allotted only two hours for each of the four or five friends I tried to see on Saturday. But thanks to some people's openness to new friends and some people's busy schedules, I got to spend a great many hours with just a couple. So after three hours at the restaurant drinking tea and mimosas long after our food was gone, I head over to the pub.

But more on that next post... :D

Batman wallet!