Corcaigh

At last we reach what has been Francie's goal all along, Ireland. I was sort of looking forward to it too. But 50 deg N in February? It's freakin' COLD here. And about 3 hours of feeble twilight that calls itself a grand sunny day. We shoulda gone to Africa. Or stayed in Thailand! It was pretty darn nice there.

Anyway, we're in Cork at the Kinlay guest house. Appears to be one of the larger ones here, everybody seems to know about it, even the cab driver. Despite my whining about the latitude, the attitude is a whole different thing. The people in Ireland, even in this decade of boom and immigration, are the nicest you'll find anywhere. They like to talk, they have interesting things to say. There's a genuine feeling of welcome and human-ness. Even the dogs are friendly. All of them. I figure that must be because the people they meet are nice to them, so why shouldn't they be friendly?

Kinlay house is a rambling old structure that's been around since 1700 or so, home to the destitute, old folks, soldiers, and now young immigrant wannabe's from all over the EU. Mostly Frankish this week. Man, the girls are cute. Sorry lads, no pics.

It's right under the famous Shannon Bell tower, part of the St Anne's church, which has been here since the late 18th century. The clock faces, known as the "Four Liars" are among the biggest in Europe. They're called that because the hands are so big they're affected by weather and don't all show the same time. They never have.

I fixed a couple of their badly managed computers and earned free internet, as long as I use my laptop (which I would prefer to do anyway), so things are good here for figuring out what we're going to do. Which is a problem, because we weren't supposed to get to Ireland until April or something and the house isn't available yet. Francie did talk with Tom and the house will be available on the 21st of Feb, but that leaves 3 weeks up in the air.

So we hang at Kinlay in Cork for a week or so to sort things out, like buying a car, trying to get insurance, getting warmer clothes, figuring out where we might want to go for the next 5 months etc.