Reunions and tourism around Cork – 7/4/2007 – 8/4/2007

My lesbian lover and her husband took their first European holiday at Easter to see me (and some of Ireland). Their plan was to arrive sometime Saturday afternoon and depart sometime Sunday afternoon. Our plans for those days involved lots of laziness and tourism. I drove. Kate played overbearing mother figure /navigator. We headed for Cork at lunchtime, shopped a little, lunched a lot and eventually retrieved Sarynna and Chase from the bus right around 5pm. Thankfully, they weren’t hungry. Eventually we went for Thai food in Midleton, in partial celebration of our past Salathai ritual. Sary and Chase wanted to hear trad music, but unfortunately Saturday night isn’t the time or the place for it. Instead, they had to cope with a typical night out in a typical Irish pub. They seemed happy enough for it.

The laziness of Saturday was replaced with touristiness for Sunday. We stuffed ourselves into my hired Ford Fiesta and headed for Blarney Castle. While queuing there, I saw the bus tour similar to the one my parents will be taking in August. We queued. We kissed. We queued more. I did tip the guy who was helping people not slip and bump their heads against the non-plummeting tourist grate below. Not being dropped seemed useful. Blarney Castle seems like a great place to play tag. Or hide and seek.

We stuffed ourselves back into the car and headed for tourist destination #2, Midleton Distillery, one of the homes of Jameson Whiskey. We had a few minutes before the tour so we took advantage of the time to have a hint of lunch. The soup was determined to be Christine-friendly and fast, so five bowls of soup it was. Then we queued and we toured. We learned the difference between Irish, Scottish and American whiskeys, whiskies and whiskeys, beyond just the spelling. At the end of the tour, Chase was selected as one of the official tasters. Along with two others, he got to taste the differences between whiskey, whisky and whiskey. The brands were Jameson, Johnnie Walker and Jack Daniels. She then asked each of them to choose a favourite. Each of them chose a different one with Chase choosing loyalty above flavour with his Jack Daniels. Each of the three was presented with a diploma establishing his credibility as an Irish whiskey taster.

While Chase was tasting firewater, I suffered another failed whiskey experiment. Irish whiskey was smooth as fire and not to my liking at all. It failed the two sip test miserably. I did like Kate’s whiskey and cranberry, but that seemed a bit blasphemous. Instead, I poured my whiskey into Dave’s glass.

Unfortunately, the end of our Jameson tourist experience meant the end of our reunion. Sarynna and Chase needed to get the bus back to Dublin. We dropped them off and replaced my friends with Kate’s friends for the rest of the evening. After pub, food, alcohol and a late dinner, we managed to convince one of them to join us for hillwalking the next day. The rest just looked at us like we were slightly mental.