Day 30 - In Transit to Krakow

We slept at Dublin airport last night, and it was not as comfortable an experience as Stansted. The PA system kept blasting out warnings about leaving baggage unattended and making sure we adhered to the 100mL rule all night. We were aroused by the Garda (Irish police) at about 1am to check everyone's passports and flight details. At first we were afraid they would kick us out, but they were very friendly and our theory is that they were looking for non-travelling homeless people just camping for the night in the airport. On the upside, our restless night allowed us ample time to pack our bags to the weight limit and check them in stress-free. It also meant I slept soundly on both our flights. We flew to Stansted, got waived through passport control (something about arriving from Ireland), stood in a long queue to get on our next flight to Krakow and before you knew it we were on the continent. It is a lot different here to the affluent Ireland we just left. For a start, the place is covered in snow. The airport is pretty tiny (much smaller than I had expected) and the suburbs are classic Eastern Europe stereotype. Snow is everywhere, the buildings are mainly grey and brown, and a lot are pretty run down. It feels grungy, like it's still trying to catch up to the 21^st century. It's exciting to be in a different place though, and in a strange way it feels a little like the outskirts of Hong Kong – I think it's the colours, or lack thereof. Everything feels grey and dull here. You can't knock the place we're staying though – Premium Hostel, a short walk out of the city centre, is clean, great value (around €12 a night each to stay in our own twin room), a pretty well-stocked kitchen, and very very friendly and helpful staff.

Tired, we didn't feel like doing much when we got here, so we went for a walk and bought some food for dinner. This was much more exciting than it sounds, though, as very few people speak even a little English here, and we managed to string some words and lots of sign language together to get a hearty meal. We are very proud of ourselves, given that we struggled to catch a bus here this arvo. We even got adventurous with our food – we found a ravioli-looking thing in the supermarket, and knowing nothing about it owing to our lack of ability to read Polish, bought it anyway. It turned out to be a bit like a Polish dim sim, at least that's what it tasted like, and we were doubly impressed with ourselves for not only experimenting but communicating in a foreign language to do it.

Tomorrow we're heading to Zakopane, a village in the mountains where we plan to go skiing. Through a fortunate twist of fate, it turns out we don't lose much at all to stay an extra four nights rather than getting a bus on Tuesday because of the prices. Of all the places in Europe, this is an okay place to be 'stuck' in that situation because the exchange rate makes it cheap. Keeley is very excited at this prospect, and it will definitely be cheaper than skiing in Switzerland or Austria (although we're not ruling that out… yet).

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Days 28 and 29

DAY 28 – CORK, BLARNEY, KILKENNY 15/01/2009

Cork is a nice city, it has a lot of character and a handful of things to do, but we had explored what we wanted to explore yesterday and wanted to make the most of our time in the south of Ireland. We caught a bus to Blarney, only 8km from Cork, and visited the famous castle and Stone. We were very glad we did. The castle looms over a spectacular garden, which feels wild and free unlike a lot of strictly regimented gardens at palaces. A short walk from the ticket office follows a river to the castle itself, the north wall an imposing sheer vertical wall above us, probably four or five storeys high. It's all self-guided, with signs everywhere giving interesting pieces of information. Before you actually enter the castle, you can walk underneath it in a couple of different secret passageways that were used to get into, or escape, the castle. It was strange to be able to actually walk right in them, quite a long way, because most places would have it roped off. This is the same in the castle itself – you can explore almost every room in it, which is very cool. It has a very romantic medieval ruin feel about it, which is spectacular. The stone itself is a rather quick affair, because the man supervising it is obviously used to the summer high season (there was only one other person in the grounds with us) and he was very much lay down, reach back, kiss it, okay you're done and move on. Unfortunately this meant that I didn't get a chance to get Keeley's photo at the stone properly, but on the upside my photo wasn't much worse than the photos you can buy for €10. Regardless, it was an experience that I think everyone should do if they're in Ireland – it was a great setup and really enjoyable.

We caught the bus to Kilkenny, fortunately getting an earlier bus than we had thought we'd have to, and continued the medieval theme of the day with a tour of Kilkenny Castle. It was brilliant value at €2.50 a head (student), as the guide was incredibly detailed, professional, easy to listen to, and gave a suitable aura of respect to the place. Some of the features of the castle are very interesting – it was originally a square plan, with four walls and a central courtyard, but the south wall was destroyed in an attack and torn down, giving it a U-shape. The whole building has been restored to its 18^th-century glory, including wallpaper like the bright yellow in the library (to reflect light and make it bright enough to read), the antique furniture (Keeley particularly liked the 'conversation chair'), and the gallery, which takes up the full length of one of the wings and has an ornately detailed hammerbeam roof and glass ridge to allow light in. It was one of the best experiences in terms of tours we had done.

We rounded out our very medieval day by staying in a castle. That's right, in a tiny town out of Kilkenny, there is a hostel set up in a castle. It's pretty cool, even if the caretaker seems a little out of it and the showers don't work. The dining room is set up with stone walls and the works. The only issue will be getting back to Kilkenny – it seems the bus doesn't run very regularly, so that could be fun…

DAY 29 – KILKENNY 16/01/2009

The castle in Jenkinstown was fun, and as a bonus we washed our clothes for free (usually €4 a load) and got upgraded to a twin room rather than separate dorms for the same €14 a night pricetag each. This is just as well, as there was nobody else staying there, and it would have been a very lonely night. As it was, there was a creepy echo when we finally got out of bed this morning (we treated ourselves to a sleep in) suggesting we were, in fact, the only people on the property. We didn't see the weirdo caretaker again, so we just packed our bags and had brunch. We called the bus company and discovered we had less than ten minutes to dash up the road 'Amazing Race'-style to get the next service for God knows how long. It was fun. We dropped our bags at the train station, and spent the next several hours just wandering round Kilkenny. There is quite a lot of construction work going on over here, both in Kilkenny and Cork – in Cork there were two really big commercial developments in the city centre and in Kilkenny there was a hotel, a shopping centre (just completed), an urban redevelopment at the castle, and lots of other little renovations going on. Keeley looked in vain to find some replacement boots (as hers have a leak in them when it rains) but settled on a litre of choc-chip ice cream instead, which we demolished while waiting for the bus. The rest of the day has been pretty uneventful – a bus ride to Dublin, fast-food for tea (Subway for yours truly and Supermac for Keeley – she really wanted to try it as we haven't seen it elsewhere), another run for a bus from Dublin (the 16A didn't really seem to be following a timetable), and setup for another airport sleepover. Dublin airport is much quieter than Stansted, and we're secretly praying we don't get kicked out or something stupid, but we should be okay. We fly to London then straight on to Krakow tomorrow.

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