August 30 2016. Ireland: Day 1: Cork

Arrived in Cork after about 26 hours of travel (left Oakland house at 6 am by taxi for SFO flight to DC then DC to Manchester UK, then Manchester to Cork). Seemed simple enough, albeit long.. but naturally the trip did not start out perfect…. Once we got out of the taxi at SFO, and were headed to our friendly TSA Pre-Check line… Mike realized he had left his computer in the taxi… After a while I decided to go through security and figured he’d catch up once he contacted the taxi driver (we always use the same one – total loyalty!) and had retrieved the trusty computer. The driver brought it back proclaiming to Mike “Keep your eye on this one, it’s the last ‘back-up’ computer I have with me!”

Onward to DC; realized that we had booked our tickets separately so we were not seated together.. which was fine. Mike somehow had a bulkhead seat so I did not want to switch with the person next to him, nor did the person next to me.. So a peaceful 6 hours. Then the flight to Manchester – they use much smaller equipment than when flying to London. Then we needed to find Aer Lingus to get from Manchester to Cork… Went through the “In Transit” lines at Manchester where it seemed we quickly became the only people transferring to Ireland… so we wound up in a no man’s land—a space where all the doors were locked and we were sort of stranded (glad I wasn’t alone, I think my claustrophobia would have kicked in). Tried using a service phone on the wall, but reached a baggage guy who couldn’t figure out where we were. Then we saw someone walking outside and banged on the glass doors. The guy came in (using some kind of key pass card) and explained that we needed to wait in this little “holding area” until a bus came by (every 10 or 15 minutes) and then that bus would get us to Aer Lingus and the terminal we needed. OK.. That worked.. Arrived at a much smaller terminal only to “surprise” the security guys (five of them) and the customs guy who were all sitting around reading the newspapers and drinking coffee.. They laughed when we appeared and said “Gee.. didn’t get to finish reading the paper!”

Another funny anecdote. Somehow when I checked in for the flights, I could only get boarding passes up through Manchester – typical since the final flight is on a non-US carrier. But when Mike checked in he got boarding passes all the way through to Cork. I asked in DC but they insisted that it’s not possible to get that last boarding pass until we were in Manchester. So when we went through customs they had to “trust” me when I said I was going on to Cork, having no proof of this. Once we got through customs and security and were waiting for the Cork flight, I searched for a service desk, and wound up at a bank of phones.. I picked up one and got connected to Aer Lingus. As soon as I told my story — -the guy on the other end of the phone says “Are you Fern?” OK.. he said he felt I would call and they know that I don’t have a boarding pass, but not to worry: once I get to the gate they will issue the boarding pass. But they don’t open the gates until just about boarding time. Got to the gate about 10 minutes before boarding time, and the guy at the desk says “Are you Fern?” “Here’s your boarding pass!”… So, how did he know it was me?

Onward to Cork… just a 90 minute flight on a little two engine turbo prop plane. Landing in Cork you see the incredibly lush green landscape (and also the ominous clouds and grey sky)…  Went directly to the rental car desk. We wanted a car with a trunk rather than a hatchback (since we’d be doing a lot of driving and having bags in the car much of the time) and we also wanted a GPS system (to avoid racking up such high charges by using the GPS on our phones… So, we had to switch cars to a much bigger car than usual.. and are now tooling around in a spiffy BMW (very big by our standards!)

Managed to navigate our way to the hotel driving British style (which we haven’t done in a long time) and arrived at the Hotel Isaacs located in “the city” of Cork… right smack in the old center. We’re on a borderline seedy block filled with wonderful old buildings in various states of repair and disrepair and renovation, clearly gentrifying with many high end restaurants. The hotel is a bit odd, but fine for us and we love the location. Mike decided to nap after a quick lunch and shower, and I decided to walk the neighborhood.

The population of Cork is only 120,000 (about the size of Berkeley), but it’s popping!… People out and about everywhere, a major opera house, theaters, movies, lots of bars (naturally), and what appears to be a thriving retail sector with everything from international chains to local businesses. The city is fairly low with buildings only two or three stories high. Lots of little alleyways – all filled with pubs and shops. Apparently Cork people think that Cork is the “real” capitol of Ireland, not Dublin. Walking around I could hear a lot of foreign languages spoken by locals – most notably Polish (or so I think).  Lots of pedestrian streets and an untold number of bridges crossing the many quays… which add to the charm of the place.

Came back to the hotel and we ate at Greenes which is sort of behind and alongside the hotel… Decided not to venture too far as we were pretty exhausted; and we heard this was an award-winning restaurant.. It’s kind of hidden on a cobbled patio, and is part of a warehouse conversion. The walls are stone and brick and the interior is straight forward minimalist. Out back there is a gigantic rock-wall waterfall that you can see from the large expanse of glass – not quite like seeing Half Dome when you are at the Ahwahnee… but it’s the same concept. The menu focuses on local produce. They served a little amuse bouche… lychee cream with green tea powder.. Quite good. We then had two different appetizers.. I had the goat cheese with beetroot and “roasted raisins” with balsamic … and some micro greens; Mike had the mackerel.. For main courses I had the fish and Mike had the beef.. Both were delicious and presented beautifully… For desert (it was a fixed menu), I had the equivalent of panna cotta with raspberries and raspberry sorbet.. Mike had some kind of rhubarb in cream with some other “stuff.”… Mike had Irish whiskey to start (when in Ireland….) and I asked for a Lemon Drop (which they made quite well, although they told me that it was the first time the bar tender ever had that request).

All good; exhausted. Tomorrow we set out early to explore the city in more depth, beginning with the English Market.

Cheers.

Fern