"Ridin along in my automobile"

Whew. Today was a whirlwind. If you couldn't tell from the title, I rented a car today to celebrate my newfound freedom and go explore the countryside.

If you're not a fan of my robin's egg blue Kia Picanto, then you clearly don't value $26 of wheels and freedom as much as I do.

Most people construct grand plans for a couple days when renting a car. All I had to go on were the following things:

1) I wanted to eat lunch in Clonakilty

2) I wanted to go to Crookhaven because a cabbie told me to

3) I wanted to go see Baltimore here and how it compares to the DMV version.

To me, these city/village names were really nothing more than just that, so time to see how they compared to my quick google searches!

FYI, if you're ever in Cork City, you're about an hour or less car ride from any number of picturesque villages, seaside or countryside. Clonakilty clearly qualified as the latter.

So, one of these things intrigued me, and it was not the "auld shite". I'd heard about black pudding, maybe even tried a forkful, but everywhere in the country they mention this place as the place to go to try it. To guard against it being disgusting, I did stop at a cafe in town for a scone and some tae

warning: possibly not keto

After that I felt sufficiently guarded! So, I ventured on to see how the "sausage is made". Not so to speak. Literally this time.

Here's 3 things to know from this visitor's centre:

1) Black pudding (Blood Sausage) is made in a gross way. It looks gross while it's being made, like mounds of dung being dumped unceremoniously in a grinder and being prodded around. Believe me, I would share pictures if they didn't have a big "no photography" sign and a lady paying rapt attention as I was the only tourist here. Also this:

I find the roman preparation only slightly more disgusting.

2) Black pudding-- also not undelicious! The other 2 kinds-- white pudding and veggie pudding-- undeclicious.

3) I did feel kind of bad for this place-- they just opened a visitor's centre a couple months ago and the tourists haven't exactly been pouring in. Speaking with the lady serving this stuff to just me, they just moved the factory here to try and get tourists too. Hoping the Irish support this stuff! Because let's face it, not a huge attraction to us american folk.

After this "lunch", I felt ready to head toward Crookhaven. Google Maps instructed me that it was actually pretty close to something called Mizzen Head, which is one of those beautiful jutting out landscapes that dot the Wild Atlantic Way. Man, am I glad I chose to go on an impromptu hike there.

I left in all the "danger" signs to make this look badass. But other than dodging families for social distancing reasons, the real trouble was just the incline of this place. 99 steps up here, 73 there, my Whoop was going crazy! Absolutely gorgeous landscape that no picture can capture. Here's my last try.

IT's no Cliffs of Moher, but it's still pretty gorgeous

One last weird thing, a bunch of really nice old cars were here-- this was a weird collision of rich dudes and biker dudes. While I didn't take pictures of the biker guys, I did snag some pics of the sweet old cars though

No Kia Picantos, but they're alright. Also, this would be the equivalent of driving your luxury cars to some far flung part of Maine or Oregon and just randomly going on a hike nearby. Something was up.

I don't think I was planning on this much exercise originally, so it was time to treat myself! It was about a 20 min drive from here to Crookhaven, which an Irish cabbie described to me as "2 pubs and a pier". Boy was he right! I chose O'Sullivan's, and decided to have my first beer in Ireland for the trip.

Gorgeous day for a pint by the bay watching the boats sail by. I literally parked my car 5 feet from the table, occasionally eyeing the hooligans leaning up against it. Kids these days!

To say this town was small doesn't do it justice. I drove into what I thought was a cul de sac and it was the extent of the town.

Clearly I couldn't stay here. That was the original plan! But apparently (spoiler alert) most places were full up today as Irish folks are looking to escape the cities just as I am.

Ventured onward to Baltimore! No, not the Wire one. The one that actually has a nice harbor.

No ravens, not rainin, what gives?

After conferring with the limited B&Bs here-- I was planning on staying the night-- I decided to just head back (it's only 90 mins to Cork, after all). Saved some cash!!! Sadly no more Baltimore stories.

Great day.

Random Things:

This store really could have been more specific.

-According to some gossipy middle-aged Irish women, Irish dancing is now all the rage on Tik Tok.

One of these bathroom signs means "men", and one means "women". Guess who didn't correctly guess when google translate was unable to help? Hint for those of you seeking to avoid humiliation, just because a sign has the letters "m" "a" and "n" does not mean it's for a man.

...well i do like both of those things.

Moment of Zen