Tenth Ireland Post: Second Weekend: CF, Rugby, and Cork

This post covers our second weekend in Ireland, our first weekend at “Our Country Home.”

Saturday morning we were up and out to be at CrossFit Limerick (CFL) for the 10 a.m. class. CFL feels a lot like CF Reston…with names like Niamh, Grainne, Gerrick, Fionnuala, and Aodh instead of Mike, Chris, Mehdi, Alex, Eileen, and Darryl. Everyone has been wonderfully friendly, and our visits there have reinforced our belief that CrossFits around the world will help to ease each of our transitions in the countries we choose to visit on the Trip Around The World.

Conor handles the programming, and his evil brain came up with a doozy for Saturday morning: “Sally” followed by “Fight Gone Bad.” This means nothing to non-CrossFitters, but I want us to be able to remember what WOD’s we did in years from now.

We powered (or staggered) our way through the workout, then headed home.

It was a blustery, rainy day, which probably goes without saying.

Our excitement for the evening was taking in a rugby match in Limerick. The Limerick Munster team is very good, but an acquaintance at The Box had told us there was no way the game would be sold out, so we would be able to just buy tickets at the door.

There were hundreds of people walking to the game as we made our way toward the stadium. We wandered around, looking for parking for awhile until pulling over to ask a police officer who told us where we could definitely find parking. We were grateful for his kind help in the midst of a stressful situation. Trying to figure out parking as you watch for crossing pedestrians in the midst of very busy traffic is really tough, while driving on the opposite side of the road.

We had a very blustery walk to the stadium. We had chastised ourselves for not remembering to bring umbrellas, but felt better after we saw at least 5 abandoned, decimated umbrellas on our walk. The wind was winning those battles.

We purchased “standing” seats, on the opposing team’s side, and they were perfect for us. The children had room to wander and sit or stand, and Buds and I could see the field perfectly.

This was only my second rugby match, and the first for Buds, and we both found it fascinating. We could easily see becoming devoted fans, and it felt more “pure” and rugged, yet ethical in some way, compared to football. We would gladly have stayed for the rest of the game.

Eventually, though, we heeded the chattering teeth and blue lips of the progeny, and made our blustery way back to the car. I suspect the children will remember this as the time we tortured them by taking them to a rugby match, but no matter what they say in the future, we all had a fantastic time…mostly.

Sunday morning we drove to Cork to attend the Unitarian Church there. Buds wrote up a complete post on that here.

I cannot say enough about how welcoming and friendly the congregation was. There were 15 of us in attendance, which means The Gems brought 1/3 of the group, as often is the case at our recent UU churches. The sermon was well done, and with such an intimate crowd, there was some discussion after the service, which could have gone on for hours, but our crew was ready to go hunt some lunch. One of the congregants had specifically opened some chocolate “biscuits” (cookies) for our crew, so they had some sustenance for their trek to food.

We had lunch at The Streat, and the two women working were so kind and helpful. They made us food exactly as we asked, which we sincerely appreciated.

After our lunch, we headed out to the bookstore, Vibes and Scribes. What we didn’t realize was that we inadvertently headed to their craft store, not the bookstore. This was not a huge tragedy for us because all of us are fascinated by color and texture, so we enjoyed the yarn section a great deal, plus, it was only a 4 block walk from there to the bookstore.

After touching all the yarn, we made our way over to the bookstore.

Buster was thrilled because the used bookstore had a vast quantity of The Beast Quest Series, and he was able to purchase a whole assortment of ones he had not been able to get in the states.

All of us found a book or 20 to carry us through the rest of our trip. Visiting a bookstore goes on my list of things to add to the joy of our Trip Around The World. Though we are a technology family, we do love our books of flesh and blood.

We eventually made our way back to the car for the drive home, but we weren’t done yet!

We had passed some ruins on the drive to Cork, and Buds had noted their location so we wouldn’t miss a stop there on our drive home.

And we still weren’t through! Read about the rest of our day here.