May 26, 2024
Gougane Barra, County Cork
On Saturday I drove from Mayo down to Cork Co. and the home of my dear friend Edel Foley. We meet each other in Ocean City, New Jersey nearly 35 years ago and have gotten together for several vacations over the years. Edel is always up for a trip to sunshine!! She is going to start the cruise with me out of Belfast on the 30th. Now we are catching up in Cork, before heading up North. Today, Sunday May 26th, we drove down to Gougane Barra, a remote lake and forest area that has a small village population that speaks Gaelic, as their daily language. We had to dodge the rain, but managed a nice walk around before it became lashing! Said some prayers at St. Finbarr's Oratory too!
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I really enjoyed my first trip to Thailand! On our final morning here we went to try breakfast at this spot, down the road, we had been hearing rave reviews on, King Of Bread . The hype was correct, the breakfast was delicious and they had some unique choices. I had eggs benedict on a croissant, in lieu of the standard english muffin and Bosco had it on Milk Bread, which was equally tasty.
We love having authentic experiences with locals to really get a chance to see how they live and thrive in the Ports we visit. So when I found a cooking class, by a local woman offered in her home, we were excited to book. Um ( our teacher) picked us and brought us back to our hotel along with the family of 4 from Sydney, Australia, that had also signed up for this afternoon class. Um's house, which has a lovely open air kitchen, garden and dining area, was about a 30 minute drive and turned out to be on the beach, right next to the Grandparent Rocks.
The nightlife scene doesn't really get going till after 11pm and goes till 5 am in the Chaweng section of Koh Samui . We made our way over to the club district, and one of the hot spots called the ArkBar a little past 10pm to have some dinner, while watching the beach fire shows.