Face down in Cork City

We're in Cork. Cork City, I guess they say- the county is quite large. It's an old city that's clearly had lots of ups and downs and seems to be in the middle of one of those up or down periods. Soe hopeful looking signs, but shabby and poor in a lot of others. It does have a big university and some high tech so there's hope, but it's old and beat too, so you can either do something good with it or not. The place appears to be trying, with mixed success, to reinvent itself as a modern city, within the limits of the geography and infrastructure.

The geography is difficult because it's all hills and marshland. The name Cork comes from some Gaelic phrase meaning marsh. And then there are hills. It's Ireland's second-biggest city, with a population of around 120,000, and has that kind of second city inferiority complex that you see everywhere.

It was a trading town, and the largest exporter of butter in the world at one point (not sure how much competition there was for that at the time). It was fiercely nationalist during the original revolution, which earned it the distinction of being burnt to the ground, so most of the medieval aspects of it are gone.

After spending a pleasant hour walking around Kinsale, we got here on yet another grey, dreary day and decided, for lack of any other direction, to walk through the main shopping area. This was part of an urban renewal project, of which there have been many though the years, most recently in the 1990's. As befits those times, it looks like a mall. It was a great fresh food market, called the English Market,

one nice department store and a couple of decent one, but the rest was kind of trashy (GameStop, H&M, etc.). After wandering got depressing we came back to the River Lee Hotel, which is very spiffy and modern. We kind of crashed for a while, after which I went to work out.

The hotel is attached to a spa and to a very busy upscale gym, with a very loud class consisting of someone yelling and everyone else punching things. Outside the room, a spinning instructor was waiting with a pallet of spin bikes. I went into the main gym, which is the kind of urban gym I tend to go out of my way to avoid. Loud, pulsing music, rows of machines, free weights and mats crammed into a corner. It was so loud that I could hear their music over what I had on my headphones. I held on for 25 minutes and then gave up.

We then had dinner in the bar downstairs. It's a pleasant enough bar and the servers were great (our favorite line, the waiter gives Ronnie a bit of her wine to taste and she said, "Oh it's okay, I trust you." And he replied, "Are you sure? I wouldn't."). But the place is infested by fruit flies. They like wine and they like Guinness as well, from the look of things. I've been drinking almost entirely Guinness since we arrive. I know there's a thriving Irish microbrew scene, but I didn't come here for that, and I've made a point of not buying stuff to keep in the fridge, preferring to force myself go to the bar downstairs for a draft if I want something.

I've also tried Beamish Stout, which was recommended by the bartender in Kinsale and the bartender here said he kind of alternates it. It's a bit toastier and less smooth, but good. That was it for the day. Hopefully it'll be more fun tomorrow.