Cork.

So the first half of today was occupied with getting from Dublin to Cork.  I took the bus, as I mentioned, which was pretty inefficient - the trip was nearly five hours long, as compared to less than three hours for the train trip.  But it was also very interesting.  Although we were on highways for part of the time, we drove through (and stopped in) many small towns.  Especially during the second half of the trip, I got a passing glimpse of several sights mentioned in my guidebook (castles and monasteries built on rocks and whatnot.  Ireland is lousy with castles.)  The ridership was about equal parts elderly people and young people - no families, children, or, that I saw, anyone between 40 and 60.  (Actually, I may well have been the only person over 30 and under 60; people who look the age I think I look - and, apparently, as I learned last night, even more people who look the age I actually look - tend to be in their mid-twenties.)  It was actually a fairly pleasant experience, which bus rides in the states - even with wifi - never, ever are.

When I got to Cork, I proceeded immediately to my hostel; this place is definitely friendlier than where I stayed in Dublin, and the common rooms are more spacious and the bathroom less deplorable, but it's also more crowded.  And, again, no towel for rent, and not even a scrap of hand soap in the bathroom.  In my old age I have become exceptionally demanding.  I set out to explore the city, and one of the first things I did was go into a conveniently-located Marks and Spencer to purchase a towel.  I was also a bit curious what, exactly, the famous M&S entailed - it seems to be basically a giant Target, a bit more pretentious and much more expensive but really only because it's British.  I ended up getting a beach towel because (a) it was on clearance sale for a price I might actually, at home, consider paying for such a thing, and (b) I don't have a beach towel and have occasionally wished for one, so it's not a completely wasted purchase as a bath towel would become after this trip.  Now it will be my Irish beach towel.

I walked about Cork for a while, getting the lay of the land - it seems to be much less big-cityized, but also more spread-out, than Dublin.  I went to the English Market (continuing the Ireland-is-the-Philadelphia-of-Europe theme; it was just like the market in Philly except with no Amish vendors and much smaller) and purchased my first proper(?) meal of the trip, a sausage on a stick.  (It was actually really good, even if I did feel a bit stupid eating it.)  I went to the Crawford Art Gallery, which is supposed to be one of the best art museums in Ireland (according to my guidebook); it was actually quite good, even ignoring the zero-Euro cost.  They had a variety of paintings, sculptures, and installations from the nineteen, twentieth, and twenty-third centuries, with some - but not too much - explanation.  On the way back to the hostel, I got a bit lost and ended up walking in what I would have thought was a pedestrian-unfriendly zone - a sort of industrial area with lots of car traffic, home of Heineken Ireland - which contained quite a lot of pedestrians.  I went into several small grocery stores to buy something for dinner, and was repeatedly appalled at the offerings outside the snack / dessert area.  Mayonnaise seems to be a major ingredient in everything here, sometimes in addition to margarine.  Butter and ham also feature prominently.  I ended up buying a wrap with ham and coleslaw (apparently that's considered a vegetable here).  I may have discovered the one country on earth where the cuisine is actually worse than in the States, and - at the same time - the one vacation where it is possible for me to gain weight.