Home > On Tour > Jungle Adventures > The Europe Tour 2000-2001 > Cork, Ireland
	Cork, Ireland Lisbon, Portugal <<<   Belfast, N. Ireland >>>   Arriving in Cork, a small city in southern Ireland, was like arriving in any normal city. Get out of plane...stand in mile-long line for passports...wait for baggage. It was the ride to Killarney, the city we would live in, that proved anything but the highlight of a travel day. Take the smallest, windiest, back-country road you have ever been on. Multiply that by 10. No, 20. Now you have the road we had to get 4 huge busses down. No more than 15 minutes into the trip, I was already heaving with motion sickness. Luckily I only had another hour to survive! By the time we got there, I was to the point of nausea. But we finally made it to Killarney, a small US-tourist-infested village. We made it through "downtown" in about 30 seconds and proceeded to the hotel, far-removed from anything worthwhile. I checked in and found myself again in a single room, and for a 2-week city at that! This good-assistant thing has a few perks! The first thing I did was to visit the grocery store to stock up on some goodies. Then around 6:30pm, I hit my bed for a little rest. I set my alarm and got a wake-up call for 8:30pm. At 6:30am, 12 hours later, I woke up from my little nap. And at 8:30am, my wake-up call came in. I guess they had misunderstood!! Oh well..I really needed the rest I think! I stuffed myself on a hearty Irish breakfast, and retired to my room for a day of relaxation...I could not bear to do any sightseeing! Mid-afternoon I got a call from a friend wanting to go explore downtown. I told him there probably wasn't much to fill up more than a half-hours walk, but we went down anyway. Downtown, we found a few CD shops, four or five clothing stores, and about 80 pubs. Gotta love Ireland! We stopped in one CD store which had some more modern CD's, not just European music and old American stuff. I managed to find a copy of Dave Matthews new album, so I was a bit psyched (only to find out later I don't like it very much!). We stopped later at a pub to get some good Irish pub food...really we DID stop for the food! While sitting at our meal, we heard a bunch of yelling outside. Soon a huge group of students, several hundred, marched by chanting something...the strong Irish accent prevented me from understanding their plea. We asked the waitress what they were protesting. They were protesting a teachers strike. Huh? They get time off school and they're upset?!?! I would usually protest going to school!! After about an hour, we decided we had seen the city from one end to the other, so we returned to the hotel. I didn't do much the rest of the day but maybe visit the bar for a bit. Wednesday was about the same...I pretty much hung around the room all day, and thoroughly enjoyed it!! There was one incident of notice on Wednesday. Usually when I get into a city, I'll go online for a period of time the first night, see how much it costs, and use that to base my online time for the remainder of the week. Well, Tuesday night I had gone on for one hour, not a very long time really. Being Ireland, such a small country, I figured prices wouldn't be too bad. Wednesday morning, I checked the bill. As the girl at the front desk handed it to me, she looked at me like she had just killed my cat. My one hour call to a number in a city just a few hours away amounted to over $60. I've called across the ocean for less than that!!! I nearly passed out as I watched the dollar signs fly away. I stayed remarkably calm, though, now over this whole phone scheme the European world has going. I soon found out my internet phone number was outdated, and there was now a number that cost only $5 for an hour. Maybe I should check that list more often! Thursday was partially the same, up until after lunchtime. That's when we went to work to partially load-in. After another joyride along those wonderful Irish roads, we arrived in Millstreet, the town we were performing in (why we say Cork, I have no idea). Now, I had heard this place was small, but holy shit. We are playing in a barn. A BARN!!! Not like your little wooden horebarn, but a metal rodeo-type barn. It smells like shit, looks like shit, and is actually covered in shit! And the roof...whereas we usually set our lighting grid so the bottom of it is just over 35 feet in the air, the highest point in this building is about 33 feet. Take away the 3 foot beams, suspend motors below those, and a lighting grid below that, and our lighting grid comes to a whopping 21 feet up. It's so low, we can actually use one of the props to change out broken lighting instruments. It's pathetic. A half-high tree, no flying...ugh. Friday, we continued load-in and opened the show to a pretty full house. Of course it's hard not to fill fewer than 2000 seats! After we got back, a large group of us went out for Renée's birthday at a club everyone said was so great. Actually one half of it was cool, the other half - the half the group resorted to - sucked! Constant, repetitive house dance music, the one thing that grates my nerves more than scraping a chalkboard with a metal comb. The other side was live music by a good cover band. But we stayed in the club side. After a while, that music and a few other things put me over the edge and I left. Saturday was a three-show day, and one of the more interesting days I have spent at work. The first was a huge incident backstage that started with one thing and backfired into another. The start of it sent Renée to the hospital with a concussion and internal bleeding after a collision with another skater. Needless to say, I was a bit on edge the rest of the day. After that, there were issues with another skater and it turned into a whole drama that sent him to the hospital witha broken hand. There was some other big issue but I have no idea what that was. The last show of the day was attended by some really odd man...or was it a woman...a man I think...his appearance and voice gave no clue as to his gender. He somehow got backstage and wanted to take pictures of everyone...right as the second act was about to start. We tried to get him to leave, but he insisted on taking a picture of anyone who came near. We could not get him to leave. He claimed he knew people and could make us all famous. He was told the only person who could authorise backstage pictures. His reply? "OOOHH!!! Can I take a picture of the company manager??" He was maybe a bit mentally off. When I got home Saturday night, I immediately went to see Renée, who was home from the hospital. Although a bit delusional, she was doing well. I hung out there for a while, and the steady stream of visitors provided constant entertainment. Sunday proved another interesting three-show day, although I cannot remember the exact episodes that made it so interesting. Monday was a day off, and since Renée and I had a huge project planned (booklets and a 15-minute slide show for the closing night party just 4 weeks away), and she was unable to go anywhere because of the injury, we spent a good portion of the day, and the next several days (being one-show days) working on those. Friday, we finally were able to go on the Ring of Kerry, a 6-hour scenic busride through one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland. Many people had been on it before now and said it was amazing. Well, ours was definitely amazing, but would have been 3 times as good if it wasn't cloudy, rainy, and foggy the whole day. Either way I got some great pictures! We made it back JUST in time to get on the bus to work. Saturday and Sunday brought two more wonderful three-show days, and a pretty quick load-out. After a very short night's sleep...maybe I should call it a nap...I made it downstairs for luggage call. I managed to get the coveted back row on a quiet bus, which offered seats all the way across and more legroom. Of course I could only bask in my delight for mere minutes, as someone else jumped into the other half of the back row while I was at breakfast. Okay, so now I had only half the back row, still more than a double seat! Finally it was time to hit those wide, straight roads to Belfast, Northern Ireland.