Breakfast with Eddie Murphy!

I didn’t expect to be having breakfast with Eddie Murphy in our student housing digs but that is the beauty of travel.  No, no - not the movie star but Eddie, an 80-year old Irishman who has driven down here for the weekend. 

I was making eggs and coffee for breakfast when Eddie walked in.  He was surprised to see I had already made myself at home in the apartment we shared.  I smiled… I guess a stove is a stove no matter where you roam…and I was too familiar with the likes of them!  I was improvising though…as we had no oil or a decent fry pan to cook the sausages in.  A bit of water and a saucepan did the trick. 

Eddie had booked into the student accommodation with a bit of trepidation.  He is only here because it was a busy time of year in Cork and his usual hotel was fully booked.  His wife had been a little horrified at the thought he was going to stay in student digs and I think he had spun the story out a little to make it seem like a bigger adventure than it actually was.  We laugh at the colourful description he has given of the place…but he is actually pleasantly surprised at what he’s found and says he will come back the next time he is in Cork, provided he is travelling alone.  He is also surprised to find how affordable it is…the price of a room for a night in the City is what we pay in rent for a week.

We have a lovely chat over breakfast.   It is great to interact in this way with a local and to share a laugh.  We should be catching the bus to Kinsale, but travel also teaches you to go with the flow…and that’s what we did that day, which turned out to be a good thing, as the first bus into town didn’t leave till 9.30 in the morning, because it was a Sunday!  

Eddie has driven down from Dublin and he entertains us with stories about his life and his family.  The rugby was on last night but he missed it and he is surprised to hear that we didn’t know the results ourselves.  He thought all Aussies were rugby mad.  Well, there you go…we’ve done our bit in educating the Irish.  Steve was a fan once upon but he is no longer excited by it in the way that he was. 

I am really pleased we met Eddie.  To me it is confirmation that you can still travel on a budget no matter how old you are.  I hope our spirit of travelling ‘close to the ground’ as backpackers will continue to our old age.  I turn to Steve, “Babe, do you realise we could still be doing this in 30 years time?”!  Steve just gives me this look.  That look that says, “Nillie, could we please stop planning the future till we have finished living the present?”