The first big ship of the season, the Constellation, was in Cobh today, and there must've been three or four hundred people who turned out to see it off, all of them spread all the way up and down the town's waterfront. I'd been meaning to check to see when it'd be in, to see if there was any fuss about seeing it off, but only saw it out of pure chance, so I was totally ridiculously happy to catch it. And there was fuss, with a band playing and people waving and cheering and singing and it was quite wonderful. *beam* Apparently the biggest ship to ever come into Cobh will be here Tuesday (and there's another, not as large, that'll be here Monday). I must remember to go see it, and bring my camera.

I *love* those big ships. They're so absurdly huge, they utterly throw off one's sense of proportion about the world. The *cathedral* in this town does that, because it's up there on this massive jutting rock, and it's this beautiful little Victorian town beneath it and then there's this disconcerting massive Gothic cathedral sitting above it, but the ships are even more absurd. Walking alongside one (especially if it's beginning to move) is like walking beside a cliff that's starting to shift. There's *nothing* but the ship in your peripheral vision. It's incredibly bizarre.

miles to Minas Tirith: 83