The Journey's End

And so, the end of this trip is finally here. Not too much has occurred since the last time I posted (well, at least nothing blog worthy. Nobody wants to hear me bitch about finals, since my same qualms with finals would be the exact same problems I had with midterms.). Having to say final goodbyes to the people I met here have been plentiful. Much of the last week here was spent going out to eat, cooking for each other, and of course having a good round of fun at our favorite pubs. But other than that, it’s been pretty uneventful in the sense of interesting stories and adventures.

In fact the only blog worthy story I have is the fact that I visited the town where my family is from, Abbeyfeale. Sadly the trip was very unfruitful. One reason being that Irish bus transport is not the most reliable. In order for me to get there, I had to take a bus from Cork to Limerick, and then connect form Limerick to Abbeyfeale. The first bus decided not to depart until 15 minutes after it was supposed to depart. That was just enough time for me to miss the initial connection to Abbeyfeale. Perfect. So now I was stuck in the Limerick Bus station for another hour waiting to take a bus that would take me to a destination an hour and a half away. So, I finally catch the next bus and wait out the trek to get there, and I finally got there. Abbeyfeale, a very small town right on the border between County Limerick and County Kerry. My mission was to find the Kerry Bar, the pub that my Irish relatives apparently owned and operated. I walked up and down Main Street while rain poured heavily upon my head and wind that could tip over a cow pushing me along the sidewalk. Alas, I could not find it. Convinced that I had missed, I walked back again, and still no luck. I walked into a chipper (In Ireland chippers are where they serve fish and chips in a fast food style.), order some fish and chips, and asked the woman serving me where I could find the Kerry Bar. It was at that moment that I had discovered the unfortunate news that the pub had actually shut down a few years ago, a wine merchant shop took it’s residence, but that too failed to stay open for long. Such are the times, it’s hard to compete in such a business in a small town (especially since there between 8 and 10 other pubs along the same street). Sunken in defeat (the bar itself was the only contact information I had of my Irish relatives, without that, it was pretty much a lost cause), I looked around the town a bit more, but there really wasn’t much beyond Main Street (yes, that’s the reason why they call it Main Street, isn’t it?). To justify the trip in my own mind, I headed into a pub and had two pints (a Guinness and a Smithwick’s) before I caught the next bus out of town.

I do have this comment to make though, Ireland must be mad at my leaving it, because it’s throwing everything negative at me over the last couple weeks. I’ve been trying to determine how to interpret these occurrences properly, and I think I have the best applicable analogy: think of the USA and Ireland as girlfriends. For an American, USA is obviously your first time girlfriend. You did all your firsts with her. She was your high school sweetheart. Then you go to college, and realize you want a little more excitement and a change of pace from what you’re used to. In this analogy, you tell the USA, “I think we need to take a break.” While not thrilled about the idea, USA is still full on the idea that she’s number 1, the best around. So she obliges your request, fully believing you’ll be coming back.

So you take that break. You decide to a bit of travelling. Along the way, you come across this sassy, sexy red head all dressed in green. Why yes, this is Ireland you just discovered. You meet this fair lass and she hands you a Guinness right away. You’re confused because your last girlfriend made you wait so long to have this much fun with her.  You wonder then, is this Ireland an easy lass? The answer to that, of course, is no. While much more fun and outgoing than your last girlfriend, you still have to work for it to get the pot of gold you seek. So you dance, you drink, and you have loads of craic with her. But something is off. What is it that’s off? You realize what it is: it’s only temporary. You know that having too much fun with her while you have to go back home is going to make the break up that much harder.  So you distance yourself. You focus upon all the negative attributes maybe. You think “well, I can’t tell if she’s just laid back, or if she’s lazy. USA was never like this.”

The last sentence to that thought was key. “USA was never like this.” You’ve spent so long dealing with one girl that she’s painted the image of how they all should be, when simply you just can’t do that. And so you have it. It’s not her, it’s you. But still you’ve embraced the temporary change, but now you are going back to what you’re more comfortable with.

And that’s where I’m at. If you read this carefully you’ll know what I’m getting at. Ireland, it’s been fun, but there’s no need to make the sidewalks slippery and bust up my bus’s tire to get your message. I understand you’re upset, but I have to go back. Maybe someday when I have enough money (or if the euro falls apart and you go back to the punt) I’ll return, treat you right, and do all those touristy things you wanted me to do, but I just didn’t have the time to do.

Thus concludes my adventures of Ireland in the Fall of 2011. It’s been a great time. The blog is not finished though, further descriptions of Irish life and culture (and beer and whiskey) are along the way, just as soon as get back to the old reliable, the US of A.

P.S. I made it home safely, with no plane trouble this time (shocking), but I liked how I ended the post too much to edit it.

Visits, Belfast, and Thankgiving

If you’re wondering why it’s been so long since last made a post, I have an answer: Midterms. How did said midterms go? Imagine the most fun activity you enjoy. Said activity makes you really love life, doesn’t it? Keep imagining how happy you feel… Now imagine the exact opposite. That’s how my midterms went. If you’re thinking because I got bad grades on them, your guess is as good as mine. The Irish academic system allows professors to take their good auld time, as part of the “laid back” culture. Pulling all-nighters on every single midterm was not fun.

Now that my angry rant about how hellish my midterms were, I can get to the good parts that happened a little before, in between, and a little after midterms were done. I shall begin with the story of my friend, Joe, visiting me a few weekends back. Joe is an old friend of mine from high school who is studying abroad in Salamanca, Spain for this semester. He, and his friend, Taylor, who goes to college with him back in the States, flew into Dublin and bussed their way to see me in Cork. They both got there pretty late, Joe at about 9:20 p.m. and Taylor about an hour after that. After both of them checked into their hostel I took them to eat, and then introduced them to young pub life and Beamish. Sadly, most of the day time I was writing my midterm essays, so the touristy things they did during the days were the two of them. However, most of the things they did, I had already done, or about to do in the coming weeks. The real fun for me though was guiding them to the nice, authentically Irish pubs like An Réalt Dearg and Sin é and drinking. A lot.

The weekend after that, IFSA-Butler had a sponsored trip to Belfast. The first night nothing happened. Going to bed at 9 o’clock has that effect on events. Why did I go to bed that early? The answer is, you guessed it, midterms. See, because of midterms I had a 48 hour span of time immediately prior to the Belfast trip where only four of those hours were spent sleeping. In fact, the prior 24 hours to the trip contained exactly 0 hours of sleep. Thank you, midterms, for reminding me that sleep is only necessary when you’re dead. But back to the good part. Belfast is a neat little city that, despite its diminutive size making it a pretty sad fact that it is, indeed, a city, has a lot of history to it. Do I remember any of those history lessons? No. You know why? The tour guide on the bus heading for Carrick-a-Rede and the Giant’s Causeway said it best, “The Ulster accent sounds like the Scottish accent with the life taken out of it.” It is extremely funny how accurate that description is. But the landscape is Northern Ireland is absolutely beautiful. Walking on the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, visiting Dunluce castle, walking on the very, very windy Giant’s Causeway area. All of it was simply picturesque. The last full day, we were given Black taxi tours throughout Belfast where they told us all about “The Troubles,” the period of time when sectarian violence between Protestants and Catholics were really bad. There is a wall that now divides the Protestant and Catholic sides of the residential section in Belfast. Said wall now sports my name. Violence has calmed down between the two groups considerably, however the resentment between the two groups still exists. In talking about the dividing wall, one of the taxi drivers said, “It’ll be about 20 years until they even think about taking down the wall.”

What you might not know is that the separation isn’t just about religion; it’s about politics and culture as well. See, the Protestants are loyal to the British crown. The Catholics are not at all loyal to the crown. That is a very, very key point that often gets overlooked. That view shapes everything about the tensions. It shapes who’s on what side. It also shapes key identifiers, like names. For example, if you live in Belfast and you’re Protestant your name will derive from an English king or queen. If you’re Catholic, your name more than likely comes from the Bible. One exception though, is the name William. William is the one name used by both Protestants and Catholics, but there is a way to tell what “side” you’re on, the nickname. If you’re called “Billy” or “Bill,” you’re Protestant. If you’re called “Liam,” you’re Catholic. Interesting tidbits.

And then comes the night time. Obviously, I drank and had a blast both of the nights I actually went out. There was also a Christmas festival in the city center that was really neat to see and look around the little shops that were selling food and other things.

The final story I have regards this past week and Thanksgiving. Wait, never mind about the whole week thing because sizable chunks of the week are now actually missing in my memory. But my first Thanksgiving away from home (and in a foreign country) was interesting. I dealt with my first bout of homesickness since being over here. I think it’s understandable considering the significance of the day. However, said homesickness was cured quickly when I Skyped with pretty much my whole family and was quickly reminded how bat-shit insane they all are. I love them to death though. The Thanksgiving meal that the UCC Chaplincy held for American students was not surprisingly small portioned.  But I did meet some new people and had a good time. And it was pretty much uneventful for me otherwise, though I went out to the pubs every night during the weekend.  And I ended up doing a lot of talking to Irish people each night I went out.

Lesson of the week: Wearing a baseball cap of a team that’s not the Yankees in Europe will get you noticed, and not always in a good way. And hot drunk girls are almost always going to try and steal your hat.

The English Market, The Jazz Festival, and Halloween

I apologize again for not updating this after awhile, but I have been quite busy with Midterms coming up and other school related projects to deal with in the mean time. There aren’t too many stories that happened since the last time I posted (at least stories that are blog appropriate), so most of this blog entry will be covering mostly observations of some places and events that I encountered/had occurred within the past two or three weeks.

First, the English Market in Cork is a wonderful closed canopy-style market right in the City Center. It has a wide array of local meat stands, produce, cheese, fish confectionaries, etc. at some surprisingly affordable prices. The best deal that stands out in my memory was the 5 regular (though still good size in comparison to other “regular” sized portions) chicken breasts for €6.50. Even my roommates thought that it was a good deal. But even then so, if you don’t mind making the 40-minute walk from University Hall to the English Market, you can find good deals there, especially on any produce (also consider produce from the Market doesn’t expire as quickly as produce from places like Tesco).  In addition, they a have a very cozy (or cramped depending on your outlook) restaurant upstairs in the English Market called the Farmgate Café. It was a little pricey for a student on a budget, but the Irish lamb stew I ordered from them was simply unbeatable. They get all of their ingredients fresh right from all the vendors downstairs in the Market (the menu board will even tell you which vendor sold which products you were ordering). The restaurant is worth it if you’re visiting Cork, and the English Market is worth shopping at if you’re living in Cork for an extended period of time.

Next, The Presidential Election just took place about a week ago. Ireland’s next president is… a leprechaun? Yes, if you read my last post, you’d know I’m of course referring to Michael D. Higgins, who ended up winning the election when just two weeks prior he was easily second or third choice unanimously. The reason for the last minute change was due to a huge controversy over the previous front-runner, Sean Gallagher, who was discovered to have essentially taken a bribe from shady sources during a fundraiser for his former party, Fianna Fáil. So there you have it, a 70-year-old leprechaun is Ireland’s new President. Hey, at least I can say I met the President of Ireland when I come back to the States.

Finally, The Guinness Jazz Festival and Halloween were savage craic (lots of fun) here in Cork. The Jazz Festival is held every year usually in the last or second to last weekend of October. Most of the big-name Jazz performers were pay only venues, most of them at least €20 and some as much as €35. Luckily for me, there were plenty of other free venues. However, a fair amount of the free venues are not part of the Jazz genre. The one band I actually got to see, twice, was actually a 60s/70s rock tribute band. They were quite talented, quite simply because some of their songs they sang sounded almost exactly like he originals (vocals and all). Halloween on Monday was a crazy good time. I was half expecting town to be empty since the whole weekend had the city center completely packed with people in costumes, but actual Halloween had much of the same. I only dressed up on Halloween (well, unless you count my half assed attempt on Friday as “balding hipster”) and I went as an American douchebag (Phillies hat tilted to the side, American Eagle shirt with a collar popped). It was a pretty good idea, until it became even better when an Irish chick holding a tube of fake blood asked me “Do ye want some fake blood?” Being full of stout at that point, of course I said yes. For the rest of the night, I was zombie bro. And all was spooky and there was craic all around.

Lesson of the week: Unrelated to anything I’ve mentioned in this post, but it turns out if you get kicked out of a pub one night (as long as what you did wasn’t too serious) then you’re still allowed back in that same pub the next night. (Just don’t be surprised when the security guards inside give you funny looks the next time you’re in there.)

That’s all for now, stay tuned.

Presidents, Adventure, and Pub Crawls

I apologize for skipping over a week of updates, but the weekend that was passed over in the blog will not be discussed was sadly uneventful (well, save for the one night of trying to find a drunken friend who was not allowed into a club because the bouncers said he was “too drunk.” That actually was eventful, but won’t be discussed at length).

This post will start on the events of October 6^th. Right now, in Ireland, there is a Presidential race occurring. Unlike the U.S. Presidential race, there are many different parties that throw a candidate in the race. Definitely not a two-party system here. The general election is actually coming up, on October 27, 2011. These are exciting times for me to be in Ireland, obviously.

Some quick differences between the U.S. and Irish Presidential offices:

-       - The Irish President is largely a figurehead. The Irish Prime Minister, called the Taoiseach (pronounced Tee-shock), has pretty much the real power. And obviously, the U.S. President has much more power (in reality, the U.S. President is both a President and a Prime Minister in one single office; a fair amount of the rest of the Western world’s governments have a separation of the two offices).

-       - The Irish President holds office for seven years, and is granted one chance at re-election. The U.S. President only holds office for four years and again is granted a chance re-election.

-       - Ireland’s constitution is written in both Gaelic and English. The English version grants the President a few emergency powers, but the Gaelic version’s translation into English muddies the legal language, and since the Gaelic version of the constitution takes precedence here, those emergency powers have never been exercised in the history of the Republic. Obviously, the American constitution has no such translation problem (but that’s not to say that there have no been times were the powers of the President have been questioned or abused throughout history, especially in times of war).

Now that those points are out of the way, it is time to return to my story. My Irish flat mate approached me just as I was washing my dishes from dinner asking me if I would like to attend a Presidential debate that was going to happen on campus. Considering that I am a nerd about such things and that I was free for the rest of the night (no Friday classes, come up!), I decided to go with him to the event. It was only until we got there that we discovered it was not a debate between two candidates, but rather a “meet-this-guy” event. The man was Michael D. Higgins, a charming little 70-year-old Irish politician than I kept confusing for a leprechaun. I wanted his pot o’ gold and his lucky charms, but alas, I could not catch him.

Short jokes aside, the man had excellent political rhetoric. Apparently he was an academic, a sociology major before he entered politics. Naturally, a room full of college kids was his element for his rhetoric to thrive. Being a “cynical” American, I saw right through all his rhetorical bullshit and knew that he was simply just appealing to a young crowd. By the end, I asked my flat mate what he thought. He essentially replied (in his thick Irish brogue), “He’s way too old and academic too win the election. He was in his element tonight and too comfortable in front of a load of University students. I wanted to see a debate and watch him squirm and see how he’d respond to the pressure.” I wholeheartedly agreed with him after witnessing the talk myself.

So the weekend was a different animal entirely. IFSA-Butler shipped everyone in the whole Ireland program to Killary Adventure Company in Leenane, Co. Galway (about an hour and fifteen minutes northwest of Galway city). The bus ride was a bit longer than I would’ve expected, but then again, once you start driving on real Irish roads, your vehicle has much longer to go. In all, it took about 5 hours on both legs, the departure and the return, between Leenane and Cork. It was a total blast and highly recommended experience for any person. There are a variety of events that took place. The events I was a part of were archery, shotgun shooting (guns aren’t technically legal here by the way, so I was curious as to why they had this event), kayaking, gorge-walking, outdoor laser tag combat and riding on a giant mechanical swing. The kayaking, gorge-walking, and outdoor laser tag were the events that caused the most soreness in me when the weekend was over.

There is one event that this group tries its best to promote: the turf guy challenge. It’s essentially a 5 kilometer run… through a bog. There was no way around not landing in a bog. You just had to be careful when you encountered the bogs that were 5 and a half feet deep.  Sadly, I did not take part in this event, and I slightly regret it. However, my sadistic plan of getting my friends who were doing it drunk enough to be tired and hungover the next morning while doing the challenge worked to the effect that I wanted it. Call me cruel or even evil, but it was hilarious to me. 

Coming back to Cork and finding out that both the Irish national rugby team and the Philadelphia Phillies lost elimination games, I was not happy. There will be no more discussion of it.

Now to wrap up the week’s stories by telling of last night’s pub-crawl. Cork Student Pub Crawl hosts a pub-crawl on Tuesdays (and I believe Thursdays as well) for any student attending any higher education establishment in Cork (it’s mainly UCC students, but there were some from Cork Institute of Technology). For €5, we got 4 shots at 4 different pubs (one shot per pub) and free club entry to the one club on this list for the night. It was a decent time out with a few annoying moments, but it was a very cost effective way to check out some of the pubs in the area that I have not checked out already. I discovered one that I’ll definitely go back to, and a couple that I wont mind if I never go there again. I’ll also not be stupid next time and simply forget the rest of the pub-crawl if I’m at a bar where Irish women are really into my American-ness… Hm…

Lesson for the week: When you’re on a pub-crawl and you really like one of the spots (cheap drinks, hot girls talking and dancing with you), forget the rest of the pub-crawl and don’t take the chance that the next spot might be even better. Odds are that it won’t be.

As always, stay tuned.

Castles, Cliffs, and Shores

It is official. My weekends start on Thursday here, and nothing short of awesome will result from it. The weekend began with an IFSA-Butler-sponsored trip to Blackrock Castle Observatory, located about 10 to 15 minutes driving distance beyond the Center City of Cork. It was a neat, nice little place with a cool history of it basically progressing from castle, to watch post, to mini armory, to beautiful relic after a fire or two, and then to an astronomy observatory tower. There was a tour of the historic part of Blackrock Castle, guided by an Irish woman who took her job of historical replica actor very, very seriously. (Remember South Park’s episode with the colonial-style town set in 1864, and none of the actors would ever break character? Imagine that, except an Irish character based about 16^th or 17^th century). The rest of the castle is an interactive science museum with most of the exhibits dealing either astronomical topics, such as celestial bodies and possibility of extraterrestrial life, or evolution. Our group was also allowed to play their simulator game where you have to same the earth from an incoming meteor while also learning all the facts about meteor-like bodies in space. Including the “free” lamb dinner I got (free as in IFSA-Butler paid for it), it was an excellent trip.

One unfortunate thing about attending that trip though was that we all missed one of Ireland’s favorite fake holidays, Arthur’s Day. Arthur’s Day is centered around Arthur Guinness, the founder of Guinness stout. At 17:59 (that’s 5:59 pm), in honor of the year Arthur Guinness first brewed Guinness stout, everyone in Ireland should find there way to a pub where a pint of Guinness is on discounted price (in some places, it’s free, as I found out from one of the IFSA-Butler students studying in Maynooth) and everyone is supposed to raise his/her glass in honor of Arthur. I’m not sure if it’s done every year, but there are occasions where everyone is told to go outside at 17:59 so there is an aerial shot of everyone holding up his/her pint of Guinness. Sadly, when we went out later that night, the discounts were over. I paid full price for my pint of Guinness on Arthur’s Day. The night still ended in a drunken haze, so it was not all bad.

 The rest of the weekend, two of my flat mates, and two of their friends, invited me to this weekend get away they were having in Lahinch, Ireland. For those of you who either don’t’ know Irish geography, or are too lazy to use Google’s stalking materials between Google Maps and Google Earth, Lahinch is about an hour car ride northwest of Limerick. My Irish flat mate’s parents had a vacation house in Lahinch, so there was an immediate €40-€60 savings on not needing a hostel. We attempted to go out to pub in the town the first night. Let’s just say it was a bad idea. You know how in the States, coastal/beach towns become void of young and attractive people outside of the summer season? Yeah, that was Lahinch. Our crew was not only the youngest people in there, but we also didn’t blend in well. However, that’s to be expected when only one of your five-person crew is actually Irish. We also had a Frenchman, a Slovak, an Indian, and an American (which of course was me). So that night ended very quickly.

The next day we woke up early to catch the France v New Zealand Rugby World Cup match in one of the local hotels that had a bar and breakfast in it. Much to our French friend’s dismay, France suffered an unfortunate whooping by the hands of the All Blacks (New Zealand’s team name). But to make up for it, the rest of the day was wonderful. We started off with the Cliffs of Moher. Words simply could not describe how beautiful, stunning, and breathtaking (and windy!) it was. Many, many pictures were taken (pictures that will be added on here as soon as I figure out how. Yes, I still have yet to figure it out).  Towards the entrance (or shall I say the exit, since we didn’t go in until we explored just about every walkable inch of the Cliffs that we could) there is a museum hall dedicated to the Cliffs, their preservation, and climate change and its effects upon the area. There was also a really neat CGI program of you exploring the edges of the Cliff from a “bird’s eye view” (literally).

From there, we decided to play “pitch and putt.” Not being familiar with anything golf related (besides mini-golf), I thought it was the same thing. Apparently, it’s not. It is, in a way, Golf junior, in that it isn’t big enough to technically be labeled a golf course, but it is without the small and crazy additives that define mini-golf. We played all 18 holes. Needless to say, I came in last. However, I did hit a birdie, naturally, on the 18^th hole. Yes, like so many other things in my life, I finally get the hang of it right when it’s almost over. Fun times, regardless.

From there we decided to cook ourselves a cheap dinner, since we had a full kitchen at our disposal. Yet another €10-€20 we saved by not going out to eat. That night was spent playing an interesting card game that is really popular between my flat mates and their friends. I keep forgetting the name of it, but it’s a very quick paced card strategy game. It’s loads of fun once you get the hang of it. After the card games and dinner, the night delved into a very long conversation basically about evolution, eugenics, quantum physics/alternate realities, and West vs. East “superiority” (I use superiority loosely because that wasn’t what was actually being argued, but still the only word that encompassed enough of what was being discussed). These conversations took not one, not two, not even three, but four whole hours of our night up. Yes, we ended up not going out or drinking that night (sadly). However, being a philosophy and religious studies major, I loved every second of the topics.

The next and final day of the weekend I woke up feeling the very beginning symptoms of a cold. But it was time to spend the morning on the Irish beachfront. Three of the crew went in and did a combination of body surfing and actual surfing. Another and myself decided just to stand mid-shin deep into the water and take pictures of our friends, the surfers. Fun times were had all around. Afterwards, we quickly cleaned up around the vacation house, and drove back to Limerick where we caught an early bus headed back to Cork just in time (Literally 30 seconds before it was about to leave, no joke). The bus ride back was an easy hour and half, which was immensely better than the 2 and half hours it took to get to Limerick from Cork on the same bus just a few days prior. All in all, it was a successful adventure weekend.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Fighting this cold (which I’m almost over), doing Laundry (which cost my €10 to wash and dry two loads. Yes, you read that correctly, €10. Guess who wasn’t happy when he found out how much laundry was? Me), going to class (still uneventful), and one night at a pub (Yes, I went out and drank a couple beers while fighting a cold. There are worse things one could do).

So two lessons I learned this week living live in Ireland:

Lesson #1: If you have an Irish friend offering cheap or free accommodation to a nice, beautiful, far away place on the island, you take him/her up on that offer. Every time.

Lesson #2: Doing laundry here is expensive. To circumvent this, find an air freshener (even better if you find a fabric freshener, which I have yet to find) and spray your clothes like crazy. Hang them up, mix and match, and you’ll be set for a few more weeks.

Until next time, stay tuned. 

Corcaigh, Eire (Cork, Ireland)

It’s been a little over a week since I’ve arrived in Cork, and to all of your disappointment, I didn’t write down everything that happened the moment it happened. So allow my some time to recall and summarize everything that’s happened in this neat little city so far.

The IFSA-Butler crew and I arrived some point in the early afternoon on the 14^th, and on the bus ride here I took a shade under 100 pictures of the Irish countryside (I promise I will post those pictures here on the blog as soon as I figure out how to do it, it’s proving a little more complex than I originally thought). So, we arrived at UCC and had to check in to our respective accommodations. Most of the IFSA-Butler people (including myself) were placed in the UCC University Hall, which is a very nice, flat style accommodation: between 3 and 5 single bedrooms (mine has 4), one bathroom per flat, kitchen and common room with all the furnishings. My only qualm with the place so far is that the hot water seems to magically turn on and off, but otherwise it is a very nice accommodation.

Later that day, the IFSA-Butler crew and I explored the city center a little bit. Since I am only one of two males in the group, shopping seemed to be the first thing on the list. While normally I would protest since shopping (even for myself) is one of the most boring activities ever, I did desperately need bedding and food. So, obliging the wishes of the crew. We went first to a common Irish shopping store called Dunnes. For those of you unfamiliar with the chain, it is a fairly popular here, and to me resembled a bit like Macy’s/JC Pennys/Sears (insert whatever store, they all look the same to me) in the states, except with groceries in the basement. Frank (the other male in the IFSA-Butler group) and I seemed content when we found our bedding, but the girls were not pleased with the lack of feminine choices in their bedding. So, we then opted to go to the Penneys store across the way, which is essentially the same store to me, minus the groceries. I will admit that I’m glad I ended up not getting the Dunnes bedding because the Penneys bedding ended up being twice as many sheets, for less of the cost. Basically, instead of paying €12 for a single set of sheets, I got two sheets for €9.

**I will take one for the team here: As a straight, single male, and for all men like me everywhere, I will admit that when it comes to shopping, we don’t have a clue what we’re doing. So women everywhere of all kinds (well, except rich spoiled bitches that think money grows on trees) you win this round**

When it came to the groceries, we ended up going to Tesco instead. This was provoked when some of the girls tried to buy all their groceries at Dunnes (who promise free deliver when you by €40 or more in gorcieres) ended up being refused the free delivery service because they were “too late.” Again, it turned out to be a better deal because just about everything at Tesco ended up being significantly cheaper than at Dunnes. To summarize today’s lesson in living in Cork: Fuck Dunnes. Tesco for your food and other groceries, and Penneys for your clothing and other housing materials is a better combination than Dunnes. (Luckily, the Wilton Shopping Center in the opposite direction of the city, but still about 10-20 minute walk from University Hall has both Tesco and Penneys together.)

Now that the boring shopping part of my story is over, it’s time for the fun part: the drinking. The next night after orientation, we all went out drinking. We went to this pub on Washington Street called the “The Star.” (I hope to have a comprehensive post providing reviews of all the pubs I frequent while I’m here by the end of my semester, so stay tuned for that).  Apparently, our American accents must have been loud, because not too long after we sat down and started drinking in the Pub, this one lad from Limerick introduces himself and tries to figure out where we’re all from. He, Natalie (one of the girls in the IFSA-Butler crew), and I ended up talking a bit about rugby since we all played at some point. Let’s just say the position I (poorly) play at home, I don’t come close to being adequate here in Ireland. Then the Irish lad introduces one of his friends to us. He ended up being a history major and wound up talking to me a lot about politics, media, etc. It was a great time. The Guinness there was good, but pricey, so I switched to Beamish, the Cork brand stout. It was probably the smartest decision I have made so far. Not only is Beamish somewhere between €.70 and €1.50 cheaper than Guinness in most places, I find it has a thicker, fuller flavor than Guinness (Like the pub review idea, a comparison between all the stouts available in Ireland will also be made in full in a later post forthcoming).

After that, half of the crew followed our newly acquainted Irish friends to a nightclub, and the other half stayed in “The Star” until closing time. Frank and I stayed until closing time, but then decided to go out and find one of the few remaining pubs open until 2 am. Let’s see, two guys that just arrived in a brand new city, a little bit inebriated, trying to go further into town looking for specific bars. Sounds like we wouldn’t get lost, right? Ha ha. Wrong! Like Dublin, Cork’s city streets aren’t well labeled (though still better labeled than Dublin once we knew where to look). It seriously must be a European thing to not have well marked street signs. Luckily, we found a group of locals who kindly told us how to get back to UCC.

Then there was Saturday night, where we all bought tickets to a UCC sponsored party held in “The New Bar” on campus. It was a lot of fun. It was like a high school dance, except with alcohol. We all now those kind of things are better with alcohol. It was markedly different though. Unlike in the States where “grinding” seems to be the popular dance with everyone, I do not believe I saw it happen at all here (the same goes for later in the week when Frank and I went to a popular college bar in town, and I don’t believe I saw it at all there either). People in Ireland seem to just get in large circles of people and dance.

The rest of the week pretty much was uneventful. Classes started but it is different here in Ireland (yes, this too will also have a more elaborate post on the topic of Irish academics forthcoming).  So I believe I will stop here. Stay tuned for more updates.

Dublin: My observations

DISCLAIMER 1: Every second I spent in Dublin was spent either exhausted from jetlag or inebriated from the night we all went out drinking.

DISCLAIMER 2: In honor of a native son of Dublin, this post was written purposefully in the style of stream-of-consciousness. Do not attempt to make any logical progression out of my observations of the city. It will hurt your brain, a lot.

Guinness, Guinness, Guinness. Definitely the best thing bout Dublin. Those first two pints I had at The Ginger Man actually were disappointing, they fucking tasted like the Guinness in the States, but only slightly better. Not in the storehouse though. They know what they’re doing there. Dublin wasn’t nearly as cosmopolitan as I thought and was told it would be. still kinda rural in a way. Except for the walking. Fucking fifteen minute walk everywhere apparently. Such lies. I better pick up my pace though, Cork is probably the same except a smaller city limit area. I guess you can still consider it cosmopolitan. Hell the most conversation I got while I was there was from those two American step brothers and that Australian comedian. Cosmopolitan I guess. Not New York or London cosmopolitan, but cosmopolitan by definition I guess. People need to stop need saying Philly is so dirty and smelly. They clearly never traveled or have just their heads up their fucking asses. Every big city has at least its smelly and dirty sections. The non-gypsy beggars took me a bit by surprise though. Everyone knows Gypsies are all over Europe and try to get money off of you, but I guess I just thought in Europe it was exclusively them, and that most everyone else was fine. Should’ve known better. Oh well. Man was it expensive too. €4.65 a pint? Fuck that noise. Those meals weren’t cheap either. Thank God, IFSA-Butler paid for them. I may have needed to take out a loan just to afford to eat there. Man, the roads are crazy too. I almost forgot about them. I thought it would just be like the states except reversed since they drive on the right hand side. Nope. Wrong. It’s fucking crazy driving there. Weird divided lanes. Sudden change in the direction of the street at different intersections. It was really weird. The lanes were both well labeled and then not well labeled. Just weird for an American. Those look left and look right direction on the cross walks though were an excellent idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was inspired due to too many pedestrian casualties. Oh, also, fuck those poorly labeled streets. Do Europeans not believe in knowing what street your on? Seriously. Come to think of it, it was amazing how rustic the feel of the city was despite all its modernization its going through. Most American cities don’t go further back thank the 1600s, and really no older than 1500s. but looking at a city that was much, much older, it kinda puts things in perspective how old humans really are. Plenty of hot girls though. Wish I had more time to explore that, but I guess I’ll have to hope the Cork girls are just as hot, if not hotter, than those Dublin girls. I guess what I really want to say is: fuck fifteen minute walks.