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 6th. 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.
