Week 3 - Life in Cork as Usual

Monday(01/19/2009):

I don’t remember anything about Monday. Therefore, ergo, I must have done homework.

Tuesday(01/20/2009):

Tuesday was the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America, President Barack Hussein Obama. Shawn, Giorgio and I walked down to go watch the inauguration ceremony at The Old Bar, the UCC campus pub, around 4:00 PM. We stopped at An Brog on the way to get a cheap, €2.90, pint and talk a bit. We met Giovanni at The Old Bar, and got some great seats right next to the huge screen they had put up. The pub was already really crowded, and by the time the inauguration started it was packed to the rafters. I was so happy when Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, Anthony McGill preformed “Air and Simple Gifts”. It was such a beautiful peace, and Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma are two of my favorite artists, not to mention I really like John Williams’ work in general. During the inauguration ceremony itself, it was still pretty exciting even though I was a quarter of the way around the world. The Old Bar was absolutely stuffed, and not just with Americans, but with people of all nationalities. It was really interesting to see people from all around the world take such a vested intrest in a historical moment in my country, and with Americans who were traveling from all over the world at that moment converging together at the pub, it was a time when even though we [the Americans] were scattered, we were still all united then. After the ceremony was over, the four of us walked back to South Mall Court, talking. One interesting thing though about being an American abroad, is once people that you’re talking to discern that you’re not Irish, they will usually, after a polite time into your conversation, ask if you are happy about having Obama as president, and what/how you think he will do. The Germans and French do this particularly, but they genuinely seem interested in your response. Germans are also very pleasantly surprised to find Americans that can speak German, even if you don’t speak it well, and seem to quite enjoy talking to us in German. This is great because my German is getting better, and it makes Shawn and myself items of interest at parties. That night was also Margherita’s mother’s birthday, so we had been invited up to Apartment 5 for dinner that night. So being good guests, we stopped on our way home and picked up two bottles of Italian wine to share, one from the region of Italy that Giovanni is from, and one from Giorgio’s region. We went up to Margherita’s and Laura’s apartment around 7:30 and they had prepared authentic Italian lasagna with the help of Margherita’s mother and aunt. It was so delicious, and piping hot, and when complimented with the Italian wine (both of which were excellent red wines, but I liked the dryer one *Girogio’s region* better) it was a wonderful meal. Afterwards we played an Italian version of Yahtzee for while, and then Shawn and I went back to our room to study.

Wednesday(01/21/2009):

On Wednesday I just went to class and then came back and studied for a while. On my way home I stopped by a cafe called Cafe Gusto that had a big "Mmm..." on the window and ordered a milkshake, something I’d really been missing, and was sorely disappointed with the result. I could drink the whole bloody thing in under 10 seconds. It seemed like they had put milk and a little bit of chocolate in a blender and decided that was a milkshake. So my search for a decent milkshake in Cork began. Shawn and I then walked to the Washington Street Kino (movie theater) to meet Giovanni and Eugenio @ 6:30 to see a documentary, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It was a really interesting documentary if you like any of Hunter S. Thompson’s work, or have ever read/seen any of it. It was also a very well done documentary of the feelings of the American public in the 60’s as told by the American public, so I really enjoyed it. Great work. We then came back to Apartment 1 and Giovanni, Eugenio and I made a pasta dinner with cucumber and tomato sauce. Then back to studying.

Thursday(01/22/2009):

Nothing much really happened on Thursday, except that our internet slowed down to such a crawl that by 6:00 it could no longer load google. I ended up packing my stuff up and walking to the UCC library to use the wireless there, but for some reason the permissions they have on the wireless don’t allow you to use messaging applications like AIM and Skype, which sucked. At 10:30 they closed the library, so we all had to go outside and wait for the Quadrangle Study Room to open up so we could go back in. By the time I got back to South Mall Court around 1:00 AM the interent was working again, so I didn’t have to make any phone calls in the morning which was nice.

Friday(01/23/2009):

Friday passed without incident for most of the day. My search for a decent milkshake in Cork continued though, to Eddie Rockets, an American styled diner. This one milkshake was better then the one I had at Mmm, as it had visible ice cream in it, but it was still too thin. I’m still expecting a milkshake from Mary Ann’s or The Courier, where you need to wait a few minutes for it to melt a little before you can actually get anything out of the straw. I called up the Knights of Columbanus that afternoon, and tried to meet them for some charity event that night, but due to the Irish’s inability to give specific directions beyond “just walk straight after that one turn till you find it” coupled with their apparent hatred of street signs, as there are hardly any of them here, I never found the bloody place, and so got a very nice self guided tour of the city instead. :/ After I got back, Shawn and I went to O’Donnovan’s to pick up 4 pack of Guinness. I enjoyed one of mine that night while I worked on homework and read, and kept the other 3 in the fridge for Giovanni’s birthday party the next day.

Saturday(01/24/2009):

Saturday morning both Shawn and I woke up “early” (10:00 is early right?) and got to work studying and reading. We were happily interrupted around lunch though, as Giorgio wanted us to taste the pizza he had made, to see if it was any good or not, so we happily obliged. The pizza was pretty good. The whole day Giovanni was cleaning the apartment because he thought that we were going to have a party there like he had planned. That evening Laura and Margherita came down and made Italian pizza for all of us in Apartment 1, plus them and Eugenio and another of Giovanni’s friends. We all then made excuses to leave and sneak up to Apartment 5, where the real surprise party for Giovanni was about to take place. Margherita had invited bout 40 of Giovanni’s friends, so with Giorgio making pop corn like mad, we all squeezed into the kitchen, and then when we had all gotten there, we turned off the lights, closed the kitchen door and Margherita texted Giovanni that she needed his help reaching something on one of the kitchen shelves. When he came in and turned on the lights he was greeted by all of us, and a ridiculous amount of beer (plus the case of beer he had bought that day for the party he thought he was throwing). He was so surprised and happy to see all of us, he almost cried. The party turned out to be really fun. Just everybody socializing, walkling around, joking, meeting everyone, congratulating Giovanni and wishing him a very happy 25th birthday and so on. We had also hooked up an iPod to someone’s speaker system, so we listened to great music the whole night as well. Laura brought out the cake that she and Margherita had baked around midnight, and dear Lord, that was some awesome cake! It was cake, with a layer of cream of something, and then more cake with a layer of real chocolate frozen over the whole thing. It was so delicious and obviously went super fast. Shawn and I came back to the room around 1:30 or so, but Giovanni and some other people went out to the bars for a little while (crazy Italianas).

Sunday(01/25/2009):

Today I’ve pretty much just been doing laundry, eating, getting groceries, doing PY2102 and PY2103 homework, and writing the blog. I went to St. Patrick’s today for Mass, which was really nice. The cathedral was huge, with fantastic Irish architecture, and some of the highest ceilings I’ve ever seen in my life. The priest also spoke at a normal pace, so I could actually understand what was being said today, which was also awesome. Although, they definitely say the Our Father in either Gaelic or Latin or something, because that was not English.  On Saturday, I'd officially been in Ireland for 3 weeks, and it really doesn't seem like its been that long.  I'm almost a 3rd of the way through the instructional part of my courses, and it still just seems like I got here.  I know my way around Cork, and my room feels like it's my room and all, but it still just seems like time is flying by.  I guess I should try and do as much as possible then.