Week 5 - Seeing Ireland The Right Way

Monday(02/02/2009):

 Unfortunately, as I'm writing this over a week later, I don't remember what happened on Monday, which means I didn't get free food on that day.

Tuesday(02/03/2009):

 On Tuesday, I had officially been in Ireland for one month.  It's weird, in the sense that it doesn't feel like a whole month has passed already, but at the same time it feels like I've been living in South Mall Court forever.  I'm so used to everything, that it seems odd to think that a month ago I was surrounded by beautiful fields and now I'm in the middle of a valley of the purest green, surrounded by mountains.  

Wednesday(02/04/2009):

 Yeah, apparently I didn't get free food on Wednesday either.

Thursday(02/05/2009): 

 Today I talked to Giovanni about politics during lunch.  I mentioned to him how Blagojevich had recently been impeached and would be put on trial for criminal charges as well, and he told me about how bad the corruption of the Italian government was as well.  He said that he thought that most of the government officials in Italy were just as corrupt as Blagojevich, and that they had numerous dealings with the Mafia, but that the difference is that none of them ever get thrown out of office.  We also talked about how it seems that the corruption in other poorer countries seems to be even worse then some of the more "developed" countries, and how bad it's getting, especially in some places in Africa and South America, where the country itself has lots of natural resources, but they are held solely by the country's government/ruling class, while a majority of the country's citizens live and die in extreme poverty.  While we were talking about these things Giovanni made us Italian coffee with his little mocha maker.  It's this little kettle basically, where you just put water in the bottom and then a little bit of coffee in a strainer over it and then wait for it to boil up into the top pouring section.  It only makes an itty bit of coffee, but its very strong.

Friday(02/06/2009):

Giorgio made dinner for Shawn, myself, Andrea, and Fedrico on Friday night.  It was pretty good.  We had meat and potatoes in a stew and then we had this potato porridge stuff.  After Shawn and I had been talking the whole week about how great it would be to have a blender, and with my search for the epic milkshake continuing, and with Beamish in the fridge, I decided that I would try and make a beer shake.  So I got some vanilla ice cream, and using a pint glass and a big spoon I managed to make a Beamish beershake.  It was actually surprisingly good.  It tasted like an incredibly thick, and very creamy, beer in sludge form.  However, while it did taste good, I think I prefer my Beamish and ice cream as two separate entities.  Their tastes just seem more profound when separated.  We kinda needed some more pint glasses in the apartment, so Giovanni and I went to the International Student part at Liquid Lounge, and after getting two pints and scoring some free wings and "chips" we left with our glasses.  I then read for the rest of the night, as I was going to be gone on Sunday, and needed to get some work done.

Saturday(02/07/2009): 

On Saturday, I got up early, made breakfast, did some wash, read some more, and then went out to do errands.  While out and about I realized it was getting close to noon, and I was getting hungry and near the St. Patrick's Street McDonalds.  Now, I am in no way a fan of McDonalds, but David Wetzel has raved about how awesome the McDonalds in Spain and France are, so I thought I would give it a go in Ireland.  So I went in and ordered the first Big Mac I've ever had in my entire life, seeing as how David has mentioned how the Spanish version of the Big Mac is awesome.  My guess is that the Irish McDonalds are closer to the American ones, as I was pretty disappointed with my Big Mac.  It was kinda tiny to have the word "Big" in it, but for €3, it wasn't too bad.  I did find it somewhat ironic (I don't know if it was actually ironic, but "funny" at least) that the first time I, an American, had a food that was what you might call an "American icon" it was in Ireland.  That evening after studying I went to a local pub to watch the Irish national rugby team play France.  To be honest, it was the first time I'd ever seen most of a whole rugby game, and the first time I'd seen Ireland play.  It was awesome though!  I love rugby.  The game is like taking American football, soccer, and wrestling and throwing them all together.  It's so fantastic, and pretty freaking hardcore as well.  It's also very exciting as thing get going pretty fast paced at times, and when you're in a pub full of Irish people with beer, with a game being projected on 5 screens and 6 TV's, it's pretty epic.  Plus, more free food.  Ireland won that day over France; 30 - 21.  Also, TESCO was having a sale that weekend, where all beer was 25% off.  So, for €50 I got enough beer to last me till after I'm supposed to leave Ireland, if I ration myself to 2 pints a week, and I can totally do that.  While that may seem like a lot of money I'm spending on beer, it's actually an insanely good deal if you think about the fact that just one pint at a pub will cost you over €4.

Sunday(02/08/2009):

 So today I woke up bright and "early" (6:50 is kinda early...right?) to make it over to Gaol Cross just outside the college campus to go on a trek to the Knocklamena mountain range, that lies between Killarney and Kenmare in Co.Kerry, with the UCC Mountaineering Club.  About maybe 40 of us showed up, so that the charter bus that took us there was pretty much full.  We threw all of our stuff in the back trunk of the bus and got on the road about 8:20 or so.  Everyone was pretty quite until we stopped in Killareny.  There people got out and went into a local supermarket and got a bunch of breakfast food and stuff to eat on the trek.  Afterwards, people were a bit more awake and talkative.  The guy who was sitting next to me was named Dung-Gill Kim.  He was doing his post doc at UCC over environmental climate change, and was originally from South Korea, but had done his Ph.D. at Iowa State University, so he was very familiar with the midwest.  He also thinks he may have met Jennifer at a conference sometime.  We finally got to the farms that border the Knocklamena mountains and we all got out, got our gear, left our change of clothes, and got our boots and stuff on.  The bus then left to go wait for us at the other side of the range.  We had to walk along the road about 2 miles or so, before we could finally hop a wire fence to get into the fields and walk over to the mountains.  The fields were incredibly wet, and more boggy in some areas.  We finally got to slightly firmer ground and our club officers/guides decided that we would split into two groups.  One group, would continue on the original trek and go up the first main mountain that we were in front of, then descend it, cross the valley and climb the main mountain ridge.  This was for the more "extreme" they said.  The other group, would skip the harder first mountain and just go straight for the ridge.  Myself, and 6 other guys decided to go with the "extreme" option and started walking towards the base of the mountain with a guide, while everyone else followed the other guide to the main ridge.  Getting up to the top of the mountain was hard.  The base was pretty steep to begin with, and the grade of the mountain side got progressively steeper.  Also, there was no trail.  You had to make your own trail, which meant walking through bushes, brambles, and whatever was in your way.  We would take periodic rests, but it was slowly going, wet, and very slippery (I ended up falling a lot today).  In some areas you needed to use your hands on the rock face in front of you to haul yourself up, or to help stabilize you on the wet grass and rocks, as there was 60 foot drop offs about 3 feet away from you in some areas.  The views on the way up got more and more incredible though.  Unfortunately, my camera doesn't pick up things that are in the very far distance very well, so my pictures don't really do them justice.  We finally made it to the summit where we took some photos and took the opportunity to take a quick bite and get some water.  It was really windy up there.  Oh yeah, I should mention that one of the Irish guys who was with us had found a small log of wood at the start of the hike and had named it, and had been carrying with us.  So we took some pictures with the "Annie Bloggy the Log" and started the descent.

                                

The descent was incredibly slippery, and in many times it was more like sliding down the mountain in a somewhat controlled manner, then actually climbing down it.  Again, I fell a lot.  We finally made it to the valley below and walked through the very flooded fields, where we spotted some wild mountain sheep, and around the lake to the base of the main mountain ridge.  We then made our way up the first peak, which took a long time.  The temperature differences from the base to the top were rather extreme, and so you had to modify what layers you had open as you went up, and due to the wind at times, you really needed a hood up to shield your face.  Once we got to the top of the main ridge, we were able to walk along the ridge, switching back and forth over the fences as needed, for a few peaks until we got to the 3rd ridge where it sharply fell off and we needed to gingerly make our way down.  If you slipped, you were going to be tumbling down a while on some uncomfortable rock.  We were rather excited though, as we could see the other group working their way up the big ridge in front of us, and so we really wanted to catch them as we had done a whole other mountain compared to them.  

On of the guys *NOT ME* mentioned that this seemed a lot like The Lord of The Rings, where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are pursuing the Urkhai to rescue Merry and Pippin, so we all laughed at that and started saying things along the lines of "We're going to rescue those hobbits!"....yeah.  We continued down and then up the very step next ridge, and were rewarded with finding the other group resting.  So we instigated a snowball fight on the far side of the summit.  We continued on from there as one big group, but not before the guide from our group and one of the other Irish guys we had with us produced a tarp and sledded down about 200 meters of the mountain before us.  Crazy Irish.  

The rest of the trek was just downhill, and very wet.  I again fell a lot, and everyone was pretty tired when we eventually reached the bus.  It's rather evident that people form Ireland don't have a very good idea of where Illinois is in the US, or what its geography is like, as they would all ask me if we had mountains in Illinois.  Ha, yeah right.  When we reached the bus, we all changed clothes, which felt really good, and then got back on and headed into Killarney.  There, we got off and stopped for an hour and got food.  Myself and a few people ate a little at a small "Chipper", as the Irish call them, which is like a generic fast food restaurant.  Some other people went to pubs, but water seemed like a far better choice then beer at the moment.  I slept for most of the bus ride back into Cork, and then walked back to South Mall and made myself some pasta and beans and had a Beamish, started washing and drying things out and then resumed homework.  I'm pretty tired, and my left hamstring is going to be rather sore in the morning as it got banged up a bit, but I had an amazing time, and everyone in the club is incredibly nice and are fun people to be around.