Germany (04/04 - 09/2009)

Berlin (04/04 - 06/2009):

Saturday(04/04/2009):

Today I took off from Cork, flew to Berlin. Was nice to see Cork from the air. We landed in Germany, at the Berlin Schönefeld Airport, where I proceded to go through immigration, and get my bags. After I went through immigration I decided that I would try and only speak in German for the rest of my time in Germany. I then walked across the parking lot to the train station, and bought a ticket to take the S-Bahn into the city, which took about 40 minutes. I had to transfer to the U-Bahn once, and then when I surfaced I was right outside of my hostel, The Circus. The Circus has awesome rooms, and a very nice atmoshphere. When I checked in I was given a card that I could redeem for a free pint of beer if I bought a pint of beer from the bar in the basement, [insert name]. So I went down bought a pint, and got my card signed for later, and then went to my room to unpack. For dinner, I walked across the street to a Mexican restaurant and got some enchiladas. That was the first Mexican food I'd had in a few months, and it tasted awesome. I was pretty tired so I came back to the hostel and just went to bed. Oh, and I failed to speak only German when I asked for a security locker, but besides that I did really well for the whole time.

Sunday(04/06/2009):

I woke up at 7:00 on Sunday, as this was my only complete day in Berlin and I wanted to try and get as much accomplished as possible. The first thing I did was figure out where the nearest Catholic church was. I had found out on Saturday night that a church on my map shared the same street with a Catholic center, so I figured it was Catholic as well. I walked out of The Circus, and started walking. I didn't actually use my map. I just kinda already knew where I was going, and I didn't ming wandering a little bit, as I knew I would take detours for photos anyway. It was about 7:30 or so, and it struck me instantly as odd that I was literally the only one out. I don't think that 7:30 AM is really that early for a Sunday, but I saw one car, and no pedestrians go by the entire 40 minutes it took for me to walk to St. Sebastian's Kirche. It was raining very, very softly, so that you might feel a drop every 10 seconds or so. It was eerie in some ways, walking entirely by myself down the streets, in the still cold morning air, next to remnants of apartment buildings built during the Cold War era, which were covered with graffiti. I didn't mind it though. It was very peaceful in fact and when you can hear your footsteps echo off history it's a very reflective time. I got to St. Sebastian's Kirche, and found that the first Mass of the day wasn't until 10:00, so I took some pictures and headed back to The Circus. The Circus is a cafe, hostel, and bar, and at the cafe they have a €5 all you can eat Frühstück deal. I got this, and so for breakfast I had my choice of tea, coffee, or orange juice, and then my selection of different granola breakfast cereals with milk, and then a selection of rolls, white and whole meal bread, Nutella, marmalade, hard boiled eggs, orange slices, a platter of cold cuts, and some soft cakeish bread. I definitely ate my fill and then walked back to St. Sebastian's. It was Palm Sunday, and I noticed that their palms were very different then the ones I'm used to. Instead of the long, thing palms I'm used to these were more a bundle of small twigish branches. I was disappointed with the amount of the Mass that I could actually understand, so I guess my German needs a bit of work. After Mass I walked back to The Circus, and there I rented a bike for the day for €12. It was a pretty nice bike in my opinion. It had 7 gears, a cable lock that I just wore around my neck, and a little bell on the left hand side. I haven't had a bell on my bike in probably 12 years, so it made me smile to have one again. I definitely rang it a lot for the heck of it. My first stop of the day was the Mauerpark, where they had sections of the Berlin Wall up.I walked up and down the stretch they just looking at everything on it. I guess you can still paint on it, as there was an artist who had blacked out about a 20 foot section of it and was starting a new graffiti tag on it. I walked around for a bit longer, and took some pictures and then headed out to Alexander Platz. On the way I really began to notice how bike friendly Berlin was. The bike paths were very wide and the cars gave you lots of room. They definitely knew how to drive with bikes on the road. It was very nice. When I finally got to Alexander Platz I just pushed my bike around looking at all of the shops and carts. All the smells were making me hungry, so I got a Currywurst with a roll and .5 L of beer from a vendor for just €4.20! That made me instantly fall in love with Berlin, along with the fact that you can drink publicly in the streets, as a comperable meal back in Cork would have easily been over €10. From there I went on to the Berliner Rathaus. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get any good photos of it as there was a half marathon going on that day and there were a bunch of crowds and vendors right in front of the building. It was still really cool to see though. At the end of the half marathon there were people from Erdinger giving out free cups of their non-alcoholic beer to everyone. I never say no to free stuff, and especially not German brewed beer. I then biked over to the Brandenburger Tor, which is probably one of the coolest sights in all of Germany. Along the way there though, I stopped to watch a band that was playing some funk/rock music on the street, or Blaskappella as the Germans would call it. They were really good so I bought their CD. Their name is Rupert's Kitchen Orchestra, and I'm really glad I discovered them. From the Brandenburger Tor, I went to The Holocaust Memorial. The Holocaust Memorial is the most powerful memorial I've ever been to and it's massiveness just washes over you. As you walk amongst the stones you begin to feel smaller, and when you reach the center you realize that you are entirely engulfed and overpowered by the Memorial, and that fact burns into your mind the massive murder that was carried out, and how the massiveness of it's toll is insufferably huge. It also struck me how that the older people there, in their late teens and up, for the most part just walked silently through the Memorial looking, touching, and stopping to just let it all wash over them. Younger children ran through the halls laughing. It just emphasized the importance of the Memorial even more. That there will be something to bear witness to what happened when these children grow up to be adults, and they can have the experience of walking silently through the rows of concrete. After I left the Holocaust Memorial I went to the Tiergarten. I biked through it, just enjoying the beautiful woods, the blooming Spring flowers, and the lovely lakes and monuments in it. It was just perfect. The Tiergarten is also really huge. After I had enjoyed the Tiergarten for a long time, I went North to the Reichstag, which was cool, but I didn't go in. I took a few pictures and then biked over to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to make reservations for my train ride to München and Verona. It was getting late in the day, so I just finished off by biking around the Tiergarten some more before I got dinner and went to bed.

Monday(04/06/2009):

I woke up and went down to The Circus's cafe for breakfast before walking to the bus stop and catching the next one do the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. I was an hour early or so, so I bought some fish and chips and then just listened to music on the platform until my train finally arrived. The trains in Germany are really rather nice, and clean, and my train ride to Bremen was very comfortable and fast. Along the way though, I noticed that Northern Germany looked incredibly similar to Illinois (so I'm not really surprised that so many Germans settled in Illinois when they immigrated to America). I arrived in Bremen and Svea was there at the Hauptbanhof to meet me. It was so great to see her again! We walked around Bremen's city center for a while, where I saw the statue of Roland, the protector of Bremen, and got Eis (ice cream auf Deustch) by the river. We then drove from Bremen to Svea's house just outside of Gnarrenburg in Svea's car. Svea's family's house is incredibly beautiful. It is out in the country, next to some farms, but they have total serenity around them. Their property consists of a lot of land, and they have enough room that her father decided to build a lake in their "back yard" with his backhoe. Svea's family is also quite delightful and friendly. Her mother and brother both spoke english, but her father only speaks german, so this gave me an excellent opportunity to try and improve my german. The evening that I came her family was having a barbeque, so I helped them set up a bit, and then we all ate. We had salad, potatoes, potato salad, some wonderful bread, and then our choice of barbequed Wurst, chicken, and pork. It was great!

Rest of blog will be finished at later date.

Week 13 - A Detour to Dublin

Monday (03/30/2009):

After getting back from hanging out with Mark in Dublin on Saturday, I turned around on Monday morning and got back on the bus to return to Dublin to meet Ann who had told me that she was going to be in Dublin for three days with her friends from Aberdeen, Geneva and Jason. They had just finished going to the Guinness brewery when I arrived, so I checked into my hostel and walked to meet them. I showed them St. Stephen's Green and the beautiful lake in it, and then we decided to check out Merrion Square, which is very similar to St. Stephen's Green, except that there is no lake and it's quite a bit smaller. We had hoped to check out the National Gallery, but unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays. So we basically just spent the better part of the afternoon wandering around downtown Dublin. I would point out some buildings or things that I knew and thought were interesting, and the Scotland folk would window shop. That evening we met some of Geneva's friends that go to Trinity College for dinner. We went to this place called O'Neills, and they had a fantastic Irish stew! Lots of potatoes, really thick gravy, and tender juicy hunks of meat. When you top that off with a pint of Guinness, then it was a perfect meal for the evening. After dinner I suggested that we all go to the Porterhouse, which was obviously the best choice possible. It got even better when we got there and I discovered that due to The Porterhouse Independent Beer & Whiskey Festival that was going on at the time, Porterhouse had their seasonal beer for Spring, Chocolate Truffle Stout, on tap! It was an amazingly awesome pint! To me it tasted like a sweeter pint of Guinness Draught, with a chocolate aftertaste (like if someone had squirted liquid dark chocolate in you mouth immediately after you had swallowed your stout). It has definitely become one of my favorite beers ever. We all just hung out at the Porterhouse for the rest of the evening and then went back to our respective hostels, said our goodnights and goodbyes and went to bed.

Tuesday(03/31/2009):

I woke up, got on the bus back to Cork, and once I got back and showered got to work on my last assignment for Fourier Methods.

Thursday & Friday Morning(04/02 - 03/2009):

I guess I should have felt lucky that I was up very late trying to finish my Fourier Methods homework, because at about 2 AM on Friday morning some of our neighbors at South Mall Court Apt #4 started having an after party from some formal on the balcony between the two towers of the building. This balcony is on our level. So while I was listening to some Bach concertos and looking for some Fourier Transform patterns there were people drinking, screaming, running around and listening to loud music on the balcony not 4 feet to my right. To me it didn't really mater, as I wasn't trying to sleep, but I did feel very bad for Giorgio who was trying to sleep and was having an impossible time. He eventually gave up and got online to do some work. He told me over the internet that Giovanni was "sleeping like a lamb" across the room. Giovanni is like me, and once he's asleep, he's not going to wake up until his body wants to. Giorgio also described his feeling for our Irish neighbors and their party friends, but I don't feel that I can reproduce that language on this blog, as I am unsure as to the age level of those reading it...or more like how foul language will offend the adults reading this. It was also a lucky thing that Shawn had departed for his tour of Ireland already, as there would have been no way that he could sleep through all that noise. In the morning, I got up, went to UCC to turn in my work, and then came back, slept a little, and then packed for my impending two week excursion of continental Europe.

Week 12 - Mark Visits!

Monday(03/23/2009):

Mark accompanied to me class, so he got a good taste of the Irish school system. Most of the kids in my physics class seemed pretty surprised that he agreed to come to a physics lecture on his own free will, and that I didn't drag him there.

Tuesday(03/24/2009):

Mark went to Blarney to go check out the castle and the town. I still had some quantum physics to hammer out during the week, so that evening after dinner Mark watched a movie with Shawn and Giorgio.

Wednesday(03/25/2009):

The Wolfe Tones came to UCC to play on Wednesday night. Giovanni, Eugenio, Margherita, Mark and I went to go see them. They were pretty good and while the show had a pretty small audience, it was still a very lively show. When we got back, Mark did a search on them and found out that we didn't really see the original "Wolfe Tones", we say "Derek Warfield and The Wolfe Tones". Apparently, back in 1989 the singer of The Wolfe Tones, Derek Warfield, signed a shady business deal that basically prohibited the rest of The Wolfe Tones from recording together. So they still toured, but they couldn't record any new material. So anything that says "The Wolfe Tones" that was recorded after 1989 is really just Derek Warfield with hired backing musicians, which is what we say. Still, it was good traditional Irish music.

Thursday(03/26/2009):

After I turned in my quantum physics homework on Thursday I came back and Mark and I went out to get hot chocolate and just hang out. We also went to the Crawford Art Gallery for a while before it closed, and then just went back to the apartment to hang out. Around 6:30 I started preparing dinner. Since this was Mark's last night in Cork, I was having a little dinner party in his honor. So I invited him, Shawn, Giorgio, Giovanni, Margherita, Laura, and Eugenio over for chicken parmesan over a bed of whole meal penne with tomato sauce, garlic bread, some red italian wine and Vienneta for dessert. Laura was also kind enough to cook us a lemon sponge cake, which was so delicious! Cooking for 8 was a little different then cooking for 1 (or for 2 like I had been this past week), but it was really pretty fun. It was also nice to have my cooking be complimented by Italian women, who I know can cook really well. Although, I have to say that after cooking and cleaning up, I really appreciated my mother cooking for me for the last 19 years of my life and all the work she's had to do. So thanks Mom! After we finished dinner, people sat around finishing off the wine and Shawn and Laura went out to the balcony to smoke. I ended up going out to the balcony a little later with a glass of wine and just sitting out there in the cold night air for about 5 minutes relaxing and looking up at the moon, while listening to the strains of Cork's populace moving around down on Grand Parade. Margehrita and Laura ended up going back to their apartment early, so the rest of us guys decided to watch a movie. We grabbed pints of Beamish and watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That has got to be one of the most amusingly bizarre movie I've ever seen in my life, and it was pretty funny as well. I'd never seen it before, but now I know where the phrase "We can't stop here....this is bat country!" came from.

Friday(03/27/2009):

I had class Friday morning, so Mark went up to Dublin before me in the morning. He visited the Guinness brewery, St. Stephen's Square, Dublin Castle, and Trinity College. Friday was my last day of classes for the semester, so I didn't want to miss them. In quantum physics we took a fun day and just talked about some aspects of quantum entanglement and applications of quantum computing and some of the stranger aspects of entanglement. We also talked about Einstein's famously wrong idea for hidden variables, as Einstein refused to believe that "...He [God] does not throw dice". I also didn't know that the ERP paper is Einstein's most widely cited paper. It's kind of funny. Einstein's theory of relativity is possibly the most important discovery in physics in the last 150 years or so, yet he won the Nobel for his discovery of the Photoelectric effect, and his most widely cited paper is the one paper that he wrote that he was actually wrong about something....besides the whole trying to write poetry, and marrying his cousin thing. After class I got on the train and met Mark outside his hostel, after doing a bit of a run around as the map on the Globetrotter's Hostel webpage shows the hostel about 200 meters North of where it actually is in Dublin. We then went and found a bar and grill that had dinner at a reasonable price and got some really delicious fried cod (I do love Friday fish in Lent) and a pint of Guinness each. After dinner we just kinda walked around Dublin and popped in and out of pubs looking for live music. I showed Mark The Porter House, but we didn't stay that long as we got there about 10 and music wasn't going to be starting till about midnight. We eventually found Fitzsimon's Hotel (which is a hotel, bar and nightclub), and just had a few pints while listening to live music, watching ESPN March Madness coverage and talking. We were both going to have to wake up somewhat early in the morning, so around 12:30 AM we went back to our hostels. I stayed at Isaac's Hostel again. When I got back to my room some people were already asleep in there, so I just climbed into my bed and started to go to sleep. However, about 2 minutes later 3 very drunk British guys came in and were being very loud which woke up everyone in the room. Apparently everyone in the room except me knew each other and were from Great Britain as the guys who woke up started cussing out the other 3 by name. The 3 drunk guys eventually got to their beds, but they were still very drunk and very loud and kept on yelling at each other and talking about their sexual exploits from that night. Luckily, I learned to sleep in bright gyms during wrestling meets in high school, so I was able to drown all that crap out after about 10 minutes and still get some sleep.

Saturday(03/28/2009):

I woke up around 7:00, checked out and went over to Mark's hostel to wait for him. When he came down we walked over to the bus station, where we said our goodbyes and he caught his bus to the airport. I then jogged through Dublin to the train station, found that the next train wasn't until 10:00 (it was 9:07 when I go there), so I got a smoothie and read for a while. I basically just slept for the whole 3 hour train ride back to Cork, and then just kinda hung out for the rest of the day at the apartment.

Sunday(03/29/2009):

Today I've just been doing wash, hanging out, doing some work and ironing out some final plans for my trip through Europe.

Week 11 - God Bless Saint Patrick

Tuesday(03/17/2009):

So today is Saint Patrick's Day. At midnight Shawn came into our room with two pints of Guinness so after the traditional "Sláinte!" we enjoyed our first pints of the day, and then I got back to my contour integrations for Fourier Methods, and went to bed. I got up at about 10:30 and donned my "Póg mo thóin" long sleeve green shirt with my National Irish Rugby jersey over that. When I went into the kitchen to get some breakfast, Margherita, Laura, and Eugenio were already over and Giovanni and Giorgio were up as well. I went out to see if the English Market was open, as I was out of bread, but they weren't so I went to the festival and got a bratwurst roll instead. I came back to South Mall and Shawn was up by then and the italians had traditional Irish music blasting in the kitchen. So we all had a pint, while doing some cleaning and such, and then got on our coats and went out onto South Mall to see the parade go past. The streets were packed with people, so it was kind of hard to get a good view all the time. The parade was pretty short (just about an hour) but they had some cool floats, and there seemed to be a focus on the international Irish. They had "parade groups" (I guess that's what you'd call them) of Irish citizens with every origin you could think of, and these groups would dress up in their ancestral or home culture's traditional clothing. They also had groups representing all the wars that the Irish had fought in, or sent volunteer supporters to. After the parade I went back to the festival on Grand Parade for a moment to get a little bit more food. It was insanely crowded, and it took a long time to move through the crowd. I met everyone at An Brog where we got green pints (of Guinness) and hung out there for a while. All the pubs had Irish music going through their PA systems the whole day. My camera was out of batteries, so I used this as an excuse to come back to the apartment and finish my Fourier Methods homework, and also to charge my battery. After I did that I met back up with everyone at Chambers pub on Washington street which was one of 5 pubs that was participating in a St. Patrick's Day pub crawl. If you went to all 5 pubs and got a pint at each one (you got a sticker with your pint) you could get a free t-shirt. All the free t-shirts were gone by noon, but we still decided to follow along the route, just at our own slower pace spending more time at the pubs. After 2 pubs, it was close to 8:00 pm, so we headed back to our apartment for a big group pasta dinner. Some of Giovanni's friends who had been studying in Cork last semester were in Cork for St. Patrick's Day, so they joined us, which was cool. They were mostly German, so I had a good time talking to them. After that dinner, we all sat around and talked for a while, and then headed back to An Brog. We all hung out and danced for a while, but around 11:00 I got a text that my friend, John, sent earlier, but I didn't get due to bad reception, saying that he might go to Chambers or so I decided to come head over there. I got there and couldn't find him, but I did see a girl Irish dancing to The Dropkick Murphy's "Shipping Up to Boston", so that was pretty dang awesome. I just went back to the apartment, as I had class in the morning and still had to study a bit for my Celtic Religion and Mythology exam in the morning (which is worth 20% of my grade). So all in all, Saint Patrick's Day was really cool, and I had a great time of enjoying it in Ireland. Oh yeah, and unlike most everyone else that I was with during the day, I didn't get drunk.

Saturday(03/21/2009):

Saturday was the last match of the 6 Nations Championship. At about 5:00 PM we all went over to Old Oak to watch the match between Ireland and Wales. The match between England and Scotland was still going on, at the time and Old Oak was already packed to the point of body to body. It only got more and more crowded as the match between Ireland and Wales started and went on. The match was very close and you could feel the emotions and energy in the pub run high. Ireland won after Wales missed a penalty kick in the 80th minute. Final score 15-17. Old Oak simply exploded. Everyone was going crazy and dancing and shouting. "We Art The Champions" came on over Old Oak's sound system and everyone started singing along. It was awesome.

Sunday(03/22/2009):

Mark's train from Dublin got into Cork at 12:50 PM, so I went to go pick him up at Kent Station. It was really good to see him. We went back to South Mall Court and then I took him for a short tour of Cork, and then went to Insomnia Cafe to get some coffee and just catch up for a while. We went to Mass at 6 at St. Patrick's Church and then made some dinner, and we went to the Franciscan Well (a pub in what used to be a Franciscan monastery a few hundred years ago, where they still brew their own beer) with Giovanni and hung out for a while. Once we got back to the apartment Shawn and Mark went to bed, as Mark was pretty tired and Shawn had his Gaelic final in the morning. So I just studied for a while and then conked out as well.

Week 10 - It's Coming

Monday(03/09/2009):

Today I got to know one of the French girls in my my Celtic Religion and Mythology classes better, and she's really pretty friendly and cool. Here name is Renée, so she and my other Celtic Civ friend, John, and I are going to try and hang out soon. She originally thought I was German, not American, so while I'm very proud to be an American, I felt complimented to be confused with a German.

Saturday(03/13/2009):

So it's coming pretty soon. St. Patrick's Day that is. Cork is gearing up already with their annual St. Patrick's Day Festival, which lasts three days. Saturday, Sunday, and then Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day). All of Grand Parade (one of the main streets in Cork) is completely filled with basically a huge farmers market. Each inch of the street is filled with stalls selling literally every type of food you could think of (Chinese, Thai, bratwurst, crapes, fudge, donuts, ice cream, traditional irish, burgers, etc.), vendors selling their crafts and live music galore. They had two stages set up. On one stage they had rock bands playing, and on the other they had traditional Irish music and classical music. They kept rotating bands all day, and did the same on Sunday. I ended up getting some Thai noodles for lunch. From this place. That evening all of us went to go see our German friend, Ronan, in a comedy that his theatrical troop was doing. We found out when we got there that The Good Person of Szechwan, was indeed a comedy, but that the underlying themes were to show capitalism as flawed. The programs were actually mostly anarchist flyers, with the exception of the list of the cast and crew, but I kinda just ignored most of this, and the play was very enjoyable, and the cast did a great job.

Sunday(03/14/2009):

On Sunday Shawn and I went back to the festival and got bratwurst rolls with fried and caramelized onions for lunch. They were incredibly delicious (I can't wait for Germany and Currywurst!). We listened to some bands, and one of them, Ian Whitty & The Exchange, impressed me enough that I bought their CD. They were a rock band, but they also had a fiddle and cello incorporated into them, and with a touch of traditional Irish music in their music made them rather good in my opinion. Besides just working on some of my Spring break travel plans, and then firming up some things for Mark's visit in two weeks (which I'm highly pumped for) I just did homework for most of this week, so sorry, but I really don't have anything else too interesting to talk about.

Week 9 - London Calling

Monday(03/02/2009):

I was washing out my cereal bowl Monday morning when I noticed that the water in my bowl was a dark green, with particles floating around in it and a disgusting odor of urine and sulfur. Giovanni confirmed that the same water was coming out of the taps in the bathrooms, so I called the South Mall Court office when I got to UCC and they said they'd get it sorted out. Apparently it fixed itself later on in the day, and I'm not actually sure if anyone ever came out to look at it. I think they had been doing something with the water pipes in the street the night before and water had just gotten backed up.

Tuesday(03/03/2009):

For dinner Shawn and I ate our remaining 26 wings each. It was, of course, delicious!

Thursday(03/05/2009):

I went to class and turned in my homework for Friday, finished packing my backpack for the weekend and then got on the bus to Cork Airport. I got there and checked in, but I was rather early, so I ended up getting a pint of Paulaner at Red Bar (the main bar in Cork Airport) and read some for my Celtic Religion and Mythology course. I finally got through security, and boarded the Ryanair jet that I was going to be taking over to London, and proceeded to read for the better part of the hour or so flight. It was dark outside, so there really wasn't much to look at anyway. We landed on time and after exiting the terminal, where we just had to show our boarding pass, not our passports, I dashed down to the basement of the Stansted Airport to catch my Stansted Express to Tottenham Hale. There I caught The Tube to Russell Square, and after a few stops and a transfer I finally exited the London Underground, and walked down the street to the Royal National Hotel. I checked in, showered, and went to bed, as I was way to tired to go out and explore that night. My roommate got back around 4am, and after short introductions, passed out.

Friday(03/06/2009):

I woke up at 7:30 on Friday, and went down to grab some breakfast in the hotel. I didn't want to pay £4.50 to get eggs, bacon and sausage, so I just got the complementary toast, rolls, cereal and milk. The granola cereal I got was really quite terrible, so I just grabbed another roll and munched on that while waiting for people to congregate in the lobby at 9 to start the day. I saw Ann, Michael and Kristin in the lobby so I talked with them on the way over to the FSU office where Ryan went over the itinerary and gave us some safety and health information. From then we went for a bus tour of London, which was rather nice and very comprehensive. It took us past the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, and a most of London, but I ended up falling asleep due to the drone of the tour guides voice and the motion of the bus.
Thankfully, Kristin had Michael poke me to wake me up before we went by Big Ben and Parliament. We also stopped the tour momentarily at St. Paul's Cathedral and got out to take pictures and walk out over the Thames River. Once we got off the bus we had some free time, so a few of us went into Chinatown and got some Chinese food for lunch. From there Ann, Katie and I went on to check out Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. We took some photos outside of Big Ben and Parliament, but couldn't actually go into the Houses of Parliament as they were in session and the guards with M16's outside were a good deterrent as well. It cost £8 to get into Westminster Abbey, but it was well worth it. The Abbey was incredibly beautiful, and huge. Luckily you were given a little handset that gave you a self guided voice tour when you keyed in the number of the location you were at. There was so much to see, and we spent a lot of time looking for the grave markers of a lot of people. We say William Shakespeare's, Isaac Newton's, and Charles Darwin's amongst others. We then casually made out way over to Ye Olde Cock Tavern where the whole group was meeting at 6 to have a Pub Quiz bowl. We were also joined by U of I alumni that currently were living in the London area, so it was really nice to talk to them. Ann, Katie, and my team didn't win, but Michael and Kristin's team did, so we were happy that they got a very nice prize of £10 each. I tried some English ale there too, but it seemed kinda weak and tasteless to me, so I just got a Guinness and was happy. From there we went on to have dinner at Las Iguanas, which is a very nice Brazilian themed restaurant on the Thames. The Thames looks incredibly beautiful at night. The atmosphere inside Las Iguanas was very fun, and they had Latin music playing. Ryan gave us each £15 to spend on dinner, and then then the rest was on us. I realized that it was Friday, and so I shouldn't have had that sweet and sour chicken for lunch (man, I'm 0 for 2 now), and so I got the Pescado Con Coco ("Fresh haddock, fat Chilean blue mussels in their shells, crayfish tails in a light, fragrant saffron & coconut broth with baby new potatoes, cannelloni beans & baby tomatoes") for dinner with a glass of Rioja Blanco,("Don Jacobo. Spain. Lemony fresh with no oak") and for desert Chocolate Banoffee Pie ("Gooey chocolate layered over banana drizzled with toffee sauce"). It was delicious. After dinner we were all pretty exhausted so we took the tube back to Russell Square, where Michael went on to his hostel, got back to the hotel and went to bed.

Saturday(03/07/2009):

The first thing we did as a group on Saturday was go on a walking tour of the historical sites along the Thames, with Ryan as our tour guide. We waked by a lot of places, including the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe. After the tour, we were on our own for the rest of the afternoon, so Michael, Kristin and I went to Tate Modern (London's museum of modern art). Modern art really isn't my thing, as Seurat and M.C. Escher are my favorite artists, but some of the exhibits were still really cool. I mean, I always love looking at Picasso's stuff. After that we caught the Tube over to Camden Town to check out the Camden Market. Camden Market is really cool. I think Kristin summed it up perfectly as it being "punk rock". There were so many different stalls, people, food, and music surrounding you. It's so crazy and amazing. Michael and Kristin showed me this one store, Cyborg, that was really cool. It was a store that sold only rave clothes and gear, and they had techno music playing throughout the store. You kinda felt like you went into a mini rave. It was really fun. We ate lunch at his dinner, which had a pretty good burger, but their milkshakes were, once again, way to thin. I don't know what it is about the UK and Ireland, but they don't seem to be able to make thick milkshakes. Very tasty ones yes, but thick, no. We headed back to the hotel and regrouped and made our way over to Sofra's for dinner. Sofra's is a Turkish restaurant, and it was really pretty good. We ended up finding out that the bottled water on our tables was not free after we opened them up, but oh well. I ended up getting the "Healthy Meal" which is kinda of a taste of 11 of their different dishes, and a glass of rose wine. Everything was delicious! From there we walked to the Peacock Theatre to see the show Traces. Traces was kind of like circus acrobatics acts mixed with interpretive dance and theater. It was really pretty amazing. I'm not really a big one for watching interpretive dance, but it was still highly amazing to these 6 individuals do amazing feats of strength and acrobatics; doing backflips between 20 foot vertical poles, performing silk trapeze acts, becoming human passengers on 6 foot diameter hoops, and doing incredible dives, jumps and rolls through hoops. They all have to have been in insanely good shape, that most professional athletes would strive for, and their body fat had to be about 6%. After that we all departed, and went back to the hotel. Michael, Kristin and I went to a pub just at the corner of the hotel and talked for a while, and I ended up talking to my roommate for a while once we got back to the hotel, but besides that I just went to bed.

Sunday(03/08/2009):

I woke up Sunday morning, packed, ate some quick breakfast, said goodbye to Ann, checked out of the hotel, and then caught the Tube to the nearest working station to Westminster Abbey, as I had been told that Westminster Cathedral was near the Abbey, and I wanted to go to 10:30 Mass at the Cathedral. Well, Westminster Cathedral is NOT near the Abbey, and is actually about 3/4 of a mile to a mile away. So I ended up running through the streets on London with my pack on my back asking people for directions to the Cathedral (the English seem to be as inept as the Irish in giving adequate directions, i.e. street names). I finally got there and ended up taking my seat in the Cathedral just as Mass was about to start. Westminster Cathedral is huge! And the architecture and ambiance inside is very powerful.
The Mass was also without a doubt, the most beautiful Mass I've ever been too. The had about 20 alter servers, full incense, and a full men and boys choir. Some of the Mass was in Latin, so I couldn't understand that, but I still knew what was going on obviously. The priest gave a really nice homily too, about how we could all appreciate Darwin's great contributions to science and how much he revolutionized his field, and that in doing so we in no way had to concede any of parts of the holy mysteries. Basically that we should embrace science for the incredible tool that it is how it helps us unravel the mysteries of the natural world, but that science in no way destroys, or diminishes the wonders of the spiritual mysteries that we encounter with God, and that one should be able, and willing, to accept and appreciate both. After Mass I took the Underground to Liverpool Street and then walked to Brick Lane to meet Michael and Kristin. Brick Lane was flooded with people, selling stuff, and looking at everything. We found a nice cafe ordered two pints of Blue Moon, and then just talked for a while until I had to leave to head back to Liverpool Street to catch the Stansted Express back to Stansted Airport. I checked myself in and got my boarding pass upon arriving at the airport and then set about finding lunch. I settled on this Irish restaurant, O'Neill's, where I ended up getting their Sunday special of "Steak and Guinness Pie and Guinness" for £9.90. Steak and Guinness Pie is basically like chicken pot pie, except that instead of chicken you have steak, and instead of whatever sauce you have in chicken pot pie you have gravy made by the Guinness company. If you add in the fact that you get potatoes, peas, and a pint of Guinness with that, it's an awesome meal! Upon finishing my meal at 3:35 pm, I noticed that my boarding pass said that the gate would be closing at 3:55 pm and I still had to go through security! So I grabbed my pack and sprinted through the airport to security, tried to get through there as quickly as possible, and then just ran as fast as I could through the airport (which might have been about 1200m, so it was a good run on a full stomach with a pack) and got to gat 41 at 3:54 pm, only to find a huge line. They hadn't even started boarding yet. I fell asleep on the flight back, but I still got to see the ocean between England and Ireland. It was really good to see the green fields of Ireland greeting me as I landed. I ended up having to wait at the airport for about an hour to catch a Bus Eireann bus back to Cork, and it felt really good to get back to the apartment, make some dinner, and go to bed! So all in all, I had an awesome time in London and I really have to go back! I still have to go through the Tower of London, see the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, and visit Michael and Kristin in Leeds.

Week 8 - Ash and Leeds

Wednesday(02/25/2009):

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and I lectored at the 6:05 PM Mass at Honan Chapel. The Mass was really pretty nice, and like every Ash Wednesday, very full. The Mass that I lecotred at was the last Mass of the day, and it was so full that we almost had people out the door (other Masses that day actually did have people out the door). The Chaplaincy estimated that about 2,000 UCC students attended a Ash Wednesday Mass that day. The bishop of Cork was there at all the Masses that day, but he was also the concelebrant of the 6:05 Mass. Our Mass was really pretty laid back, and it is a UCC tradition to let one of the students to give the homily on Ash Wednesday, so one of the grad students who is really involved in the Chaplaincy gave it. He's a really nice guy originally from Poland, and after his 4 years of undergrad at UCC he went to China to teach English for a year, and is now back pursuing a degree in international politics. It was also really nice as they had members of the Taizé prayer group sing and play piano, and flute throughout the Mass, which was very peaceful and beautiful, and during the Our Father they had different students come up and lead in saying it in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. So I really enjoyed the Mass, and was able to appreciate the differences from that of St. John's Chapel back at the U of I, though I do wish they had done a cleaner job when giving me my ashes.

Friday(02/27/2009):

So, as it was the first Friday of Lent, I was looking forward to some good fish. As there aren't any church fish fries here that I can find, I bought some fish at TESCO and had a my own personal fish fry at the apartment. I had some cod, and it was quite good. Michael and Kristin came from Leeds to visit me for the weekend. They had spent the day in Dublin, and got in to Kent Station at 10:00 PM. It was so good to see both of them. After they came back to the apartment and dropped off their stuff we went out a bit and showed them around Cork a little bit. They had both had quite a large breakfast and had kinda skipped lunch and dinner, so we went to Speedy Gonzales Burrito Bar, and got some burritos. It was around 11:50 PM when we got them, and I noticed after inhaling mine that it had chicken in it....so I get a FAIL for not eating meat on Fridays during Lent. Oh well. Michael and Kristin were both pretty tired, understandably, from traveling so we went back and talked a while about the glory days of high school cross country, and how we should run the 2009 Chicago Marathon, as we were kinda missing training, and then they went to bed.

Saturday(02/28/2009):

On Saturday we woke up, and I made us some of the cheese omelet sandwiches for an early brunch and we then went out so I could show Michael and Kristin Cork properly. I first took them to UCC via the scenic path, past Saint Finbar's Cathedral and the Beamish brewery. They both thought that UCC's campus was very pretty, and I agree. From there we went on to the English Market to get the ingredients for that nights dinner. Michael and Kristin both really seemed to love the market and were seeming to have a great time following me around to the different shops and stalls. I have to admit, that I think that the English Market is going to be one of the things that I miss the most when I go home in June, but I guess that's more motivation to go to the Farmer's Market in Urbana. Michael spied some scones in a booth that were 4 for €1, so we got 4 and went to the city park across the street to eat them by the fountain. They were delicious. It was getting to be close to 3 by then, and since the next bus to Blarney didn't leave until 3:50 and they both had some homework to do they decided to not go check out Blarney Castle. We went by the bus station and picked up some city maps and I marked where there were some nice cafes and shops and places to go hang out in Cork and then turned them loose to explore, get coffee and study. I went back and worked on my Fourier Methods homework until 6:30 PM when they got back and I started on dinner prep. I had given them some options on what they would like for sides and sauce for dinner, so I ended up preparing chicken parmesan over a bead of whole grain penne with a tomato sauce and a side of couscous along with Viennetta for dessert. Michael had stopped and picked up a bottle of Merlot to go with dinner (after I received a tip on what wines go with chicken that was kindly provided by Mr. Iain Duguay). I didn't time things perfectly so the pasta got done about 5 minutes before the chicken, but I still think dinner turned out pretty well. The chicken was really good I thought, so I need to thank my dear sister and brother-in-law Jennifer and Greg Byard for their recipe which I used.

Following dinner Michael and Kristin wanted to try a pint of Irish Guinness, as they didn't make it to the Guinness brewery in Dublin, so Shawn and I took them to An Bróg where we got pints and talked for about an hour. Michael got a Guinness, and Shawn and I both got Murphy's so that he and Kristin could get a good taste of both. They both thought that the pub was pretty cool, and said that it was a bit different from those back in Leeds and London. We then went to The Old Oak, where Shawn and I went ahead and got pints of Beamish and we all talked for a little longer, before retiring back to South Mall Court for the night.

Sunday(03/01/2009):

Sunday morning we woke up and went to Mass at St. Augustine's and then went out for brunch at L.A. Coffee where Michael and Kristin were kind enough to treat me to a delicious cup of soup and warm buttered bagel. It was awesome. We all did comment on how much we miss pancakes though....I can seem to find pancake mix at TESCO. After the had collected their backpacks from my apartment we walked to the Bus Eireann bus station were I left them to catch their bus, but I'm going to see them in 5 days in London for the U of I SAO Spring 2009 London Weekend, so I'm pretty happy. After that I went to a Knights of Columbanus initiation Mass at Bru Columbanus, which was quite different from any of the Knigths of Columbus ceremonials, although I really can't go into more detail then that, I can say that a major difference was that it was a public ceremonial, not private. Afterwards they had tea, sandwiches, scones, biscuits (and by that I mean cookies...I wonder what they call real biscuits?), crisps (and by that I mean Pringles), and cake. I wasn't expecting food, so I was quite happy and had a bit of a late afternoon snack before heading home to work on my Fourier Methods homework, and had a rather late night dinner.