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 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.

Week 7 - LET'S GO MUNSTER!!!

Tuesday(02/17/2009):

On Tuesday I finally made my way to a Knights of Columbanus meeting.  I ended up taking a bus this time, as their Grand Knight Seamus had suggested, so I didn't end up getting lost again.  I ended up finding Bru Columbanus (their meeting place) with no trouble this time, as I now understood that the hospital that Seamus had mentioned in his initial directions was the UCC Hospital in far West Cork, and not the general Cork hospital in far East Cork.  So being in the right section of the city helped a lot.  Bru Columbanus is a pretty interesting place to begin with.  It's a three story building, that has around 50 rooms in it that are all fully furnished and functional for indefinite living.  See Bru Columbanus is a sort of hostel, which is run, maintained, and paid for by the Cork Knights of Columbanus and whatever donations they receive, where anyone who lives more then 25 miles away from the UCC Hospital, and has a relative in the hospital can stay for €10 for as long as they need.  Whether it be a day, a month, a year, or till the world ends.  When I made my way up to the conference room of Bru Columbanus on the third floor, I was greeted by Seamus, and a man who immediately told me to call him "Pat" as soon as I called him Sir.  "I haven't got the money to be called Sir" he told me.  They were incredibly hospitable and eager to have me, and as the other members of the council showed up, I could somewhat understand why they seemed surprised by my presence.  There were only about 8 council members that showed up that night, including myself, and I was easily the youngest person there by about 45 years.  So needless to say the KOC council of Cork is not as young and thriving as the Knights of Columbus Illini Council 2782, and we most likely won't be having any paintball outings/bonding time with the Limerick Council (Illini Council guys, if you don't destroy Notre Dame I don't know if I can return to the U of I, but I'm incredibly jealous of how much of a good time you'll all have.)  The meeting was also a little less interesting then the U of I council meetings generally are, as the majority of it was discussing where would be the best places to put crucifixes in Bru Columbanus.  So I felt very proud of Illini Council 2782 as we are very active in the community at the U of I and really do some good work, so props to our great leadership and Grand Knight, Mr. Schallcross.  That being said, I was also very impressed with the Cork Council as we took a section of our time at the end of the meeting to read the Gospel reading from that day's Mass and pray a decade of the Rosary before we left.  So it was good to get a dosage of Catholic fraternal fellowship, that I'd been missing for the last three months.  

Friday(02/20/2009):

Shawn and I had both been missing BWW pretty bad, so we decided to have a wing night on Friday.  We went to the English Market and found that one of the butchers stands there was selling 20 wings, that were already marinated in spicy BBQ sauce, for €2.00.  So we decided that we'd just buy 100 wings for €10.00!  After we picked them up I went to the Mardyke Gym to go rock climbing for a while to get some exercise.  We then promptly got out the cooking pans and found that we could only stuff 24 wings on each of them.  So we each took a pan, put our 24 wings on them, stuck them in the oven for 50 minutes, turning them once, and then presto!  we had beautiful, delicious, hot, fantastic BBQ wings!  We heaped them on our plates, stuck the other 52 in the freezer, grabbed lots of paper towels and a beer each and dug in.  Giorgio seemed to be both horrified and amazed by the sight of us with each of us having a huge pile of wings that we were eagerly digging into.  He ended up getting his video camera and taking pictures of us digging in.  He may find it weird to eat 24 chicken wings at once, but Shawn and I find his mayonnaise sandwiches odd too.

Saturday(02/21/2009):

Saturday evening Giovanni, Margherita, Eugenio, and I went to go see Munster play Edinburgh at Musgrave Park.  It was really quite exciting, as it was my first real rugby game that I'd ever been to and it was a professional one with two of the best teams!  We showed up pretty early, and were able to see the Munster players drive their really expensive cars into the arena.  We walked in and were given complimentary Munster flags, which was pretty neat and made our way towards our seats in the South end of the stadium.  I was amazed though, as the players just walked right thorugh the crowds once they got out of their cars to the locker rooms.  You could walk right up to them and ask them for their autograph (Giovanni got one) and talk to them, and these guys are the equivalent to of NFL football stars!  There were a lot of kids at the game too.  They were all running around with their Munster jerseys with autographs of their favorite players on the back trying to get pictures with them and everything, which was kinda cool to see.  Oh, also the stadium had its own bar, and you could bring your beer or whatever you got with you into the stadium.  Security was ridiculously lax.  They didn't even search Margherita's backpack.  The stadium was also kinda "small" as the seats were basically just about 10 rows of concrete steps where you would stand, so you were at most, about 40 feet from the pitch, and you could see the players warming up right in front of you. 

                                                    

The weather was really pretty nice too!  It wasn't raining and it was only a little windy and in the upper 30's.  Munster ended up beating Edinburgh 28 t0 14, but it was a really exciting match.  All of the players were in incredibly good shape, and crazy strong, even the wings looked like they were bulging with muscle.  After the game everyone stormed the field, so Giovanni and I joined 8,000 Irish in running onto the field, waving our Musnter flags, taking pictures, and yelling.  It was epic.  After we got back to South Mall, I video chatted with Eric and Alisha, which was great as I hadn't seen them in a long time!  Eric then picked up his computer and carried it around with the Skype video chat still open so I could see Brian, Scott, Nick, Will, Ryan, and everyone else who was down at dinner which was great!  (It was so good to see you all, Newman!)  So I had a pretty good Saturday.

Sunday(02/22/2009):

 Today I've just slept in, done homework, done some music swapping with Shawn, wrote the weekly blog, and now am doing homework and waiting to watch the Oscars online.

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. 

You Know You're In Ireland

This will just be a post that I will continue to update throughout the semester as I find more and more things that are unique to Irish/Cork culture and/or are radically different from American/Illinois culture.

1. People talk about fantasy rugby, not fantasy football.

2. 0 degrees Celsius is "Siberian conditions" yet 2 weeks of nonstop rain is just normal weather.

3. Beer is cheaper than pop.

4. People say "Cheers" as often as the Germans would say bitte.

5. Munster ruby or DIE!

6. There are large student protests on the campus every day.

7. You walk 5 feet and see 5 people smoking.

8. Smarties = M&M's

9. You find yourself saying "zed" not "zee" when you pronounce "z".

...more to come

Week 4 - The Rain Continues

Monday(01/26/2009):

Monday was really the only interesting day of the week.  That evening the U of I Study Abroad Director, Ryan Lorenz, was in Cork, so he sent an email to the four students (including myself) from U of I studying here inviting us to dinner that night.  He told us to meet him at Milano pizzeria at 7pm which was pretty nice for me, as Milano is literally about 400 feet away from South Mall Court.  We showed up and met him in the lobby where he cordially greeted us.  We got seated at our table and Ryan told us that we could order whatever we felt like, as the U of I would be picking up the tab on everything, except alcohol (ah tuition money at work).  I finally decided to go with the Romana Etna pizza, which was a spicy pizza with peppers and spiced ham, along with a large glass of Merlot (which was quite good, but then again, I was at an Italian restaurant).  While we waited for our food we (the other 3 students were girls, 2 were English majors and the other was a Chem Engineer, I can't remember their names at the moment) Ryan asked us about how we were adjusting, how we liked Cork, UCC, our housing, and how we were enjoying our experience thus far.  By the sounds of it I am extremely luck to be living at South Mall Court, as I seemed to be the only person who was truly happy with their living conditions and flatmates.  Ryan was a very friendly guy who seemed genuinely interested in our experience here and seemed to want to ensure that we enjoyed it.  He said that he was going to be going to other campuses soon and I mentioned that I knew Ann when he said he was going to Aberdeen and he said that she was on his list of people to talk to (I had to correct him on the proper way to pronounce Pataky though) and it also came about that he knew Michael and Kristin, which I thought was kinda cool that he knew all of us Champaign folk by name.  After dinner Ryan asked if any of us would like some desert, and we all almost too quickly declined the offer, so he went ahead  and became the catalyst that we needed ordered desert for himself. We all then followed suit and all ordered some desert as well. I got the Chocolate Fudge Cake, which was incredibly good (although rather small). It was a small piece of tripple layered chocolate cake with thick layers of fuge with a scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it and melted chocolate drizzled all over it. After that we talked a bit more and then departed with Ryan saying he hoped he would see us all in London on March 5th for the U of I SAO London Weekend. That night I went home did some homework and bought my tickets to London.

Tuesday(01/27/2009):

Tuesday I went to the Mardyke pool after class and did a swimming workout.....and then got an ear infection. So I don’t know what was up with that, but I won’t be swimming again until my ear stops hurting and filling up with fluid. However, dinner that night was good as Giovanni found some buy-1-get-1-free vouchers for Milano online so we all got pizza that night. One of the pizza’s we got had an egg in the middle of it, which was different from what I’m used to, but it was still really good.

Wednesday(01/28/2009):

Don’t remember anything, maybe later...

Thursday(01/29/2009):

Thursday I don’t really remember much either but it had been raining for about two weeks straight by this point. I did find organic peanut butter which is much tastier and healthier than Panda (this stuff, SUMA, only has peanuts and sea salt in it), so that made me happy.

Friday(01/30/2009):

On Friday Giovanni, Giorgio, Margherita and Laura left to go on a trip to Galway for the weekend so the apartment was rather quite for the weekend. After class, and after making myself a rather large brunch I went ahead and took Sarah Treece’s suggestion and made my way over to Butler’s Chocolate Cafe to try one of their milkshakes. As Sarah advertised, it was indeed delicious. I got a chocolate milkshake, which tasted like pure chocolate with hints of espresso in it, so it was very tasty, however it was also very small, and not very thick. For €3.95 it seemed like I should get something larger then a milk glass and I’m still wishing that it was of a thicker consistency. So so far in Cork, Butler’s has the best tasting milkshakes, and as much as it pains me to say, McDonalds has the milkshake with the best consistency. I had to wait until I could walk back to South Mall to actually drink it.....maybe I can get ice cream at McDonalds in Europe without feeling that I’m supporting a sub standard fast food company.....actually, the food at McDonalds in Cork looks much more appetizing then any McDonalds in America. Later on that night we got a text from Margherita asking us to let her cousin into her apartment when she got into Cork that night around 1am or so. So Shawn and I walked down to O’Donnovan’s and got some alcohol and then came back and watched V for Vendetta on my computer using Giorgio’s speakers. I decided that I would get some wine for the week, and I also realized that I know nothing about wine. So I ended up getting an organic red wine from Spain, which was quite good despite the fact that it was only from 2006. After a minor scavenger hunt for a cork screw, we were able to watch the movie, and then just hung out until Margherita’s cousin showed up.

Saturday(01/30/2009):

Saturday was the first day we woke up and it wasn’t raining for the first time, so that was quite refreshing. With nothing much planned though, we just took advantage of being the only two around and spent the better part of the early afternoon doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen/common room. After that I did homework, and video chatted with my mom, dad, Jennifer, Greg, and Maureen. Which was nice, as its always nice to talk to family and I really hadn’t gotten to talk to Jennifer or Greg since I left. I also started working on the website I told IPENG I would make for them about my study abroad experience, in exchange for 80% of my airfare, and it’s a good thing I’m starting now. I’m going to cheat and make a quick version using google’s engine, and then during the summer I’m going to code a good website from scratch using the first draft website as a model.

Sunday(02/01/2009):

Today I slept in till noon, got up and went to Mass at Holy Trinity Cathedral. It was nice to once again and have Mass with a priest who spoke slow enough to be able to understand him, but they apparently don’t have any music at the 12:30 Masses there, so that was kind a bummer. Looks like I will continue to cathedral hop next week. Tonight I made myself a huge dinner of penne pasta with a meat sauce along with some chicken parmesan that I also infused with sage. I was pleasantly surprised with how juicy and tender the chicken turned out, so I think I’ll have to make it again. I really love the English market. Currently Shawn and I are watching Superbowl XLIII online (probably illegally) on our respective computers. It’s 12:15 on Monday morning over here, but as Shawn is a huge Steelers fan I’m sure he won’t stop watching it till the game is over, so I’m just watching it and doing some work in the meantime. Hopefully, the next blog I write will have some information about the UCC Mountaineering Society, which I joined.

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.

Week 2 - Living in Cork

Monday(01/12/2009):

I can’t really remember what I did on Monday, so it can’t have been that important. My Gmail account isn’t much help for sparking my memory either, as I have very few emails from that day and none that were really ground-shaking. I’d been in school for a whole week now, so I no longer needed to constantly be looking through my notebook for my class schedule to figure out what the room number for my class was in (which isn’t necessarily enough to help you as the room set up for some of the buildings is nowhere near logical).

Tuesday(01/13/2009):

Tuesday went by without much incident as well. I went to a physics lecture that evening @ 7 that was put on by the UCC Physics Society entitled “Hey Heisenberg, why is my interent so slow!?”, given by one of the UCC physics professors who was Canadian. It was actually pretty cool. We learned how data is transmitted via different mediums (twisted fiber, coax cable, fiber optic cable, wireless, etc) and the data retention rate/km associated with it. I never really knew how crappy it really was until then. But more importantly we learned about how using aspects of Hisenberg’s Uncertainty principle (the energy vs. time side of it) you could find the optimal data transmission rate for each medium, and then discusses the available remaining options for internet providers to expand their ability to keep the internet running at acceptable speeds, and the pros and cons associated with them. It was also presented in such a way that anyone who had ever taken an introductory quantum course could easily follow, so I understood all of it. What was perhaps even better was the fact that there was milk and homemade chocolate chip cookies provided afterwards. They were the first cookies I’d had in about 2 weeks or so, and besides the fact that they were legitimately really damn good, they tasted heavenly. I also got to know a few of the other kids who were in my physics classes and my Fourier Methods class. I also finally got a chance to talk to some Irish people my own age (*yay*) and got to know Heather and Rick (two physics club members my year).

Wednesday(01/14/2009):

Wednesday Shawn and I were awoken to the entirety of South Mall Court shaking from the vibrations of the construction crew drilling in the lot catty-corner to us, at about 7am. We were none to pleased, especially Shawn, who did not have class until 4pm that day. We also had to officially register for classes on Wednesday, so I signed up for AM2071 (Fourier Methods), PY2102 (Introduction of Quantum Physics), PY2103 (Electrostatics and Magnetostatics), and CC1112 (Celtic Religion and Mythology). That’s 20 credits here at UCC, but it translates to just 12 hours back at the U of I, which sucks for me, but oh well. Giovanni was very happy for Wednesday to come, as the essay he’d been working on incredibly studiously for the last 2 weeks was due, so after class we went to An Brog for his first pint of 2009. He loves Beamish, and since the Beamish factory here in Cork is being bought out by Heineken in March he’s vowed to pretty much only drink Beamish in that time period. I kinda wanted to hit him upside the head for a second though once we got there, as Shawn and I had been buying pints for €4.10 at all the pubs in Cork, as Giovanni had forgotten to mention that all pints at An Brog ar only €2.90 everyday until 9:00 PM. Which is awesome! Shawn and I also found out that Giovanni’s birthday is next Saturday, so we’re going to be having a party with him in his honor that night. He’s turning 25. One thing that has kinda surprised me since I’ve arrived is how much younger I am then everyone else, besides Shawn (who is still about a year older than I am). Giovanni is about to turn 25, Giorgio is 23, Claudio is 23, Andrea is 22, Joe is 21, the other Andrea is 23, and Laura is 21. So it kinda seems odd to me at times that I’m hanging out with people that are Jennifer and Greg’s age, but they’re all really nice people, and nobody seems to think that it’s weird that I’m only 19. After we had a few (cheap) pints at An Brog we went back to South Mall Court to make dinner, but Margherita invited us (Apartment 1) to have dinner with (Apartment 5) her and Laura’s apartment. While we were making dinner (pasta with potatoes and pesto) Margherita got out here guitar and played while we all sang different songs ranging from Red Hot Chili Peppers to early 1900’s IRA marching songs, to Led Zeppelin. It was great! After dinner Shawn and I went back to our apartment to do homework, when Chris, another American, from apartment 9 came to borrow our table and chairs because they were having a poker party in their apartment. Around 1am, we realized that due to the volume of the yelling and laughing that was echoing down through the courtyard that they were a) very drunk, and b) not going to be brining our table back before 7am like we asked. This was not good because I find that a table and chair makes eating breakfast a much easier task. So I put on some clothes and went to try and get my breakfast eating catalyst back. It was much easier that I thought. James, another American living in apartment 9, was still up and sober, so he was kind enough to help me reclaim my table. I was able to have a table to eat on the next morning, but the ocasional roars heard from 2 floors above didn’t stop until 2am ish.

Thursday(01/15/2209):

Thursday was just filled with class and homework. We went to a local pub to play pool, but besides that, it was just a busy day of work.

Friday(01/16/2009):

After class on Friday I went down to the Garda to officially register with immigration for the time period I would be studying. I was cursing the grouchy guy who only signed my passport for 1 month in Shannon, as I had to wait in line for an hour. I finally got up there, gave them my IGBN-1 form, passport, medical insurance cards, UCC student ID, Bank of Ireland bank statement and a mini statement from that day, and €150 for processing fees. They took my picture, digitally fingerprinted me, filed all my forms and then finally stamped my passport and gave me my Irish immigration ID. I only asked them to stamp it for the 16th of June, but they were kind enough to stamp me up until the 30th of September. So in case I really need to run back to Ireland over the summer, I’m good. I met Giovanni on the UCC campus at 5 and we walked over to the Mardyke Gym (UCC’s gym) to work out. It was very nice. They had huge fields for rugby and soccer, a nice track and then the gym itself was a little bigger then CRCE but was about as nice as the ARC. So it felt very similar to the U of I. It also felt really good to work out again, so I think I’ll continue to go work out with Giovanni each week. Some of Giovanni’s good friends came over to eat dinner with him that evening, and they brought with them some Italian wine they had bought which we were all happy about since Giovanni generously shared it with us. So my chicken that I cooked (which tasted very nice by itself if I may say so) was complemented by a beautiful red wine. Giovanni’s friends were German, so Shawn and I got another opportunity to practice our German with them (if I didn’t mention it earlier, Shawn took German in high school too). Things got better in a few hours as Margherita’s mother and aunt were coming to visit her from Sicily, and her mother was bringing homemade cannolis with her! Margherita brought her mom and aunt down to our apartment were we me them and then she also shared some of the cannolis with us. I had never had a cannoli before, but it was the most delicious desert I had ever had in my life! Giovanni said that cannolis are very hard to find outside of certain towns in Italy, and that he had only had one on two other occasions in his life (and he’s going to be 25 in a week). He also said that Margherita’s mom’s was the best cannoli that he had ever had, so I guess I should feel pretty lucky. Once they got their luggage up into Margherita’s apartment her mom (who speaks no english) and aunt (who speaks a little english) wanted to go out to the bars in Cork. So we all bundled up against the rain and went out to the Old Oak. Giovanni and I weren’t planning on drinking anything that night since Giovanni likes to drink in steps (dinner, beer, wine, liquour) and we’d already had dinner, red wine and whiskey that night (I forgot to mention that Shawn had gotten a few bottles of Jameson), and I didn’t want to spend money that day after buying groceries earlier but Giovanni’s german friends walked up to us and gave us both a pint of Guinness and nobody refuses a free pint of Guinness from a German so we decided we’d make an exception. Margherita’s mom and aunt were dancing, so Giovanni and I (as two of the only completely sober people around) occasionally had to make it clear to drunken Irish “gentlemen” that they were Italian, didn’t speak English, and that they should go bother someone else. Which was kinda amusing in some sense. Margherita and her mom and aunt went home after that, but Giovanni and myself went on to An Brog, which has better music, to meet some of our other friends from South Mall Court (An Brog and Old Oak are pubs, but all the pubs have movable walls and such so that later on in the night they can expand into night clubs with dancing and music and such. We stayed there until two and then headed back to South Mall Court (in the typical Irish evening rain) and went to bed

Saturday & Sunday(01/17-18/2009):

Saturday was very rainy, windy and cold out.  I basically just stayed inside, cooked, did homework and then went to Mass at 6.  On Sunday, Shawn and I woke up around 10:00 AM, went back to bed till around 10:40, finally got up, made breakfast, looked at the directions to Blarney Castle and headed out the door around noon.  We made our way out of Cork and along Blarney Street, taking pictures as we went, and then followed it until it split off into Blarney Road.  After about 800 meters the sidewalk ended and we had to hike in the tall grass and brush to the side of the highway (and having common sense and reached 1st class in Boy Scouts I remembered that we should walk on the shoulder of the road toward oncoming traffic, so they could actually see us).  It was kinda slow going in the grass, and we kept stopping to take pictures of the countryside and climb "small" hills.  In some areas though, the strip of grass, next to the stone walls that separated the road from the fields, was so small that we were forced to walk on the road.  However, the highway was far from busy (perhaps because it was Sunday?)and we could see cars coming from well over 1000 meters away, so we could quite easily be off the road and standing on what little shoulder there was by the time they reached us.  As we walked by fields and farms, you could tell where they had livestock (besides the dead give away of the tiny white forms of the sheep on the hills across the valley), by the smell of their manure in the air.  Shawn, seemed to be a little disturbed by the odor, but I couldn't help but find myself smiling, as it seemed that I was right back near the South Farms.  It was nice, and yet amusing, that this gave me the sense of security that a memory of home brings.  After walking for a little over 2 hours, and asking for directions from locals at crossroads (the Irish don't believe in street signs apparently) we reached the entrance to Blarney Castle.  However, we were soon confronted by the gate and the admission charge of €8 for students.  Neither Shawn or myself had enough money to pay the fee, so we went to the local tiny grocery store and found a Bank of Ireland ATM and got out €20, and then went back and gained entrance to the grounds.  We then proceeded to walk around the castle taking pictures and checking out all of the chambers.  The spiral staircase was ridiculous though.  The stairs were incredibly steep.  So much so, that towards the top, my next 5 steps would equal a change in elevation equal to my height.  We finally reached the top, took some pictures off of the battlement, and then kissed the Blarney Stone.  It's pretty far down so you really have to kinda back out pretty far over the edge of the castle to get at it.  They have a machine that takes your picture that you can buy for €10, but Shawn took a much better picture of me with my camera, and a picture that's not on my memory card really doesn't do me much good.  We toured the grounds for a little bit and then left Blarney about 3:30, as we didn't want to be walking along the highway in the dark.  We finally arrived back in Cork just around 5, and promptly made dinner when we got back to South Mall Court.  We were tired after the 16+ km we'd walked that day (and it wasn't a flat 16 km like in Illinois) so our dinner was very unimaginative.  For Shawn: beans, bread, cheese and Beamish.  For me: pizza and Beamish.  We got food though, so we were happy and went to upload our pictures and study for the rest of the night.  Shawn also streamed audio and play updates of the Steeler's game as being from PA he's a rather big fan, and I for the most part just read some of my Early Irish Myths and Sagas as I wasn't in the mood to do vector calculus at the moment.  So obviously, we both slept rather well that night.

*To take a look at other pictures albums of Ireland, most noteably Irish Graffiti go to my public Picasa Web Albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/MFeickert *

Week 1 - Adjusting & Finding My Feet

Monday(01/05/2009):

Monday was registration so all the international students met up on the 2nd floor of the student center to go through the welcome/introduction talk from the UCC International Education Office. After that there were speakers from the French, Religious Studies, Art, Celtic Civilization, Irish, Political Science, and Geography departments promoting modules in those sections for international students. For the most part this was a chance for me to look past them through the huge wall of glass that looked out over the college and the hillside portions of the city behind UCC and just admire the beautiful weather and scenery, as none of these departments, with maybe the exception of Celtic Civilizations (I haven’t decided if I’m taking CC112 yet), offered any of the modules I’d be taking. What I did learn though is that there would be a very long and interesting process to get my immigration papers taken care of. The guy at the airport in Shannon had been a jerk and only stamped my passport for 1 month as I couldn’t produce €1,500 immediately (which makes no sense, as a normal travel visa is good for 3 months). So here’s the process. To get my passport stamped for a period of time that allows me to stay until my return plane ticket I have to go to the Garda (Irish police) and prove that I have a passport, medical insurance (show them my international student travel insurance cards), my admission letter from University College Cork, and then a bank statement showing that I have a liquid €1,500. Now the bank statement is the part that makes the whole process a headache. For most international travelers, it takes a minimum of €3,000 to open up an account, but UCC has worked out a deal with the Bank of Ireland to allow UCC international students to open accounts for €1,500. However, to open up a bank account in this manner you first need to have a phone and a letter from UCC asking that I be given a 3rd level bank account (a student account). My apartment has no landline, so that meant that I had to get a cell phone and I couldn’t get my student ID until the day after registration, which was required to get the letter from UCC that was needed for the Bank of Ireland (which would be Tuesday). As a bank statement takes about a week or so to get to you, I basically had to get all of the other stuff done soon, so I wouldn’t be cutting things close at the end. It would really suck to get deported in the middle of the school year methinks. However, we were told not to stress out to much, and as the main speaker put it, “Don’t worry Loves, around here, things have a habit of working out in the end”. We then got handed packets that had had registration info, and numbers which split us up into group 1 through 8 which would corresponded to registration and ID picture times. I was group 3. Registration that day just consisted of going down to the computer labs in the basement of the library (which is probably the most freaking sweet library I’ve ever been in) and just getting our student ID numbers, which would also become out emails oddly enough, and pin numbers, and then verifying and entering various contact information. After that I grabbed lunch in the student resturant/pub. The line for the dinning hall on the ground floor of the restaurant was pretty long, so I just went up the stairs to the next floor which had a Quiznos and got a steak sandwich and Guinness. Then I went back to the student center for another 2 hours of talks from the Support Officer for International Students, the International Student Society, Students Union, Computer Training Center (the campus IT guys), Campus Chaplaincy, and Garda. On the way out I picked up a flyer for the campus Christian society, Iona, which seemed interesting, and extremely laid back. I then went back to the computer labs and tried to figure out time tabels and such for classes, and to get my password, activate my email, and try to get my MacBook Pro registered in their system, so I could use the campus’ wireless. I finally got back into town and made myself some dinner, and tried to go around to different cell phone providers in the area and figure out what plan would be the best for me, and then I head back to campus at 6 for the wine and cheese welcoming party that Iona was having. I was glad I went, as you were offered your choice of red or white wine, coffee, or tea upon entering (I had the red which was quite good for being free) and they had quite a nice selection of cheeses as well. It was also a nice opportunity to get to meet other international students and the Irish students who were active in Iona, and to find out more about Iona as well. Iona is the chaplaincy group on campus, and they provide an opportunity for religious and nonreligious students to hang out, plan trips for students around Ireland to different scenic, historical, or religious and heritage sites, and lead prayer and such on Monday nights. After getting to know people a little better I went over to some of the Iona members for Taizé prayer, which is singing Latin, Spanish, Hungarian, English, and German hymns in Honan Chapel accompanied by trumpet, guitar, piano, and tin whistle. After I got back to my apartment around 8:30, I resumed work on my schedule and time table dissection. Shawn came in and said that Margherita, Giorgio and their friends were going to go to be going out to a pub and we were invited, so Shawn and myself went to Micahel’s Pub with them and their other Italian friends Claudio, and Andrea (both of those are male names in Italian) were we played pool and talked about our favorite movies. It was really fun. On the way back Claudio, Margherita, Andrea and myself stopped by The Old Oak, right next to my apartment, where after asking me about Illinois, Champaign, American music, my views on Obama’s election and other such questions Claudio and Andrea (both of which have degrees in economics) started a debate/let’s-see-who-can-convice-the-American-that-my-views-on-the-economic-growth-and-long-term-stability-of-China-are-correct. This was very amusing, and very interesting. After a few hours of talking I excused myself, went back to South Mall Court (Mall is pronounced like pal by the way), and went to bed.

Tuesday(01/06/2009):

On Tuesday, I woke up, cooked breakfast and made my way over to the West Wing of the Main Quad to get my picture taken for my student ID (which turned out to be a pretty bad picture), then I went over to the International Education Office to get some immigration forms, and my letter for the Bank of Ireland. I then spent most of the remaining morning going into town, eating lunch, going around to cell phone companies and finally getting a pay-as-you-go (or Speak Easy as they call it) plan from 02. I then went back to campus to spend more time in the computer labs, buy a notebook for classes, and go to my AM2071 (Fourier Methods) discussion, which no one, and I mean no one including professor, showed up to, because apparently in the first week of class there are no discussions (or technicals as they call it).

Wednesday(01/07/2009):
I had my first real class on Wednesday, which was Fourier Methods. It was rather easy, and the lecture was just review of basic things that we all should already know by rote at that point. The odd thing was that the professor showed up about 10 minutes late to class and let us go at 10 to, so we had a 40 minute lecture. This seems to be a reoccurring thing throughout the University. Also, the room and class size are very different from the U of I. My largest lecture, Aspects of Irish Folklore(FL2111), is about 90 students, while my math lecture has about 35, and my physics lectures can’t have more then 12. All the lecture rooms are incredibly tiny compared to what I’m used to as well. Most are smaller then the size of a typical discussion room in Loomis Lab. So the FL2111 lecture is probably going to be moved to a bigger room. Going to Celtic Civilizations and then setting up my bank account with the Bank of Ireland took the rest of my afternoon. I ate dinner and then went out with some of the other international students who live in South Mall Court to the Welcoming Party for us. We went late, so when we got to the pub where the party was at we met another group of students leaving because they said there was no room in it for any more people. We went to another nearby pub, Bru, where we just talked. I met some German students there, so it was nice to have an opportunity to improve my conversational German a bit.

Thursday and Friday (01/08 - 09/2009):
Thursday was uneventful enough. I just went to class, and bought a lamp and bath mat for the bathroom. Friday started off the same. I just went to class and then got some money from the bank for groceries. After dinner Shawn, Margherita, Claudio, Giorgio, Giovanni, Laura, their other friend Andrea, and some of their German friends went out to Liquid Lounge (a local bar/club) for the International Students Society welcoming party and for Claudio’s birthday. It was very fun. The club was very clean, and had clean bathrooms to boot. The music was also much better then places like Joe’s back in Champaign, as the music was legitimately dance music, not just all rap. However, the music was also incredibly loud. When Shawn and I left, our ears were ringing for quite some time. It was a great time though, and it was fun because everyone was dancing.
Saturday and Sunday (01/10 - 11/2009):

On Saturday I got up around 9:30 and went to the English Market and got chicken, bread, clementines and some other really great fresh food for pretty cheap. I also went on a Heritage Walk of Cork with the Iona society which was great!  I got lots of great pictures and also got to know a lot more about the historical aspects of certain parts of Cork.  Shawn and I were going to try and walk to Blarney Castle, but when we decided to go around 1 we realized it would be pretty dark by the time we would be getting back. We just kinda hung out around the apartment and did work, cooked, cleaned and listened to music for most of the day. So far today, Sunday, we slept in, realized it was raining and so our 2nd attempt to go to Blarney Castle was thwarted. So now I’m about to do wash, do some math review, look at my physics homework, go to Mass and then just hang out and update things in these last two blogs that I forgot the first time around.

Getting There and Arriving.

Ok, so everything has been going pretty well on a whole.  The flight from Willard to O'Hare went fine, and the security at O'Hare was kinda hectic, but not horrible.  The flight with Aer Lingus from Chicago to Dublin and then to Shannon went well, except I didn't sleep, which actually turned out to be for the better later on.  My seat was comfy enough, but with my backpack under the seat in front of me, there was no comfy way to arrange my long-legged self so that I could sleep.  The person asleep in front of me was reclining, which did not help matters.  It still was quite beautiful to see the sunrise above the clouds from 35,000 feet.  The food on the flight was fine.  For dinner I had the beef lasagna, which was pretty tasty.  All the seats had monitor displays in the back of them, and each seat came with a disposable packaged set of headphones.  You could scroll through the on screen menu with either the detachable remote found in your armrest of by using the touch screen monitor.  You could listen to music from a respectably large library, watch TV episodes, movies, play some basic video games, and check the flight map/world clock.  These monitors were hooked to computers that were running Linux.  I only found this out because mine either crashed or I accidentally touched the restart button with my heel in mid-flight, and as my computer reloaded it became very clear what OS it was running.  As we were landing in Dublin it was kinda of odd.  Descending from the air the surrounding area looked very much like Champaign.  If it weren't for the fact that I noticed a round-about and that there were seemingly very few cars on the road for it being 8a.m. I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.  I didn't get off the plane when we landed in Shannon, but I did get up and walk around just to stretch and get some blood flow in my legs.  The bus ride to Cork was very scenic for the part that I was awake for.  I would slip in and out of sleep as our bus driver was driving the 80 foot bus down the small Irish roads like you would expect someone to be driving a mini-cooper or something.  I guess it's a good thing I slept.  It was quite easy to find South Mall Court after I got into Cork, and I soon was let in and had to wait for the landlord to show up with my key.  About the time she got there to explain to me that she had left them in my room and my roommate had locked them in there when he left to go out for the day, he returned.  My roommate, Shawn, is from PA and is a literature major, and a quite polite and agreeable sort of man with what I would consider an excellent taste in music.  I moved in and was quite happy to find that the closet had a blanket, two pillows and many hangers in it already.  Unfortunately for him, Shawn's luggage had gotten lost in France, and so did not arrive till the next day.  We spent most of Saturday exploring Cork and UCC.  The city is large to my standards and while there are no tall buildings, there are enough shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs packed into the streets to make up for it.  It was a bit of a shock to discover how expensive everything was.  It basically seemed like if one took the price of an object in the US and switched the $ to a Euro sign.  I was also rather surprised at the number of people who smoke.  It seems that at least 1 in 10 people have a cigarette at all times.  For dinner on Saturday Shawn and I walked around until we found a pub that seemed to have decent food, where I again got beef lasagna.  It was pricy, but very filling.  I had a pint of Murphy's Irish Stout with dinner and it was very good.  It tasted very similar to American Guinness.  I was still very exhausted after dinner, as I hadn't had any real sleep yet, so I went to bed at 10:00, and didn't wake up till 10:00 Sunday morning.  I woke up feeling completely normal, and totally over jet lag.  I at a protein bar I had left in my luggage and walked over to St. Peter & Paul's Church for Mass.  It was the only one I knew of, and the first one to come up in a google search.  The church itself was tucked away amongst modern buildings, but the front of the church was still very beautiful.  The inside had incredible ornate medieval architecture that was unmistakably Irish.  There was also plenty of very beautiful stained glass windows that let light come streaming in, and in earlier days when there weren't buildings blocking the sun's path, I'm sure there would have been no need for artificial lighting inside during the day.  It was also very cold.  I didn't take my gloves off all Mass except for Communion.  All of Mass wasn't that long however, as the Irish apparently see no need to breath during Mass and would prefer to go through the whole thing in one muttering breath.  Odd.  After Mass I went out exploring the city a bit more and decided to make my way to UCC to check it out.  It took me quite some time to actually get there though, as I kept asking locals on the way for directions to UCC, and they all told me rather different directions.  That was fine with me however, as I thus passed Cork's brewery, where they brew Beamish and Murphy's Stout, and St. Fin Barre's Cathedral (which gave me some serious cathedral envy...lucky Anglicans...).  After all that walking and such, I decided to rest my feet a little bit at one of the nearby pubs, An Bodhran, which had looked interesting earlier.  Upon entering I realized that I was the only one in the pub besides the bartender and his friend.  I said that I guess it was a little early, but I'd like a Guinness, and the bartender told me "Oh, tis never too early for a Guinness, neeever to early" and poured himself one to drink with me as well.  We talked and he introduced himself as Seamus, and told me that he was leaving for India soon, so I thought of JoJo and her trip to India.  So after my time in the pub, I was able to make the informed decision that Guinness in Ireland is better than Guinness in America.  It is sweeter and stronger.  Murphy's Irish Stout tastes much more like american Guinness, so it is still a very good deal.  Later on that night Shawn and I went to get groceries for the week at the local supermarket, Tesco.  I mostly just got stuff that had high protein in it so I wouldn't go hungry this week.  At the checkout they made you pay for you bag if you took one, and you bagged your groceries yourself.  I thought this was really cool, because it gives people a greater incentive to reuse their old bags, and thus decreases the amount of plastic that is thrown out.  The bags are pretty big, heavy duty plastic ones though, not like the flimsy ones back in Champaign.  When we got back we were soon greeted by one of our other flatmates that we had yet to meet; Giovanni.  He's an italian studying political science at UCC, and very amiable.   He had gotten back so late because due to delays his flight from Italy to Dublin got him in too late to catch the last bus, and so he slept outside the bus station to catch the 6 am bus to Cork.  We met our final flatmate, Giovanni's roommate, Georgo.  After getting everything set up for registration in the morning, I went to bed after making myself a quick dinner.

Pictures can be viewed either on facebook or at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mfeickert