Catching Up With Everyday Life

So today was my last day of class in Ireland.  WHAT???????  It feels like I just got here, and I leave on Friday for 34 days of travel with some of my favorite people!  In the next 34 days I will get to see (including Ireland) nine different countries!  I can't even believe it (and neither can my bank account...oh well, once in a lifetime experience right?)  I took a final in my Irish History class last night, which means that I only have an Irish Archaeology Final and a Philosophy final when I get back in May to study for.

Other than studying and writing papers, I've spent the last few weekends in Cork which has given me and the rest of my group the opportunity to really feel like this city is becoming out own and seek out some of the lesser known places that have been right under our noses for the last few months.

My new favorite place is The Half Door Cafe.  Its on one of my favorite streets in Cork right by out supermarket.  The Half Door has 2 euro takeaway coffees of any kind, so I can get my prize mocha for cheap.  I also have started getting scones there and they are the best scones I have ever had I think.  I've become friends with Lia the owner and is so grand.  It's always fun to chat with her in the morning and she is always chipper.  She has even told me her secret ingredient for the best mochas ever! Tierney, Steph and I also went there for lunch one day and got a very big, very good wrap for under four euro!  Mom and Dad take note- we will be going here when you visit, I don't know how I'm going to get through the next month without any Half Door!

In classic Leeside style our apartment has been breaking.  A week or so ago out washer broke, so I ended up with a load of semi washed undrained clothes.  Luckily we got a new washer so all my clothes are clean again.  Last night when I got back from my final, all the lights in the back half of our apartment would not work (living room, kitchen, one bedroom and one bathroom) so we think a fuse was blown or something and an electrician is supposed to come either today or tomorrow to fix it.

Pretty much leaving for a month is making me realize all the places in Cork I haven't been yet that I want to go and it is making me sad, while simultaneously being super excited for the best month of traveling of my life.

I also have gotten to meet lots of great people by being on the frisbee team here.  This past weekend was Inter-Varsities which means that all of the Universities in Ireland send a team to this tournament which was held in Dublin to compete against each other pretty much to see who the best university team is.  UCC has such a big team with deep talent, they registered two teams to play.  Since I'm an American student, I was not allowed to play on the first team.  We were the only University to have two teams in attendance, and we didn't get last place!  That means our second team is better than at least one other team's first team. Our first team won the entire tournament defeating Trinity College Dublin in the final! I really liked being on the second team because I got to play a ton and take a bigger role within the game play.  At home we have three amazing handlers: Kaylee, Kelsey Peterson and Erynn and so there was never really the chance to be the play maker cause they can always do something way more amazing(kudos to you all, hopefully some day I can be almost as good as you three).  We had four games and I played every point except for two and I felt like I got better even as the day progressed.  I'm really going to miss playing with the UCC girls, but I'm also really excited to bring what I've learned back to the Bad Habits.

I think thats pretty much everything from Cork, people's parents are visiting, so we are getting to meet all of them, I still have another month to wait until I see mine, but we are going to meet in London in time for Easter and it will be great craic!

I'll try to keep updating my blog as much as I can while I'm gone, but no promises!

St. Patrick's Day Weekend

St. Paddy's Day in Ireland is probably not what most people in the United States would expect.  Between the stereotypes of Irish drinking and how St. Paddy's Day is celebrated in the US, it would probably be expected that St. Patricks Day centers around drinking.  For most it is far from that.  We had school off and it was a bank holiday.  Many people take the day to relax and spend time with their families or go to church services.  There is also a parade through the city and even the small towns each have their own parade.

My friend Caitlin who grew up on the street next to me came to visit this weekend too because she is studying in Scotland for the semester.  Ireland decided to be foggy and push her flight back and then it ended up landing in Dublin instead of Cork, which meant that after a bus ride she would get to Cork around 4am.  We decided that she would just stay at the airport to try and sleep a bit and then take a taxi to my apartment at 7 the next morning.

I had a paper due so we went on an adventure to the library on campus to try to print out my paper and turn it in to start our day.  Then we went to my new favorite cafe to get a coffee and some breakfast.  We took the bus out to Blarney to tour Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney stone.  After that, we looked around the gift stores as well as the Blarney Woolen Mills and decided to have lunch at this big cafe in the basement of one of the hotels in Blarney, next to the Woolen Mills.  After taking the bus back, we stopped at trusty Carroll's gift shop for all your Irish souvenir needs.  We stopped at home for a little bit to relax and regroup and then decided to try a new restaurant with Ana, one of the girls in my study abroad group.  We went to a restaurant called the Woodford and it was amazing!  We hopped across the river for a pint at the Franciscan Well Brewery across the street and called it an early night.

Ogee Headed Window! Learned about these in Archeology

The next day we went out with a group of the girls from my group to explore the St. Patrick's Day weekend festivities.  There was an amazing market on St. Patricks Street and we wandered around for a while and returned again on Sunday.  There was a lot of really good food choices and live music and the street was closed off to cars.  After wandering there we walked around the city a bit and then decided to sit next to the river to relax since it was sunny and warm.  That night, we went to another crowd favorite, An Spailpin Fanach to listen to live traditional music.

Caitlin and I starting off the day

Yummy Sausage, potatoes and roasted veggies for lunch

Myself, Tierney and Steph all excited to eat our lunch

Homemade Ice Cream

Sunday we wandered and went to the Shandon Tower to climb to the top and then ring the bells. We stopped by the market again and then I took Caitlin to the bus station to catch a bus to the airport.  I spent the rest of the day working on papers and other school work.

The lovely pink building is Leeside where I live

For St. Patrick's Day, we got together as a group and decided to go to the parade together.  This was a weird experience for me for many reasons.  First, the parade is different than what we would normally expect, it was more relaxed with either smaller floats or just people walking in groups.  It was difficult for us to see and we were getting hungry so about half way through the parade a few of us left to get lunch.  I'm glad that I saw the parade, but as my Irish friends told me before I went, its pretty boring and most people that actually live in Cork don't go unless they have kids.

The most people I've seen in Cork ever

The other reason this was a weird experience for me was I had my first big case of identity crisis.  I spent a lot of the weekend getting really annoyed by all of the tourists who were walking around, not knowing where they are going, talking loudly and just plain getting in my way.  All I wanted to do was get some groceries, gosh dang it!  But then I realized, I'm kind of a tourist here in Cork, maybe not to the same extent because I am here for 5 months, but I will automatically get lumped into the tourist category once I open my mouth and they hear my very un-Irish accent.  This was a really weird moment for me and it made me realize that Cork is kind of becoming my home and it will be really weird to not live here anymore.

Overall, St. Patrick's Day was a success and I was so happy to have my first visitor in Cork!

Archeology Field Trip #2

For this field trip we were supposed to start our day at Labbacallee Wedge Tomb, then head to Glanworth Castle, have lunch in Cashel and end the day at Rock of Cashel.  I was excited because after the weather we had the first trip, the weather on Saturday was going to be amazing!  It was still a little chilly but no rain! Which was grand.

We started our day at Labbacallee Wedge Tomb which is one of the biggest wedge tombs in Ireland.  Wedge tombs date to between 2500-2000 BC and are from the Chalcolithic period where copper mines were beginning to appear in Ireland.  Pretty much it is a big rectangular stone structure that has side stones and capstones with three different chambers within it.  The side stones are also three layers of stones thick.  The largest of the three capstones weighs in at 10 tons and was set in place using only man power. Pretty amazing.  There is normally a cairn (blanket of small rocks covered in dirt) over but this has deteriorated over time, some evidence of this remains, mainly a large piling of stones by the tomb.  It is also likely that the walls built near the tomb probably took advantage of the easily accessed rocks from the cairn.

Inside the tomb

This area was probably part of the tomb, and then collapsed

View from the back of the tomb

Attempting to get the entire tomb in one picture

After Labbacallee, we got back on the bus and headed to Glanworth Castle.  Our professor freaked us out a bit before we got off the bus because he told us that we had to stay on the foot path because there was a "fast moving river" and that we should watch out because the steps up to the castle would be "a bit slippy".  Well it turns out that this fast moving river was probably less dangerous than the river right outside our apartment building, and the stairs were very wide and dry and there was no reason to be nervous, but I guess it is his job to make sure no one dies on the field trip, so is understandable.

Glanworth Castle was originally built in the 13th century probably by an Anglo-Norman family, but then switched hands by the Medieval Period.  There is a central building that looks like a towerhouse like we saw on our last field trip, but is smaller and is called a keep.  Different than a tower house is that there is a large yard area and a big curtain wall to protect it.  Within this yard, there were probably many smaller buildings like a great hall.  This was not only a castle for the nobility of the area, but it also acted at the court and the jail for the area and those who were sentenced to serve time in the jail which was virtually a hole in the ground with a grate over it. We were able to climb all over the castle and see the different areas, except for within the keep itself, which probably looked like a giant stone box anyway.

The Keep

Next we had lunch in Cashel at a small pub.  Of course our food took forever and so we were a few minutes late meeting back up with the group.  When we got to the group, we were told that the Rock of Cashel was closed due to high wind, especially since there was scaffolding as part of the restoration.

Instead of the Rock of Cashel, we hiked down the rock and went to Hore Abbey that was across the road a ways.  While we were waiting in the group at the Rock of Cashel, one of the guys from our group, Patrick, who had decided to come to the Rock on a day trip wandered up.  Since he was missing out on the Rock of Cashel too, we told him to just filter in with our group and come to the Abbey with us.  The abbey was originally Benedictine and they had an area called the Refectory, just like at St. John's, everyone else looked really confused and all of us just looked at each other and laughed.  The Abbey was eventually turned over to the Cistercians and now is in ruins.  It was interesting to see a Benedictine Abbey from the Medieval Period.

No more Archaeology Field Trips, and the paper is written, I guess that means I better start studying for the final...