Daily Life in Cork

Hi friends and family!

This week was filled with homework, exploring, goodies, hot chocolate and some olympics!
Mostly I am going to put a bunch of pictures up of city centre, cafes and pubs that we have enjoyed or places that I walk past everyday.  I also have a few more observations about Ireland that I wanted to share so here goes:
-Most people don't wear rain coats or waterproof coats, wool coats seem to be the more popular choice.  Not sure why?
-More male students tend to wear sweatpants or scarves than I would see at CSBSJU
-Umbrellas are only usable when it's not windy out and Cork is pretty windy!
-Parking lots are called car parks
-I don't study at UCC but I am studying in UCC.  That is how the Irish would phrase it.
-Cookies are called biscuits
-To have a good craic (pronounced crack) is not referring to drugs, it means to have a good time
-People say thanks a million when thanking someone.  I love how it sounds with their Irish accents!
-People also say 'that's grand' or 'it'll be grand' a lot and I love it!

This week was also RAG week at UCC, which stands for raise and give.  It is a huge deal and most Irish students don't go to class and just attend events that are put on for RAG week to raise money to help support charities.  So, campus was exciting this week! They had food stands and concerts and events going on everyday and they had my favorite, Oconnails chocolate right on campus.  It was dangerous and I may have taken advantage once or twice :)

The rest of my week consisted of paper writing and a lot of exploring Cork city.  Both on my own and with others.  I tried a few new restaurants and cafes that I have on my list of places to try in Cork as well.  It is a long list so I have a ways to go! But I am not complaining one bit about trying all of the best food places :)

Kicking off RAG week with some Oconnails hot chocolate on campus with Megan and Megan :)

This is a frequent late night salty snack run, they have chips (fries) with all sorts of toppings, mostly different flavors of mayo like sweet chili mayo, taco mayo, garlic mayo etc. YUM.

Tesco- This is where I buy most of my groceries.  It is right in the middle of city centre.

This is one of the most popular student pubs.  

This is my personal favorite pub.  There is really good live Irish music almost every night! Its called An Spailpin Fanac.  Don't ask me to pronounce it because I can't :)

The green Mcdonalds in city center.  I have yet to eat here and I am very ok with that.

The shaky bridge in Fitzgeralds Park.

Shaky bridge again.

St. Finbarrs cathedral.  Haven't been inside because there is a fee, but I hear it is beautiful and the stained glass windows are well known.

This is a bridge that I walk across on some days to get to school.  On sunny days, the view is really nice!

Tierney and I watching the Olympic hockey game against Canada with our cider.  

Cork is the food capital of Ireland :)

Irish Lamb stew at the Farmgate Cafe above the English Market.  We sat on a balcony overlooking part of the market!  So good. 

Farmgate Cafe.  Shoutout to that man in the painting behind Cam.. lol

We also got gelato, which is not very Irish but it was yummy anyways!

Ice cream selfie.

I have only about a month left of classes left before I head on my big travel adventure through Europe and until my parents come to visit.  I can't believe how fast time is going! I still have so many places I want to see in Ireland, so hopefully I will be able to fit all of it in before my time is up! Next weekend I am planning a day trip to the Dingle Peninsula and more paper writing!

For those of you in Minnesota (or Virginia) stay warm and safe on those snowy roads! Thanks for reading :)

Ring of Kerry: Mountains, beaches and foooooood

Hello everyone! Happy late Valentines day!

As many of you may have already seen, Jason surprised me with flowers on Valentines day.  AND they arrived while we were on face time talking with each other! How he managed that? I'm not sure, but it was the best surprise I have ever received.  Over the top Jason!  Missing you dearly, but so glad we could share some vday chocolate over love letters from each other :) Thank you for making it a special day!

As I mentioned in last weeks post, I went on a tour of the Ring of Kerry this weekend!  There is a lot to say, but I will try to keep it to the most important things.

This tour was arranged by our university, UCC, and we did this one with most of the group from CSB/SJU with only one person missing so that made 14 of us going together! We joined up with about 30 ish other international students from UCC who were mostly Americans.  So each of us paid one fee for the weekend which included transportation, food, hotel and touring and entrance fees for any of the places we visited.  It was well worth our money thats for sure!

We left Friday afternoon and headed to the Crag caves in Castleisland in County Kerry.  These were on the way to the hotel so it made sense to stop.  They were very cool and they were huge! I think they were at least a few miles long? But only a small part of it has been made for people to see.  Anyways, I hadn't seen anything like it so it was interesting!

We got to the hotel a few hours later and they had dinner waiting for us.  Let me tell you that one, having food made and delivered to me was a beautiful thing and two, this food was reeeaaalllllyyy good.  The first night was my favorite and I chose salmon with vegetables and baileys cheesecake for dessert. YUM.  We were all struggling to move afterwords which was not really in our favor and you'll see why.  After dinner we had a talk about gaelic football and the history behind it.  It was cool to hear this from a famous former player of the game and he talked with a lot of passion, you could see why he played for so long! One thing that stuck out to me about this is that the high competition teams don't get paid and the fans from both teams will celebrate before and after the matches, no matter who wins or loses.  It is more of a celebration of their culture and for the fun of the game than for rivalry, which I really thought was neat.

After that we all learned how to Irish step dance! Which is why it was not so great to be sooo full! We learned three different dances and they were actually very similar to square dancing.  It was fun because we all were making fools out of ourselves and we didn't really mind.  It was our workout for the day though we were all breaking a sweat!

The next morning we headed out after a buffet style breakfast.  The first stop was Valentia Island, which is a small island in county Kerry in the Atlantic Ocean.  It is famous for being the place where the transatlantic cable was laid to get to North America, and the cable ran from here to Newfoundland. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and the sun was out pretty much all day! Compared to some friends who had to sit in the hotel most of the day in previous weekends we were sweating and taking layers off at some points.

First we stopped at a viewing point on the Island where you can see the Skellig Islands in the distance.  Skellig Michael is where one of the UNESCO world heritage sites is located.  It is an old monastery built into the side of a rocky island and monks lived there for many years.   In the summer months many people take a boat out to the island and climb the hundreds of steps to get to the top and see the monastery and the view.  The closest we got was to watch an informative video about it and see the island from a distance, but it was very interesting and a beautiful view! It sparked my interest of maybe going there in April? Maybe!

We walked/hiked up a hill to the top where we could see the Fogher cliffs and views of the rest of the Island.  Our guide gave us about an hour and a half and it was about 1% of the time I could have spent here.  It was so beautiful! The hike up to the top was filled with picturesque irish countryside and sheep were everywhere! This was probably one of my favorite things that I have done in Ireland, right up there with the Aran Islands.  The weather probably had a lot to do with it, and we were all saying "what country are we in, this can't be Ireland!" We headed back for lunch after that, of which I indulged in a fried brie cheese salad. Mom, you would have loved this! Apparently fried brie is a thing here so we will have to get that while you are here!

Next we went to see two stone forts called Cahergal and Leacanbuiale.  They were both circular stone forts and they also had amazing views of the Island and the town.  We spent some time there learning more about the forts and taking pictures.  In one of the forts, there were stairs that went back and forth all the way to the open top so of course we took advantage of that as well to get a better view.  We headed back to the hotel after this for some free time, which most of us spent doing homework, and then we had dinner.  I took advantage of the fish this weekend and got beer battered fish with veggies and apple pie for dessert! So good.  After dinner we were taught some Irish traditional songs by a local performer and then we had a trivia game that was put on by the leaders of the trip.

Flowers from Jason :) 

Baileys Cheesecake!

In front of the Skelligs- Photo Credit Nicole Pagel

Fogher Cliffs- Photo Credit Megan Favorite

Sheep!

Steps of the stone fort

Sunday was probably one of my favorite days in Ireland yet!  It was just a very unique day, with a little bit of everything.  This day was also full of things that Jason would absolutely love so that made it extra special. We hopped on the bus again after another very yummy breakfast and checking out of our hotel rooms.  The first stop was Derrynane beach in Caherdaniel.  Beaches are actually one of my favorite things.  It is funny to think that I have been on a beach in Virginia on the other side of the Atlantic too! We had about an hour here and again, it was like less than 1% of the time I could have spent there!  It was a weird feeling to be on a beach all bundled up with the wind keeping you nice and chilly but I very much enjoyed looking for shells and walking along the sand and smelling the sea :) And of course skipping a few rocks (or attempting) into the water for Jason.

Next we drove through the rest of the Ring of Kerry which included Killarney National Park.  It was amazing! When I think of Ireland I don't normally think of mountains, but there they were! We drove right through them and some of them were even snow capped.  It was a very beautiful bus ride.  We stopped for a picnic lunch at a spot called Ladies View, which had an amazing view of the mountains and some of the sea.  Definitely one of the most beautiful spots I will ever eat lunch in!  We kept on driving through the national park for a bit and stopped at the Torc Waterfall.

Torc waterfall was not too far from Ladies view so we got off the bus again to go walk around the river up to the waterfall.  The pathway and the trees were all covered with moss.  It honestly looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings! The waterfall was beautiful and it was fun spending some time playing on the rocks and taking more pictures! Our last stop was Muckross house and gardens.  It was this big old time mansion that had a view of mountains and a lake right out the back door.  We were all dreaming of living somewhere like that someday :)

All 14 of us that went on this trip! Photo Credit -Bridget Foley

Derrynane Beach

Ladies View- Killarney National Park

Torc Waterfall

Playing on the rocks!

We got back on the bus one last time and headed back to Cork.  What a fun and memorable weekend! I am glad that most of the group was there so we could get to know everyone better and have memories of this incredible Ring of Kerry trip together!

Not sure what is on the agenda for the upcoming week, but I'm in Ireland so it'll be grand :)

Conquering Ireland

Hello everyone!
Just a warning this is going to be a very long post! So many things to talk about!

For starters, this week was the hardest so far in terms of missing family, Jason and my friends.  Here are some reasons I think I was having a hard time:
1. It was my dad's birthday this weekend. (Happy birthday dad :) My family all got together to celebrate and I really missed being there.
2. My sister, Kristin, is pregnant and the baby will be coming in the next few weeks!  I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am to be an aunt but missing the birth of my nephew will be tough.
3. It is almost Valentines day.  The oh so dreaded holiday of love.  This is Jason and I's first Valentines day as a couple and we will be spending it apart so I will be missing him dearly this week.
4. Some of my really good friends made the trek to South Africa last week! So excited for them to start their study abroad journey, but again I miss them dearly and it is hard to see them get to experience Africa together because I want to be with them too!
All of that said, this week was hard for me to really be here, in Ireland, when my heart is at home or elsewhere so many miles away.  So I guess you could say I learned a bit about myself with this and I am trying to be more conscious of when I am wishing I were somewhere else instead of enjoying my life right now in Ireland.

Now for the more exciting and positive part of the week and probably one of my most favorite weekends in Ireland yet!

I just returned a few hours ago from a weekend spent in Galway, Ireland.  Galway is on the west coast of Ireland and is about 3-4 hours away from cork on a bus depending on how many stops the bus has.  I went with a group of seven people from CSB/SJU including myself.  It was a different mix of people than I normally hang out with so it was fun to get to know these members of the group a little better.  I mean when you spend three days and three nights traveling and sleeping in a slightly sketchy hostel together you might know each other a little better at the end, just a little though :)

A few things about Galway:
1. It was especially fun to see where our fellow bennies and johnnies had spent their fall semester studying in Galway and they gave us suggestions of where to eat, pubs to try and what to do while we were there.
2. It is a lot smaller than cork than I expected. The city center is similar but again smaller.
3. Every night we were there, it was a party.  Until 4 am.  Not the most fun when it is right outside your hostel window.  With some earplugs and exhaustion we made it.
4. The tourist destinations that are most easily accessible from Galway were still quite a trek from Galway city.  Cliffs of Moher and Aran Islands to name a few.

To start off, I will try to give you an accurate description of our hostel.  After we got off the bus, we were trying to find it and we looked for like a sign or building or something that distinctly stood out as the hostel.  To our surprise, the entrance was literally a hole in the wall with a painting on the wall saying "Nimmos Hostel".  This hostel will go down in history people.  (Mom and dad, at no time was I ever in danger or anything like that, it was perfectly safe! Locks worked and we had two guy friends with us to protect the girls!)  Anyways, we ring the doorbell and this little man with crazy white hair opens the door and asks what do we want? LOL he was so confused because he was not expecting us so we named him the confused man from then on.  He had no idea how much money we owed him so he said we could just pay later.  We were literally the only people there on Thursday night.  So in theory, it was quiet inside the hostel, but a little creepy and smelled like rotten banana peels.  Outside the hostel was another story.  Thursday night there was a party in the street until about 4 am, then someone came and cleaned the street with a blower at about 5 am and then someone started hammering above us at about 7am.  We probably all got somewhere around 2-4 hours of sleep that night.  We did pay eventually on our last day and some more people showed up throughout the weekend, but our first impression was not so good.  We got what we paid for! But after our long days of touring and traveling we were excited to get back to home sweet Nimmos Hostel.

On Friday we had our day tour to the Cliffs of Moher. It didn't start until 11:30 so we wandered around in the morning and found a cafe to eat at for breakfast and then we perused some souvenir shops until we needed to catch our bus.  This tour took us to see a tower house, a few ancient tombs, the burren landscape and last but not least the Cliffs of Moher.  It was a really fun day and especially fun for me because I am learning about many of the things that I saw on this trip in my archaeology class.  I am actually writing a paper on one of the tombs that we got to see!

The burren was unlike anything I had seen before.  It is this really large expanse of limestone rock that basically covers a mountainside.  We drove through it for a good while so it really covers a lot of land.  The cliffs were pretty incredible.  The weather was so windy and rain would come down every once and awhile which felt more like tiny pieces of hail because the wind was so strong! I suppose it made it that much more memorable :) Every year there are people that actually fall off the edge of the cliff due to high winds or maybe losing their footing near the edge, so most of us were very careful when it came to walking on the edge of the cliffs. But we had fun taking pictures in the crazy wind and just taking it all in.  It is really hard to describe how majestic the sight was and like I have said before, pictures cannot do justice to this country's incredible landscape.  You will just have to see it for yourself, because it is worth the trip :)

Nimmos Hostel

Poulnabrone- Portal tomb

The Burren

Selfie with the cliffs

Cliffs of Moher

We arrived back to Galway city around dinnertime, got some pizza and tried a pub in the city center and turned in early because we had an early morning on saturday.  Saturday morning our bus from the city left at 9 am and that brought us to a ferry boat that would take us to the Aran Islands, specifically the largest one, Inis Mor.  The minute we walked outside it was down pouring so that dampened our spirits a little but of course we were still going to go!  The ferry boat was definitely an experience.  The waves were so big that the boat would rock back and forth to the point where you could look out of one window and only see sky.  Sometimes the water would come halfway up the windows as well.  The few times I braved to open my eyes I was amazed at how big and powerful the waves were.  For those of you who know my past summer job, I tried to imagine pulling the shark in waves like that and decided that the tube would probably rip in half and people would be thrown off within seconds. (Thats for you Jason, lol just try to imagine!) We all made it through without getting sick but I think we had some close calls.

As we stepped off the boat we were hit with more wind and rain and went to go find a cafe to warm up.  On our way a man stopped us and got our attention with the mention of food (classic Americans) and he convinced us to take his bus tour to see the sights on the Island. Inis Mor was like stepping back into time.  There are 7,000 feet of rock walls on the island and the locals still speak Gaelic and live in these tiny little villages.  It was like Ireland to the extreme.  Sheep, cows, green grass, stone walls, beer, and a little bit of beauty (or a lot!).  Dun Aengus was our first destination.  It is the ruins of an old stone fort located on the edge of a cliff that was used in prehistoric times. It is also another topic that we have covered in our archaeology class.  Before I go on, I have to say that this was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my whole 21 years of life.  Absolutely breathtaking and basically I have no words to describe this experience.  Again, my pictures literally do nothing to describe this incredible place.

Like I said, the fort is on the edge of a cliff but unlike the Cliffs of Moher, there were no barriers or people telling you to be careful or anything.  We literally were standing on the edge of a 100 foot cliff right on the Atlantic ocean, two feet from falling over the edge.  We paid one euro to make the trek up to the fort and potentially our death, thankfully everyone made it out safely.  But we were amazed that we only paid one euro for the best thing we have seen yet! We were pretty much the only people up there as well so it kinda felt like we had Ireland to ourselves which added a lot to the experience.  Again, the wind was so incredibly strong I could see how someone could be knocked over the edge.  Standing there and watching the waves crash into the cliffs and splashing up with the wind tearing through my hair and into my face, I knew that I was in the right place.  It was something that I needed to remember why I am here and to help me really enjoy just living life in Ireland.

The name of this post comes from the walk up to the fort, it was raining and the wind was so strong and we were walking up hill so we were like "We can do it! We are conquering Ireland and it'll be grand!" On the way back down there was a rainbow and we all were feeling so happy to be there right in that moment. When we got down to the bottom we had lunch in a cute cafe that was actually used in the filming of the movie Leap Year, which actually happens to have a lot of incorrect facts about Ireland. You can look that up yourself if you want :)

The rest of the day we spent looking at ruins of churches, wandering to the ocean and getting sprayed with sea foam, listening to our slightly crazy but funny tour guide and enjoying the true Irish countryside from the windows of the bus.  I even got a piggyback from our tour guide through a muddy patch in a path that we were walking.  How many people get to say they got a piggy back ride from an Irish man?! He might be a little crazy, but he's still Irish!

We caught our ferry back to the mainland and arrived back in Galway city by about 7 pm.  We grabbed dinner on the go and tried a pub that we heard about from our fellow bennies and johnnies that had very cheap beer.  I headed back early to chat with my parents for my dads birthday and then snuggled into my hostel bed for the last night.

Sunday we didn't have much planned but to wander the city, which we all really liked.  We found another cafe for breakfast and just kinda walked around the city center.  Of course the sun was out and it was a beautiful day compared to the slightly nasty weather we experienced the past two days, but honestly it all added to the memories that were made.  A few of us decided to go to a tea place that we were told about to have a 'tea party' of sorts. It was the cutest little cafe with all sorts of tea and cakes and scones.  It was the perfect ending to a really great weekend.

Inis Mor- Aran Islands

Inis Mor- Aran Islands

Part of the group near the cliffs edge- It was windy!

Cafe in Leap Year

Cafe in Galway city- a little reminder of home :)

Tea Party!

Cute little tea set

Over all, it was a glorified archaeology field trip mixed with some really great memories, getting to know my friends better and experiences of Ireland that I will never forget.

If you ever make it to Ireland, I highly recommend the Aran Islands! Or really anywhere you go you'll love it :)

Next weekend I am going on a tour of the Ring of Kerry so be prepared for another long post next week. Thanks for reading!

Rainbows and ice cream

Hey everyone!

This week was pretty low key.  A bit more rain than last week but it is Ireland :)

I will just highlight a few things that went on this week!

On Tuesday it was my friend, Tierney's 21st birthday!  During the day, a small group of girls went with her to get some of that wonderful hot chocolate that I talked about last week.  How could I pass that up?!  Later, we all surprised her with pizza and guinness chocolate cake that we made earlier and went to a pub with her after that.

On Thursday we decided to check out a few new pubs that we had never tried.  We found one with an open mike night on Thursdays which I really liked.  It wasn't necessarily traditional music, but the performers could play whatever they wanted and the ones that we heard sang about half traditional Irish music and half modern music.  I really liked the atmosphere as well, so I will be going back there.  Also, some friends of ours know one of the guys that performs so its kinda cool to be like 'hey I kinda know that guy!'

Anyways, Friday and Saturday were pretty uneventful.  You may be wondering where the title to this post comes in.  Since it rained more this week, (or maybe you could say since it was the moodiest weather I have ever experienced) there were a lot of rainbows!  It will rain for 30 minutes or so then be sunny blue skies for awhile then rain for an hour and then blue skies, so you can imagine why there were so many rainbows! I didn't mind though, Saturday was a pajama and homework day so it was fun to look outside everyone in awhile and spot a rainbow.

Saturday afternoon I did take my pajamas off and put some real clothes on to go run an errand at the post office with my friends, Clare and Morgan.  We walked right past an ice cream shop on the way back so we decided to treat ourselves.  The local teens in front of us ordered honeycomb and Oreo ice cream and we have never been so right in doing what the locals do.  For such an interesting combination, it was really good.

Ice Cream!

Oliver Plunkett

Costigans- This is the pub with open mike night on Thursdays

Rainbow right on my street :)

Sunday was my field trip day.  It was a field trip for my archaeology class that I am taking with a few friends.  The class was split by last names into two days for the field trip and since my last name starts with an 'm' it put me in the second day where all of my friends were on the first day.  It was a little disappointing, but it worked out fine.  I don't mind being a bit independent and I made a few friends.

Anyways, we saw a few pretty cool sites.  We saw a medieval tower castle called Ballynacarriga Castle, a 17th century fortified house called Coppinger's Court, and a stone circle and a fulacht fiadh at Drombeg in County Cork.  I will explain these later.  We haven't gone through the time periods for the first two sites in class yet but it was still interesting to see them and listen to our professor explain the significance behind some of the architecture and how you can tell what time period the building is from.

If you don't care much for archaeology or history you can skip this paragraph, but for those who are interested, the stone circle and fulacht fiadh are from the bronze age in Ireland (around 2000-1100 BC).  A fulacht fiadh is a horseshoe shaped structure with a water trough and a hearth in the middle.  The hearth was used to heat stones and then they were placed in the water trough to boil water mostly for cooking meat.  Once the rocks were cooled they would be shattered and placed on the outside of the horseshoe structure, forming piles of burnt and shattered rock pieces that are on top of the structure.  This is usually how archaeologists find these sites is by finding the shattered rock pieces surrounding it.
The stone circle was mostly for religious purposes and determining the annual cycle. All of the rocks are vertical but one, and that one horizontal rock lines up with where the sun sets on the winter solstice which is December 21st.  So when the people saw the sun getting closer to the horizontal rock, they knew that it was almost the start of a new year.

Well, now that you've all had a lesson in archaeology you can rest your brains by looking at some pictures :)

Ballynacarriga Castle

Coppinger's Court

Professor getting really excited about these rocks

Ireland!

Stone circle at Drombeg

Fulacht fiadh- You can see the water trough in the middle