Homework, boo.

I know, I know, it’s been awhile. But we actually had homework to do! Believe it or not that’s kind of a big deal here. I wrote an Irish history paper this week worth 50% of my grade! Yikes! And to follow that up I got to write ANOTHER essay for my Middle Ages class. “Critically discuss Judaeo-Christian influences on Medieval geographical though.” I know. You’re all dying to read it. I’ll be sure to get copies in the mail soon. (In all honestly I’m kind of proud of that paper, I was TERRIFIED to write it, but maybe I’ve actually learned something about the Middle Ages in the last month and a half.) And at least that paper isn’t worth so much…I just have to take a final in May for that class worth 80% of my grade. No big deal right? Kinda like my Shakespeare final worth 100% of my grade won’t be a big deal? Yeah…now I get why they give us a month to take finals. Nothing like the US that’s for sure. The good news though, is that I will have NO 7:30 am finals! Whoever created that finals block is just evil, thank goodness the Irish don’t believe in making you take exams worth 100% of your grade at the crack of dawn. And hey! Our Shakespeare professor DID tell us exactly what’s coming. We’ll be identifying and explaining quotes from King Lear for a good hour on May 9th. He read us one of the quotes from last year’s exam, and then told us that “anyone who missed that question deserves not only to fail but to be stripped naked and made to run about the quad.” Thank you professor, that’s semi-comforting. Sort of.
So anyway, I’m done with two of my papers, but still have a HUGE government project and a paper for that class to look forward to. Jumping for joy over that one. And two days after we come back from Spring break…another Irish history paper, worth the other 50% of my grade. Yuck.
So anyway, with all the paper writing and project doing that has been going on we haven’t gotten out to do a whole lot of fun stuff lately L bummer. But this weekend we’re getting the heck out of here! Watch out Cobh! The crazy American students have gone stir crazy writing papers and we’re ready to go DO something.
Valentine’s Day came and went in Ireland and I barely noticed. It’s just not a big deal here? Looks like Hallmark hasn’t taken over the WHOLE planet. A bunch of us got together, donned our pink and red and celebrated as a group. We had chocolate, I baked brownies, and the Irish kids were totally and utterly confused as to why we were making such a big deal out of it. “Valentine’s is only for people in a couple? So why?” Why? Because we’re silly Americans and we’ve decided to let Hallmark dictate which days on the calendar cannot pass without fanfare. Notice the red outfits and the paper hearts on the walls....
We also kind of sort of attempted the Barrack Street Challenge. There are 13 pubs on Barrack Street. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what the Barrack Street Challenge might involve. A few in our group did the whole thing properly, hats off to them. We just showed up in the middle to laugh at the damage.
So, despite the lack of super exciting stuff happening lately, we have a lot of stuff coming up! March 5th I’m going to Dublin for the day to check out a few Grad schools! Ahhh! How scary is that? It’ll be good for me though, I’ll have to be all independent and stuff J I’m taking the train up by myself and checking out Trinity College and that afternoon is University College Dublin.
That weekend we’re going to Galway for the Trad Fest there. And the week after that my Mom and Christine are coming over! Yay for friends and family from home. I’m SO excited to see them. We’re going to be in Dublin over St. Patrick’s day, then they’re coming back to Cork to see what I’ve been up to here! I think they both have to kiss the Blarney stone while they’re in Cork. Although, I’ve been told that “having kissed the Blarney Stone- doesn't make you more eloquent, it reduces the chances that you'll ever be quiet- which for you, may be a problem!” Thanks Evans.
When Mom and Christine head back to the states Beth and I are heading home with her roommate Siovhan for the first part of our Spring break. Siovhan’s from Galway and has a mile long list of things she wants to take us to do, the beaches, the Aran Islands, the Cliffs of Moher (google Cliffs of Moher. Really. Do it. SO pretty.) Stay tuned for details on the rest of Spring break.
Our break is March 20- April 21st, and after that it’s one last week of class and then a month of finals! I ended up with a big break between exams, so one more friend is flying into Cork for a few days and we’re going to London for a few days after that!
And the scariest part of today’s blog…it’s almost March. Which means my time here is going SO much faster then I ever thought possible. So, mentally, I’ve been making a list of all the things I’ll miss in Ireland. (In no particular order)
-Irish accents
-9 am is REALLY early
-if you have a 9am class no one really expects you to be there
-Getting packages, or anything in the mail, it’s seriously like Christmas. No one sends stuff by mail at home, and we really should.
-Cadbury chocolate is EVERYWHERE
-Trad sessions
-The free notebooks they hand out while you’re walking to class
-My Shakespeare professor and my Middle Ages professor. They are completely hilarious.
-Irish slang (eejit, for example)
-The Old Oak, and everything else on Oliver Plunket Street
-Most of all, the people. If you can look at this picture and not smile there’s something wrong with you.

Gold star for you if you actually read through all of this!

That's Quay with a K

Turns out cash evaporates in big cities. Cities like, oh I don’t know, Dublin? And being poor little study abroad students we don’t have a whole lot of cash to begin with! So, no grand adventures this weekend…we decided to lay low and hang around Cork. Which was actually a great idea, because last week was Trad Fest 2008! And now you’re all going “Great Alyssa…what the heck is that?” Trad is Traditional Irish music. And Trad Fest is a week of concerts, dancing, and something they call Trad Disco. This week I went to one big concert, several “sessions” (aka a bunch of students get together, hang out, and play their instruments) and I got to try Ceilí dancing! But let’s not talk about my Ceilí skills. The Irish kids grew up with this stuff…I did not. Overall though, Trad Fest gets an A+ in my book.
Other big stuff going on this week…Rugby! Ireland vs. France! Ireland lost, but I think you could have gone just about anywhere in Cork on Saturday afternoon and found the game on. Turns out soccer is not the biggest sport on the Emerald Isle. It’s Rugby all the way over here. Soccer is big too (and they actually call it soccer) along with something called Hurling that I’ve only ever seen a few minutes of on TV. Gaelic football is big too…from what we can tell it’s a combination of volleyball, soccer, basketball, and American football. Our Irish history professor showed us part of a game in class last week…it looked like fun! Now only if we’d had any idea what was going on…
After last week’s wacky half hour of snow fall we’re finally starting to get nice weather over here. I haven’t seen it rain for a few days (and now that I’ve jinxed myself I should go put my umbrella in my backpack). Last night we got ice cream and took a walk around Cork after our movie. Yup. It’s that nice out.
We also discovered that sometimes movies come out in theaters here before they come out in theatres at home…hooray Ireland! But before you get too jealous - keep in mind that with the exchange rate going to a movie costs us about 1.5 times as much as it costs you. Oh wait…everything costs us about 1.5 times as much as it costs you. That includes groceries. Unfortunately. We've finally started to cave though and we're shooting for doing "family" dinner once a week. Yup. That means actually cooking. Turns out study abroad students cannot live on peanut butter and cereal alone. As hard as we might try. So once a week we cough up the money to make a real meal and try not to gasp at the exchange rate. Darn dollar. I even read an article last week that some stores in New York have started taking the Euro. How crazy is that?
Oh, and my last thought, how cool is the internet? Not only does Skype let me call home…but I found out yesterday that Skype does conference calls. I got to talk to my Uncle Brad in Kuwait and my Aunt Julie in Connecticut at the same time. Calling home is kind of tough when you're this far away, so you appreciate things like that more then you can imagine. My little cousin Hailey made it even better by typing messages to us while we were talking. “ggygyuyuguuuuhyuytgyyuuuuuuuuuuuuttgthjyggyg” She’s getting pretty good at the typing thing :-)

*pictures are of the big concert we went to, an Irish group called Beoga, look them up on youtube…the Irish kids weren’t lying to us, they’re awesome. And the other picture is the street I live on – Bachelors Quay. Which is pronounced “key”. Don’t try it any other way or the cab drivers will laugh at you. Just trust me on that one. My building is the pink one on the right (the taller, lighter pink one. Have I mentioned that the Irish seem to enjoy painting their buildings fun colors?)

Four star floor space!

New study abroad lessons for this week...

1. You ALWAYS need your passport
2. The world is smaller then you think
3. You’d be amazed how comfy the floor can be when it’s free
4. Your tram ticket does not work forever.
5. While your tram ticket does not work forever, the stupid American ticket just might.
6. 6 girls, 4 sleeping bags, and 1 couch means that someone is going to be cold.
7. 9 college students and 1 shower means you just do not get to wash your hair. Deal with it.
8. You can watch the Super Bowl in Ireland…but it won’t have commercials!

We went to Dublin this weekend! I might have a new favorite city. It has a really cool mix of historical stuff, literary stuff, and fun stuff. Literally one of those places that has something for everyone.
We decided to Ryan Air it to Dublin this time around…arrived about an hour before our flight to check in…and learned a very important lesson about our American drivers’ licenses. They are NOT a valid form of ID for Ryan Air. So…in the midst of the small snow storm that was taking over Cork (yes snow, don’t get me started on the snow) Beth raced from the Airport to Leeside back to the Airport via taxi to get her passport…and managed to check in just in time to make our flight. So let’s review, one forgotten passport and the first snow Cork has seen in years. And we’re still at the airport. Yes this seems to bode well for the weekend ahead.
We got into Dublin safe and sound and grabbed the bus in town, from there we checked into our four star accommodations. Otherwise known as Buckly hall…otherwise known as my friend Ryan’s apartment. Aka… we brought blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, and had a slumber party in the living room. Ryan and I haven’t really seen each other since high school…but we realized we’re both studying in Ireland for the semester! Like I said, the world is smaller then you think. He offered us a place to stay in Dublin and…well...study abroad lesson number 3 of the week. You’d be amazed how comfy the floor can be when it’s free. I can’t even begin to explain how lucky we were to have such amazing hosts in Dublin. Ryan and his roommates were great; I’m still amazed at how willing they were to put up with all six of us taking over their living room.
We went out for lunch after we dropped our stuff off and then Ryan and Mike went with us to “The Old Jameson Distillery”. The tour is cool, but at the end of every tour a few “volunteers” are subjected to the unimaginable torture of being forced to sample a few different whiskeys (please note the sarcasm). I’m fairly certain Ryan has never raised his hand faster for anything in his life. After that we went back to the apartment for dinner…only to realize every traveler’s worst nightmare – one of us had lost a wallet. So- again with the fabulous host thing, Ryan took us back to the tram station to look, we took the tram back to Jameson to look there, and while we didn’t turn up anything, we learned a lesson about how the tram works! Every so often officers get on board to check tickets…well…we hadn’t seen them do that yet. Turns out the tram tickets we bought after lunch were not still good at 7:30 at night…especially since we bought one way tickets…and were going the wrong way. Hence, my next lesson. Your tram ticket doesn’t work forever. But, we explained what we were doing, they believed us that we didn’t know exactly how the tram worked, punched the tickets we had, and let us keep going…they even took down information about our missing wallet and promised to call if anything turned up. So, while your tram ticket does not work forever, the stupid American ticket just might. Nothing like nearly being thrown off a tram to bring old friends back together right? (Yes, I did keep the ticket, it’s going in my scrap book). So…no wallet, but a good lesson about the Dublin tram system. Thankfully credit cards can be cancelled, debit cards can too, and the time change meant it was still business hours at home, and in a few weeks we'll be able to sit back and laugh and go "hey! remember that one time, in Dublin? When they almost kicked us off the tram and gave us a huge fine?". (We’re silver lining kind of travelers). So, all things taken care of, the boys took us out for the night in Dublin, we met their friends studying here and got to see more of Dublin, always exciting.

We woke up the next morning sprawled in various corners of the living room and Maggie announced “I don’t know whose sweatshirt I’m wearing, but I was cold so I put it on!” Okay…so team UCC was a little short on sleeping bags when we headed up north to take on Dublin. We’ll work on that. The logistics of 9 people and 1 shower with European hot water supplies just aren’t great either. I think I timed my shower at about 3 minutes flat. Impressive right? And I’m not even sure I set the record for fastest shower on Saturday morning.

The boys went on their school trip to Belfast and the girls set out to conquer Dublin. We went out for breakfast, headed to City Centre, and started exploring. We went to the Guinness Factory, Dublin Castle, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and then hit Grafton Street for some shopping and dinner. After dinner we did Dublin’s Literary Pub Crawl. Two actors take you to four pubs in Dublin where some of the country’s best known writers hung out. They do skits along the way and the goal is that you’ll come out a little smarter in the end. I can now say I’ve been to the same pubs as the likes of Joyce, Beckett, and Wilde. Cool huh? Maybe some of their talent rubbed off and you'll all start seeing a drastic increase in the quality of the blog. (Uh huh, sure Alyssa, you keep telling yourself that.)

Sunday we went to the Dublin Zoo, Modern Art Museum, out for dinner, and then it was Super Bowl time! You have no idea how funny it is to see Tom Brady running out of the tunnel while listening to an Irish announcer saying “The match is about to begin! The players are taking the pitch!” They’re taking the what to start the what!? We had a good laugh that the Irish attempt at explaining American Football. No wonder it hasn’t caught on over here, they had us confused about the rules and we knew what was going on! At about 3:30 the game finished up and the few troopers who made it through headed for bed. And when I say bed I mean our sleeping bags. Did I mention we had to leave at 6:45 to catch our flight? I might be nuts. I stayed up for the whole thing and they didn’t show one commercial!
It was a crazy weekend, and we might have had a few setbacks, but we had a blast. I cannot say enough good things about our hosts or Dublin in general. And now I'm totally excited for round two in Dublin- St. Patrick's Day!

Called on account of music

So it's Rag week here at UCC, which quite honestly meant very little to me on Monday. But...now it's Saturday. I've seen hordes of Irish kids going out on a Thursday dressed like it's Halloween. I've seen a mechanical bull bucking students off in the middle of the Quad. I've had a class end early on account of the loud music, cheering, and fire alarms sounding right outside the window. There was also a giant pig parked in front of and sometimes inside of the O'Rahilly building all week. Turns out that Rag stands for Raise and Give. All of the different clubs work to raise money for different charities, and because we're in Ireland the pubs donate part of their Rag week profits to charity. It's basically one big competition to raise the most money and have fun doing it. Classes are poorly attended, campus feels like a big carnival all week, and needless to say the professors seem to wish Rag week would die a terrible and painful death. A little less then half of us showed up for government on Tuesday and our professor walked in and said "Wow, big group, everyone fully recovered? Anyone still drunk? Why so many? Did someone tell you lot I was giving a surprise exam?" It was fun, it was an experience, and I'm glad we were here for it.

For some other stuff...we all realized going into this that we weren't going to see our families for 5 months. And I was okay with that...until I started thinking about birthdays, Easter, that kind of stuff. Who makes sure your birthday is special if Mom's not there to do it?! And when was the last time I DIDN'T do a birthday dinner with my friends?! One of the other girls here from the U of I turned 22 this week, her golden birthday, and I apparently became a mom overnight. I made sure her apartment door looked pretty when she got up (see picture above) and tried my hand at baking in this country. Turns out we don't have measuring cups in our apartment...so I eyeballed everything, and somehow managed to make a birthday cake that everyone swears was great. We had a mini version of a birthday party that was a lot of fun :-) Beth says she felt really special, which is good. Because even if we're thousands of miles from our family and friends our birthdays should still be special. Like I said, I apparently became a mom over night.

One last thing, can we get a date check? I've been here for almost a month already...and it's going SO fast. Study abroad is such a strange experience...all of the sudden I've got a crazy new group of friends (and you go through so much, in such a short amount of time, that you get really close really quickly). I'm feeling at home in a city I'd never seen a month ago. I'm getting the hang of classes at a brand new school. But at the same time you never really quite forget what you're missing at home. For instance it feels really weird that all of my college friends went back to Iowa City this week and started classes, and I wasn't there. I find myself getting homesick for some things...but I love it here too. Just an odd feeling all around.

This is a D.I.F.T.S. moment

Because of the serious lack of blogging happening last week...I've got a novel tonight.

First off...classes. I've been to a full, real week of class now. Decided that Italian was a waste of time and brain power. Dropped it in favor of a history class taught by an awesomely cool Irish guy named Cormac. It's Geography of the Middle Ages, and two hours in that class felt like two hours watching the history channel. Absolutely loved it. So I went straight to the international office and changed my registration, and I'm totally excited about it. The other good news...is that my school week doesn't start until 3 on Monday, and it's over by 12 on Thursday. I also never have class before 11. I think about taking stats at the U of I at 7:30 in the morning and I just smile. The Irish like to sleep in, and I think it's brilliant.
Second thing...adjusting to life in Cork. I spent my first full weekend outside of Cork, and was actually starting to miss it by the time I got home. Home as in Leeside Apartments home...which is weird to say. I really like it here though, I like living in the city, even though I'm dying for the sight of grass and trees now and then. Cork is definitely less of a touristy spot and more of a business/ industrial center. But I think I like that, it makes me feel less like a tourist and more like I live here. Life's different here, people are in less of a hurry for sure, but I like it. I love that you walk to the grocery store (and bring your own bags! gosh don't forget that! 25 cents for a plastic bag? ridiculous!) I like sitting in my window and seeing all kinds of traffic. And the traffic doesn't even look so wrong anymore. Now I think it might be weird to see a car on the right side of the road. But the weirdest adjustment by far...every time I say the word sorry it comes out in an Irish accent. And I said cheers to the lady in the bookstore last week. It just slipped. Now that's weird. I must be starting to stick out a little less...the Irish kid sitting next to me in Government asked where I was from. He looked at me funny when I said Iowa, and then went "Oh gosh! You're American! Couldn't tell at first." I guess that's a good sign?

Now...about that weekend away from Cork.


Killarney is about an hour and a half train ride from us, so we got up insanely early (by Irish standards, by US standards we just didn't sleep in like bums) and made the 25 minute hike to the train station in the dark (it's not really light out here until 9ish). Got off said train, and realized we had a name but no address for our hostel. I swear hostel was not on my to-do list. I was train tickets and schedule. So, we wandered through Killarney, found some nice shop owner who pointed out the Neptune Hostel. Marvelled for a bit at our wonderful 5 star accommodations. (That was totally sarcastic - if you didn't catch that. We paid 16 euro for the night, for that much, I'm shocked we had hot water.) So our little group packed it into one tiny little room with tiny little bunk beds, thank goodness we were just sleeping there. It felt a little like summer camp, or 6th grade having a sleep over with all of my friends. The lady working the front desk was kind enough to direct us to Ross Castle and the Muckross Abbey and Muckross House. There was also a waterfall in there somewhere. So, hiking we went through Killarney National Park. ::Singing to the tune of the Wizard of Oz:: We're off to see the castle...

Now we are all about the castles, let me tell you. ALL about the castles. Through hell or high water we wanted to see that castle. I'm not joking about the high water.
We're trekking it down a lovely wooded path that seems to match the description the lady at the hostel gave us, and we come across a bright orange sign that says ROAD FLOODED. Now, normal people would turn around, but not us, we're all about those castles. We go a little further and discover the road to be, in fact, flooded. Just as the sign predicted. Funny, they didn't just waste money on a random sign. Two young men are headed our way on the path, so we ask if they've been the Ross Castle. They said yup, couple hundred meters that way. We asked if the water was deep, they said not too bad, up to your shins maybe. We asked if it was worth it, they said yes. We declared it to be a D.I.F.T.S. moment. Do it for the story. So, off came the hiking boots, rolled up the jeans, and into the water we went. I don't want to hear any cracks about the intelligence of this particular decision. A few hundred meters later, we realized something very important.

The Swiss lie.

About half a mile later (that's close to a couple hundred meters right?) we emerged onto dry land, to find a castle that looked a whole lot like the last one we saw, except this one was closed for the winter. Somewhere, a couple Swiss guys are sitting in a pub, drinking a beer, and laughing at the dumb Americans who trekked half a mile through knee deep water to see a closed tourist attraction.
One of our happy travelers took one look at the place and immediately declared "F*ck you castle!"

So, at this point, we're soaked, towel less, bathroom less (due to the castle being closed for the season) and not sure what else to do. So we continue our journey, hiking about 5 more miles to Muckross Abbey. In case anyone is planning a trip to Ireland soon, Muckross Abbey is under renovation at the moment, they're trying to preserve it. At this point we were considering having a drink at every pub we came across on the way back to the hostel. But we realized how expensive that was going to be, and how long of a walk we'd be in for on top of that. So we made it another mile or two (?) to Muckross house, which apparently shows up in some Nicole Kidman movie, but is also closed for the season. At least we were able to sit down, use a phone (yup, no cell phone reception in the middle of nowhere), and call a cab. For 2 euro each a very nice taxi driver brought us back into town, but only after taking one look at us and going "What on earth are ye doing on holiday out here this time of year? Place will be packed in the summer, but not now, never stops raining!" We noticed.
He directed us to a pub/restaurant close to our hostel. We had our first warm meal in quite awhile (we're study abroad students, we live on cereal and peanut butter sandwiches). We sat around and watched the rugby game (I think I'm starting to become a fan, it's fun to watch!) and made it back to our hostel slightly dryer, and in much better moods.


Day two was the Ring of Kerry tour. It was kind of like a 6 hour roller coaster ride, I think I might have gotten whiplash. But we saw some pretty scenery, the ocean, and got rained on some more. We had our second warm meal in two days, which is a record for us. And marvelled at how pretty the water is when you're not hiking through it. We saw the waterfall we missed yesterday, however, as Liam put it "Waterfall?! I've seen water fall all freakin' day!". When we were done our tour guide dropped us off at the mall next to the train station. We sat, had coffee, shopped, and made it to our train on time (some of us might have arrived at 8:49 to catch an 8:50 train on the way to Killarney). We had a delayed but otherwise uneventful trip home, and we're all now marveling at how nice our beds look, and how great a hot shower is going to be.
Really though, despite how bitter and sarcastic this blog may sound, it was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard, and hey, we're studying abroad for the experience right?

That's a whole lot of Blarney

Absolutely breathtaking. And the picture doesn't really do it justice. It was pouring down rain, and cold, and generally a not nice day to be climbing to the top of castles in rural Ireland. But that view made it totally worth it. We ended up wandering around some of the trails in Blarney, and spent some time just being generally amazed at how green everything is. This country really is beautiful when you get out of the city.

And yes. I kissed the Blarney stone, I should now be blessed with eloquence. We'll see about that...but at least that's what the cute old Irish man at the top of Blarney castle told me - as he was holding me up so I didn't fall 120 feet and kill myself bending over backwards to kiss a stone.

Now for some less exciting scenery. Remember the combination washer/dryer in our kitchen? Well...it seems to struggle with the drying aspect. One of my roommates called home and was told to purchase a drying rack...we now have rope strung all around the apartment so that we can dry our clothes. Classy right? If we run out of room we'll just call up our land lady and tell her to please come get the curtains, we don't need them anymore, but please leave the curtain rods.

Is that sun we're seeing?

Stop the presses!

It has not rained in Cork, Ireland since WEDNESDAY. That's right, Wednesday. How amazing is that? (At least in our experience two whole days without rain is sort of the Irish equivalent of a 60 degree day in Iowa in January.) So, we took advantage of our rain and class free days and did some major exploring of Cork. We found (uh oh) the mall, and a lovely place called St. Patrick's Street that is literally JUST shopping. Our other fun find was the English Market, which I've heard all the Irish kids talking about but have until today been unable to actually locate. It's sort of like a farmers market back in the states but it's indoors and it's HUGE! There's a grocery store right around the corner from us that's a lot like where we'd go at home, but now we have one more place to go when it's not pouring down rain and the wind isn't blowing hard enough to carry off small children and we feel like walking a little further. (Cork is right on the coast...so we get a lot of rain and a lot of wind at the moment, but...they promise this will stop in February.)

Next week we start classes for real...no more going to whatever we feel like and trying to decide which professors don't seem totally crazy. It was kind of fun that we got to do that though, and it saved me from being stuck in a 20th century history class taught by an 80 year old Irish man who spoke in a constant whisper with the heaviest Irish accent I've heard yet. Not only was I almost totally unable to understand him, he will spend the next 12 weeks lecturing on World Wars I and II while operating under the assumption that everyone taking his class has at least a masters degree in world history. Okay...so he didn't come right out and say that...but I was there for his first lecture, and that's certainly the way I felt.

We think we've finally decoded the bus schedule, and we're going to Blarney tomorrow! Our first little trip out of Cork! Hooray!