Cork City

I'd say that I'm now completely settled in. During the past week I have gotten to know Cork City quite well. We make daily trips into the city after class and explore. It is a very busy city and is actually quite large (tied as Ireland's second largest city after Dublin). Downtown is very cool. All of the buildings are painted different pastel colors and the River Lee runs through the city so there are lots of bridges. All of the alley ways are packed with little shops and stores. It reminds me a lot of Diagon Alley (Harry Potter). It also feels a bit like parts of Cambridge, but different. I've mastered using all of the available public transportation- mostly buses- and I can easily find my way around.











(downtown near Oliver Plunkett Street)
(Click on the image to make it larger)

Last Friday my Irish Archaeology class went on a field trip around rural Cork and West Cork to visit some ancient archaeological sites. We saw the site of an ancient ring fort, a small castle, a fortified mansion in ruins, and Drombeg Stone Circle (Cork's very own "Stonehendge"). For lunch we at a little pub called Mick Finn's in Colkiney. The food was awesome...grilled ham and cheese panninis and chips (fries). The Irish really love ham, lamb, beef and sausage. They're all very popular menu items.









(an old fortified mansion in ruins in rural West Cork)

I checked out the campus gym and was blown away. It serves not only as UCCs gym but pretty much all of Cork City's fitness center. This place was beautiful....at least a 10 million euro facility. It reminded me of Ben Stiller's trendy, modern, gym in Dodgeball. Entry is fingerprint activated. James Bond style. All of the guys there are massive Irish "strongest men in the world" types on roids. I usually just work out with the soccer kids. They're good lads.

My cooking has seen constant improvement since I have to make all of my own meals here. I've become a sautee master and have really started to branch out of my comfort zone. It's a lot of fun and sometimes I cook for hungry friends which are all too common. Despite my recent success in the culinary department my favorite meal to cook is still breakfast.

settling in...

Hey Everyone,

To start things off let me just say that Ireland is something else. It's a very wet country full of kind, fun-loving people. The trip from Boston to Ireland was an epic one indeed. It took about 10 hours total including the layover at Heathrow. We finally touched down just outside of Cork, coasted through customs, and took an extremely scary cab ride to our apartments at Victoria Lodge...about a 10 minute walk from campus. We were all severly jet-lagged on Thursday having not slept more than an hour on the flight over, but we still made it to our first pub downtown, The Thirsty Scholar (a cool little college pub), and ordered our first pints of stout. We tried a variety including Guinness, Murphey's, and Beamish. Murphey's was the best and it was brewed at several locations right in Cork. Then we made the trek back to our apartments and got a solid night's sleep.

Day 2:

We got up the next morning just in time for orientation. The University College Cork campus was breathtakingly beautiful...like an irish version of northeastern, but with older, castle-like buildings. The campus is located in a nice residential neighborhood setting a short distance from downtown. Orientation took most of the day, and I met lots of cool international students.

We did our first grocery shop at Tesco's...a big grocery store with affordable prices. I got all of the basic foods needed for a 20 year old guy to survive, but I was surprised at how different the selection of foods was. Instead of a majority of commercialized, packaged goods, Irish grocery stores pretty much just stick to the basics...and the eggs aren't refrigerated which I thought was interesting. We cooked up some tasty meals after and unpacked.

Then we went to an Irish football (soccer) game with a big group of students. The match was so intense. Old Irish guys would scream things like "FOR FUCK'S SAKE" at the ref like every two seconds. It was a great time and the crowd was really into it. Cork beat its English rival 4-0 which was met by endless singing and cheering.

Later that night we were invited to a party at The Cube...an Irish club downtown (free cover and one free drink for international students). A lot of the international students showed up and it was a blast. We then journeyed down Oliver Plunkett Street to a very popular Irish pub, The Old Oak. It had an extremely jovial atmosphere, a great dance floor, and a healthy mix of young and old irish and international folk alike.

Day 3:

Today we went to The English Market, a farmers market downtown that is open six days a week. It was buzzing with energy and I was suprised at how much more affordable the food was than at the grocery store. The English Market had literally every type of meat and cheese you've ever seen. The Irish are really big on meats, cheeses, potatoes, etc. and not so big on vegetables from what I've seen so far, but that's fine by me. I bought some marinated chicken breasts and a few other things for dinner. Then we ate upstairs at a cafe where we bought these ultimate grilled cheese style ham, cheddar, and onion melts with a cucumber salad on the side. Very tasty.












(The English Market)