Cork City (day 1)

As I mentioned I would last post, this weekend I visited Cork and Blarney! I left Thursday evening after class, and arrived at the Cork train station around 8:00. From there I walked to my hostel, where I had booked a private room in case the other guests were sketchy. I followed the directions I had written down before I left on how to walk to the hostel, but next time, I don't think I'd arrive after dark in a foreign city, by myself, trying to find a hostel. It wasn't that the area was a bad part of town, but, being in a typically European city, I didn't exactly follow main roads in a grid or with fantastic lighting. At one point a road turned into stairs, and then led to an alley that had a small path at the end. It was strange, but the hostel was very nice. My room was fine- I shared a bathroom, but also had a small sink in my room. I was even close enough to the computer room that I could pick up wireless, which came in handy for planning the details of my adventures.

The next morning I had the free breakfast at the hostel (which apparently for the Irish means toast and tea/coffee) and then headed just outside of Cork City to see the City Gaol. This is the cities historic jail that is now a museum and supposedly in a pretty area. Well, I followed the vague directions I had, but my lack of a navigation gene meant that I got WAY off track, and after two and a half hours of walking around the Cork suburbs and the University College Cork campus (one of our sister schools) I decided I'd just go back into the City Center for lunch. On the way back, I finally found some signage to the Gaol, but it was no one in sight, so I abandoned my hope of getting there. I did, however, have a wonderful time wandering around Cork's City Center. I found a good sandwich place that had typically Irish sandwiches- they will put anything on a sandwich! The normal sandwich options, besides lettuce and meat and cheese, are mashed potatoes with butter, stuffing, or mayonnaise. Yes, mayonnaise is an option by itself. Heart attack much?

I also let myself browse the shopping downtown. There were a lot of higher-end American stores there, and I think half of the island that is the City Center is one big Dunnes store (something like a Macy's or FNAC with a supermarket on the lowest floor). I also stumbled upon a lot of smaller, independent stores, which were adorable. I'm glad to see a revival of women's dress hats here- I've seen at least one hat shop in both Cork and Dublin. Really wild, outrageous hats too, worthy of the royal wedding! I also stumbled upon the Crawford Art Gallery, a free art museum for the city that I had on schedule of things to see anyway. They had a great collection of work by Irish artists, which is something new to me and very cool. They also had a few old rooms with 18th century furniture and glassware that was great.

Heading back in the afternoon to have a quick break, I also happened upon one of the churches open to visitors in Cork. It turned out to be the building next to my hostel, and while I didn't get to go in- I had missed the opening hours- I walked around the outside and spent some time in this lovely park adjacent to the church. I also heard throughout my three days there the tourists ringing the bells, sometimes even creating a tune. I heard the American anthem a few times, and some Christmas carols. That evening I went back into the City Center for dinner, and I was also on the lookout for Culture Night events. Culture Night is apparently something they do all over Ireland, and there are activities and festivals and concerts for anyone in all the cities. Well, I was looking for a concert, but yet again got lost and couldn't find it. But I did find the English Market instead, which I had been dying to see. It's the oldest open-air market in Europe, 150 years older than the one in Barcelona (although much smaller) and it was open for culture and serving small portions of different foods for cheaper prices and giving out free wine. It was so packed it was hard to move in the three alleys that made up the market, but the energy was so fun and people were so relaxed and not aggressive that it really didn't matter. In fact I waited in a line for food for like 45 minutes, and everyone was really polite to each other and I struck up several conversations with people.

It was sort of late when I finally got out of there, so I wandered around a bit, and walked along the river before heading back to my hostel. I also had to plan out the details of getting to Blarney the next morning.

Ok, well this is already long and I have to go to class in a minute (Folklore and then Irish class). I will post the rest of the weekend later! I did take lost of photos though, so that will be a post too! Have to have something to entertain my readers during the week, when all I do is homework and class (ok, not ALL the time :-p). Hope everyone else had a great weekend! Now it's class, then GNIB to get my real visa and afterwards weekly shopping!