I would love to say that all of those things happened without a single bump in the road but that just simply isn't true. The trip to Fota and Cobh (pronounced Cove) was probably the least bumpy of all and that may have had something to do with it being orchestrated by our professors. However, I did experience what it is like to fry in the Irish heat wave they seemed to be having last weekend. Let me explain that a heat wave in Ireland is 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). In Oklahoma I would have been freezing but here I got a sunburn. My porcelain white skin can't seem to catch a break anywhere I go in the world. I got this sunburn for a couple of reasons: 1 - I didn't pack sunscreen because everyone knows it's always dreary in Ireland (now I know better) and 2 - the train that should have picked us up around 2 to take us to Cobh was at least 30 minutes late, which is more than enough time to bake. We finally got to Cobh and it was beautiful! It's right on the coast and the buildings are painted in dozens of different colors! The only downside to our time in Cobh was the killer hill we took to see the Cathedral! Myself and my roommates were all gasping for air when we finally made it to the top. After we found our way to the cathedral and back to the main city we had a wonderful rest of the afternoon!
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| This is the Killer Hill! I'm hoping that the picture does it justice but if not just trust me when I say it was a monster to climb! |
I think my roommates would agree that St. Colman's Cathedral was worth the climb.
A small look at Cobh's beautiful seaside view
In Fota we got to go to the wildlife park
On to Saturday! We decided that we would have a relaxation day filled with sleeping in (we've all been dying to do that) and shopping! The day began successfully and ended successfully but there were some questionable times in-between there. the day began wonderfully! I slept until probably 11:30 and woke up feeling really great. Once myself and my 3 roommates, plus our friend Katie, were up and ready to go we headed to the city center to do some retail therapy. I needed to find shorts and some tennis shoes asap since I didn't bother to pack either, which actually went really well. Where the day went a little sour was when we lost one of my roommates, Audrey. We were in H&M browsing around by ourselves (it's a 3 story store) and somehow we all ended up on the bottom floor except for Audrey. When we went to look for her she was nowhere to be found! We searched that store for at least an hour; I even asked the cashier if she could make an announcement for her. We extended the search party to the Costa and Tesco, both just around the corner from H&M, but no luck. At this point the 4 of us were getting really nervous and probably all playing scenes of 'Taken' in our heads. Finally we decided to use the WiFi at Costa and Facebook Audrey. Finally, we got a reply from her that all was well and that she had ventured home to change since she couldn't find us. Needless to say we were very happy to know she was okay, but now it's our running joke for her not to stray too far!
Once Audrey had been found and we were able to meet back up we continued our day of shopping. Once we had satisfied that desire we decided to drop our things off at our dorms and go for a walk! We found Fitzgerald park and took the walking path that runs through it. We were having a really awesome scenic walk until we ran into a group of 3 men walking the opposite way. I can honestly say that what happened next was a first for me and hopefully a last as well. The men had clearly been drinking, and if we couldn't tell from their demeanor the box of beer with them certainly gave them away. We had stopped to take a few pictures and as the men approached they started talking to us. At first I couldn't understand what one of the men was saying but I found out in about .5 seconds when he reached for the waist band on his shorts to pull them down and show us his, and I quote, "ballskies". After dodging the snake in his pants we quickly moved on with our walk. Not 10 minutes later did we encounter another unfortunate excuse for a human being. Once again we had paused, this time to shoot a vine, I guess we hadn't learned our lesson. While minding our own business another group of men passed us. One of the men asked if we were American in a very sarcastic tone of voice and we simply replied that we were. To our surprise/shock he followed our response with a "go back to America" comment. We weren't expecting that kind of response since we had met so many nice people thus far. Thankfully he just kept on going down the walking path and left us alone. I think the best thing to do in regard to that a****** is chalk it up to ignorance. The rest of the evening went really well and we didn't let the two crazies get us down! We ended up at a local pub and relaxed with a couple of drinks.
Sunday is a much shorter story but a perfect example of going with the flow. We had plans to go to Dingle Sunday morning. We were going to catch the bus early and get to the bus station in time to catch the bus there and spend most of the day there. Well instead our morning went something like this: we got up and headed to the bus stop not realizing that on Sundays the bus doesn't run until after 9 and we needed the bus to pick us up around 8:30 to catch the bus to Dingle by 9:30. We decided to give it a shot and walk to the bus station that is in the city center. We were probably 10 minutes into our walk and realized there was no way we were going to make it to the bus station. Although we were disappointed we regrouped and decided to make this weekend's trip longer and do Killarny and Dingle all in one weekend. Sunday ended up be really great; we hung out in the city center in the morning and got some coffee from Costa, took a nap back at our dorm, and went to UCC's campus to explore and do some homework. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to play the cards you're given and have faith that it's all going to work out!
UCC campus! We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day!
Overall we had a very adventurous and fun weekend here in Cork!
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