Anna in Ireland: Part 1!

This is a view of the Parnell Bridge spanning the River Lee. I cross this bridge every day to get to the center of the city and back again to my apartment.



It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been in Ireland for about two weeks and Cork city itself for just a week and a half. I’m trying to get my blog back up and running, so I’m going to give a fairly cursory description of the last couple of weeks, beginning with my program orientation in Limerick and moving to Cork…

My flights from the States were relatively uneventful (excepting, of course, the completely hammered New Jerseyans wedging me against the window on my trans-Atlantic journey) but long and sleepless. When I finally arrived in Shannon airport, I’d been awake for far too long and operating on far too little sleep. I’d met another year-long student from ASU at the airport in Newark and when we got through customs we had two other guys from the program waiting for us. The four of us rode in a cab/minivan into Limerick, chatting with the driver the whole way (if you ever find yourself in Shannon airport with lots of people and bags needing to find their way to Limerick, just ask for Tom Quinn from Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare. He’s fantastic.)

Having checked in at our orientation hotel (the Jury’s Inn, a UK-based chain a bit like Holiday Inn), the four of us decided to fight jet lag as best we could by exploring the city a bit. Our first stop was directly across from the hotel entrance: Spar. Spar is a small convenience store chain that has a deli/sandwich counter. Exhausted and hungry we approached the sandwich counter in our little herd and ordered some delicious-sounding lunch much to the bemusement of the staff. It wasn’t until we’d sat down outside and began eating our meals until we realized the cause of the strange looks the lot of us had been getting in the store…we were happily and obliviously eating our “lunch” at 8:45 in the morning.

One “Marco Pollo” chicken sandwich later, I was walking along the streets of Limerick with my fellow students. We followed the River Shannon for a while, heading towards the very visible King John’s Castle. After walking around the castle for a few minutes and then finding our way back to the hotel, we decided to take short naps until the first orientation meal that night at 6pm. Dinner was about what you’d expect from a budget hotel, but it was nice to meet the other 11 Early Start students going through IFSA-Butler and one of our coordinators (Fiona).

The next couple of days in Limerick were filled with basic orientation stuff. Luckily, our afternoons were free to recover from the information overload and I ended up visiting the City Gallery of Art (with a great video art installation from Glasgow) and the Hunt Museum (an eclectic collection of art and archaeological artifacts…if you ever find yourself at the Hunt Museum in need of a tour, ask for Arthur the docent. He’s fantastic, too.) On Monday and Tuesday night, we went to a pub called Dolan’s which is mostly known in town for having live music (mostly traditional sessions) every night. On Wednesday, our final night, we went to the glistening tourist-trap mecca of Bunratty Castle. While the castle is beautiful and significant, the “Medieval Banquet” complete with costumed wait-staff, “medieval” music, and a startling lack of utensils is most certainly not. That evening still exists in my memory like a vivid dream…Bunratty is a bit like Disneyland in that it’s hard to decide whether to cry or laugh at the utter absurdity of it all. Also, lots of bright colors. And crying old ladies from Jersey. Really, New Jersey is a small state so why are its inhabitants everywhere I go?

Thursday morning the twelve of us loaded onto a bus to head out to Cork. We arrived at our apartments around 10:30am and, after stopping only to drop our stuff off in our apartments, went out with a couple of the Butler coordinators in town for the day for a quick tour around our new homebase. We were shown the all-important “nearest grocery store” and headed across town up to the University College Cork campus. We ended our journey with lunch at a restaurant called Curran’s. Of all the free meals we had been fed up until this point, the Curran’s meal was possibly the best. I chose the “Supreme of Curran’s Chicken” (a chicken breast stuffed with a garlic cream cheese and wrapped in bacon with roasted potatoes and gravy) and, as my desert option, Banoffi pie (graham cracker-like crust, toffee sauce (sorta…it’s actually Eagle sweetened condensed milk that’s been heated slowly in its can so that it caramelizes a bit), bananas, and whipped cream all served with a scoop of the most amazing dark chocolate ice cream I’ve ever had). The restaurant itself is cozy and bustling. Much of the architecture and décor of the place is salvaged from other parts of Cork: the name of the restaurant and its sign come from a bakery that used to be in that same location, wrought-iron railings are from the original Cork General Post Office, there’s even a choir box serving as booth seats in the middle of the main dining room.

After lunch, our coordinators left to return home to Limerick and we were left to our own devices. That being said, the majority of us set out immediately to buy Ethernet cables so that we could connect to the internet back in our apartments. Other basic items, like towels, sheets, and shampoo were quickly purchased and most of us went back to the apartments planning to spend the afternoon and evening in, attempting to get settled.