Gift of Eloquence

I've kissed a stone everyone!!

Yes that's right, I bent over backwards and kissed the Blarney Stone despite all the rumors of the locals pissing on it and the fact that thousands of people have set their lips against it's cold surface. I now behold the gift of eloquence, although to be honest I feel no different than before so maybe it wasn't worth it. But it was still fun none the less. 

We (API girls) walked around the town of Blarney and the Blarney Woolen Mills shop. Everything still looked the same since two summers before. It was nice to be back though, and see things I hadn't last time. We also journeyed down to Cobh, the port town also known as Queenstown. We went through the Irish Heritage museum and learned about the Irish famine, the sinking of the Titanic and Lusitania, and the immigration of Irish people to Australia and America. Walking around the town was nice, it's a quaint little Irish town with very colorful houses. It's the same place I had a picture of on my first blog post :) 

I've been quite busy the past few days. We had a UCC orientation all day on friday and then had a welcome 'party' down at one of the local pubs. It was a feat trying to fit 200 people into a small pub. We met some pretty cool people there though, two of which were Mikael from Estonia and Emma from NH. We grabbed a pint (I got the Cork local... Murphy's stout) and then left the crowded pub to venture on our own. We ended up on Barrak St. at some random pub called The Gateway. Drank another pint and enjoyed the warmth of a real fire, while we waited for the band to play... which was supposed to be at 10. We left close to 11 and they were just starting to get ready to play... I guess that's what Irish time is. It was fun to walk around by our selves in the city, it's not a very big city though so you can't really get lost.

Saturday, Amanda, Erika, Emily and I went into the City Centre to the Old English Market. It's an indoor flea market that sells lots of fresh food... namely fruits/ veggies, meat, and seafood. It was incredibly overwhelming and I noted things I wanted to come back for once I get myself settled. We even went back to the Cork famous hot chocolate shop, O'Conaill's. Best Hot Chocolate EVER. I wish I could bottle it up and bring it back home.

Anyway, I figured out the tentative classes I'll be taking: Intro to traditional music, Intro to Irish History, Intro to Gaelic, Environmental chemistry, Marine Environments. I'm hoping all these classes will work out, but we have a trial week starting tomorrow, so we can go to them and decide if we want to register for the class. The schedule is weird though, and we only meet each class about 2-3 hours a week, and only one day a week. It feels like I'm never going to be in class, ever. As of right now, none of my classes start until after 2pm. Which is good because waking up here is miserable. It's so cloudy out that it still feels like 6am when its almost 9.

Leaning over to kiss the stone

My little buddy Rebel. It was so lonely in my room

Our first pint in Ireland. Amanda, Emma, and me.