The Sun is Shining but the Rain is Pouring

It's officially Spring here in Ireland. February first, St. Brigid's Day, marked the first day of spring. Spring here is also marked by rain. However, not the way it has been raining the past month I've been here. Lately it's been raining while the sun is shining with blue skies. It's all very strange and Irish- like but it leads to rainbows so I'm fine with it.

First rainbow I've seen since I got here

Warning: This is going to be pretty much a blog dump because I'm going to Kerry for the weekend and then I'll have loads more to write about so I don't want everything to get backed up and it's been a pretty busy week!

First things first, API took us to a night tour of the Cork City Gaol last week (aka the old jail). The jail was massive and very elaborate. There was a main gate we had to knock on for someone to let us in. Once inside we walked through a court yard and up some steps to the main prison (we later found out that this yard was where the few hangings took place). The layout of the prison looked oddly familiar to Harris Millis... anyone else see that?

I anticipated the tour to be much spookier than it turned out to be. I figured that an old jail at night would be scary enough as it were, but a night tour... that must be full of ghost stories and the like. But NOPE.

I'm very happy it wasn't scary though, I probably would have left if it were. But the tour was interesting, apparently the city jail only dealt with petty crimes. Almost every crime that the tour guide talked about was drunkely disorderment or stealing for which a person would get 2-3 months of imprisonment. There were select few prisoners that the tour highlighted, one in particular was a boy of 9 years old. At that time in Ireland children were given the right to be arrested at the age of 9. This boy had been caught stealing 52 times and could not be punished because he was under aged, until his 9th birthday when they caught him stealing and finally arrested him. Once in prison, he was given the sentence of two months with a beating 2 times a week. They thought that if you beat children while they were in prison it would frighten them so much that they won't come back. And apparently it worked for him, because they said his name never appeared in their records again.

Enough about the prison though, Sunday was Erika's 21st birthday so we all decided to surprise her and go to the Fota Wildlife Park near Cobh because every one should go to a zoo for their birthday at least once. We successfully kept it a well guarded secret, she had no idea where we were going until she saw the fences at the train stop were painted in fun animal prints.

like this zebra printed gate

Once in the zoo we were greeted by a lovely peacock.... it must be mandatory for every zoo to have a peacock wandering the grounds because there is always at least one. We were a bit lost at first because we had no map, so we wandered around trying to figure out the layout of the place. We ended up wandering upon.... LEMURS! It was then that we realized why it was called a wildlife PARK. They were able to run around and leave their little habitat house and swing from trees and run around anywhere they liked. The gate surrounding their jungle-gym looking house was more so to keep the PEOPLE out rather than the lemurs IN. One lemur even scuttled across my feet! It was so tempting to reach out and pick one up and give him a little cuddle.

Make way for the Lemur!

It took a lot to tear myself away from the Lemurs but there were more animals to see... like Penguins!

They weren't photogenic

Then of course we had the mandatory group picture... and finally a roommate picture with Zebras in the background (exotic).

There are loads more pictures of animals I can upload but I figured I'd spare ye (sprinkle of Ireland language there hehe). The day was absolutely gorgeous, the sun finally came out and it was lovely to walk around the park looking at all the animals peacefully munching on grass. The surrounding landscape was quintessential Ireland, I couldn't have asked for a better day... And then we saw a cheetah run. Which is basically when they attach a dead chicken to a zipline and four cheetahs run after it and jump up to grab it. Brilliant entertainment... good thing I got a video of it. After the park, we came back and indulged in a delicious French dish of potatoes with cheese and ham and other yummy delicous things in it, birthday cake, and crepes.

Amanda and I went to Blarney for a céili on tuesday with her Irish Step Dance class. I tagged along because I missed dancing and because her step dance teacher is absolutely amazing. Her name is Maggie McCarthy and she literally left me and all of us speechless when we saw her dance the other week at a trad music session. She's such a genuinely sweet person, and so friendly I felt like she knew me for years even though I spoke to her for like two seconds. She even plays the fiddle while she dances! Anyway, the céili was grand, there were a few performances and some songs they made us get up and do a line dance to (it was more like a banquet than it was of the céili we have at school where we do the set dances, but either way it was fun). The group dances were hilarious, the first one was the hokey pokey... all us American girls were doing it just fine until the end of each verse when everyone started doing a sort of weird wave like move. They just put their hands up and bent into the circle saying (whooooo!) it was strange. There were a few other strange little line dances that I'll be sure to remember for next time so I look like I know what I'm doing. Also, hats off to the bar we were at (which I unfortunately don't know the name of) because we all got a complimentary drink for being 'friends with Maggie'... (yay for friend status... but really I'm not, I wish though haha). I  also tried my first Irish Coffee... It was delicious until the Bailey's went away then I was just left with strong coffee which I made Amanda finish. 

And that brings me to today which was the Feed 500 day for the Environmental Society. Basically, the society got free food that would have gone to waste from a place up in Dublin. They got a chef in to make up a vegetarian curry filled with squash, potatoes (surprise!), tomatoes, cabbage and loads of other veggies. The goal was to feed 500 people free food for lunch and raise awareness of the food waste. I helped out by dishing the curry out and generally have a great time getting know more Irish students. It was a typical Irish day though, raining with the sun shining. It eventually cleared up and some musicians came over to play some trad music which was such a nice addition to the event. Saddly I don't have any pictures of me in my red plastic apron and blue hair net, but I was in a picture that some guy from the Irish Examiner took so maybe I might be in the newspaper! (yay!! I'll keep my eye out for that unflattering picture). 

Tomorrow I leave for a weekend trip of the Ring of Kerry organized by UCC. A few friends and I are going so it should be great craic... (I'm hoping you're enjoying the nice scattering of Irish lingo in this post!) I'll be sure to update after I get home next week with loads of pictures because then I'm off to Edinburgh the following weekend. So much traveling, I can't wait!!



**Update: I was just online and I noticed an article shared by the UCC Envirosoc. Take a look at it if you're more interested in the Feed 500: Irish Examiner . Also you should be because I'm in the paper! woot! But for those of you who don't want to read about it... I suppose I can be nice and just post the picture too... but you really should read it.... it's really cool.