Weekend Trip to Cork: Laughter in the Dark

Last weekend I had the honor and privilege of making a pilgrimage to the beloved County Cork in south eastern Ireland. Looking back, I can say that this was the most fun I had without really doing much to anything. I went down with a great group of five people and we found everything hysterical, from the hostel to the dinners to (most importantly) the town of Cobh which I will get to further down this post.

The night before I left for Cork IES took us all to a rugby game, Leinster v. Treviso. Leinster crushed the Italian team and it was really cool to see a game. The Irish care a lot about their rugby. The best part of the game was in the beginning. The players on Leinster ran out to the Chicago Bull's theme song, Sirius. Then, whenever they scored a field goal Chelsea Dagger would play, the Blackhawks goal anthem. I was glad to see Chicago's widespread influence on the international stage. After the game I went with some people to the Porterhouse, where I ended up having a heated political conversation with an Irishman who knew way too much about American politics and who told me I was narrow minded for saying that Bill Clinton's affair with Monica hurt his presidency. Later, when he was too drunk and slurring his words, he apologized over and over again for annoying me. I told him it didn't matter, because it didn't. I left Porterhouse soon after because I had to catch the 8:00 am bus to Cork in a few hours. I had bought the bus ticket along with a friend of mine who only printed out one boarding pass that had both our names on it. When I asked him why he didn't print two, he said it was because we were taking the same bus. I didn't think it was beneficial to bring up the fact that one of us could potentially miss the bus, so I didn't.

I woke up the next morning with a start when my friend Eve called me at 7:45 asking where I was. I told her I wasn't going to make the bus and said I'd get on the 10:00. Before the bus I had to go find a printer to get the pass. I quickly packed up my backpacked, not so quickly took a shower, and stumbled out the door. I walked to the location of the Trinity technology service because I didn't have a printing account yet, and had a plan to bribe the tech guy a full euro to print out my pass if he was going to give me some excuse that they can't print things out for students or something like that. I got there at 9:20, having sweat through my shirt already, to find the tech place closed. My stress meter was beginning to build. I realized then and there that I had to become "that guy" if I wanted to get on the bus. I walked quickly to the library while texting Evan a very passive-aggressive text ("I hate that you didn't print out two passes"), sweating at full force, asking anybody at a computer if they'd be willing to print out my pass for me, offering a euro to the generous person that would. The first few people didn't have accounts, and I became increasingly desperate until a freshman girl said she'd help me. I sent my document to the print station, but then she realized that she couldn't print off from that printer, Provost knows why. I then ran over to the other building that had computers and printers, and asked the first person I saw if she could help me. She said of course and I had the document in hand two minutes later. At this point it was 9:35 am, and whereas three minutes before this I lost all hope of getting on that bus, I now saw the door open. This didn't mean I wasn't extremely pissed off and stressed, not to mention very sweaty.

I ran out the front gate of Trinity and hailed the first cab that passed me. Getting in, the cabby asked me how I was doing.

Me: Not so good.

Cabby: Oh Jaysus, and why the hell not?

Me: I'm stressed, man.

Cabby: Oh no, what happened to yeh?

Me: Woke up late, missed my bus to Cork--

Cabby: Oh God.

Me: Didn't have my boarding pass because my friend only printed out one for himself yesterday.

Cabby: Psht, beauuuutiful.

Me: Ran to Trinity to print but I didn't have a printing account and the tech service was closed.

Cabby: Jaysus...fucking Chroyst.

Me: Ran from person to person, being "that guy," asking everyone if they'd help me with the printing.

Cabby: Oh, fucking hell.

Me: Now I'm stressed and sweating and I hope I don't miss the bus, which I might after all that.

Cabby: Nah my man, you'll be fine. I'll have you there in 5 minutes.

The driver's name was Patrick, or maybe it was Steven, I don't remember now. He was in his mid-20s, and I'm fairly certain I was meant to get into his cab that morning.

Cabby: That kind of shait happens to me all the time. Nothing worse than starting your day off like that.

Me: Oh no, I also only have 50 euro bills, will you accept that?

Cabby: No worries man, we'll work it out. But anyway, sometimes I get so stressed I feel like Michael Douglas in that one movie where he can't order breakfast because he's two minutes late, so he pulls out an oozie and shuts down the place. God, what a brilliant performance.

Me: Haha....yeah.

Cabby: I think we've all been in those situations before.

We got to the bus station at 9:43 am after talking a little bit longer about Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen and how they were womanizers but that you can't blame them really because it's hard being rich and famous, so says Patrick-Steven. I pulled out my 50 euro bill and handed it to him.

Cabby: Oh no, lad, this one's on me.

Me: Wait, really? Are you sure?

Cabby: Yeah, hopefully this will brighten up your mornin' a little bit.

I was so happy I got minorly choked up. I shook his hand and he gave me a very sincere grin and wished me a good day. I walked out of the cab smiling, and all the stress brushed off like wood chips off a freshly carved statue. This experience reminded me of a passage from my favorite book, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America about when he blows a tire in Portland and the gas station owner goes out of his way to get him a replacement that same day and install it for him. Steinbeck remarks that he was so grateful he could have kissed him, and wishes that the man lives until he is 900 years old and "populates the world with his children." I felt the same way about Patrick-Steven. Never under appreciate the value of good people. I got on the bus 10 minutes later and went on to Cork.

Cork is a port city. Along its rivers are cargo ships, cruise ships, small tugboats (shout out Sammie), and the like. I got off the bus and tried to find my way to the hostel. I took a wrong turn and ended up walking up a major hill for ten minutes before I called Evan who told me I was going the wrong way. I got to the hostel finally and put my stuff down in the room we were sharing with six other American girls who were there from London. They were in Cork for two days, and only because someone told them to go to Cork instead of Dublin because they were the same thing except Cork was cheaper. How misled they were! Then we went across town to find the Bed and Breakfast of the other girls we came with. Their room was pure luxury, and after hanging out for a few hours we left and explored the University of Cork College campus, which was actually extremely nice.

After that the five of us went to a restaurant called Cafe Mexicana, and not only was this where the hilariousness of Cork emerged, but it was also the best dinner I've had so far in Ireland. Whenever we go anywhere we always get embarrased with how American we sound when asking waiters basic and obvious questions. But the group of six American girls sitting at the table next to us definitely won in that category. When we sat down we probably waited for about 20 minutes until someone asked us what we wanted to order, but right before this, as the waiter was walking to our table one of the girls at the table next to us says, "So um, yeah. We're ready to order whenever," in the most condescending way possible. At this, my table burst out laughing, clearly about that comment, and proceeded to laugh at everything this table said. Some of the other comments included, "I cannot believe I just touched the brown sugar with my finger," and, when they had substituted talking for texting other people on their phones, "Look at us, we're so 21st century." Again, everything from that point was funny. That night we bought wine and cider and looked up things to do.

In terms of attractions, Cork doesn't offer much. And by much I mean that tourist attraction #8 in the guidebook was the General Post Office, and viewers were encouraged to admire its neoclassical architecture. We decided that we'd go to Cobh the next day, and then went out to meet with Eve's friend who goes to UCC for the semester.

That night we went to a pub called The Brog, and while there I thought I'd try talking to the locals. I was standing at the bar when down at the end I made eye contact with a girl who mouthed the words, "F*** my life" to me, and I went to ask what was wrong. She was having trouble with her boyfriend who was there as well and acting douchey. I started talking to her friend, ordered some drinks, and 25 minutes later, when I asked where she went to school, she said that she was in high school, 17 years old. Red flag (shout out Sam Gordon). Her friend then came back and sat down with us, looking upset, then began to cry about her boyfriend. Needless to say this conversation had to end then and there, and I found my friends. Later that night as we left Eve asked me, "How were those girls?" To which I responded, "Seventeen." As we were leaving, Evan and I had to go to the bathroom, so we found an alley close by. When I got to my self-designated corner, it was clear that I wasn't the first one there that night. I looked down and saw that six inches from my foot was a real and full piece of human shait. Oh, Cork.

The next day we woke up and took the train to Cobh, pronounced like "Cove." Though there was barely anything to do there, we had the greatest time. Cobh's claim to fame is that it is the last place the Titanic stopped at before departing for Ellis Island. This year happens to be the 100th year anniversary of the Titanic, and there's a little museum. You'd think that they would play up this historical fact, but they don't. One of Cobh's tourist attractions is the "Titanic monument," which we passed on the corner, and is this:

A tad underwhelming, but that's their prerogative. We also saw a really beautiful cathedral, which we enjoyed and very much appreciated. On the way down from the cathedral we spotted another full piece of human feces on the ground, which we of course found hilarious and quite intriguing that we had seen two now in two days. This then led to a major theme of the Cobh day trip--inventing slogans for the place. Eve wisely wrote them down as they were created, and they are as follows:

Insert "Cobh" before all of these:

• Shitholes and biohazards
• Really?
• We don't give a f***
• You can't make us more depressed than we already are
• Detroit's sister city
• Don't ever stop drinking
• Was Dublin closed?

Anyway, we had a great time in a place where there was little to no fun to be had, and left happily. We didn't do that much that night because we were too tired. We went to dinner at a fast food place called Abrakebabra. It was actually delicious, and then went back to the hostel soon after. The six American girls were there when we got back and we talked to them for a while until they became viciously sarcastic about everything and I stopped caring.

The next day was the most notable because we finally got to kiss the Blarney stone. One of my friend's family members lives near Cork, so she drove us there (shout out Claire Hoodmaker, your first shout out!) so now I can cross that milestone off the bucket list:

After that short stop we caught the bus back to Dublin. Thus concludes the highlights of a rather memorable, funny weekend. Thanks for reading.

Civil Duties

Wednesday night I went with my new friend Beata to the Couch Surfing game night. What an interesting experience that was! More so than the actual surfing of different sketch couches throughout the globe, the couch surfing community is much more concerned with the local events occurring throughout cities all over the world. We went to a pub where about 50 people were all playing different games, mostly cards. The point is to meet people who are new to the city and don't know many people yet. Two of my other friends from IES met us there and we played cards with a table composed partly of Germans, South Americans, French and Mongolian people. We ended up having a great time, and found everything extremely funny, especially the card game we had to play because it was the only one left, Saboteur, which is about as fun as it sounds...

But here is where the night gets interesting. At 1:30 in the morning I was walking down Lower Rathmines back to my apartment, listening to my iPod, when I passed a courtyard in which two girls were crouched over a third girl who looked to be unconscious. I pulled out my earbuds and asked if they needed help. They told me they were just walking by and happened to see the girl laying there and that she was unresponsive. I moved closer to her and saw that she was completely unresponsive. We picked her up enough that she was sitting upright, and I looked to my right and noticed that a guy was sitting a little deeper into the courtyard on the ground with a goofy grin fixed to his face. "Who's that?" I asked them, and they looked over to where I was pointing and surprised said that they didn't realize he was there. "Hey man, what's your name?" He mumbled something we couldn't understand. "What happened to your friend?" He looked up at us and smiled and started to mutter something utterly incoherent until he gave up and looked down at the ground. I called the ambulance (in Ireland the emergency number is 999) and talked to a woman on the other end and reported the problem. She asked us to check if the girl was still breathing, which she was, and then told me to make sure that she was lying on her side. We moved her to that position and I gave her the address of the house connected to the courtyard. She said the ambulance would be there in 8-10 minutes. The two other girl were primarily concerned with the unconscious girl, and tried to get information from her. She was completely unresponsive. In front of the guy I saw a small ziplock bag lying on top of the grass and picked it up. Inside was the remains of some white powder. I showed it to the girls and we thought it was probably cocaine and now thought that she probably overdosed.

The ambulance finally arrived and slowly drove down the street, seemingly unable to find where we were. I had to run to flag them down, and when I did the attendant in the passenger seat jumped out and followed me. When he got to the courtyard he bent over the girl and shined a flashlight in her face. "I think it's pretty obvious what happened to her," he said, though I didn't really understand what he meant. He tried talking to the guy, who finally said that his name was Gav, but he was completely incoherent. The best he could do was smile and say "Hi," in the most charming way he could force. After a few minutes the attendant asked me to go find the ambulance driver. I ran down the street where the ambulance was parked and waved to the guy in the driver's seat. He looked pissed off and said, "Jesus Christ, I had no idea where any of you went," and followed me back to the courtyard. I was wondering why they didn't have walkie-talkies, or at least cell phones to stay in touch. It didn't seem to make any sense. They got the girl to sit up and flashed a light on her face. I now saw what the first attendant was talking about when he said that it was pretty obvious what happened to her. Under the girl's nose was a quite visible smearing of white powder. I felt really bad for her.

The Garda came as well and had to wait until the girl agreed to go in the ambulance. She kept calling out for Gav, but he was too messed up to answer. When the Garda asked him what they took, he mumbled the word ketamine. For those who don't know, ketamine is primarily used to put out horses, but people use it as an anti-depressant. Why anyone would snort a horse tranquilizer is a mystery, but I guess it happens. After the girl was finally put in the ambulance one of the garda took down mine and the two girl's information and we all went our separate ways. I hope those two people are okay.

On Friday we went to Cork, which was probably the most fun we had without actually doing much. But that is the subject of my next post. Stay tuned!

Edinburgh, Scotland: Take 2

In the words of my friend Andrew Clayburn: "You slackin dawg, when you gonna post again? Get yo shit together son". Many apologies for exercising dereliction. I worked on my Edinburgh post last week for more than 3 hours, and when it was posting time the format was so messed up that I couldn't keep it up. So I'm rewriting my Edinburgh post below without as many pictures in hope that the formatting doesn't get poor again:

Last week I walked into my professor's office. Without exaggeration, it literally looks like this. When we walked in he turned to me and chuckled in apology, saying that he's been meaning to organize his office but hasn't gotten around to it yet. I'm fairly certain he's been saying that for 20 years. And writing this now I see how when you don't write down your thoughts for a while, your mind begins to feel like a professor's cluttered office. What do you toss out, and what do you save? A lot occurred this week and I'll do my best to organize it below.

Getting to Edinburgh (pronounced like Edin-brah, or like Edin-burrow among Americans) was quite a feat, and I don't really know how I was really able to get there. I've been telling people that I "wandered" from Dublin to Edinburgh rather than traveled, using whatever street smarts I have, trusting random Good Samaritans with their directions. The journey began in my friend's Dublin apartment Wednesday night when we had a little too much cider. After that we went out and after purging once realized it was time to go home. After getting home, it happened a second time on the front of our apartment and I ended up falling asleep at my kitchen table. I woke up two hours later with Brad's help and with a sizable red mark on my forehead. Still feeling awful, I eventually got on the Ryanair jet. Because the tickets don't cost much, they try to charge you for whatever they can, whether by convincing you to purchase their brand name luggage, scratch lotto cards, cigarettes, or a 6 euro cup of coffee that you assume is free but isn't from the drink cart moving down the aisle. I fell asleep on the plane and before I knew it I was in Scotland and with a massive headache.

I was a little nervous about the prospect of having to answer the custom agent's questions, and was delighted when I found out you don't need to pass through customs when traveling from one EU country to the next. I then left the airport and bought a cheap ticket to the city center. I sat on the second level of the bus at the front window and got a look at this city for the first time. It's really marvelous and now that I have a camera I was even able to take pictures!

At this point it was 8 in the morning and I got off the bus at the city center and somehow, without a phone or directions, was able to find my friend Jenny's flat. Though we thought we'd try to get more sleep, after 10 minutes of talking she decided we weren't going to fall asleep so we left her place and got breakfast. After breakfast I got an immediate tour of some of the city. We went back to the city center, walked around the National Gallery art museum, and explored a church. After a while it was getting too difficult for me to walk straight, so we went back and took a 2 hour, much needed nap.

She had class that afternoon so I decided to go on one of my random, directionless adventures around the city. I walked around for about three hours and got as far as the opposite side of Edinburgh before I decided to find my way back. This is a really beautiful city with many old and narrow buildings peopling the inclining cobblestone streets. It was a workout getting around all the hills and well worth it. That night I met some of Jenny's friends and we went pub crawling.

The next day three more people traveling from Paris came to Edinburgh and stayed in the same flat. Two of them were from WashU who I hadn't met before. We ended up hanging out as one big group the entire weekend and it was a lot of fun. We started off that night by taking a ghost tour of old Edinburgh. This was meant to be scary, but wasn't really. What was actually frightening though were the descriptions of how they used to torture people back a few hundred years ago. The tour guide was very good in describing what they used to do, and had no problem painting extremely graphic pictures in our heads. I don't understand how people were able to come up with the ritualistic ways in which they tortured people, but humankind surely has quite a lot of evil blood on its hands. It's shameful how societies would murder and torture people without a trial or proper evidence. To get executed by the government someone simply had to be accused of witchcraft, and what would follow for them would be the most brutal, humiliating forms of torture up until the final point of execution. I was considering writing down some of the anecdotes the tour guide told us regarding what they would do to people, but I don't want it on this blog.

Heaviness aside, we had a great night after that. One of the WashU students from Paris is training for the Olympic ski team and has connections through his sponsors, so we got into a club called Bongo that night without having to pay the 8 pound cover since one of his sponsors was also sponsoring the club. One of the best DJ's in Europe supposedly was there that night, and the place became a mini-rave. The beer, vomit, sweat, and whatever other questionable substances on the floor of the place are still crusted to my brown shoes.

We slept late the next day, and I went off and explored Edinburgh a little more. For those Harry Potter fans out there, you'll appreciate this. We went to a cool cafe called Elephant House where J.K. Rowling was discovered. This place is a pilgrimage spot for Harry Potter fans everywhere, and tells a story all by itself. J.K. Rowling is now one of the richest women in the U.K. (supposedly richer than the Queen, though if you take a walk through Buckingham Palace that place is so loaded with so many priceless gems that it's hard to say what the monetary values are based on) and has written the most widely sold series in history, and she started out on welfare checks, writing away in a cafe.

Saturday was definitely the most memorable (and entertaining) night. There was a long pre-game that turned into a party with abroad students and some Scotsmen. We went out after that, but by the end of the night, multiple people had gotten sick and someone had even gone to the bathroom on one of the girl's bedroom floor in the middle of the night, sleepwalk style.

My favorite experience in Edinburgh was definitely climbing Arthur's Seat. This may have been the most beautiful place I've ever climbed. The mountain itself is covered with grass, boulders and cliffs. It formed about 250 million years ago as an active volcano, but has been dormant for epochs, and as it sits in its current location, Edinburgh expands around it. It's a good thing I've been running three times a week, because the mountain trek upwards is mostly on a 50 degree incline. But people are like dangling puppets on the fringes. Like me, many people walked up this mountain holding onto their coats, sweating through there shirts (maybe that's just me), stopping at different points for a rest or to take pictures, but then ultimately keep climbing. At the top, for those like me who looked like this was their first time at the top, there was silence. When I reached the top I couldn't help but laugh a little. It was so brilliant I'd never seen anything like it before. I think I was up there for an hour, and was sad when the sun was settling and I had to go back down. But like Connemara near Galway, this is the kind of place that can't be described in words or pictures. It reminded me of a painting in a Contemporary Art gallery I wandered into two days before the climb. There was a big canvas on the wall painted with thick oils in three or four basic colors that constructed a landscape. I've had a lot of conversations with people about what makes contemporary art so respectable (shout out Joe Winograd) and I am starting to understand it. Looking at the painting in that gallery, I had to imagine what the artist was looking at when he was painting, and what he left out: birds, small towns, clouds, bland colors. By doing this I start to imagine my own landscape based on the painter's. When I was in Connemara, at the Ross Errilly Friary (see "Weekend Trip to Galway"), the guide said that the building's strength is in the fact that it's in ruins, which allows the viewer to reconstruct a more powerful picture than what the preservation team can reconstruct for you. No one would be able to adequately paint what they see at the top of Arthur's Seat, though there are many wonderful attempts, and in that regard I think the simple, minimalist techniques of modern art are more appropriate for this. This is where I stop trying to sound like I know anything about art criticism.

I left the next day from Edinburgh on an 8 am flight back to Dublin. I then went to three classes throughout the day, and called it a night at 8:30 by watching Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and then going to sleep. I got a much needed 10 hours in bed and feel much better today with the memories of Edinburgh still on my mind.