Halloween...More Irish Than You Would Expect

Before coming to Ireland, I thought Ireland's only contribution to the holiday schedule was St. Patrick's Day. Last week however I learned that the Halloween is actually Irish.

What?

Yup. It is thought that Halloween derived from the Celtic Festival Samhain.

According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), Samhain means roughly "summer's end." This festival celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year, and the beginning of the "darker half." From what I can understand, it involved lots of bonfires.

So where did all the creepy scary stuff come in? The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld was thin on this day, allowing spirits to come through. Since one obviously needed to ward off evil spirits, they would wear costumes and masks and basically disguise themselves as evil spirits.

The pumpkin carving even has an origin in Samhain. In order to commemorate souls in purgatory, you would have candle lanterns curved from turnips. This evolved over the years into jack o'lanterns. (Emphasis on the O'lantern - I should have known it was Irish).

Trick or treating is thought to have Irish (and Scottish) origins. A practice called "guising" was popular in the 19th century where children went door to door in masks, offering entertainment (usually a ghost story or song) in return for food or coins.

In conclusion, be Irish - celebrate Halloween

Low Key Weekend

So this weekend has been kind of a chill weekend. November is going to be really busy month with schoolwork and traveling, so this has been a weekend to just relax.

Friday I went with some of my roommates to see RED. It was pretty good. I figure any movie featuring Helen Mirren with automatic weapons will be entertaining, and I was right.



Saturday I went back to Cobh with my roommate. She hadn't been yet. There's not much to do in Cobh but it was nice just walking around. And walk we did. We found what is alleged to be the steepest hill in Ireland...and then climbed up it. It's called the "Deck of Cards" and they aren't kidding. Needless to say, by the top we were feeling some pain. We took the train back and kind of collapsed on the couch. I think we meant to get up and go out at some point but it just didn't happen.

So now it's Sunday and homework day, but happy halloween any one who is reading this. Hope you have a spooktacular day!

Fun Times Buying Fruit

I never know when I'm going to have a fun interaction with an Irish person. Generally it is in the places I least suspect it.

Today it was buying fruit.

The day started off productive. Went to class. Went to the gym where I learned that biking without headphones gets old real quick. Got supplies for the Halloween costume. So on the way home, feeling good about my productive healthy day I decided to stop and buy fruit.

I go in, pick out five oranges and bring them to the counter where the cashier is talking to another man in Gaelic. This is pretty much the interaction that follows.

Cashier to me: "Can you speak any Gaelic?"
Me: "Beyond Caed Mile Failte, not really."
Other Man: "Where are you from?"
Me: "Philadelphia"
Other Man: "As in Philadelphia, United States."
Me: "Yup"

(Other man and cashier at this point break into a rendition of "Streets of Philadelphia.")

Other Man: "Is that where the Liberty Bell is?"
Me: "Yup."
Other Man: "I've never been. Too long of plane ride. Like six or seven hours, right?"
Cashier: "Did you fly into Shannon or Dublin?"
Me: "Ah I went London-Heathrow to Cork"
Both of them: "Oh stay away from the English"
Other Man: "You guys managed to get rid of them. We still have six counties to go and then we will get our own Liberty Bell."

In conclusion, I had an amusing time buying fruit.

Singin In The Rain

Every year I deceive myself into thinking 55 degrees is warm weather. Coming out of winter, I get excited for weather where I am not shivering all the time that I inevitably bring out the flipflops way too soon.

Similar to my being deceived every year about the warmness of weather, I was deceived again today about the likelihood of precipitation in Ireland. I thought "oh It's nice and sunny today, I don't need an umbrella." Famous. Last. Words.

So I went into the city today in the great hunt for a Halloween costume, and was on the way back to class when the first downpour occurred. It was one of those things that there was nothing I could do but put the hood up and just continue walking for fifteen minutes. It was that angular rain as well that manages to hit the entire body. Soo class was spent slightly soaked. On the way home from class, the heavens opened again. I tried to pretend like "oh it's just a little bit of Irish sunshine, won't hurt anything" and then it started to rain harder. I ended up running back to the apartment, and my roommates just started laughing when they saw me. It was not my most attractive moment.

Regardless it's been a good day for the sheer fact alone that I got one of the Cadbury Creme Eggs that they are advertising for Halloween that has green goo inside. And Glee is on tonight. And I got my paper turned in.
And because all the rain has reminded me of one my all time favorite movie clips.

Halloween Dalai Lama

So Halloween is fast approaching and the big debate in Casa Study Abroad has been what to wear for this momentous occasion. Now I hear in the UK and Spain, Halloween isn't a big event. I'm told in Spain the big night is Carnival. However in Ireland, we are celebrating it.

Currently in Casa Study Abroad, we are half and half with having costumes planned. Because I like to figure out things with plenty of time, I still have no idea. Generally in the past minus some creative gradeschool years and one year in college where a few friends of mine all went as Julia Roberts characters, I have alternated between a witch or hippie. Not real original ideas. Now normally I wouldn't care about figuring out a costume until about Saturday but they feel the need here to have multiple Halloween events before Halloween which requires me to get on my game regarding a costume.

So this is the conversation I had with one of my roommates earlier who had just finished carving a pumpkin and baking the seeds. (I had never had baked pumpkin seeds before, they were pretty good.)

Her: Do you know yet what you are going to be?
Me: Nope. Any suggestions?
Her: You could dress in brown and find antlers and go as a moose.
Me: What?
Her: BULLWINKLE. Find a red scarf and brown clothes and an antler.
Me: Sounds more like Rudolph.
Her: Scrap the scarf.
Me: I could just wear a mask.
Her: This is true. That is easy.
Me: Ah but then I was Phantom one year, and the mask kept irritating me.
Her: You could be suicidal. They look just like everybody else. I swear I didn't make it up, it came from the Addams Family.
Me: .... I'm speechless. Was not expecting that.

Needless to say, just like how every year Linus is in search of the Great Pumpkin, I'm still in search of the great costume. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Castle Day Trip

On Sunday, one of my roommates asked me if I wanted to go to Blackrock Castle and Observatory. Never one to turn down a castle, I agreed to go and went with her and some of her friends. The castle is in city limits which still throws me off that there are castles this close by to where I live.  Like I was walking along the parking lot and all of a sudden I look up and there's a castle.  The castle was used as a fortress to protect against raiders and after being burned down a few times, was restored by the city in 2000 and is open to touring. It's other main attraction is the observatory. While we couldn't actually use the observatory, we could walk up to it (still hate those narrow castle steps) and there was a lot of science oriented fun in the lobby like learning about the planets and interactive games where you could write a message to aliens and try to guess which animals are found on Earth and which ones aren't.  In case you were wondering, giant mushroom fungi do exist whereas griffins do not. We also got to color in a spaceship or an alien depending on which page of the coloring book you managed to get a hold of. We had a picnic and after a few tries, managed to find the appropriate bus back to our apartment.

Here are some photos of the weekend.

                                                               The Swinging Blue Cats!

                                                                   Blackrock Castle!

 

And a little clip of the weekend courtesy of El Hombre Blokes

By Jazz, You Mean Swing...And By Swing, You Mean Queen

This weekend has been jazz festival weekend in Cork. My roommate and I went into the city yesterday and it was a lot of fun. First, we saw a blonde middle aged female rapper. Naturally. At the Jazz Festival. We listened to her for a few minutes. We were so taken aback when she rhymed circadian rhythmn that we forgot to actually listened to what she rhymed it with.

We then moved onto guys drumming and playing on a guitar and they were really good.

And then we passed the pub we always go to and I saw a sign for the Swinging Blue Cats. There was no way that I was going to pass that up. So we went in and listened for a while and had a lot of fun. They played Glenn Miller, Louis Jourdan, Cab Calloway, Brian Setzer, Cherry Poppin Daddies and then naturally Queen "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."

We left there and found this cute hot chocolate shop where I got milk/white/dark chocolate and my roommate got cinnamon and nutmeg hot chocolate (it tastes like fall, so I'm told) and with our hot chocolates came little mixed chocolate drops. Like tiny Hershey kisses. We drank our hot chocolates while watching the marching band that was coming down the street. After the day, as my roommate put it, she would like music to accompany her whenever she goes shopping.

Later that day, because you can't have too much jazz festival, we bundled up and went back up. What the intended plan was to find a bar and chill and listen to jazz music. What actually happened was approximately four hours of straight dancing. We found a bar with live music and although it was packed, we danced for a while. Then we went to this bar which was the same bar which had traditional music playing in the first week we were in Cork. Tonight though it was a DJ. And you know it's going to be a good time when "Doncha" is the first song you here when you come in. We had a good time dancing although we managed to bring the age down by like forty years.

Overall it's just a fun weekend. People jamming in the street and the entire city comes out. Ironically I've heard no traditional jazz music yet. There's still time though, the festival ends tomorrow. 

Working For The Weekend

Bank Holidays = Awesome.

So the Irish (and the British I believe) feel that every so often they should just give a day off for no reason whereas us Americans qualify it like "oh it's Memorial Day, that's why we don't work today." Regardless of if a reason or no reason is used, I'm a fan of days off. And this weekend we have one. Bank Holiday Monday. Which means no classes on Monday. While I only had one class anyway, I am still not complaining.

AND this weekend is the Cork Jazz Festival (sponsored by Guinness). While I don't know what it quite entails, I will be down in the city finding out. I hear it's the best festival of the year. As someone who went to the Lithuanian, Italian, Chinese, Indian and Book Festivals in Baltimore, I'm a fan of festivals. You learn so much random stuff about different cultures like the word smitana is sour cream in Lithuanian. Now I haven't figured out how this knowledge will help me in the future but I figured it's best to be prepared.

So to recap: a festival and a day off on Monday, two things I'm a fan of converging on the same weekend, I'm excited.

In addition, this past week was the Languages Party in a bar entitled Sober Lane. Everyone wore name tags with what languages they could speak. This would be more effective if people didn't switch languages such as my Dutch friend who all of a sudden could speak French. I ended up with a sticker that said I speak Gaelic. At least that is what I think it said, but since I don't actually speak Gaelic, I'm not quite sure. A lot of events draw students in by promise of free food. This one promised free jelly shots and free pizza. While I didn't actually get any of either, I appreciate the effort that was made to draw students in like that.

Anyway time to get back to work so I can enjoy all the fun that is festival weekend.

Stavros Flatley

So things are a bit busy here in the Emerald Isle, but I wanted to share this clip.

Stavros Flatley

This makes me laugh every time I see it.

Gymming It Up

I'm not a huge fan of exercise. As a concept, sure, I think it's great. I understand the health benefits and as Elle Woods phrased it in Legally Blonde, "exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy and happy people just don't kill their husbands."

I'm just lazy. Sure, I was a runner for many years but it was predominantly for the social aspects. Without someone to push me, I'm just not a huge fan of exercise. I'm more of the "let's justify the hour of walking around town today" or "I climbed four steps of stairs to class, that has to be healthy" mentality.

So as can be surmised, I generally need someone to push me in order for actual exercise to happen. And that person yesterday was my roommate. She had heard about an aerobics class happening at the school gym and basically informed me that I was going. No option. So I go to sign up at the gym and learn that I have to give my fingerprint. WHAT? I don't know if biometric readings are common at gyms but generally the only times my fingerprint has been taken was for security clearance purposes for going into prison. Prison - Gym, interesting correlation.

So after I give my fingerprint, I enter into THE GYM. This gym is like no other school gym I've ever seen. It has a pool (which was featuring water aerobics), there was a separate gym for girls and boys, squash courts, basketball courts, volleyball courts, a track outside, a weight room and the natural feature of all gym...a rock climbing wall.

So by the time, my biometric registration is over, class is at least 1/4 of the way through. We decided to bike instead. I have to say I found it a little deceiving that if you sign up for 30 minutes bike time, they don't warn you about the five minute cool down at the end. We did some of the "core strengthening" machines. Slightly more difficult when the weights are in kilograms but we managed. And then it was rock climbing time. I started on the easy wall which you don't need people to belay you. There was an interesting moment when I got to the top and realized that I had no clue how I was going to get down but I figured it out and it was a lot of fun.

So there you have it. First gym experience in Ireland.

Family Part 2

So after spending a great week with family (and family to be) I am now back to the grind in Cork.

The family did touring for most of the week and I joined up with them when I didn't have that silly little thing called class. One particular highlight included a driving tour of West Cork (although Dad wasn't too keen on like driving 60 MPH on the little Irish back roads.) We went to Baltimore which is a small cute fishing town.

Over the weekend, we went to London to visit old friends. It's interesting to be back in the village where I spent my early childhood. It's like everything in my head was frozen in time to 17 years ago when I left and I forget that the teacher I had in Kindergarten would probably not be still teaching today. It was good to be back though.

We also went into London and saw Legally Blonde which was fantastic. LOVED it.



We went to Windsor on Sunday where we learned Royal Family fun facts like how one of the kings had two seperate beds, one specifically for getting up and meeting people in the morning and the other one I guess for sleeping? That night we went to a bar that had been around for 900 years...cause you know they have those everywhere in the US. It was pretty cool.

Anyway now time to get back to work but it was a fun week and a half.

The Eagle Has Landed ... And So Have We

And those were the first words said to me by my parents as they got off the plane in Dublin. That's right, it is family week in Ireland. The sibling and fiancee came the next day and we all met up in Cork in Sunday.

It's been a lot of fun to hang out with all of them and go touring.
We did the Blarney Stone on Monday which was neat because last time I went I was 3 and don't remember it. I learned one crucial fact about myself. I don't mind heights... however climbing up to them in dark enclosed stairs that get progressively narrow the higher you go does kinda freak me out a little bit. Fun castle fact: they design the stairs so if you are right handed with a sword charging up the stairs you would keep banging it against the wall, and the right handed person coming down would have the advantage. This mind you is after you make it into the castle where they would have random holes where they would pour boiling water on unwelcome visitors. Brings a whole new meaning to the term warm welcome...

Anyway we reached the top where we had a good time quoting Monty Python Holy Grail lines back and forth to each other. See the below scene. The brother and I can recite word for word. Only me and the brother kissed the stone. It's actually a little nervewracking how far back you have to lean. Blarney is also interesting for it's Poison Garden. Someone decided to make a garden full of poisonous points as a method of education. So it has Wormwood, and Cannabis and Belladonna and other such fun plants which will wreak all kinds of havoc if ingested.



After Blarney, we went to Jameson. So now I am a certified whiskey taster X 2. I wish I could somehow put that on my resume but somehow I feel like that is not what my future employer will be looking for. Call it a hunch. The next day we went to St. Finbarre's Cathedral, and the Butter Museum. Everyone may not have been enthralled with the Butter Museum as I was but all were glad that they went. However we did discover the song featured below and it's a gem. Who knew that was the secret to a faithful husband?



We also checked out St. Anne's Cathedral because St. Finbarre's is actually not Catholic. Yesterday we met up after class and went to a bar called An Spailpin Fananc. I have no idea how to pronounce it but it played Irish music and I even recognized some of the songs like "Whiskey In the Jar" and "Wild Rover." It was a lot of fun. Anyway it's been kind of a whirlwind week and still continuing...

The Wide World of Cadbury

Some people need their coffee every morning. Others like tea. I've always been the "need a little bit of chocolate" person.

My enjoyment of chocolate has been going on my entire life. For example, in fifth grade, I got stock and I could pick any company to invest in. I chose Hersheys.

I don't even care about what kind of chocolate it is. Dark, Milk, White, I'm an equal opportunity chocolate enthusiast. I also don't adhere to the "oh just a little bit of chocolate" camp. I'm the chocolate cake with chocolate frosting kind of person.

So now that I'm in Ireland I am thoroughly enjoying the easy accessibility to Cadbury chocolate. You know the scene in Willy Wonka (the original) when the kids walk into the main part of the factory and they can eat everything and there is a chocolate river? And everyone is so excited to be there and in awe of the place. That scaled down to what is socially appropriate is what I'm like in every convenience store in Ireland. There are at least five different brands of Cadbury original bars. There are Cadbury flakes. There are Galaxy bars. There are Smarties, and milk chocolate buttons (probably how my love affair with chocolate started) and candy I've never heard of. Since it's getting close to Halloween, they even have Cadbury creme eggs with neon green goo inside of them. (I don't understand how they can advertise no artificial colors for it but that's a different point.) Oh and Aero bars. Mint and chocolate goodness with little air bubbles. It's a sweet time to be in Ireland, I must say.

Why Miss Baseball When You Could Be Road Bowling??

I have a friend back home who loves the Phillies. Like many Philadelphia sports fans, she's a little superstitious. She texted me yesterday and informed me that if the Phillies won the World Series, I was not allowed to leave this country. Ever. After seeing the recap last night, I'm a little worried she is going to keep her word.

But while Ireland does not have baseball (that I know of) there are plenty of fun unique sports to learn about since I can't watch the Phightin Phils.

There's rugby, gaelic football, regular football (I will learn all the names of the English Premier League over the next couple of months) camogie, but there is one sport that I am trying to find it being played and have been unsuccessful so far. And that sport is road bowling.



Cork is supposedly one of the hotbeds for it. And how you can not love a sport that involves hurling a cannonball down a public street?

And just for it's sheer dramatic value, there is this video as well.

Conan Goes To Ireland

Devon sent this to me. It's pretty funny.

Water and Electricity

I recently received the alumni magazine from my undergrad college and it mentioned that a certain dorm had installed particular shower heads that would go off after a set amount of time and you would have to pull a string to get more water and this would in theory remind people to conserve water.

Interesting concept and it probably helps. Over here, the Irish are all about conserving hot water. There is a central water heater in each apartment and every night the hot water refills and then you get as much water as is in there the next day until it runs out. Which generally happens in the early noon hours. There is a boost button which hypothetically will give you a boost of hot water for like fifteen minutes but I'm not sure it actually works.

When we first moved in we didn't have hot water and I learned the lengths we would go to have a hot shower. My time in the shower dropped to under five minutes. I tried fooling myself that it was really warm but in reality it got significantly colder by the minute. I once tried washing my hair in the sink to minimize exposure to the artic water. As could be imagined this was pretty much ineffective since my hair gets exponentially thicker by the day. One of my roommates heated up water on the stove. Another one would shower at her friend's apartment. Basically we all made do and then after three tries, the hot water heater was fixed. I still get excited to have a hot shower every morning after those long couple of weeks.

The Irish also have a switch for everything. So if you use an outlet, you have to make sure the switch is turned on. This was more of a trial by error discovery for some appliances such as the stove. Now when I came to Ireland, I knew to bring adapters for any electronic appliance I would be bringing over. I had heard horror stories of people's hairdryers literally melting and as fun as that sounded, I figured I could live without having that particular experience. So far I have had no problem with exploding/melting appliances, but as I learned from the internet guy who came to help us out that if I didn't have the adapter, I would be shot across the room by the amount of voltage. Shockingly (pun slightly intended) I was okay with no electrocution during my time here as well so I have not tried to test this out.

Jacob's Fig Rolls

This commercial is shown during pretty much EVERY show on the television. Thought it should be shared outside the Emerald Isle.

Gift of Gab

The Irish are known for their gift of gab and have famous Gaelic expressions like Slainte (cheers) or Caed Mile Failte (hundred thousand welcomes) but another thing I am enjoying is their use of the English vocabulary.

Trash is rubbish. Lines are queue points. To rent a house is to let.

However one of my favorite thing about the Irish people's usage of English are their responses to situations.

Things are not just great, they are "grand." Or "brilliant."

You don't just say thanks, you say "cheers" or "thanks a million." (I'm wondering if someone tried out "thanks a thousand" at one point and no one responded to them.)

These words are not said just in response to situations like "oh you saved my baby's life, thanks a million." I got a "thanks a million" because I held the door open last week.

And I gotta say, I enjoy it. I think it's great. Or brilliant.

If You're Dancing, You'll Get Less Wet

The rain was originally pouring but it was the perfect day for a céilí at the Cork Folk Festival.

A céilí is according to Wikipedia a "traditional Gaelic social gathering which usually involves Gaelic folk music and dancing." When you think of people Irish dancing, this is generally what comes to mind. Everyone gets out there and they know all these different dances which involve switching partners and swinging their partner around and skipping backwards, forwards and every other which way.

Today's event featured a band and a bunch of people of different ages dancing. My roommate and I went to the Folk Festival which has been going on in the city this past weekend. We didn't dance but had a great time just watching the people out there. The rain finally let up although somehow people were able to dance together holding an umbrella at the same time which is kind of impressive. There was also a bunch of stands selling food. I had chicken skewers, my roommate had Irish Four Cheese Pizza which somehow included like a cream cheese. Then we both had crepes because what is more quintessential Irish folk than crepes?

This is from Riverdance but it's the closest thing I could find to what it was like today. Particularly around from minute 2:03 onward.

Shopping in Ireland

The roommates and I looked in our fridge yesterday and we saw...like five slices of cheese and a various bag of veggies. Needless to say, we needed to go food shopping.

We trucked off to the city with our backpacks and associated bags because unlike many places in the U.S. they don't give bags when you go food shopping unless you specifically buy them. There's a huge department store called Dunnes (whose slogan is "we're different because we are Irish.") Dunnes has a good size food department, but then so does Target. What Target does not have is like a downward and upward sloping conveyer belt. Think like in the airport but just going up and down. It's actually kinda disconcerting...but fun.

The city center has pretty much any type of store you could want. It has such American classics as Penneys, H + M, Claires and T.K. Maxx. Somehow the J got replaced with K when you cross the Atlantic. There are a bunch of Irish stores and because it is Ireland, a bunch of pubs. The interesting thing about the city center is the street names don't remain the same from block to block. You can be on Tunkey Street and when you cross over a street, it becomes Oliver Plunkett....whom I researched and learned that he was a martyr, drawn and quartered but from what I can understand had no connection to Cork.

Anyway it's kind of interesting to go food shopping with a backpack because the city center is at the bottom of a hill and it goes up north and south in both directions from it. So trying to get back to anywhere requires a steep hike up a hill. You remember the Grinch at the end of the movie when he is trying to get up Mt. Crumpett with the toys and the dog is struggling? That's kind of what it is like. But we eventually made it back and food was cooked (and/or microwaved).

Multicultural Night

So last night my roommate threw a birthday dinner for her Spanish friend. It was a lot of fun. We had sangria and Spanish Tortilla? I think that is what it was but it was essentially a layer of egg, with a layer of potato and then another layer of egg on top. Really good. There was several nationalities represented. American, Canadian, Dutch, German, Spanish and Irish. So we had a nice dinner and then one of the Irish guys knew about an Oktoberfest happening at a pub across town.

I've never celebrated Oktoberfest so I had no idea what it entails. What it means in Ireland is a large pub filled with what looks like long picnic tables and HUGE beer steins and glasses. There was a band playing German songs and marches and leading us on bar hall dances. "Left Und Right." (I had to get it clarified because I was hearing Left OR Right and I thought that could lead to utter chaos.) And then every once in a while there would be a cheer where people would stand on the benches. It was a lot of fun.

Every once in a while though you would hear a song and be like "That's not German." For instance I hear this song and I'm like "No it can't be." But oh it was. It was "Tequila" by the Champs. And I learned that you haven't heard "Tequila" until you have heard it played by trombones.