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.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
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.
Monday, October 4, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
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).
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).
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