The Flashing Green Men Mean Don't Start Crossing

Greetings all! I can't wait until I start taking my Gaelic class so that I can say hello to everyone in Irish! Speaking of classes, this last week has been my introduction to what life should be like for the next 3 months. We officially started classes on Tuesday. I'm also planning on taking this opportunity to tell you about some of the quirky aspects of life in Cork.

So Tuesday! I went to two classes: Aspects of Irish Folklore and European Art and Architecture. Both are great! I'm definitely not used to the larger class sizes. Aspects of Irish Folklore has about 130 students (mostly international), while my art class has somewhat less. In fact, only 7 visiting students are in my Art and Architecture class out of the 60 total people there. That class seemed a little intense at first (3 pages of notes on the first day!), but now that I've been to it a couple of times, I really think I will enjoy it. Wednesday, I went to Sociology of Gender and Celtic Religion and Mythology. The first was not so interesting, but the second I will definitely stay with. All of these classes have mainly been introductions, so I'm not really sure I can tell what the class will be like, but most have seemed pretty interesting so far! I had another three classes on Thursday, the three that I plan to stay with: Aspects of Irish Folklore, European Art and Architecture, and Celtic Religion and Mythology. The other two classes I plan to take this semester include Introduction to Gaelic, which starts in another week, and 17th Centure Literature: Poetry which is on Mondays and Tuesdays. Quite a different courseload than I'm used to, and definitely a different atmosphere!

I thought it might be fun to describe my typical class day since I've been here with a few little extra tidbits here and there. Anyone who knows my normal sleeping pattern might be surprised by the fact that I wake up way later here. I don't have any classes earlier than 10:00 here. I have two options for routes to take to get to the campus. One consists of a walkway along the River Lee. It's a beautiful path and I try and take it when I'm not in a hurry to get to campus. The one nice thing about this route is that you don't have to watch out for traffic. Watching out for traffic is a huge thing here. Most of the time I feel like the drivers take the stoplights and signs as guidelines. The other path to campus is walking the street route. There are a few campus buildings scattered along the way, as well as a few elementary schools, and the university hospital. This route might be a little quicker but you have to cross the street more times! Classes here are usually about an hour. Since the schedule is back to back (classes are from 12:00-1:00, 1:00-2:00, etc.), classes usually start 5 minutes late and end 5 minutes early. I've been lucky enough not to have scheduled any back to back classes for this semester. The professors of my classes with a lot of visiting students clearly have worked with Americans before--there are lots of pauses for the students to write down important information. All the seats are really close together. Usually after one or two morning classes, the next task on my agenda is coffee. There's a little grab and go place in the Student Centre that has coffee for a little over 1 euro. The coffee here is unbelievably strong, even for me! I must admit that the first time I had it, I was a little shaky afterwards! Since we have no coffee maker in our apartment, I have to get my coffee somehow. They have a Starbucks on campus as well, to my surprise. Homework here is very independent--even more so than I thought. I'm not required to purchase books for any of the classes that I'm taking so far, because they are all available for open reserve at the library. Since this was introductory week, I haven't really had any homework so far. That's given me plenty of time to read. I've gotten the first two Twilight books done (thanks Megan K.!) and a few others started. I definitely feel weird not doing anything for school. Food here is always an experience. I try to make things at home because it's a lot cheaper. My new favorite snack is nutella on bread. Megan and I have been rotating dinners, too.

So the social aspect of life...
Wednesday evening they had an International Student party at the Franciscan Well across the street from our apartments. Instead of walking all the way up to campus just to walk back to our apartments, a few of us just hung out here and went over to the Fran Well a little later. We all got coupons for free drinks. Only in Ireland. It was a great night, but since I had three classes the next day, I turned in early for the evening. Last night a bunch of us went over to another pub, Rob Roys, to watch the Munster-Osprey rugby match. (Is it called a match?) It was a great time! I've never seen one before and the atmosphere in the pub was great. Apparently rugby is pretty big here in Ireland. We explored a few of the other pubs in town, as well. Then today, four of us Bennies and Johnnies went on the heritage walk hosted by the Iona society. There was a big group of people and we didn't see that many Cork landmarks, but it was still fun. It was cold and windy here today so we made sure to stop by a restaurant for an Irish coffee this afternoon. Tonight's plans include a movie night in the Party Palace. I hope everything is going well for everyone, wherever you may be, and I'll update my blog again soon!