Cody here:
Well, I guess I'll start with an excuse: in the words of Robert Burns (who, despite a fairly common misconception among my fellow Americans, is NOT Irish) "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley[.]"
This is my way of apologizing for not adding a new post for so long. I had ambitions, but this will have to do.
That stated, I do have a pretty exciting spread of news to relay. First, and most important to me despite its mundane nature, WE HAVE A REAL ROOF! Our patio now looks like a truck bed complete with a Rhino liner seal and there is no water making its way down to our kitchen. The kitchen roof is still in need of a little love in the way of a new coat of paint, but that aside, we are good to go.
The real news of the week, however, is we spent this Friday and Saturday in Dublin so that we could attend the Irish Fulbright Alumni Association's welcome party Friday night.
As we were staying the night, we also took our first ever swing at staying in an Airbnb. We stayed with Fernando in the Temple Bar district of Dublin. Temple Bar is one of the trendier areas of the city and the convenience of the location was hard to beat. I'll say that if anyone reading this is on the fence about trying out Airbnb, it is well worth a trip. We paid half of what we would have for a hotel and had a much better location. For that matter, I never really felt like I wasn't staying at a hotel.
Anyway, to return to telling this story in chronological order, we got into Dublin at about lunch time, checked into our Airbnb, and hit the streets to party hard in Dublin.
I mean we went to the nearest museum.
Well, I guess I'll start with an excuse: in the words of Robert Burns (who, despite a fairly common misconception among my fellow Americans, is NOT Irish) "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley[.]"
This is my way of apologizing for not adding a new post for so long. I had ambitions, but this will have to do.
That stated, I do have a pretty exciting spread of news to relay. First, and most important to me despite its mundane nature, WE HAVE A REAL ROOF! Our patio now looks like a truck bed complete with a Rhino liner seal and there is no water making its way down to our kitchen. The kitchen roof is still in need of a little love in the way of a new coat of paint, but that aside, we are good to go.
The real news of the week, however, is we spent this Friday and Saturday in Dublin so that we could attend the Irish Fulbright Alumni Association's welcome party Friday night.
As we were staying the night, we also took our first ever swing at staying in an Airbnb. We stayed with Fernando in the Temple Bar district of Dublin. Temple Bar is one of the trendier areas of the city and the convenience of the location was hard to beat. I'll say that if anyone reading this is on the fence about trying out Airbnb, it is well worth a trip. We paid half of what we would have for a hotel and had a much better location. For that matter, I never really felt like I wasn't staying at a hotel.
Anyway, to return to telling this story in chronological order, we got into Dublin at about lunch time, checked into our Airbnb, and hit the streets to party hard in Dublin.
I mean we went to the nearest museum.
Madilyn, cutting in here:
By "nearest museum" he means we walked all the way across town and got turned around a few times before arriving at the "Dead Zoo," a colloquial name for the Natural History Museum, so called because it is a fairly large building full of dead animals from around Ireland and the world.
I have had precisely enough Zoology classes to be WAAAAAYYYY too interested in this museum, so I spent my time taking >9000 pictures of the Irish bird species and fish the size of children rather than looking for the other Fulbright student we planned to meet. When we did finally find her, she told us there was an upstairs.
By "nearest museum" he means we walked all the way across town and got turned around a few times before arriving at the "Dead Zoo," a colloquial name for the Natural History Museum, so called because it is a fairly large building full of dead animals from around Ireland and the world.
I have had precisely enough Zoology classes to be WAAAAAYYYY too interested in this museum, so I spent my time taking >9000 pictures of the Irish bird species and fish the size of children rather than looking for the other Fulbright student we planned to meet. When we did finally find her, she told us there was an upstairs.
However, it was still a small museum and we had several more hours to kill before getting ready for the event. We stopped by a nearby park to visit one of Cody's old friends, Oscar Wilde, to recreate a photo from his first trip to Ireland four years ago.
By then it was about 2 p.m. and we were beginning to get peckish. Annie suggested a burrito place on the way to the other museum, so we made a brief stop for some delicious burritos, which only seemed more wonderful because we were beginning to notice a distinct lack of good Mexican restaurants in Cork.
We then continued on to the Archeology Museum, where I did not take as many photos but still managed to completely kill my phone battery. This museum mainly included artifacts from ancient Ireland and the Viking settlements, along with the standard room of Ancient Egyptian artifacts supplied by whatever British noblemen stole while on vacation 100 years ago. They had a new display featuring a very old book of Psalms that they found in a bog; unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures because the pages were so fragile they were so sensitive to light it was the only room in the museum where electronic devices were not allowed.
The biggest thing I learned here is that bogs are very good at preserving stuff. (This is a talent shared by a lot of wetlands since the characteristic water prevents oxygen from breaking down all the things that fall into them and die.) Ireland is particularly interesting since thousands of years of human habitation coupled with a country filled with bogs have provided a lot of great archaeological material, including bog butter and bog men.
Bog butter is the term for huge caches of butter that is deposited in a bog to be discovered at a later time; no one is sure why people did this. The bog men are men who were deposited into a bog and probably not intended to be discovered since researchers have determined that most of them were murdered. There were several bog men on display, some of them complete with their hair. During life, one was apparently a huge man for the time, standing at a height above six feet, but today he is a disembodied torso with gigantic shriveled hands.
Eventually the hours of museum displays took their toll, and we parted ways with Annie so we could go back to our temporary residences to rest and clean up for the party. Cody and I sat down for a moment once we got back to our room, and woke up forty-five minutes later. We walked around the block to meet some of the other students at a bakery they said they were at an hour before; we missed them, but there was still coffee, which was just as invigorating as the nap.
By then it was about 2 p.m. and we were beginning to get peckish. Annie suggested a burrito place on the way to the other museum, so we made a brief stop for some delicious burritos, which only seemed more wonderful because we were beginning to notice a distinct lack of good Mexican restaurants in Cork.
We then continued on to the Archeology Museum, where I did not take as many photos but still managed to completely kill my phone battery. This museum mainly included artifacts from ancient Ireland and the Viking settlements, along with the standard room of Ancient Egyptian artifacts supplied by whatever British noblemen stole while on vacation 100 years ago. They had a new display featuring a very old book of Psalms that they found in a bog; unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures because the pages were so fragile they were so sensitive to light it was the only room in the museum where electronic devices were not allowed.
The biggest thing I learned here is that bogs are very good at preserving stuff. (This is a talent shared by a lot of wetlands since the characteristic water prevents oxygen from breaking down all the things that fall into them and die.) Ireland is particularly interesting since thousands of years of human habitation coupled with a country filled with bogs have provided a lot of great archaeological material, including bog butter and bog men.
Bog butter is the term for huge caches of butter that is deposited in a bog to be discovered at a later time; no one is sure why people did this. The bog men are men who were deposited into a bog and probably not intended to be discovered since researchers have determined that most of them were murdered. There were several bog men on display, some of them complete with their hair. During life, one was apparently a huge man for the time, standing at a height above six feet, but today he is a disembodied torso with gigantic shriveled hands.
Eventually the hours of museum displays took their toll, and we parted ways with Annie so we could go back to our temporary residences to rest and clean up for the party. Cody and I sat down for a moment once we got back to our room, and woke up forty-five minutes later. We walked around the block to meet some of the other students at a bakery they said they were at an hour before; we missed them, but there was still coffee, which was just as invigorating as the nap.
Cody tagging back in for the finish:
So, rested and rejuvenated, we went to the Fulbright Alumni Association Welcome Party (aka why we were in Dublin in the first place). Despite its long serious name, this was actually a refreshingly casual and laid back affair. It took place in a lounge at a historic hotel called Buswell's on Molesworth. In case you are curious, the design of the hotel was as Georgian as its name.
The event was lightly catered with trays of hors d'oeuvres. We, however, were not lightly fed. We may have consumed several trays worth, with the aid of a few others of course.
It was particularly nice to catch back up with the other Fulbrighters in such a relaxed setting. The orientation weekend had been a whirlwind of information and events. This gave us a chance to sit back, and, most importantly, showcase our abilities to eat ungodly amounts of finger food.
Following our epicurean excesses, we turned in for the night back at Fernando's airbnb. This is where we encountered the slight downside to having such a great location. Being so close to where everyone wants to be in Dublin means you are awfully close to everyone in Dublin. On a Friday night this gets to be a little bit on the noisey side. I can't say that we slept well, but I can say "the lads" had a heck of weekend.
Thanks to our long, loud night we stirred forth in the morning begrudgingly. We eventually dragged ourselves to the Spar down the road (a sort of general food to go store. Basically a gas station without gas). There we ordered breakfast wraps. These wraps contained three different kinds of meat (bacon, sausage and "pudding") and a large MacDonalds style hashbrown.
It was filling.
From here, we met up with Annie and Paul, fellow Cork-based Fulbrighters and attempted to enjoy Dublin.
The problem being, none of us had slept. We gave it our best go, but after mulling around an exhibit on Yeats at the National Library and a few bookstores we sat down to lunch and realized we were too tired to make it through the rest of the day. We decided to try to catch an early bus back to Cork.
To kill time while waiting for the bus we visited some tourist trap shops, toyed with what Paddywagon-style-shamrock-bedazzled-Aran-knit article of clothing would look the best with Fulbright emblazoned on it and visited a store that showed off how water proof their shoes are by leaving one in a fish tank at the door.
In retrospect I wish we had asked them to take it out to prove it was dry.
From here things get pretty boring. We packed up, packed into the bus and got back to Cork without passing out from sleep deprivation on a Dublin corner though.
So, rested and rejuvenated, we went to the Fulbright Alumni Association Welcome Party (aka why we were in Dublin in the first place). Despite its long serious name, this was actually a refreshingly casual and laid back affair. It took place in a lounge at a historic hotel called Buswell's on Molesworth. In case you are curious, the design of the hotel was as Georgian as its name.
The event was lightly catered with trays of hors d'oeuvres. We, however, were not lightly fed. We may have consumed several trays worth, with the aid of a few others of course.
It was particularly nice to catch back up with the other Fulbrighters in such a relaxed setting. The orientation weekend had been a whirlwind of information and events. This gave us a chance to sit back, and, most importantly, showcase our abilities to eat ungodly amounts of finger food.
Following our epicurean excesses, we turned in for the night back at Fernando's airbnb. This is where we encountered the slight downside to having such a great location. Being so close to where everyone wants to be in Dublin means you are awfully close to everyone in Dublin. On a Friday night this gets to be a little bit on the noisey side. I can't say that we slept well, but I can say "the lads" had a heck of weekend.
Thanks to our long, loud night we stirred forth in the morning begrudgingly. We eventually dragged ourselves to the Spar down the road (a sort of general food to go store. Basically a gas station without gas). There we ordered breakfast wraps. These wraps contained three different kinds of meat (bacon, sausage and "pudding") and a large MacDonalds style hashbrown.
It was filling.
From here, we met up with Annie and Paul, fellow Cork-based Fulbrighters and attempted to enjoy Dublin.
The problem being, none of us had slept. We gave it our best go, but after mulling around an exhibit on Yeats at the National Library and a few bookstores we sat down to lunch and realized we were too tired to make it through the rest of the day. We decided to try to catch an early bus back to Cork.
To kill time while waiting for the bus we visited some tourist trap shops, toyed with what Paddywagon-style-shamrock-bedazzled-Aran-knit article of clothing would look the best with Fulbright emblazoned on it and visited a store that showed off how water proof their shoes are by leaving one in a fish tank at the door.
In retrospect I wish we had asked them to take it out to prove it was dry.
From here things get pretty boring. We packed up, packed into the bus and got back to Cork without passing out from sleep deprivation on a Dublin corner though.