Petrol

Unleaded gas (or petrol as they call it) is on average 1.60 Euro in Ireland right now.  This price is for one liter of petrol.  If I convert this to gallons, it's about 6.06 Euro per gallon.  With the current exchange rate, this puts gas at $7.94/gallon!

Almost everyone drives manual cars here.  Buying an automatic car here is significantly more expensive.

I have a friend, Laura, from Iowa State that is studying abroad at the University of Limerick in Limerick, Ireland this semester.  She is on her way to Cork right now to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with me!  We are getting ready for a crazy weekend here.  In addition to Patty's Day there is a huge rugby match against England.  Cork has a big festival from Saturday to Monday with a big parade, live Irish music, and dance.  Monday is a bank holiday due to St. Patrick's Day which means I don't have school! I hope you all have a great weekend and St. Patty's Day!

Giant's Causeway

On Saturday afternoon the four of us drove up to Giant's Causeway.  We took the scenic route that drove us along the coast.  It took us about three hours.  As usual, the scenery was absolutely beautiful!  Unlike the bus situation, Davin was able to stop along the way when there was Kodak moment.

Walking to Giant's Causeway...

Giant's Causeway is an area long the northern coast of Northern Ireland that has around 40,000 basalt rocks.  These columns were formed about 60 million years ago from cooled volcano lava.  However, legend has it that these rocks were created by giants, hence the name.  What makes these rocks remarkable is that most of them are perfect hexagons.  Some of them are up to 40 feet tall!  

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Meghan, Ross, and I left bright and early Friday morning.  We took a bus to Dublin where our friend Davin picked us all up.  We had another beautiful two hour drive up to Belfast.  We weren't stopped at the borner, nor was there even a sign!  Quite surprising.  We knew we were back in the UK when the road signs turned from kilometers to miles.

We stayed at a hostel called the Linen House.  Although it looks just the opposite, it was a great location.  It was in a shady looking alleyway just off a major street of the city center.  It wasn't as comfortable as the other hostels that we've been to but hey, that's what you get for 8 Euros a night...

One of the first things that we did was a black taxi tour. The taxi driver picked us up at our hostel and drove us around the segregated neighborhoods.  The driver had a lot to say given that The Troubles is a recent event and he grew up during that time.  We got out at a few different places and he explained different murals and memorials.  It was very interesting!  The people of Belfast have really strong Irish accents, much stronger than we have adjusted to.  At some points we all (minus Davin) just nodded our heads pretending to understand him.

This is the Peace Wall that ironically segregated the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods.  This house below has a grate over their back patio in case things were thrown over the wall.

A memorial of some lives lost:

Belfast Castle:

The Belfast Castle was on the edge of a huge park.  After we went inside we hiked up to the top of a huge hill and got a look of the city!  In the distance you can see the ship yards where the Titanic was built!  There is a huge visitor center and museum that is opening up for the Titanic in a couple weeks that we just missed.  This year is the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking.

Here are some pictures that I took while walking around the city.  It was a beautiful city, however it was a little run down when you left the main roads.

This is city hall.  It was just as impressive inside! 

Here's a picture of a huge open air mall.  We never went but they had TGI Friday's there!  Instead we took advantage of a delicious Mexican restaurant, a rare find in Cork.

On Saturday we drove up to Giant's Causeway, I'll save those pictures for tomorrow.  Tonight was our last Intro to Traditional Irish Music Class.  Here's a video of a popular traditional Irish band doing a cover of "Hey Jude" by the Beatles.  It's pretty entertaining! Click here to listen.

Gypsy Kristi

I'm packing my bags again for a weekend in Belfast!  Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, strangely a different country than Ireland.  Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom and ruled by British Parliament.  Their currency is pounds sterling, the same as when I traveled to London.  When Ireland got independence from England, the British were greedy and decided to keep six counties for themselves.

Belfast is a city that's rich in history.  It went through a pretty recent civil conflict called The Troubles from 1969 to the late 1990's.  The conflict was between the Roman Catholics or the "Republicans" and Protestants or the "Loyalists".  Car bombings, assassinations, and street violence were prevalent during this time. To this day neighborhoods are still strictly segregated and there is still tension.  I'm sure I'll have more to share when I get back.

Meghan, Ross (a friend on our trip from ISU), and I are hopping on a bus tomorrow at 7am to go to Dublin.  Our new friend Davin will be picking us up there and we'll be driving another two hours in a car to Belfast.  We met Davin in Galway when we went for Meghan's 21st birthday.  He is a local from Galway.  Davin came to Cork to hang out with us the weekend that my friend Hannah was here.  We were planning this trip while he was visiting and he asked if he could be a tacky tourist with us since he's never been to Belfast.

It should be a fun weekend!

School Update

As some of you may have been wondering, yes, I'm still attending school at UCC. Here's an update:

The education system is very different than the United States.  Since starting school on January 3rd I have only had two assignments!  Three weeks ago I had to give a ten minute PowerPoint presentation in front of class and I had an essay due this afternoon.  

I attend all of my classes but unlike Iowa State, I just sit there and listen.  There is no need to take notes in class because the final grade assessments don't relate to the topics discussed in lecture. 

My classes finish in only two and a half weeks!  The last week of class is when I have most of my final assessments (only one in May).  I have a couple essays to write, three exams to take, and a presentation to give before class is done.  While this is significantly less work than I do at home, the things that I turn in here are worth a larger percentage of my grade.  My final exams are up to 70% of my grade, yikes!

While I was at Laura's house last weekend, her mom told us how college admission works here in Ireland and it was pretty interesting...

In the last year of secondary school (high school), students take what they call a leaving certification.  This is a test that is only offered once a year.  Students may not re-take or re-schedule the exam.  They pre-select six subjects to get tested on and after taking those tests they receive one score from 0-600.  Occupations in Ireland are ranked with a number.  Majors like medicine and law have numbers in the upper 500's where as jam making (no joke...) is 25.  After filling out one application, students are admitted to any university in the country as long as they choose a major that's at or below their score.  If students don't like their score or overslept that day they need to re-do all of senior year and take the test again the following year!  Maybe the ACT wasn't so bad after all...

The Beach & Griffin Cathedral

On Saturday morning before we left town Laura's dad wanted to take us to see the beach and Griffin's Cathedral in Ardfert.  Meghan and I jumped in his "jeep" and rode around town with him.  As we were driving he was telling us stories of what the town used to be like and growing up in Ardfert.  Here are some pictures!

This is Griffin's Cathedral in Ardfert.  Griffin is actually Laura's surname (last name) and her dad's family has been living there for generations! 

Dingle

On Friday morning we woke up early to go to Dingle, a small town on the coast of the Dingle Peninsula.  After we got ready we made our way down to the kitchen for breakfast.  Laura's mom made us toast, sausage, and black pudding.  For those of you who may be eating right now, I would suggest reading this post another time.  When I first heard of black pudding on the list of items in a full Irish breakfast, I assumed that it was what the American's consider to be chocolate pudding.  I couldn't be more wrong...

Black pudding is an Irish breakfast delicacy but it's also eaten all over Europe and Asia.  Black pudding is congealed pigs blood.  It's made by cooking blood with a filler (meat, oatmeal, potato, etc.) until it's thick enough to be congealed when cooled.  Black pudding is then sliced and either grilled or fried.  Although I wish I wouldn't have known what it was before it was offered to me, I gave it a try!  I  can usually ignore the thought of how somethings are made while I eat things, but this was just too much for me.  Let's just say, I gave it the one bite rule!

After breakfast Meghan, Laura, Johnny, and I made our way to the bus stop to go to Dingle.  The bus ride took a little over an hour.  The bus ride was almost as beautiful as the destination itself but I wasn't able to capture pictures that weren't blurry.  In Dingle we just walked around.  There weren't very many tourist traps besides little shops.  This town was absolutely beautiful!  It was a stereotypical Irish fisherman's town.  It had a huge marina filled with fishing boats and sailboats.  All of the shops, restaurants, and pubs were brightly colored and there was a surprising amount of palm trees! I might say that it's been my favorite town in Ireland.

Just before hopping the bus to go back to Tralee I went to the infamous Murphy's Ice Cream shop.  It is a 100% natural ice cream shop that has won a bunch of awards.  I got a two scoop dish with Bailey's Irish Cream and sea salt (actually delicious!!).