Reintegration

Today is day 10 of my adventures in Ireland. Completed days 2 of 3 of the UCC (University College Cork) Orientation. There were many adventures and pubventures I haven't been able to talk about, but I think it's almost impossible to write absolutely everything, and it may get boring to read after a while...

I'm still not used to being called an 'international student' around here on campus. For me, the term still reminds me of the seemingly abandoned buildings of the hidden international center at UCSD, making me feel like a rare specimen instead of the normal student I still view myself as. During orientation, one of the international student managers talked about the cycle of disintegration and reintegration when introduced to a new country, and later leaving the new country and returning to the home country. At the time I couldn't find myself on the graph, I didn't know if I was still afraid of all these changes or I was starting to embrace them. This was yesterday. Today at dinner, I suddenly realized that I had become reintegrated into living life in Ireland! From the cute blue polka dot dinner table to the odd habit of making banquet-like dinners, I have come to enjoy the way of life and my new niche here in Cork, Ireland. I'm excited to go to the English market to get fresh farm produce and meat from different butchers, fresh bread loaves and fillets of all sorts of scrumptious seafood. Sure, there are problems here and there, but that exists with anything and everything. I won't get to be here very long and maybe I will never be able to experience anything quite like this ever again, so I might as well take advantage of it now instead of swimming against the current of change. I want to look back later in life at this period and have no regrets.

I made the following tuna sandwich as a dinner at the house I live in in Cork. It was actually the first tuna sandwich I've ever made and it turned out pretty delicious. Quite proud of myself for not screwing it up! :) I also drink orange juice with everything it seems...not just at breakfast.

I have decided after much debate that I want to base my series of posts around one of my most favorite hobbies, and probably many people's actually....that is, of FOOD! There is no specific category of food I will be focusing on, but I will attempt to post as many interesting and delicious foods I've had while I'm abroad as possible. The following picture was taken at a pub while I was in Dublin. I went in because they advertised sangria in jugfuls outside, but apparently they don't offer it in pint-sized-fuls so I ended up getting a cider that tasted like sugar water and costed more than the Guinness...

To start things off, upon arrival at Cork, Jason and I went to a student-atmosphered pub called Sober Lane near the city centre for the first night. We didn't have time to get food or get settled into the apartments yet, so we headed to a good yelp-reviewed (yes there is yelp for Ireland) pub and spent the evening there. It was a nice place, casual but very crowded. I ordered bbq wings with a pint of Carlsberg, a light beer and Jason ordered a burger with a pint of Guinness. I think out of the beers here, I prefer a lighter brew rather than stout. Now don't get me wrong, Guinness is amazing when I'm in the mood for a darker brew but I don't think I can drink that stuff all the time. Jason and I had our first Guinness back in Dublin at a quaint little pub called Ha'Penny Bridge Inn. It wasn't until I was at The Barge with the other UC orientees that I actually was able to finish my first pint of Guinness, however. Back to the wings at Sober Lane...to be honest, I've always run into the problem of not getting enough wings for my money back in the US. If I pay ten dollars, that usually gets me about eight wings. EIGHT wings!? Here, I paid nine euros and it came in a giant bowl with approximately what must have been at least twenty wings! They weren't the crappy rubbery ones either. These were prepared with lots of love and needless to say, I was a very happy girl that night at the bar. The place wasn't too pricey, so I think I will definitely go back sometime if I get another wing craving.

Another good place that I greatly enjoyed was a cafe named Serendipidy, a cute cafe right outside of the UCC campus. A few good friends and I enjoyed some coffee and lunch there, and I ordered a smoked salmon with scrambled eggs for ~9 euros. When the food came, it looked so pretty I almost didn't want to eat it! At first I thought the fish was raw and was a little confused on how I would go about eating it without making faces in front of the others, but soon I discovered that the fish had a very good smoked flavor and was indeed not raw at all! The scrambled eggs added a nice texture and the dill on top completed the flavors. The dish, as you can see, also came with butter and toast, which I ate heartily and happily (yay for butter!). Not sure if I've mentioned this previously, but I've noticed that nearly everything here in Ireland boasts of being made as 100% Irish rather than from imports. I think this is a novel idea to support local farmers as well as reduce dependability and expenses by importing from other nations.

Orientation was very similar to the one at UCSD, where they give us lots of free brochures (pronounced bro-sures here) and various other useless items along with tours everyday for the campus and library. I really like the UCC campus, with the river being a big part of that. The campus is very beautiful and green (as is with everything else here), the people seem very friendly, and I am very excited to start classes. In terms of classes, the first plan was to take some psychology courses for a tentative minor, but the applied psychology dept did not approve 4/5 classes that I had applied for, so I will have to resort to some anatomy and biology classes instead to fulfill some major and med school requirements.

Everyday here is so busy and packed of sights to see and things to do that they all seem to be running together now. I hope you enjoy the pictures I put up and hope they don't make you too hungry! More to come later!!

Brisky Morning

First, a little explaining about the butter...on my way to Dublin from the connection at Boston Logan Int'l, we were given dinner on the flight aboard Aer Lingus, beef brisket to be exact. I happened upon this little butter packet that is customary to usual flight meal trays, and thought nothing of it at first. I was bored, it was there, saw some bread, decided might as well.... Maybe it was the sleep deprivation and strange cabin air, but the butter tasted like actual...well...butter to me! It was so rich and creamy and before sounding like some advertisement, I will stop there and leave the rest to your imagination. It's probably really bad for my health but good thing I will only have it for 4 months...right? I did consider taking some back with me minus the small problem of it melting everywhere and not sure if it's supposed to be declared as a liquid... first world problems...

It was a bit strange getting off the plane at 7:05 am in Dublin. The airport looked half grown over by grass, making me a bit apprehensive until I realized there was another whole portion that we were still taxi-ing to. I got off the plane like anyone else who has been flying overnight and sitting too long- disheveled hair, crooked shirt and a tired but excited expression at finally arriving. I was in some comfy pants covered in plane seat lint, my oversized UCSD Revelle sweatshirt that I had packed (thankfully) because it couldn't fit in my bag and flip flops that were in absolute tatters by the time I had arrived. Clanking my way through the waxed floors of Dublin International, I was met with a blast of cold air and realized my flip flops from San Diego would not do.

The airport looked like any other airport except with more languages and symbols that I couldn't understand, but the people seemed friendly enough and the cafes were still money sucking as usual, this time in euros instead of USD. One of the first things that surprised me about Ireland was the different toilets. It sounds weird but when I first saw the toilets here, I did a double take as I wasn't used to how perfectly circular they were! Restrooms are also called Toilets here, which I found a bit strange as well.

The first day was really long since it was actually 2 days put into one with all the time changes and everything. I got to walk around Dublin and the city centre, have lots of tea in various coffee shops and look at all the pretty bridges. Maybe I've been cooped up in California for too long but I just can't get over the rivers here with their bridges. I can't believe that almost all the buildings and sculptures are older than 200 years old with their own stories of how they became the way they are now and what parts they took in the wars, etc. It makes me wish that the US had things like that, with rustic and quaint cottages, turrets and rivers galore...but then when I think about it, despite the modern buildings and all the skyscrapers in the cities, they still all have a story behind them and is part of a history being built.

Living in a hostel for the first few days in Dublin was a combination of emotions varying between intrigue, annoyance, confusion and excitement. Another one of the first things I noticed before too long was the lack of free wifi and internet accessibility in general in Ireland. At the hostel, wifi never worked at night, and only got wisps of it in the morning when I woke up. Showering was slightly difficult as I trudged down 2 flights of stairs to a public shower. Despite the annoyance of the lack of internet, it made me realize just how technologically dependent I've become by living in the US all these years. Here, people actually read the paper with their coffee in the mornings and take time to converse with each other instead of being constantly absorbed in their iPads, laptops and phones. The one thing I was glad about the hostel was that they had warm comforters that were soft and comfortable. It gets down to the lower 40s at night, so a good thick comforter is definitely a need for me!

Blogging has been a bit difficult to catch up on this first week as everything seemed to happen so fast. There were many attractions and museums to visit but almost no time to visit them all! As it is, spending 2 days in Dublin were much too few to visit all of Dublin, and another visit must be planned soon to visit the free museums/art galleries and the Guinness Storehouse. I can't describe all the amazing things I've seen and experienced in this one entry, so I shall include them in the next seeing as this one is rather lengthy already!