The brats were rather expensive, but they were cooked by real Germans and were almost as good as the ones I had in Berlin.  Katherine tried a Hawaiian flavored French baguette which turned out to be pretty good.  The star of the party, however, was the DUTCH PANCAKES.

I won’t say how much we spent on these pancakes, but they were almost worth every penny.  Imagine 25 small, circular, slightly thick pancakes on a plate covered in powdered sugar and chocolate sauce.  This is essentially what they were, but they tasted so much better than that.  They were, by far, the best part of Belfast.

IKEA stores are laid out such that the first floor has you walking through several mock rooms in which everything you see can be bought at the store.  This includes paintings, books, cups, carpet, faucets, etc.  We took note of what looked good and what was ugly.  You then walk down to the ground floor and pick out all the accessories you could ever want.  We didn’t buy anything (again) but I decided that the Swedes have got globalization figured out.

We didn’t buy anything from this mall (yet) but we went up to the top of their observation platform for a view of the city.  I don’t know of any other malls with observation decks covered by big glass domes.  The view was pretty good, but most of the notable sights in the city were obstructed by new building being built.

Later on we returned to the mall and ate at Nando’s, a Portuguese chicken restaurant.  The chicken was too spicy for me (and I got the “plain” flavoring) but the corn on the cob was excellent.  If you’re ever in Northern Ireland, keep in mind that you can get great corn on the cob at the Portuguese chicken restaurant.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, we’ve now spent 10 weeks in Ireland, but I was still a bit dismayed that we didn’t catch the 7:30 bus.  We sat in the bus station for another hour, caught the next bus, and ran into…

SHEEP!  We’ve seen numerous “Traffic Jam in Ireland” postcards depicting sheep on the roads, but this was the first time we saw it up close and personal.  Katherine whipped out her camera in record time so you at home could see this too.

We did eventually get to Dublin.  Walking down O’Connell Street (the widest urban street in Europe) the first thing you see is the Spire of Light (the tallest sculpture on Earth).  It was built for the millenium, completed in 2003, and is meant to make people look on the bright side of things.  After all, the first thing you do upon seeing it is look up.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel and headed back downtown for our free cruise on the Liffey River.  We had some time to kill and went into a food hall to find something to eat – PB&J on the bus can only go so far.  We settled on “itsabagel” because I don’t like Korean, Thai, Mexican, Japanese.  I thought “itsabagel” had a great idea: take a bagel and put meat and cheese on it.  What more could you want?  We found out later that “baked ham” means cooked ham but not warm ham.  Anyway, I might try this myself later on.

Our cruise along the river revealed to us that Dublin is kind of like America in that it doesn’t have much history left.  Everything the guide said to us was either preceeded with “where these buildings stand now” or succeeded by “but now it’s under retail development.”  For those who like modern-looking cities, Dublin might be a place to see.  Their financial district is rife with construction cranes and glass-enclosed buildings.  In fact, U2 is building what will be known as the U2 Tower, the first building in Dublin taller than Christ Church Cathedral.

We next decided to look for truly authentic Dublin gifts in their shopping area on the south side of the river.  Some presents were purchased and some pictures were taken of street performers.  I was hoping to see live music in a real Dublin pub but none of the pubs had live music before 9 PM.  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but the sun starts going down at 3 PM in Dublin this time of year and by 5:00 we were hungry and it was dark.  No sooner were we ready to settle for Hard Rock Cafe when Katherine discoverd The Shack.  The Shack is, contrary to its name, a pretty nice restaurant where we found not only the best steak I’ve had in a long time, but wonderful chicken enchiladas!  Chicken enchiladas and steak in a fancy Irish restaurant, it was great.  We then stepped into a pub to see some live music for a few minutes but after lots of people started staring at my laptop backpack and our lack of alcohol we decided it wasn’t quite our place.  We returned to the hotel which, similarly to all ho(s)tels we’ve stayed at, was much, much, much nicer than Kilmurry Village.

The next morning we were up in time for a wonderful breakfast and a trip to jail.  That’s right, Katherine and I spent a few moments in a jail cell together – bonding at its finest.  The Kilmainham Gaol (“Kill-mine-um jail”) was where the leaders of six revolts between 1798 and 1916 were held, among many others.  We saw the places where famous prisoners were held, shot, and hanged.  The political history of Ireland is pretty interesting and, making it even more relevant, quite recent.  You can read more here.

After seeing the jail we headed over to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells.  We weren’t expecting the book to be that exciting, and it wasn’t.  But we had free tickets and we can now consider ourselves to be more cultured.

Sometime during the day we stopped at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where Jonathan Swift had been dean long ago.  Swift is buried inside but the cathedral was undergoing renovation and charging a stiff fee to get inside.  We opted to walk around St. Patrick’s Park, the spot where St. Patrick (who brought Christianity to Ireland) baptized lots of people.  We got our picture and got back on the bus.

We also saw Oscar Wilde’s house somewhere in there too.  Pictures are below.

Also, while we were walking down the street Sunday morning, we crossed paths with four teenagers who were riding horses down the streets of Dublin.  Drivers were obviously annoyed so the kids then rode their horses up on the sidewalk.  As the kids passsed by, many people, including us, took many pictures.  Once the horses started sliding on the sidewalk the kids got off and walked alongside the horses.  One older lady passed us on the sidewalk wearing an angry expression and I heard her mumble “this is ridiculous.”  Everything goes in Dublin.

On our way back to the bus station we passed SpongeBob Squarepants.  I wouldn’t have believed it either.

The first thing we noticed is that Ireland is building an interstate from Dublin to Cork, the two largest cities.  In the last week I’ve heard several British radio talkshow hosts complaining that the Irish don’t know how to drive on these new roads, but at the time we were quite excited to be driving on a road without grass down the middle.

We got to Cobh (pronounced “Cove”) – it was a rare, beautiful day in Ireland – and walked along the water for a bit.  We decided to go on the “Titanic Trail” tour because the posters said it was “internationally acclaimed.”  The pictures of the town below are meant to show how colorful everything is.  We also learned that because of Cobh’s dependance on the sea trade most of these buildings are several hundred years old, as opposed to most of the rest of Ireland where the recession in the 1960s forced people to build ugly buildings – or something like that.  The tour guide said so.

It turns out that our tour guide researched all the information he shared with us himself, has been giving this tour for 12 years, has written books on the subject, done documentaries with the BBC on several subjects, and has basically revitalized the tourism sector of Cobh by himself.  On our tour he carried around pictures he’d taken of Titanic-related artifacts and showed them all to us.  He personally knows the last living survivor of the Titanic (she was 9 weeks old at the time).  All in all, he was a pretty good tour guide.

The tour ends in a local pub where we all got a free glass of Beamish, a very dark liquid that makes one Squeamish.  Katherine and I both had a sip (see below for proof) and moved on to better things.  Mom and Mary managed to tolerate it – I don’t know how.

The next pictures you’ll see are of St. Cormac’s Cathedral.  It took 80-some years to complete and houses Ireland’s only carillon – and it only has 49 bells.  For those keeping track, that’s USA: 270, Ireland: 1.  And Iowa State’s campanile has 50 bells.

After leaving Cobh we headed to the Jameson Experience at the Old Jameson Distillery.  We again avoided the tour because a) it cost money, b) we were short on time, and c) we didn’t really care.  We raided the gift shop instead.

The last few pictures you’ll see are of some of the real estate around Cobh, most notably an 800-year-old castle.  The price was not advertised.

The factory tour cost money and we were more interested in looking, so we just looked at the showroom.  I didn’t take many pictures because I was so focused on the intricate details of some of these creations.  There was a crystal globe on sale for several thousand euros, an enormous chandelier (about 10 times the size of the one pictured below) on sale for who knows how much, and even salt and pepper shakers for a few coins.

On the way back to Horse and Jockey Sunday night we stopped in a small town for something to eat.  We ran into some young hooligans and asked them for a good place for Fish ‘n Chips.  They led us down a dark alley to the least Irish establishment I’ve seen in the last two months.  It reminded me of Chuck E. Cheese’s from long ago.  After some fish we headed back to the hotel.

We briefly discussed walking all the way there but discarded that idea quickly.  Despite the €1.45 one-way fare we took the bus downtown, armed with a map and a camera.  We headed toward King John’s Castle, the imposing structure along the river Shannon, visible from most areas downtown.  On the way there we saw, and subsequently explored the courthouse.  There wasn’t much to see, crime didn’t seem to be a big problem on Friday afternoon.  We saw a brochure advertising the class field trips that could be organized given advance warning.  One of the stipulations was that everyone be in school uniform.  We wouldn’t have fit in.  As we were leaving, Katherine – with her eagle-like eyes – spotted an enormous spider on the wall.  We won’t be returning to the courthouse.

The castle wasn’t too much farther and when we got right next to it I was rather unimpressed.  It wasn’t nearly as big as I expected and large parts of it were under construction.  Katherine snapped a picture and I pulled out the map.  We were looking at St. Mary’s Cathedral, not the castle.  The castle was just down Nicholas St.  This Nicholas Street was not like other Nicholas Streets.  This Nicholas Street was named after Ol’ St. Nick (Santa Clause).  It includes several pubs, like every other street in Ireland, but otherwise seemed like a good place to park reindeer for a few hours.

Around the next corner we finally saw the castle.  You’ll see pictures below of us standing at one of the entrances, Katherine (of course) trying to outdo me.  We took a quick look and decided that whatever information was actually inside the castle wasn’t worth €6.65 each.  I can get 3 ties for that amount at Penney’s.  There are some more pictures of the castle from across the river, where we found…

The Treaty Stone!  Legend has it that the Treaty of Limerick was signed on this very stone in October of 1691.  It had to do with the English respecting Catholicism and the Irish making some other concessions.  As it turned out, neither side kept their end of the deal and the treaty never amounted to much.

After some more walking we ended up alongside the river watching someone throw old bread out to the multitudes of swans and seagulls.  Below you’ll see pictures of a swimming swan that had his/her head and neck tucked in so as to avoid looking like he/she had a head or neck.  That’s my interpretation, at least.  The crows eventually were made aware of the bread and the entire situation devolved into one giant bird argument.

We saw a hay truck, we looked through Penney’s (which has ridiculously cheap clothes), and got back on the bus.  That’s when the real fun began.  As we were boarding the bus we heard a sound like this.  We found seats on the extremely full bus and were, unfortunately, only a few feet from the drunk/crazy guy carrying a brown bottle and periodically singing something like this.

Of course it was rush hour and Limerick’s two-lane streets simply cannot handle the amount of traffic.  The bus was hardly moving and the crazy guy was only getting louder and smelling worse.  At the next stop several people got off and the crazy guy moved to the very back row.  He must have felt quite comfortable back there because his outbursts turned into this.

Long story short, we got off early and walked back to campus.  Then we found a new Mystery Picture – check that page next and be sure to leave your guess.

Our meals have consisted of pizza, chicken, noodles, and our new favorite appetizer – bread with cheese and ham cooked in the oven. There’s also yogurt, peaches/pears, jelly, and fruit juice…but only one of us is brave enough to try these foods…

We also have mint chocolate chip ice cream! Just as good as at home, just in a smaller container (and more expensive).

Our first stop was a grocery store, and a real one to boot.  We found enough food to last us an entire week (despite Katherine’s never-ending hunger) and we spent less than €50.  At this rate we’ll save enough to take another trip later on in the semester.  More to come on our trip-taking schedule later.

After returning the food we went back to suburbia and found a large sports store, large electronics store, Wal-Mart-type store, and a Sears-type store.  It felt, for a few minutes, like we were back in America, home of capitalism.  I knew in two days I’d be back on campus seeing an abundance of ‘UL Socialist Youth’ flyers.

We have failed again at finding an adequate beverage.  Katherine picked out a 3 liter jug of orange juice (non-carbonated), hoping it would be better than the lemonade – which we’ve just recently finished off.  Judging from the sound Katherine made after drinking her first sip I knew this orange juice didn’t live up to its billing either.  It tastes more like grapefruit juice than anything else and diluting it with water makes it tolerable.  Three liters later we’ll try again.

The rooms are rather small, but we’ve both got sinks in our rooms and enough storage for all that we brought. The stains on the comforters in our rooms are of many different colors and the pillows leave a bit to be desired. They did give us some sort of sheet with snaps on one side – we were rather confused as to is purpose. More on that later.

We unpacked our stuff and walked around campus, looking for a bank to deposit our travelers’ cheques. Both the Ulster Bank and AIB Bank have loads of students in brightly-colored jackets badgering people into setting up accounts with them. One gives us a free travelcard, the other gives us free money. Both require a university number we don’t yet have. Tomorrow is our first day of orientation so we should be set by Friday.

Our next stop was downtown. Katherine’s friend Kristin recommended several stores downtown to buy sheets, pillows, and food so we got on the bus, hoping it would drop us off close by. The two guys sitting next to us speaking a funny language wanted to know if this stopped at Williams Street. I told them we’d only been in the country for 12 hours. We followed them off the bus – I’m not sure why – but did find the stores we needed.

We found cheap sheets, towels, and pillows at Penney’s and went next door to the supermarket-in-the-mall. After counting the amount of cash on us and making the most fiscally conservative choices possible we paid and waited for someone to sack our food. Nobody did, and after the lady behind us pulled out her bag and left I remembered forgetting my nice bags in my room. Katherine had her tote and between her tote and the Penney’s bags we were able to carry everything.

We had some disagreements as to how to get on the bus and ended up walking for over an hour and making no real progress. After walking back to the mall we found the bus stopped right outside. We ran to it and then waited for five minutes before it left.

Dinner last night was gross. We bought a noodle pouch which had powder/sauce in it, but a) I boiled way too much water and b) we didn’t have any butter so it turned into wet-noddle soup. Combine that with the 2-liters of “Cloudy Lemonade” we bought (which were also gross) and we were ready to call it a day.

-Mark