For the record, my professor didn’t show up on Thursday (again) so I had a four day weekend (again).  It’s a tough life here in Limerick.  After Katherine’s “Starting a Small Business in Ireland” class Friday morning we set off to see what all the Limerick city centre had to offer.

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.