For the record, my professor didn’t show up on Thursday (again) so I had a four day weekend (again).\u00a0 It’s a tough life here in Limerick.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
We briefly discussed walking all the way there but discarded that idea quickly.\u00a0 Despite the \u20ac1.45 one-way fare we took the bus downtown, armed with a map and a camera.\u00a0 We headed toward King John’s Castle, the imposing structure along the river Shannon, visible from most areas downtown.\u00a0 On the way there we saw, and subsequently explored the courthouse.\u00a0 There wasn’t much to see, crime didn’t seem to be a big problem on Friday afternoon.\u00a0 We saw a brochure advertising the class field trips that could be organized given advance warning.\u00a0 One of the stipulations was that everyone be in school uniform.\u00a0 We wouldn’t have fit in.\u00a0 As we were leaving, Katherine – with her eagle-like eyes – spotted an enormous spider on the wall.\u00a0 We won’t be returning to the courthouse.<\/p>\n
The castle wasn’t too much farther and when we got right next to it I was rather unimpressed.\u00a0 It wasn’t nearly as big as I expected and large parts of it were under construction.\u00a0 Katherine snapped a picture and I pulled out the map.\u00a0 We were looking at St. Mary’s Cathedral, not the castle.\u00a0 The castle was just down Nicholas St.\u00a0 This Nicholas Street was not like other Nicholas Streets.\u00a0 This Nicholas Street was named after Ol’ St. Nick (Santa Clause).\u00a0 It includes several pubs, like every other street in Ireland, but otherwise seemed like a good place to park reindeer for a few hours.<\/p>\n
Around the next corner we finally saw the castle.\u00a0 You’ll see pictures below of us standing at one of the entrances, Katherine (of course) trying to outdo me.\u00a0 We took a quick look and decided that whatever information was actually inside<\/em> the castle wasn’t worth \u20ac6.65 each.\u00a0 I can get 3 ties for that amount at Penney’s.\u00a0 There are some more pictures of the castle from across the river, where we found…<\/p>\n The Treaty Stone!\u00a0 Legend has it that the Treaty of Limerick was signed on this very stone in October of 1691.\u00a0 It had to do with the English respecting Catholicism and the Irish making some other concessions.\u00a0 As it turned out, neither side kept their end of the deal and the treaty never amounted to much.<\/p>\n After some more walking we ended up alongside the river watching someone throw old bread out to the multitudes of swans and seagulls.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That’s my interpretation, at least.\u00a0 The crows eventually were made aware of the bread and the entire situation devolved into one giant bird argument.<\/p>\n We saw a hay truck, we looked through Penney’s (which has ridiculously cheap clothes), and got back on the bus.\u00a0 That’s when the real fun began.\u00a0 As we were boarding the bus we heard a sound like this<\/a>.\u00a0 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course it was rush hour and Limerick’s two-lane streets simply cannot handle the amount of traffic.\u00a0 The bus was hardly moving and the crazy guy was only getting louder and smelling worse.\u00a0 At the next stop several people got off and the crazy guy moved to the very back row.\u00a0 He must have felt quite comfortable back there because his outbursts turned into this<\/a>.<\/p>\n Long story short, we got off early and walked back to campus.\u00a0 Then we found a new Mystery Picture – check that page next and be sure to leave your guess.
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