The Sky Turned A Funny Colour Tonight

The sky is back to a perfectly normal blue-grey-twilighty colour now. But the pinky-yellow-ish tint was rather frightening...I guess that comes from living most of my life at the end of tornado alley.

It's been raining on and off for the past three or four days. Because a hurricane decided to break apart in this part of the Atlantic. For two days there were downpours -- downpours with lots and lots of wind (in Northern Ireland the wind was so bad that it knocked out power). But, aside from leaving the house during two of these deluges, it hasn't been too bad. I just had to deal with jeans that were soaked from the knee down.

I went to the Cork Public Museum, which is close to campus, actually. I had been there before -- but it was before the building had reopened...and all we did was look at prehistoric and a few historic potshards and other artefacts and jot down notes so that we could sketch them. This time I went and looked at the history half. And nearly stayed half the day in front of the cabinet with all the artefacts from the Easter Rising and Civil War (or Irish war for independence). Instead I made myself move on & then stared for a while at all the Cork silver. What can I say, I like shiny objects. :)

Yesterday, I learned to do some Irish dances! With a bunch of other international students. There were hardly any Americans there. Instead I got to meet lots of random Europeans. A couple girls from Austria, a lad from Sweden, a couple of Frenchmen, several Italians, and a couple girls from Spain. A group of us went out to a pub afterward. 'Twas fun a fun night all around. And if anyone wants to learn a couple Irish folk dances (or the Highland reel from Scotland, which is loads of fun), well, I can try to teach them to you.

Today was another day of exploring. I started off by staying close to places I knew and then decided to throw caution to the wind and just walk around northern Cork...which is on a big hill, so I got plenty of exercise out of that. And I nearly got myself lost. How lost? Well, in this photo, the big cathedral is basically where I live.



Clearly I was far from the neighborhoods I actually know well. But, in my defense, I thought there would be another road that would take me down to the river from where I was than the one that I knew about -- after consulting the map when I got home, I realised that there really wasn't. Although I was wrong, I got to walk through some fun residential areas.

Tomorrow it's off to Kinsale with the International Education Office -- and even thought I've been there before, it's a free trip. I can't pass up a free trip to one of the prettiest towns near Cork.