You will never hear that you should visit Norway in November. Norway is lovely when it's covered in snow during winter, when the green spring comes or during the colourful time of early autumn, but this late autumn month has nothing to offer. So it is the perfect time for me to go abroad. A friend of mine is studying in Cork, Ireland and it was a good excuse to make my way to Ireland for the first time.
Ireland is a small country. This I realized before I got there since the easiest way to get to Cork was to take a flight to Dublin and then a bus to Cork, and it seemed this was the way to travel if you wanted to get to any city nearby Dublin. The buses behaved very much like in Norway: always driving at "orange":p
After a good sleep on the bus I finally arrived in Cork, a cosy and nice city that is not too big. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly and I liked the city at once. I especially liked that there was almost no shopping malls, but instead small shops and many of them had specialized in an area. There was also plenty of cafés and pubs, many where live bands were playing every night.
At one of the pubs we visited we were lucky to meet a kiwi and my friend got to experience how it is to get a drink treated without feeling you have to give something back. Reminded me of good times in Australia and NZ.
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| One of the many shops selling only chololate=) |
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| Delicious Irish Coffee=)
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| Jameson everywhere |
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| One of the many bars with live music:) |
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| A beautiful church with an impressive organ |
Apart from walking around in the city I got to do some sightseeing. In my opinion visiting the pubs(and trying all the different beers and ciders on tap) and just walking around is good enough sightseeing for me=) I find that everywhere I go there is at least on church to visit, and Cork was no exception. I did not catch the name of it, but it was a lovely church indeed. Not too much glittering decorations or the like.
We made it by the university where my friend studies. It was fun to visit an old uni and hear about some of the traditions and the superstitions they had. There were several things that could give you bad luck which could result in either failing an exam, getting expelled or getting pregnant. It is funny how getting pregnant is equal to getting expelled. I hope we have moved forward since this first was thought of=)
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| The university, some of the buildings in Harry Potter style |
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| Stepping on this circle gives bad luck: either failing an exam or getting pregnant |
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| Stepping on this lawn is also associated with bad luck |
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| A beautiful river runs through the city |
I also made it to the Jameson distillery just outside Cork. It was both fun and educating to see how they made whiskey till rather recently. We also learned the difference between the Scottish, Irish and American whiskey both in taste and how they are made and how ageing effects the whiskey. I was one of the lucky ones who got picked out to do a test. We got to taste a Scottish, Irish and American whiskey. The difference was bigger than I expected. When I got to the American whiskey, the smell was enough to make me nauseous and I could barely take a sip.
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| Finally time for whiskey! |
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| Pick and choose:) |
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| The origin of platform shoes? |
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| Which whiskey do you prefer? |
I would really recommend a visit to Cork, even though their accent can be pretty strong and make conversations in noisy bars difficult :p I don't know if I'm going back to Cork, but I do hope I get a chance to explore more of Ireland=)
