Cork – City of contradictions

Firstly the title is complete BS, it was a working title as I must have spotted a contradiction when I first got here but have now forgotten what said contradiction was but still like the sound of the title.   

On my last day in Pembroke I went to have a look around Pembroke Castle (Birth place of the Tudor dynasty) very cool then off to Ireland….FINALLY! 

I’m loving Cork, as I may have mentioned before it’s a little smaller than Hamilton, so after running away from the gray city of fog for over 15 years I end up in it’s little brother on the other side of the world…I’m sure there’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

It’s a sweet wee city where you actually bump into people you know on the street…kinda like Thames…scary!

  Some wicked bombings…and some that’s not so good,  but with a nice message.

There are heaps of old churches everywhere and a few museums and galleries that I’m holding off on until I’m settled.

 

It has an amazing food market area that I will be pillaging once the euros start flowing in.

So I finally rolled into town about 9:30 Tuesday night to find the hostel I was planning on staying in fully booked until the following Wednesday (Lucky, as I have since learned that the place is a dive) so other accommodation was required STAT, just down the road was the Winston Hotel which worked out fine for 1 night. After a wee chat to the owner the next morning I worked out a deal of €120 a week. Over the cause of the week I got to know the chicks that worked there & 1 of them invited me to a party at her place that Friday. (Before moving forward, I should explain that I have given myself the rule that I’m not going out until I get a job…but a house party is allowed for reasons only known by a small part of my brain) It was a great party filled with Czech, Polish & Spanish, everyone was really friendly, some more so than others. The next week when a grumpy German moved out they offered the room to me. I am now living in a flat of 9 people (6 Spanish, a Czech, a German & me) I don’t know how long I’ll stay as it’s fairly noisy & crazy but as ex girlfriends & family members will know I can sleep through pretty much anything including car crashers outside my window. The average age is about 24-26 so I’m looking at it as a very casual early mid life crisis that’s A LOT cheaper than a Porsche. We had a party this Friday just been, it was a combined 21^st for an ex flatmate, 25^th for a current flatmate & my 30^th….HA! Again an excellent excellent night meeting people from all over Europe… even an Irishman. Get this Holly, I meet a pair of Canadian chicks last week….From Ontario…One of them even whet to University in London…Just can’t stay away from the Candaidan girls if I try! 

With the 6 nations on I’ve been teaching a few of the Spanish lads Rugby & they’ve been teaching me Spanish football (Hate the dives through) and am now a Barcelona supporter – Someone (Maybe me) should have warned them about my jinx, because as soon as I started supporting them they conceded a goal, luckily they managed to claw back to a drew by games end. They are currently second in the Spanish league here’s hoping I don’t do to them what I have done to McLaren, Williams and Millwall.

Work wise I heard back today. I've got a job as a field server technician (includes van, laptop & oww oww a blackberry) so I guess I'll be selling the Golf...ow well.

OK then that’s about all for now, Chris is popping over for the weekend so can’t wait for that.

Chat soon