Get ready for FFGeekBlog.com!

Well, it's time for the fantasy football season again. I personally am signed up for a whopping four leagues already, so hopefully you've found yourself a league or two (or three). If you haven't, I recommend you head over to Yahoo! Fantasy Football and sign up for a team. However, the important news is that myself and a fraternity brother from college, Matt Dana, are starting a fantasy football blog that will contain cheat sheets, player updates, matchups, etc. The site is www.FFGeekBlog.com and it should be up and running in the next day or so. I can't promise that it will have all the information you are looking for right off the bat, but give it a little time and we'll get useful information posted very shortly. See you there!

Mason the flying dog

Apparently while I was over in Ireland, Mason learned to love the ocean, something he was petrified of before I left. While I was in Ireland, my brother had mentioned that he was teaching Mason to run and leap off the dock to catch a toy or something. Little did I know that Mason was a couple feet removed from being the next contestant on the ESPN out doors competition for doggy long jump!

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Back in the US of A

Alright, well I'm finally back in Connecticut. Our flight got in Sunday night and was pretty uneventful (I guess that's a good thing!) I need to backtrack a few days however to cover some of the events that transpired on Morgan and my trip to Dublin. We left early Saturday morning on what I assumed would be a nice scenic trip to Dublin...little did I know that I would be severely disappointed. The trip ended up taking about three and a half hours, which was expected, however there was absolutely no scenery the entire way, which I wasn't expecting at all after seeing some beautiful sights on the trip to Killarney and such.

Anyways, after getting near Dublin city, we quickly learned the hard way that Dublin doesn't like to put up street signs on any of the roads barring the one major motorway that surrounds the city. After passing multiple roads that would have taken us to the hotel, we finally found our way there after about half an hour cruising around the city. Luckily the hotel was nice and was a decent distance from the city center. When we got there, we immediately tried to catch a bus from in front of the hotel, only to realize that the lady had misinformed (lied to) us and the bus wasn't running. We ended up sharing a cab with two girls from Italy and had to listen to one of the most broken conversations I've ever heard between the Irish cab driver and the girls, as they had a terrible time understanding each other and Morgan and I didn't feel any need to become interpretors. The cab driver ended up not wanting to drive us into the city though, so he dropped us off nearby and we took the train into the city, which was pretty convenient actually.

Once we got into the city, we realized that it was probably a good idea to immediately hit up the Guinness Brewery as we'd probably miss it if we didn't. The tour of the brewery was a self guided tour, but was one of the best parts of the trip. We got to drink a Guinness at the top story of the building, in the Sky Bar at the top of the Brewery, which was awesome. From the bar you could see the entire city in 360 degrees.

After the tour of the brewery, we wandered around to see most of the other major sights of Dublin, such as the Christ Church, Trinity college, and Temple Bar. We were only minor-ly impressed with each. After wandering for awhile, we decided to call it quits on the "tourist" thing and decided to get some food then start hitting the pubs. For some reason, I decided I wanted pizza and we ended up making the second worst decision of the trip, as at the pizza place they forgot our order and we ended up being there over a hour. We then begin hitting up some of the pubs there, trying to figure it out so that we could hit several pubs on our way back to the hotel. We went to a few that were pretty decent, then we decided to head back to the hotel. We immediately realized that we forgot the way that the taxi driver had brought us, so we tried using maps and our intuition to lead us home. This is where we made our worst mistake of the trip, which is a little cloudy on who to really blame for. We end up on the road we think is the right way back to the hotel (it actually was) and we ask two old Irish guys if we're heading the right direction. After they ramble on about strange things such as why New England is called New England and not New Ireland, and why we should steal everything that's not "nailed down" in Ireland, they tell us we're going the completely wrong direction. Of course we believe them (not sure if they intentionally lied to us or they were just basing their directions on a map made when they were young'uns) and turn around to go the direction they told us. This ends up being a nightmare, as we end up going through a few construction zones and crossing one interstate en route to realizing that when we first saw the old men, we were on the right street already! Eventually though we made it home for the night, although I was completely detox-ed and exhausted.

The next morning, we decided to save ourselves trouble and not head into the city. Our flight was at 5pm, so we had a little time to burn. We ended up heading to the east coast of Ireland, right by Dublin, to a place called Howth. There was awesome bluffs there that we got to see...however, somehow we again ended up taking the loonnnnnnggggg way back, so I was completely done and ready to head home after that.

So the trip's finally over though and as far as I can tell, I'll probably be heading to Puerto Rico sometime this summer. One reason I was happy to be home was to finally be able to watch baseball on tv and I was not disappointed to come home and see the Red Sox in first place with the best record in baseball...and the Yankees in last place (boo yah!). Also...the Patriots made the pick-up of the century, giving Tom Brady the awesome end zone target in Randy Moss. The Patriots definitely look like the team to beat this year.

Home stretch!

Well I'm finally done with work here in Cork, Ireland for the time being. I had originally planned to get out of work early at about 2 or so, but for some reason I got roped into a teleconference with people in Puerto Rico, so I didn't end up leaving till about 3:30...but after that I was runnin' for the door. I had planned to head down to Garretstown for a little surfing with Morgan, but when we finally got there the surfboard rental guy was already gone apparently. We contemplated going for a swim, but with no wet suit, it would probably have been a pretty cold swim. We decided to do a little exploring of the surrounding bluffs instead though, which ended up being really cool. As you remember from my previous blogging, I had already checked out some of the bluffs around Garretstown, but we went the other direction this time to a place called Old Head and it ended up being a pretty good decision.

When we first got out to the "point" of Old Head, we came to a gate with a small tower that was the entrance to a private golf course. It was an amazing spot for a golf course, but I'm not sure how it could have possibly been more than a 9 hole course, considering the real estate it was working with. We decided that we probably shouldn't sneak onto the course, so we ended up parking a little up the street and took a walk to the edge of the bluffs.

We saw a small trail leading down a bit so we wandered a little more and then realized that with some effort, you could actually work your way down the entire bluff (which was probably over 100 feet high). After making our way down, we ran into a few people that had came down from another direction, but were looking for a little friendlier exit. We sent them to the place we came down from and decided that we would be a little adventurous and attempt to do some rock climbing up this insane spot that they had shuffled down from (the picture doesn't do it justice...this thing was really steep!) After a few minutes of pretending we were from the movie Cliff Hanger, we finally made it to the top and decided that we were now qualified to give low level mountain climbing lessons. Anyways...although we didn't end up going surfing, it still ended up being a cool time and the weekend can only get better as we're heading up to Dublin tomorrow morning for a little sight seeing and Guinness drinking. Plus, I'm done with work until Tuesday...woot woot!

P.S. Morgan went to Galway and the Arran Islands the past two days, but I'm not sure he'll be writing us another blog entry, so I'll just mention then he seemed to have a good time on the Arran Islands, but didn't enjoy Galway all that much.

Morgan goes to the zoo

While I was at work today, Morgan went on a small adventure and he has been kind enough to share his experiences with my devoted readers:

"I touched a Kangaroo in Ireland today before you even woke up. I'm not being a cocky bastahd...I'm just telling you like it was. It all went down @ Fota Wildlife Park, a Gaelic football's kick away from the city via train. 3 euro got me a round trip to this non-profit little park in..well Fota. My expectations where a little ehhhhhh for it being non-profit (give me a break! I'll explain in a second), the website and pamphlet weren't to promising, and to be quite honest a "zoo" in Ireland...what kind of interesting animals love cool, soggy weather!? Obviously the very first second I step through the gate...both feet enter my mouth. The place is THE best park/zoo/aquarium/place of animals of the wild variety...place...I've ever been to and probably will ever go to...hands down...or should I say flippers or talons or paws..hohoho.

Living in America pretty much sets you up for disappointment with all sorts of over the top commercials, advertisements, trailers, pamphlets..bombarding you with insane amounts of hype until the release date or when you purchase the item or watch the TV show. So with Fota being non-profit (Listen I know the Newport exploration center is bad ass BUT just hear me out) I didn't realy know what to think...I figured I'd take the train out and if worse came to worse I'd head back early and head off to Blarney Castle. The train actually dumps you off at the back entrance to the park which at first I thought was the front entrance reassuring my doubts. SO WRONG..in fact it was the best place to enter the park!

After entering and getting a bearing on my surroundings I soon realize this park is different then any other I've ever been to. Fota prides themselves in having a different sort of viewing policy/plan then any zoo I've ever been to. I think that's why the name is Wildlife Park because that's exactly what it is. A vast majority of the animals are free to roam around anywhere they please at anytime. The more unpredictable animals are tucked behind modest barriers yet still are so close...amazingly close and without having to view them through a fence or from a safe distance of 50 yards or more..I had a smile on my face the entire time and people were definitely thinking I was probably up to something. As soon as I step foot into the park I notice all sorts of animals from Geese to ducks to squirrels to these giant prairie dog things to Alpaca-lama-things to cappybara to kangaroos to...all sorts of little birds and critters. Little ducklings with there mums darted across the path. Large geese hissed at me if I got to close and gibbons swung all over, stared at me and whooping to the others the entire time I was there. Well alright I'm pretty much writing a novel and well the pictures speak louder then the words I'm typing. Check out the pictures...check out the videos(well as soon as B posts them) and realize the next time youre in Cork you realy realy need to go..I got there 15 minutes after it opened and it was feeding time and it was great. Ha.

Oh yeah went to Blarney...if you ever go bring a flashlight to explore Badger cave and the dungeon section...such a sick sick siiiiiiick place to go once you kiss the stone(Bring an extra battery pack or don't take a hundred picutres and video at Kota thus draining the battery thus when pulling out your camera to have the guy take your picture smoochin the stone it doesn't even turn on thus forcing you to buy a picture from them....but hey it's supporting the castle and it's a pretty slick little souvenir.) The Rock Close there...incredible. Such an amazing day. Well if you made it this far then congradulations...I'm not going back and proof reading so uh..it's probably a mess :) Leaving on a two day adventure tomorrow to Galway then an overnight on the largest Aran Island ..then to Doolin to hopefully get a glimpse of the Cliffs of Moher. Should be interesting..should be cold...should be wet....should be exciting. Back here to try to surf on Friday then finishing off the trip with an overnight in Dublin on Saturday till Beaker and I hop on a plane back across the pond to home sweet home. Need sleep...I'm out!"

Anyways, this is your regular host Brandon again, just letting you know that I'm nearly done with my stay here on the Emerald Isle, but apparently not for long as I will most likely be back sometime in late May. I may even end up in Puerto Rico in the not too distant future, but who knows. Maybe if we're lucky, Morgan will write another entry for us when he returns from his trip to Galway in a few days. Peace!

Zoo 2 in the house!

So last night I finally made it out to a pub for the first time in a while, which was cool. We started off at a pub with an Irish name that I can't remember, but it ended up being pretty good as there was a guy playing acoustic guitar and covering some decent oldies songs. We had a pint of Guiness there and decided to move to the next place. After wandering around for a few minutes, we decided to try our luck in this pub that I had been in a few times called The Old Oak. The place didn't seem to busy when we first walked in, but we noticed that they had a stage set up for a band so we figured we'd stay for a bit. We found out a bit later that it was a U2 cover band called Zoo 2 (very clever name I must say) and they were the self-proclaimed "best U2 tribute band around at the moment".

Once the band started playing, the pub filled up really fast, which was kind of impressive considering it's one of the larger pubs in Cork and it was a Sunday night. The band was decent...you can't really complain when you get to hear all U2's hits sung live for free. Most of the entertainment we got however was from certain individuals around us who seemed to be enjoying the concert a little more than everybody else. One hippy-ish guy was playing air guitar, air drums, air bongos and anything else "air"* he could think of on the table and got so excited that he fell backwards off his bar stool onto the ground. It was quite the sight, as he was right in the front of everyone and the bar stool was probably over three feet tall. Not to be outdone though was an old man who was trying to hit on some middle-aged ladies near us. He also decided that playing the air drums was a good idea, but also felt the need to dance around the whole time, thinking he was impressing the women. Overall, I must say it was probably the most entertaining Sunday night I have had in Ireland so far and who knows what else is to come this week.

*In case you're not familiar with the term, playing an "air" instrument is the exact same as playing the normal instrument...just without the instrument.

Where the heck is the Dromber Stone Circle?

I must apologize to all my devoted readers, but I haven't really had too much to blog about the past few days. I've just been working and relaxing in the apartment this week, mentally preparing for last week here in Ireland with Morgan. On Thursday night, for some reason I decided that I would volunteer to pick Morgan up from the airport in Shannon (about a 2 hour drive), even if his flight arrived in Ireland shortly after 6 A.M. When it comes to Saturday night however, I begin to have some second thoughts about this, as it means I will have to wake up at about 4 A.M. on a Sunday...something I don't think I've done more than once or twice in my entire life.

Anyways...I ended up waking up really early and heading up to Shannon and it didn't end up being too bad. I'm a little tired right now, but I can't really say anything when Morgan has been up for about 20 hours or something. After picking him up at the airport, I was going to try to cruise around Limerick a bit and check out the town, but then I realized it was 7 in the morning and nothing in Ireland is open till at least 1 P.M on Sundays, so we just headed back to the apartment. After a quick regroup session, we made plans to head out to Clonakilty and that's where our adventure began.

For a little background, Ireland generally has two styles of roads. There's the main roads that you can clearly see on the maps, which are generally pretty comparable to American highways. Then there are the rest of the roads, which can be compared most closely to American driveways to houses tucked way back in the woods. While attempting to get to Clonakilty, we had to make a few turns on to these "other" roads and I was forced to make a few driving manuevers that I wouldn't recommend at any other time of the day (when there are actually other drivers on the road). After making it to Clonakilty (it was still really early), we decided that we didn't really want to wander around town, so we looked at the map and saw this thing called the Dromberg Stone Circle that looked interesting...sort of like Ireland's version of Stonehenge. Now the road to this landmark made the "other" roads look like major interstates. If there was another car coming out of the road, one of us was going to have to reverse all the way to the other end, which definitely wouldn't have been a good time. When we got to the Circle, the parking lot was empty and the gift shop was an abandoned camper type thing. I assumed it would be a pretty quite day there, but I was wrong and immediately two other cars pulled in, probably tripling the attendance to this current landmark for the last month.

The Dromberg Stone Circle was pretty cool I guess, but we decided to continue exploring and wanted to find the beach near Clonakilty. After about a half hour of driving Ireland's back roads, we finally found the beach and did some exploring. The beach probably would have been a lot nicer if the weather wasn't so bad, but I guess it could have been worse if it was really raining or something. After leaving the beach, we were on the homestretch of our adventure when we came through the town Bandon (there's actually another town in Ireland named "Brandon" in case you were interested). On the way through Bandon while on to Clonakilty, we had seen signs for some race, but now while we were passing back through, we were actually able to see what all the fuss was about. We parked the car and wandered over to a road that had temporarily been closed off and watched some motorcycle drag racing for a bit...which was pretty awesome. Finally, after we had seen enough racing, we headed back home to call it a day for exploring. Hopefully we'll be heading out to the pubs in a bit...something I haven't done in about two months as I've had no one here to go out with.

Anyone for a shot?

So this past week I've had a new roommate. One of the guys I work with has been over working in Ireland so he has been rooming with me in the apartment...and he has no car so therefore I am his chauffeur. Anyways though, I ended up taking him to Kinsale to see the Charles Fort that I've already been to. Saturday night though, we went east to Midleton, a town where another guy I work with here in Ireland lives and the home of the original Jameson Distillery. When we first got there we went on the tour of the distillery, which was a really good time. I learned some interesting things about whiskey making, such as the fact that American whiskey distiller's are the laziest of the three (American, Scottish, and Irish), as they only distill their whiskey once, while the others distill theirs two and three times respectively. After the tour, we all got a complementary glass (shot) of whiskey, which was pretty cool. Because of the tour, I decided that I might start drinking more whiskey...however, I couldn't convince myself that I would ever feel comfortable drinking the bottle of 2000 euro (aprox $2700) Jameson whiskey they had in the gift shop.

After visiting the distillery, we ended up going to this great, but fancy restaurant called O'Donnovan's. I had some interesting carrot and coconut soup (not sure it's originally an Irish dish) which ended up being really good. The whole meal was awesome, until we got the bill of 200 euro (aprox. $270) for only 4 of us. I guess I'll be eating sandwiches at the apartment for a bit to make up for that.

ROME!, pt. 2

Just to backtrack a little bit...when I got to the hostel, the guy there gave me a map of the city. Between Saturday night and Sunday, I realized that I had pretty much covered the entire east half of the map. So naturally, I decided that Monday and Tuesday would be spent covering the West side of the City...plus a few sites I may have missed the previous days. When I woke up on Monday, I decided to go to a cool looking place that I had read about in my Rome guide book, the Santa Maria della Concezione church. This church was supposed to have a crypt where all the bones of dead Monks were used as decorations (I guess that's the word to use). I found out that the place was only a few blocks down from my hostel, so I got there bright and early and walked into the place only to realize that it was only a few rooms connected to a hallway, but it was definitely an interesting place. Each room had a theme, such as skulls, or collarbones, etc and the walls were covered in each. The didn't allow picture taking there, but I bought a few post cards and took pictures of them...hah. Overall the place didn't really meet up to my expectations, but it was still pretty interesting.

After that cheerful morning, I decided to wander around the southeast part of the city, which looked all green on the map. It turned out to be a giant hill that climbed up to a couple really awesome views of the city. I then took the rest of the day wandering past a few of the shops in the city, including a Bentley dealership, a Ferrari store, an interesting liquor store, and a fountain pen shop, which only some of my readers would appreciate. Later in the day I visited a couple other churches which were amazing and by the end of the day, I decided that I'd at least take a stroll past the Vatican to see what it's all about. It was quite the amazing place, but more of that to come later. The rest of the day was spent wandering down the river that's in Rome.

The last day of my trip I had planned to go to the Vatican City and check out the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's (or Basilica di San Pietro for one of my readers). I figured because it was no longer Easter Sunday or Easter Monday, that the lines wouldn't be as long for Vatican related things...wow was I wrong. I got into a line for the Vatican museum that didn't look to bad at first. I then realized that it wrapped around a corner...then a couple hundred feet down the road it wrapped another corner...then another corner...you get the idea. The wait ended up being about 2 hours, but finally I got to the museum. Unfortunately, I was worrying the whole day about making my flight home that night, so all experiences in the Vatican were shortened a bit. Anyways, the museum was amazing though. My first thought though when I saw the amount of people pouring in was..."Wow...the Vatican is never going to go broke." It was just insanity the amount of tickets being sold. The museum itself was very impressive, even at a high speed pass. Some of my favorite items were paintings such as these, which seemed to be a little newer than most of the other artwork,
Raphael's room's that were pretty much covered in paintings from top to bottom, and of course the Sistine Chapel. I then got inline for St. Peter's, which was luckily a lot shorter than the museum line. St. Peter's was an insane church...about twice as huge and glorious as San Giovanni in Laterno, which I had visited a few days earlier. After visiting the Vatican, I decided it was time to start making my way back to the train station and to the airport for my farewell to Rome. The flight home was uneventful and I was home at about 10:30pm Tuesday night. Overall the trip was amazing, but pretty tiring. For my next European trip, I might find a place where there's not so many historical sites to run around to...maybe a place where I can just sit out by a pool with a Margarita...but we'll see. My work is already asking me about coming back to Ireland towards the end of May, so it looks like I might have future chances to visit other cities in Europe. Until my next adventure...Buona Sera!

ROME!

So I'm back from my Rome trip and pretty exhausted, but it was a great time. I got there on Saturday night and managed to find the Hostel I was staying in for a bit, then realized it was just a door in a building with no sign, just a number on the wall marking the address. As a precursor to the next part of this story...when I left Ireland, the last ATM I had tried to get cash out of had denied my card and said that I needed to contact my bank, which was a problem considering it was Easter Weekend. I went to Rome with only 30 euros in my wallet, assuming I could use my credit card most of the time there. However, when I get to the hostel, the guy tells me that they only accept cash, and it's a lot more than I have. I go into mini-panic mode, wondering what I would do in Rome without a place to stay for 3 nights. I ask the guy where the nearest ATM is and luckily it worked...apparently the ATM in Ireland was just in the business of scaring people to death. So I pay for the hostel and the guy shows me my room, which is a tiny room about the size of a college dorm room...but with 6 beds. I have never stayed in a hostel before, so this was going to be quite the experience. After dropping my stuff off, I wandered down the road to the Trevi Fountain, which was pretty awesome, but really crowded. Apparently it is one of the top sights to see during the night time due to the lighting. It was at the Trevi Fountain that I got my first glimpse of Rome street vendors...something that I'll elaborate on later. After looking at the fountain, I went off looking for this "great" Italian food and found a small pizza place near the fountain. I had been warned that the food near the attractions was generally not as good, but I figured about a block away was a safe distance...I was wrong. The pizza was not good. However, I then went looking for some "great" Italian ice cream and somehow I found one of the places that this guide book I have recommends as some of the best ice cream in Rome...and it definitely did not disappoint. Awesome ice cream. When I got back to the hostel, a couple of people were in the room and by the end of the night, the room was filled up.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, I decided to skip the Pope's speech as I wanted to avoid the insanity that I was sure would be near the Vatican. I went to the Capitolina first, the Capitol building, which was pretty amazing. From there I took a walk down by the Roman Forum towards the Colosseum, which was the primary thing I wanted to see in all of Rome. On the way to the Colosseum, I saw about a hundred street vendors, selling sunglasses, belts, little dancing paper things, etc. Not only were there street vendors, but there was also people painted all gold, posing as statues and other strange things like that...very odd. Anyways, when I got to the Colosseum, I immediately saw that if I wanted to get inside, I would have to wait in a line for probably over an hour. Luckily, right away a woman asked me if I spoke English and then offered me to join a tour group where I would have to pay extra, but I could skip a lot of the line and would have a tour guide, so I went for that. It ended up being a really good decision, as I got in really quickly and the tour guide was very good. After the Colosseum, I wandered down the street to a giant church called San Giovanni in Laterno, which I must say wasn't that much less amazing than St. Peter's. The work that went into these churches is baffeling. Other hightlights of the day were starting to see that the Smart car is a favorite of the Romans and I got a few glimpses of why by seeing their parking techniques. I also saw my first Ferrari of the trip...and then my second and third. At the end of the day, I wandered to the north of the city to a giant courtyard that was spectacular. Here is where I saw the Ferrari Enzo, but also some of the best views of Rome that I saw the entire trip. That night I finally found some really good pizza, so I was excited about that and decided to reward myself with more Italian ice cream...which tended to begin the trend of having pizza and ice cream for nearly every meal.

More to come soon...

What happened to the weather?

Well for the past couple weeks, the weather here has been amazing. After the entire month of March being rain every day, this month has been ideal weather and today I made the most of it and we headed out for a round of golf after work. We played at the Pfizer golf course, a 9 hole course right down the road from the plant here and the weather was amazing...about 65 degrees with a slight breeze. For a nine hole course, owned by Pfizer none the less, the course was pretty good. A couple holes over a lake, some overlooking the Cork harbor, etc. After getting the first-round-of-the-season jitters out last weekend, my game improved drastically this time, so that was good.

Tomorrow I'll be planning my trip to Rome...trying to figure out which places are going to be open on which days and such. I've heard that the weather in Rome during this time of year is really nice, so I'm looking forward to more of the sun and warmth...something I hear isn't showing itself too often back home in Connecticut. My next post will be after I return from Rome, so everyone have a happy Easter weekend and I'll make sure to post my hundreds of pictures as soon as I get back.

Ireland sports...

Well, this weekend has turned out to be a very big weekend for sports in Ireland. Friday night, I headed over to the Cork City Rebels soccer match. They were playing Longford Town and were pretty heavily favored. The first half was pretty exciting...I have never seen a soccer match live like this before and we were able to get seats in the second row along the side of the field, so we were only a couple feet from the players. Cork took a quick 2-0 lead in the first half and then sank into a more defensive game the second half, ensuring their victory.

While the game was on in Cork, my buddy from work was listening to the Ireland v. England Cricket match on the radio. Ireland is in the Cricket World Cup for the first time and were trying to beat big rivals England, but ended up coming just short. At the Cork soccer match, the stadium wasn't sold out and that was probably due to another game that was on, the Munster rugby match. Munster is the region's team, so a ton of people were at the pubs watching them play...but they ended up losing pretty handily as well.

After watching and listening to sports Friday night, I headed out to Kerry (near Kilarney) for a round of golf with the Pfizer Golf Society. We played at the Ring of Kerry Golf Club, which was a very scenic golf course, overlooking the mountains and a big lake. The course wasn't in the greatest of conditions, as they are just gearing up for the big golf season, but it was still a good time. My score wouldn't suggest that it was a good time however, as I played pretty terrible golf, which I guess was excusable considering I haven't played in about a year and was using another person's clubs. At least I've used up all my bad shots for a while though, so maybe if I play on the Pfizer 9-hole course over here, I'll do much better. After 6 hours of golfing though, I learned an important lesson: Don't walk 18 holes, carrying your bag, in a brand new pair of golf cleats...unless you want really sore feet and blisters at the end.

When in Rome?

All of a sudden, the nice weather seems to have appeared here in Ireland...something I hadn't really seen nearly the entire I've been here so far. After surfing on Saturday, I took a trip up to Kilarney on Sunday, which was pretty nice. I've posted some pictures that I took there. The ride there was almost as cool as the town itself. There were "huge" mountains, which I didn't even realize existed over here. The town, while really nice, is quite tourist-y and I ended up only staying there a few hours. That was fine though as I was exhausted from the previous day.

Yesterday, as the weather continued to be great here, some of the guys from work and I took a trip to the driving range down the road from work to hit a few golf balls. I believe we are going to hit the driving range again on Thursday, but hopefully next weekend we are able to play a round or so on the 9 hole course that Pfizer owns over here.

Last night I finally decided what European city I wanted to visit and I made plans for a trip to Rome on Easter weekend. I will be leaving the Saturday of that weekend and return on that Tuesday. After making the plans, I realized that it is a religious holiday and with the Vatican City there, Rome could be quite busy that weekend, but it should still be an awesome time. I'll make sure to post tons of pictures from that trip when it comes.

Surfs up DUDE!

So it's been a pretty exciting weekend so far I'd say. On Friday, right after work I headed to the local movie theater to see the movie 300, which was just released over here in Europe on Thursday and was an awesome movie. I didn't end up doing else that night because I had to get a good nights sleep for today...when of all things, I was going to attempt surfing. I never thought the first time I tried surfing would be in the middle of March, in Ireland, but apparently that's where it took place. This afternoon, the weather was pretty much perfect (by Ireland's standards), so a guy I work with invited me to go with him to try our luck at surfing. His brother surfs, so we were able to borrow his board and we ended up renting wet suits down at the beach.
The beach was in a town called Garretstown, close to the town of Kinsale that I have mentioned in earlier posts. The place is amazing, as you can see by the pictures I took. At the beach, the waves were about as big as you would want if you have never surfed before, probably similar to the waves at Misquamicut or something. I was able to stand up a couple times, but only for a few seconds. Long enough that I can proclaim that I have surfed before though...hah. Maybe I'll have to buy myself a board when I come back to the States and make it my new hobby. After "surfing" for a bit, I wandered to these bluffs that were right down the road. You can also see these in the pictures, but they were amazing. Some of the bluffs had about 50 foot drops, with some caves and deep holes in them...pretty crazy stuff.

I'm exhausted now, but tomorrow I might take a drive over to Killarney, which is supposed to be a real nice town about 2 hours from here or so. If that falls through, I might be going to play my first game of Squash with another guy that I work with. I have no idea how to play, but it should be fun none the less.

The David O'Doherty Show...

Last night I ended up going to a comedy show over here in a town called Clonakilty with one of the guys I work with. The town is about an hour outside of Cork, so it ended up being a pretty late Wednesday night. The club we went to was called De Barra Folk Club and was just a small pub with a stage section in the back. The main comedian of the night was David O'Doherty. At the show, there were pretty much 3 acts. The MC, who did an opening gig, was pretty funny. I was thinking that it would be a pretty good show after that. However, once the next guy came on stage, I was wondering what my buddy had gotten me into. This comedian, who I forget the name of, was either a terrible comedian...or part of his gig was pretending he was a terrible comedian. Either way, he wasn't so good. His whole routine consisted of him trying out new jokes that he had written on a few scraps of notebook paper. After he was done though, David O'Doherty came on and he was hilarious. I would definitely recommend you see him if you ever have the chance (i.e. You're in Ireland, in Clonakilty or some other small town, and he happens to be performing...hah). Nearly his whole routine was generalized and not Irish-centric, so I didn't have to know all about Irish pop culture and history to get the jokes, which was definitely a plus. Also, he didn't have a bad Irish accent, so I could understand all the jokes...another plus. Anyways, if there's any other shows in the near future, I'll definitely head over as it was a great time for a Wednesday night.

The party's over...

Today was a Bank Holiday for Ireland, to celebrate the official holiday of St. Patrick's Day, so I ended up working from the apartment. I was thinking of doing a little driving as well, but the weather was pretty insane. From the time I woke up till right now (9:00pm), I've seen blue sky about 8 times, hail 3 times, rain twice, mixed with heavy winds on and off. I'm not sure what is going on here with the weather, but it makes it very difficult to plan any trips, knowing that you could be wandering the streets of Dublin in a hail storm. I'm still trying to plan a trip to Dublin. I'm not sure if I'll get up there this coming weekend, but the next weekend for sure. Definitely need to hit up the Guiness Brewery...I mean the beautiful sights and sounds...hah.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Yesterday morning I figured I'd head down to the Cork City St. Patrick's Day parade. The parade was pretty good, even though as a person not originally from the area, I didn't quite understand all of the groups that were in it (i.e. the giant monsters and such). You can see the pictures from the parade here. There was no floats, which for a city the size of Cork I was hoping that there might be, but it was still entertaining I guess. Sort of like a glorified Mystic parade, minus the 50 fire trucks.

After the parade, the weather was fairly nice (see: not raining), so I decided I'd head down to Kinsale to see what it looks like in the daytime. After traveling down a windy, narrow road for about 10 miles, I was able to find my way to the old fort that is there. I have posted pictures I took of the fort along with other pictures of Kinsale. The fort was pretty cool...there were some great views of Kinsale as the fort is at a higher elevation than the town and it's positioned across the harbor. After a tour of the fort, I headed into the town and walked around for a bit. My conclusion from looking around Kinsale is that it is Ireland's version of Mystic. It's pretty much the same idea, as it's a small town on the water, with small shops and bars. It was good to see the ocean again though.

Today I was going to do a bit more traveling around Cork, but the weather seems to be out of it's mind currently. Since I woke up, I've seen blue sky 3 times, but it's also down-poured twice. I'd prefer not to be caught in a storm if I'm walking around trying to explore somewhere. Maybe tomorrow the weather will be more cooperative...we'll see.

Friday night...

So last night I want to go out and do something for the night and I see that this metal concert is going on at a club near my apartment. The band is called 3 Inches of Blood, and from their website they look like a cheesy 80's metal band similar to Iron Maiden or something. So I drink a couple Guiness (it is St. Patrick's Day weekend afterall) and head to the club to see if they're any good. After suffering through 2 terrible opening bands, who in Ireland are apparently allowed to play full hour sets, the main band finally hits the stage at around 11:45 or so. Within 3 songs, I decide that this band is equally as terrible as the opening bands and end up leaving the place right then. Apparently the club has different types of music almost every night of the week though, so maybe I'll head back when a lame metal band is not playing and see if the scene is any better.

This afternoon is the Cork City St. Patrick's Day parade, which runs really close to my apartment. Also, the weather looks pretty nice for once, so maybe after the parade, I'll take a trip down to Kinsale or something to get some pictures before returning to see what St. Patrick's Day night is all about in Cork, Ireland.

Almost St. Patrick's Day...

Well after a long week of work, it's almost St. Patrick's Day weekend here in Ireland. It's a Bank Holiday so they get Monday off for the festivities. Although I would like to participate in my fair share of "celebrating", I might spend the weekend driving to different places and taking tons of pictures. I'm sure that I'll have a few Guinesses though. I'll make sure to post pictures and blog entries as I visit different places.

Blarney Castle...

Thursday was my roommate's going away party, so we went out in Cork for the night. I definitely over did it and suffered the consequences all day Friday. Luckily I could work from the apartment and didn't have to go into the office to suffer. Friday night we went down to the south shore of Ireland, to a port city called Kinsale. We had dinner at a really nice place called Man Friday. I'll have to head down there during the day time, as it's right on the water and is supposed to be real nice.

Today, I picked up my Opal Astra rental car and decided to take a trek to the Blarney Castle, since it's only about 15 minutes from Cork. I have posted about 50 pictures of the castle and surrounding areas on my Pictures site, so make sure to check them out. I was worried about the weather, as it was gray out all day long, but it held off and I was able to tour the whole grounds of the castle without getting rained on. The castle is pretty cool...very claustrophobic though. The stairwell going up to the top was barely big enough for me to go up. I ended up kissing the Blarney Stone, so we'll see if any good luck comes my way.

On the way back from the castle, I took a detour through some little city outside of Cork and really put my opposite side of the road driving to the test. The streets here are generally narrow, but these roads were two way roads, but with room for only one car. I was lucky I never met up with a car coming the opposite direction halfway down a street...could have been very interesting. We'll see how the weather is tomorrow... maybe I'll go down to Kinsale to take some pictures of the water and a fort down there.

Wrong side of the road...

The past few days I've been driving to work and I must say that if you already know how to drive a manual, it's pretty easy converting to the other side of the road. The only issues I have had have been with maneuvering around tight spots (i.e. our parking garage). You perception is a little different when you're on the other side of the car...but eventually I'll pick it up.

This weekend I plan to do some traveling outside of Cork, as I pick up my rental car Saturday morning. It will probably be an Opal Astra(o) or whatever, as that seems to be a favorite of the rental agency we're using here. It was either that or a Ford Fiesta...hah. I plan on visiting the Blarney Castle, among other locations, but we'll see how that goes. Hopefully the weather is a little better than yesterday, when it was pretty much monsooning all day long.

I continued the trend of non-Irish cuisine this week, with a few American dishes, including a KFC-ripoff called HillBilly's and a nice steak dinner at a hotel restaurant. I guess I eat "Irish" meals every day for lunch at Pfizer, but who knows if I'll ever eat at an Irish restaurant for dinner on purpose.

Ireland so far...

Well, I've now been in Ireland for about a week. It's been a pretty good time already, even though I have been working a lot of the time. Today I took my first driving lesson on the wrong side of the road and it seemed to go off without any issues. I get my rental car, an Opal something, this Friday so we'll see how I do with city driving.

A couple of observations I've made or experiences I've had so far:

1. I've eaten at 4 restaurants so far and they've been the following:
a) Mexican
b) Indian
c) Turkish
d) Japanese
e) Tonight I might be eating Italian

You'll notice the lack of "Irish" on the list

2. It rains at least twice a day. Today it rained 2 times, but at all other times the skies were blue and the weather was great.

3. There is about 1% trucks and SUV's...almost every other car is a 3 door hatchback.

Make sure to view my pictures, which I'll try to update every day that I take them.

-bMarshall