Americans + Unrelated Picture

Today I ran into Americans for the first time since getting to Cork and starting my internship. We had a social sort of event with the participants in other similar internship programs at UCC and two of the students in one of the more biology oriented were American. Interestingly enough both are from the west coast (LA and Seattle). They lived with a bunch of other international students from their program, just as I did. I later ran into them by complete coincidence on my way home from the pub after watching the Spain-Russia semifinal.

The pub where I watched the semifinal seemed to me to be the complete stereotypical small, friendly Irish pub. When we arrived about 45 minutes before kickoff there were about 3 or 4 other patrons, so we more than doubled the number of people there. The bartender was friendly, joking and conversing with the few people at the bar. It was decorated in a rather quaint way so that it almost seemed like I was in someone's living room. It wasn't a big sports bar type place so the crowd watching the game was not huge, but it was, all in all, an excellent place to catch the match. Sadly, Russia lost. Even more depressing nauseating horrifying were the jerseys that Spain chose to wear. The Irish commentators generously described the color as "mustard" and proceeded to disparage its hideousness. I wholeheartedly agreed.

On my way home from the match I ran into the Americans, who were walking with their housemates to the Lough (pronounced lock, like Loch Ness), a large lake not too far from the UCC campus. I went with them. It was interesting to speak to Americans again. It also occurred to me that from their conversation they seemed to have very little social interaction with their Irish coworkers. I have spent most of my time with my newly made Irish friends, and for some reason this group of international students seemed to remain more a unit, in their own social sphere. Their approach to life and work in a foreign country ends up being a bit different than mine, I guess, although that may be because in their case they are living with other Americans.

In any case though, it was interesting to run into another American, and funny when they ended up being from places relatively close to where I live.

And the picture is of a sidewalk on the way to the grocery store (Tesco!) from my house.