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.
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MINSTRELS! and pub

Today I went to the big supermarket after work to pick up some food. I expected it to be a rather uneventful experience but little did I know that a rather surprising find would turn the experience awesome. As I was going through the isles grabbing bread, salami, and other various simple food items I saw a packet of Minstrels, which I rushed over to and grabbed immediately. For those of you who don't know, Minstrels are an Irish candy made by Galaxy. They're rather similar to M&Ms except they are slightly larger, don't have varying coating colors, and are made with better chocolate. They are quite possibly the best mass-produced candy I have ever eaten. My day got exponentially better after I found them. Coincidentally, today has been the worst weather so far since I arrived. Wet and gray much as I expected it to be like all the time.

Yesterday night we had an introductory dinner for the internship program I'm doing here. We sat through a brief introductory lecture earlier in the day and then they sent the six international students off to get some sort of government tax number. After we finished that we had a few hours break and then met at a restaurant in the City Centre Center for a sort of social dinner so that we could meet everyone involved with the program. The meal was excellent (and free!), although the portions were so enormous that I almost felt like I was in Texas. Afterwards the group headed over to a nearby pub, which made it much easier to intermingle and meet everyone than it was sitting at a long skinny dinner table.

Today was my first real day on the job. I met my French student supervisor for the first time and was walked through an outline of what my project for the next 10 weeks will be. My supervisor, Guillaume, will actually only work here for another two weeks which he will spend primarily training me how to do the synthesis he's working on up to the point where he is now so that I can continue it after he is gone. Since Guillaume is the only one currently working on this particular project, once he leaves it will become my project and I'll report directly to my PI, not a grad student, which I thought was sorta cool. I'll even get my own desk. It turns out that I have an access card that Guillaume does not have for reasons I do not understand. In any case, my actual training starts tomorrow, I only did some reading today, so there isn't too much to explain, only Minstrels that need eating.
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The Silent Head Nod

The Irish do not use the same forms of silent acknowledgment as Americans do. In America the generally accepted way to say a silent hello while walking past someone is to make eye contact and then nod slightly. I assumed this was a universal form of greeting and that I could use it without any alteration in Ireland. I was, of course, completely wrong.

In Ireland they have a gesture that serves a similar purpose. Unfortunately, it is just different enough to have completely confused me for the first few days I was here. Their form of the greeting begins in exactly the same way, with eye contact (generally while walking past one another). However, instead of nodding as we do in America, they follow it with a short movement of their head to the side, like an abbreviated shake of their head rather analogous to the American abbreviated nod. Until today I was always confused when I nodded to people and they responded with their own shake of the head because I assumed that they somehow disapproved of me or my greeting. It was rather distressing because I thought that if I were interpreting their gesture correctly that the people of Cork were either generally not friendly or they just didn't like me for some reason. I am rather relieved to learn that this is not the case.

On a completely unrelated note, I got a (cheap) Irish cell phone today at the Tesco near where I am staying, which is evidently the largest supermarket in all of Munster (the southernmost Irish province). It was missing the back, so the battery and SIM card are exposed, although after paying 25 euro including 10 euro of credit towards talk time I can't really complain.

On another walk through Cork this afternoon I passed the large Protestant Cathedral (which was quite impressive and rather on the large side considering that the vast majority of the Irish population in this area is Catholic), a number of interesting shops in the City Centre Center, and a small, pub-type place that apparently is among the best microbreweries in Ireland. I haven't really taken any pictures to speak of so far, I've been trying to get my bearings walking around town and get a feel for where everything is before I go around snapping away with a camera. That should start soon though, I think I've figured out the main parts of the city decently enough to get myself around in a reasonable manner. I'll start posting then when I start taking them.
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