Roses and Birdsong in January

On my way back to my apartment today, I walked through the Mardyke Park, which sits on the river. It's not sunny, but it is warm enough to just wear a sweatshirt. I was enjoying the view of the river when I realized that there were birds singing in the park and roses on the bushes. And it's January! It's honestly 50 degrees (F) outside and it's great :) I don't thinks it absolutely normal here, but I'll take it.

Today is Friday, which for me, means I have no classes :) We were going to get up super early to go to the Guarda to register with the Irish government, but Rochelle wasn't feeling well, and she was the one who knows how to get there....so we slept in. Once we finally rolled out of bed, Julia and I went to explore the Mardyke Sports center, which is basically the YMCA of Cork and free to UCC students.

I decided to swim, and what a great idea. Pros of this pool: lap swimmers circle swim. Cons of this pool: they circle swim backwards. Now that took a turn of mind, swimming on the left side of the lane. I ended

up joining the other people in my lane doing some 100 IM sets, some fast, some slow, and a cool down. One guy was acting basically as the coach, even reminding us of things to work on with each set. I really enjoyed it, even though it was a harder workout than I was used to. Not to mention that it was a metre pool not a yard pool. I also explored the machines and they're really nice as well.

W.B. Yeats, who my proff says
 is the overreaching giant she
can't ignore when covering Irish lit

Yesterday, I had my first class and I'm really excited about it. It was the Intro to Anglo-Irish Lit class. It's an overview of Irish Lit written in English including poetry, drama and fiction. The proff was engaging and seemed really knowledgeable about the subject. We're also going to get a general overview of Irish history to begin with. She said it would be a lot of reading, but it seems pretty comparable (even a bit less) than the reading I do at home. I can't wait to see how it goes :) Last night, we decided to explore another recommended pub, An Brog. We apparently went too early for dancing, but that's ok, we were all too tired anyway. We did meet 2 Irish boys who were quite entertaining. One of them plays in a band and we got a flyer from him and we'll probably go see it next week. It was quite a fun night :)

Now I'm off to the English Market to explore and possibly find a second hand bookstore to get my texts for the English class. Definitely a great day for wandering :)

~Meg