Cork uncorked.
Cork is not a town for tourism. Cork is a place where people live. Maybe it's always sunny here because it's further South, or maybe it just happens that Ireland became sunny during the four-hour bus ride from Galway. This doesn't feel like the same Ireland, though. It feels more metropolitan than Dublin in many ways, and less passionate. There's a different kind of tension, though, and I've seen more crazy-seeming people in my two days here than in my week in those other two cities. People twitching in odd ways and muttering to themselves in uncontrolled ways. But maybe it's the neighborhood.
I've walked to many museums and sites of interest on this trip so far. Mostly I get to them, balk at paying the admission, and explore them from the outside. Locations visited in this manner include the Globe Theater in London, the Writers' Museum in Dublin, and the Old City Gaol in Cork. All cursorily investigated and dismissed. Today was different, though. Today I experienced the Cork Butter Museum.
No, it was not made of butter. Though I didn't actually try licking it, and all of the walls and trim were painted in suspiciously dairy-oriented colors. Other than the composition of the museum building, though, it's pretty much what it sounds like. A museum dedicated to the history and influence of dairy-farming in Ireland. Substantially boring at times, and at other times appreciable on an ironic level. But then every once in a while it would become genuinely interesting. I think if you follow any aspect of life, no matter how trivial, far enough down the line, you'll learn new things about the life surrounding it. And so in many ways it's a museum to the development of commerce, and its pitfalls.
So tomorrow I go back to Dublin, and the day after that I fly out to Paris.
...
Can I just say I'm a little terrified about Paris? I speak a negligible amount of French, and from all reports the French folk will barely give you the time of day if you don't at least make a valiant attempt to speak their language. I feel like I've really paid my dues on this one, though, after working at a video store for many years and doing my very very best to help people who spoke a language I could barely even recognize, and to do so courteously and patiently. Is there a French phrase that sums all that up? Maybe I could get it written on a sandwich board or something.
I'm spending shocking amounts of time online. Mostly it just makes me feel like I'm still in touch with my life. A lot of time chatting on gmail. With one person in particular, and that's making me plenty happy. Tee-hee. Yes, I'm fully aware I could be chatting on gmail at home. I could also have seen the Simpsons movie and read the last Harry Potter book at home. Oh well. I'm not doing them at home. I'm doing them, currently, in Cork.
Oh, and fie on them for having the Butter Museum in Cork. It has had the unpredictable effect of getting Lore Sjoberg's Bjork song stuck in my head for hours at a time.
Also, fie on the Wonderboy store across the street. I only know the part of that song where they sing the word "Wonderboy."
Fie fie fie.
Along the quays, there are life preservers with signs that say:
"A Stolen Ringbuoy - A Stolen Life"
I've walked to many museums and sites of interest on this trip so far. Mostly I get to them, balk at paying the admission, and explore them from the outside. Locations visited in this manner include the Globe Theater in London, the Writers' Museum in Dublin, and the Old City Gaol in Cork. All cursorily investigated and dismissed. Today was different, though. Today I experienced the Cork Butter Museum.
No, it was not made of butter. Though I didn't actually try licking it, and all of the walls and trim were painted in suspiciously dairy-oriented colors. Other than the composition of the museum building, though, it's pretty much what it sounds like. A museum dedicated to the history and influence of dairy-farming in Ireland. Substantially boring at times, and at other times appreciable on an ironic level. But then every once in a while it would become genuinely interesting. I think if you follow any aspect of life, no matter how trivial, far enough down the line, you'll learn new things about the life surrounding it. And so in many ways it's a museum to the development of commerce, and its pitfalls.
So tomorrow I go back to Dublin, and the day after that I fly out to Paris.
...
Can I just say I'm a little terrified about Paris? I speak a negligible amount of French, and from all reports the French folk will barely give you the time of day if you don't at least make a valiant attempt to speak their language. I feel like I've really paid my dues on this one, though, after working at a video store for many years and doing my very very best to help people who spoke a language I could barely even recognize, and to do so courteously and patiently. Is there a French phrase that sums all that up? Maybe I could get it written on a sandwich board or something.
I'm spending shocking amounts of time online. Mostly it just makes me feel like I'm still in touch with my life. A lot of time chatting on gmail. With one person in particular, and that's making me plenty happy. Tee-hee. Yes, I'm fully aware I could be chatting on gmail at home. I could also have seen the Simpsons movie and read the last Harry Potter book at home. Oh well. I'm not doing them at home. I'm doing them, currently, in Cork.
Oh, and fie on them for having the Butter Museum in Cork. It has had the unpredictable effect of getting Lore Sjoberg's Bjork song stuck in my head for hours at a time.
Also, fie on the Wonderboy store across the street. I only know the part of that song where they sing the word "Wonderboy."
Fie fie fie.
Along the quays, there are life preservers with signs that say:
"A Stolen Ringbuoy - A Stolen Life"