Day one in my new city!

I arrived in Cork on Wednesday afternoon but considering jetlag and all the settling in business, Thursday was my real first day in the city!  Cork is busy by day, and even busier by night.  The city is home to the most pubs of all the cities in the country.  But that's a different story.

My roommates and I (a Bowdoin student from NYC and a fellow Connectican who studies at Boston College) ventured to the University.  We are living in an apartment in the heart of the city, so the campus is about a 25 minute walk.  The campus is breathtaking.  It reeks of pure history and tradition.  I don't think I will have any problem with spending my days working in the beautiful old buildings or out on the perfectly edged quad (if we're lucky enough for the sun to shine)! The picture above is of the famous three-sided quadrangle.

After touring campus we headed back to our apartment and found ourselves pleasantly lost.  I use the word lost loosely because I've yet to feel truly lost, between oddly positioned street signs, all the maps I've gathered, and the friendly Irish people, there's always a way to get to where you are going.  We ended up exploring an amazing part of the city situated on top of a hill with gated homes on one side of the street, and row houses on the other.  The variation in homes was surprising and interesting.  My favorite building so far is this abandoned house on the side of the hill.

The Irish people are wonderful so far.  Everyone is so much nicer and friendly than in America. I can already tell that the country as a whole is much more laid back.  Maybe it's because everything is so beautiful.

-Mollie