The apartment is a good size and rather oddly shaped. We have four rooms- two singles and two doubles- two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining area and a large living room (according to the students who live in other rooms.) The showers have a habit of always being cold unless you boost the water heater ten minuets beforehand and the windows look out onto Grattan Street at eye level, so it’s best to keep the shades shut, both for privacy and heat. But the building actually faces the Lee on its front side, so if you ever get lost you’ll be fine if you find the river, provided it’s the right side of the river.
The four other girls in our apartment are from St.John’s in Minnesota and came with a group of about 14 other students who invited me out to the pub last night, it being my first night in Cork and for them, their second. We ended up going to a place on North Mall, right across the river from the apartment, called The Franciscan Well Brewery, where they sell specialty brews and where many of the girls in the group had their first beer. It was really good time, as we talked about where we were from and how the trip over was.
My room key.
Today we ventured into Cork proper and found a Tesco and a mobile phone store. The streets are small and sidewalks, thin. All the shops are crammed close in a crowded collage of bright colors and loud voices. The city itself is mostly like this, small and crammed and stone (except for the apartment building which is in fact pink), without much green at all, but tonight a few girls who have been studying here for about a year are going to show us some of the better spots around the city and overall have a good time.
