Diskurswelt.de

On Monday, Chris and I went with Bus Éireann to Cork. Unfortunately, Carmen could not come with us. The trip took about four and a half hours from Busáras, but it was way cheaper than the train. The bus driver was as so often very grumpy and unfriendly. There seems to be an unwritten law in Ireland that states that you have to be like this if you work in service or public transport. Of course, there are exceptions which prove the rule.

We really experienced the madness of the Irish weather: snow in Dublin, sunshine all the way to Cork and then, the moment we arrived, it started raining cats and dogs. A glance into the Lonely Planet and we were on our way to Sheila’s Hostel, a quite cheap but nice play to stay. We did not plan anything in advance, because we figured that it should be easy to find a place to sleep in January. Well, we were right and it was a good, spontaneous choice. The atmosphere was very international: Dutch, French, Canadian, Kiwis, Aussies, Spanish, Scottish and whatnot. By the way: the woman behind the counter was very friendly. Ha, exception!

We shared a room with some religious Scotsman, who played the accordion and talked about Rudolf Steiner and his Waldorf schools. Chris met a girl and colleague from his Dutch hometown. Some guy gave us a very strange handout after talking quite a lot of incomprehensible stuff. A girl from Spain invited us to have a cup of tea with her. A couple from Limoges started a way to serious conversation with us. To cut a long story short: the usual hostel encounters.

We spent most of the daytime with some sightseeing and rambling through Cork, which is a lovely city. Moreover, we went into some music and book stores and bought some really good movies at a very low price, such as the Coen’s gangster movie Miller’s Crossing for €3,60! Unfortunately one of them, The Zodiac, turned out to be a bad buy as I wanted to buy Fincher’s Zodiac. On Tuesday we saw it in the hostel’s cinema room together with some other guests and were rather disappointed afterwards. Just one tiny little word…
On Monday we went to see Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler in Kino, a small cinema where every second seat was „repaired“ with duct tape. However, the movie was brilliant. Maybe one could even call it is a must-see.

During the night we went into some pubs. Noteworthy are „The Thirsty“, because of its cool name, as well as „An Bodhrán“, where an Irishman played folk and pop songs on the guitar. But that man was not the only musician in the room. Besides Phil Lynott, whose photos covered all the walls, there was an even more famous one: Johnny Cash; the man in black. Or at least a Doppelgänger that looked just like him from the side. Elvis did not show up. He probably had already left the building.

Friday I wrote my last exam: Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It was okay, because I already have some knowledge from my studies in Bamberg. My fellow Irish Computing students were not so happy. I am not sure if one was really able to do well in this exam without any prior knowledge. The lecturer, the class itself and the material were not very helpful. However, exam time is over; done.

Afterwards, all Erasmus students, InCuSo members and some of the Computing students went to the Fitzsimons in Temple Bar, where a pint is more expensive than a bar of gold and a cover band played great songs. They even tried Satch. But where was the Doktor? We sent him an SMS: „O Doktor, where art thou?“. His reply „Still in the universe“. Whatever that meant, he finally showed up.
Later, after Anna had accidentially wished Chris a happy birthday, we sang as loud as we could for our birthday boy Tom.

And suddenly it was time to say goodbye, because many people already planned to leave on Saturday. Some of the people I will probably never see again, some others I really do not want to meet ever again and then there are those that I already miss although they are just gone. Such as Tom, Stefan and Mr. Klaus. I really hope that I’ll meet you in Nijmegen, Kapfenberg, Derby or wherever you’ll roam (Bamberg?). It was very awkward to say goodbye and I am sure that I did not find the right words. Bye, guys!

Saturday, the leftovers (read: people who were neither already on their way back home nor had a hangover) met at Elodie’s flat for this semester’s last Erasmus party. Surprisingly, there were not many, but it was fun anyway. In the end, of course, time for more goodbye’s. Bye, everyone!

On Sunday Daniel, Herr Doktor and I went to Anna in order to help her moving all her stuff to Antje’s place in the city centre. The hard-earned prize: bruised shoulders, tons of food that she and her house mates were not able to eat before they left and a nice meal when we finally arrived. Tired and lazy we spent all the evening on Antje’s comfortable sofa before we had to say farewell to Anna and Antje. Bye, girls!

However, there was another mission to complete: we got a bike from Antje, but how were we supposed to get it from the city centre to our house? We thought it might be possible in the Luas, but the security staff in the orange vests just gave us a very unfriendly gesture to get lost. They did not even bother to speak to us. Just a gesture. Of course, not a single word about a refund. Where is a hero when you need one?

Herr Doktor offered to ride the bike home for us so that Daniel and I could take the Luas. Very nice of you, Chris! There’s our hero! When he finally arrived completely soaked in Kingswood, we said goodbye to our housemate and friend Daniel, who left on Monday at an ungodly hour. Bye, Bobo!

Bye, bye!

I always appreciated that we’ve got the Aldi right around the corner, because it is very convenient and helps saving quite a lot of money. Moreover, they even sell a lot of food that you can actually eat (nice food).
But it became even better. Aldi introduced the Super 6, six vegetable products are each priced €0.39! This month super six are: four apples, six kiwis, a bunch of scallions, turnips and – you guessed it – a kilo of salad potatoes.
Thus, affordable meals are possible in Ireland. A kilo of potatoes, some onions and scallions as well as some cheap Salisbury-like steak make a solid meal for three bargain hunters.

Let us assume for a moment that I told you about Chris, Daniel and me teeing off little potatoes in our three square metres of „garden“. Would you believe me?
Ok, then I should probably not write about this. Just forget that question, would you?

While it was still abount ten degrees below zero in Bamerg, we had eleven above zero today over here according to my weather widget. Wow, I really would not have thought that the difference was so big.