Weekend 1 - Pub Era Commences

Friday night a few of us went out to a bar in Ballycotton called the Blackbird. It certainly checked all the boxes of what you want from an Irish pub and I had my first authentically Irish whiskey and ginger ale. Color me a happy girl. Ballycotton is about a 5 minute drive away so we called one of two men who can taxi you around this area - Pat or Michael. Both are exactly what you are imagining and I love them.

The next morning I went on a hike with a few people, led by Mirjia from the Netherlands who was able to shepherd us in her very cool lime green volkswagon camper van. To call it a hike is a big stretch but we did stomp around the woods for a good long while.Afterwards we went to the cafe at Ballymaloe House for lunch where I ate a crazy good chorizo sandwich.

Afterwards, a couple of the younger students had organized a hang out in the courtyard. For context - there are about 5-6 houses called things like “the barn”, “the playroom”, etc that all share a courtyard and it is generally speaking where the youngest students are housed (and by young I of course mean cool and fun). People were grilling and had fire pits. I was then of course peer pressured (read: asked in a nice and normal way) into going to the one pub in walking distance called The Goalpost. I started my journey into becoming a Guinness girlie but mostly watched 5 old men play a card game in the back corner. I couldn’t for the life of me work out the rules or even if the goal of the game was to be collecting cards or getting rid of cards. Stay tuned for further developments.

Sunday was a “weather warning” in Ireland which sounds serious but I have since come to realize just means there is wind and/or rain? Either way an amazing excuse to not do much socializing and recharge. Laundry, grocery shopping, etc. Weekend one a success I’d say!