Friday in Cork

Let's see, Friday was fairly busy, but it will take a minute to remember everything.

Alright, I'm ready.  So we got up pretty early and had a little breakfast.  With our B and B status, we got to have a full Irish breakfast for free with our rooms.  Mom didn't actually know what went into a "full Irish breakfast" so I will explain.  A full Irish breakfast includes two eggs made how you like, bacon (which is more like ham with the flavor of bacon), link sausages, black and white pudding, fried potato cakes, mushrooms with gravy, baked beans, a fried tomato and toast with coffee or tea.

So, that's a lot of food, and they keep giving it to us for free.  I had bacon and tea, and then we packed into the bus. 

(Interesting aside, we started having bus issues on the way to Cork, and it was making this alarm noise but nothing seemed to be amiss.  It was a great bus, with seats like a plane with fold down tables, and foot rests, and lights and air conditioner vents for each seat.  It was very sweet, and it had a bathroom in the middle of the bus (but we were required not to use it.).  Anyway, because it was making that noise, we got a new bus once we got to Cork, which was nice, but not as nice, and didn't have tables or foot rests.  Finally, today -- Saturday -- we got the bus we will probably keep, which does have foot rests, but no tables.  Curse the little tables!  I loved them.)

Anyway, we took off in our second bus for the Clonakilty Black Pudding factory.  We met with the execs, and talked about black pudding.  Apparently there is actually more blood in a rare steak than in black pudding.  The recipe is fairly heavy on milled oats and onions, as well as beef or pork, and some dehydrated beef blood in the black pudding.  It is mixed much like the surimi that we make from the fish protein at Westward Seafoods, so it was fairly familiar for me.  The spices are mailed directly to the CEO, Collette, who mixes them secretly according to the Harrington's recipe (which is a 1920's variation on the 1880's original family recipe).  Other than that, all that goes into the pudding is meat, oats, onions, spices, and some dehydrated blood.  Then it gets squeezed into either a plastic casing (which will last for a few months) or into a natural intestine casing.  They hand pack all the boxes for the sausages, and hand label the sausages that are in the natural casings because of their nonstandard shape and size.

It was fun talking to the executives, and they are looking to move their factory closer to the original butcher shop in Clonakilty.  The current factory is near Cork City.  We walked through their whole operation, which was incredibly small, considering.  I think some pudding might be made in other cities in the world, but I'm not sure.  The more interesting thing is that this Collette character is also the mayor of the city of Clonakilty, and she called up the model train museum to schedule a tour of the city and a trip to the original butcher shop.  Cause when you're the mayor, you can just do stuff like that.  The model train place was really cute, and the train ride was hokey but adorable, and it dropped us off right outside the original shop.  We talked to the butcher inside for a minute, and she gave us a bunch of canvas Clonakilty tote bags, so I'll be bringing those home, if anyone wants some.

For lunch, we all grabbed food at the farmer's market that was across the street.  I got a chicken and leek meat pie, and it would have been better if it was warm, but it was still good.  We had to hustle off to catch our bus (to get to our other visit), so we only had a brief conversation with some guys playing backgammon in the park.  It was cute, because when we said we went to the black pudding factory, and the CEO brought us over here, they knew her by her first name.  We had a moment to see the Michael Collins monument, because he lived in Clonakilty and was assassinated not far from his home.  He and Eamon de Valera were on opposite sides of the civil war (Collins was ok with the treaty with a few counties being in the UK, and de Valera was not.).  I think it was the British who assassinated him.

Anyway, we made it back to the B&B in time for a spot of high tea, and even though I didn't get to finish my second cup, it was quite tasty.  Lauren and Tanner, who I sat with, were both sick, so they were both appreciative of the tea, but not such sparkling of conversationalists.  We were slightly late leaving for Carma, which bothered Leta very much.  Getting to Carma involved winding through narrow streets in Cork, and we arrived at the back door, and had to negotiate our entrance.  Once we were buzzed in, and trudged up the stairs, we entered the still expanding offices of Carma.

Carma is an actual ridesharing app (unlike Uber or Lyft, where you are making money as a taxi service, which is technically illegal), where people coordinate their commutes and make back the cost of their drive.  It is meant to reimburse the costs of infrastructure paid in taxes, and insurance and gas.  Since you aren't technically making money, it falls under the law that was passed in the 70's during the energy crisis that made carpooling legal.  The other benefit is that each rider pays their driver for driving, Carma takes 15%, and you get credit for driving that you can use later to ride.  So at a certain point, regular riders are only paying Carma 15% of the cost of driving, which often is close to 50 cents, and just trading off the responsibility of driving.  Right now, the app only works in Austin, Bergen Norway, and Cork Ireland.  They are working on expanding into Seattle and DC in the foreseeable future.

The guy, Shawn O'Sullivan, who invented the app has been more involved in your digital life than you realize.  He invented a program called Map Info, that is the basis of all the online mapping services in the world.  Google runs on his platform and idea.  He also coined the term "cloud computing" about 20 years ago.  He says that if you look for megatrends, and come up with solutions to problems that haven't reached their critical mass yet, you can make millions.  Because the world is generally looking for the best solution to a problem, and most of being the best in the world is being the first.  I'm not sure I could ever have a brilliant idea like that, and even if I did, I don't know what I would do with that idea.  But if I can just be a cog in the system that turns that guy's mind, that would be pretty incredible.

It was far more interesting meeting with him than I expected, and we all had plenty of questions for him.  It was fairly inspiring to meet with him, and he seemed very cool.  He is clearly not in it for the money, as much as for the science experiment of solving problems.  He seemed like he was definitely thinking of about 8 million other things while he was talking with us.  Not a bad thing, because I'm sure those things are way more important anyway.

We went to a pub for dinner, the Thomand Bar, (possibly Thormand...) and I had cabbage and bacon, and a big girl sized glass of Guinness not a baby one.  Dinner was very good, but they need to put more vinegar on things.  My Germanic heritage was showing, and I doused the whole pile in malt vinegar.  In a related story, I am bringing home a bottle of malt vinegar from the fish and chips place in Dublin, I don't remember if I mentioned it. 

Well, everyone was dying to go out, and they were having musicians in to sing at 9:30, so Dale and Marnie and a few others left to go home, and Lauren was sick so she went too.  I stayed out, and had another Guinness (in truth, I had maybe half of another Guinness before I almost fell over while I was dancing to the music, and decided to stop drinking.).  Everyone was very happy to have me there, and several people were concerned that Lauren was feeling excluded because she didn't come out with them.  I put the bug in people's ear that we should do more of our drinking together beforehand, and that way she and I can feel more included, and then they can go back out to the pubs while we go to bed.

The two musicians sang American covers, which is apparently very typical.  They sang Wagon Wheel and Sweet Caroline and Lose Yourself by Eminem, which was kind of cool.  We sang and danced for a while, and I made a new friend in Corbin, who was being pretty cool.  Eventually, we decided to leave for another bar, which was quite the hassle.  There is a strip of bars where they really do check ID, and the entrance requirement was over 21.  That was a problem for a couple of girls who were under 21, so there was some ID switching, and just as everyone finally made it in, someone dropped a glass on the floor and the bartender was already giving us the stink-eye, so we left again.  By this time I was quite hot and feeling a little sick, so while the fairly balmy fresh air was a relief, I was looking to go home.

The part of the drinking that I like least is definitely the wandering around and the bad attitude.  We looked for another bar, and this bouncer very nicely said that they were full.  Whether they were full, or didn't want Americans, or college students, or already drunk people, is irrelevant, because he was very nice about it.  But Byron wanted to stand and argue with the guy, and I tried to grab him but he shook me off.  After drunkenly babbling at him, he finally moved on, and proceeded to grumble about how big an asshole the guy was.  I was just thinking that there was definitely an asshole in that conversation, but the bouncer was not it.

I saw the street to head home, and in Dublin I would have just taken off by myself.  But everything is much further apart in Cork, and even though it was a straight street to the house, I didn't feel like going alone.  I feel like there are more homeless people here in Cork than in Dublin, but they might just be more visible.  Anyway, I asked Tanner if he wanted to go home, and he did, so we headed back together.  It was good for him, because he had an excuse to leave, and good for me because Tanner is gigantic and looks like my brother.

We had a good chat on the way back, before realizing that Lauren had the key to our room, and thus, to the universal lock on the front door.  I assumed she was probably asleep, so I rang the bell, but she didn't answer.  After pushing the bell button repeatedly,  Tanner thought to try his key, which worked, and I got in.  Basically, Tanner got me home safe, which was very nice of him.

When I got upstairs, Lauren was still awake, and had just had a shower.  Mom and Dad skyped me as soon as they realized I was online, so I talked to them. ("How are you Sierra?"  "Good, I'm drunk."  "... I thought you said you wouldn't get drunk while you were in Ireland?"  "I'm not very drunk.")  I apparently looked like I was either going to burp or throw up, and I felt like it too.

I skyped with Chris immediately afterward, so by the time we got off, everyone had returned from the pubs.  I headed to bed as quick as I could, and was only interrupted by Corbin asking what happened that night.  I said that nothing happened, and I don't know what he meant by "catching me out", but he didn't elaborate, only drunkenly stared at me and announced that we were even, and left.  Apparently dancing at a pub that happens totally sober is significantly more mentally confusing once inebriated, and one of us is in pajamas.

Anyway, it was a pretty good night, and it wasn't that bad going out with everyone else.