Scavenger Hunt around the city of Cork

Here are a few pictures from the trip and from today's activities.
 I have a picture is of  a few of the Euro denominations I have. They use a lot of coins here! 5, 2, and 1 Euro coins, as well as 1, 2, 5, 20, 50 cents. The lowest bill, however, is 5 Euro and the highest is 50. Secondly, this is the plane I took from London to Cork; green for the Irish airline! Shocking, I know.

Today, we had a scavenger hunt around Cork. Our first stop was the "Shaky Bridge," which looked old, but I got on it, and it wasn't shaky at all. In fact, it looked over the Lee river which was quite beautiful. Our next stop was the Cork City Museum where we had to take a photo of Micheal Collins, one of the key figures involved in creating the independent Republic of Ireland, splitting it from Northern Ireland (still part of the UK). He was assassinated because some felt he settled too quickly; they wanted the whole island to be independent from Britain. Our third stop was the Franciscan Well Brewery. I am not sure what the significance of this is, but it shows a monk having a pint.

 

We next traveled to the Shandon neighborhood, which is on the south side of Cork. There we first stopped at Linehan's Homemade Sweet Factory and sampled the butterscotch hard candy upon the owner's recommendation. It was delicious! We visited both the old and new Vibes and Scribes, one of which was a bookstore, the other and arts and crafts store. The original has 6 stories! We crossed the river once again and saw where all the buses originate; our target location was across bus 8 at Quill's department store. Next, we went to the English market, a HUGE fresh grocery store. There was any kind of meat imaginable. We stopped and sampled some Durrus Farmhouse cheese. 

 The 8th stop on the scavenger hunt was An Spailpin Fanac, which we found out translate's to English (from Irish/Gaelic) to the Wandering Laborer, or the Journeyman, thanks to some helpful Irish people (who we have been asking for directions all day!) Then, we headed to St. Finbarr's Cathedral. St. Finnbar is the patron saint of Cork, and was the first bishop of Cork from 606 to 620 AD. It was a magnificent cathedral, and one of my favorite places to photograph. Near St. Finnbarr was the Gilabbey park, which is mentioned in Bird Alone, one of the novels we will be reading.

The next stop was a visit to the Ogham stones at UCC (University College at Cork). The Ogham stones are believed to be something like burial markers, or memorials for the dead from the ancient Celts. The scavenger hunt required a copied message. I found "Cronun Mac Bait." Cronun means brown and is a family name and Mac Bait means something like foolish and could be used as a personal name. So this marker was for someone named Foolish Brown. Next stop was the O'Rahilly building where I will be going to class every morning, Monday through Thursday. Our last find was a Monkey Puzzle tree. These trees were imported to Ireland from South America and are so named because the leaves look prickly and sharp (though they are actually quite soft), which fools monkeys so they leave the trees alone.