Brenna's Ireland: "That Jameson Experience lasted us the whole night!"

The weather in Galway has been pretty rough lately. The first really bad day was Wednesday morning when I woke up early for my 9:00 class. The wind and rain was so bad on the bridge that it took an extra 5 minutes to cross it to get to the University. I don't put my glasses on until I cross the bridge anymore, because if I don't they just get covered with rain speckles and blind me the whole walk to class. The wind was so bad that morning that I literally thought I was going to be picked up and thrown into the river. I remember I just kept laughing because I couldn't believe how horrible the weather was. I probably looked like such a silly American, laughing hysterically when this horrible weather was throwing me around. I can usually deal with the wind, but strong winds were accompanied by a thick down poor of Irish rain. I am an Oregonian and can handle my fair share of rain, but this combo was ridiculous even for me! I can't even imagine what the California kids were thinking. The walk across the bridge felt like it took an hour and I was very happy when I finally got to class. My pants were completely soaked and the leggings underneath were also wet and sticking to my legs. Not a very pleasant feeling. Good thing I didn't do my hair that morning because it was completely wrecked. I now know why Ireland has so many hair salons, because this weather isn't hairdo friendly at all. The wind alone just whips it around as it wants, especially walking over the Corrib River. I was hoping the weather had settled down when I began my trek back to the apartment after class. Of course it hadn't, so I zipped up my coat all the way, threw on my hood, took off my glasses and prepared myself for the walk back. This time the wind was at my back, I felt like if I had jumped in the air, the wind could have literally carried me at least 5 feet. Later in the day it cleared up to a calm breeze and the sun even shown through for a little bit. That's some Irish weather for you! The weather was unpredictable for much of the rest of the week but all of us were still looking forward to the weekend. My roommates and I had planned an overnight trip to County Cork that Friday.

County Cork is in Southern Ireland and is filled with lots of Irish history and culture. It is also the place that our family believes that many of our ancestors lived. Both on my mom and dad's side. I was very excited to jump on the bus right after my Friday morning class to get to Cork and spend two full days exploring this great city. There were six of us who went on the Cork trip, my roommates Quinn, Anders, Cate and Emily. And our new Irish friend Frank who lives upstairs also joined us because he had never been to Cork either. The bus ride was a little over 3 hours so I spent most of the ride sleeping because I was afraid of getting sick. Even though this ride wasn't as bad as the trips on the way to the hikes, I still tried to avoid looking out the window too much. After arriving in Cork, we checked the bus times for Midleton and hurried to our hostel to check in and put our bags in our room. Our hostel ended up being a lot father away than we had thought but at least it allowed us to see more of this beautiful city. Cork first appeared to be like a miniature Dublin, with a River running right through it. I soon would discover that I much preferred this city to Dublin, especially the main street. The streets were very wide and all of the shops were spread out. Even though the weather was very windy that day, the city still looked very vibrant with lots of people walking throughout the street and the culture was just booming. We even passed the University of Cork on the way to our hostel, it was a good looking college, all gated with older looking buildings. There was barely any time to explore or settle in to our hostel before we had to head back to the bus station to catch the 3:00 bus to Midleton.

Midleton is where the Old Midleton Distillery where the most famous Irish Whiskey, Jameson, is made. We arrived in time to explore the gift shop and lobby area before we began our guided tour about the history of Irish Whiskey. The tour was pretty great, it began with kind of a cheesy ten-minute video about the beginning of Jameson whiskey, then our tour guide walked us around the distillery and it was set up as if it were a working distillery back in the day. The distillery where they actually distill and produce the whiskey was right next to the tourist building. We could see the smoke tower from the tour. We saw the entire process it took to create Irish Whiskey. Everything from the main ingredients: barley, malted barley, and water to the world's largest Pot Still. I learned that Irish Whiskey sets itself apart from other whiskey because it is distilled three times, this is how it achieves its smoothness, it is easier to drink than other whiskey's that are only distilled once. They never use virgin barrels to avoid too strong of an oak taste in the whiskey. The oak taste tends to take away from the overall sweet honey taste. They also use a smokeless fuel called anthracite to fuel the kiln to dry the barley. A fun fact we learned was that in the old days they would test the strength or proof of the whiskey by setting it on fire, if the flame was blue it was perfect, if it blew up than it was way too strong. Our guide joked that the whiskey that was too strong was distributed to all of the workers when that occured, I am sure that was a highlight of the week for the workers! Near the end of our tour we ended up in the warehouse where they would store the whiskey to mature for 5-7 years, even though Irish Law sets a minimum of 3 years for maturation. We saw 6 different barrels with whiskey in it to signify the different years in the maturation process. The color of the whiskey starts out very light, and ends up with a rich golden colour (the European way to spell color). The longer they mature the better, smoother taste you achieve. The amount of whiskey also decreases as years go by from evaporating into the oak barrels. By the last barrel that marked the end of the process, it had gone down in the barrel about 5 or so inches. The tour guide explained to us that they call that "the angel's share." Oh Ireland, this made us all snicker a bit! After this our guide asked the group for 8 volunteers to taste test the Irish Whiskey compared to other whiskeys. Immediately all six of our hands shot up in the air and we were all chosen. There weren't many other people who went on the tour with us; two women from the East Coast and an older couple with their son, his wife and their new born baby. One of the women from the East Coast and the older man taste tested with us. We went to the Jameson Bar and laid out on a table were our place settings. On them was three different shots of whiskey. All of them were award winning for their country of production. The first was Johnnie Walker, a Scottish brand. The next was Jameson Whiskey, Ireland's award winner. The last was Jack Daniel's to represent the old USA! I must say that I never took to keenly to the taste of whiskey. It was a always a little too strong for me. The older man I sat next to was apparently no stranger to whiskey and had his Jameson swigged down even before she explained what was presented in front of us. He was a funny old man! The Scottish whiskey was way too smokey for me and the Jack was way too strong and over powering. The Jameson was just about right and it was incredible to be able to taste the difference and know the reasoning behind why Jameson is so much better than the others. I was very impressed with the way the Irish handled their whiskey and shortly after the taste test they gave us a complimentary Jameson drink anyway way we liked, on the rocks, with cranberry juice, ginger ale or coke. I tried mine with ginger ale. They even took down our names and presented us all with our very own certificates stating that we were official Irish Whiskey taste testers. It was great! We all relaxed and made great conversations with the others and enjoyed our Jameson. After that, we all decided to pitch in to get a bottle of Jameson to have that night before we went out on the town. The people at this distillery really know how to treat their customers right and market their product. It became an ongoing joke about the "Jameson Experience" and how good we were all feeling when we left the distillery. It made for some good jokes throughout the night! We ran to catch the bus, just in the nick of time, to head back to the city center.

We wanted to save some money so we found a place called The Tasty Kebab. It was basically the equivalent to Galway's Charcoal Grill. After that we just went back to our hostel to relax a bit before we explored Cork's night life. All six of us had a dorm style room to ourselves so we just sat on the top bunks and talked and enjoyed the Jameson we got. After awhile of laughing and exchanging some good stories we decided to head to the University to see if their student bar was still open. With no luck at the University we walked to the downtown and checked out some other good pubs. The one we spent the most time in that was our favorite was called Preachers. It was an older looking pub with an attached room that had all of these posters of famous music groups and legends! They played any song by request and at one point I requested Coldplay "Yellow" for Emily because it is her favorite song. All of us belted it out when it came on, so we got comfortable here and stayed for awhile. We met a group of guys that were huge rugby fans and our whole group chatted with them most of the time. They were very friendly and kept asking us questions about America and telling us how Ireland is going to kill Britain in their rugby match at the end of the month. At one point in the night, Emily, Cate and I were invited to stand on stools with some of them as they sang a rugby anthem song. I didn't know any of it, other than the chorus, so there I was in Co. Cork screaming out "OHH LAY OH LAY OH LAY OH LAY" in this tiny pub with some random rugby hooligans!! It was a blast! The Irish love a good chat and Preachers showed us a great time! After that we went back to a pub called The Bailey we had checked out earlier and when we walked in they were playing "Galway Girl." A song we learned to sing in our Ireland class before we left and so all of us jumped over to where the dancing was and started belting out lyrics to the familiar Irish song. You never hear it in Galway, because the locals apparently hate it because of how much it was overplayed. That is why we were so excited when we caught in at the pub. We got a booth near the music and chatted the rest of the time. We had to be checked out of our hostel before 10:30 so we began our trek back to our hostel not too late and got a good night's sleep for the next day's activities.

The first place we went was the English Market after checking out. It was a famous indoor market that had lots of great shops! Most of us wound up getting a sausage dog from Flynn's Gourmet Sausage Grill. It was really good! After walking around the market we caught a train over to the historic town of Cobh. Cobh, pronounced "cove" is a seaport town on the south coast of Cork. This harbor is where million of Irish emigrated to America, and it was the Titanic's last port of call before sinking. My Great-Grandmother Mime left this port with her family and was separated from them when they arrived to America. Cobh was a beautiful town and I can only imagine how alive it would be in the summer months. It was one of the prettiest towns I have seen in Ireland. The bright multicolored Irish houses lining the steep streets and the tall cathedral in view from anywhere in the town, this town was special. St. Colman's Cathedral was massive and it was a pretty far and steep walk to get up the town to enter it. This was the most beautiful Cathedral I had ever step foot it, it even beats the one at Northwestern we saw in Chicago. There were huge pillars lining the isles and beautiful stain glass murals covering the walls. It was so calm and peaceful, it literally took me breath away. I could see myself getting married in this church. Looks like you all will get to see it one day also then! I skyped with my parents and joked that it was okay they couldn't visit this trip, they would be back to Ireland for my wedding one day! It was incredible, and pictures, as always doesn't give its beauty justice. There was a cat in the Cathedral that was very friendly that Cate named Francis, after visiting the shop, we learned her name was Lilly and she belonged to one of the priests. She acted like she owned the place and just added to the charm of this incredible site. After that we roamed the streets and popped and discovered that there was a grand opening for a Supermac's that very day. A Supermac's is a very popular fast food burger joint. The mayor was there and they were giving away free Cork hats! That is how I scored the sweet red Cork hat in my pictures. Supermac's was way too packed so we decided to go to a little place called Coffee Stop where most of us ordered an Irish breakfast. When our bellies were full we continued to explore the town and walk around until we had to catch the train back to Cork.

We didn't have very much time to kill before our bus was headed back to Galway so we just walked around the town and hopped back on the bus and headed home to Galway! Cork was a blast and I loved the city, probably because my ancestors used to live there. They chose a great place in Ireland to call home! Sunday was a very lazy day and we were all tired from our trip to Cork. I mostly caught up on some reading and I even watched the first half of the Super Bowl. It was about midnight when it started here and I couldn't make the whole thing. Our friend Frank was over watching it with us and I explained the rules of American Football to him and how it was different than rugby. He had never watched American football and found it a very confusing game. I giggled as I thought of the fact that I was watching the Super Bowl, in Ireland, explaining the game of football to my Irish neighbor. All of us American's were a little disappointed that they didn't show American commercials though, sometimes that is the best part! I will leave you with the Jameson Motto:

Sine Metu, which translates to "No Fear"

I am becoming more brave in Ireland. I am traveling with more confidence and have been trying new things. Sine Metu seems fitting right now, whether it is having the guts to climb a steep mountain or volunteering to be a taste tester of Irish Whiskey, it has been a blast full of great memories so far!