March 18, 2010

We woke up bright and early for the “big day.” Mostly because Corrie is an early riser and Melanie had to write a paper before anything else happened. I had a slice of nutella bread to tide me over till real breakfast, which we had with our neighbors. We had decided to dye all the food green, so our meal ended up looking a lot like a story book meal rather than an Irish meal, but it was darn tasty. Scrambled eggs, rashers and green butter. Then the face paint came out and we went to the parade. I never really like parades, but I’m always very eager to see what happens next and I can’t bear to tear myself away from it. In fact, my friends all left to go to a pub, and I rushed back out to see the last couple of minutes of the parade, something not worth seeing at all. Somehow, I managed to leave my camera at home, so I forced to describe what I saw to you, and you all have to deal with reading the descriptions. There were two very interesting things I noticed about the parade. First: all (or at least some) of the different cultural communities represented in Cork marched together. Many wore traditional clothing and sang as they walked/danced along. The theme of this years parade was the ocean, the sea or pirates or something, the result of which being that I felt like I was in the Mermaid day parade, with less boobs of course, the Irish are not that obscene although many of them wish they were. There were giant puppets that scared many of my friends, but totally made my day. One man on stilts was dressed as a pirate with a giant parrot on his shoulder. The pirate’s back was very contorted and hunched, and he had a giant bulging eye, while the man in costume had his head inside the parrots, and he looked out through the parrots beak.Tons of little kids ran around in jester hats. There was a giant alligator with a girl strapped on top. She brandished her sword to the tune of Blondie’s “One Way Or Another.” The alligator had a fog machine, so it looked like it was moving through a bog. The environmentalist group marched as well. One little kid walked along dressed in a blue shirt, and blue overalls. He had a water droplet painted on his face, and a sign around his neck that read “I’m precious.”

After the parade we went to our new haunt, Fred Zepplin’s. I hate that word “haunt” but its really the best word right now. They had a trad band during the day. They played songs such as “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” and “This Land is Your Land” with the words all changed up so they were about Ireland. By the end of the song I had convinced myself that Woodie Guthrie did not write it, and it was really a traditional Irish song.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Kristen made me Mac & Cheese. Ireland does not know about Mac & Cheese, so this is a precious commodity. I also lead the way as we left FredZ, so I got the lunch that I wanted: Chicken Tikka Masala. There should be more Indian food here. There is however, a lot of Poles. There aren’t really Polish restaurants. I feel like this must have to do with the general Irish attitude towards Polish people which is not exactly positive. Yet there are lots of Polish stores that often have a hot food section in the back.