Today, the time changed. Ireland (on Greenwich Mean Time) switches over to “Summer Time” about two weeks later than the US switches to Daylight Savings Time, which means that once again, we’re now 6 hours ahead of home again, instead of five. Today is a day of doing homework, but this weekend was a weekend of adventure. Thursday during the day, we explored a cute little town called Kinsale, visited the Cobh Heritage Center (Cobh, pronounced “Cove” which used to be called Queenstown was the biggest port of Irish emigration and was where both the Titanic and the Lusitania made their last port-of-calls before departing on their fateful voyages.) It was a very moving museum. And it was there that I found my penny whistle!! I love my penny whistle and I play it at times when I think I won’t annoy my fellow hotel residents, like the middle of the day. It’s great fun, and I’m learning lots of Irish ditties. I think I’m going to need a new book though, I’m pretty much through with the one that came with the whistle. After Kinsale, we went to the Charles Fort, which is a fort situated on the coast that was built by the British in the 1600’s. The tour guide was brilliant and I learned a ton. Not to mention it was so fun to be able to go and crawl around on the actual fort and explore whereever I liked. The history here is so wonderful because it is so tangible and easily accesible. By studying a ruined fort, you learn all about that period of time which it was made and what subsequent functions it serverd.Thursday night we (the entire group) had a “movie night” where we watched a movie that helped explain the situation of the Irish civil war in the nineteen twenties. Which was a very noble goal for the first night of our weekend and a wonderful movie called “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”… unfortunately, it was one of the most depressing movies we’d ever seen and Ann and I (among others) spent the rest of the night crying and trying to cheer ourselves up. Not even chocolate worked, so we just decided to sleep on it.
I woke up late the next morning (Friday), because I accidentally forgot to set my alarm in my movie induced sadness. This caused me no small amount of anxiety and I very nearly had a panic attack. The whole morning I was a jumpy wreck and I felt pretty upset about it, especially when I dropped my silverware in the restaurant at breakfast. But that was soon to be remedied when I ventured with Laura, Sarah, Ann, and Meghan to heaven AKA the Fota Wildlife Preserve. This place was amazing. AMAZING. I’ve had dreams about a place like this. It is kind of like a zoo in the fact that there are a whole lot of animals there, but it is very unlike a zoo in the fact that they are allowed to roam free and there are no cages. There are some enclosed areas, like for the monkeys and (thankfully) the cheetahs and buffalo. But there are just huge pastures and chunks of forest where all that separates you from the animals is a double fence and a little rock barrier on your side. There were a lot of animals that were allowed to roam free though, like all kinds of ducks (Andrew, you would have been in waterfowl heaven. I thought of you when I got the “duck eye” numerous times) and geese, kangaroos and wallabies, tons of peacocks, cool south american rodents called Maras that look like they have the body of a wild hare with the head of a guinea pig, giant pelicans that could probably eat me whole if they wanted to, and CAPYBARAS! When I saw the real live capybaras about 5 feet away from me it was like I was reliving a childhood dream from the book “Cappyboppy” which I loved when I was younger. In fact, I was so happy that I started crying with joy. It was so wonderful. So amazing. Then, just when you think 
it couldn’t get any better… then came the wild Llamas called Guanacos. Being the llama expert that I like to consider myself to be, I greeted the llamas and petted them and hung out with them in a dust bath that they created in one of the gazebos, much to the awe of my friends, who are pretty certain that I have magical animal taming powers now because of it. I wish I did, but I just know how to handle llamas is all. Never thought it would come in handy. After bidding the llamas adieu, we went to the monkey island where I saw lemurs sitting on a roof and a little bitty monkey eating the chocolate off the stick of an ice cream bar which somebody had not properly disposed of (not me or my friends, though we did have Magnum ice cream bars (Mom, you are soooo right. They are amazing.) after our adventure.) And while the monkey was preoccupied, I petted him. I touched a monkey! It was great. 
I did see a sign for red squirrels and found out that they are an endangered species, but then I also found my “soft toy” (sorry floozy pillow…) a RED TUFTY-EARED SQUIRREL!!! I was so excited! She’s perfect for fitting under my arm and snuggling with. Much better than any alarm clock or random electronic equiment snatched unwittingly from my nightstand. I am still excited. I named her Lucy and I gave her one of my headbands as a pretty little ribbon around her neck.And just when you think that my weekend couldn’t get any more magical… it did! A very large group of us students went out to celebrate my friend Mark’s birthday, and it was great fun. At the first pub, The Old Oak, they played a song that sounded swing-ish. I couldn’t contain myself. Luckily, Ann couldn’t either, so I led, she followed and we swing danced. It felt so good! Apparently, we must have looked good too, because the place around the impromtu dance floor burst into applause. Nice! I felt a little embarrassed because of my need to dance, but I shrugged it off. Maybe if I was ever able to find a salsa club ANYWHERE on this darn island, I’d be able to vent my dance passion in a suitable environment, because it happened again about ten minutes later when they played a salsa-ish song… I just started moving in the salsa basic as unobtrusively as possible. Nobody else knows salsa on this trip, so I just had to move a little. No need for a partner. But one of the local guys spotted me salsa-ing and came up to me and attempted to do some sort of dance with me. I went with it and danced along and we got more cheers. The guy, while we were dancing asked me if I was really any good or if I was just faking it extremely well. I replied that I was pretty good, and he said that’s what he thought and that he was afraid to keep dancing with me, so he just gave me a hug and shook my hand and thanked me for the dance. (The picture is of Ann, my roomie, and I in our leggings! Woohoo for leggings! Before departing for our night of rock and roll.)
After that, some of us decided to head to another pub, Eddie’s, because nobody was dancing on the dancefloor at the Old Oak and Eddie’s had a live rock band playing. We walked into Eddie’s and that was where I saw him… the lead singer of the band… he was gorgeous. A mediocre singer of classic rock covers, it was unrealistic celebrity crush at first sight. Especially when we made eye contact. He kept looking at me, and I at him and then he dedicated a song: “Foxy Lady” to our table! Sigh… so lovely. I wish I knew his name. He had pretty blue eyes and short hair about the color of mine, meaning the color of dead leaves. He had a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt, but other than that he looked very clean cut and not grungy like the rest of the band. Edgy, yet sophisticated. He was witty and musical and cute. My big moment came when he asked for a volunteer, “preferably female”, to help out the band on the next number. After my pint and half (my self-imposed limit. No drunken antics for Steph. Don’t worry, parents. You’ve raised me well.) though I was feeling rather bold and helpful, so I raised my hand, much to the astonishment of my friends. Mr. LeadSingerMan saw (surprise) and called me up to the stage. He asked my name and handed me a tamborine, saying that it was my job to play the tamborine for this next song. Because it was loud, he didn’t hear my accent apparently, so he told me and the crowd that the girl who played last week was American, so it was my job to beat her and play as enthusiastically as possible. If there is one thing Steph Ewing can do, it is enthusiasm, so I told him I could beat her no problem. So the band started up and the song was “Are you gonna be my girl?” by Jet (actually, a newer song, not classic rock, but it sounds like classic rock.) It was glorious, being up there playing away at my tamborine while Mr. LeadSingerMan sang to me asking if I was going to be his girl… Swoon. I even had a tamborine solo. I think I surprised them all with my rhymical prowess (I know I surprised myself!) and when the song was over, they congratulated me, told me I beat the American from last week and the place cheered for me. My shining moment as a temporary member of the Limerick band “The Lynch Mob”.
I’m paying for it this morning, though. Not with a hangover, no. Responisible drinking leaves no hangovers. But in my tamborining enthusiasm and locally microbrewed deliciousness induced lack of precision (ok, so I have poor hand eye coordination anyway.), I managed to mangle my left hand, bruising the base of my thumb, the outside edge and the base of my pinky, the inside edge and the base of my index finger, and some random spot in the middle of my middle finger. I am really puffy and sore, barely being able to close my hand into a fist, so typing is quite the labor of love right now. But I’ve taken some advil and fetched some ice, and feel better.
Well, it is on to more homework and packing because tomorrow we leave for Killarney. Cork was grand, though. Cheers!
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