Rebel Territory

Here's where I show you some of my campus and tell you everything I know (which is very little) about the buildings. Let me take you on a virtual tour of Rebel territory.

This is the main quad (but it's actually only three-sided). Sometimes I feel like I'm going to class in a castle...the branch of the building on the left in this picture is called the West Wing, and I have a few classes in there. This building also houses a campus store, the bathroom where I found 2 Euro, and, most importantly, the Ogham stones. Ogham is an ancient Celtic alphabet, and UCC has a collection of stones with Ogham inscriptions lining the corridor of this building. I'll try to post a picture of them at some point.

This is the entrance to Boole Library. I've only been inside twice, but it seems like a nice building. The library tour was really boring; I'm not going to lie. But it was photographed so maybe you'll see me on the UCC website. Upside to the library: Lots of space. It's pretty big. Downsides: It costs me money to print (I've been so spoiled). I'm not a big fan of the organization of the study area/book area -- the collections are in the center of each room and there are desks surrounding it. And the hours kinda bite -- they're closed on Sundays.

This is the O'Rahilly Building, or the ORB. It's completely symmetrical and, thus, very difficult to navigate. It has a billion different wings and many floors. I have Spoken Irish in here and the Dept. of English is housed here too.

 This is the Student Centre. It houses the New Bar (newer student pub; the Old Bar [how original] is in another building), a few cafes, the bookstore, a few campus stores, a multi-function hall, and a bunch of other things, I'm sure. I had my orientation in here. On the right-hand side of this picture, you can see the amphitheatre a little. Sound carries here, so be careful what you say!

This is the school seal with Honan Chapel in the background. The seal says "Where Finbarr Taught." Below is a picture of the chapel (sorry it's tilted; I edited it, but for some reason it's not straight on here.) It's really quaint and nice inside. I plan to go there for Mass each Sunday. The liturgy was great this past weekend. The cantor has a beautiful voice! They also say part of the Mass in either Latin or Irish (I don't know which since I don't speak either language -- yet!), and it's lovely. So many people want to get married in this chapel that they had to issue a rule that only UCC alum couples can be married here.

The crest/seal that can't be stepped on. Rumor has it that you'll get pregnant or impregnate someone if you do...definitely something I want to avoid while I'm here, though two of my friends have stepped on it. Another superstition floating around campus is that if you walk through the pathways in the quad (you can't really see them in my picture above, but basically it's just a cross that divides the quad into four, well, quadrants) you won't graduate. I won't be letting that happen either. So let me explain the seal: at the top we have the date UCC was founded: 1845. The yellow section is the crest of Cork, the blue section is the crest for Munster (the region), and I think the brown is the university's symbol of some sort. Something about knowledge and truth I'm sure, since there's a book and a torch.

This is the bridge you cross to get into city centre. Under it flows the River Lee. The edge of town is right outside of the gates of UCC. It takes about ten-fifteen minutes (on foot) to get to center of it all from here.

A view from a parking lot in UCC. It's definitely a city built on (or, more accurately, into) a hill. Check out the way the houses are built -- I really love the colors and the fact that they all structurally look very similar.









This is a very abbreviated version of campus...just the route I took from home to city centre. There are a lot of buildings spread all over Cork. In fact, a lot of people have said that UCC owns most of Cork. I have pictures of the city, too, so I'll try to post those soon too. It's dinnertime, though, and I'm off to make burgers with some of the girls in my program before a night out (Bulmer's -- Irish cider -- included, of course!).