This past weekend, my friends and I took a trip to Cork. We did a bit more research than I did for Derry, so it felt a lot less like we were making things up as we went. My first thought when we arrived in Cork was “why did I come here?” There didn’t seem to be a lot going on and the weather was miserable. However, walking from the bus stop to the city center helped things feel more optimistic. Once we checked into the hostel, we rested for a few minutes before going to visit Blarney Castle.
I didn’t know much about the place before we went besides that there was a stone I was supposed to kiss for some reason. The castle was the biggest one I’ve been inside of so far and the closest to what I thought of when I pictured a castle. (I went to one a few weeks ago that was basically just a well-furnished mansion.) Anyway, the first thing we did was get in line to kiss the stone, which started at the bottom of the castle and spiraled all the way to the top. It was in the line that I finally googled what kissing the Blarney stone was supposed to do, and I found out that it blessed those who kissed it with the “gift of gab.” In other words, people who give the stone a smooch are supposed to be more persuasive and eloquently spoken. I ended up having to kiss the stone twice because the first time I apparently just kissed the wall above it.
The rest of Blarney was cool as well. We perused the poisonous garden, a Jurassic fern garden, and went on a walk around the fields. We came across a huge pasture of cows that we really liked. We tried to get one of the cows to come say hi but I guess she had grass to eat and naps to take elsewhere.
Cork day 2 was pretty cool as well. We took a boat tour around Cork and all the way to Cobh which was really educational but also really long. Between the cold and the anxiety of falling over the edge of the boat, I was pretty wiped by the time we came back to shore. We had some time to kill before we had to bus back to Dublin, though, so we walked around Cork for a little bit. We played tag, some people got magnets, and all of us got food. There was a street musician pretty close to where we were eating that was amazing. He would’ve been the highlight of the trip to Cork if not for the random man who came up to us and yapped for about 20 minutes. That isn’t an exaggeration in the slightest by the way. There was a random Irish man in a red cap who came up to our table and talked at us for at least 20 minutes. Notice that I said “at us” and not “with us.” That’s because most of us weren’t offering him anything in return. The guy who was singled out at first just responded with a lot of mhms and yeahs (with the occasional “that’s crazy.”) Some other people tried to avoid eye contact with the stranger by going on their phones but he called them out for it. I think he said something along the lines of “you’re all addicted to those things” but I couldn’t really understand him. The only things I was able to glean out of the 20-minute one-sided conversation was that he had a lot to say about the Olympics, American Football, and the War in Vietnam. He also told me to sit up in my chair, which I might’ve appreciated if he hadn’t gone on about everything in the world for another 10 minutes after that.
Anywho, he left eventually, and then the rest of us got on a bus to come back to Dublin.
I’d say that the soft skills I’ve developed so far have to do with time management and communication. One of the things I was anxious about before I came to Dublin was showing up to work on time. I haven’t had the best history of showing up on time, but I’ve been surprisingly punctual every day. I’ve even planned my morning commute out so that I can have coffee and a croissant on the way there. The improvements in my communication skills came mostly from interacting with coworkers and asking questions when I was confused. As far as hard skills go, I’m gradually becoming more confident in my ability to write professionally, since most of my daily tasks involve writing an E-book.
I’m not sure if it’s necessarily a global competency, but I’d say that my openmindedness has allowed me to approach most situations with the best mindset for learning about other cultures and not imposing my own beliefs or predispositions upon them.