Mama B and Señor make an appearance!

At the end of March my parents decided to take a trip out to visit me. My mom had bee to Ireland before...VERY before, like 30 years ago before (not to make her feel old or anything) and my dad had never been. While it did legitimately match up with my mom's spring break and they didn't really have time off in the fall, I find it hilarious that they chose to visit me and not Erika who studied abroad last semester in Ghana. I guess they would rather have experienced this:

than this:

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Ghana wouldn't be as fun as Ireland, because I'm sure my parents would've loved playing with monkeys and having adventures (I know I would). However, I don't know how keen my parents would be to hitchhike on top of cars and be hot and sticky and sweaty the whole time. Especially since we are basically a family of polar bears when it comes to how well we can handle heat.

aka not at all.

ANYWAYS they came to visit on the Thursday (21st I think?) and stayed for just over a week. I still had classes so they split their time between doing their own thing and spending time with the dear little buttercup. Ironically, the entire time I've been in Ireland I've seen snow all of twice and it didn't really last either time while my parents were here for about 10 days and saw snow 4 times. I don't envy them having to drive on the other side of the road, in a foreign country, for the first time, on wet snowy roads, in basically the only blizzard Ireland has ever seen. I felt bad because, hey, who wants to have crappy weather while on vacation? Thankfully, it cleared up for the rest of time and even if it wasn't sunny and gorgeous  it at least wasn't raining most of the time even if it was frigid temperatures the whole time. But we're polar bears remember? So we don't mind that.

They came for a few days to do things in Cork which I surprisingly haven't done yet being here for 3 months at the time. Unfortunately for me, someone who likes to take pictures rather than be in them, my parents must have had some pent up "we miss our child" syndrome and would literally not stop taking pictures of me the whole time.

 Standing in my kitchen. SUCH a great photo-op!

Rummaging for food! What a memory!

As you can tell I might not have been the happiest camper about it. I would like to point out that even if I did ruin (most but not all!) of the pictures, at least I was in them. And there are some nice ones. Surprisingly.

First on their list was squeezing the massive rental car up the winding streets to get to the Cork Butter Museum. Yes there's a butter museum and yes it's a real thing:

 It was actually pretty interesting for nerds like us and it was about how it was such a booming export and still kinda is and how they made it and yada yada yada.

My folklore lessons came in handy too as I added even more nerdy bits about a festival (St Brigit's Day) in which parts of the celebration are basically worshiping dairy products, including butter. Something about building a doll around a butter dash (which is the stick in the churn) and going fake trick-or-treating. Aaaand my parents continued to take pictures of me, trying to get me not to make a face:

Tough luck. Even when I'm not trying to look weird, I still somehow manage to look weird.

Afterwards, we revisited the Cork Gaol (jail) even though I had gone with API. It was actually nice to see the place when it was light out as last time had been at night and some things were hard to see. It also was prime ground for stupid funny photos which are a family specialty:

 Charlie the Enforcer everyone.

 Well at least we found mannequins that matched each of us.

 The guidance counselor guiding the way (hardy har har I'm so funny).
And of course, the unavoidable:

I also gave the the obligatory tour around campus which was good cuz I've yet to take pictures of where I actually spent most of my time here:

Da main quad. So pretty!

The chapel that you can get married in that's on campus. Hmm I'm getting a sense of déjà vu...

I would've taken photos sooner but I was waiting for a nice day since campus is actually stunning in good weather. Only problem is that I would always forget my camera on nice days and also because I don't commonly have "camera" on the list of things I need for class. Promise though, I will get them!