Day in Cork!

 

    This past week I spent the day in Cork. The main purpose of this visit to Cork was for a group audio tour of the jail. I was very excited for this trip. I am glad that we decided to do the audio tour. I enjoy taking things at my own pace when doing tours, and it was nice that this was at my own pace. Everything I learned at this jail I found to be incredibly interesting, which was fun, and also confirmed that adding criminal justice classes to my course schedule was the right choice. I also enjoyed the audiovisual presentation at the end of the tour. I thought that including testimonies from people who were imprisoned in the jail. This made me feel like I was able to better understand the stories and the wrongful imprisonments of the time. 

    When we finished our prison tour, we were given the rest of the day to explore Cork. Some of the girls and I made appointments to get tattoos. This was something that I was very excited about in the days leading up to the trip, as well as on the day of the trip itself.  Directly following the time at the jail, the group of us started making our way to a spot for lunch, and then to the tattoo parlor. I got my tattoo! I am very happy with it. I almost passed out during the process, not because of pain or anything, but because I have a weird thing with needles, where they always make me either almost pass out or pass out entirely. Once I took a break, I was completely fine, which was good. It was a fun, but very long day. 

    When I was reading "Bog Queen," a poem by Seamus Heaney, I read the line "my body was braille." This line reminds me of this tattoo experience because braille is lifted off of paper, leaving something for people to run their fingers over. After getting my tattoo, the lines where the ink was were raised above the rest of my skin, leaving a braille-like texture on my arm. This reminds me also of scratches and how they sometimes leave your skin feeling raised, which almost tells a story of things that you have experienced, which is similar to braille, as it tells stories.