Day Six - 16/9/2012 - Cork

     First full day in Cork.  After waking up, walked across the river on a nice little pedestrian bridge to the south bank of the north tributary of the River Lee.  We followed the river east to North Main Street.
     Had breakfast at a really nice cafe called Tony's Bistro, which was done with the godfather movies in mind.  All of the specials were named after a mafia member from one of the movies.  I tried to order Irish stew, but they had run out, so I ordered a pizza with a variety of meats and sausage on it called the Vito Corleone.  Meng got a philly cheese steak sandwich.  After our food came to the table, Meng picked up the sandwich, and I picked up a piece of pizza with my hands.  Everyone in the restaurant stopped eating and stared at us.  After picking up on this, we decided to use a knife and fork to cut pizza and a philly cheese steak sandwich.  It was messy, to say the least.  It seems that there is a higher standard level of politeness in Ireland, from table manners to street conduct to addressing those higher than you.
     Cut across Washington Street to St. Patrick's street, where many of the main shops are.  We shopped around the mobile networks, comparing O₂ and Vodafone.  Eventually signed up with O₂ and got my burn phone.  After getting the mobiles set up, with free texting to everyone, I headed over to Dunnes to buy myself some long-sleeve shirts.
     Next, we headed out to buy groceries at Tesco, one of the local supermarkets.  There is quite a wide variety of Irish food available in the supermarkets here, including knockoffs of familiar brands.  Cheerios here are owned by Nestle, and look slightly different.  Nutella, along with most other sauces, comes in a glass container, and most of the packaging here is recyclable.  There is a brand of potato chips called Walkers that uses the light blue bag with a yellow circle enclosed by a red banner logo used by Lays.
     Meng wanted to try a kebab place on Washington street.  There are loads of kebab places in Cork, as there were in Dublin, but so far, none of them have looked particularly good.  The place was called Tasty Kebab, and did not look very inviting.  The food was a strange mixture of Indian with Mexican seasonings and did not taste very good, but thankfully we didn't get sick.  We went to Daybreak, the equivalent of a 7-11, afterwards for more reliable snacks.