First non-American run

I'm in Cork, Ireland now and will be for the next couple of weeks. I'm "taking classes" at the University College Cork by day and drinking my weight in Beamish and Murphy's at night.

I was in Prague over the last couple of days. I really wanted to go for a run, but didn't for two reasons.

1) Prague is quite seedy and there are a ton of pick pocketers. Since the guy I was traveling with had a paper to write, he wasn't able to go with me. I didn't feel comfortable going along for the crime reason and for reason #2.

2) The streets in Prague are ridiculous. They aren't labeled or change every block and meander around so that there's no good way to find your way back to the hotel, even if I wrote down the directions and took a map.

But today after classes, I went for my first run in 6 days. Wow, I could not wait to lace up my shoes and hit the road. I ran from Centre City Cork to West Cork. I ran 10 kilometers (or 6.2 miles for you Americans) in about 55 minutes. I ended up starting in the "pub" district and then went into a residential area before turning around. That said, a couple quick thoughts about running in Europe:

1. I passed 10 bars in 3 miles, all but 2 of them were in the first .8 miles from city center.
2. I had to stop A LOT at intersections and double check that I wasn't going to get killed. I was pleased that that didn't happen.
3. We Europeans (yes, I'm grouping myself into them because I'm here for a month) love our round-abouts, or as you Americans call them, traffic circles. Back in the states, I think I've gone through a total of 10 in my entire life and hated every minute of it. I had to drive through no less than 30 of them on the way from Dublin to Cork. Today, I had to run through two of them. Question for the group? How does a former American run through a traffic circle? Just like porcupines have sex: very carefully.

That's about it from this side of the pond. I'll keep you posted and post some pictures once I remember to take my camera on the run.