Adventures Abroad

So, I haven’t written on here in awhile (minus the lovehate blog., but  that one doesn’t really count) and so much has happened that I can’t fathom getting all the good details out.  So I’m just going to have to skim what I’ve done and mention a few highlights!  Following the week that I started to really get sick, that Tuesday my class went to the play that I had mentioned.  It turned out to be a total bummer; more of a sleeper of a lecture than a theatrical experience.  We went to a pub together however, so it was all worth it!  That Friday, however, was great!  It was the day of the IES-affiliate hike to Glendalough.  About 30 of us went nearly an hour outside of Dublin to County Wicklow to see this beautiful view of the two lakes (which is what Glendalough actually means; two lakes).  It was a heck of a time getting up to the top though.  One of my housemates, Helen and I were nearly at the end of the crowd as we slowly ambled our way up the path to the top.  I felt nauseous for a while because, well, you know that little hiker that some people have living inside of them?  Mine died long ago.  And I’ll blame it on the mitral valve-prolapse, yep that’s why I’m instantly red in the face after going ten feet uphill…  Anyways, so it was beautiful!  It was just what I was looking for in coming to Ireland.  Misty, rolly hills of various greens and deep blue lakes resting below plummetting cliffs amidst unexpected crests.  It was gorgeous, to say the least.  Even the weeds were arabesque in their purples and golds.

The following day Helen, Jess and I went out on the town to go shopping!  Sure broke that shopping seal; haven’t stopped since.  And yes, the purchases at the 3-floor American Apparel were necessary.  Jess and I then continued on our city-outting to see the Guinness Storehouse.  It was actually much more interesting that I had expected.  The inside is shaped like a pint glass and the layout of the place is made so that you begin by learning a lot about each of the four ingredients within Guinness: water, barley, hops and yeast.  They have large displays of each of these things, including a giant pit of barley, a luscious hops display, a refrigerator with an original strain of yeast of sorts (wierd, I know) and an icy-cold waterfall to complete the deal.  The tour continues with more details about how the process of making Guinness is done.  There is a lot to it!  They even let you in on all the details about the barrels that are used to store their creation.  One of my favorite parts of the tour were the old Guinness advertisements.  They were so cute and funny, one of the more well known of which featured a toucan with a Guinness that said “Lovely day for a Guinness.”   Finally, you can make the choice to either drink your “free” (or rather, included in the ticket fee) Guinness pint after learning how to pour it yourself OR you can go up to the very top and get your drink while enjoying a complete view of Dublin and beyond at Gravity Bar.  We chose to pour our own pints, but we were also able to go to the top (we just couldn’t have another drink, obviously).  The view was grand.

The next day we went to a HURLING game!  This is legit my favorite sport now because it was so damn intriguing and hilarious to watch!  It reminded me of Harry Potter in a way, with people running around with sticks (rather than brooms of course) hitting each other and running around carrying the “slither” as the ball is called, atop the same multi-purpose sticks, or “hurlies.”  One can hold the slither for up to 3 seconds with their hands and run with it, they can carry it on their hurlie, or they can bat it like in baseball to get it across the field.  This game was the final as well, Kilkenny versus Galway.  Kilkenny won, which I hear, is no surprise.  I was rooting for the underdog, but it didn’t help.  Anyways, not only is the game interesting, but it looks entirely difficult!  There are two ways to score, either through  football-like goal posts (one point) or in a soccer-like goal (three points)!  There are two men on either side of the goals wearing long white lab coats; there is a science to this game really.  This very unpredictable and amalgamated sport is mesmorizing, even for someone like me who is not that into sports!  It was a great time.

Then of course, the weekend was up.  The week went by with nothing too exciting happening; the internship is great, but sometimes there is a lack of work, or rather, un-monotonous work.  But I am grateful for it and for the company of the other interns. 

This most recent weekend Jess and I went to Cardiff, Wales.  The plane ride was only about an hour-long and provided for a great little GRE study session both ways!  Yay!  😛  Once landing, we slowly came to realize just how small the place was.  There was no stamping of our passports.  The one ATM machine was out of the way and upstairs next to the one restaurant in the airport.  The airport itself was quite small.  And when we finally went outside there was only one taxi!  Which was only there, thank God, because it was dropping someone off!  The country is probably the size of Rhode Island, and thus, we learned, that the capitol is not entirely exuding with things to do.  The very sweet and geniune cab driver gave us a few helpful tips though.  He told us that the beer of Wales is “Brains,” that cockeles are one of the fewer remotely Welsh foods that you should probably try in Wales, and that there is a lot of great farm-made ice cream all over.  Conveniently, there was a festival occuring that weekend at the Mermaid Quay (pronounced “key”) where we could try the ice cream!  YUM.  I got banana toffee crunch of sorts.  Tasted like one of my favorite desserts from my best friend Vy’s restaurant, fried banana and ice cream.  De-licious.  Oh My God.  I know, dramatic.  But still.  Okay, moving on.  So the festival was nice.  The people were curiously friendly.  We saw Cardiff Castle, the Parc outside of Cardiff Castle and the National Museum of Wales.  I also found a great place with two-for-one dranks on Friday night…long islands and rum/tequila mixers!  Great choices…We went home on Friday night after that dinner and wanted to go swimming, only to find that the pool closed at like 8:30 or some crazy time like that.  Pretty much sums up the life of Wales.  Oh Wales…if I ever go back, it will be to the north, possibly Snowdonia (I hear that’s pretty) or some other part of the country-side. 

Then, this past Sunday, after getting back from our Wale of a time from the Rhode Island of the Isles, Jess, Helen and  I went to a little town on the water, known as Howth, only 20 minutes north of Dublin.  We took the Dart (the train) which only cost us 4.20 Euro roundtrip.  It was a darling little place with tons of sailboats, colorful edifaces, seals that bob up and down awaiting an easy catch, a lighthouse, a church and a couple little shops and pubs.  It was quaint and a perfect day weather-wise.  I even got an “I love Ireland” jumping photo taken there!  Can’t miss out on that!  A plus of going on a Sunday was that there was a little market happening at the time, which we were pleasantly surprised about.  Tasty treats, fudge and cupcakes, jewellery such as the malacite shamrock ring I bought there, breads, nuts fruits, veggies and many other things were being temptingly sold.  As we made our way back to the train station we realized it was quite a satisfying weekend, especially that particular day.  Sitting on the train next to a nun for the next 20 minutes was just the way to take it all in and let it silently absorb (*arcasm, sarcasm*).  I do love trains though, which is why I am extra excited to go to Cork this weekend!  They are a great way to let your mind just fly away with each passing idea that catches your subconscious eye.   

Anyways, I’ll of course update about Cork, especially as it is going to be the last weekend of my study abroad program!  🙁  This is very sad to me.  I’ve met great people here and don’t really want to face the fact that I likely won’t see them again, at least in the “non-Facebook” world.  Speaking of which, today at my internship the crazies that I work with were absolutely nuts!  We were having a lot of fun being goofy while working today.  Being tired really does make everything more fun.  On top of that, we all get along really well in the first place.  I wish they all went to UPS.  I’m jealous of the Iowa students here because they will all be able to hang out after the program is through considering they all go to the same university!  Lucky.  I will, however, probably be going to the Jameson Distillery with two of the other interns tomorrow which will be great!  Good times ahead.  And I can’t wait for my family to get here in a week and a half!

Well, I can’t hardly let myself stop writing because there is SO MUCH MORE TO SAY!  But alas, I must.  I need to go to bed so that I can actually wake up for my internship tomorrow!  Yayyyy!  🙂  Good night Europe and good afternoon Tacoma!

Here are all the things I hate after being here for a month, particularly things that stood out to me today:

1) Having to buy your grocery bags and when you forget them, having to lug heavy groceries all the way back home in the mugginess…

2) The tiny-ness of everything.  Why must everything be so much more expensive and so much smaller??  Not cool. 

3) People never move out of the way here.  You will run into at least 100 people a day I swear, at least if you walk as much as I do.  And I thought Americans were rude.

4) Nothing is open past 6:30 pm (except for pubs).

5) Everyone here is “Catholic,” but no one really believes or follows their suppossed beliefs.

6) Psychology here is a lot less respected.  Also not cool, they need to get crackin’ and get more serious!

7) Since I now have work experience here, I can honestly say that more laid-back is not necessarily better, but rather you still sit in an office all day and are even more bored because you have either nothing to do or something very undirected to do.

8 ) The diffused Irish culture of Dublin.  All English speakers pretty much and such a mix of people that the Irish culture is lost in the city.   

9) Terrible, if any at all, customer service.  WOWOWOW.

Well.  That’s really all I can think of…Now for the happy ending!  I love…

1) The countryside of Ireland.  I would move there in a heartbeat if it was a real option right now.  It is exactly what you’d expect, typical green beauty. 

2) The word “craic.”  I will be saying “good craic” for years to come, just you wait and see. 

3) The chocolate is so much better here!  My new favorite candy bar is Cadbury Snack…delicious!  I’ve been getting it wayyyy too often…

4) Their love for football (aka soccer) is so much more exciting!  And in general, hurling, gaelic football and rugby and way more fun to watch!  Entertaining to the end. 

5) The fact that everything is so walkable here (and bikeable too, obviously!).

6) The beautiful buildings, churches everywhere and giant, old buildings now used for something other than what they once were.

7) Irish music when you can actually find it playing!  It’s so pleasant-sounding and lively!

8 ) Obviously the accent.

9) I love that pretty much everyone goes to the pubs.  We go on our IES Abroad outtings and it’s just chill.  You watch the game, go to talk to your friends and have a drink or 2.  It’s not sleazy (unless you go to Temple Bar) and it’s a ‘grand’ time. 

10) The Irishes’ obsession with America.  It’s cute and makes me feel super cool.  Duh.  Actually, it sucks cause it melds the cultures together a bit, but at the same time it’s funny because they love us.  They love our music, our tv, our celebrities, our country, our autonomy, our ideas!  We’re great!

11) The smells here.  Irish people have the best perfume.  Every woman wears the same perfume, I’m pretty sure.  And the guys all seem to smell the same too!  It’s sorta strange.  I really want to buy the perfume though, it’s strong yet not too in the face and reminiscent of my time here so far.

12) The loose stones and cement blocks in the sidewalk.  I hunt them down, it’s fun stepping on the wobbly ones.  Just don’t step in any holes where cobblestones have gone missing, not so great!

13) Guinness and Jameson.  I know we have it, but it’s everywhere here and it tastes better.  It really does.

14) EVERYTHING.  I feckin’ love it here.  The end.  The fact that my program is up in 2 weeks depresses me a LOT.  I love my housemates; they are amazing.  This place is beautiful, friendly, fun, warm, cozy, feels like home already.  I never want to leave.  I highly suggest studying here for more than a summer!  🙂

Yes, that is right. You can get sick in Ireland on a lovely summer in Dublin. I had to leave my internship at Trinity College after lunch today. I mostly only stayed that long because I wanted to hear one of the other interns’ funny stories about their weekend. Anyways, my weekend was pretty good except for when I started getting sick. It was an interesting weekend at the very least.

It began on Thursday night when my writing flatmates (I’ll explain what I mean by that later) came home and said there was a party at another writers’ flat.  I decided that sounded fun, so I went.  I really like my these two girls, but the rest of the writers are, as I’ll elaborate upon, super cliquey.  That was boring and awkward for me, so I left after about an hour or so.  The next morning, I hear Helen come up the stairs to say “Don’t worry guys, it’s okay, I only witnessed a robbery.”  Apparently, and although this isn’t my story to tell, I must, she and 2 or 3 others were walking back when this guy comes racing passed.  He runs into “Abrakebabra” and hops the counter.  One of the friends she was with decides to knock on the window because they’re all drunk and they thought the guy was just being silly.  They wondered why he was running so fast.  As he’s knocking on the window, the guy pulls out a knife and the 2 ladies behind the counter scream!  The guy was obviously robbing the till, of Abrakebabra no less!  Outrageous.  So of course my classmates/flatmate run!!!!  And as they’re done running Helen remembers “112, 112.”  She wonders how on earth she remembered it, the emergency number in Ireland.  It’s quite sadistically funny, so Helen’s laughing while on the phone with the police, trying to explain why she’s calling from an American phone and trying to get through the laughter so they’ll believe her.  Anyways, I’m very glad I got home before that happened!! 

On Friday (my internship is only Monday-Thursday) I wandered around Dublin on my own. I wanted to take pictures and see some of the things I hadn’t seen yet. Because 2 of my better friends/flatmates here are in the Iowa Writing Program, they have a ton of extra time during the day while I’m working, so they have all been going out and seeing things! By the time I get off hardly anything is still open long enough. Also, it sorta sucks because the writers are a very cliquey crowd. I like the other interns in the IES program but we only have class together once a week, so it’s not the same as what the writers have going… Anyways, so Friday. I walked up past Steven’s Green to see it lined with thousands of brilliantly colored art pieces. Then I walked up past the Taoiseach’s House (he’s the main official in the Irish government, nobody likes him!). I also stopped and walked through Merrion Square, where Oscar Wilde is forever chilling ponderously on a rock next to the “Wilde House.” Never read any of his stuff, but I may have to now. I continued on towards Trinity College because, although I technically work there, I still hadn’t seen the Book of Kells which consists of original Latin texts from the four gospels in the Bible! That was quite interesting to see, but couldn’t take any pictures… 🙁 . Then I followed my path back out into the city and through Temple Bar where I ate a delicious “traditional irish crepe,” doused in lemon juice and sprinkled with sugar. I’ll have to go back as I saw out of the corner of my eye that they have strawberry and nutella crepes! Yum! Then I of course found the Urban Outfitters that I wasn’t even looking for and went in for an hour! Bought nothing; I’m sort of proud. After this, I wandered up Dame street for about 15 minutes until I saw Christ Church Cathedral, hugggeeeee. I didn’t go in, although eventually I may. But I really wanted to check out St. Patrick’s Cathedral, so I did that instead. Very giant, gothic and beautiful inside. A choir filled the lungs of the cathedral as I walked up and down the hallways piled with statues, stained glass windows, paintings, relics, artifacts, figures, maps, quotes and anything else you could think of. There were a lot of intriguing bits though, for example there were slabs of rock from many places, one from St. Patrick’s Well that was dug up. They all had celtic crosses engraved into them! I was, however, dissappointed to find out that St. Patrick is not buried there though; I don’t know why I thought he was! Although, apparently Dublin is the home of St. Valentine’s remnants…?? Who knew? That’s at another church another day. When I got home that evening my flatmate Kara was planning on having people over. She, another of my flatmates and 3 of their writing buddies were heading out to the Dublin Pride events that night! I thought it quite funny that Helen’s boyfriend gave her permission to kiss any girl she wanted that night! Hahaha, that could have been interesting, however, I was less than surprised to find out that there were no attractive Irish lesbians, nor was it an easy scene to break into. 

So Saturday morning at 5 am I awoke to take a day trip to Northern Ireland with 2 of the other interns, Jenny and Sam and the IES intern, Katie. The bus ride there wasn’t so bad, only about 2-3 hours! The first stop was in Belfast, but probably for a good reason. First thing out of the tour guides mouth was “Did you see that crime scene there? Somebody must have got shot last night.” July is near, and that is the month where riots and parades and Protestant “celebrations” take place in remembrance of victory over Catholics. This is one stale victory though, I must say. I hear that from late June to mid July there are Catholic and Protestant camps set up with giant bonfires that school children are meant to watch. The “game” is that you must try to make the oppositions’ bonfire smaller. What silliness! It’s strange things like this that made me a little less in awe of Northern Ireland and more afraid. There was definitely that typical Irish beauty though. Our first real stop was on the coast at the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge. For 5.30 pounds you get to walk for about 1 kilometer to the rope bridge, 600 feet above water, and walk across it to a little island on the other side. Definitely worth it, the island was gorgeous, but the view took the cake! You can see Scotland, only 12 miles away from there, along with numerous other little islands such as Sheep Island, right nearby. The walk back was pretty terrible though, sooooo exhausting! So many stairs! So much sweat! Ahhhhhhhh, why is Ireland so HOT??? Our next stop was the Giant’s Causeway which, if you haven’t heard of it, is where a volcanic eruption took place millions of years ago!  I much prefer the Irish tale of why this exists though; apparently there were 2 giants. One in Scotland and one at the causeway’s location. The Irish giant tried to build a fortress but then caught a glimpse of the Scottish giant one day and made a dash for it, kicking up all the land and creating the Giant’s Causeway, footloose and fancy-free! The octagonal shaped rocks were so cool looking. Almost all identical and stacked on top of eachother in a topple-proof manner, it was amazing! After that was saw Dunluce Castle which was kitchen-less. One day the kitchen fell off into the sea, cook, meal and all. This angered the King, mostly because he didn’t get his dinner! The cook he seemed to care less about! Our last stop was London-Derry/Derry. This place was strange. Once the place of constant secular wars, now a grand memorial site for the rough history that occurred. It felt strange to be here because it wasn’t the cute little Irish town feel, nor even the Dublin-type feel. It was possibly British, but I’ve never been there so I couldn’t say. The closest I could come up with was an eerie Pleasantville. I say this because everything seemed so contrived and matching in accordance with the rest of the town. And there were still walls throughout the city, which is why they call it the Walled City. This is what you should call it when you don’t know who you are talking to. The Protestants call it London-Derry, though there are only about 500 of them, and the Catholics call it Derry. After the very long day I did the logical thing and slept! 

I planned on going to Church on Sunday morning…but boy was that a feat! I walked for 45 minutes before I realized that I was going to wrong way.  I did end up finalizing my journey right in front of another Church though.  It was Presbetyrian and after such a long journey on foot, this was while I was really starting to feel unwell mind you, I decided screw it!  It’s still church.  Yep.  That lasted all of 5 minutes before I began to have terrible Catholic  School flashbacks and began to wonder what anyone in their right mind was doing there.  It was so boring and so solemn and so depressing.  Then I thought of my own church and I started to become frustrated because I was sitting in this one!  The Devil was playing a game with me, I must say.  But I’m going to the one I was searching for next week, walking or not!  I might just take a taxi, hmph!  But still, I had to find a way out of there…so I devised a plan.  I would use the fact that I was sick as an excuse to the greeters and ask them where the nearest pharmacy was and then leave.  Phew. 

By the way, hailing a taxi was so difficult, I tried 2 and finally the 3rd pulled over.  It’s wierd because on Saturday morning we had like 5-10 taxis swerve over to see if we needed a ride when we weren’t even hailing for one, nor standing near the edge of the sidewalk.  Even the taxi driver with the drunken, passed out guy wanted to check out our situation!  (That poor guys bill must have been ridiculous!)  But when I eventually hailed a cab, because I just could not walk anymore, I went back home.  Later, my 3 flatmates and I went to Starbucks (home sweet home, they even have Seattle junk in there, how cute? !) and to TopShop, a cute, yet expensive clothing store, and finally Dunnes, to go grocery shopping!  Blah.  Then the sickness set in more and more…and here I am, away off the job and having coughing fits.  It’s fun, really. 

What’s next on the agenda?  Well, lots of exciting things!  Tomorrow my internship class is going to “The Outsiders” play at the Abbey/Peacock theater North of the Liffey!  I’m actually quite excited to dress up a bit and spend some time soaking up theater, it’s popular in Dublin, such an Irish thing!  Then on Friday the IES staff are taking a bunch of us out to Glendalough in County Wicklow to “hike” (I hope to God there’s no real hiking involved or I may have terrible flashbacks of Pilgrimage from senior year of high school.  I definitely was bringing up the tail…).  On Sunday (after CHURCH that I actually WANT to go to) there is going to be another IES-ish event to go see a Hurling game.  I’m super excited because it’s huge here and really intense and exciting.  And I really wanted to go to the exact game, now its all set up!  🙂

Each day seems to find me more and more enamored with this country.  Kerry was stunning; it was everything you would expect Ireland to be.  So many sheep, beautiful greenliness everywhere, stone walls and huts and cliffs jetting out into the ocean.  However, because it actually never rains here (one unmet expectancy), I am tomato red after exploring one of the Blasket Islands, a land where no trees exist, for nearly 2 hours!  It was amazing though, but I’m paying for it now.  And man is it hard to find sunblock here!  Apparently it must actually, usually rain but it’s being abnormal right now…cause seriously, who doesn’t have sunblock?! 

Anyways, so a little bit more about our wonderful trip!  We took two trains and a bus to get where we were going day 1.  Of course, the train ahead of us derailed on the first leg of the trip, so we were delayed by an an hour and a half!  When we finally did get to Kerry, we went to a giant, lovely park, where we caught boat rides to Ross Castle, originally made in the 14th century!  Apparently the king and all his “castle people” seemed to have a terrible life.  They had to sleep upright because they all had bad respiratory systems from all the fumes and unhealthy living styles back in the day.  And all the king’s court, or whatever they’re called had to sleep in the same room as the king and his wife.  Talk about lack of privacy…eew.  Not to mention the bathroom, or rather, “poop chute” where 3 people could go at a time.  No thank you! 

After the castle excursion, we drove out to Dingle, a quaint town with various vibrantly painted shops and pubs.  The food that night was so good!  We went to a bunch of cute little pubs that night, my favorite of which was sort of cave like, with low ceilings and a maze-like feel to it.  So many people though.  We happened upon a large crowd of people in there that were chanting and shouting while watching a man who was likely the pool shark of Dingle.  It was quite the rage! 

The following day was my favorite for sure though!  We drove out to Dingle Peninsula where we stopped to see lots of different little views and sites.  There were the beehive huts which were quite cute, a crucifixion scene, the beach(more beautiful than Hawaii!), a little Blasket Island tour/museum place, and Blasket Island itself!  It was such a nice weekend, and as I said earlier, I burned to a crisp!  We ended up climbing up half the island or more, to see all the old ruins of houses that were left behind after the island was evacuated nearly 80 years ago.  I love the way the people talk here by the way; as we were hiking up the side of the island one of our IES Program leaders was like “Man, you get a feckin’ work out in this place!”  Haha, great role model, yes?  🙂  Anyways, there were just random sheep and donkeys everywhere and so many dogs, at least one for every stop!  While on the island we saw a one-legged seagull, a seal and perhaps a porpoise or something as well!  I love Dingle, such a great little place.  It’s also so much easier to find live traditional Irish music there!  Good craic.  Anywhoo, pictures still won’t work but are going to be on facebook, so check em out!

Lastly, today I was back to the grind at my internship.  And got a half day, I was out by 1 o’clock, pure awesomeness.  So the 5 of us interns grabbed lunch and went grocery shopping.  I ran lots of errands today finally and ended up walking probably a total of 3 hours!  I am exhausted and thus am going to sleep soon.  Hope you enjoyed reading!  🙂

…was a big, fat liar!  It has been nothing but sun, sun, sun.  And when I say that, I hope I am not tempting the fates to pour down liquid sunshine.  I get enough of that at home.  But seriously, there has been enough sun to better than lovely sun glasses tan line that I have on my nose.  Attractive, really. 

So I tried to put up a picture of Trinity, where my internship is.  It failed, as you can blatantly see.  Today was my last day this week, yay!  Such a long week.  It’s a cool place, don’t get me wrong.  But I want to SEE things too!  By the time I get off, nearly everything is closed.  And some of the people I’m working with…well, Murray.  He’s the lawyer there, the barister, if you will.  He is the most awkward little fellow you will ever meet.  And then of course there is Dr. McGuckin, whom I mainly work for.  That’s probably enough said right there.  The smoothest one there is the younger, calmer Garret O’Moore with whom I got to sit in with today to watch in a psychological assessment!  Very cool and difficult to find this opportunity elsewhere.  The poor woman was crying the whole time though…it was an eye-opener definitely.  Probably shouldn’t say much more.  What else…there are 4 other American interns, 2 of which have already started, with me.  We have been getting lunch and sometimes going out for Irish coffee and chocolates after the long day at work!  Hahaha, rrrright.  It’s been good though, I am excited as well because now I get to write up the report on the woman who was in the assessment and possibly partake in more research to do with the “Red Balloon,” an organization that sets up schools for kids who’ve been bullied out of school.  It’s exceptionally interesting because I’ll get to use all that crazy statistical stuff I learned in psy 201/301!  YAY… kidding, sort of.  But seriously, they want to know what a good sample size would be.  This sounds vaguely familiar…

And as for other things.  I haven’t gotten to do much in the evenings, because, as I already mentioned, nothing is open very late, except the pubs!  I’ve definitely walked my calves into shape though. Man.  At least an hour and half of walking a day.  I’m not talking nonchalantly bumbling along.  I mean real, hardcore, Irish-style citywalking.  (Alright, alright.  I have been taking some breaks in Steven’s Green on the way in the morning.  I always have extra time!)  Also, this week, Monday-ish, I sort of had a panic attack.  It was great.  It comes with the anxiety territory.  At least I knew what it was this time.  But yay for Irish counselors…let me just say, American ones are way more awesome and way less awkward, like, they don’t stare at you in silence for an hour and never laugh when you do…it was FUN!  pshh. 

Anyways, this weekend I’m going to get Kerry-ed away!  I’m going to visit County Kerry, more specifically, Dingle!  Silly name, right?  I think so.  Anyways, I’m really excited because it’ll be traditional, beautiful, green, countryside Ireland.  Like the movies maybe. 

I guess that’s all really.  I’m sorry this isn’t SUPER exciting.  I will tell you, my lucky housemate went to the Jameson Distillery and met PINK!  And she was shwastey!  Lucky her!  Apparently, she was chill.  So, not a mean drunk.  Cool.  And….cut. 

And btw, I didn’t really feel that I got it acrossed.  But I do love it here!  Yay!  🙂