October 20, 2008 by admin.

I’m in Cork and god is this place beautiful. Quaint and cute as a button. The rain here is nothing like at home. it bites right through you and comes from every direction (see Forest Gump’s description of rain in Vietnam). It can be sunny where you are but when you look to the foothills it feels like someone has rubbed Vaseline all over them, very cool. Cork is much more hilly then Dublin. If I were to equate Them, I would say Dublin is like lower Manhattan, and Cork feels like San Francisco in the 1700’s and green.

Yesterday was Sunday and everywhere was closed, except for churches and pubs watching rugby (at least they have there priorities straight). It was a long day of home sickness, until I realized that I didn’t need to be looking for a party every day. That I needed to look at it not like a perpetual weekend, but more like an opportunity to be a short term citizen, and study the culture (thank you aunt Carol). I came here to test and find my boundaries, and that is most definitely what I have done. As my dad said it I have always been a pack animal and only happy when surrounded by loved ones, and being here surrounded entirely by strangers is a new and slightly uncomfortable thing.

I have been asked what peoples views are on the political situation back home, and mostly everyone is dumbfounded by it all. “How is McCain is even an option?”,  Palin is a joke (and a very funny one at that). They all feel that there is a strong possibility that Obama will be killed and Biden is the real person to watch. The electoral college is a concept that is hard enough for U.S. citizens to understand and let me tell you how hard it is to explain, almost as hard as explaining a Jell-O shot to a French man (what a good story that is). They are also amazed how long it takes to elect our leader. For most places apparently it takes a month. I have assured them all that most people that I know feel the exact same way.

Well, I’ll keep writin’ ‘em, you keep readin’ ‘em

The Lost

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October 17, 2008 by admin.

Well after a couple of days in the hostel, I am doing much better! I met allot of people from all over(Canada, Australia, England, France, and New Zealand) and when we went out it was like a bad joke (so, an Aussie, an American, and a Frenchman walk into a bar…) We had a group of about 12 from the hostel out last-night and it was so much fun. the bars and pubs close at like 11:30 here so its hard to make a long night of it but we valiant effort. The night before, myself, an Aussie, and a Canadian were serenaded by two drunk Irishmen (both named Gram) singing drinking and football songs, stopping every-other block or so to sing with another group of drunken Irishmen.

Today I will be saying goodbye to all of my new found friends and making my way down to Cork for the week. Sadly I will be missing the 3 day jazz festival because every bed in cork is taken, and I mean every single one. Oh well you win some, you lose some. But every “lose one” I have here is still a “lose one” in Ireland

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October 15, 2008 by admin.

after a few days of being here i have a bit of an idea how this all works; stress, freak-out, eat, calm, stress, sleep, wander, freak-out, drink a guinness, sleep, wake up, repeat. im finding it harder then I expected to keep my feet under me. I think I may be a little shell-shocked still.  Anyway I got to my hostel today a little before check in so I wandered and found the most amazing little coffee shop on the most amazing little street around the corner from the hostel. the coffee shop is almost directlty across the street from the James Joyce Center (closed unfortunately). I tryed to take pictures for you all but i just don’t think they will do it justice. I have found it hard to meet people. I have felt more self concious in the past 4 days then i have since middle school. There are some interesting people in my room though. I hope I get to know them before I leave on friday. I think this is the most time I have ever spent with the littlest amount of my voice

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October 15, 2008 by admin.

Tuesday October 13th

Ok so I have spent my first day in Dublin, and I stuck close to my hotel. Now after a nap and a shower I am at the castle lounge. Nice place. Guinness is definetly better here. Thicker, richer, boozier. It could very well be that I haven’t eaten much since the going away party but the one pint on guinness that I got went straight to my head. And the seccond I accademtaly ordered is sitting there laughing at me. I was
Hoping to meet some people tonight bit I think that that may have to wait till tomorrow. Wehen I got here I looked for a spot at the bar that was open and there were two the first one I went to one man said it Was open and the other coldly said it was taken, I felt that he didn’t like my accent. I hope that it war a fluke and all that I heard about Dublin and Ireland being nice are true. We will see.
My taxi driver from the air port was the best introduction to the country I could have ever asked for. He was cordule informatave and all arond a good use of €40.
And I must add that it is a large thought to get around of having it be 8:40pm here and knowing that it’s 12:40pm back home. I’m winding my day down and everyone I know are having lunch.
Very odd to think about.

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October 10, 2008 by admin.

O.K. so this is the beginning of my travel blog, and I will be writing when ever I can. Being away from steady access to a computer I don’t know how frequent these entries will be.

Today is two days from my departure date. I am getting a little nervous, but my excitement far exceeds my fear. Tonight is the last night with my parents before the trip. This week I have been taking my girls to dinner, and getting to spend some last minute quality time. Last night Auto wanted to pay for dinner and I told her that because I don’t have a girlfriend to dote on that I was using her and the other girls to fill that void, but they got to reap the benefits. I did start missing her and them, and I haven’t even left yet. This is going to be a very long couple of months.

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