My Food Journey...

One of the best parts of this trip, other than the awesome sightseeing and accents, has been the foooood! If you're reading this, you probably already know how much I love to eat. And I'm super excited to try all the foods in all the countries.

You can't come to the UK without trying fish and chips. I've had them twice!
From the most famous chipper in Galway

Beef and Guinness Stew! SOOO delicious.

I also had bangers and mash, and steak and guinness pie, but those pictures got deleted on my camera:(. When I come home, I'm using Guinness to cook for everything! Tommorrow is the Fabulous Food Trail of Dublin, so there will be lots of food pictures there!!

Kiss It!

Today was the end of our tour of southern Ireland. We got to see the Blarney castle, and about 100 steps up was the Blarney stone. You would think it would be inscribed with something or have some kind of special placement, but it was just a specific stone in the castle wall. In order to reach it, you had to lay down and do a little back bend to kiss it upside down. Even though I think people pee on it and/or there's a plethora of diseases on it, I had to kiss it. Legend says I will now have the "gift of gab" or eloquence for seven years, or mouth herpes... But its ok, I immediately put Purell on my lips.

Last night was karaoke in the only pub in this little village we stayed at. Our hostel was more like some familys home/prison with no wifi or breakfast, but our driver bought us all McDonalds for breakfast :) just like home.

Mom and Dad, this is not for your eyes or ears...
Before Pat arrived, I was staying in a hostel for about five nights, and I immediately met a girl from LA who was just getting out of bed at 2 in the afternoon in her silk lace nighty... in a 12 bed dorm room. First thing she asks is if I have met a cute Irish man yet, because thats one of her life goals, and tells me that she has been hanging out with some spanish guys that have been living in the hostel, but she doesn't think she'll hook up with them since they're in the same room. Riiiiiiight. Oh and she tries anything once apparently and seems like an alternative hippy wannabe that travels around with Daddy's money. So of course, I tried my best to avoid her and her friends. The night before our tour, or morning of our first day, I woke up to some grunting and bed squeaking. At first I thought someone was you know, playing with himself, but then it was getting intense, so I thought maybe someone was dreaming? Definitely not. Because then I hear a girl moaning and interspersed slapping. Ooooook. It was super sunny in the room but there was a towel curtain draped around this spanish guy's bed, so thank God you couldn't see anything. I decided to shower because I couldn't sleep through that and needed someone else to witness what was happening so I woke Pat up.When I got out of the shower, it wasn't even 6am yet! I stalled as long as I could because I could hear them doing it from the bathroom! Pat heard the guy begging to put it in her butt. But all I wanted to know was who the girl was. It wasn't LA, she was sleeping in bed with the other spaniard. But I fell asleep before she snuck out. And what made it worse was the guy was this greasy, gross sketchtastic boy with a curly rat tail, and he was whistling to himself all day. Grossssssssss. But it was bound to happen in one of my hostels. I'm sure Amsterdam will be quite similar...

Keeping up with blogs is slightly difficult

While traveling, especially on a tour, its hard to find time to get on a computer or sit down and write in a journal. You're either super tired at night, or getting ready for the day in the morning, or out exploring during the day. Patrick and I are currently on day 2 of our 3 day southern tour. We had two days in Dublin during which we hung out with our Aussie friends and went on a free walking tour of Dublin. I have now learned the history of Ireland two times over, and have retained maybe 25%.

Our 3 day tour as been good so far. The first was slightly lame for me because the tour route deviated from what was advertised. So our first day was pretty much the same day tour as one that I had taken on my own in Galway. But the weather when I went on my own was gray and drizzly (the start of my love for rain jackets) and yesterday was beautiful, so I got to see the sights in a new light.

Sunny Day

Rainy Day

Our tour guide yesterday was a trip in itself. It felt almost as if he wouldn't stop talking, but at the same time, didn't say enough. He told us a few times how his father went fishing a lot, but didn't eat the trout he caught. That he would eat his dad's trout and his dad didn't like it when he rang him on the boat. When Patrick asked if he spoke Gaelic, he went on a 30 minute rant on how he didn't actually know any Gaelic, except for a few words and why he didn't know any. I've definitely had my fair share of open mouth sleeping as well. These buses just knock you out within 5 minutes. Boring tour guides or irish folk music don't help much either.

Today has been much better. The driver today, Seany, looks like a grungy street guy and talks like a leprechaun, so pretty entertaining. We saw the Cliffs of Moher today which looked like the Cliffs of Insanity in Princess Bride, aka AMAZING!

Mini Cliffs

Hardcore, I know
The Cliffs of Insanity...

A couple days ago, I learned that the library in one of the later Harry Potter movies was based on the long library of Trinity College AND that Hogwarts was based off of a castle in Edinburgh, so naturally, I have added Scotland to the end of my trip. Looks like, in total, I will be travelling one month with Pat in Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, meeting my sis and bro in Germany, and continuing on my own to Italy, England, and Scotland, and finally home July 6th.

Rain Jackets are Awesome!

Before I got here, everything I read about Ireland said that the weather was crappy and unpredictable. And since I have been here, up until yesterday, the weather has been beautiful. You can see bright blue skies in the pictures and everything. Well, yesterday, I went on a day tour from Galway city to Connemarra which is in the mountains. It was really pretty, and there are all these waterfalls going down the mountain and sheep running around. One thing we visited was Kylemore Abbey which used to be a Castle, turned into a vacation home, turned into an abbey, and finally a school for girls. The entire day in the mountains it was raining and gloomy and foggy. I have fallen in love with my rain jacket. It protects me from wind too! And my hiking sneakers that I got repel water and stuff. So awesome! The gross cold non stop rain isn't so bad when you're prepared!!

New Friends

So the people that I have met along the way have been all kinds. There was a french student on the first night in Dublin that creeped me out by being a little too open a little too quickly, and saying things like "it would be a pleasure to watch you dance," and "Oh, so that is how Americans are. Huh..." when I seemed reluctant when he suggested sharing my one apple. There were two other french guys living in Amsterdam that I met on a pub crawl and they were really nice- and tall! An australian architect student studying in Helsinki who is super cool. A South African- English guy who was definitely looking for a rebound after breaking off his engagement (which he loved to talk about). Some Ivey League PhD students... one lived up to the snob stereotype for sure, but her friends were completely opposite, and a bit flamboyant. And 2 American boys that were definitely the "Yea! America!" type. All in all it's been pretty fun. I noticed that single travelers tend to gravitate toward eachother, at least thats what I do.

I'm currently in Galway, but tonight is my last night. I'll be heading back to Dublin for a while, until next Monday when Patrick arrives. Looks like we'll be traveling for about a month, but who knows, we might end up working on a farm in Portugal, or a vineyard in Italy in exchange for small pay, accommodations, and food. Or maybe I'll go back to Dublin, and work for a month in an office.

Photos have been uploaded to Facebook!! Finally...

Change of Plans...

Pictures from yesterday:

Irish buildings in the "uppity" South Side

The Three Fates: A gift from the Germans. They weave your fate.

Dublin's mini Arc de Triomphe

St. Stephen's Greene. Largest park in Europe, or so I am told

City folk love their parks

So today, I decided to abandon the plan of working and living in Dublin to travel for a couple months instead. I wasn't having very much luck with the job hunt, but now I am having second thoughts. Ah! Who knows? My friend Patrick will be joining me soon (hopefully!) to start a traveling adventure! Maybe I'll stay. I can't decide! Tomorrow I think I am going to go on a mystery day tour to somewhere in Ireland. Today, I went to the National Museum of Natural History, also nicknamed the Dead Zoo for all the stuffed animals there. They had all kinds of animals from all over the world! Oh! And can you believe some Irish man asked me for directions?!

Giant Irish Deer

Giant Lobster

My new pet lion

Koala!

Rocko the Wallabee

Zebra!

Things I have learned so far about Dublin:
-Not many people here wear sunglasses
-They can't pronoune "-th" so "Thanks" is "Tanks"
-They drive on the left side of the road
-Irish people are always late, and usually never in a hurry. Even though this is a big city, none of the drivers ever honk at eachother
-No one wakes up early here. Shops don't open before 10am.
-Asian people run all of the internet shops

-They apparently haven't heard of lung cancer...

Trying to Adjust

So I have been here for probably about 48 hours, and man, is it hard. I don't think I realized what coming over alone was really going to be like. It's pretty lonely, and since I'm in an unfamiliar place, I get nervous when I venture outside of the main part of the city because I can't tell if it's a good area or not, since I don't really know what the norm is here. I have completed my resume, and tried to look for housing. Haven't looked for a job yet, because the timing just hasn't worked out yet, but tomorrow, hopefully I will start. I've set up 2 appointments to look at our apartments, but no luck so far. Wish me luck!

Other than that, today, I went to the National Museum which had a lot of history and archaeology of Ireland. The Gator Nation is definitely everywhere, because I ran into one of my engineering classmates in the museum!! What a coincidence! Although I'm not much of an art buff, I went to the National Gallery and checked out some french and irish art. Lots and lots of walking today, so I rewarded myself with a taxi ride back to Temple Bar :)

So if anyone feels like taking a last minute flight over, I will be more than happy to travel with you!!

Arrived in Dublin!

I have finally made it to Dublin to begin my 3 month adventure before the next five years of my life are devoted to school. Monday was super hectic, trying to run around Tampa finishing things up and running errands. The whole family went to the airport to see me off and after connecting in Atlanta, I was on my way to London. My flight was late by an hour, so I had an hour
to get my bag, go through customs, check in to my next flight, and find the gate. Well, that definitely was not going to happen. Turns out the terminals there are each separated by a mile, and there are long tunnels to walk through, and its basically impossible to get anywhere in that airport in less than 30 minutes. Mind you, I was carrying a 50 lb. pack on my back. So, I missed my flight, and took one out 2 hours later. Not too shabby. But alas, I made it to Dublin, to the Barnacles hostel (www.barnacles.ie). Tomorrow is my orientation for the Work in Ireland program, and then the job/apartment hunt begins! Thank you to all of you that wished me safe travels. I already miss everyone!