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Articles Tagged ‘Ireland’

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Thanks to Everyone…See you Soon!

Saturday, December 16th, 2006

I have spent the last few days enjoying the rain, wind and overcast skies of the Emerald Isle. Until today I didn’t think that the sun even made it’s way out from behind the clouds here but today, I finnally got a look at her.  I was in Killarney on Wednesday and Thursday and at no time did it stop raining.  I did not get to see the Ring of Kerry so I will have to take everyones word that it is really beautiful.  I spent most of my days in Killarney watching reading, or watching television.  I watched a fun episode of Rickey Lake where people confessed to their lovers that they were cheating on them…why I just admitted that to you I am not quite sure.  When people ask me what I liked most about Ireland it will probably not be the Rickey Lake show.

I hoped on a bus on Friday morning and headed north to Galway.  Galway is a pretty little city.  I havent had much time to look around as I headed down to the Cliffs of Moher today, very beautiful.  We got great weather and were probably very lucky to have had that.

Tomorrow I wake up early to catch my 2 hour bus ride to Shannon Airport where I will catch my flight to Boston.  After over 8 months it is finnally coming to an end.  All the places I have seen and people I have met along the way have made it such an amazing experience and have taught me so much.  I am very excited to be coming home tomorrow and to seeing everyone, hopefully you will be excited to see me, or at least pretend to be.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the blog and to those who emailed me.  It made my journey very special to know people were following it from home.  This will not be the last official post as who knows what will happen tomorrow.  I will try to give an hour by hour account of my adventure returning home tomorrow that I will post on Monday.  I also have lots of pictures to post on my photo page and I will do that this week as well.

For those of you who may remember, Andy, the douchebag I traveled with in Asia, is coming to Boston for a few days so technically I will pretend that my trip is continuing for those few days.

Goodbye to you all and in the words of Bono from U2:

“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

Posted in Ireland | 1 Comment »

Eye Your Land!

Tuesday, December 12th, 2006

When I thought of this title I felt that in some way there may be more meaning to it…who knows!

Before I get into my first few days in Ireland I want to say a few things. Have any of you ever had a moment where the light bulb just went off? You had some kind of revelation and it all just made sense? You looked up at the sky and to yourself went:

“Aaaaaaah…Now I get it!!!”

Part of the reason for my trip, or maybe most of the reason for my trip was to do a little “self discovery”, perhaps a little “soul searching”, call it “finding myself” if you will. I guess we all have questions about ourselves that we may or may not try to seek the answer to. I have questions everyday that I swear I may never be able to answer. I had tons of questions before I left on my trip and I probably answered a few but now I have tons more. However, with all that being said, it took me til my 27th, and final country for most of it to all make sense…Thank You Ireland…Now I get it!

Arriving in Ireland now and having spent a few days has helped me make sense of alot. These are my people. Never has the light bulb been so bright. I now know where the attitude, vengefulness, sarcastic witty sense of humor comes from.

My first two days were spent in Dublin…I will give all of you credit who warned me to get out! Well let it be known that I am out, I am now in Cork. Dublin is what it is, a big city. I couldn’t tell you the exact number of piles of puke I saw about on the side of the road but lets just say I stopped counting after the first few hours. I spent my first night out with my friend Kevin. Kevin is the guy who got stuck with me at his house for 2 and a half weeks in Scotland. We went out and tossed back a few guinnesses with a few other guys that he knew through his work. The Guinness really does taste better here and for €5 it better.

I am sorry to say I did not to any of the tourist attractions in Dublin. I was tempted to see the Guinness Brewery but after buying a few of them at the Pub felt like I didnt want to give them any more money to those worthless scumbags…I will remember you guinness and your outrageous prices….I will remember! Trinity College looked nice but since they wont let my brother Tom in their exchange program I hope they rot in hell…those F*cken bastards!

You see?…it is happening….I can feel the transformation…my bitterness, it is growing stronger…my ability to curse is so much more enhanced…My power to hate people or things who really have done nothing to me at all is incredible….I feel like Popeye after 10 cans of Spinach now that I am in Ireland.

Ok, I will be serious for a moment! To be completely honest Dublin is not that horrible but it is not the real Ireland, it is becoming a very international city. You see people from all walks of life calling it home. As long as the beer is still coming out of the taps and homeless drunks and are still screaming at passers by and traffic it will be an exciting place to visit. Funny story…I passed a homeless guy while walking down the street and he was yelling at this guy walking next to me who had no hair….

#Get a f*cken haircut you bastard.”

The guy either did not hear him or did not care…I laughed a little bit!

After the two days of excitement in Dublin I headed southwest to Cork. I am spending two nights here. Today I went to Kiss the Blarney stone at Blarney Castle…you gotta kiss the Blarney stone if you are in Ireland. Sadly enough it was my first kiss, not with a rock, but with anything. Even worse there was an old man holding me during my first kiss, how is that for a memory? Oh wait, i gave him a tip after as well…what is my life coming too?

Kissing the Blarney Stone is not what I expected. You climb to the top of this castle and there is a spot where this guy is sitting. He has a few pads on the ground and you go over and sit on the pads and lie back. The Old man holds on to your chest a little. You grab two bars behind your head and arch your neck all the way back so you can reach down and kiss the stone, kind of awkward.

This afternoon I returned to my hostel and had a baguette with cheese on it, tasty! The lady running the hostel was putting up a xmas tree. She is a very nice lady, probably about 40 or so. She was sitting quietly in the living room and untangling christmas lights. I sat quietly at the kitchen table a few feet away watching her mess with the lights. Pretty much on cue I heard this about every 10 seconds.

“F*ck…F*cken Lights…F*cken Hell! (Here in Ireland it sounds like this…Fook!)

Then she would look up at me and smile and say with a pretty irish accent:

“Ya didn hear dat.”

I think the F word was invented in Ireland because I have heard it more here than in any place I have ever been in my life. There is another word they say quite often as well, that word begins with a “C” and that is as far as I will go. I cringe when I hear that word, I don’t like it much at all.

Tomorrow I am off to Killarney. I am going to spend two days there before heading up to Gallway and then to Shannon Airport on Sunday for my flight home. I will update as much as possible here in Ireland. Keep up the reading, we are almost at the end!

Posted in Travel | 1 Comment »