Mayhem Time

Goodness.

Another big update (huge in fact). Crazy stuff happening the last few days. Some ups. Some downs. A roller coaster of feelings I'd say. But let's do things the proper way. In order. (But first, I'm soooo sad the USA lost to Ghana...)

Anyways, back from Dublin but not finished with our adventure, the 5 of us got up early the next morning and barely made it on our tour bus to go to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren but not quite in that order. We barely made our bus and we were off. We first stopped by the Burren which is essentially a miniature size Stonehenge. Sorta. But it was very cool and the whole landscape around it was completely  covered by rocks so it looked pretty neat.

 

So after Stephanie and I jumped back on the tour bus as it started driving away we were off to the big show, the Cliffs of Moher. These are cliffs that are like a mile or so above the sea line and are famous for it and it really is gorgeous. But ya we got there and explored a little forbidden area of the cliffs (which pretty much everyone did despite the clear signage) and it was really cool because it was right up next to the edge. So close in fact that our dear friend Patrick couldn't quite stomach us being so close to the edge and nearly had a panic attack. He had to go wait for us to come back. It was cute.

 

 

 

Well the next day we got up and after eating a quick breakfast the gang of 5 (Patrick, Jessie, Annie, Stephanie and I) set off for Cork. But as is par for the course, we missed our first bus. Ha. But luckily this bus line has buses running every hour so we decided to grab a quick bite from a convenience store and then we caught the next bus going to way down south Ireland. The reason for this journey is to kiss a piece of rock. But let me assure you. This isn't just any rock my friends. It's a stone. And was there a sword in it? Yes. Ok. No. But it is actually called the Blarney Stone and it is located in Blarney Castle outside Cork. Apparently it's tradition to kiss it and it will give you magical powers or maybe just some good luck.

 

 

 

 

Well the short story is we got there to Cork, sneaked 5 people into a 2 person bedroom in a super small hotel with one entrance. Got up, missed our bus to Blarney, made the obligatory food run during our wait, then jumped on the next bus. We explored the castle and the castle grounds which were gorgeous. Kissed a rock at the very top of an ancient castle (although no evidence of my kiss exists due to camera... malfunctions) and then checked our a nearby mansion and  headed back into the town of Blarney where we missed our bus... again. So we made our food run and got back on the next one into Cork and stayed put in the bus station so we wouldn't miss our 4 hour ride back to Galway.

Then we danced the night away at some bars and clubs for a good finisher to the trip and we hit the hay so we could get up early to get the girls (just Jessie and Stephanie) on their planes home. Well of course we were cutting pretty close as we barely missed the bus from our house to the bus station so we could catch another bus to  Shannon where the airport is. So then we took a cab, hustled the mean bus driver a bit, and we were on our way. And good thing too because if we missed that one, the girls may still be sitting here, which wouldn't really be such a bad thing after all really. But we got them there and all was well. Plus I forgot to mention that in Cork, a woman from Sword Security called me so I now have a job in Ireland. Woo! Finally. Which means I'm going to this huge music festival too.

As far as the days since then, I have attended training for my job, gotten my heart and soul broken by the USA football team, and even seen a few 8mm films in this local film festival here which was absolutely great. So like I said, ups and downs my friends. Good times though.

A cross country adventure

So the past couple days Stephanie and I have basically been doing a crash course on Ireland. Of course. So we already hit the Aran Islands and now we are going wild in Dublin visiting all the cool places to go. Yes. All of them. Her travel book isn't letting us miss any. Which is actually pretty cool and fun. Dublin definitely has a freaking ton to see. And a ton of a history to go along with all of that. It's great.

Last night we basically walked around a bunch and investigated the main quays (said keys not ku-ways... don't sound like an idiot now.) which are beautiful and house a lot of pubs and restaurants and what not since it's right on the river. Then we checked out some of the MANY shops here in Dublin and let me tell you something. It's ridiculous. I gotta say this is without a doubt one of the biggest cities I've ever been in and it's definitely the biggest that I've actually gotten to spend time in. The only other contender for me is Chicago or Atlanta but I've hardly had much more time than a few hours to investigate either of those cities. But dang this city is huge and freaking jammed with people. And with a million shops to go along with them.

It was honestly a little weird because since there were so many people in the shops, the floors or shelves were a mess. Seriously. I'm talking clothes, jewelry, shoes, whatever! All on the floor or in heaps everywhere. It was kinda funny and ridiculous at the same time. I felt really bad for all of the floor attendants that work at these places. Oh well. That's what they get paid for right.

But it was very cool seeing all of those shops that I usually don't get to see despite the fact I live in the Lou. You know what's not cool? Cameras breaking on their own. Yup. That's pretty much the lowest of the low my friends. And that is where I'm at right now. Killer timing let me tell you! Seriously I get to Dublin. In the biggest city in Ireland with tons of sights (not to mention plenty more places to see in the next few weeks) and my brand spanking new Nikon S8000 that I just got has a lens error and so now the lens motor sometimes freaks out and the lens cover won't open fully. Brilliant! Luckily I have now figured out that I can push the lens cover open so that I can continue taking pictures but I have honestly no idea what to do seeing as I bought the camera in the States. Oh well. That's how it goes.

But anyways, Stephanie and I did a lot today. Went and saw the Book of Kells, this amazingly illustrated, monk copied, version of the gospels from hundreds of years ago. It really was beautiful. And we saw Trinity College which was both beautiful and hilarious thanks to our goofy tour guide. She was quite the cynic. Then we saw Dublin castle, Merrion Square (I think that's the spelling) where there was a street performer competition. Quite exciting stuff. Lots of fire and what not. Then we saw a bike race going through town, and then ended the night with a tapas dinner with Patty and his girl Jessie and then hit up a pub for some live music.

We do so much. It's insane.

And now I'm adding on a short description of our third day in Dublin. Travel into town for a late breakfast because we got ditched sorta. Jerks. Then our little gang of Stephanie, Jessie, Patrick and I were joined by Patrick's little sister, Annie and we all went to the Guiness Storehouse to take a tour. And we got our free pint. That stuff is strange. I almost like it but something about it gets me. Oh and I sold Stephanie's free pint ticket to Patrick for 2 euro. Good deal. Then Stephanie and I went to the nearby abandoned jail that was used during WWI and the Irish civil war. Very neat stuff and lots of old creepy abandoned hallways and atriums and the like. Then we ate possibly the worst meal of our adult lives at this cheap buffet “international cuisine” place and checked out this super sweet bridge and headed back to Galway for a wonderful walk home.

Stephanie is Here!

So I was going to try and write this as Nick but to be honest I would have no idea how he would describe the events of yesterday and today. First of all yesterday Nick spent all day at the airport because my flight was supposed to come in at 9:40 am but due to lots of storm issues didn't get here till 9 pm. Anyway we then waited at the airport until 12:45 for a bus to Galway. While waiting I decided I needed a welcome to Ireland picture but there were none to be had just "welcome to Shannon Airport" signs. So we took a walk and happened to find one...




Needless to say it was a late night followed by an early morning. We took headed out to the Aran Islands for the day. Leaving the house at 8 to catch a bus, to catch a ferry and getting there around 11. We rented bikes for the day and set out on a crazy adventure around the island.














We met a donkey, Nick named him Samuel...














We went inside the smallest church in Ireland...













And went to what I thought was the big tourist attraction of the islands but ended up not being the right site. With about 3 hours left till our 5 pm departure and still no food, we decided to grab something quick and try and make it to the actual ruins and cliffs. I was so worn out from all the travel and no sleep that I didn't know if I could make it up all the hills. We ended up making it there with only an hour and a half left. Ran up quickly to the top. We stayed there for a little while and it was beautiful. But we couldnt stay for long because we had to head back to the boat. I'm kinda tired of writing now. So I think I'm done. The end.

Stupid Bathrooms

So it has definitely been a few days since I've updated. Sorry about that. These few days have had some good times and some chill times. Let's think back. Monday we went on a failed hiking expedition for Tyler's birthday because the girls we were with thought they knew what they were doing but that was a big fib on their part. We ended up going the super wrong way to this castle and it was raining and what not so we decided to call it a day and just chill at home instead of camping.

But funny story though. So you have to pay to use the restrooms in the malls and the squares and what not. Ridiculous I know. Us Americans would never stand for such outrageous money making operations. But anyways, Tyler and I are walking around this mall getting some stuff for the trip and we decide man I need to go to the bathroom bad. So we go and it says it costs 30 cent so Tyler puts in a 50 cent piece and the door doesn't open. Great. But then we realize it says must use exact change (i.e. 20 cent coin + 10 cent coin) and so we go get that change and come back. We put it in and the door STILL doesn't open. Perfect. So I'm just like “Come on!!” and I give the door a slight kick with my foot. Now I'm taking if I did this to your shin you hardly feel it. Well the customer service guy nearby wasn't having it and says “Hey don't kick the door. You can leave” to which I'm in a little disbelief because it stole 80 cent from us and I hardly even touched the thing. Having given up, Tyler and I walked back to where the rest of our gang was hanging out in the mall and we sit down. A security guard comes up and says that we can't sit there and we have to move and then while we are getting up he has a little chat on his radio. He then says to me “Hey were you kicking the bathroom door?” To which I honestly replied “uh... Ya?” and then he said I need to leave and he escorted me out of the mall.



Kicked out of a mall for being robbed by a bathroom. Completely absurd. I'm going to go demand back our 80 cent sometime or else they'll be hearing from my lawyer. Maybe. Ok I'm actually not that concerned about it all but it really did happen and I was a bit peeved by how the mall security handled it. I wasn't being belligerent or anything. Just a small token of my disgust for the door not opening. So stupid.



Other than that, I've waited in many a government agency line for different things necessary for jobs here. And walked several hours back and forth to get this stupid immigration card that when I finally got, had my birthday wrong on. Ha. Figures. And with all this walking I've just been exploring Galway which has been great really. The city is beautiful. Although boyo is it killing my feet. Totally worth it though.

Also Patrick and I formed a 2 man street performing act and it's fantastic. We've been practicing for a few days and Thursday night (last night) we had our debut on the streets and it was surprisingly well. We completely thought it was not going to work this well. We started around 9:15 after we calmed our nerves and then played til around 9:50 when Patrick broke a string and couldn't fix it. Also the garda (police) told us that in that area they draw the line at 10pm. But the other buskers (performers) nearby said she is just a mean woman and they still played. It was so fun and exhilarating AND the best part is in just that short time of around 30 mins we made 18 euro. And that's pretty darn good for a few half hour I'd say. We already have plans to tighten up and expand our act and we are so freaking pumped about it. It's going to be great. Galway loves us. We had people singing along with us and taking our pictures. Surreal.

Well that's it for the past few days. Living the life baby.

Boats and stuff

Another day, another exploration. There really is a lot to this city. More than I thought. And there's more to this Havana/Powerboat racing festival than Leigh and I thought as well. We've just been hanging out down in the Shop Street area because that's where a lot of restaurants and bars and music is at but we checked out the docks today and our eyes were opened to what we've been missing.

Vendors everywhere selling food, outrageous expensive and pretty boats everywhere, live music from some Irish pop star named Declan I think, merry-go-rounds, crazy swing thingies. Basically, the whole party was there. And we've been oblivious to it. Luckily we found it for the last day and explored around like crazy. The whole place really was jam packed with people. It was awesome. Although I've realized there is a significant shortage of red heads here. Disappointed Ireland. I think I may go home now. Ok not. But still. Weird. At least in a stereotypical sort of way.



Anyways, there are these powerboat races going on in the docks of Galway this whole week which I have yet to check out but definitely will in the next few days because it's a pretty big thing here. This pop star Declan or whatever was pretty good. All the people around us were singing the words to his songs (which we did not know one bit) and so clearly he's like the John Mayer of Ireland. Fantastic. Then when we were walking around this lady stopped Leigh and I and started talking to us “Americanos” despite the fact that Leigh is in fact, Canadian. But she was still sweet and gave us some great travel tips and tips about living cheap in Ireland. She loved us because she said she lived in both the States and Canada for some years so it was all gravy. She was a hoot I'll tell ya that much.

Then our night just consisted of walking around and hanging out with the guys while they worked. Some dude came up to Patty with this crazy red spatter design on his white hoodie. But then Patrick and I found out that he said this was all blood from his nose. Gross. The Garda here (police) then promptly ran after the dude and arrested him or something. Sheesh. Guess there was an intense fight or something.



After that the guys got off and we had a mini birthday party for T-love because he's finally 21 the little youngin'. It doesn't really matter if you're 21 over here but hey! We had a party. It was swell. Tomorrow (actually today seeing as I'm writing this monday, we are going hiking and camping as a birthday event for T-booty. It'll be grand. See ya!

Citylink sucks

Today was another exploration of Galway day and it was pretty darn fun. But first, we had to get breakfast. And that was pretty much a colossal failure. Mike had just gotten off of his ridiculous 9 hour shift (gotta be careful about that word “shift” here... it's slang for make out. ha. No joke people) and anyways, he wanted to get breakfast with all of us so we all got up at 10 am and were hoping for some great Irish breakfast and since it was so wicked expensive at the diner near us we settled for good ol Mickey Dees. Which was kinda weird because for breakfast they have like 5 items that you can get and that's about it. No joke. We Americans are seriously spoiled.

After breakfast, naptime. Then Patrick and I tried to buy some stupid cheap bus tickets and again, colossal failture to the extent that I was about to chuck my computer across the room in rage against Citylink, the worst company with the worst website. Basically I tried for like 2 hours or so to buy some cheap bus tickets but the website simply would not have it. And it you don't get the cheap one (1 euro) the tickets jump up to 17 euro. How absurd. Where's the middle ground people. No where. So after I successfully didn't buy cheap tickets, it was time to head out.



I walked around with Leigh a bit exploring the city as it was pretty darn bustling from the Little Havana festival going on and also there are a bunch of powerboat races happening this whole week. So Galway is completely jammed with people right now. And it's great. Very cool. We stopped by out dear friend Amy's house and I took a quick shut eye. Then it was downtown to check out all the nightly festivities.

This mainly consisted of visiting our homies T-Guard and Patrick as they worked. It was good fun. Although T-Guard was a little lame. But there are interesting people here. And some not so interesting ones who like to walk up to Leigh and I and talk about how he's a playwright and tell really awful stories for 30 minutes. Perfect. Either way, he was a nice enough guy and I guess it passes the time. We checked out some live music and then headed in for the night when Patty got off for the night.



Oh. Expect big things soon as Patty and I tune up our street performance act and make it big on the streets of Galway. You just wait. We're doin' it.

In the Bag

So I finally got my bags. Sheesh. Freaking Heathrow airport crampin my style. Ridiculous. I got up and was cooking some delicious eggs and ham and then the door was being knocked down and luckily is was the bloke with my bag. So I now have some clothes to wear aside from the ones I was wearing.

Anyways, we just hung out a bit today until we headed into town on business. It was really beautiful downtown since they were setting up for a Little Havana festival here in Ireland. It's great. I come to Ireland and they have a big foreign festival. I'll never get to experience the culture. Just kidding it was really fun and the downtown area was packed.



The guys had to work today so I just chilled a bit and explored the town while they worked or slept. I tried to get my PPS number (which is essentially my SSN number here in Ireland) but unfortunately the stamp the guy gave me at the airport was a crappy stamp so it wasn't good enough. Although the stamp saved me 150 euro so that's legit. So now I just gotta bring my work visa next time so it's in the bag but it's a bank holiday so can't do that until Tuesday. Lame.

So after taking a quick nap once I was home, I went out on the town for the night and went to a hostel to hang out with my Canadian buddies Leigh and Amy. Then we met some other Irish folk, a chick from New Zealand, and a French girl and a French Canadian chick, and a British guy, and an Australian guy. It was quite the group needless to say. So we chilled there and then went downtown to investigate the activities and cause mayhem for Patrick and Tyler since they were working.



Then we adopted a dog, hit up “MacDonalds” which was wicked expensive here. A happy meal is 4 euro. Which is like 6 or 7 bucks. Ridiculous. Then we adopted a dog for a while. Then we called it a night. Twas a good day.

Chillin with the homies

Well things have slowed down quite a bit now. My first full day here in Galway was super laid back. I slept until 2 in the afternoon which was glorious seeing as I probably haven't slept more than 3 or 4 hours a night if at all in the past 3 weeks. So it was a welcome change.

Then I got up and realized that ham and burgers are just about the only meat they have here. No turkey. No salami. No roast beef. Or if they do it's wicked expensive. And that just ain't cool. Anyways I cooked up a nice grilled ham sandwich and it was phenomenal, just as I expected it to be. Then I just chilled outside and inside with the homies and our temporary female housemate, Leigh. It was pretty legit. Then Leigh cooked a delicious ham dinner with some pasta and garlic bread for the whole family. Then we just chilled outside some more. And now we're about to watch a movie.

Expect to see a lot more pictures this weekend seeing as the guys all have to work a bunch and I don't have a job yet. So I'll be exploring around Galway a bunch and taking a lot of pictures. This day was simply my recovery day. And it was well deserved and needed I'd say.

Oh and the light switches are small and reversed here. And there's one on every single plug. Strange I know.

Stephanie is currently taking forever to set up Skype on her computer. Unbelievable. I could've written this post 10 times in the time it's taken her to do this.

Barkin' Dogs

Well Day 3. Packed day let me tell you. Technically this includes the mayhem in London with Kyle but I won't go into that. Basically today I just had to survive staying awake after being up all night and hope to make all my flights and bus connections. Woo.

My flight to Ireland from London was rather strange seeing as I went onto the plane. Looked out the window at the planes. Then I fell asleep and woke up and looked out at a strangely similar scene, only it was in Dublin, Ireland. It was the strangest thing ever because I was convinced we hadn't moved. But alas matey, we had crossed the river. So I got out and soon realized that they had lost my luggage. Fantastic. Stupid 13 hour layover in Heathrow probably did my luggage in. It's in some deep dank corner of the ancient airport rotting away with the rats and street dogs. Horrifying. Well they said they'd deliver it to my house in Galway once they find it which is nice. It kinda proved better since I didn't have to lug around luggage all day aside from my backpack.



So then I picked up a o2 sim card for my phone and I took the 6 euro bus into town. How exciting. I'm in freaking Ireland now! Finally! The time has come! So I got to Dublin, took the crash course on working in Ireland, grab a bowl of soup, and was off a quick bus over to Galway to see my summer home. This bus had wifi too which was pretty legit if you ask me. How neat is that?



Well once I arrived, T-tardy aka Tyler was atrociously late as usual but he finally got there and we took the stroll through town to get to our sweet crib. Which is apparently in the “bad part” of town which really just goes to show how little violence and poverty this Irish really say. Come check out the Lou I say! That's where the danger's at my brothers.

Basically the town is insanely gorgeous. And also my dogs are killing me from walking around London and Dublin and Galway so much within one day basically. Yow. After getting to the house the boys and I along with some new friends hit up a pub to just hang out and celebrate my arrival. An obvious celebration was due for such a character like myself. Then we tore up a dance floor at a gay bar oddly enough because the drinks were cheap and dancing is fun. Although I know it's home is here, Guiness is just too much for me. It's so dark and thick, it's like soy sauce.



Then I ate possibly the worst Quiznos sandwich in my life due to a Neenu lookalike at this Irish Q. Figures. I leave the country and she follows me here. Such is life.

Well I'm about to head to bed and then start my first full day in Ireland. How gosh darn exciting. Living the dream people. Livin the dream.

Night Rider

Since I have that 13 hour layover in London I figured it would be the perfect time to visit my old buddy Kyle from SCAD who went on to do bigger and better things in London. Lucky him. And lucky me that I didn't have to sit around in the Heathrow airport for like 13 hours just for a one hour flight to Ireland.

My flight got into London around 21:30 or 9:30pm at night. Ah yes, the big changeover of 12 to 24 hour days. Military time as we Americans like to call you. The rest of the world just calls it time. But yes, flight in at around then and it was about a 6 hour flight so it wasn't terrible. Except for the girl next to me kept getting up and I ended up snapping to connector on my nice headphones that I just bought a couple months ago. Pissed. We'll see how that story pans out.

Anyways, last night was quite the adventure and I'm a little astonished I'm sitting here in the airport writing this now. But alas, I am a champ. And that's how I roll. Basically I got off of the DC to London flight and walked the 8 miles to the exit and met my homie Kyle Hopkins who I knew from when the kid went to SCAD. Now he makes sick jewelry and goes to Fashion Weeks in Europe so I'd say the kid is faring ok in England.

So he picked me up and we took the ridiculously long tube trip back to town and immediately went for a bite to eat. Kebabs and Felafel were on the bill. It was way more adventurous than I thought it would be because while we were in there, an old drunkard started talking to us and forced us to walk him home a few blocks away. Basically he was the most hard to understand person I've ever encountered in my life. He said he spoke cockney-ed English or something like that. Like I said, couldn't understand the guy. Well he chatted with us about women, and the price of gold, and how to hold a gun, how we shouldn't be gangstas, why I have a good face, him talking funny, him giving us a million handshakes, he trying to get a pint with us, and all sorts of mayhem within just a few darn blocks. It was quite ridiculous and a great start to my first trip overseas. Needless to say the Kebab gyro was delicious.

Then Kyle and I went back to his ridiculous dorm and watched the more insane, horrifying, scary, intriguing movie I have ever known to exist. Even crazier than Holy Mountain yes. But we won't go into that. Gross.

After that we decided to go touring about London at around 3 in the morning which was brilliant. We took several double decker buses, and walked a bit to get to downtown London. All this with my awesome “oyster” card. Basically the coolest way to do public transit ever. Suck it Chicago. Haha. No seriously it's that cool.

So we got to downtown and basically saw a super old castle, walked around London bridge, walked millennium bridge, and another bridge. We love bridges. But it was around sunrise at this point so it was looking gorgeous. We talked about how Brits are basically insane because they don't like Oreos, they don't know what American biscuits are (KFC doesn't sell 'em here), a lemonade is the name for a Sprite because they don't have lemonade!!!, the don't have grits, soda is fizzy drink, oh and there are almost no guns in England. At all. Not even the cops. How awesome is that. Props.

Then we just headed back to Kyle's dorm, cooked some hashbrowns, and I hit the tube back to the airport and here I am. What an adventure. I wasn't sure I'd be able to navigate the Tube by myself but by golly I did and it was fantastic. Although I kept falling asleep and thinking that I was going to miss my stop. ha. Well I'll be back in the UK again soon. Fun times so far.

Off to my flight to Ireland and start my real journey. Woohoo.

And So it begins

So I guess since I'm starting on such a momentous summer, I'll start a blog. That is obviously the best decision for me to make. I'm here writing this blog on a bus to Chicago but more on that later. Since this is the first post I'll give a little bit of a background in order for you to understand this trip.

Basically, my boys and I from the Lou aka the 314 aka St. Louis, MO love us some football aka soccer. Alright no more aka's don't worry. That was ridiculous. Anyways, we love soccer and we follow the European leagues for the most part but it's hard given the lackluster interest in soccer here in the States. So around two years ago in 2008ish, we started to throw around the idea of going to the 2010 World Cup since it would be in South Africa which is just plain awesome. We were pretty excited about the possibility until early 2009 when the flight/game packages came out for the World Cup and for merely a flight to South Africa and a couple tickets to games, the packages were starting out at like three grand. And that didn't really include hotels or anything like that. So it would be a huge chunk of cash to be in South Africa for a week or two and then leave empty handed. Bummer.

So instead we started looking at alternatives to this trip since obviously we didn't just want to call the whole thing off and walk home with our heads hung low. That would be a sad spot to end this tale. So we started looking into traveling to Europe for the summer and living in Europe. And what more obvious a place to live for us Americans than England, home of fish and chips. Once again we got super pumped but then we found out that for some stupid, terrible, awful, sissy reason, the Brits stopped giving out work visas for students. So we rioted and went to restaurants and ordered their finest fish and chips and thrown them on the ground, stomped on them, and ran out. True story. (Not really)

But alas, one last ray of hope was their dear neighbor, the Green Isle, Ireland! Hooray Ireland. This story really is going somewhere! So this was all happening summer of 2009 and we were planning it like crazy let me tell you what. But basically we found a program that was giving out Irish work visas for students and we jumped at the opportunity to actually get this whole thing finally going somewhere.

We started researching and emailing a bit and figuring costs and what not and it was grand. Many late nights were had talking and discussing what in tarnation we'd be doing in Ireland and how in the world we would pay for the cost of this whole trip. Also we decided that working three months was a terrible idea and taking the last month off and traveling around Europe willy nilly was clearly the best course of action. But long summer short, we figured it all out by wintertime basically. And with credit cards in hand, we all bought our tickets to Ireland at the very end of winter break and that was basically the first big jump which meant that this trip was really happening. Since then we applied for visas (and received them), got passports (Well I did), emailed the visa people a ton, and otherwise were just trying to figure out this whole trip while we still had time.

Needless to say we figured it out and here I am on a bus to Chicago to get on a plane to Washington DC... to take a plane to London, to take a plane to Dublin... to take a bus to Galway... to get to my house. Phew. That's a full 2 days of traveling. Brutal. And ya I kinda got beat there by my buddies because my college, SCAD, gets out way later than the rest of these hooligans and so I'm a little late to the party but that's alright because I'll be staying there for a bit longer. Suckas!! But right now Tyler J. Worlund, Patrick Thomas Kramer, and Michael Samuel Abrams III are already in Ireland in our sweet house we'll be living in for two months. They've been there for around two weeks and I'm arriving in 2 days on the 2^nd of June. Fantastic. Our buddy Joel Joseph Bennett is coming the 9^th and then Mike the Second, is coming the 15^th. Pretty exciting stuff I know. I'd be excited if I were me. Which is great! Because I am.

I guess I'll just leave you with a few photos of my travels to Ireland in transit and maybe if I get super bored within the next two days of travel I'll write another post. Especially during the 13 hour layover in London I have. Unbelievable. United Airlines... you suck. I guess you're alright but still. Not cool.

Well keep following the blog and keep sending us money, cash, cars, women, tacos, fruit baskets, and anything else you find necessary for our survival in the harsh unforgiving wilderness know as Ireland. It shakes me to the core just saying the name.

Goodnight Y'all.