Hopefully Not My Last Entry But No Promises

I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve written anything. At first I just didn’t have anything interesting to say. It’s gotten to the point where I wasn’t traveling for a while, so I’m basically just doing the same things here as I would be at home, and no one wants to read that I was hanging out with my friends AGAIN. A couple fun things happened though.

Brendan’s birthday was a couple weeks ago so Katie and I made him a cake.

Yes that's a chocolate cake in a Guinness glass, not just a really curdled beer.

Went into town for Halloween and saw some interesting folks, apparently blackface is accepted and encouraged here.

Nicki Minaj and the Jamaican bobsledders. Cool runnings mon.

I won 2 tickets to this thing at school called “Mega Music Munchie Monday” or something. Basically it was a huge international food festival, so Katie, Anthony and I had our dinner there. Tickets were only 2 euro, but mine were FREE so it tasted that much better.

Danielle and I passed our rock-climbing test, but ever since then one of us has been traveling every week so we haven’t gone back yet. Hopefully next week we’ll both be around.

Alex, Adam (from lacrosse), and I went to a Connacht rugby match about a month ago, which was a lot of fun. Some guys took our picture, yadda yadda yadda, we three are now the face of Connacht rugby.

Come on Connacht

Alex and I did actually end up going to Dublin for the Irish lacrosse trials, but we got rejected :( they wouldn’t even let us go out and play for fun because we didn’t have Irish passports. Luckily we realized we could just marry a couple Irish guys to get some, so this time next year we’ll be fine to try out.

Mom and Dad and Erin were here last week, which was great. It was sweet traveling around the country by car instead of bus. We went up to Northern Ireland and Donegal, then down through Mayo to Galway for a bit, then down to Dingle, Cork, and Kerry. We went to the Slieve League cliffs (which are higher than the Cliffs of Moher), saw another church claiming to be the smallest one in Ireland (it totally wasn’t as small as the one on Inismor), and went across a sweet old rope bridge. My favorite might have been the Giant’s Causeway though, it was just so cool sitting out there watching the waves all crash on the rocks.

Giant's Causeway

In County Mayo there’s a mountain called Croagh Padgraig, where apparently St. Patrick fasted for 40 days before banishing all the snakes from Ireland. Ever since, people have climbed this mountain as pilgrimage, and there’s a little church at the top. Anyway, you climb this thing to repent, so if you’ve been really bad you’re supposed to climb it with no shoes on. Erin was the only one to go for it. She and Dad made it like a third of the way up the mountain before they quit, Mom and I made it to the sign then went down and had tea while waiting for them.

Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner in Galway. Katie and Anthony came with us. It was Anthony’s first Thanksgiving. After that we went around town, so Erin now knows exactly what I do here all the time, and why I never write about it.

Thanksgiving seafood

Saturday they went to Dublin to catch their flight so I came back to Galway and went to another rugby match with my friends. The next day there was a 5k/10k run for charity that some people from the lacrosse team did, called the Santa run (run for a good Clause!) I hurt my knee the night before so I didn’t do it but I went down and took pictures of them. My friend Sonny got 2^nd overall for the 10k, and my other friend named Katie got like 8^th, but 2^nd for women in the 10. The rest of them did really well too, especially for having to run the whole thing in a felt suit, hat, and beard.

This event deserved 3 pictures

Santas on the Salthill Prom

Irish Brendan, Alex, Sonny, Ryan, and Lacrosse Katie

Right now I’m in London with Katie (from API, not lacrosse). Last night we saw Les Miserables, which was awesome, especially since I didn’t fall asleep like the last time I saw it. Then today we went up to the Tower Bridge and worked the underground like pros. Tomorrow we’re going to Stonehenge then home, hopefully. There’s a strike planned for public transit so that may not actually happen.

*Update, we made it home without a hitch despite the strike at the airport. Also, Stonehenge was underwhelming.

A 3 hour bus ride, freezing rain, and a pile of rocks we weren't allowed to touch. Great.

Tonight is my last lacrosse practice, then tomorrow I’m going to Limerick with Katie and Molly to stay with Anthony’s family, and when I get back on Monday I’ll only have 12 days left here. I’m expecting an emotional breakdown any time now, though I’m really hoping it doesn’t happen in Limerick. I’ll be in New York for New Years so hopefully I can see some of my API friends around there while I’m up, but as for everyone else I’ve met here, God knows when I’ll see them again, and even when I do see them it’ll never be the same as it was for the past 3 months. Anyway, that’s life I guess. I’m so lucky to have had this time here, I just don’t want it to all feel like a dream when I go back to Texas, that’s what I’m really afraid of. Anyway, maybe I’ll be back someday, who knows.

What I really need to start doing is collect the rocks I’m giving you all for Christmas presents, I’m way behind on my quota.

Not even my favorite picture of Erin at Blarney Castle...

Because this is :)

The countdown begins.