“The only thing I feel good about is that other kids are coming into this test holding Spanish-English Dictionaries.”

Sunday, December 23, 2007

2:44 a.m.

Dublin

So it’s almost over. I had my last couple of exams. One was easy, the other one was eh. But now they’re over. I’ve found that no matter how defeated or excited, relieved or tired, blocks or continents away from home I am and feel after exams, the one constant is that I am always glad they’re over. I’m glad they’re over.

I spent the last week since exams ended like I was actually a student studying abroad in Dublin – going to the pubs, having friends visit, staying up late for no good reason, and sleeping in late.

The night of my last exam I met Dad’s cousin Patrick Harte in the city for dinner with his wife and daughter. It had been over 14 years since I’d seen any of them, and we had a great meal while talking about cousins and Papa and Uncle Jack. I told them I would definitely be back before another 14 years was up and that I would make a trip up to Belfast to see them when I return.

On Thursday afternoon Kevin and Len flew in from London. Ricky and Rory had exams to take on Friday so the three of us, James, and Josh (Liam couldn’t answer the bell) all went into the city to celebrate Josh’s last night. He really had a great time while he was here, and we all enjoyed getting to know him. And, lest we ever forget his impeccable taste in music, he left us all with a CD of all the terrible music that he blasted throughout the house over the past few months that will no doubt remind me of dirty dishes, grease stained Guinness playing cards, and the one lamp that we’ve all been moving around from room to room over the last month or so every time I hear it.

On Friday afternoon Kevin, Len, and I went over to the north side and took the Jameson tour. The tour itself would have been good if the tour guide was not so horrible (every line he’d memorized was forced and awkward, and at one point he even said “Now keep in mind I’m not an expert on Whiskey.” Hmm…) The only good thing about him was that he picked me to be one of the six post-tour Whiskey tasters. Kevin and I were discussing afterwards, and decided that the reason he stared at Kevin for about 4 seconds and then picked me instead was because he couldn’t decide if Kev was 18 or not. However, still sporting the finals beard, I was a definite. Our faithful tour guide was disappointed that I chose the Johnny Walker Red Label over the Jameson in the taste test (they were labeled, I just like Johnny Walker better, sorry). After the taste test the three of us lingered in the tasting bar while everyone else left we realized that the other taste testers had barely touched their samples, never mind their regular helping of Jameson that they got at the end of the tour with everyone else. Needless to say we took full advantage of this fortunate situation. We decided, however, that it would be best if we stayed and took our time and left the Guinness tour for the next day. Probably a good decision.

By the time we got back everyone at the house was pretty much packed up. They were all leaving for the airport at around 6 a.m. and were staying up the whole night, so I decided to stay up with them. Len, Kevin, James, and I went into the city for a little while before coming back to Portobello (the bar around the corner) and meeting up with everybody else. Izzy, Devon, Megan, Danielle, and George (Denver, Denver, Fordham, Bentley, Bentley) were all there with them, and we had a last pint at the regular spot before saying the first round of goodbyes and heading back to the house. Len went to bed, but Kevin stayed up with me, Rory, George, Liam, and James as we talked all about the last 4 months and ate anything and everything out of the fridge. Finally 6 o’clock rolled around and everyone headed out for the airport and I went to bed.

It’ll be an adjustment I’m sure to be not living in such close quarters with all those guys, but that’s for a post-game blog entry and not this one. I will say, though, in case I don’t think of this later, that I think living with these guys was a very different experience than the year I spent on the first floor of South Keyes or living with the 7 other guys in Walsh 806 last year. In both those situations those were the people I lived with. Sure, they were among my best friends that I had around and I hung out with them all a lot, but I always had Orchestra or Church or bOp! or friends from home or any of the other countless groups of people that I associated with on a daily basis. These guys, in contrast, with a few others added in, of course, were the entire scene. Whatever I did or we did, we always did together or in some combination of us. I think for that reason it will be a much different adjustment than the times before. Moving on.

After getting a few hours of sleep last night Kevin, Len, and I got up and headed off to Guinness. Len had a good time rummaging through everything that didn’t make the cut when my roommates were packing to go home and took a nice little goodie bag full of batteries, ping pong balls, Gatorade mix, and who knows what else. On the way to Guinness I stopped by the bike shop and sold back my trusty Jeep Cherokee Limited 2.8 bicycle. The back brakes were disconnected and the transmission was in far from perfect condition, but I still got 40 euros for it (I only paid 120 to begin with) and I kept the lock that I got while bargaining in September. All in all I ended up paying 80 euros for the fastest city transportation available instead of paying about 280 euros for 4 bus passes (not to mention the bus doesn’t run after 1030 – the library closes at 12…yeah.)

The Guinness tour was pretty good. Len took a handful of roasted barley and then gallantly started brew 2020 of year 2007 despite the record-taker’s inability to understand his name through the dark-brown grains busting through his teeth. I’m sure it will taste good anyway. We hung out in the Gravity Bar at the top of the tour for a little while and I looked at all the sights of Dublin that I had and hadn’t investigated over the last few months. We had about as clear a day as we possibly could have, so it was great to really be able to see all the sights in every direction from way up there. After we finished our pints we walked back to Dame St. so Len and Kevin could catch the aircoach, and I took a leisurely stroll down a jam-packed, Christmas-crazy Grafton St. soaking in the fact that the trip is pretty much over and that I was now, for the first time in my life, completely on my own in a city, albeit only for a couple of days.

Tomorrow will be a day full of Church, packing, and finishing up some Christmas shopping. John Culliney invited me to have dinner with the family again tomorrow night so that will be a great way to wrap everything up.

I’ll probably write again when I’m stuck at JFK or maybe before that if there’s time. If not, so long from Ireland, and be sure to check up for some looking-back entries, as I’m sure thoughts and stories will come back to me as I settle back into home. In other words: fear not, dear readers, the joegoesabroad blog is not over just yet.

Anyway, it’s pretty late now and I should get some sleep. I’ll talk to you all soon and some of you I might even see before you realize there’s a new post. Can’t wait to get home.

Go Sox.

Later.

3:35 a.m.

8 Days until departure (sound familiar?)

Sunday, December 16, 2007

12:15 p.m.

Dublin

As I’ve said to a few people looking for updated blogs over the last couple of weeks, not much happens when you’re studying for exams. I had two last week that went okay. Not great, but okay. It’s kind of annoying to be surrounded by people who are on pass/fail and only need a 40%, but really it’s just another distraction to tune out along with everything else. I have my operations exam at 3 p.m. tomorrow and my Globalization exam at 9 on Tuesday and then I’m all done. The way they run exams here is pretty crazy. For my first exam they kept us (about 4,000 of us) in a big warehouse type waiting area where we could find our assigned seat numbers on a bulletin board. Then, leaving everything we owned (bags, notebooks for other classes, cellphones, anything) behind us in the open-to-the-public warehouse, they let us in to another massive room where there must have been 5,000 desks lined up. It kind of reminded me of seeing the National Cemetery for the first time…exactly what you want when you’re heading into an exam worth 70% of your grade. There were strict rules and about 80 proctors in the room constantly walking up and down the rows, checking student IDs, and making sure that there were no wandering eyes. It was all pretty ridiculous, quite frankly, and I’m glad I’ll never have to take exams here after next week.

Besides studying and test-taking, the last couple of weeks have been, for the most part, pretty uneventful. Ricky and Rory had some friends of theirs come in for a few days, making the house pretty crowded for a couple of nights. I tried going to the zoo with Ashley (we’d been talking about going since before Robin left – that was mid-September) but it was closed when we got there, which is too bad. Between multiple failed attempts to go to the zoo since I’ve been here and the infamous giraffe picture (the last photograph my parents have entrusted me to take) I’ve decided that the Dublin Zoo and I were simply not meant for each other. I guess there could be worse things. To celebrate Ashley’s going home we went out for Mexican food at a place up near city centre. The enchiladas were okay, but the chips and salsa were pretty weak along with the “heaping portion of rice” that was about four spoonfuls. Needless to say, I miss Anna’s Taq and the Border Café.

The weather here has been so-so for about the last six weeks. Rarely does a day go by when it doesn’t rain at some point, but the temperature’s been staying between 40 and 50 which, as a Bostonian in December, I really can’t complain about. Some of the locals look at me like I’m crazy (and occasionally say something) when they see me walking around in my sandals when it’s 45 degrees outside. I usually respond with something along the lines of “oh it’s not that bad” as opposed to the more-accurate “I’m out of clean socks.”

In sad news that none of you actually care about but that I’ll be able to look back on this and say “oh yeah that was going on then”, my fantasy football team that has been in first place pretty much all year is about to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Your hearts are breaking, I know.

We had a good time around the house laughing at all the mediocre players that were busted in the Mitchell Report. That and the fact that Milwaukee paid 10 million dollars to Eric Gagne to throw the ball towards home plate next season. Pete Twiraga and I decided that if he can get that much, I should be able to make at least 5 mil from some other crummy National League team.

The Pats play the Jets today, and it’s too bad that it’s going to be in the middle of a storm so that Brady can’t just throw it to Moss every time we get the ball and put up 50 points by halftime.

That’s really all I’ve got to say for right now. I have a lot more material to learn over the next 36 hours or so, but in less than 48 hours I will be all done and most likely sitting in a pub somewhere buying a beer for whoever is lucky enough to get the seat next to me in the exam hall.

Go Sox.

Later.

12:43

The Long Awaited “Harveys Visit Ireland” – Part II, and some other things I've been up to.

December 5, 2007

5:15 p.m.

Kitchen, 24 Fortescue Ln., Dublin

The last couple weeks have been pretty crazy. I got my paper and took my Irish History final, so now that’s all over and I may or may not write about it later. For now, though, I need to finish up on “Harveys Visit Ireland.”

I had schoolwork to do Wednesday night, so I took the train on Thursday morning and met up with everybody Thursday afternoon. The next 72 hours were a total whirlwind. We went to Noreen's for a little while before going out to dinner on Thursday. Friday morning we went to the Knock Shrine and then headed into town for a little bit. James (brother James) was out there, so on top of everyone else, it was great to see him again. We visited Eileen and went to the cemetery in the afternoon, and then the highlight of the trip came Friday night, when almost all the Ireland relatives came together in Ballyhaunis for a big party. The spread of food was both awesome and delicious. I felt bad that I had to catch a train around 7:00 to get back to Dublin that night, but everyone made sure that I ate, and I really wish I could have stayed longer to enjoy all the company, stories, and songs that I apparently missed out on. Even so, the hour that I was there was a blast and it was great to, for the first time in months, and in some cases years, be surrounded by family.

Saturday morning the program had a trip to Belfast to go to the parliament building in Northern Ireland and to drive around the city and look at the murals. On the way up, some kid on the bus that nobody recognized asked our professor if this was the International Students trip to Knowth. It wasn’t, but hey we got to hang out with a French kid all day and he got three free meals. Belfast was pretty cool, and the murals were stunning. It was crazy to drive through the city and see the Green Monster – sized fences that separated the two parts. It was like nowhere I had ever been.

That led up to the past couple weeks. My Globalization project was a giant headache, but I ended up getting to know my professor pretty well, and he offered to write me a recommendation if I ever needed one, so that was cool. I think we both got something out of me having a relatively-uncommon political perspective in an Irish classroom, and overall I enjoyed the course. Now we’ll just see how the final goes.

Since I’ve already finished up with Irish History, I only have 4 more exams to go: Organizational Behavior on Tuesday, Cost Management on Wednesday, Operations on the 17^th, and Globalization on the 18^th. Then I’m all done. Kevin and Len, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, come in on the 20^th, leave the 22^nd, and then I’m out of here on Christmas Eve. I’m sure I’ll make a few more posts over the next couple weeks as I look for excuses for study breaks, so be sure to stay tuned.

Later.

p.s. I hope the Red Sox get Santana. Even if it means trading Jacoby Ellsbury. This is Johan Santana we’re talking about here. I mean come on.

5:42

This is my second double chocolate muffin in the last hour

Friday, November 23, 2007

Quinn School Study Louge, UCD, Dublin

3:52 p.m.


I know I know I owe you a post for the second half of "The Harveys come to Ireland", but that will have to wait for now. I've gotten about 7 hours of sleep since I woke up early Tuesday morning, but the end is in sight. I have a group paper due on Monday that has been taking up most (see: all minus meals and biking back and forth to the library) of my time, but hopefully it will be finished by some reasonable time on Sunday evening. But probably not.

I have a group meeting in 6 minutes, but I thought it was supposed to be at 3:00. It was nice to have the feeling of an "extra" hour as opposed to that "what the heck what happened to the last six hours" feeling I've had all week. After 50 minutes of editing attempted English sentences, I decided to give myself a ten minute break and do a quick update - just a few little news and notes things. My apologies if it's not polished.

For Thanksgiving a bunch of the kids in the program went out to TGI Fridays through some sponsored thing where we only had to pay 5 euros for a meal. We had chicken and mashed potatoes. That's all I have to say about that.

Ashley is cooking a Thanksgiving dinner (she even found a turkey!) for Red Sox Nation, Dublin on Saturday afternoon (tomorrow). If I can't go because of this stupid paper I am going to cause serious harm to people and/or objects. If I can make it, it should be a great time.

Arndt is in town. Depending on how things go at this group meeting, I might try to meet him for a soda pop in the city really quick before I go back to work. Another wild Friday night in Dublin (hey at least I haven't spent much money this week!).

I have my Irish history final exam on Tuesday. So that means as soon as I finish this paper I will start in on that. Our prof gave us a pretty good outline of what she will most likely ask, though, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Wednesday is my last day of classes. After that I am off until the rest of my exams, which are on Dec 11, 12, 17, and 18. Kevin and Len are coming to visit from the 20th to the 22nd, and I fly home on the 24th.

Okay, group's starting to show up. Look for more next week after I finish my exam and get about 20 hours of sleep.

Later.

4:03

“Your gut isn’t as big as I thought it would be” – The Harvey Family visits Dublin, Part I

Monday, November 19, 2007

James Joyce Library, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

3:38 p.m.

(unedited)

The last week was pretty eventful. I’ll start at the beginning. I flew in from Dublin last Saturday night and was greeted by Stephen, Mom, and Dad, whose second sentence after seeing me is honored by today’s title. Stephen, who was awesome about driving Mom and Dad and everyone all week, dropped us back at the hotel where M&D showed me the duffel bag full of sneakers, Sports Illustrateds, granola bars, bike lights, hats, Sox World Champs banner, and chewing gums that they had brought all the way across the Atlantic for me. Awesome! I changed out of my standard “wear something Belmont/Boston” shirt that I wear whenever I’m flying (this flight got Coco Crisp) and the three of us headed downstairs to meet up with Kathryn and Brian. K&B had brought me a 2007 Red Sox World Series Champions shirt (again, awesome), and we all caught up on everyone’s various adventures.

The next morning we met up for church and I showed everyone around the chic downstairs of Fortescue Lane. We caught the bus down to school and I did my best tour guide impression as the weather turned from sunny to cloudy to rainy in about 10 minutes. After the tour ended we all headed into town and grabbed lunch at the Porter House. Brian and I had milkshakes that looked like they belonged on a culinary school brochure and tasted pretty good too.

Later that night we started the beginning of what was, for me, eating like absolute kings. We had a great meal at a little Italian restaurant. Mom said she felt bad when she realized that all I’d been eating for the last two and half months was pasta, but I assured her that the meal in front of my had absolutely nothing in common with the Dunnes Stores ziti and microwaved Roma pasta sauce that I’ve mastered since being here. Either way, she said steaks were in order the next night and as soon as I finished one delicious meal I immediately began looking forward to the next night’s.

I had to spend most of the day Monday at school doing work, which worked out because M,D, and K went up north with Stephen to see Nan. I felt bad about having to cancel going to the Jameson with Brian, but felt like the combination of me having an uncharacteristically large amount of schoolwork, being sick, and drinking whiskey early in the morning was just not a good idea. That night we went to Eliza Blues, a little steak place on the Liffey. My meal was incredible, and we talked to the owner on the way out who told Mom about how people get blown off the Cliffs of Moher all the time by doing what I did. This was shortly after I told her I was going back there when Kevin and Len come out. But hey, at least the steak was great.

Tuesday I had school again all day (I know, school? what the heck?) We finalized plans for the trip out west, and I spent at home getting work done. I had a presentation Wednesday morning in OB, went home, did work, got sleep, woke up, and caught the train out to Ballyhaunis.

Back to work for now, I’ll write more about the rest later.

4:58

It’s been so long since I’ve updated that my Firefox history didn’t remember this website.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

UCD Quinn School Study Lounge

4:30 p.m.

WOW so it’s been a busy few weeks since I was at the Cliffs of Moher with the guys. Halloween came and went (I was K-Fed, yeah…). Strangely, Halloween happens to be the big fireworks holiday in Ireland, and while there are a few big displays, most people stick to walking out their front door and setting off a couple store-bought or home-made fireworks and hoping they don’t blow their heads off. We did not take part in this tradition.

Lyd came to visit me from Nov. 2 through the 5^th. We went to a rugby game with a few of the other kids in the program; it was really cool. Leinster (the part of Ireland that Dublin is in) played against Cannucht in a match that featured about half the Irish World Cup team on one side or the other, so that was great to see that high level of play (although it was probably wasted on us, since the best of us only knew about 80% of the rules.

Lyd flew back home on Monday afternoon, and then on Thursday I flew off to London to visit Kevin. Kevin is in London for the year studying at the London School of Economics, and his dorm is about a 10 minute walk away from campus, which is right by Trafalgar Square. I got to his place at about 6, where we had dinner and then met up with his friends to go on a pub crawl. Later that night we went to some club that Kevin’s friends were going to, and in the roughly ten minutes that we stayed I ran into Gautier, the French kid from my Globalization class at UCD. Crazy stuff.

The next night we hung around with Kevin’s friends in the big lounge in his dorm, and then, after a failed attempt to meet up with BC/UCDers Dave and Chris, we walked over to Picadilly Circus and met up with Nicole (Belmont) and some of her friends from BU who were studying in London. Since I was flying out the next evening, we decided to call it an early night on Friday so that we could get sight-seeing first thing in the morning.

So one of the great things about studying abroad is that often times your friends, like Kevin, are studying in other cities, like Kevin was, and you can stay at their dorms or houses, like I was doing, and they can give you the personalized tour of whatever city they’ve been studying in for the last few months. Unfortunately, my two previous short trips to London put me in a much more expert position on London tourist attractions, as Kevin revealed that he was really yet to explore the city at all. Great. If anything, I guess, it made the two of us setting off into the city with virtually no money and a desire to “Do London in 3 hours for free” more of an adventure. We first walked down to the Mall, checked out Green park, and went and took picture in front of Buckingham Palace, which was buzzing with people even though there was no changing of the guard that day. We then walked back through the park and over to Big Ben and the Parliament building, where we ran into a huge group of livid Somalian protestors upset over Ethiopia’s “genocide” in Somalia. I think Kevin, who is as globally minded as they come (he’s the president of the Boston College Model United Nations) was more upset that they were standing in front of the statue of Winston Churchill, which means he couldn’t get a picture with it. (I guess he’ll have to walk down there again sometime before next July…) From there we wandered down to Trafalgar Square where we looked around a little and expressed mutual sadness over having just missed the 28 foot tall blow up statue of Jason Taylor, the best player on the worst team in football. (Miami played a game in London a couple weeks ago, that was part of the promotional stuff.)

After realizing that the National Gallery was free, the two of us became instant art fans and spent a couple hours looking at van Gogh and being surprised at how recently Picasso had died. We both though he was a lot older…apparently we weren’t the biggest art aficionados strolling the halls of the National Gallery that day.

After we had had out art fill we went outside and, getting a prime spot on the balcony outside the museum, took some pictures overlooking the Square. It was getting dark, and fortunately for me they were observing the November 5^th holiday that had just passed with a grand fireworks display over the Thames.

Tired from a long day of walking we went back to his building. I grabbed my bag and headed off for Gatwick, where I got in a fight with the security people who said my backpack was too big (psh, it was fine in Dublin), finally boarded the plane, and headed back to the Dublin airport, where Stephen Mullen, Mom, and Dad were waiting for me. It was great to see them, and we all went back to the hotel and met up with Kathryn and Brian.

So yes, it’s been an exciting few weeks, and I wish I had more space to tell more exciting stories about each of my stops, but I guess I’ll leave the adventurous tales for when you see me in person so that I’m not all out of good fresh Ireland info. I’m sure the Fam’s visit will also be worthy of a couple posts.

Okay, I have to head off to office hours before my next class. Busy time coming up academically, but hopefully I’ll have time to write.

Later.

Go Sox! (Sign Lowell!)

5:05 p.m.

(p.s. a special Hello to Mr. Twiraga, who sent me a Facebook message requesting an update! Hi!)

I had such a perfect title for this post, but blogspot cut me off becuase it was too long, so it is below...

“I don’t want to go to your wake and have your parents look at me out of the corner of their eyes saying ‘He’s the one who told Joe he’d take a picture if he sat on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher.’”

Saturday October 27, 2007

11:37 p.m.

Dublin

I have a paper and a presentation due on Tuesday, so I decided it would be a good idea to take the first two days of this long (Ireland Bank Holiday) weekend and head out to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher. Ricky and Josh had gone to Spain for the weekend, so on Thursday night, when James suggested a west-coast trip that would not include missing any baseball games, Rory had I hopped on board, and added Liam first thing Friday morning. I bought train tickets online for the four of us while James and I waited for Rory and Liam to get back from their morning classes, and then we set off for Heuston Station to catch a 2:30 train to Galway.

We pulled into Galway station around 5:00 and bought tickets for the bus to Doolin, about an hour and a half’s drive south where Rory and booked a B&B the night before. Besides rises and dips and the road that made us think we were going to lose the McDonalds we’d grabbed while waiting for the bus, the ride down to Doolin along the coast was remarkable. The brightest full moon I’ve ever seen hung out over the water and illuminated the rolling hills of the Burren that whipped by us on the other side. We got to the little town and settled into our room by about 8:30 and then headed for the pubs that Rory and I had read about in our guide books.

Our first stop was McDermott’s, where James lost the bet he made to Rory when he said that Rory couldn’t finish the Beef and Guinness and French Fries stew that he got, on top of the double cheeseburger that was already sitting in him. We had read in our books that the three pubs in Doolin were, up until recently, a Mecca for Irish trad music, where people would come from far and wide to play. We hadn’t been in the pub for 5 minutes when we met a guy from Atlanta who had flown to Ireland for the weekend with his banjo just to come to Doolin. We were all pretty impressed. After a few pints and a few songs from both our banjo friend and the house band of the night, we headed down the street to McGann’s. The pubs in Doolin are completely different than those in Dublin, unsurprisingly. There were very few young people around (except for the little kids dressed up in Halloween costumes hanging out at the bar while their parents had a few drinks). We also sat next to the woman who ran our B&B and petted the mutt that was running around that apparently belonged to some dude sitting at the bar. Nobody really seemed to mind (definitely a long way from Dublin). The guy with the banjo followed us in a few minutes later, and before we left he gave us a crash course and even let me play it for a few minutes, which was really cool. I mean, who doesn’t like a guy holding a banjo?

After a long day of traveling and having put way too much food in our stomachs, we all slept very well in our strange beds. In an effort to make the most of our 24 trip, we woke up early this morning and, already showered and packed, arrived at breakfast promptly at 8. We devoured our meals, talked about crummy jobs we’d had in high school, and watched Liam (who admits to having a slight case of OCD) carefully cut the egg white from around the sides of his sunny-side-up egg, so as to not break the yolk, then one by one eat the pieces of egg white, and carefully place the remaining yellow center of the egg in the “discard” pile on his saucer.

We got a ride down to the Cliffs of Moher from the husband of the woman who’d checked us in the night before, and, happy to see that we were some of the first people there of the day, walked over to the visitors’ center. We had three and half hours to explore the cliffs before the last bus of the day left for Galway, so after doing the officially sanctioned touristy things, taking the “Look I went to the Cliffs of Moher” pictures, and reading in our guidebooks that there was a not-so-safe cliff walk if you jumped the fence at the end of the observatory platform (Rory’s book “strongly discouraged” jumping the fence, whereas my Rick Steves book mentioned how it was really cool to lie down and stick your head out over the edge), we opted to live dangerously, jumping the fence, taking a behind the “DO NOT GO BEYOND THIS POINT” sign, and heading off on the little path along the tops of the cliffs.

I was throwing caution to the wind (literally, the gusts were incredibly strong and the rain was no prize either) a little more than the other guys as I asked them to take my picture sitting on the edge and opted to take the paths closer to the edge when the dirt trail split in two. (Keep in mind when I say “path” I mean a slippery, muddy, dirt ditch about twelve inches wide and 4 inches deep that ran anywhere from 3 feet from the edge to about 8 inches from the edge.) We walked and walked out to what seemed to be the highest point of the cliffs, at which point we were about a mile away from the visitors’ center which had since vanished in the clouds and fog. This seemed to be the point where most fence-jumpers stopped, undoubtedly for a great picture, since the path seemed to get even less official after this. From up at the top, however, we could see a little castle/watchtower about 4 cliffs further out, and that became our new goal. We stopped and took some more pictures on the way, slipped on some rocks, jumped some barbed wire fences, and watched and listened to James inadvertently grip on to an electric cow fence with both hands. Overall, we were making good decisions.

The wind and the rain picked up as we got out there, but once we reached our goal (an estimated four miles from the center) we felt pretty good about what we had done and etched our names in a little rock at the bottom of the castle. At this point we had to hustle back to catch the bus, though, so we took the less-scenic route once we turned around, cutting through some grazing pastures and doing our best to avoid huge clumps of fresh manure. Tired, dirty, wet, a little dazed, but undoubtedly accomplished, we reached the visitors’ center with about 15 minutes to spare. After putting down a celebratory ice cream, we headed back outside and caught the bus that brought us back to Galway. We killed our two hour layover in a pub in the city, and then headed to the train station and came home. From out our front door and back again, the whole trip took about 33 hours and was a great success.

Other news and notes: Thursday night was a long, but very exciting night as a few of us stayed up to watch the Red Sox win game two and watch the little ESPN gamecast box showing BC’s remarkable comeback at the end of the game against Virginia Tech… Zach Friedman, a friend of mine from BHS who is studying in Galway, and his two friends are in Dublin for the weekend and stayed at our place Thursday night, last night, and are staying tonight before leaving for their respective cities tomorrow afternoon… Ashley is stopping by for the game tonight (she watched game 2 with her friend Natalie, and the Sox still won, so that was a relief)… Flag/touch football started on Wednesday. There were about 5 Americans and 30 Irish kids who were very okay with being atrocious at football. We didn’t actually play any games, just ran some drills and put some plays together in hopes of running some scrimmages in a few weeks…Thursday night the program sponsored an “Irish House Party” which was a lot of fun. I’ll write more about that later, I just didn’t want to forget…Lyd is coming out on Friday, and the next few weeks after that are pretty busy, but for now I’m just going to worry about this presentation and paper. I should probably start writing more about Irish history and less about my rompings around the country.

Go Sox.

Later.

12:55 a.m.

The Craic in Cork is decent (and there's someone out in the hallway wearing a full-body dinosaur costume)

Wednesday October 24, 2007

2:04 p.m.

UCD Study Lounge, Dublin

I’m sitting in the study lounge at school waiting for my Globalization group meeting to start. We’re doing an examination of the effects of globalization in Sierra Leone and Liberia from 1990 to the present day which led to civil war. Should be pretty cool once we get it more focused and researched. Anyways.

Thirteen BC students studying in Dublin (including myself) went to Cork this weekend on a trip sponsored by the school. They covered our train ticket and hotel and meals and everything, so it was nice to have a relatively inexpensive couple of days, just to start. On Saturday morning Liam (the only other Eagle in my house) and I woke up early, packed a backpack each, and walked the hour-or-so to Heuston Station up by Phoenix Park to meet up with the others and catch an 11:30 train to Cork. The ride out wasn’t so bad, as I caught up on some sleep, took in the countryside, puzzled over the woman sitting across from me who ate her tic-tacs by biting them in three pieces, and prayed for my iPod battery to last just a little longer. When we got there, the thirteen of us, plus Leann from the BC house in Dublin, met up with the other two BC leaders in Cork and hopped in cabs to the hotel. I caught up on some more sleep for an hour or so, and then Liam, myself, and three A&S girls who are studying at Trinity ventured into the city to poke around and find a pub. We ran into Chris, Dave, Pete, and Morgan in the first pub we stepped into, had a beer, and headed over to the famous English Market, which was kind of like a supersized, less-commercialized, well-organized Faneuil Hall. After that we went out to a very nice dinner. I had a salad (hi, mom), a very good steak, and the best ice cream I’ve had since hopping the pond. We left dinner around 8:30 and walked across town to a pub and watched the uneventful second-half of the Rugby World Cup championship game. Most people in the place, and apparently the country, were rooting for and overmatched England team against South Africa due to northern-hemisphere pride. I’m not kidding.

Some people stayed out after the game, but I had more sleeping to do before the Red Sox came on at 1:30 a.m. (I was extremely fortunate with my room assignment, as I was on the second floor, directly above the lobby which had WiFi. The network had Youtube, ESPN.com, and other streaming sites blocked out (I was trying to download the latest Office episode), however mlb.tv worked wonderfully. Apparently the Quality Inn in Cork doesn’t have a long history of problems with guests getting rooms near the lobby and watching Major League Baseball games in the middle of the night.

I realized how very far away from home I was as I watched J.D. Drew’s grand slam sail into the camera stand and found myself sitting there dumbstruck with no one there to so much as pinch my arm. Needless to say, the game was amazing.

The next morning we all got up and went to Blarney Castle. I kissed the stone with no misadventures and thought about how cool it would be to have a moat around my house. We left there for Kinsale and walked around the Charles Fort for a little while before heading back to the train station and heading home. All in all, a successful trip.

Ashley, Liam and I all watched game seven back at the house. We celebrated with Fosters, which is about the worst way you can possibly celebrate anything, but was the best we could do at 5:15 on a Monday morning. (Note: I am containing my excitement about these games for sake of brevity. Most of you who are reading this probably know me well enough to accurately assess my level of excitement regarding the Red Sox success over the past week, so I’ll leave it at that.)

I’m done with another brutal week of class, and prepping for a 5 day weekend (we have Monday off for a national Bank Holiday). Most of the kids in the program are traveling this weekend because of the extra day off, but back in August and September I made sure I left this week free in the event that the Sox actually made it to the World Series, just to be sure that I wouldn’t find myself in some strange city in some strange country unable to gain internet access to watch the games. Needless to say, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

Tonight is the first night of Flag (American) Football, so that should be great fun. Yesterday the air had that cool crispness that just makes you want to go outside and play pick-up football with your friends, so I guess this is a pretty decent substitute considering the circumstances. After that we have the “Irish House Party” night sponsored by the program where I guess we’re going to fill up on soda bread and do a little Irish step-dancing. Should be interesting. Then it’s probably out for a beer and then back to the house by 1:30 to watch the sox. I’m still trying to find someone to play golf with tomorrow (which is proving quite a challenge since so many people are going away). Oh well. Anyways, pretty busy night, here’s hoping for great success all around.

Later.

2:51

I took an hour break in the middle of writing this post. That's about all I got.

Thursday October 18, 2007

10:12 p.m.

Dublin

It’s about three hours until game five of the ALCS starts, and I’m not really in a writing mood. This week has been pretty standard so far, which really just means there have not been any worthwhile distractions to keep me from worrying about the Red Sox losing, and then losing again, and again. I was supposed to go to London to visit Kevin this weekend, but BC scheduled a free trip to Cork, so I’m going to go on that instead. When I tried to change my RyanAir flights, they wanted to charge me 50 euros to change my 30 euro ticket. However, doing my best Dwight Schrute impersonation, I beat the computer system and went ahead and booked myself a completely new ticket, besting the computer by 20 euros. Nice. Now, uh, does anyone want a round trip ticket to London from Dublin that leaves, uh, 4 hours ago? Get back to me.

Should the Sox lose tonight, this little excursion to the southwest should serve as a nice distraction, which is good. This afternoon I played golf with James (roommate James) down at Elm Park. He threatened me with his 6 handicap (or “off six” as they say here), and scared me out of playing him for anything besides pride. Turns out I should have taken the bet. I’m finally getting a knack for the new putter I got from Uncle Tommy, including sinking a 50 footer just as the course ranger drove up and got out of his cart to watch us putt. Everyone at Elm Park is pretty nice, and the ranger had stopped by to suggest that we jump from the 4^th to the 16^th so that we could not be held up by the ladies tournament in front of us. He even said we could go ahead and play 1 and 2 again because there was no one else teeing off the rest of the day. So James and I jumped on the back of his cart and he whisked us over to 16 where it was wide open and we could play at our own comfortable, steady pace. A couple of the fairways had recently been aerated, but they did an impeccable job cleaning up the little dirt cylinders and it barely affected playability at all. Also, I think the aerate machines they use over here have smaller punchers than they do at home because the holes seemed much smaller. Anyways. James and I felt pretty good about making use of the beautiful day (we’re still being blessed with awesome weather) while most of the other guys just hung around the house. We ordered a couple pizzas that were getting delivered to the house just as we rounded the corner, and we declared the afternoon an all-around success.

Not much else new around here. I’m talking with Kevin on finding a good time for him to come visit. Also I’m working on a time and traveling companion to go to Prague. That’s about it. Go Sox.

Later.

11:31

Another post about everything else (The last 2 weeks, continued. Are they playing Christina Aguilera downstairs?)

Saturday October 13, 2007

1:48 p.m.

Dublin

So after Oktoberfest we all came back to the Isle. James and I went down to Corrigan’s to watch Ireland get their teeth kicked in playing Rugby against France (really the final nail in the coffin for what was an overall very disappointing World Cup for the home town team), and after that we went home, and James flew back to Boston the next morning.

Sunday night my friend Danielle from BC and a couple of her friends from school who I hadn’t met before came into Dublin after being out west for the previous couple days. The three of them were on a trip from studying in Paris for the semester, and having a welcoming place to stay with someone who at least one of them knew well seemed to be a great relief. They also could not get over what a luxury it was to be able to speak English to everyone. After 3 days in Munich, I know the feeling.

I had the great inconvenience of going to class Monday through Wednesday the next week, but on Tuesday night after class I went down to practice with the UCD Ultimate Frisbee team. Running around and getting some competitive exercise was, along with music, the one thing my daily routine from the last 15 years has really been lacking, so it was good to get out there, get dirty, get a little hurt, and knock some people around. The team is decent, and about half the players Americans or Canadians. Moving on.

Thursday afternoon Ricky and Rory (two of my roommates), Danny (Bentley/Woburn) and I all played golf at a place down the street from the school. It was a very nice, semi-private course. The regular greens fees were something north of 80 euros, but being UCD students we got to play for 14 euros, which was great. I’m sure we’ll all play there a few more times, but we’re also all interested in finding a Links course to play before too long. Wherever we play, though, it’s good to have a solid foursome together.

That brings me up to last weekend. Hanover Ashley and her friend Natalie from Trinity/Lexington, MA came over to watch the three division series games, including the first one (the Manny game) which lasted until the sun came up in Ireland. Sacrifices, man. Sacrifices.

Last Saturday the program sponsored a trip out to Newgrange and Knowth to tour the ancient burial grounds out there which were wicked cool and about 500 years older than the pyramids. Crazy! The view from the top of the Knowth tomb was remarkable, and was one of those “Man I really wish I was more of a picture-taking kind of guys” moments.

The rest of this week was pretty standard with class Monday thru Wednesday, Frisbee Tuesday night, and sitting in anticipation of the ALCS to begin. I had my first real kind of assessment this week in the form of an Accounting test. It went pretty well, but time was tight and my only real problems came when trying to interpret Irish phrases, terms, and sayings in the questions. Seeing as I was the only non-Irish kid in the class of 75, I really didn’t feel like raising my hand in the middle of the test to be like “uh, I’m an American…and I really just don’t know what this means.” So I made do, and I think it went okay. I’ve been hanging out with some different people now and then, trying to branch out from my roommates and meet some new people, which is going decently well so far. There are good people all around, so it’s really hard to go wrong. Last night I was the anti-social king as the sox played from 12 a.m. local time until about 3:30. The game was great, as I’m sure you all knew, but being in a city where the nightlife doesn’t really start happening until 11:30 (no joke, most places don’t even open their doors until 11, it’s crazy), I felt a little bit bad deserting everyone to go watch my baseball. But not that bad. Not really at all. James my roommate has a couple of friends from school staying with us for the weekend, so hopefully we’ll all get a chance to hang out before the Sox come on at 1 a.m. tonight. Ashley (my Red Sox/Patriots watching partner in crime) is visiting a friend in London for the weekend, so I’m flying solo for now. I might call Danny to see if he wants to stop by and watch the game tonight, just to have someone to yell and scream in unison with. Seeing as that’s about the 5^th sentence I’ve ended with a preposition, I’d say it’s about time for me to wrap this up and go do something with my Saturday.

Later.

2:15

A brief review of the last couple weeks. (Really just Oktoberfest, I’ll make another post about everything else.)

Friday October 12, 2007

8:24 p.m.

Dublin

So it’s been a while since I’ve made a real journal entry. I am sorry for that, both for the sake of you, a loyal reader, and me, because this is really the best thing I have for keeping track of the whirlwind that has been this trip.

So the past few weeks: I’ll try to start at the beginning and work my way towards today the best that I can. James came to visit unexpectedly, which was great. The day he flew in I was on a trip out to Kilkenny, which I mentioned in my last post, and we met up and had ourselves a grand old time. The most exciting part of his visit (and my trip to this point) was our trip to Oktoberfest. We flew to Munich via Zurich on Thursday morning but didn’t find our way to the campground until about 11:00 p.m. We had no reservations, and when we got to the gate the man there turned us away, saying they had no more room. Bummer. So James and I stood there thinking of what we should do (James thinking along the lines of “Hey I know a hotel would be expensive, but we gotta sleep somewhere” and me thinking more “Hey we’ve got a tent. There’s woods next to this road. We gotta sleep somewhere.”) Anyway, as we were standing there the man at the gate finished talking to a group of what sounded like Italians and wandered over to us, saying quietly, “You guys speak English?” to which we responded in the affirmative. “Well I’ll tell you what,” he said, “there’s a company in there called Top-Deck who has a few more openings, but they don’t want any trouble and are only interested in Australians and English guys, so you go in there and ask for Top-Deck and they’ll work something out for you.” What luck! We thanked him and walked into the campground, at which point James realized that he didn’t have his passport. Bummer. But after checking in, that was going to be tomorrow’s problem. We got set up with a dank, puddle-ridden tent in the back area of the campground, and went into town to find the internet in the beginnings of the find-the-passport adventure. Later we came back to the campingplatz, grabbed a beer out of a vending machine (hey it’s Oktoberfest), talked with some of the other people who had come hundreds/thousands of miles to be there, and called it a night.

The next morning James and I set off to the US Consul’s Office. I know this isn’t what you’re interested in, so I’ll skip over the 4 hours that we spent there, while just noting that our company in the waiting room consisted mainly of other absent-minded (see: stupid, excluding James) Americans who had come to Oktoberfest and lost their passports and who took a fascinating interest in my presence, trying to come to a consensus on whether I was a really good brother or just the most stupid person in the building, seeing as I had a passport of my own and could have been at the festival. Moving on.

That evening we made our way to the festival which was nothing like I would have expected, but probably should have. The place was crowded (it was Friday evening) and James and I set up shop at one of the little side-bars on the grounds and spent a while talking to a 30-something year old guy from Norway who was there with his friends. The rest of the night we hopped around from little-bar to little-bar seeing all sorts of strange people doing strange things and going on all these crazy roller coasters and other rides. We ran into a couple Red Sox fans and sat and talked with them for a while before setting off on more rides and eventually going home to our pleasant accommodations. When we got there the party was in full swing, and we met some cool people from the Netherlands and made some friends from Spain who shared their Spanish Ham with us. If you’ve never had it, there’s nothing like it. It’s the best meat I’ve ever had. Period.

The next morning we woke up to bright sunshine and decided to take advantage of the nice weather to see some of Munich. We walked around downtown through a huge marketplace and made our way over to a huge park that runs along the river (which is kind of disgusting, by the way. The river. Not the park. The park is nice.) After a couple hours of moseying James declared that, seeing as we were wet, smelly, tired, sore, and had a 7 a.m. flight the next day we would be better off in a hotel that night. We stopped by an internet café and found a pretty good deal on the Airport Marriott, which was perfect. We went back to the campground, packed up our stuff, and set off for the airport, which is pretty far away via train. We found the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and grabbed some falafel on the way back to the train station. We got to the festival grounds a little later that night, and went to a couple more bars and went on pretty much every ride that we had skipped the night before. I saw my friend Arndt plummeting downward on the freefall as we were standing in line waiting to get on, and, when he got off and saw it was me, then I think it’s safe to say that Heinrich Arndt Lutjens III was the happiest German to see me the entire time I was there. Good old Arndt.

The cool thing about thrill rides in Germany is that they don’t have all the regulation that American rides do, which means the freefall can go about twice as high as any ride in the States. It was pretty cool, and a great view. We left a little later on and headed back to the hotel. In the morning we woke up (I had a rare half-cup of coffee) and headed to the Airport for our flight home. All in all, it was a great trip, and I think the coolest part was just being somewhere where I was surrounded by millions of people who not only spoke a different language than I did, but that everyone else did too. Just off the top of my head, thinking about the countries that were represented at the campground, I can remember Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Irish, English, Australians, New Zealanders, Danes, French, and Americans. What a crazy place.

I’ll write more tomorrow about the last couple weeks, I promise.

8:58 p.m.

This is me, learning.

A note from Joe: My most sincerest apologies to my loyal readers for not updating this blog in so long. The following post is from September 26th. I wrote it during one of my classes, so, seeing as I needed to occasionally raise my eyes and pay attention, parts of it are a little rambling. I will try to put up another regular post tonight to give you an update on Oktoberfest and the past week.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Organisational Behaviour (as they call it here), UCD, Dublin

11:15 a.m.

I’m sitting in Organizational Behavior and writing this in my notebook. Considering I’m the only one here even pretending to take notes, my professor’s loving me right now.

I went to Dublin Castle last Friday. All of the little trips we do within the country are completely covered by the program (including meals and pints!) (The teacher is drawing tick figures right now, but anyways…). Dublin Castle was fair, and when I turned to the kid next to me after the tour and mumbled “That was short, huh?” only to see that it was the tour guide, I promptly found my way out of the castle and started the bike ride back home. On Saturday about 45 of us went to Kilkenny for the day. We toured Kilkenny Castle (which was pretty cool) and had Kilkenny Beer, which wasn’t bad. We went on a walking tour of the city, and it was really cool to see all the old churches and get some history outside of the classroom. (note: my teacher just said “It’s alright to giggle”) Almost al the historic Irish stuff is run by the Office of Public Works, who call themselves the Irish version of the National Park Service, only they don’t have cool hats. (I made up that last part.)

When we got back, James (yes, James Harvey) was asleep on the couch in the living room. We met the Hanover girls for a beer that night and crashed on the earlier side.

I’ve been pretty tired lately (I think staying up until 4 to watch the Sox every night is catching up with me) so things haven’t been too wild since James’ arrival. The landlord came by on Saturday also, and apparently was surprised to find James as the only one home (James my roommate, McLovin, and I all were on the Kilkenny trip, while Ricky, Rory, and Josh were all in Sweden for the weekend.)

I’ve had class the last three days, but I guess James has been busy exploring the city and gathering documents for the whole Irish citizenship thing, and has gotten some pretty cool stuff (The California Harveys would be having a field day). On Monday night, James and I booked some last minute tickets to go to Munich for Oktoberfest this weekend. Rory, Ricky, and Josh are going too. It will be my first trip to Continental Europe, and it should be a really great time. We’re flying out Thursday afternoon and coming back Sunday afternoon. I’m pumped. (n.b. My teacher was just talking about the concept of perception and showed us the Muller line illusion to try to prove some sort of a point, and finally finished with the example by saying “apparently they are the same length” in a kind of doubting voice. I’m speechless.) I’ve been taking it easy the class few days because of classes and trying to catch up on sleep and saving budget room for this weekend. I’ve got to stop eating muffins.

Oh! I almost forgot. After two years of Fr. McGowan’s 23 minutes masses up at Our Lady’s, thinking that he could not be beat, I have experienced his match. I started going to the 7:30 daily at the church down the street, and on Monday was back out the door by 7:46. That’s under sixteen minutes. Crazy.

We always get out of this class late, which is really too bad because on Wednesdays at 12 we have our program meeting, including free sandwiches and a very limited number of chairs. We’re supposed to get out at 11:50, but both weeks so far she has stopped lecturing at 12:02 and begun the never-ending attendance-taking process. This class is kind of ridiculous.

Me and another kid from BC, Dan, and I are the only non-Irish kids in the class, and were 2 out of the 7 (out of about 50 in the class) who raised or hands last week when the Prof asked “Who chose to do the assignment this week?”. I talked to a girl the other day who said that not a lot of people get A’s. I think now I understand why.

Oh! She just said “And I’ll finish on this (It’s 11:43), so that means there’s only 20 more minutes of mindless banter before she stops to take attendance.

I should probably wrap up so I can catch these closing words of wisdom and so people won’t be scared off by the length of this post when they see it.

I’ll try to get you another update after this weekend.

I need to shave. Coming from me, that means a lot.

Later.

11:46

“The good thing about looking for your golf ball in Ireland is that there aren’t any snakes.”

Thursday September 20, 2007

1:40 p.m. IST

Dublin

It’s been a semi-eventful past few days. I spent nearly all of last Saturday with the Cullineys. I took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) up to the station near their house where John picked me up. Sitting in the left front seat of a Volvo made me feel not so far from home. We went back to his house where his Ann and Roy made soup and sandwiches, and I met the rest of the fam. After that John, Phil, and I went and played golf. I’d heard the courses over here were different, but I was not prepared for greens that had absolutely no give (seriously, there was not a single dimple or landing mark of any kind in any of the greens – amazing.) After golf we went to their friends’ house to watch Ireland squeak by Georgia in the Rugby World Cup (I’m getting pretty into rugby, mostly because the only Gaelic Football game I was around for was the championship game, which was really cool, but beside the point.) After the game we all went out to this awesome restaurant right on the water and had a delicious meal that lasted late into the night. It was a great day.

I’m getting into the groove of classes, which all fall in the spectrum of bearable to really good, which is always good news.

James said he might fly out in the next couple days, in which case he’d be able to bring my clubs (3 of my roommates already have theirs here, so it would be nice to get a chance to go out and play with them. Phil (Clauda’s husband) and I also made plans to play some more while I’m here, so that would be really fun.

We’ve been exceptionally lucky with the weather since we got in, since it’s only rained for about a total of 2 hours over the last two weeks. John and Phil were telling me this summer there was a stretch when they had 60 straight days of rain. 60. six-zero. Shockingly, John said it was pretty depressing (and that’s keeping in mind that he wasn’t even here the whole time).

As of now I’m planning on going to Dublin Castle with my history class tomorrow and then on a daytrip out to Kilkenny with the program on Saturday. Plans could change if James comes out, though.

Now it’s back to eating my sandwich and listening to Copland. Later.

Add to the list of things I miss from home: The School Street Barber Shop

Thursday September 13, 2007

7:05 p.m., IST (Irish summer time – thanks James)

Dublin

The guys are downstairs heating up a frozen pizza (which I’m pretty sure represents all 5 basic food groups…maybe). I bought a bike Tuesday, picked it up yesterday, and rode it to school for the first time today. It’s about a 15 minute ride, but on a beautiful day like today (it was about 70 – Fahrenheit, not Celsius) and it worked out great. Weather permitting, having a bike will save me a lot of time and money.

I’ve now had all my classes, and they’re not bad. 2 of my classes are almost all Irish kids, and one is almost all Americans. It should be interesting to compare them. The best news I’ve gotten all week is that my operations class has been moved from Thursday to Tuesday, leaving me with the originally-envisioned Monday through Wednesday grind of a class schedule. (9 hours of class on Tuesday, though. Should be pretty brutal.)

Today’s big adventure, besides riding to and from school, was getting a hair cut. My hair wasn’t all that long, but longer than I wanted it and I figured “hey, I’m an American college student in Europe for 4 months, of course I have extra money to spend on a haircut.” On the way back from the bike shop on Tuesday I passed a barber shop with a responsible-enough looking person inside, so I figured I’d give it a shot and walked up there after class today. Unfortunately, I should have gone to the barber’s barber, as this guy wasted no time in chopping off a large section hair on the top of my head, prompting me to have him just take it all off and send me out of there sporting “The Woburn”. My hair grows fast.

I’m playing golf with John Culliney on Saturday, I’ll let you know how that goes.

7:27

My itunes shuffle just switched from Meat Loaf to Robyn, it’s been one of those days

Sunday September 9, 2007

4:31 p.m. GMT (Dublin)

Today has been pretty uneventful. So uneventful, in fact, that I decided to make a post. I woke up this morning to see about twice as much foot at the end of my right leg as was there when I went to sleep and hobbled off to Church, which was pretty interesting. I went to the 9 a.m. at the Church of Mary Immaculate Refuge of sinners (www.rathminesparish.com) which sports a massive green dome that pretty much dominates the skyline in this part of town (I read that the tallest building in all of Dublin is something like 16 stories tall – pretty crazy.) The inside of the church was very impressive (it had a cross setup, as I’m sure you can see if you Google-earth it) and the pews and altar seemed to be the originals from the church’s opening in 1856. The congregation was sparse and I don’t think there was anybody sitting in the first 8 rows. Even the token front-row little old ladies were sitting in the 9^th row, with the Eucharistic Ministers behind them.

The rest of today was pretty mellow as I sent an email home and tried to stay off the foot. The Pats play at 6 and the pub just up the street has the NFL package, so all things permitting that will be my next big venture out.

For now I’m still listening to bad music and waiting for my latest OC episode to download it’s been one of those days.

p.s. Ricky just walked in wearing a north face vest and has the Nick Kubasek look down pat.

later.

4:52

It’s almost like we never left, only we don’t know anybody and plastic bags cost 22c.

Saturday September 8, 2007

6:50 pm GMT

Day 5

It’s about 7:00 pm right now and we’re all watching college football on Josh’s ESPN Gameplan (fortunately you can sign in more than once so Rory can watch the OU game, Josh can watch the Michigan game (although why would you want to), and Liam (McLovin) and I can watch BC in a half hour.

We all just got back from foodshopping. Unfortunately, we all didn’t know that the rest of us were also going, and we went to 2 different places and ended up with 5 loaves of bread, 8 liters of milk, 4 dozen eggs and 2 big bottles of cooking oil.

Dublin is great so far (but expensive). I got my class schedule (One each class on MWTh, 2 on Tuesday) and got all of the classes I requested which is going to be a big help. There are 76 American students in the Quinn School (The UCD undergrad business school), but we’re pretty spread out in the classes (at least it seems that way so far – classes don’t start until Monday).

Ricky and I were lucky enough to find a church to go to tomorrow morning, so I’ll try to write again after that to let you know how it is.

As for my foot, a day of sitting inside watch the first 4 episodes of the OC was good for it, and it feels better now than it has since I’ve been here. Yesterday was probably the worst for it, since we were walking all around campus for orientation. I gave in and went to the doctor on campus who gave me a prescription for anti-inflammatories and sent me to the hospital to get an x-ray. I naturally walked the exact opposite direction from where I was supposed to go, and the guy who finally gave me directions when I got to where I was not supposed to be got quite a laugh out of the thought of an American hobbling around Dublin trying to find the hospital to get an x-ray for a potentially broken foot (it’s not, luckily. Or as the doctor put it, “That’s one hellofah sprain you’ve got yourself there.) So I backtracked and walked the correct mile and a half to the hospital, got the x-ray, hailed a bus, got off when I saw the canal, and walked about another 3 miles back to the house. Despite the foot, it was a perfect day for a walk along the canal, and I ran into 4 fellow lost Americans from the UCD business program – one of them was from BC – so that worked out okay.

All in all it’s good so far. I’ll write more after classes, but for now the frozen pizzas just game out of the oven and the game’s about to start. More updates later.

7:16

In Dublin

September 4, 2007

6:10 p.m.

Dublin

I made it to Dublin with no problems. It’s been a long almost 24 hours, but here are some of the highlights/lowlights of the trip:

After strategically planning about a month ahead and selecting a seat along the aisle of the plane as to maximize my legroom, my trusty brown sandal was run over by the drink cart on my Boston to JFK flight, severing the front part that holds the sandal together. I got a water, it was lukewarm Upon arriving at JFK I took my backpacks (luckily my luggage was going straight through) and dragged my right sandal behind me as I limped across the terminal, asking anyone and everyone for a stapler or a piece of tape. After making it all the way to the gate with no luck, I found a FedEx box and ripped off the adhesive strip on the top of an envelope (by the way, try neatly ripping a FedEx envelope – easier said than done), ripped the strip in three, and effectively repaired my sandal while sitting on the floor near the gate. (When I mentioned “If this works I should get a patent” to the couple sitting on the floor next to me they turned away in disgust. Welcome to New York.)

The flight to Dublin was pretty run-of-the-mill as far as trans-Atlantic flights go. After flying Virgin Atlantic last time across Delta seemed unimpressive in virtually every aspect, but it got me where I needed to go without destroying any more clothing or footwear items. I sat next to an Irish woman who was about 40 years old and on her way back after a 4 week trip to the states to visit her brother and cousin. I don’t know her name, but she took her tea with one milk and no sweetener. She was very nice and was excited for me. The in flight movie was Fracture, a hot-shot-young-lawyer-gets-antagonized-by-clever-old-murderer-but-gets-him-in-the-end flick starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. I don’t feel bad about telling you he gets him in the end because it was a pretty bad movie with a pretty dumb, predictable ending (there’s a reason I’m not a film director).

When I got off the plane they had “passport control” where I met Sam, a Cornell student from DC also studying at UCD this semester. Sam was very excited to meet me and even more excited by the fact that his Cornell buddy knew how to play the guitar (he wasn’t playing, mind you). Sam gave me the old “oh, Boston, I should have figured by the hat” number multiplied by about ten. Since he’s also in the business program, I’m sure I’ll run into him pretty soon, however I think it’s safe to say that if I was writing a book, the 15 minutes I spent in the same general vicinity as Sam would be one of those small moments to which an author would dedicate an entire chapter. Moving on.

I stood next to my old buddy Lance at the baggage claim and was “that guy” as I walked up after everyone and had to jump through the crowd as I proudly saw my bags come out as some of the first. I snatched them from the belt and when to find some internet station to email Mom and check my email for my landlord’s cell phone number.

After talking to the landlord I went to catch the bus to Kelley’s Corner outside the airport. At the bus stop I stood next to what looked to be a couple, their son, and his girlfriend/fiancée/wife. The patriarch seemed to be perplexed by each of the bus drivers telling him to wait for the other route (there were only two), while his wife seemed to think that either route would have been fine, but that his black hat with big block yellow letters that read “VIETNAM VET” screamed “I’m an American tourist who wants to take your bus during rush hour with my family and luggage!” just a little too loudly. After finally getting on the bus I sat next to 2 guys from Halifax who had graduated from college last year and were embarking on a 2 month Euro-trip. Their first stop was to see their friend in Rathmines, and upon discovering that we were both going to the same part of town and that I had a road map, they quickly appointed me their city guide to Dublin. They were good guys, Brent and his friend whose name I didn’t catch. We talked about coming to Europe, the NBA, Brent’s friend’s 12 hour layover in the Newark airport, and how it’s kind of a pain to live in Nova Scotia. After picking up and dropping off the rush hour crowd (the bus went from the Airport (on the north side) through the city centre, and continued on to the south side, where Rathmines is), Brent, his friend, and I all piled off the bus at Kelley’s corner (Brent’s friend helped me out with one of my bags.)

From there I made my way the roughly 5 blocks to the house. It’s pretty nice. For now I have a single (only 2 of the six of us are here so far, so we’ll see how things shake out). My roommate James and I (I know, not the first time, huh) went and got lunch and I got a cell phone. Then I came back here to get some more sleep. Depending on how my foot’s doing we’re going to try to go out tonight, so hopefully it’s feeling all right.

Some quick details on the house for inquiring minds (if you’ve made it this far, you undoubtedly my mother or father). Hi Mom and Dad.

2 stories on a really small one-car-wide lane that doesn’t really get cars down it (there was a car parked at the top of the street earlier, just sitting there with no one in sight. Nobody seemed to mind.) For college students it’s pretty much perfect: full kitchen and living room with a small tv and a separate room with a foosball table downstairs. Upstairs are 4 bedrooms, 3 singles and one triple. The house has 3 full baths (one downstairs, one upstairs, and one in the master bedroom. I’m sure the six of us will work out something reasonable, don’t worry). That’s pretty much it. Came with all linens and towels and everything. Right now I gotta go because I think James is hungry. More later.

Joe

Logan Airport

Monday, September 03, 2007

3:41 p.m.

Boston, MA

So here I sit at gate A16, listening to Sublime and beginning my 1 hour wait so that I can begin my 10 hour journey to New York and Dublin. Mom and Dad came to the airport with me where I checked in next to a kid named Lance who was sporting a trucker hat covering a mop of blonde hair, a black bandana around his neck, a scarface t-shirt, and Travolta-fit black jeans barely covering up his black boots. He’s flying to Dublin also. Awesome. (This is where Nicole gets mad at me for judging – it’s not a judgment, it’s simply an observation…)They just paged the “Unaccompanied child coordinator” for the third time in the last 10 minutes. Is there irony in that guy being lost? Perhaps. Boston has been good this summer, but this blog is about the next three and half months and not the last three and a half months. Boarding begins in 10 minutes (it’s 4 now), so I’m gonna hit the head. I’ll write more if I get a seat next to a power outlet at JFK, otherwise I’ll see you in Dublin.

8 Days until departure

Well, I've got a letter of acceptance, a place to live, a couple travel books, and a big ol suitcase. Once I get my subscription to mlb.tv I'll really be all set.

I should probably start packing.