“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