This is where it ends.

Last nite we gave Dublin a proper goodbye...We went to Bruxelles for a bit and then to The Village... just brilliant craic, said some goodbyes felt like a very fitting close to a crazy trip.
This morning i awoke with dread....i dont want to go...i thought about seriously just saying screw it and cancelling my flight but i have a real life to get back to at home.
I can so handle this.
I thought about some ways that Ireland has changed me, heres list:
1. I am now morbidly obese...no joke its sick.
2. I have an even more odd way of talking now.
3. I have a serious appreciation for little things we take for granted like string cheese, taco bell and income.
4. I will be in love with light switches and outlets in the toilet...o yea...i call bathrooms toilets now...
5. Diet coke is no longer my vice.
6. I now have miming skills and allk inds of non-verbal communications tricks up my sleeve from having to communicate with people who dont speak english.
7. I have a deep appreaciation for black courrant.
Alright Time to visit...peace out...Cheers...off to Italia!!!

Last DAY in Dublin!!

This morning i woke up with the worst anxiety of my entire life... i actually believe this feels worse than it did before i left the country. I shed a tear or 2 begrudgingly packing my belongings. This is brutal...i hate leaving places against my will.
The anxiety was only compounded when my mom called me ..."What r u going to do?" I assume she means luggage wise, so i go on and on about how i think i can make things work...and then she says "no...the terrorist situation" GRAND!! How the hell is it possible for terrorists to ruin my last day in Dublin...u've won this time fools.
We had breakfast...well lunch in this cafe we spot every day from the bus... Lovin Spoon. We have been meaning to go there FOREVER. I'm super pleased that we made it finally. It was everything i imagined...pleasant pregnant women behind the counter..it felt super homey. Just perfect.
Afterwards we picked up some last minute items around town....
Now im putting off finishing packing. I'm horrified, i dont want to come home, i dont want to get blown up on the way there. Its just insane. Couldnt terrorist attacks be put off for like 3 weeks until im safely on american soil...well i suppose we are never safe on american soil anymore...grrr...
I'm sorry this entrey isnt very pleasant, but im not feeling all that happy. I am looking foward to saying goodbye to Dublin in a huge way tonite. I have faith everything is goin to work itself out...magicly everything will fit in my suitcase, the trip to italy will be amazing and then i will arrive home refreshed and happy....

In Dublin's fair city......

My internship came to a close today...i had extreme anxiety leaving my little computer room, o the grand craic thats taken place within those walls. Natasha and Geraldine took us out to lunch at Pepbo's wine bistro. It was a really great place. For all our hard work they gave us 40euro gift certificates to Top Shop. Which is grand especially since we work at a non-profit. Other people got gifts of money but i prolly have spent it on close anyway..hahha. I cant believe im done there...starting to seriously hit me that this really is the end. Soon enough i'll be done with my european adventure and back chilling on the couch in the states...gross.
After lunch we hit up top shop...i chose some shoes. Then we headed on home. I got my damn papers completed and shipped them off...very stress relieveing. Although they are absolute shit. Ahh, well. Ive been informed that my class is actually just pass/fail...so its pretty much guaranteed that i will pass since ive fulfilled all the requirements.
Packing is proving extremely difficult...having loads of trouble holding myself together and also packing efficiently. I have no idea what im going to do with all my luggage when i get to Italy...or even how i will get it to italy. Somehow i didnt invision myself strolling around Venice with 3 giant suitcases, layers of clothes on my body and 2 cowboy hats on my head...very depressing.
After packing almost all my clothes we headed out to meet our most favorite group of irish friends at Bruxelles...




i was dreading the goodbye...tried to avoid the whole goodbye scene all together but it didnt work well and in the end it had to be done... Inearly lost it. I hate this. It's like i know the likelihood of me seeing these people again is soo slim. How do people that were a huge part of the best summer of your life just end up not even in your life anymore?... So upsetting...
I have to go compose my life....

T -3 Days till Italia

Tuesday I had a half-day at One Family... its odd im beginning to get anxiety about leaving my job. I've grown comfortable there, i like the work (when i have some). I just think its an over-all anxiety about leaving.
After work, we stopped at Tesco and bought cheesecakes to bring tomorrow to everyone we work with as a thank you for being so helpful...im actually pretty upset that i wont be eating it.
I worked on my papers for a bit and took a nap in my dublin bed...o i'll miss this diseased room damn it. im getting emotional now.
At nite we attempted once again to complete the top 10 list...we only made it to the Stag Head on dame lane...grand... it was a really cute place. Afterwards we went to 4 damn lane. Megan and I had loads of discussions about whats it gonna be like when we get home... the concensus it that its going to be freaking crazy to be back and completely overwhelming.
Inspired by the top 10 Dublin book, I'll list our top 10:
1. Whelans
2. Bruxelles
3. Goghartys
4. The Village
5. Hogans
6. Globe
7. The Market
8. Brogan's Bar
9. The Gaiety
10. Craw Daddy
I think thats fairly accurate...
Well off the enjoy what i have left of my time here...

Our final hours in Praha...

On our last nite in Praha we began it in much the same manner as we began the others, at the hostel bar. It was there we learned that our barkeep from the following nite 'no longer was employed at the czech inn'... that means that yes in the course of our stay in Europe we have been directly responsible for the termination of employment of TWO barkeeps... not too bad for one summer. That just awful, I feel soo dodgey.
We didnt let that get us down, we hung out with some aussies, and then ended up in the 'casino' across the street with yet another canadian. Now i feel its worth mentioning that 'casinos' in prague though there are a great many are actually not casinos, they are more like a bar with loads of slot machines that dont actually work. We ended up hanging out in the 'casino' all nite, harassing the barkeep. It was actually a pretty good bit of craic, though we were the only 4 people in there.
We retired to bed rather late and woke up in a panic that if we didnt leave in the next 30 minutes we may miss our bus to BRNO, which is the city that we needed to fly out of. We somehow managed to make it to the bus in time. We all fell asleep on the bus, but i awoke once again in a panic that i would have missed my stop and was the only one on the bus. I couldnt see my travel campanions since the seats were so high...it was actually quite frightening. I began to devise plans but nothing seemed very plausible since hardly anyone speaks english. It turned out in the end that i had not missed the stop though and everything was brilliant. We arrived in Brno's bus station at about 3:00...the time we were supposed to be at checking in for our 5 o clock flight. We wandered aimlessly in the rain for about 15 minutes searching for a taxi which delivered us just in time for check in. We boarded our plane with the most annoying group of irish scouts...i didnt even know they had scouts here...i think it may possibly have been the worst flight ever!!
When we landed we once again had loads of time to kill in Stansted airport...then finally it was time to land in Dublin and escape the obnoxious scouts...its very odd to be think I cant wait to be home and be thinking about Dublin. It was also odd that I now get excited over finding irish chains in foreign countries as well...for example when we arrived in the czech i saw a tesco and a spar...they were equally as thrilling as the KFC and Mcdonalds...
Anyways...we had a super humiliating taxi ride home bc when we arrived at shanown the bill was much more than we anticipated it would be and we had to pay in like 5cent pieces and such...
I'd say it was a pretty savage bank holiday weekend... And now its time to spend our last 3 days in Dublin before heading off to Italia!!

Absinthe and Prague....

After that extensive day of site-seeing, we stopped by the hostel bar for a drink. We were educated about absinthe there. Absinthe we learned has it never really has the power to produce hallucinations. Back in the day, people used to add abstracts of opium and thats when it makes u trip. Just absinthe with wormwood, it really nothing but 70% alcohol. After our lesson, we decieded it would be worth our while to give it a whirl....when in prague do like the czechs right? We took a lead from our young czech barkeep Mirk. When taking an absinthe shot one must first place sugar on a spoon, then dip the sugar in liquor then u lite the spoon on fire....after that u place the flaming spoon in the drink, setting the shot on fire while dispursing the sugar with the drink...then u wait a moment or two and blow it out...and then well its down the hatch... Let me tell u, its not a very pleasant experience. Not in the least bit. What is rather grand is Czech beer, apparently they are the home of lite beers which is refreshing because Ireland is not a fan. We continued to hang out in the hostel bar for quite some time... in the course of our conversations with the barkeep we learned that Mirk was a renowned squash played in his youth...a squash prodigy if you will but then he suffered a back injury due to the fact that one of his legs is 1 cm shorter than the other and it ended his promising career. I can not believe that ONE cm could ruin an entire life...we thought that if he saw a proper american doctor he could be fixed but he refused to get his hopes up, which is probably a good thing. Anyways we helped Mirk close up the bar and then headed out for a bit...just ot a few different clubs, nothing spectacular...then we crawled into our fabulous beds.
The next day we slept in abit and then headed out to into the rain to see some sites. We went to Prague castle...arriving just in time to see the changing of the guard, then we wandered around old town square a bit and then stopped in an italian place before heading home for the nite.

A lovely nite Time in Praha...

Our first nite, we were a bit rushed...since we arrived soo late we only really had time to shower real fast before heading out to check out the city. We had a drink at the hostel bar and the headed to the main area where after a quick bite from KFC (hhaha..yea i know), we headed off to meet up with some canadians that were staying in our room. I feel it is worth mentioning that canadians sound american to me know, which i feel is odd bc in america u could always distinguish a canadian. It is also worth mentioning that we now sound Irish...grand. I also felt like a loser bc the canadian #1 could speak czech, spanish, french, english and canadian #2 could speak german, spanish, french and english. All fluently i might add...I myself have trouble mastering english...damn candians always trying to one up us. They took us to a club called Sabatage...Sabatage is VERY hip-hop...absolutely hilarious. o czechs and their mullets listening to hiphop... It didnt take long for us to grow tiresome of that club.. so we wandered a bit and ended up at a really brilliant club, i believed called the locust or something like that... they had really cool decorations. It was there that one of the americans we were with freaked out on us and stormed out..taking the canadians with him who had yet to pay for their nachos...darn nacho eaters....
I awoke the next morning to the canadian on the bunk bed below me panicing bc his wallet was gone. I of course checked for my own wallet and then went back to sleep. When i properly awoke, I learned that the canadian had left his jeans in the bathroom overnite and somewhere between 4:30 and 8 they were stolen. I became a bit paniced since we would have been suspects since we were awake and also because we were harassing him about not paying for his nachos. When we left for some site seeing he was still out of luck. We traveled about the city. Checking out charle's bridge, old town square. We stopped in the torture museum, which by the way was disgusting....NEVER GO TO A TORTURE MUSEUM!!! After the museum, we hung out on the bridge a bit more... where a damn spanish tourist who took a picture for us broke megans camera...very upsetting. Then we hit up a marienette show, Don Giovanni. I love watching puppets move, it is literally the most sure fire way to make someone giggle...hahha..puppets. After the show we ate dinner at the worst restraunt in the world. Where we discovered after they wouldnt take credit cards without chips that we had no money...czech crowns are soo worthless that u have to pay like 1000 of them for food. Its ridiculous. After a quick trip to the atm, problem was solved and we headed back to the hostel....

An arduous journey to Prague...

Our journey to Prague or Praha as they call it (my newest pet peeve, why not have the city be called the same thing on the map and in real life...if u dont want it to be called Prague, then call it Praha...makes matters much less confusing)... proved to be much more arduous than expected. No flights from Dublin go to the czech republic so we had first to fly into London...since we made no plans about what we would do when our plan arrived at 10 until our flight left the next day at 1pm, we were forced to kill all 15 hours in the Stansted airport... a task easier said than done. Due to my prior overnite Stansted experience, I knew it would be necessary to pack provisions, such as blankets and drink. I also knew that in order to find the best sleeping places we would need to scout out a place FAST... we found a brilliant nook. The nook provided us solice until about 4am when they kicked us out, we then moved to the arrival section where we remained until our checkin time at 11. It may have been one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, having all the international arrivals peer over the wall and find me sleeping on the ground... Very disheartening.
Our flight from London took off at 1:35, so we arrived in Brno (a city outside of prague) about an hour and a half later. Brno is the smallest airport ive ever seen. Plus no one speaks english so it proved very hard to navigate our way to the train station...somehow though we figured out how to purchase a bus ticket, we then rode the bus for half hour to the train station. Where by the grace of god we found some backpackers who could guide us to our train. We then had to ride a train for 3 hours to get to Prague... Once we arrived in the city we had to take a metro to the proper tram and then a tram to our hostel... All and all we took 7 forms of transportation. It brings up the question was choosing the cheapest possible flights worth it, since we wasted loads of money on alternative transportation, as well as loads of holiday time... im beginning to think that the answer was probably no, but its all hind site now...hahha....
Our hostel was amazing, it looked like a hotel... had a bar, real nice rooms...that were amazingly comfortable...i mean i met someone who actually wrote down all the ingrediants to the bed so that he could recreate it back in canada. It was an amazing choice and well worth the effort to get there....

O the joy of European Travels...

Yesterday after work we killed some time before our retrobution dinner at Doheny and Nesbits (Baggot St. Lower...just around the block from One Family), another pub off the Top 10 list....we are knocking those babies off...
Our Retrobution dinner turned out not to be dinner at all but just 3 free drinks, which we were all more than happy to consume... i thought it was a very nice gesture, considered wearing my crown and going up the barkeep and saying ill have that jack and coke now thanks... but decieded that would just be an asshole move, so we were very gratious instead.
After Sine, we knocked another top 10 pub off the list...the Long Hall on Dame street... decent craic, basicly just a very long hall with old men drinking inside. Then we headed home for an early nite.
Now we only have 3 more top 10 pubs to hit up before i can pass full judgement, i feel my top 10 would be somewhat different but ill give them all a chance before i rush to any decisions....
Today was a very grand day at work... I FINALLY got some feedback on the work i've been doing... i believe the excact words used were "You really have been doing brilliant work, congratulations"...all that worry for nothing, im amazing at writing sessions for lone parents, i know exactly what im doing.. i feel very accomplished...not so critical of the irish internship anymore.
Tonite I am heading off for Prague...its rather unfortunate that i feel completely under the weather, i believe i may have the bird flu or maybe its just some crazy irish virus. Either way its very unpleasant. We are sleeping in the London stansted airport again...bc i loved it soo much the first time... damn poor planning, not cool. Then friday afternoon we are off to Prague....horray, im gonna purchase a puppet.... Updates when i return Monday nite... peace!!

Dublin Taxi Strike

So since Monday nite, I wasted all my time sleeping... i literally passed out at half seven to wake flustered as hell at half ten..only to return to my bed an hour later for a sound nites sleep...It was necessary for us to head out to town last nite. We boarded the bus with will galient plans of a pub crawl... which is fine a good except that once we had already arrived in city centre someone asked...'hey aren't the taxis on strike again?' My first thought was 'again?' which was shortly followed by a little game of 'I spy a taxi'...There was not a single taxi to be found...I had no idea if the taxis were on strike since i am oblivious to the world around me apparently...this only added to my bad day (yes they have those in Ireland as well...cold showers, boring internships, lengthy bus waits are all direct causes.)But then we remembered no worries, there is a bus that runs late at nite...the nitelink. So we proceeded with the pub crawl as planned...attempting to hit all the top 10 Dublin guidebooks, top 10 pubs. First we headed to Mulligan's (near the Liffey on Tara STreet)..home they claim to the best guinness in the city... i had a guinness with black courrant, and im gonna say it was a darn good drink. Next we headed to Keheo's (off Grafton)..pretty decent Craic...had a nice old feeling to it. Following Keheo's was The Bailey (also off Grafton)...thats a really cute place, super comfy couches, nice decoration... We got sidetracked after that and just spent the rest of the nite at 4 Dame Lane (which oddly enough is on Dame Lane). It was pretty alright there, had grand potential for the weekend. Somewhere along the way we were informed that the Nitelink infact does not run on Tuesday nites... so we had to come up with a plan of action. We had several options... 1. Stay out drinking until the buses start at 7 2. Harass one of our irish friends into letting us crash at their place 3. Get a hostel 4. Wonder aimlessly until we find a scab taxi. We chose option number one...until that is we found a scab taxi....hahhha. The driver informed us that he may get in trouble for giving us a ride...it was all soo dangerous...hhaha. Apparently all the fuss is about the gov't wanting to do away with extra fare charges...meaning that they want to stop charging 50cents a head. The taxi drivers do not want this...obviously. I think there strike will be very effective, it ran from 5am yesterday until 5am this morning...im not sure the results but i do know the city doesnt work without their taxis...
Tonite is a very exciting nite...we are getting free dinner and drinks due to our 4th of July incident at Sine. The owners fired the barkeep who wouldnt serve us with out crowns and invited us all back to make it up to us. I feel this is a very nice gesture...of which i will gladly partake... Will let u know how it goes tomorrow...
Time to get back to the grind.... Cheers!!

The Dublin Bus... what an experience....

Monday I had what i am nearly positive was the worst Dublin Bus experierence of all time... I wish i could take back all the time i've wasted either waiting for buses or sitting on them...i bet i would have at least another week... Anyways.... back to the story...Megan and I were attempting to get back to Santry after a long hard(hahha) day of work...we board the 13A near our work, expecting a pleasant trip home... but o no we were sorely mistaken. Somewhere near O'Connell the world's most obnoxious knackers stepped aboard all decked out in their adidas track suits and high tops... They climbed to the top of the double decker and chose a seat directly behind us... innocent enough right? So everything is fine and good until the knacks begin to scream at the top of their pubescent screaching voices... no they are screaming anything in particular..just nonense... it was the most horrendace sound i have ever heard in my entire life... i mean its day later now and i cant still hear it, and it makes me want to vomit all over my desk.... just utterly putrad. They continue to scream the entire way home... i had my head phones up as loud as they could possibly go but they were impossible to drown out... People were looking at them, which only fueled their obnoxiousness...made them interested in picking fights... we literally had to leave the top level to regain our sanity...though it wasnt enough bc u could still hear them down there...i could hear them even after i stepped off the bus... just horrible...
In an attempt to make it through the bus ride, I thought to myself of all the good rides and the reasons why the bus can be a joyful experience
1. For sure the best thing about the bus is it has this unique ability to null u to sleep... no joke..its almost literally impossible to stay awake... I'm not sure if its the rocking or the lack of oxygen but that bus has skills. Sure u miss ur stop a time or 2 but u got a good nap in the process.
2. It provides a simple method of transport to nearly anywhere u want to go... i dont think i ever want to have to drive myself again...its just too much work... why not take a bus EVERYWHERe?
3. You meet some very interesting characters... why just yesterday i met my favorite bus rider EVEr...well i shouldnt say met, rather i observed him. The fellow had just purchased a slue of new records and was soo excited about them his excitement oozed on to us... he opened each one and examined them carefully just soo happy... I'm actually really glad he was too enraptured by his lps to notice that I was watching him intently with a giant grin on my face. I also met an italian studying english at DCU from Rome, he's going to show us around the city when we arrive.... connections, its all about connections. Sure u meet some dodgey folks as well but they just make good stories later... its all about the stories...hahha
4. One certain bus ride provided me with one of my most favorite memories of the summer... It was on one particular day that Sarah and I boarded the number 4 bus... the bus takes us to our stop on ballymun street and then continues on to the dodgey area known as ballymun, the irish ghetto. So we ride along, and then all the sudden i realize we are about to pass our stop so i leap up and push the stop button and jet it for the double doors... someone behind had the same inclination..i assumed this person was sarah, so in my haste i forgot to turn and make sure i was correct... Well turns out I was mistaken... it was not sarah and as i glanced in the window i realized that sarah was still sitting happily in her seat, but she appeared awake, so i assumed that surely she would be getting off at the stop just across the road... i waited on the corner giggling to myself...but my giggles soon turned into full blown chuckles as i realize that Sarah did not depart the bus.. She's about to ride that baby right into the ghetto (thats an actual quote from my inner monolouge) Seeing as though i had incoviently forgotten my mobile that day...there was nothing i could do but head for home and share the tale with all who would listen.
5. The bus is actually a really great place to stage a photo or 2...
6. Its a place where u can hear like 4 different languages being spoken at one time... pretty intense...
7. And last but certainly not least, the silent joy u feel when ur hopping off the bus and give the driver a nod and say... 'Tanks a mil, cheers!!' or i suppose if ur feeling american 'Thanks'.. its feels nice
Just writing this entry has restored my faith in the Dublin Bus... I take back what i said... i would not like to take back all the time I've spent on the bus... nahh ....

And our last weekend in Dublin comes to a close....

Sunday rolled around much to fast...our very last Sunday in Ireland... BOOOO!! It was a rainy day...as they usually are here. I slept in rather late, awoke ate a sandwich from Spar and then went back to bed for a nap. After the nap, I cleaned my room and prepared myself for the joining Megan and her visitors pubcrawl in progress...
We met up with them at The Temple Bar...Temple bar area was incredibly packed yesterday more than usual...apparently this is a grand time for travel to Ireland. Next we headed to O'Donahues right off Grafton, as it is on the Top 10 Dublin list but we had not made an appearance there as of yet. We watched a bit of Crickett there on the old tube...Learned some rules and such...the crickett ball is intensely hard, i imagine it to be something like a croquett ball, we saw some fellow get hit in the wrist with a ball and were assured that his wrist was now broken... SCARY!!
After O'Donahues we headed to the Hairy Lemon..i feel it must be mentioned that upon stepping foot in the pub it smells like lemon pinesol... perhaps thats the plan?... After the Hairy Lemon we dashed to catch the last bus back to Santry.. it comes at half 11. I bought some chips and salsa for the ride and we were very pleasantly surprised that they were quite delicious.
I felt it was a perfect close to the last weekend in Dublin... I shouldnt say that, there will be more weekends...we will be back.
I suppose I will get to work now, as i was an hour late. Though it didnt matter b/c everyone in the entire organization is currently in a staff meeting, that we were not invited to...Isnt that grand? I'm beginning to think im not such a vital member of the One Family staff....hahha...perhaps its bc i spend most of my time looking out the window...hahaha.

Midlands Music Festival....Wheres Van?!?!

Saturday morning bright and early we headed down to County Meathe for The Midlands Music Festival...
The first thing i feel i must admit is that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, all we knew was at 8:10 Van Morrison would take the stage. When we got there we were rather surprised to find that we had just payed €70 to go to an Irish Country Festival...yes thats correct, we fell into the one place where there are irish rednecks. Upon entering the gates, we knew what we had to do...We purchased straw cowboy hats that said Midlands in the front, and the second thing we did was hit up the beer tent. I think i should point out here that in my entire life i have never owned a cowboy hat, just never felt the need, and since ive come to Ireland, I've actually aquired 2...I'm apparently an Irish cowboy.
Anyways..the day continued with loads of country acts... A song about a snakefarm, some gentlemen in suits,a young boy who played guitar. All of whom were greeted with the same obnoxious american shouts "Wheres Van?" We were delighted to find that Don McLean was playing there....I can now say that i have heard American Pie sung live next to a castle (though im ashamed to admit the castle was the least impressive castle EVER...i mean i actually had an argument about where it was made of plastic or not). The finally after alittle Glen Campbell, who may or maynot be the original singer of 'RhineStone cowboy' (I feel i must mention here that he was wearing a hot pink cowboy shirt with diamonds on it)...it was finally time for the man... VAN MORRISON!!
Van Morrison was deadly...i couldnt believe my luck to be viewing him in person. It was right around this time that the sushi i had eaten about 30minutes before began to combat my stomach...it became neccessary for me to pick up a cup off the ground and vomit...So there I was holding a cup of my own vomit as Van sang 'Crazy Love'...I didnt let it hamper my excitement. I will NEVER in my life eat sushi again, as now i have a person vendetta against it for nearly ruining my Van experience. As Van's set drew to a close, the question hung in the air "Will we be priviledged enough to hear...dare we even hope it?... brown eyed girl?".... I looked at my clock, time for one more song...and then i knew "Sarah...brown eyed girls will be next" and then within moments "Dodododo...." (use your imagination)...I'm not sure ive ever been more happy in my entire life. I was slightly disappointed not to hear some of my other favorites such as Caravan but the show was still the best thing EVER!!
After Van, Dwight Yolkem played...not entirely sure who the chap is...but your man was pretty good. Following that we headed back to the bus, a bunch of tuckered out cowlasses....