Home again. Home again.

Home: the place in which one's domestic affections are centered. the place or region where something is native or most common.

I am home. For now.

My last night (for this trip).

Here I am - my last night in Europe, sick, sucking on a cough drop looking back on what I've seen and experienced the last couple weeks. It's gone by fast, like I just left yesterday, but at the same time it's like I've been gone forever.

I'm not excited to go home - not even the thought of sleeping in my own bed and having clean clothes makes me want to return. It's not that home is bad, I love Seattle, I love my friends and family (and pets) but the more I see, the more I realize what I'm not seeing by being at home working my job (which has nothing to do with what I want to do with my life) and pretending that what I am learning in school, reading books, compares to what I've learned by going out in the world and forcing myself to meet new people and see new things.

I've enjoyed the feeling of getting into a new city, with no idea where I'm going to stay or how I'm going to get around. I've enjoyed HAVING to meet new people. I've enjoyed having something new to experience around every corner. I've enjoyed not having and home - maybe that's why I hate the idea of going back to one?

More Eireland

The cute little towns here make my heart happy. They have this feeling like going to visit your grandma OR retirement OR being happy right where you are. I love it. We've seen a lot more of these towns in the last couple days driving from Kilkenny to Tralee, spending the night in Tralee, then driving from Tralee to Dingle.

Both Tralee and Dingle are incredibly touristy towns. We're taking a tourists path and it's showing in the people we're meeting. I swear, this whole time in Ireland we've only been meeting Americans and Australians. Before last night I had talked to like 5 acutal Irish people all five days here (and most of those were just ordering food)! Last night I FINALLY met some Irish people, even most of them were in Dingle on holiday , but they were still good people.

Next stop - Galway!

Driving.

So, as most people know, in Ireland they drive on the wrong side of the road (wait did I say wrong side, I meant to say other side). We've rented a car to drive across Ireland. Yesterday Via drove Dublin to Kilkenny. Today - it's my turn.

Eekkkkkk!!

Wish me luck.

UPDATE!!!!!!
I didn't die and I actually enjoy driving on the left EXCEPT in the dark.

My St. Patricks Day in Dublin.

Over half a million people crowded the streets of Dublin this year for St. Patricks Day. That's probably why it was impossible for us to see ANYTHING from the street. Eventually o'short'ones (Via and Jo) left, and Michelle and I found a crack in a wall and tried to watch through it. We were contemplating moving when a nice Australian boy named Mick said the crack in the wall was the best we were going to find. The three of us watched through the crack for another hour or so, then dropped into a bar, got a cider, and watched the parade on the huge television (I know, kinda lame).

After we finished the bar ciders, I refilled our cups with the two ciders I had in my purse, and that is how our crazy cider day began. Haha. The three of us spent all day buying ciders in the convenient store, going into bars, getting one cider, then refilling with ours. We got kicked out off some bars. We drank in alleys. We drank in our hotel and Micks hotel. We talked to Irish guys trying to use American accents by saying "totally awesome". We got hot dogs. We danced to and sang Sinead O'Conner (plus other songs). We ate crisps. I played ninja. We watched True Movies. We talked to French people. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed. We ate Kebabs. Really we did A LOT - but none of it was unique to St. Patricks Day - just using the celebratory feeling of the city to our advantage. All in all - a fun day.

Crazy adventure - London to Dublin.

So Michelle and I were searching for the cheapest/fastest way to get from London to Dublin and decided to take the train then ferry across - little did we know what lay ahead....here is the loooooooong poorly written story....

First, we left Sarah's house, the first second we left I opened a soda and it sprayed everywhere, great start. Then we walked to the bus stop with our five bags, squished on the bus with EVERYONE looking at us and literally pushing us out of the way because we took up so much space. We then arrive at Liverpool street station in London (not to be confused with the city of Liverpool) bought our £65 ticket to Liverpool and had a whole 30 minutes to make it to the train station to leave.

We arrived on the train with 8 minutes to spare (because we're rock stars) and couldn't find two seats together, when we did they said reserved so we sat in the aisle of the train figuring out what reserved meant. Finally we dedcided to sit there and I went to put my bag above our seats, and one of the pockets of my bag was open and change poured over everyone sitting underneath....really the story for the train goes on but it ended with us becoming buddies with everyone in our car, mostly because they felt bad for how stupid we were. The train ride was fun, we did crosswords, played and sang to music, and even did a little interpretive dance.

Once we got to Liverpool, I was surprised when I went to the ticket station and we could just buy a ticket to Dublin! Nice! But, it needs to be noted that at this point it is about 9 at night. We went to catch the train, got on the wrong one, got off, got on the right one to Chester, but it actually didn't go all the way to Chester, so we got off and waited for the train to Chester (confusing). The station we got off at was outside and completely deserted, except for the token weird guy who seems to be at everyone deserted train station. We had 15 minutes to waste so we decided to play Michelles MP3 player as loud as it would go and dance to Misses Officer (the trip song) and Get Low like we were in dance club. I'm sure it was incredibly entertaining to anyone watching.

Once in Chester we couldn't go strait to Holyhead to catch the ferry (yes the name is Holyhead) we needed to wait an hour to catch the train, then catch a bus. The hour of waiting was a little odd. The waiting room was literally 6 seats in the smallest room ever and we were in it with a little old Irish lady with no teeth who kept talking to us, which is great, I love talking to new people, but we couldn't understand anything she was saying and what we could understand made no sense.

So, we finally get on the train, it was uneventful. Once off the train, we waited with a group of people for the bus to Holyhead. After playing backpack wars (hitting eachother with our backpacks), freaking out about spiders, and talking to a REALLY drunk Irish guy, the bus arrives. Once on the bus, our new drunk Irish friend proceeds to smoke right on the bus (which is not ok in Wales) and get in a fight with these other two Irish guys for no reason.

My word - are you tired? Cause I am - and I'm not even done yet!

Everyone survives the bus ride, and we are in the waiting room for the ferry. Michelle and I are dying of thirst but have no money. We pull together the last of our pence to get a soda from the vending maching and are still like 15pence short. Luckily some nice old man was watching us and offered us 50pence to get a soda. We drink our soda, get on the ferry, and try to sleep over the 3 hour ferry ride. As we were getting off the ferry our drunk Irish friend almost got in ANOTHER fight.

Finally at 5 in the morning we arrive in Dublin, catch some random bus to town which drops us off city center. We ask people where Pearse street is (our hotel is on Pearse street) and get a different answer from everyone we ask. Eventually we just decide to catch a taxi and get dropped off at the hotel at 6am. We still had to sneak our way up to the room to meet Jo and Via, since technically we weren't even supposed to be there.

Phew. So that's our journey. I don't think this really catches the full craziness of it, but it's an idea. I also think it's important to add that during our adventure we ate 3 candy bars, 2 bananas, 2 sparkling sodas, a whole bag of cookies, two small loafs of bread, a small thing of cheese, and I had this weird fish thing that Michelle wouldn't let me open around her, and I still smelt like the entire time.

So we're here, in Dublin, with Jo and Via. We're thinking about hiring a car to drive across Ireland, probably the cheapest way to travel, but none of us know how to drive on the other side of the road. I'll keep to updated on what we decide to do.

Tomorrow - St. Paddy's Day in Dublin!

Annie in Tube Station

This is the story of me in the tube station getting help from a Cute London Guy (we'll call him CLG).

Annie: (looking at map confused)
CLG: Where are you trying to go?
Annie: I don't know
CLG: Um...ok...What do you want to see?
Annie: The fun places.
CLG: Well if you get on this train and get off on the Monument stop you'll see some stuff.
Annie: Ok thanks (as I'm jumping on train).
Michelle: (laughing in background the entire time)

I'm pretty sure I'm getting stupider as this trip goes on, I mean really, how have I survived?