A Summer of Firsts

It's been a great summer so far. It's been a summer of firsts.

This summer I've experienced:

-- my first trip to Ireland. Hopefully, it was the first of many.
-- my first lease-signing for an apartment. (Come visit. See below.)
-- my first time watching a complete soccer match. From start to finish. I'm hooked. I watched the Portugal/Netherlands match last Sunday. And wow. Is soccer always this insane? I had no fingernails left. (Which, okay, is a regular occurence.)
-- my first summer classes. I've always avoided summer classes like the plague and worked every summer. But I guess if it's study abroad, it's a little different. Still. I'm doing homework. In the summer.

I've really been enjoying myself so far. Hope you have been having a great summer, too!

Welcome.

Sara and I moved into an apartment in Atlanta this week. The official move-in day was Tuesday, but I moved most of my stuff in yesterday and today. Tomorrow night is the first night that we're staying here.

In fact, right now I'm sitting in my new living room. It's starting to look like a home.

I painted two walls in my bedroom a deep chocolate brown. It's dark, but I love it. It's like a cave. My mom said that when she was pregnant with me, my nursery was the exact same color. Not your typical nursery color (well, maybe in the early 80's), but my mom hung wallpaper on two of the walls. And they moved before I was born. Thought it was kind of interesting. Maybe I was destined to have a room that's dark brown.

You are hereby invited to come visit.

(Pictures to follow.)

'Cause I know you just can't get enough...

Where's McBride*?

People constantly asked Charles (a.k.a. Red) if he was a native.

From the altar of one of the ruined churches on Inishmor

Trinity College, Dublin

A Medieval Castle (Can anybody remember the name of it? Laoughmore?)

From the same castle

There's not really a story behind this one. These guys (one's hiding behind my big noggin) wanted a picture with Kasey, and she dragged me into it.

* One of the funniest stories of the trip involves Thomas's kinfolk, the infamous McBrides of Connemara. While we were in Galway, near the beginning of the trip, McBride was standing outside one of the pubs. A couple of girls walked by and smiled at him. He said something like, "How y'all doin'?" This stopped them in their tracks. "'Y'all? Are you American?" (Like the t-shirt and work boots didn't give it away already.) Thomas explained that, yeah, he was an American. After they asked if he was Irish-American, he added that he was a McBride. He listened as the girls explained that he shouldn't tell people his last name around that area because the McBrides had been run out of that county because, apparently, they pillaged, raped and killed women, and better still, were "sheep shaggers." We gave him heck about that for the rest of the trip.

Here are some more photos.

The group on the way to Giant's Causeway

Kasey, Stephanie, Thomas, and Patti (aka Raccoon Hands -- you don't want to know.)

Giant's Causeway (on Northern Coast)

A mural on one side of the wall of "Londonderry" (The Loyalist/Protestant side)

A mural on the other side of the wall of "Derry" (The Nationalist/Catholic side)

Chimneys in Derry (from our window at the hostel)

Kylemore Abbey near Connemara

A Celtic cross on Inishmor

The sunset on Inishmor (Should I Photoshop the wires out, or leave 'em?)

Me and Kasey at the Literary Pub Crawl in Dublin. We were ecstatic.

I've posted a few more pictures to my flickr account. I'll post more next month (I've used up all of my space for this month.)

Touristers

I'm back from Ireland. Got back into town yesterday. I had a completely amazing (That's right, not just amazing. Completely amazing.) trip. With completely amazing people. I've got a lot that I want to talk about, but it just doesn't work to talk about it. People inevitably get bored with talk of something they have never experienced. And words just don't work. Words can't convey the smell of the wind, the panoramic views that reach as far as you can see. And neither do photos.

But I'm gonna post them anyway.

I'd like to dedicate this post to my favorite touristers*: Kasey and Stephanie. It wouldn't have been even half as fun without you two.

(Note that, yes, it is 7 AM on Saturday morning. Still on Ireland time.)

So here are those pictures.

The Cliffs of Moher

An Ancient Viking Burial

Limestone Fences

I thought the kid was going to get his hand bitten.

Galway

Crazy Irish Friends (from Kasey's myspace page.)

On the edge at Dun Aengus (Inishmor, Aran Islands)

Me and the Girls (l to r: Karen, me, Angela, Shelley, Kasey; front: Stephanie)

* "Touristers" is a term that Stephanie came up with to describe us. Not to be confused with the tourist who wears a fanny pack and white tennis shoes. Also not to be confused with the hipster who would have been completely at home in the hostels we stayed in along the way. We decided we would much prefer the Westin in Dublin. (There was something funky in the sink drain.)

On the plate today? Apartment hunting with Sara in Atlanta.