Final finals!

Well, school's over. Now it's just time for a week of exams and then I'm done with college! such a crazy thought, I can't even wrap my head around it. A quick celebration then it's time to get down to business!

And now for a brief intermission...

Can't even think in sentences. Too tired. Will update about past 2 days....tomorrow. Right now...packing and sleep. Awake for around 21, 22 hours straight. Back to the states tomorrow.


What an awesome trip. Legit.


I.Love.Ireland.

The. End.

Ireland, Day 4

Today was another weird sleeping schedule. I slept really soundly for the first couple of hours and then woke up in the middle of the night and spent the rest of the time tossing and turning, shifting in and out of consciousness.

We woke up a little late, and debated on what to do today. We had originally planned to head over to the Kilmainham jail, but we didn’t really have clear directions and it also involved taking a bus. Since we didn’t want to head out on our own/take a bus until we had some clear directions, we decided to change it up a bit and visit Dublin Castle and St. Patrick’s Cathedral today instead of tomorrow, since they were only a fairly short hike away (and it was raining…poo.).

First up, Dublin Castle. It’s situated right in Dublin center, and if you weren’t looking for it you probably wouldn’t even know it was there. Most of the actual “castle” exterior isn’t there, as most of it was destroyed in a fire in the 1800’s. (learned that on the tour!). But, there is still one part of the original castle still standing which you can see as you first walk in. After the fire, government buildings were constructed in place of where the original castle.

We decided to pay for the tour, so we walked around inside for around an hour, getting to visit the various government rooms. They’re all very lavishly decorated, with gold leaf and intricate stucco on the ceilings. And, they have some STUNNING chandeliers. We even got to see the original throne, and learned that most of the Tudors series is actually filmed right in that building. I’m going to have to rent one of the seasons from Blockbuster and see haha.

After we toured the more “modern” government building, the tour guide took us outside and across the court yard and led us down underground. There we were able to see some original parts of the castle that were found and preserved during the excavation. It was really neat to see the original walls of the castle, and to learn some of the tricks of the trade on how and why things were constructed. For example, we got to see an original stone staircase that used to lead down into one of the rivers/canals. Small boats used to bring supplies from larger ships to the back of the castle on this waterway, and the stairs led from the waterway into the castle. They were pretty narrow, and the guide explained that they were designed that way as a defense system. With narrow stairways, only one person could use them at a time and it discouraged a large group from attacking the castle via the stairway.

When we finished there the tourguide took us deeper down and showed us part of the original river that used to run near the castle and actually still runs through most of Dublin, even though most of Dublin has been built on top of it, hiding it from view. Apparently most people that live in Dublin don’t even know it exists.

It was cool to learn some of the back history of Ireland and to even learn how Dublin got it’s name. I’d explain it, but it’s kind of a long story and if you really want to know, you should just Google it. ☺

When we finished there, we zipped up our raincoats, put away our cameras, and started on the hike across town to head over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. On the way we stumbled upon a cute little café called the Sunrise Café tucked away in a small alleyway. Since we were both pretty soaked by then and hungry, we decided to stop and have some lunch and a hot beverage. It was delicious! I had an oriental chicken wrap with a hot chocolate and Amanda had a Chicken/tomato/pesto/mozzarella sandwich. It was a nice break from the rain, and I was a little sad to have to go back out into the rain.

We walked across town and finally made it to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was beautiful. Growing up Catholic, I’d heard about the Cathedral and had always wanted to see it, even though I really don’t practice any more. Inside was amazing, with intricate stained glass windows, very old church relics, and an elaborate altar. It just had this very peaceful feeling about it, and it was a great time to just walk around, read about the history, and just take a few minutes for inner meditation.
I think the absolute best part, though, was when some of the choirboys started to practice right before we left. I am in LOVE with acapella music and large choir vocals. If you’ve never heard anything like that, especially choirboys, I suggest you google it and listen to it. It’s nothing short of beautiful. I loved it, they sounded beautiful. I really didn’t want to leave, I wanted to sit there and listen to them for as long as I could, but it looked like they were beginning to close up and usher people out, so Amanda and I packed up and left.

When we arrived back at the apartment I took a much needed shower and we got read to head out for dinner. Amanda, Melinda, and I went out to this place called the Baggot Inn, famous for their burgers AND their super awesome bar tables that have draft taps RIGHT IN THEM! The tables have built in kegs of Carlsburg and Guiness in them, with little meters on them for when you use them. The one drawback is that you do have to have a credit card and be pre-authorized for 50 Euros, just in case you don’t pay. Luckily I had my debit card so I put that down on our account. The waiter brought us a dozen or so glasses, turned on the taps, and we were good to go! It was kind of cool being able to pour our own beer like that.

I have to say that I wasn’t really impressed with the burgers. Irish beef is definitely different from US beef (as I’d been warned) and I’m not really fan of it. The burger kind of tasted like meatloaf in a weird way. Any of you that know me know that I despise meatloaf. Buh. I ate about half of the burger and was basically done with it. But hey, the chips/fries were good! Haha

Our waiter was really nice and friendly and joked with us throughout the night, and the three of us just had a good time eating food, enjoying our drinks, and talking/laughing. Although, the one thing that did get us was the meter on the drafts. The whole time we thought we had found the jackpot for beer, as it it only took what looked like 1 Euro to fill a pint glass, compared to 4 or 5 Euros anywhere else in Dublin. We were amazed, how did more people not know about this? Haha, the joke was on us. Apparently, it was measuring “units”, not Euros. We ended up with a MUCH bigger bill than we thought, but it actually didn’t work out to be much more than 30 Euros for each person for dinner, dessert, and drinks. A little on the expensive side, but not too bad.

When we were finished, we headed back to the apartment to call it a night!

I’d upload photos to go along with this, but the Internet is being quite dodgy right now. If it’s more reliable tomorrow I’ll be sure to add some photos go along. Tomorrow’s agenda includes the Kilmainham jail possibly and the Guinness Factory, and then Thursday all three of us are taking the train to Cork to visit the Blarney castle and kiss the Blarney stone. Then, it’s back to the states on Friday ☹

It seems like time is passing so fast, and even though it feels like we just got here it’s almost time to leave. I’m sad, but I know I’ll be back to Ireland. I have to. There’s a feeling I got when I came here, a part of me felt like I was home in a sense. I think I can safely say, I love Ireland. <3

Ireland, Day 3

Today was fun. Since Melinda had class most of the day, Amanda and I headed back to the shopping center that we visited the day before to do some souvenir shopping and to go back into the grocery store to do some typical marketing and retail analyzing. Yes, we’re nerds, we know it, we embrace it. I ended up picking up a handful of post cards and some souvenirs for my family and friends. We browsed in and out of the shops, checking out some of the typical clothing stores and popular European fashions as well as some of the more unique stores such as one that resembled Spencer’s with weird, one of a kind, and joke gifts. We even went in and checked out a “TK Maxx”. Yes, I spelled that right. It was just like a TJ Maxx, but I think the check out line was a little bit more sophisticated.

By the time we had finished walking around all 3 floors of the mall we had worked up quite an appetite, so we went back to the grocery store (in the mall) and ordered some sandwiches from the deli. It was strange because the area where we ordered actually made fresh pizzas to order, so we felt a little out of place asking for sandwiches as we weren’t even sure they MADE sandwiches. But, they did. We grabbed a drink and a bag of chips and headed back into the mall to find a place to sit down and eat our lunch.

Now, apparently the shopping centers in Ireland (or, at least this one) are slightly different from American malls in that they don’t really have a “food court”. They have many restaurants and other places to eat throughout the mall and there is seating outside and around those areas, but they’re designated only for those that purchase food there. I guess it makes sense, but makes it a little inconvenient for people like us who purchase food where there wasn’t any seating. We ended up finding like two stairs outside of what looked like a radio DJ booth? Or something in the mall and just sat down and ate our lunch. It was very strange.

By then Melinda had finished class and we met her down at the spot we had arranged before, and then we headed off to see a movie at Cineworld.

Let me tell you, this movie theater was nothing short of an experience itself. When you first walk in, you’re met with a large area to purchase tickets with lots of twisting and winding line maker….things. Unlike American theaters, groups need purchase tickets together in order to sit together, as there is assigned seating. Very, very different. We got in line and purchased our tickets together and then went over to base of the escalator (yes, escalator in the movie theater) and handed our tickets to a man standing there, who ripped them off and gave us entrance to the escalator. On the second and third floors there were a slew of concession stands ranging from typical movie concessions to even Ben and Jerry’s! The Podunk theaters we have back home didn’t even compare to this one, so I was pretty amazed. After we grabbed some popcorn ( which was still expensive, I paid 4.70 Euros, right around $6 US for a SMALL popcorn) we found our way to our screen. It was also weird because they had foyers outside of every couple of screens, and that’s where people had to wait before the movie. We had to sit there and watch a screen that had all the movies listed and wait for it to say “please take your seats” next to the movie title.

Inside was awesome, though. Large, large, LARGE screen with surround sound and amazingly comfortable seating. I want every movie theater to have these conditions! Plus, it felt extra good to be able to sit down after all that walking.

The movie was very funny (New In Town) and it was a nice relaxer after the long days of walking and weird sleeping schedules and whatnot. After the movie we walked down the street and went to the Hard Rock Café to grab drinks and appetizers, as we weren’t that hungry. The inside was very typical of a Hard Rock Café, minus the bathrooms with the typical European bathrooms. ☺

Our food was okay (not fabulous) and we enjoyed the new drinks that we tried. I gave Bulmers a shot, which is an Irish cider very similar to South Africa’s Savanna. I liked it, it was delicious. Melinda and Amanda ordered some mixed drinks after our first round, but I was happy with just getting a second Bulmers. By the time we finished it was a little late, so we headed back to the apt and decided to call it a night.

Ireland, Day 2

Day two got off to a rough start. The original plan was to keep the previous night's activities to a minimum, go to bed at a reasonable hour, and wake up refreshed for the busy day ahead. Well, everything happened...except for the "wake up refreshed" part. We kept the evening low key, and ended up going to bed at around 12:30am local time. I fell asleep pretty quickly, but woke up a few hours later. I flipped on my ipod to see that it was only about 3:30am. It was downhill from there. I tried to go back to sleep multiple times, listened to music, got up and went to the bathroom, and just plain laid in bed, but nothing worked. For hours I just laid there, trying to desperately fall asleep. No such luck. At around 5:30am, I decided to get up and try and sleep on the couch, thinking maybe it was just the bed that was keeping me awake. Again, no such luck. Right around 7:30, I decided that it was no use trying to sleep, took a shower and got ready for the day---with 3 hours of sleep under my belt.

Around 8am Melinda and Amanda woke up and we all got ready to head out at 9am. We walked down the street to the train station and bought our tickets (2.30 Euro) to head up to Howth for the day. It was a nice half hour ride or so, but we got to see more of the countryside, more of what I think of when I think Ireland. It was nice to be out of the city for a bit and to see what other parts were like.

We soon arrived at Howth. It's a quaint little fishing town right on the ocean, with plenty of old style houses and fish businesses and eateries. We chose to go on Sunday especially because of the market they have in town, similar to a farmers market with lots of freshly baked goods and homemade handicrafts. People crowded the pier and moved from tent to tent, sampling homemade breads and soups or purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables. We ended up purchasing some delicious cheesy pull apart bread and an apple log bread, baked with fresh apples in the middle and topped with white icing. It was delicious! We even got some awesome cupcakes that one lady made. We browsed the homemade jewelry and scarfs, got cups of cappuccino//hot chocolate//chai lattes, and then walked further down the pier to get a better view of the city.

After browsing the market, we walked further into town to take "the hike". There are many cliffs that overlook the ocean and the town that you can hike on, so we climbed up the hills and got a great view of the town and the ocean. And, there are many old houses and cottages with cute exteriors and fences dotted along the path. I've decided that when I'm an old, old lady I want to retire to Ireland and live in an old cottage in the countryside, preferably near the ocean. It was so peaceful and serene there, that I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my days any place else.

During our hike we spent a great deal of time laughing and talking and taking pictures, even stopping for a bit to just sit down and look at the ocean and enjoy some of the bread we had just purchased. It was a fun afternoon of just enjoying what the country had to offer.

When we got back down into the city we followed a long path that goes out into the ocean to visit a lighthouse. It was a cute little lighthouse and fun to visit, even if we couldn't go inside. You could look out to the ocean a long ways and even get a nice panoramic view of Howth. At that point, our legs were very tired and sick of the wind (it had been blowing all day long) so we decided to visit one of the many pubs that lined the streets to sit down for a bit. After walking up and down a few of the city streets we found an awesome cemetary tucked up in the middle of the city, right near what looked like an abandoned and broken down stone church. We wandered through it for a few minutes, looking at the various graves and all the things people put on them. It was different from many American cemeteries that I've seen, as many of them had the headstone but also had the area in front of them sectioned off with a little tiny stone barrier. Many were filled with stones and had small monumental statues placed in them or some were turned into little flower beds. There was one especially that amazed me. It was filled with stones but then on top of the stones were hundreds of little pieces of colored glass. Right at the that time the sun had peeked out from behind the clouds and shone down onto the grave, and it illuminated each piece of glass. I loved it.

When we finished walking through the cemetary, we found a pub called the Cock Tavern. Being the immature people that we are, we giggled and decided to go in and sit down for a few. It was just what I had pretty much imagined an Irish pub to be. The interior was old wood, with a large bar and many wooden benches and tables lining the wall. There was a soccer/football match on the TVs and it was filled with old Irish men sitting around drinking pints of beer and laughing and talking. We filed into the back and found an empty booth area to sit in and then went and ordered a pint. Melinda recommended a local beer called Carlsberg. It was a lighter beer, similar to Bud lite or Heineken, but had a bit more flavor and bite. The first few sips were okay, but I didn't really enjoy the after taste of it. I only drank about half before I passed it on to Melinda to finish. It could have also been that we had just gotten in from walking all over the place, we hadn't really eaten that much all day and I was really, REALLY tired. But, I just wasn't feeling the beer right then.

At that point the lack of sleep had really caught up with me. I had been fine before because we had been outside and moving, but once we sat down in the warm pub, exhaustion swept over me and I found myself almost nodding off while sitting there. I knew we had to keep moving so I told the girls we really needed to go haha. They were almost finished anyways, so we left the pub and headed back down to the main street to find some food.

As we walked along the street, we looked at the many restaurants, cafes and other eateries to find a place to sit down and just have some appetizers. Many had the menus posted in the window, so we browsed over the menus and checked out the food and the prices. They were all pretty expensive, so as we got down closer to the train station we debated about just heading back. But, everyone was pretty hungry so we turned around and try a place Beshoff Brothers. It was basically a "fish n chips" take out joint. It reminded me of of beach boardwalk type style restaurants where there is no seating and the front part of the restaurant is open. You stepped in off the street and got in line, then stepped up to the counter and ordered your meal. Since I'm not a big fish fan, I opted for the chicken Goujons and chips, or rather chicken fingers and french fries. Once you ordered you slid down the line with your slip where your order was assembled and put into a take out box, at which point you could get salt and vinegar on your meal and order/pay for any other condiments you wanted like ketchup. Then, you stepped back outside.

The meal was actually really good. The chicken fingers were a little different from many I've tried in America. I don't even know how to describe them. They were just, different. haha. Also, the "chips" were different too, more towards the style of steak fries, but very yummy. We picked at our meal on the way back to the train station and then finished it while we were waiting for the train to arrive.

While we were waiting for the train, it had started to rain slightly, and a rainbow appeared right in front of us...both ends! It was pretty, and a great way to end the day. :)



Even though the train back to Dublin was crowded, we were all very tired. Melinda and I ended up falling asleep multiple times, both on each other's shoulders and other times just head bobbing in our seats. I was surprised I had made it even that far. We arrived back at the apartment exhausted beyond belief and decided to just call it an early night as we were all clearly too tired to even get cleaned up to go out. I ended up falling asleep on the floor for an hour right when we got back, and then after a quick snack and a little bit of Facebooking, we were all ready to call it a night. We were all in bed and asleep by 9pm. (4pm EST! lol). And now here I am, well rested after sleeping until 8:30am this morning, 11.5 hours later. It felt amazing, and it was much needed. I think I'm finally adjusted to the time change and we're ready to actually go out a few nights this week before we have to head back on Friday.

Since this isn't a vacation for Melinda, she still has to go to class. Luckily she only has classes M-W, with Thursday and Fridays off. So, this morning she had class at 9-10:30am (she just got back) and then again at 2pm. So, Amanda and I have just been relaxing, eating breakfast, and catching up on stuff until she got back, and now we're going to get dressed and head out to do a little souvenir shopping. Then, tonight when she gets out of class we're going to possibly head to the movie theaters, as we've heard that is an experience in itself!

Well, I should go get dressed and get ready to head out. Will post more later! Here are a couple photos from yesterday's adventures.


A view of Howth.


The light house.


Some of the hills/cliffs along the walk of Howth.

I'd post more pictures but the internet has decided it doesn't want to work any more. Maybe some more pictures later!

Dublin, Day 1 (2?) IDK, This time change thing...

I am officially reporting LIVE from Dublin, Ireland. I'm officially here, it's no longer a dream or a passing phrase of "I'm going to Ireland..." It is now, " I'm IN Ireland."

Long day of travel yesterday. Amanda and her mom picked me up at 9:30am Friday morning and we headed up to Lebanon, NH to catch the bus down to Logan Airport. I was actually excited for the bus ride. The past few nights I haven't been sleeping very well, and the night before hadn't been any exception. But, never fail, I always seem to fall asleep in a moving vehicle. It was about 2.5 hours down to Logan, and after I watched about a 1/2 hour of the movie they were showing, I curled up across the two seats and fell asleep. After a good hour, hour and a half of sleeping I woke up and caught the last part of the movie, and shortly after that we arrived at Logan, right at terminal.

Because we were there so early, we were checked in and through security really fast...even if I did have to chug a huge vitamin water right before because I didn't drink that much of it on the bus. Oof. After that, we went and enjoyed a nice lunch because we had a few hours to kill, and then spent the rest of the time sitting in the rocking chairs near the large windows (how cute is THAT?!) and watching the planes come in and out.

Once we were on the plane, we knew it was just a waiting game before touching down in Ireland. But, the 6 hour flight felt like nothing compared to the 16 hour flight to South Africa we took in August. And, the food was pretty good for airline standards. I spent most of the flight taking little naps and watching the TV shows/music videos and the movie (Nights of Rodanthe, so GOOD) with the occasional ipod game.

We touched down in Dublin at around 12:30am EST, or 5:30am local time. We gathered our luggage, breezed through customs and met Melinda at the door.

It's a good thing she decided to meet us versus us trying to find the building. We needed to take a bus to reach the apartment complex, and not only is it extremely difficult to navigate in a city you've never been to, but the morning darkness made it even more difficult. On top of that, the bus that we took didn't stop where it was supposed to and actually took us one stop further. Glad Melinda was there to guide us or we probably would still be on the bus right now! haha

Once we got off the bus we had to walk for a little bit to reach the apartment complex, and on the way we ended up finding a few pint glasses sitting on the sidewalk. hehe, Ireland. love it. We dumped out the beer that was left in them and totally took the glasses. We figured we had been joking about stealing a Guiness pint glass from a pub...now we didn't have to!

I have to say, our plan to stay awake all day and fight the jet lag failed miserably. After we got settled in and spent some time catching up with Melinda and her roommates, it was about 8:30am local time or 3:30am EST. For two people who had spent the previous day/night barely sleeping, we were pretty tuckered out. And, Melinda still hadn't slept from the night before. So, the three of us decided to sleep for the next few hours to be able to function for the afternoon.

Amanda and I slept for about 6 hours, Melinda slept for a little bit less. When we all woke up it was around 3pm, and we decided to get dressed and head out into Dublin to walk around before the sun set and pick up some groceries for snacks and meals for the week.

Dublin is beautiful. Simply beautiful. I am in love with the old style buildings, the pubs that line every street, and the patches of cobblestone walkways. The people here are so upbeat, laughing and joking and singing with one another as they walk. When we got into the center of town there was a huge hustle and bustle, with shops galore and awesome musicians scattered along the walkway. It really felt like an Irish version of New York City in a way. I'm in love with the people, the atmosphere, the architecture--everything.

We even walked through an amazing park on our way to to the grocery store. The sun was shining, it was a nice 45 or so degrees out, and people were bustling around the park enjoying the nice weather, playing sports, and watching the swans in the pond. Ugh, simply gorgeous.

On our walking tour we stopped to cut through Trinity college. Its such a beautiful old style college, with cobble stone walkways and a large green. It was really quiet, but I love it. We stopped into the book store and the Long room, where the Book of Kells is on display. The Book of Kells is a manuscript written in Latin transcribed by Celtic monks in 800 a.d. The exhibit was about 8 Euro to visit, and as we stood there debating whether or not to spend the money, the man running it told us to just head on through as there were about 10 minutes until the exhibit closed. So, we got to see it for free! It was beautiful, displayed and illuminated under thick glass. Each page is extravagant, with lavishly hand decorated biblical text. And, we saw it for freeee!

Next we headed over to the shopping center to go to the market/grocery store. That is an experience in itself. I'm always amused by international packaging and stores, not only because I'm a marketing major but also because I just enjoy analyzing stores and food. Not only is everything measured in the metric system, but everything has weird names and packaging. Like bacon, for example. We've decided were going to cook meals a few times to save some money, and we wanted to make breakfast for dinner one night. So, I picked up some bacon, which is called Rashers. It doesn't even look like American bacon, it's thicker and wider. It looks like a slab of pork, basically haha. It's really interesting and fun, Amanda and I plan on going back and browsing around again to analyze it more as well as purchase some fun packaging to add to our South Africa international packaging collection.

It's also interesting that unlike American stores, one has to pay for plastic bags for groceries, but I guess its like that in most of the world, except for America. Typical. So, we bought our groceries and put them in our backpacks for the trek home. It was good too, they would have been really heavy to carry all that way in a plastic bag.

When we got back we made tacos for dinner, and then proceeded to trying to make brownies using the metric measuring system. It was even more complicated because Melinda doesn't own any measuring cups! It ended up with us pulling up a conversion chart that included fl. ounces//US equivelent// mL. So, when we needed 60mL, it equaled 2 fluid ounces. We ended up basing everything on a shot glass being 2 fl. ounces. We totally McGuyvered it and they came out delicious.

Now, we're just having a relaxing evening, eating brownies, catching up, and keeping it low key so we can head to bed at a decent hour tonight. Tomorrow we'll be up early to catch the train and head to Howth, where it will be a full day of hiking, touring, and checking out the apparently awesome market they have.

I'll leave you with a photo from the photobooth sesh Amanda and I had on the plane on the way here!

Preparations for another adventure abroad

Well, it sure has been awhile since I updated. I've taken a bit of a break from online journals/ blogs and am kicking it old school with a pen and paper journal. It's been easier to work through some things and express my thoughts without the whole world reading them. But, I've really been wanting to update this more frequently so that people know I'm atleast still alive!

This year has been so incredibly epic, I'm still searching for the right words to express the true level of epicness. I can't believe everything that has happened over the past couple of months and the opportunities that have come my way, from South Africa, to working for the United Nations, to newspaper and radio interviews, to things in school like How I Learned to Drive, the Short Works Festival, Elevator Pitch competition, and so on. It's been extremely chaotic, but every moment has been worth it.

Traveling to South Africa was a pretty big life milestone for me. Come from a family that NEVER travels (anywhere!) ever, I couldn't even wrap my mind around this. If you don't count 1 or 2 day trips to Montreal, I had never left the country--ever. Every step in the process of traveling abroad was new to me--the passport application process, vaccinations, the long flight, the time diffrerence--it was really a life changing experience. I was afraid, I'm not going to lie. For someone who isn't keen to change, I was now being placed in a world COMPLETELY different than my own. That's some drastic change. But I knew I was going to be okay, I was with a group of 15 or so other Champlainers and a handful of adults who had abroad experience. It was a little bit of travel abroad coddling, I guess. But, through all the trouble that had incurred before the trip, I wouldn't have traded any of it. That experience opened my eyes to a brand new world--literally and figuratively. It introduced me to traveling; to seeing that other cultures, other worlds, other lands, existed. It's one of those things that you always subconciously know but don't fully realize until you're submersed in it.

It showed me just how little of the world I had truly seen, showed me what I was missing. Haha, it kind of felt like the end of Men In Black II. I had lived 21 years of my life fine with the world I was in, looking at the rest of the world only when I opened the locker. But suddenly, one day, someone showed me that I was simply a speck in a larger locker. There was a larger, new world to explore. It put my life and my little world in perspective.

Six months ago, I never thought of myself as owning a passport. Now, I can't imagine living life without it.

Tomorrow I embark on a journey to Ireland for spring break with Amanda. Before I even realized what had happened a few months ago, Amanda and I had purchased airline tickets. That's it, simply found and purchased the tickets. There wasn't any long process of begging or even really asking our parents. We had talked about it for a few months, looked at prices, and I worked 3 jobs this year to earn enough money for the ticket and for spending money. But it was still a dream to me. I wasn't sure if I ever saw it truly happening. Then one weekend we found a deal and we just....did it. We bought them. We planned out our transportation. Purchased bus tickets. Created an itinerary. Just like that, we were headed to Ireland.

As weird as it sounds, it really showed me I was growing up. I made the decision to traipse around a foreign country with my roommate by ourselves and didnt even think to ask my dad. I had told him about it, but I never asked. I made the decision on my own. I had always clung to my dad as a way of prolonging adulthood. If I kept asking, kept constantly looking to him to make decisions and take control of things, then I didn't have to label myself as that dreaded word..."adult." I'm not saying I'm going to go out and purchase a pant suit and start watching CNN religiously now. I still enjoy a nice pair of jeans and you'll almost always see Family Guy on our TV. But being able make these decisions on my own without being afraid made me realize that while I don't see myself as an "adult" just yet, I'm ready to start working my way there. I'll always still look to my dad for advice and guidance. He's my dad. But I'm ready to take control.

So tomorrow, we begin our journey. We'll take a bus from Hanover, NH to Logan International Airport and then fly non stop Aerlingus to Dublin, Ireland. Don't get me wrong, I'm still nervous. This is similar to traveling to South Africa, but the safety nets have been removed. No adults to handle problems. Juggle Money. Make decisions. It's just us. Am I afraid that something will go wrong? yes. Is this out of my comfort zone? heck yes. Do I think I'll regret the trip? Not one bit. I think I can do it. In fact, (dare I say it?) I know I can do it.

The excitement and anxiety are creating a magical feeling in the pit of my stomach. I think this will be a life experience for me, as well as an awesome spring break. I keep reminding myself how much this means to me deep in my heart, it's my heritage and something I've really wanted to do since I was little--I just never saw myself actually being able to do it.

But, here I am. Less than 24 hours away from Dublin. If you had told me back in high school I would have done this, I would have laughed in your face. And look at me now. Wow. It's still shocking to me. It probably still will be until we touch down in Dublin.

There are nights when I lay awake and think about Africa. I can still picture the sights. I remember the smell of the rain. The harmonious voices echoing from the churches throughout the townships still ring out in my ears. It's astounding to me just how vivid the memories still are more than 6 months later. I hope that this trip will resinate just as soundly.

I plan on spending most of the travel time tomorrow writing in my paper journal, reflecting on thoughts and catching up on some of the stuff I've wanted to write about for the past few months. It's revitalizing, a spiritual, emotional, and mental cleansing. But, because I know I'll have reliable internet, I also hope to update my blog throughout the trip, along with posting a few pictures if I'm able.

So, check back soon! For now, it's time for me to sleep and rest up for the long journey before me. Bon Voyage!