Back by Popular Demand...Or just not being lazy anymore?

Ok, wow. So it's been 5 days. But I have decent reason for my absence. My friends have been here literally all week, and we've been traveling soooo, I have a half ass reason for not updating. Still, no excuses, and I apologize for the absence.

Ok I know I just said we've been traveling, but it was actually only until Wednesday. I could have updated Thursday or Friday but I just didn't. I was hanging out with my friends, got sidetracked, and thus, no update.

Here is how my week went:

Sunday- Sara and Christina arrive
Monday- Dublin
Tuesday- Dublin/Galway
Wednesday- Galway
Thursday- Here
Friday- Here
Today- Sara and Christina leave

Okay, so here is how my week went down...

Monday: On Monday we left early in the morning to catch the 8:30 bus from Limerick to Dublin. However, we missed our bus by like 2 minutes and had another hour to kill in the bus station. So we had a mini breakfast of eggs, sausage, toast and coffee at the bus station before catching the 9:30.

We got on the bus at 9:30 and were on the road to Dublin. As usual, the bus to Dublin was not crowded so we got to sprawl out and take up two seats to ourselves. I of course fell asleep for the ride there. When I woke up, we were driving into the city center. We landed in Dublin at about 12:30ish. We decided to book a hotel rather than a hostel for our trip, but check-in wasn't until 2. So, we walked around O'Connell Street for about a half an hour until we decided to go look for our hotel. We searched for an hour looking for this place. It was the Abbey Hotel. We walked all over Abbey Street and could not find it. Finally, I decided we needed to ask someone for help. So I went into the Australian Travel Agency that we asked for directions at my first trip to Dublin, and I asked for the hotel. They said, "A few doors down." We literally walked up and down the street 3 times and did not see the Abbey Hotel. So we ventured down the street and there, on a little door attached to a cafe it said, "Hotel." It turns out, it actually said Abbey Hotel above the front windows of the cafe. However, there were potted plants hanging in front of the words so you couldn't even see it. So we checked in at 2 and got our room. It wasn't bad at all. We paid 40 for one room with a queen sized bed. The girls slept on the bed and I slept on the floor. We had a huge bathroom, really clean, nice hot water. It was a great deal.

Once we got settled, we ventured out into Dublin. We decided to stop to grab a bite to eat before we went site seeing. So we stopped at a small restaurant and all got a quick bite and a Guinness. I had a beef pie. It is gravy and beef, baked into a pie. It was delicious. However, mixed with Guinness, I felt like I ate about 40 times that.

So after our afternoon feast we headed off into the city. I was actually very familiar with everything. I knew exactly what streets to take to get where, and where certain things were located. I was a pro at navigating Dublin. We went to the Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and Temple Bar. We didn't have a ton of time to look around because it was already getting dark. Plus the walk out to St. Patrick's is time consuming. So we made our way back to the hotel around 5 or 6, slept until 7 or 8, and then went out to hit up the pub scene.

We stopped at Temple Bar first. It was a decent crowd for a Monday night. Nothing special though. They had live music, but it wasn't traditional Irish music. It was just your average starving artist with a guitar, playing covers. So we just had a drink there and then decided to stop at some huge five story bar on the corner. Can't even remember the name. But it was a great time.

We got into the bar and the girls started buying me drinks to celebrate my birthday. I drank rum and cokes all night. We also had a couple Red Headed Sluts. We introduced our bartender to those. He had never heard of it before. So we are sitting at the bar having a good time, and then the live music walks in. It's just a guy and his guitar. Just like the last bar. Just like a coffeehouse. So he starts playing some of his own stuff, and it isn't going well. No one cares. He leaves after the very first song to go move his car. It was just awful. However, as we started getting a little drunker and the people around us started to as well, he got better. And then he just started taking requests. Literally his 2 hour slot turned into request hour. He played nothing he planned to the rest of the night. We gave him basically his entire nights worth of songs. We just started yelling random shit. "Dave Matthews!" He played Crash Into Me. "Tom Petty!" He played Free Fallin. "Sweet Home Alabama!" He played it. Hell, we yelled "Free Bird," and he somehow turned a 9 minute song into a 2 minute song with the same lyrics for two verses. He even said, "Are you serious? Usually people just yell that for the sake of yelling it." It was hilarious. He didn't know half the words to any song so he just played the chords and sang versus over. We were rolling laughing. We were singing along with him just so he had some knowledge of the words. Like, how do you turn Free Bird into 2 minutes and repeat a verse twice? He was messing up Tom Petty terribly, messed up Sweet Home Alabama. In fact, he would stop when he didn't know the lyrics and then just start again with the verse he just sang. Oh he played Don't Stop Believin too, and did a pretty decent job. Messed up some of the lyrics there too but he played the whole song so I couldn't be mad. As we kept drinking and yelling out songs some random girl comes over and asks us if we are American. Duh. She says she was from Texas. I was like, "Wow I hope they aren't like you." She was this little annoying 5 foot nothing bleach blond with a choppy cut and a black turtle neck on. Looked really pale, kinda Russian with her bony face. She started talking to us about random shit. But we got two rounds of shots off of her so we couldn't complain. She introduced us to her boy toy who was from England. He is a bartender. He showed me video on his phone of him tossing bottles and what not. He was a cool guy. Turns out though, she's married, and that is her on the side lover. She lives with her husband in Dublin and is moving to NYC next month. She hasn't told her lover. So she's a bitch on all accounts basically. Cheating on the husband, leading this on the side guy on. What a great girl. I just remember talking to him about how he loves his job, and who cares if he doesn't make a ton of money, blah blah. I was like "Yeah dude, I feel you. I totally feel you." He gave me his card for his bar in London, free drinks if I ever go. So I got that goin for me. Then we met some random guy from London who came in with his Irish buddy and his girl. He was a really cool guy. We actually talked for like 20 minutes about our countries. He was a good guy. Didn't get his name, but he was funny. We talked about Obama and the economy of the US. That's about all I remember of our talk. But he was one of those loud Brits who put his arm around ya and yelled stuff like, "This fockin Wanker!" Haha.

After our night of debauchery, we went back to the hotel. I watched South Park and the girls fell asleep. It was the coldest slumber of my life. The floor was freezing. I used Christina's jacket as a blanket and was cured. It was like sleeping under a heated blanket. I have no idea what that jacket was made out of, but it was amazing. Oh, and I woke up in the middle of the night to the Nickelodeon symbol rotating on the screen. No programming, not black screen, just that. It was weird.

Tuesday: Tuesday morning we got up, got ready, and checked out at noon. We decided we were going to do the Guinness factory. So we went into the city and ate breakfast at this cafe right next to the Temple Bar. I ordered the "American Breakfast." It was pancakes, apple wood bacon, and dippy eggs. It was awesome. Only, the pancakes weren't pancakes, they were just two crepes. But it was great nonetheless.

After breakfast we made our way to the factory. I took the tour for the second time, had my Guinness in the Gravity Bar and then we left. I get to go one more time when Emily comes in May.

After Guinness we headed to the bus station and just caught the 5pm bus to Galway. The trip seemed to last forever. It took us until about 9 to reach Galway. It was rag week in Galway, so there were a bunch of girls from Dublin on the bus going to party with their friends. Rag Week is charity week. Basically all kinds of events and what not to raise money for charity, with an emphasis on drinking. It's like senior week basically. So the girls on the bus were drinking on the bus. They were drinking Budweiser and Smirnoff the entire trip. We finally reached Galway, and had the great task of finding somewhere to stay so late. We refused to stay in a hostel, so we looked for a cheap hotel. Sara's Dad helped us get one right off of Shop Street. So we stayed at the Imperial Hotel for the night. We hadn't eaten since breakfast so we went to the McDonalds I visited the last time I was in Galway. It was filled with drunk guys punching each other and making a mess of the place. One very intoxicated fellow stopped us to ask where we were from. We did the whole, "America, blah, blah" intro stuff. He was excited about us being in Ireland, and then proceeded to tell us a joke. "Okay, what does Arnold Schwarzenegger say on Easter? Answer: I-still-love-easter baby." With his accent, we didn't get it at first, but then he explained it and I found it pretty damn amusing. He just kept saying, "He wants to kill you, but he still loves Easter!" So then he ran out in a drunken stupor and we ate. After our McDonalds we went back to the hotel. We bought a bottle of white wine and watched Goodfellas until we went to bed. It was a chill night.

Wednesday: Wednesday morning we woke up and caught the 10am tour bus to the Cliffs of Moher, the Burren, etc. It was the same tour that I took the last time I was in Galway. I let the bus driver know, and he laughed about it. He told me, "Well, I guess you can be the guide today then lad." Haha. We had a gorgeous day. It was mid 50's and sunny all day. Absolutely perfect. And the tour was even better this time around. Absolutely no overcast skies, not even once. Obviously no rain. Much warmer. Also, the tour went a different route this time. Apparently they have different routes everyday. So instead of going to the Corkscrew hill this time, we got to go to the Poulnabrone Dolmen. The famous Irish tombs out in the middle of the burren. It was awesome. That's where we realized half of our bus was Penn State students studying abroad in other parts of Europe. Literally our entire bus. A group of bros in the back were all from Penn State, the group sitting right behind us had PSU shirts on, the girls in the front of us asked if we went to PSU. It was PSU central. The bros were amusing too. Especially the kid who almost missed the bus. Ya see, the bus driver sticks to the schedule to the minute. If you are late, too bad, he needs to make it back on time for people catching buses, planes, etc. So he told us when we got to the Cliffs, be back here in an hour or you're left behind. Well everyone was back but three people. Two middle eastern guys sitting in front of me, and one of the PSU bros. The bus driver started pulling out and as he got out of the parking lot, we see this kid running to catch the bus off in the distance. So the bus driver stops and decides to wait for him. We watched this kid sprint through the parking lot, jump some kind of ditch, run through a field, drop all of his postcards and bags, gather them, and then stumble to the bus. It was hilarious. The middle eastern guys never showed. It wasn't until we were eating lunch at the pub that they showed up. They had to take a taxi.

So we went to the coastline and then to the castle and then headed back. I got to talking to the bus driver when I was at the coast. I told him I'd be taking the tour once more since Emily was coming in May and the tour was great. As we left the bus at the end of the tour he stopped me and told me that when I come back in May, to remind him who I am and he will let Emily and I go for free. So that was really nice of him. Healey Tours. If you are in Galway, it's the best way to see the coast without renting a car. Plus the dude talks the entire time and you learn a lot.

So after our tour we headed back to Limerick. Got in around 8, got some sandwiches and then watched Couples Retreat and American Idol before going to bed.

Thursday: I went to class, the girls went into the city. Class was unimportant. In between classes though I watched the sky diving club kids jump onto the soccer field from like 4,000 ft. so that was cool. I wish I could join the club, but it's 180 euros. But you get unlimited jumps. I guess I'll just wait to do that in Texas.

Thursday night we stayed in and ordered pizza. Then Sara and I went to the Stables with Andrea for a little bit. Just like an hour, tops. Nothing big. We came back, watched Seinfeld and went to bed.

Friday: Friday morning I woke up to no girls. They went to Cork for the day to see the Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. I would have went but I am going there in April with the study abroad office and again when Emily gets here. So I just thought it was a waste of money for me right now.

When the girls returned we again ordered pizza and stayed in for the night. We just kinda sat around and played music, talked, just had a chill night in.

Today: This morning at 6 I sadly had to say goodbye to Sara and Christina. We had a good week. It made me miss Berks and home. It was so refreshing to have my friends here for a week. It was great to see familiar faces and talk to people who actually care about me. Now it's back to reality.

After seeing them off I went back to bed until about 10 and then got up. I did my one short essay on Hitler this morning, but I still need to do my Music one this weekend. It's only 1,500 words. That's two pages single spaced. Easy enough. I'll do that tomorrow.

I got to talk to my parents on the phone today which was nice. I talked to my Mom about apartments we like in Santone. It's exciting apartment shopping. It's like the NFL draft. You assess all the strengths and weaknesses of these places. You base them on different criteria. Some places have the location, others have the amenities. Eventually you'll negotiate a price with an agency and then pick one. It's a cool process. Wide open at this point.

After talking to my Dad about college bball on the phone, I decided I was going through withdraw and I was sick of just watching highlights on ESPN.com. So I went in search for live streaming of games and finally found one! So I got to watch the Houston vs. UTEP game, Duke vs. Miami, Tenn. vs. Kentucky, OSU vs. Illinois and NC State vs. GTech. Now I'm watching Kansas vs. Kansas State. I literally had 3 games playing at once in different boxes all over my screen. It was great.

Tonight I got some groceries, made steak and pasta and just sat in and watched bball. Worked on my Classic Rock play list for my summer cruisin. It got me to looking for cars online. I told my parents that the first thing I want to look into once I get down to Santone is a car. I've had mine now for about 5 years. It's a good car. Get's me to where I'm going. Never had any major problems with it. But if I'm gonna be hitting the highway, I need something a little safer. I need something that isn't 2 pounds, that rattles and gets blown around the road by little gusts of wind. Something that I can drive in the rain on the highway and not worry about it sliding and slipping. My dad always used to complain about me driving my car out to Pittsburgh to see Emily. He'd always say, "I don't think that car can be making those long trips" yada yada. Well now I have to make a 26 hour highway trip with it down to Texas this summer. And then back and forth on holidays, etc. It's cheaper than flying. However, I'm gonna have to take the Saturn. So we'll see if my Dad's tone changes. He didn't like me going four hours with it and now I'm going more than a day with it at high speeds. Bottom line is, I'm getting a new car. I'm going to budget for it. It's not like I have to pay for kids or anything, I'll be in my bachelor pad. I know it's still expensive, but I'll have a nice income for just myself. So I'm getting a car. At this point I just want to look between $5,000 and $10,000. Probably closer to the 5,6,7 range though. I don't know what make I want yet. I am really leaning toward a Volkswagen. I mean, it's a Volkswagen. I've wanted one since I was little. I'm thinking maybe a black or white Jetta. Also, I fell in love with the 1986 Porsche 944 turbo tonight. Possibly the coolest car ever made. I am tempted to get one of those. They are all priced around 7 or 8 thousand. Plus they look amazingly 1980s and have decent mileage. And they are super cool. If I didn't mention that already. I can see myself driving down the highway playing Loverboy in that car. That's what you gotta look for in a car. Can I play Loverboy in it and look awesome? Yes, in that car I could.

Okay. Wow. That's it for now. I'm tired from writing all that. I'll update tomorrow, not matter how boring my life is.

Peace.