Welcome Home!

Today there was a "Welcome Home" party to celebrate my return to Chicago. Yes, it has been about 1.5 months since I've been home, but, everyone likes a party, everyone has busy schedules, and everybody made today work. I believe we had close to 30 guests, and I spent a good deal of my time mingling. It was nice seeing lots of people, and telling them about my trip. Sometimes I just wished that I was back in Ireland or India though, just because life was a lot less hectic there. I also have some friends that are thinking of going to Japan or Taiwan to teach English. I told them that if they decide to go through with it, I'll join them. That way, I can make some money to pay more bills, and then have a chance to do some more traveling. To hell with regular, mundane life. I'm not done adventuring!

In other news, it was extremely hot here today, and supposed to be hotter tomorrow. I was waiting for the bus this afternoon, and the temperature said that it was 109 degrees Fahrenheit, that's 43 degrees centigrade for you metric lovers. Maybe tomorrow I'll head out to the beach in between apartment hunting and working the closing shift at the gym.

I also worked today at my gym job, and I was sent into the women's locker-room to investigate a cockroach situation. As soon as I walked in, I saw the largest cockroach I have seen in America. It was the size of my entire thumb, no joke. For a moment, I pondered letting someone else kill it, but it was making a break for the work-out area, and I didn't want anyone else to be freaked out by it, so I gathered up all of my gumption and prior cockroach killing skills, and smashed it with my shoe. It was definitely gross, and it sent waves of slimey-ness chills through my body, but it had to be done. I called the manager on duty to give and update, and five minutes later he came downstairs and handed me a $10 bonus for going out of my way and doing something so disgusting. Not too shabby considering that equals more than an hour of work! Maybe I should start looking into the extermination business...

Recap - Part IV

The time had come for my brother and I start our intended purpose of the trip, WWOOFing. The farmer, Robin, picked us up in Ennis in the afternoon and we swung past the train station to see if the Italian guy, Lorenzo, was there waiting before we headed back out to the farm. He wasn't there, so we began our journey. It was about a 40 minute drive out into the countryside. The farm was located atop a big hill overlooking the very small village of Kilnaboy in County Clare. Kilnaboy didn't have much to offer besides a junk car lot, the old old church, the old church, and the new church, a post box, and a pay phone booth. Believe it or not, there was not a pub in the vicinity! We drove up the big hill past a few other farm houses before pulling into Dromoher. As soon as the van pulled to the back of the house to park, we were overtaken by the beauty of the vista. There were flowers and trees, and green, green, green as far as the eye could see...



Robin showed us our room...



and introduced us to his wife, Miriam, who was busy in her knitting studio, and we sat down for some tea. Then we pulled on our boots for a quick walk around the farm...



First, we met the sheep and lambs. The lambs were only a few days old, and were the cutest things every. We stocked their "house" with some fresh hay and saw where the food and water went. Then we walked around the gardens and heard about what veggies we were going to be planting and met Harry, the horse.

We went inside to get settled and Miriam started whipping up her famous fish. Robin also informed me that one of my ongoing jobs was going to be stocking the stove that heated the kitchen/living room with turf. At first I thought he was joking, since it's such an archaic activity to a spoiled American, but he was dead serious...







While dinner was being made, Robin went to get Lorenzo back in Ennis, and got home just in time to eat. We had a nice dinner of salad, fried mackerel and bass, mashed potatoes, broccoli (from the garden) and cheese sauce, and apple pie. After dinner, we cleaned up, and listened to music and played card games.

For the remainder of the week, we planted a bed of onions, pulled up the mustard plants, planted shallots, dug up the Jerusalem artichokes, fed the animals, brought in the sheep (which was quite the funny adventure when Lorenzo and I were in charge for the first time, considering we had to chase the sheep all around their yard in the mucky mud), transferred the strawberries to the top of the big hill, planted seeds in the polytunnel, cleaned the house, and of course, did lots of digging.

We also ate like kings, including, but not limited to: porridge, beef stew, salad, cheese sandwiches, scones, Indian food, fish and chips, and more apple pie. My God, the food there was amazing, and since we were working all day long, it just made it taste even better and soooo satisfying! All of us worked together to get the meals prepared, which was a nice family feeling, and we always knew that someone would be in charge of chopping up "loads" of garlic for every dinner!

We also learned how to play cribbage, and met some of the kids (who are adults now) who were visiting the house. Our evenings always consisted of reading, listening to music, and playing various card games. It was a great first week!

Recap - Part III

After securing a hostel in Killarney for St. Patrick's Day weekend, we headed to the other side of Ireland. We hopped on a bus in Dublin, hoping for a six hour trip. The traffic in Dublin was bad, so we got a slow start, and then it started hailing and then snowing, and that slowed us up a bit too. Needless to say, when we made it into Limerick City, we had missed our connecting bus by 5 minutes and had to wait 2 hours for the next one. After a 10 hour trip to Killarney, we were pleasantly surprised when we made it to Neptune's. The atmosphere was good, they had free internet, and great people. My brother, his annoying new Canadian friend, and I whipped up a nice pasta and veggie dinner before hanging out with other hostelers for the rest of the night. We ended up meeting a cool couple from New Zealand, an Austrian girl, and a guy from Detroit and stuck with them for the rest of the weekend.

Next up was St. Patrick's Day, the biggest party day of the year in Ireland, and we weren't disappointed. I started my day with a trip to a cafe to get some food in me before beginning my marathon drinking day. The group of us headed down the street for a good little parade, but not before stopping for our first pints of the day. After the parade, we proceeded to drink our fills at five different pubs in town, all being a great time. The Stretford End had a good jukebox, not to mention it was five feet away from the door of our hostel. Laurel's Pub had a nice little fire going to keep us warm, although there was a serious lack of space to move around, let alone hoist a pint. The fun really started at The Vintage. Here, Karin (the Austrian) and I decided that we were going to try to get guys to buy us some pints. Unfortunately, it didn't work, but instead, we were entertained by the story of sex going on in the men's bathroom. When the report first reached our table, we didn't believe it, but soon enough, men were coming out of the bathroom laughing and showing the pics that the took on their cell phones to their friends. The next thing we know, the guy comes out of the bathroom and the whole pub erupts in cheers and clapping over his feat. A few minutes later, his lady friend followed out of the men's room, also met with yelling and clapping. I'm guessing that she was very embarrassed since she ran straight out of the pub! The next stop was O'Connor's, where a good time was had by all. First off, we met the mayor of Killarney, who proceeded to call my brother a dirty, lazy hippie. He was at our table for quite some time drinking whiskey and Guinness and shooting the breeze. I also had a little adventure of my own and was finally treated to a pint by an Irishman named Ian. After the group decided that it was time to move on, we traveled to The Grand. There was a live band playing there and they kept Karin and I dancing for a couple of hours. It was a bunch of young guys, accompanied by a really old guy who could wail away on the drums. Finally, after loads to drink (and a couple of food stops), we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel. I do admit that it was probably the best St. Patrick's Day I've had so far, and much better than the first time I celebrated in Ireland.

Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed and head out on a coach tour of The Ring of Kerry (pictures below). Unfortunately, it was a bit dreary, so the sea didn't look as nice as it could have. When I returned to the hostel, I joined the New Zealanders at a pub to watch my first rugby match. It was Ireland vs. England, so it was bound to get exciting watching it with a crowd. Miraculously, Ireland pulled off a few goals at the very end, and we were all cheering with the victory. It's always nice to see England defeated in just about anything. Afterwards, we made it to a couple more pubs before calling it a night. The next day, I took a two hour walk to the top of Aghadoe. It was a good hike and a great view of the town, mountains, and lakes. We ended our night back Stretford End and enjoyed a birthday pint in honor of my brother on his 21st.

We left Killarney on Monday morning to head to Ennis where we were getting picked up to go to the farm. Ennis wasn't too great of a town. Our hostel, Abbey Tourist Hostel, wasn't the best that I've stayed in. I don't know if there are better wings or rooms in the place, but the walls were cracked and it wasn't the cleanest or warmest, but the people staying there and running the place were all very friendly. They had satellite TV, so we spent most of our time watching that, including some crazy movie that involved the revenge of locusts who killed everyone except those who only at organic food, which I thought was a good set-up for the work and lifestyle we were about to begin. We had bad Chinese food for dinner on my brother's insistence. I warned him that every time I had eaten Chinese food in Ireland, it was bad, but he wanted to try for himself. I was not proved wrong.

We decided to get a good night's sleep because the next day we were going to be picked up and taken to the farm to begin our organic farming fun!

Sometimes...

I wish that I was here, eating pancakes and porridge, watching fireflies at night while walking hand in hand, swimming in the sea and tasting the salt, feeling the sand between my toes, and letting time go as slowly as it likes while we just sit back, relax, and enjoy...

Recap - Part II

The following are some details of how I spent my first couple of days in Ireland:

The brother and I arrived in Dublin early in the morning, and the first thing that I said when we landed was "Well, I guess we're home for a little while". We made it successfully through customs, but got a funny stamp saying that we were allowed "no unauthorized work/business" and "no recourse to public funds" with a definite due date for our exit out of the country. So began our allowed 90 days within the European Union.

We took a bus into the city center of Dublin, and trekked about 15 minutes to our hostel. It wasn't the funnest walk that I've ever taken, considering my pack was quite heavy, but I survived (and later unloaded some unnecessaries). Unfortunately, we couldn't check into our room at the Avalon House until after 2 PM. It was only around 9 AM, so we had plenty of waiting to do and were dead tired. Fortunately, it was a beautiful morning, so we stopped at the local supermarket for some pastry and juice and made our way to beautiful St. Stephen's Green. After that, we decided to take a long walk over to the train station to check schedules, and afterwards stumbled upon the Museum of Decorative Arts & History at Collins Barracks. One thing I definitely love about Dublin is that all of the National Museums are free to enter. We spent our time exploring the exhibits (all pretty interesting, even with a terrible lack of sleep and jet lag), and at one point, I took a seat near a giant clock and it's gentle ticking nearly put me right to sleep like a baby. We were nearing our allowed check-in time, so we started to make our way back to the hostel. We stopped for a good lunch deal of shared garlic bread, pizza, and tea or coffee at one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Dublin, and headed back to the Avalon for a nap. Later we fixed ourselves a dinner of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and french bread and caught a little television.

One the second day, I decided to go out and do a little solo wandering. Since it was my fourth time in Dublin, I was pretty confident with navigating around the general area, and decided that it was time to do some exploring past my usual boundaries. Stupidly, I did not bring a map with me, and ended up feeling quite lost in some residential areas. I think I probably walked down at least three streets more than twice, and was thankful when I finally saw an old sign that pointed me in the direction of the big park. After returning to the hostel and killing some time by watching The Big Lebowski with some nice Canadians, my brother and I headed out to a pub for some drinks and dinner. Needless to say, we enjoyed a Guinness and some Irish stew, and both were superb. Unfortunately, the night took a turn for the worst when I called the farmer that we were signed up with to let him know which train we would be on the next day so he could pick us up...when I got him on the phone and made my intentions known, he said something like "There's no chance in hell I can pick you up in Ennis tomorrow, I'm flying to England tonight and won't be back until Monday night". Mind you, this was Wednesday night and St. Patrick's weekend was upon us, so there was only a smattering of lodging options available to us. After exhausting our options for a weekend booking in Dublin, Galway, Cork, and some other large cities, I started to ponder other ways to find a bed. One of the things that we came close to doing was flying to Amsterdam for the weekend. It would have been a fun time, but budget-wise, wasn't the wisest. Miraculously, we found a hostel with beds available in a little town called Killarney, and the rest is history.

A Simple Life

This evening, I was entertained by a little movie called Cinderella Man. For those of you not familiar or aren't too interested, it's a boxing story that takes place during The Depression. Parts were depressing for obvious reasons, but it also reminded me of a simpler time as far as style of living/way of life goes. I think the biggest thing that struck me tonight was the use of the radio. Radios were probably just as common back then as TV's are today, if not more. The radio provided endless hours of entertainment and news for families. The only time you ever watched anything was if you took a trip to the cinema. For a while now, I've known that I spend too many hours rotting my brain in front of the TV, just watching crap that takes my mind off of stress or worries or just plain boredom. While I was in Ireland, I spent a little more than a month without TV of any sort (excluding one night in a pub). It was refreshing in a way. The radio was on constantly in the house, whether is was the national Irish news station or CD's or records. I'm not saying that I always liked what I was listening to, but it was a nice break to give my mind some actual exercise. We would wake up, listen to the news while having breakfast, come in for tea around noon and hear the bonging of the clock to announce the hour, more news, some talk, and some music for lunch in the afternoon, and then all sorts of music in the evenings. After making dinner, eating, and cleaning up, we all (me, my brother, the Italian, the farmer and his wife) would take seats around the table and near the fire (see above) and read, play cards and board games, write letters, or study. I was rarely bored and I felt a lot better about the way that I was spending my time. While I was away, I compiled a list of things that I was going to try to do and change in my life in the upcoming year. So far, I have accomplished one of the biggest, which is taking a trip to India, but more on that later. I have a couple of other items on the list as well, such as watch less TV and listen to more radio. I know that this is going to be a difficult one for me to follow through with, but I would really like to make an effort towards it. While I make excuses for not doing it now (I'm not set up in my own place yet), I really need to start once I am settled into my new place. I think the first step I will take in doing so is to not subscribe to cable television. #1 - it will save me money, and #2 - it will discourage me from watching too much. I'll let you know how it goes. And with that, now back to Sid and Nancy.

I Love Science - Part Deux

This evening, I made my first trip out to a live show since I've been back. I saw the lovely band known as We Are Scientists. You may remember my previous post on such subject back in January. This time around, they played at Metro, which can probably hold at least 8 times as many people as the place that I saw them before. I guess the only good thing about Metro nowadays, is that it's a smoke free environment. Otherwise, I always find myself stuck behind too many tall people. Tonight's show was pretty good with the exception of it being an all-ages crowd. I would probably safely bet that at least 33.3% (I might even venture to 40%) of the audience wore braces and/or were fighting pubescent acne. They also snuck in fifths of whiskey and proceeded to drop at least one on my foot. (Note to self, what were you thinking when you donned flip flops to see a show?) Oh yeah, and I think my biggest surprise is that the show was over at 9:45...there's something wrong with that in my book... Needless to say, they were still as entertaining as ever, said such things as "pennies...the humblest of the monetary units" after finding one in Keith's shoe, and "yeah, my glasses are nice, really nice, they help me see things and read books" after some dummy yelled "Nice glasses!" to Chris. Who doesn't like a nice pair of safety googles on stage? (I will leave that typo in there, see how google has brainwashed us?). Oh yeah, and they are still skinny boys with wild hair, and still cute, but they don't beat out my main skinny and (former)wild-haired crush. And if said crush is reading this, your beach-eaten glasses beat their safety goggles any day of the week.

I know, I know, I said that I would update some more on my trip, I'm just lazy that's all. I'm really looking forward to moving into my own place again where I can freely be lazy and no one will notice except for me.

My job at the gym has been going well, and I'm still enjoying it. I don't work again until next week, but I'd better enjoy my freedom while it lasts. I start the other new job on Monday, it should be fun. What else? I had the opportunity to talk to a crazy guy while waiting on the bus, felt intoxicated by copious and fast water consumption yesterday, seriously, realized that I still don't have any money to spend freely, and still haven't listened to any new music. Such is life.

On the newsfront

I got some good news this morning. Can anyone guess? I'll just tell you anyway...I have been offered a full-time position at the company that I interviewed with on Tuesday morning! I was quite excited when I heard the news, but I can't say that it came as a total surprise, after all, they asked for my references two days ago, and then sent me an application and their drug policy yesterday, that they wanted signed and faxed back ASAP. I start working on June 26th, my medical/dental/vision insurance kicks in immediately, they have other great benefits, including plenty of time off, annual bonus, the salary that I asked for, summer hours, the list goes on... I am definitely feeling quite lucky, and the stars must have been aligned for me for the past month or so. I hope the upswing continues for a little while at least.

I also worked my first shift at my part-time position at the gym last night. I do have to admit that my first foray into the customer service world was a good one. The people were all really nice, I get a free membership to the gym, and I got two free falafel sandwiches from a guy that works at a local Lebanese take-out. My only complaint was that standing for five hours straight made my legs a little sore, but I guess I can live with that, or just sit in the chair next time.

Tonight I had a nice dinner with some old friends at Treat and did some good catching up. Tomorrow is going to be a scorcher, but I'm sacrificing my outdoor comfort levels and going to see one of my all-time favorite bands, The Black Keys, perform at an outdoor street festival and then head over to a party.

It feels good to be living a good life for the time being. Almost everything feels like it's in its right place. I guess I'll start looking for my own place in a couple of weeks, and have a move-in date of August 1st. If anyone feels like doing any moving of boxes and light furniture, let me know. Maybe I'll make you dinner or bake a cake for a reward and thanks.

Who knows what will come next...

Recap - Part I

I don't know the best way to go about this, so I figure that I will begin recaps by week of my fun adventure away from real life. It will make for many recaps, but that's a good thing, seeing as though it would take far too long to do it all in one post. Let the fun begin!

March 1-13th: (okay, so I'm deviating from the weekly format right off the bat)
- Caught a cold that started on my last day of work. Lasted for probably four or five days and really put a damper on my packing progress on the apartment.

- My brother arrived in Chicago with a couple of his friends. We hung out at cheap restaurants, listened to music, and watched bad TV. It seems like something else was going on at this time for me, but I can't remember what.

- Enlisted my brother's help to finish up the packing. It went smoothly at the beginning, but then I was up far too late packing the kitchen. I still think that I have too many belongings. I also had to send my brother on two trips to buy packing tape, and I almost ran out of boxes. My favorite box (and obviously last packed box) is labeled "X-treme miscellany". I opened it up yesterday and found shampoo, baking pans, the game of Life, a bag, coasters, and a few more random items.

- Moved all of my belongings into my friend's basement. I think it only took us about 2.5-3 hours. Amazing!

- Threw an excellent going away bash for myself at a bowling alley. Lots of people showed up, we drank plenty, and bowled a lot. I built a pyramid out of the beer cans that I was consuming. I also wore my Big Lebowski t-shirt in honor of bowling, and a few people actually caught the reference. I love it when that happens.

- Ate my annual St. Patty's Day dinner of corned beef and cabbage a week early.

- Left for good old Dublin, Ireland, still scared about what I was about to do...

Today was a good day...

I've been away for a long while, but have good excuses, such as digging up the "earth" in Ireland and gallivanting around India. Here I am, back in Chicago, the city that I missed tremendously throughout my months away. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things and trying to get a semblance of a life back. For the moment, I'm staying with my nearest and dearest friend, her husband, and their two kids. There's nothing like having friends you can always count on to support you in your times of need. It's been a good time so far, and I'm hoping it stays that way. The other good part about it is that all of my belongings are packed away in her basement, so if I'm searching for that shampoo that I've been missing for three months, or a cute summer top that I've been dying to wear, or the mysteriously missing iPod USB cable, all I have to do is pop the key in the lock, dig out some boxes, and away I go!

I guess the biggest news of the day is that I landed my first real job interview this morning, and I must admit that it went well. Since I was the first interviewee for the position, I probably won't know anything for the next week or so, but I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed. The opportunity actually sounds exciting to me, so that's a good thing. I also had job interview #2 this afternoon for a part-time position at a local health club. That was definitely a success considering they hired me on the spot! I start working on Thursday evening and am already scheduled for four days in the next week or so. It will be a nice break from the mundane "sitting in front of the computer" type job, and I'll actually have the opportunity to interact with people, not to mention have a free membership to the gym to maintain my svelte farming/porridge-eating/India sweating/beaches of Goa lounging figure that I've worked hard for.

I know that I have a ton of updating to do, and yes, I will get to it one of these days in the near future. Lots of pictures to post too!

My time away was a memorable, and life changing experience, just as some predicted. I am definitely glad that I did everything that I did, and I wouldn't change anything for the world...

Welcome back! And man, does that previous post about the blueberry yogurt cake look good or what???