What a rush! The Pope was here! In DC!... and so was I! I thought myself pretty lucky when I was able to get tickets to see Queen Elizabeth on the White House lawn last spring. Hey, it's not like you can see something like that if you live in any other U.S. city. DC definitely has its advantages. But then there's this. The Pope. First of all, how lucky are we that he made a trip to the US, let alone to the city that I'm living in. Second, how much of a blessing is it that I was able [View Full Entry]

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We have some great Catholic churches in this city. The most convenient ones for me to get to are on Capitol Hill. St. Joe's is on the Senate (North) side of the Hill, and St. Peter's is on the House (South) side of the Hill. When I interned here Spring 2006 we lived in townhouses on the Senate side, and the lobbying firm I worked for was also on the Senate side, so I went to St. Joe's a lot. When I moved back to DC last year I was living and working in the NW part of the city, so [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone! Long time no blog … sorry! I wanted to write a quick note and post some pictures from my Thanksgiving holiday in Philadelphia, PA. My flat mate from my program in Freiburg, Germany, Andrew King, is from just north of Philly and his family was kind enough to invite me up for the holiday. This was the second straight Thanksgiving spent with friends from my study abroad program - I was fortunate make many good friends in Germany. I had to work at my sports bar on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, so I left early Thursday morning to [View Full Entry]

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I'm VERY sorry that it has taken this long, but here are some pictures of my house in DC. As you can see from the back-dated date, I've been here for about a year now. I moved in with my friend Andreas (Dre) last March. We had some friends (and friends of friends) in and out as roommates for a few months. Last summer Dre's two good friends from home (Bay Area, California) came out and stayed with us (while they also were interning in Dre's office - Rep. Jerry McNearny, CA 11). After the summer Pat went back to finish [View Full Entry]

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well even with finals, papers, moving out, packing up and shipping things home, and making plans on what to do with traveling (and with my life in general), I managed to have an incredible birthday with all my friends. The timing was just right - on a Wednesday before finals week, so no one was studying yet. I met up with about 25 of my friends at the pub right behind our dorm and we all stuck around for a little bit, having a good time, playing pool, listening to some good American music. And then we had the bright idea [View Full Entry]

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I would go back to Ireland. Wow, what a fun, beautiful, interesting place. Dublin is a great city, almost the perfect mix of a big, capitol feeling and a small, community feeling. Walking along the Liffey River and hopping around the different parts of the city was a great experience. After our Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday (which was actually OK, though nowhere near home-quality), I left for Dublin on Friday morning with a bunch of my good friends: Brady Shinn, John Greene, Jon (Tex), Diane, and Caitlin Bliss. Kristen and Brian met up with us on Saturday. Unfortunately, we weren't able [View Full Entry]

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To all my friends and family, Even though I am so far from home and am spending this Thanksgiving morning rushing to finish a research paper and study for a quiz, I wanted to take this time to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for over this last year: the wonderful opportunities I've been given by living, working, and studying in Washington, D.C., my amazing summer at home and later in Greece, and of course this incredible study abroad program that has brought me across Europe. I could not have done all of [View Full Entry]

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This is another place I can't wait to get back to. Spain was so much fun. So one of my good friends in this program, Caitlin, had her two best friends studying in Spain at the time, Jay (in Madrid) and Trisha (in Salamanca). Friday morning Caitlin and I caught a train to the airport and then flew directly into Madrid. Jay met us and took us to his apartment. He was actually staying in a home-stay with 2 other guys in this apartment owned by this widowed Senora. One of the other guys wasn't there that weekend so I had [View Full Entry]

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not much to report. we have midterms next week, so we stuck around town this weekend. a bunch of us went to an FC Freiburg football (soccer) game, which was pretty darn fun. had a bbq, did some dancing, some movie watching, and a lot of relaxing. we had to stick around on Friday anyways because of an uneventful yet mandatory field trip for our german class. We took the train 30 mins south to a town called Staufen for a guided tour. enjoy.... [View Full Entry]

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in the ALPS!!! wow. this trip was breathtaking, both in beauty and in physical exertion. after a two hour bus ride, me and about 20 of my friends arrived at our destination in the Alps, right above Interlaken (a world famous adventure-sport city). we split up into two groups... the hard-core group who would go on the 5 hour hike (I was in that one, of course), and the sissy group who would only hike for 3 hours. We took a train half way up the mountain and then set off on our hike. I was in a group of about [View Full Entry]

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