Well Monday morning came and the decision was made over the weekend to just make the move...im young and have a travel itch i gotta get rid of. And ive been to Rome 3 times and always said i wanted to live there...heres my chance! So i told my friends and family and went into work Monday morning...hungover :)...and handed in a months notice to both employers. I think shock was the initial reaction but they understood that i was doing it for the right reasons. I don't think i was able to concentrate in work at all and i bought [View Full Entry]

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I got a phone call about a week ago from my brother Paul who was speaking to the manager of an Irish Bar in Rome and was looking for staff. I immediately started thinking about whether this was the opportunity ive been waiting on to live abroad and learn a new language. So I wracked my brains for days waying out the pros and cons and ringing all my friends for advice. Being a bad decision maker didnt help!!! I met with Declan the bar manager for Scholars pub (www.scholarsloungerome.com) in the Foggy Dew at Central Bank on Saturday and it [View Full Entry]

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After a few days back at home I'm finally starting to feel human again. So that means that it's time to start sharing our photos and experiences with everyone. Hope you all enjoy it. Our first day in Ireland was a bit rough. We arrived in Dublin at 9 am Irish time, that's 1 am Arizona time. We were understandably a bit tired. But there was no rest for the tourists. One of the drawbacks of the Mespil was its distance from the town center. It was probably only a 10 or 15 minute walk. But when you've been on a [View Full Entry]

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28.07-31.07 Und dann sicher und schnell in Dublin gelandet!! Man soll sich keine Illusionen machen das Dublin eine U-Bahn, hier geht alles mit dem Bus. Wenn man zu zweit ist lieber eine Familien Ticket in die Innenstadt nehmen, spart man 2 Euro und die kann man hier auf alle Faelle gebrauchen, denn das einzigste was hier billig war, war der Dart (Zug an der Kueste entlang, total enpfehlenswert) und unser Hostel (ca. 13 Euro pro uebernachtung p.P). Das Hostel hies Abigals und liegt ca. 50m vom Party Viertel ( Tempel Bar) entfernt, aber wie schon gesagt Dublin ist teuer und wenn [View Full Entry]

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We are in Dublin. It’s raining on and off. We’re staying in the City Manor. A fairly poor place at Gardiner Street, corner Parnell Street but it’s cheap and dry. Last night we spend at the Dublin airport. Our plane left two hours late in Frankfurt and once in Dublin we couldn’t find a bus going in the City at this time. Luckily for us we met two German girls who hat to catch a plane early next morning. They provided us with tons of information where to go and what to do and stuff. Then we put our sleeping bags [View Full Entry]

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Thursday we went to Mitchelstown Caves, a cave system discovered in 1883. There are some incredible formations down there. Unfortunately, it's a private system and they don't allow any photographs. Following that we went on to see Cahir Castle, it was also pretty impressive. Certainly the largest castle we have seen. Then, on the way home we stopped at "The Rock of Cashel", which is a huge church built on the top of this rock mound. The oldest structure on site is a round tower built in 1101. Yesterday, Taelyr and I went down to see the Blarney Castle and to [View Full Entry]

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Rescued! Things were looking up for me. I had arrived in Dublin the night before. The cheapest sleeping arrangement I could find—at $50 per night-- was to share a long narrow room in a hostel with four girls my daughter's age. The bathroom was so tiny that it was necessary to step out of the shower to turn around. The next morning I left before the girls woke up so as to avoid any "awkward moments." Due to an unforeseen bank holiday, everything was closed, so I ended up sitting on a park bench contemplating the difference between being homeless and [View Full Entry]

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Everytime you travel somewhere new, there's a certain settling in period where you figure out the quirks of getting around the city. Since I didn't make it off Grafton Street for the first 5 days, I of course spent most of the 6th day wandering around lost (not a big surprise to those of you who know me well). Now, if you are planning to head over to Ireland, there are a couple of things that you'll find useful knowing ahead of time. First off, Dublin is not a friendly place for directionally challenged people who don't have an inner compass [View Full Entry]

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While drinking pints and wandering around lost have been two of my top pasttimes while in Dublin this trip, there's been quite a lot else going on as well. More than anything else, I've spent a lot of quality time at home and in the city with Lynnsie, Cara, and Donal, as well as with Kiri and Brian. I have to say, it is quite a pleasure to have a real home to go to every night-actually, two homes-I've been splitting my time between Lynns's and Kiri's. It makes a foreign country a lot less foreign, and I'm sooo thankful to [View Full Entry]

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Over the past 5 days, I participated in a creativity workshop- read: 3 hours a day of lying on the floor with 23 other adults, color pencils, glue sticks, scissors and a variety of objects flying as we visualized, wrote, drew, made up stories, and, in short, tapped into aspects of play and imagination that we abandoned after about 8 years of age. While there were a couple oversights (poor teaching practice on the part of the instructors- probably only really bothering the 15 or so educators in the room), the course was mentally invigorating and well worth the time [View Full Entry]

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