Back in the USSR, oh I mean USA

We have now landed back in Chicago, after a straight 48 hours of traveling on planes and buses. Paris was fun and have lots of pictures. I will post more but for now I don't feel like typing.

Thanksgiving

A lat Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We decided to make Thanksgiving dinner for us, of course, and our friends Alex and John. I think it turned out pretty good. We made some turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, apple pie, stuffing and I think that is it. It turned out pretty good. Oh and mashed potatoes. I have a picture of us eating the dinner that I will post, but right now we are packing because we are going to Paris tomorrow. Once we leave Paris we are then heading back home to the States.

Christmas!

They have put the Christmas lights up here in Galway and finally started lighting them right before we leave. I will take pictures before we leave. Basically they string them across the street from building to building so it creates a little archway down the street.

Photo update!

Many of you might have seen these on facebook already, but if not...

here you are!

They're all the pictures I've collected since coming to Ireland. They're mostly taken in pubs... but hey, when in Rome!

Counting Down

Have not done much the last couple of weeks.  Hang out over at Alex's a lot.  We have been showing the room, but not too many people calling and they don't like the room (I wonder why,  hehe).  Keeley is getting a ton of money back from her taxes here, so that should be able to pay for our time in Paris, her words not mine. 

Paris!

We are leaving Ireland as of the end of November, but, before we go, we are going to head over to Paris for a couple of days.

OBAMA!!

FYI - Ireland loves Obama, too. Two 50-yr old ladies came into my shop, and as I adjusted of one of their dresses, they were gushing to me how they stayed up all night watching the election, calling each other and crying happy tears.

The things is, they were only two in a large handful of people of people to tell me how they stayed up all night waiting to hear who won. It's been very interesting experiencing an American presidential election overseas.

P.S. I can feel a definite change in the way people interact with me as an American. Now, instead of feeling a subtle suspicion, it feels like everyone wants to give me a high five. Yeah!!

Halloween

Halloween weekend was fun.  On Thursday night, we went to Tilly and the Wall.  For those of you who do not know this band, they are one of Keeley's favorite bands and from Nebraska.  Well, they were playing right down the street from our house in Galway.  The openning guy sucked, but we quickly got over that.  We dressed up as Mario and Princess Peach.  After the show, the club turned into a dance club and so then Keeley forced me to dance with her.

On Halloween night, we went to the Pucan for some Dubstep.  It sucked, you can't dance to it.  So we went to another place with music that we prefer.  Other than that it was a laid back weekend.

She said Yes

I asked Keeley to marry me.

New Photos

Here are new photos from when we went to Spiddal and some random ones of us just doing what we do.  The new pictures are towards the back starting in Photo 6.  You will recognize some of the photos from when I went to Bondorain with Alex and John.

Photo 6

Photo 7

Daylight Savings

If you talk to Keeley or I on a regular basis over Skype, pretty much her mom and my mom, you have to exciting opportunity to be able to talk to us one hour later each night for the next week.  Our daylight savings time was this past Sunday and yours is next Sunday.  I didn't realize this until now.  And yes I was an hour off the last 2 days.

This Post Apparently Has No Name

Yesterday, we went out with Alex to meet up with Virgis.  3/4s of the way there, we realized that Virgis walked a different way, so we turned back to meet him at the square.  Then the monsoon hit.  It was seriously a monsoon.  We decided to jump into Richardson's Pub to wait out the rain.  I think 4 hours later we left, oh, and it was still raining.  We got Kababs, wiskey and briquettes to start a fire.  It was a great night.

We have also started going to Massimos every Wednesday for a Blue Grass band that plays there.  The first week Keeley and I went there, we were very dissapointed because the band is actually not Blue Grass, they are a Blues band, but they are really good.  Tilly and the Walls are playing down the street from us in 3 days.  YAY!

Drum and Bass

We went to a Drum and Bass party last night.  If you don't know what Drum and Bass is, think of it as Techno.  It was in a huge art gallery, 2 stories tall down by the docks.  We went with a ton of people but really only hung out with Alex's friend Virgis.  Alex didn't come because he had just returned from a week long excursion to Turkey and then fell asleep when he got home.

The party was only going until it was busted by the cops, which happened at an early 1am, boo.  So then we went to grab Keeley's purse and coat that she put down somewhere and they were gone.  So after looking everywhere I found them, with her bottle of wine and wallet gone.  OH AND HER MINTS!  BUT, she was a smart girl and had taken everything important out of her purse before hand and gave it to me to hold on just in case.  So moral of the story, insure your worldly possesions with me.

We didn't want to go home after the party, so Keeley, Virgis and I walked all around Glaway.  There is a bridge thing that goes over the damn so we walked over that to a little island and sat there for awhile and then just continued walking.  We eventually made it home around 3am.

Over the Hills with the Swords of a Thousand Men

So last weekend, Nicola took us to her home town of Spiddal for a birthday party.  Her family was so nice.  We partied until, well the party stopped about 9am when her sisters kids came down the stairs.  Nicola's parents, 2 sisters and an uncle, maybe more I am not sure all live on the same land.  They have cows and stone walls.  It was very cliche Ireland and brilliant at the same time.  They also live a stones throw away from the ocean.  I have pictures, I will post them soon.  Apparently, Nicola's parent's could hear the music from Maria's house at 8am.  They live about 2 football fields away.

Nicola has an uncle who I think is in is 60s or 70s has travelled his whole life.  He was telling me about when he was trying to get a permit to travel around with the Pope and sell stupid little nick nacks.  Apparently, you can get thousands of crappy little things from China and sell it for a huge profit to people in different cities where the Pope goes.  Unfortunatley, a permit was €10,000 and he did not have the money plus it's sort of an "in" crowd.  He was also telling me about how he used to do gardening work on the east side of France.

Diego, Maria's husband, who is from Argentina? is a brilliant cook.  The next afternoon he made shepards pie, which was brilliant.  After we ate, we went to catch the bus back to Galway, but the bus never came.  Lucky for us, Nicola's other sister's boyfriend happend to drive by and ask us if we wanted a ride.

Keeley has a new job sewing for a woman.  So now her degree is going to some use.  And the woman pays cash, HAHAHAHA. 

Finally, New Photos

Alright, so I just uploaded about 150 new photos. I went with Alex and his friend John up to a festival in Bondorain this weekend. We snuck in for free and then went and camped out on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Oddly enough, there is a KFC in Bondorain. Your guess is as good as mine.

We are also moving out of where we live right now. Room mate differences, so Keeley, Alex and I are going to move into a new place together. At least, that is the plan for right now. Anything can happen and we are keeping our options open.

Here's the links to the new photos:

Album 4

Album 5

Album 6

Oh Man Im a Bum

I know, I know, Im a bum cause I haven't posted anything for awhile. I have pics I need to post and I will. Alex, our Russian flatmate, and I are going camping tonight in Spital, I believe, let's hope it does not fall through but then I will post a ton of pictures. If you can tell me the mystery of why human's are altruistic, then I will post more because then I will have more time on my hands.

Here's an update though:

Our one flatmate who throws all the parties, finally perterbed the land lady enough and she said she is kicking us out. I don't think that will happen though, one more chance, but it just means that there are to be no more parties. That is good thing because the mess just sucks and all the other flatmates have to clean it up and none of us want the mess so I will be nice.

I promise I will post picture in the coming days. I will have quite a few so it will be worth your viewing pleasure. In the mean time, feel free to go over to my brothers blog and read about media bias and the Halon Collider.

Bye

Photo 2

Here is a photo looking through the skylight in our kitchen. Near the end of my photography past life, I only used slide film and cross processed it to get a very grainy, high contrast, rich with color photograph. Cross processing film is when you develop a roll of film opposite of the way it is supposed to be developed. So an E-6 roll of slide film should only be developed in E-6 designated chemicals, but if you put it through chemicals specifically for negative film, I can't remember the name of the process, the slides come out as negatives and can be printed from. Anyway, the photo above is how it would look if done that way, although it was created in photoshop.

Photo a Day

So I don't ever really have anything to post, mostly because all I do is look at stocks and read and write about research (cognitive trammeling). I know what you are thinking, that's sounds so exciting. So I decided to take a picture of Ireland everyday and post it. So here is my first photo. I need to clean my lens, I apologize for the dirt.

Ireland 1 month

So we've been in Ireland for just over a month and today is the day we started hanging out 2 years ago. It was super nice out yesterday. We went to the Spanish Arch and ate sandwiches and watched the water run out of the city. Then we went up to a coffee shop and hung out with some of her friends from work. After that we got some curry cheese chips, watched some Kitchen Nightmare's with Gordon Ramsey. It's a ribald show and given the fact that they don't censor anything over here, it makes it that much better. After that we fell asleep.

I have some more pictures to post, but I will post them when I have a few more so that it's worth looking at. The clouds here are so much cooler than where Im from.

Irish History

I found this great video on the history of the Irish. It's amazing how almost exactly Ireland is like the video.

Irish History

Galway Then and Now Photos

I found an archive with some interesting old photos of Galway about a week ago, so I decided to do some Then and Now. Here's a link to the photos.

Galway Then and Now


In other news:

If any Keeley's out there have any info on the genealogy of Keeley's over here feel free to let me know because I'm stuck in America. I have possibly found a lead that LEADS me to believe that the Keeley's came from either Galway or Clare. Otherwise I have gone through every single boat record by hand and have yet to find a record of a Jeremiah Keeley (may not be spelling). Any info helps. Thanks

More Pictures

We don't really do much so there's not much to talk about. I did find my favorite beer which is exciting, it's German. We went to the Spanish Arch the other night. Here's your history lesson for the day. The Spanish Arch is an extension of the old city walls (there is no connection to the Spanish). It's prior name was The Blind Arch and it was built in 1584. So anyway, we went with some of our room mates and just hung out. It's very nice down there because it's right on the river Coribb just before it goes into the ocean. Here's the links to the new photos:

Photos 3

Photos 4

World Sunlight Map

Wanna see a where the sun is hitting on the Earth right this minute. Then check out this Website

LIDL

LIDL is the best store in the world. This is because it is super cheap. I got 2 pizzas, a package of 6 scones, a giant container of peach yogurt and a 2 litre jug of pop for $6.88. website

I got a job!!

http://www.frontdoorpub.com/

I'll be serving lunch and dinner to tourists and Galwegians alike, five days a week.

And it took less than week!

It's a good day for the dollar

It's nice to see that the dollar has made much head ground over the last 2 weeks, now around 1.47.

oh those Keeley's

Did you know that 136 Keeley's fought in the Civil War. I have no way to confirm that, just take my word for it.

New photos

I uploaded a bunch more photos for anyone who would like to see them. I am also currently working on a google maps with the photos so that you can see where they are located relative to the city. This will take me awhile though.

P.S. - Each album has a maximum capacity of 60 photos, so you will see that the one photo album has photos you have seen already because I did not use all the space. Trust me, there are about 30 new photos in the album. The second album is completely brand new.

Album 2

Album 3

This is Galway in 1651

Settled

We finally found a place in Galway, I will upload more photos of the area later, but for now here are the photos I have uploaded. Mostly of Dublin.

Album 1

Album 2

No Internet

I am finally able to get on the net for more than 20 minutes and for free. I meant to upload some picture, but forgot my cord so I guess that ideas out. Here's an update:

We moved down the street to a different hostel because our other one was booked up. The wifi does not work so I have to be a tourist all day, which sucks. We had three room mates, one from Winnepeg, who was really nice and then 2 from Orange County California, right between LA and Sandiego (do you catch my drift). The room was nice and we had our own bathroom.

The first night there we went to this bar that played some good music and met some cool people from Galway. They told us to move to Galway and since we were debating between Galway and Dublin, we decided to heed these peoples advice and we leave for Galway tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

Why Dublin?

Dublin gets it's name from when it was originally a Scandinavian settlement. After settling on the River Poddle, they used a nearby lake called Dubh Linn, or black pool, to dock their ships. Eventually, with the city growing, they covered over the River Poddle and the Dubh Linn. It is apparently not really known where the Dubh Linn existed because there are claims that the site was where Dublin Castle now stands or the penguin enclosure at the Zoo. Most likely, it was situated at Dublin Castle.

Day 2

Today we went to look at an apartment which turned out to be fairly cute. Shared with 3 other people in a cute part of town. We are going to continue looking at other places before we make a decision. Here is a satellite image:

We are waiting to hear back from a few people for new apartments. After eating some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we walked to the north west and then straight over right up, almost, to the docks. The past 2 days, it has become apparent that umbrellas are a number one priority. Oh and also, It's really cool to see the modern and historical architecture competing. It's one thing coming from Chicago where there are buildings from the 1800's or living in 2 apartments built in 1900 and 1908, but to see churches that are hundreds of years old littering the streets and random cobblestone streets being hugged by tiny brick houses is another. It's really cool to see building after building that dates back to the mid to early 1700's.

We did book another hostel, about 10 feet away from our other one, for the next 3 days while we continue looking for a place.

!!!!!

We're here! We have cell phones with Irish phone numbers! We're looking at an apartment tomorrow! Guinness tastes infinitely much better in Ireland!

Pictures to come... stay tuned!

P.S. Jon wants the world to know how comfortable the hostel beds are. I think that's just because we barely got more than two hours of uncomfortable sleep on the plane and are walking around like drowsy zombies. I'm sure the hostel floor would be equally comfortable, but I'm not going to find that out firsthand.

Ha! I can post things, too!

Talking to Keeley

I was talking to Keeley today while she was in Nebraska.  Skype really does work!

Our Hostel

This is a top view of the hostel we are staying at right when we get to Ireland. It is Kinslay House.

Last Shindig

We move to Ireland in exactly 3 weeks from when this picture was taken. This city is an amazing city and the house is by far my favorite dwelling. Im gonna miss you gigantic doll house, oh and the people in the picture as well.

Welcome

Hello,

This will eventually be a blog of photos and such for Keeley and I while we are in Ireland.