[insert creative blog title about Ireland here]

Hello to all!
Here I am in ireland and we have just been going nonstop since we got here! We started our coach tour of Ireland in Galway. Yesterday we started with a tour of the home of Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It was a neat little house with a thatch cottage and a tower attatched to it.

Sadly enough Yeats only lived in this house for a short time because of health reasons and I almost had a heart attack climbing the tiny winding staircase that led to the different rooms of the tower and a fantastic rooftop view.

After Yeats home we went to the home of lady Gregory. I did not know who she was but apparently she was an irish author and playwright. Her house isn’t even there anymore because some Irish nationalists tore it down. But she had a beautiful garden and lake as well as an autograph tree. It was signed by the likes of Yeats, Browning, and others.



Next we headed out to the Cliffs of Moher which I kept calling the cliffs of dover because of that guitar hero song. Ummm it was freakin windy up there. I could lean into the wind and it would hold me up. Our bus driver, Seamus, said that people have been blown off the cliffs because they crossed over the guardrails that are up there.



The view was fantastic too…














Yesterday (Saturday), we went to one of the Aran islands, Inishmore. It’s a place that has lots of ruins and the people there speak Gaelic (English too). Well you could either rent a bike or ride a van for 10 euro (15 dollars-ish) to get to the fort Dun Aenghus (sp?) we were supposed to visit, or walk. Well we decided to walk the NINE MILES round trip to this fort and back. The walk was beautiful

And this is a picture about halfway through the walk there. We were trying to get to that fort that’s in the distance.

The fort was a cool place. It has supposedly been there since 4,000 BC which is just insane. It’s cool that in Europe everything is just older. American history only goes back to like 1500 at the most. But I think we were just happy to finally get there.


Today we spent traveling mostly from Galway to Derry. We made a stop in Sligo to see Yeats’ grave. Actually he was first buried in Monaco I believe because he died over there while world war two was going on so he couldn’t be sent safely back to the states. Not until 9 years later was he finally moved to the church of Duncliffe where one of his relatives had been priest or something important there.


Hopefully I will have more later. I want to update everyday, but the internet is so spastic. The hotels don’t always have it for free unfortunately and it can get pretty pricey.

Look out Ireland, I have arrived!

Well, I finally made it after what feels like a million years of traveling to Galway, Ireland. I haven't slept in about 28 hours so i'm just trying to make it a few more until I can collapse! Luckily the plane ride and everything was uneventful. I didn't sleep one second on that stupid plane! Today we drove across Ireland from Dublin to get to Galway and we stopped at this cute little restaurant that was actually a castle originally. Cool. So now I'm looking forward to a hot shower and hopefully a filling meal. I tried to take pictures of the view outside my room. It looks out onto a garden an the river runs by it (forgot the name of the river though!). Hopefully I'll have time to take pictures soon and I will try to post them.

Ready or not...

Holy moly. The time has come. I'm leaving tomorrow for the UK! I'm gonna be honest, I'm nervous. I think this trip is one of those things that you try not to think about. I mean, I'm excited to be going but I get overwhelmed thinking about how I won't see anyone until December! Also preparing for this trip has been SO STRESSFUL! With me, it's always like "everything that can go wrong WILL go wrong"! First of all, my computer broke 2 days before my trip. So I drove to the apple store. Guess who's closed for renovations until September 4th? HA! Well I found someone else to fix my broken hard drive thank goodness. Now if I could only get all my files safely back on my computer from my external hard drive...

So my adventure begins! First tomorrow I'm flying to Atlanta to meet up with my group to fly to Galway. We spend awhile in Ireland and then move over to Scotland and England. I'm going to try to update this blog with where I'm going and what I'm doing for anyone who cares to follow. This is going to be one of those life-changing experiences. And I can use all the prayers I can get too!

Ok, I'm really hoping this video works. Anyway I made this little short in response to Andrew's Blog on youtube (youtube.com/urintown). He made some cool shorts of cities and challenged his viewers to make one of their own showcasing their own city and he would feature the best on his blog. I am no man to turn down a challenge! So I toted my brand new high def camera around the city and pieced together a video. Well, whaddya know when I upload it on youtube the audio gets muted because of COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. Needtobreathe, I am not stealing your song and I do not claim it as my own! So I'm hoping it may play here!

The Blind Side

I am beyond excited for this movie to come out. This is the story of Michael Oher who grew up in Memphis, went to my rival high school, went on to play football at Ole Miss and is now in the NFL. The movie is based on the book which is a true story (mostly). Actually they mention my high school in the book, but I think it's funny that they don't keep the name of his high school (Briarcrest) in the movie. Fine with me, I don't want my rivals getting publcity and attention. It is such a touching story, but I feel especially close to it because I have been watching Michael play football since I was in high school. Read the book and then go see the movie! It looks like they did a really good job making it, and I cannot wait to see it!