Dreamland

Apologies for slacking lately on the blog.  School seems to be getting in the way of my life.  Schmeh.  Here's the breakdown:

Three weeks ago I went up to Wisconsin and stayed in Madison with Laura.  At the time the weather was absolutely perfect!  I'm talking 70's, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky.  The drive at night from Milwaukee took about two hours which felt like foooorrreeeevvveeerrrrr!  Finally we were in Madison!

Saturday we watched the Badger game on TV and just chilled all day, cooking and walking around.  We got sushi for dinner and it was a perfect day.  Sunday would be the day to look forward to BIG TIME.

SUNDAY:

We awoke at 8 a.m. and started driving, stopping only at Panera Bread for cinnamon rolls and coffee.  We continued driving through the gorgeous countryside of Wisconsin until we hit GREEN BAY!  That's right, we were going to a Packers game!  I was so excited I could barely contain myself.  I was like a giddy child on Christmas morning times about a million.  The original plan was for us to sit in the "suite" section which is basically an enclosed section behind the end zone with nice seats.  It differs from a box in that other people are sitting with you in four rows.  It is still wayyyyy better than sitting in the wind and pretty swanky if I say so myself!  As the first quarter was coming to a close, and Green Bay was dominating of course, we got a call from Laura's mom.  She told us to come to the box they were in with their friends.  Was this real life?  No.  Definitely not!  We walked (ran) to the box where they were sitting and could not believe where we were!

To express the amazingness of these seats, allow me to provide you with a picture:

We were on about the 40 yard line with a box to us, Laura's family, and their close friends.  All the food you could imagine was at our disposal, so naturally I abstained from eating, fasted really....RIIIIIIGHT!  It was amazing, though really what ended up happening was we just hung out with Laura's parents with the game going on in the background.  Her parents have been more welcoming than I could have ever imagined, and I am extremely grateful to them for their generosity.  

Lambeau Field

Our first, "crappy" seats. 

Laura's Mom's finger really brings this one together in my opinion.

After the game we drove back to Fon du Lac, Laura's home town, for some family dinner.  We stopped by an apple orchard on the way and ate some delicious caramel apples and had some good laughs.  After dinner with the rents we headed back to Madison for the evening.  A smooth flight later and here I am.  A weekend visit like this feels very European to me in the sense that it is amazing, but way too short, just like my trips this summer.  I am still pinching myself to see if it actually happened or if I dreamed it.

   

£ondon: 3 days, 10 hours of sleep, saw it all

The only way to see London in a weekend is with five shots of espresso and redbull each night.  Sleep?  What is this foreign word?  This strange currency exchanged between the weak and the dark did not travel with me this weekend.  Oh no sir, I greeted the sun and the sites of London with weary legs and satisfaction.  REM cycles are key here.  3 hours of sleep each night is quite possible to maintain (reference college finals) for short periods of time.  Along this preface our tale begins....

Thursday:

Giddy as a school boy, I watched the second hand on the clock count down until bell time.  I had London on my mind all day and could not sit still.  Work lasted FOREEEVVVVEERRRR especially since I had very little to do this day.  FINALLY it was time.  I packed up my things in world record time then had to contain myself from sprinting down the streets of Dublin to my apartment for fear of seeming crazy.  I frantically packed two shirts, some undies, socks, a toothbrush, and passport and we were off.  WAIT!  Run back inside for the camera, ok now we’re good to go.  All seven of us walked to the bus stop ready to go, but......no bus.

Luckily we had left enough time in case such an incident occurred (that’s right I planned ahead).  Finally succumbing to fear of missing our non refundable Ryanair flight, we hailed a cab and sped to the airport.  The Dublin airport is an absolute ghost town at 9pm on a Thursday, making customs seem like a session of take your shoes off and get rubbed down by a smelly burly man.  After pouring acid on my brain to eliminate the emotional scars left by the airport security, we went to the terminal and waited.  For those of you fortunate people who have never flown Ryanair, allow me to describe the process.....

You show up to the terminal and que up.  There is no assigned seating, you mad dash on the tarmac to get to the plane.  Once on board, the faint smell of barf lingers and you sit next to a large man who is sweating and dominating your arm rest so you have to face sideways the whole flight.  Then comes the parade of goods being sold in flight.  Anything from magazines to cigarettes (which you can’t smoke???) to just about anything you can imagine.  Finally the flight ends and you step down the steps onto the tarmac feeling like a rock star! What up London!

We proceeded through the London airport (which has absolutely no customs or security inbound, just a friendly open door letting you into the country) to our bus.  Time to crash.  We all slept away the hour and a half ride to our hostel, arriving at 2:30 am on Friday.

Friday:

If we are being technical here, I will continue still in what I consider Thursday night, but for the sake of chronology we will put as Friday.  Our hostel was in a swanky part of town.  We saw Ferraris, Rolls Royces, and Aston Martins like they were Fords driving around.  We were a 10 minute walk from Buckingham Palace, and had a pub with happy hour attached to the first floor.  Life was good here.  After checking in we slept HARD.

The next day (time sun came up) Kyle’s alarm woke us up at 8am from still being set to the work week.  We said whatever and got up anyways.  After getting ready we proceeded towards Buckingham Palace.  It just so happened that it was exactly 11am, time for the changing of the guard.  We knew our trip was off to a good start!  After watching the changing of the guard we proceeded to see absolutely all of the tourist attractions in the central and west part of the city.  After enough touring to last me a while, Laura and I escaped and went to explore the parks.  Hyde park is a huge music venue and had a festival going on at the time so we sat and chilled for a bit there then headed to Green Park, my favorite park and part of the trip.  We hung out there for a good two hours then headed back to meet everyone for happy hour.  You would all love the hostel I stayed in because you can sit outside (on the ‘porch’) and drink your drinks and enjoy the perfect weather, which is exactly what we did.  After getting ready we hit a night on the town and met up with my friend Nikki who has a flat in London.  Seeing sun up I knew I should get SOME shut eye to make it through the next day, so I retired to bed for another good 4 hour rest.

Saturday:

Saturday was much more chill than Friday.  We went to the Tower of London which turned out to be my least favorite part.  They stopped doing night tours and the whole thing was just too redone and touristy for my taste.  Matt, Laura, and I decided to take the preferred route of a few bottles of wine and the park before meeting up again for happy hour.  So we proceeded to Green Park again and laid in the grass for the whole afternoon and people watched and chatted.  Best time of the trip by far.  Rinse and repeat we went out that night again to explore the night life of London.  Because we had a 6am bus back to the airport the next day we opted for zero sleep.  Eating pizza at 5 am with the sun in our hostel pub was quite pleasant actually. 

Sunday:

Begin the long day of travel.  Slept on the bus to the airport, slept in the terminal, slept on the plane, slept on the bus, and then went to the Hurling finals with Ben.  At the hurling match I was nodding in and out of sleep, waking up when a goal was scored and the roar of the crowd shook me to life.  Finally after walking all the way across the city back home I was free to sleep.  Begin another work week. 

In conclusion, London was awesome and I wish I could have stayed there, but everything was so much more expensive.  Well worth the money and sleep I sacrificed.  I would do it all over again if I could and cannot wait to go back there for a longer stay.  

Cork: Meh

What to say about cork.....hmmm.  Well we got into town around midnight after a long train ride, and put our stuff down in the hostel and immediately went out to celebrate Laura’s 21^st birthday.  Somehow we found the one pub where all the 50+ people go....to dance!  It was hilarious because when I say dance I mean no inhibition club music raging.  We watched this for some time before heading to a pub that was much more our vibe with some good live music and cheap(ish) beer.  The next day we went to the English market in town and then to a hurling match.  If you have never seen hurling or don’t know what it is note the video below.  It is the most beautiful sport I have ever seen, just simply barbaric: sticks hitting people, tackling, fights, a baseball flying at you at over 100mph, just brilliant!  Basically there are no rules to this sport, and I can safely say this was the most exciting part of the trip.  After the match we walked around for about two hour “exploring” Cork.  Problem is there isn’t much to explore.  It’s a neat city in that half of it is built on a hill that is weaved by back alleys and more churches than you can count.  If I had to put Cork into a sentence I would say it is a much smaller, more boring Dublin.  Named the people’s capital of Ireland, I don’t understand the title. 

The next day we went to Blarney, voted the most overrated site to see in Ireland.  I agree.  I’m glad we did it as I would have kicked myself if we didn’t do all of these things you have to do while here, but it was way too touristy.  I kissed the blarney stone, so that explains the herpes I seem to have contracted in the past week (I joke I joke).  But really it was quite underwhelming.  The view from the top of the castle however was spectacular (note below) and I would say my favorite part of the day was lying in an open field under the trees, kicking my shoes off, and taking a nap.  Taking advantage of the perfect weather, this beat any and all tours and sites, and has become a growing theme for this trip.  I find myself loving the greens and parks of places we visit and loathe the tours, sites, and attractions (shocking, who me?).  The best parts of these trips are wandering the streets, getting off of the beaten path, and just sitting rather than always going going going. 

On a completely different note work has been going very well.  We ended the quarter last week so the chaos and constant calling has lulled to a minimum which is actually nice.  My supervisors were extremely pleased with my performance as I collected a quarter of a million dollars for our company.  Yesterday for the fourth of July they bought me a huge six foot flag (which I wrapped around my shoulders when I went out last night, go Amurica!) and let me go home early.  The other interns in my department are awesome and we all get lunch together every day and go out after work and hang out so that is good.  Speaking of work, I am at work right now typing this up, so I should probably get back to it.  Enjoy the plethora of pictures! (What up alliteration)

Catamara

Ayyyy!!!!

Kylemore Abbey

THE Cliffs of Moher

Most beautiful place I've been to thus far

Stickin it to the man

Yup, that's a castle...zoomed in.

Still stickin it to the man....in Ireland

There it is.  Wayyyyyy over there

hummmmmmmm.  At peace in the motherland

Galway

Time for a looooooong post....

This weekend I went to Galway.  While we were there we also visited the Cliffs of Moher and Catamaran.  This was finally our chance to see the true Ireland.  The countryside was absolutely gorgeous and the weekend overall was a blast!!!  We arrived Friday and had dinner at a pub, watched a hurling match then attended a local pub crawl.  Needless to say the night was quite fun.  Saturday we awoke, hydrated, and took a bus tour of Catamaran and saw the Kylemore Abbey.  While gorgeous, I'm not a big "tour" guy so I took in the scenery and got some good pictures.  After a long day in the bus we went to our favorite pub in Galway, The Kings Head for the night.  There was a band there playing cover songs of all the good American alternative rock songs, so naturally we jammed out til 3 a.m.  Rinse and repeat, Sunday we got up and did ANOTHER bus tour.  Oh the bus ride to the cliffs of Moher.....

Never has it been so evident to me as in Europe that the travel industry is the scum of all scum.  We got ripped off by hidden fees and many other problems I don't want to discuss.  Not to mention I'm fairly certain our bus driver was drunk....that's right, I had a better chance of dying on the way to the Cliffs of Moher that I did while there.  The cliffs were my favorite part of the trip and I suspect will be of my time here in Ireland.  We were only there for about an hour, but I could have stayed all day just sitting on the side of the cliff looking at quite literally the most beautiful scenery I have ever witnessed.  I highly recommend this be a top priority on everyone's bucket list if you want to be awestruck.  The pictures I took simply do not do it justice.  Finally we made our way back to Dublin, while though it is the least Irish place in Dublin, it definitely feels like home now.  I am familiar with it and I love the melting pot of culture and architecture it has.  Anyhoo....without further adue, here comes the picture overload....


Aannnnnnnd for some reason pics won't load on this post.  One sec, gonna throw them on the next one here.

Working Man

So work has been interesting to say the least.  My coworkers are really awesome and from all over the world so I get a lot of international exposure, and I mean A LOT.  Also, I have been labeled as the "computer wiz" of the office and I literally was referred to as an "Excel Expert" today.  These are not joking at all, people actually believe I am some sort of computer genius because I fixed two of my coworker's spreadsheets.  I am confused by how many people in my office don't know how to do basic Excel functions when that is all they use for their reports.  I literally looked up and learned on google how to fix a problem this morning and spent an hour self teaching myself so that I could continue the myth.  Even the head of our department has come to  me with macro issues.  Today was a good day at work, but one of my spreadsheets I spent 3 hours on this morning didn't save, so I had to redo it before lunch.  After that I didn't have much to do today, so I wrote, played solitaire, and wrote some more.  I literally had nothing to do but take five coffee breaks, even after asking for work.  Luckily Monday I will get to start calling clients for collections so that will help pass the time. 

This weekend I am going to Galway and I will have mannnnyyyy pictures from that.  Nothing too exciting yet this week, so I apologize for the lack of color on my page lately.  It was a gorgeous day all day today, so naturally I wanted to run after work.  However, the first step out the door brought cold rain.  This is supposed to keep up all weekend, so pray for sunshine while I am in Galway!

In other news we had a SERIOUS ant problem in our kitchen this week.  We used three coats of RAID and when the dust had settled there were ants everywhere on our ground.  More continued to come so we called our landlord.  Oh Richie the landlord.....that tale is far too inappropriate to tell in such a public forum.  Basically think of the most crass Irishman you can think of and multiply it by 10.  Tons of laughs this guy, but not too gentlemanly of me to talk about in public.  If you are truly curious, skype  me or ask me about him when I get back.  Now its time to kick back and relax after a long first week of work.  Pics after Galway.

Boomgottabriefcase

Today was my first day at work at Bently Systems.  It was A LOT to take in.  I got there at 9 am and was set up with a desk and a computer....and....A BRIEFCASE (and a swanky one at that).  Everyone I work with is really friendly, and I got some good training in and learned a lot!  I'm sure there will be many mistakes to learn from, but being in the collections department will be a great experience, especially with so many people from so many different places.  We also have an espresso machine so that was very helpful.  I got an hour for lunch and came home and watched rugby (another new obsession) and then it was back to more training.  My supervisor is an absolute machine at Excel.  I was in awe at her skill (nerdy I know, but I admire quality Excel skills). 

Anyhoo....the weather today was absolutely perfect.  High sixties and sunny called for a good run.  I headed south to the more suburban area and saw a much more gorgeous side of Dubling I have not discovered yet.  I will definitely take my camera next time and get some pictures for the blog, but for now I am going to grab some dinner.  Appologies for the short post, but there isn't much to talk about today.  Galway this weekend!  Keep the comments and emails coming it's good hearing from everyone!