Sunday, October 31, 2010

THE END IS NEAR

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!


So i depart for America tomorrow. WOW. 3 months has flown by. The big question still lingers in the air "what am i going to do when i return??" Well, fortunately i am able to (despite all logical reasoning, but i suppose logical reasoning has never been my thing) postpone my return to the reality that is of the common world by engaging in the following activities.

1. driving to Indianapolis with my kiki la rue to see one of my favorite bands, gogol bordello!

this song is very appropriate for this time in my life.
because i want an excuse to post these pictures from their video i worked on...
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the man himself. eugene hutz.
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elijah wood & i hung out that day. crazy.

and here is the video i worked on.

OK ANYWAYS. BACK ON SUBJECT. Thanks for letting me relive those moments. haha

2. Immediately after the concert my brother and sister are picking me up and we are driving to Tempe, Arizona! My brother finally found a job..unfortunately i will not see him often, but it will be nice to have someone to visit out there and I'm so happy he found work. he has been searching for a while. i hope he is happy out there!

3. i decided after Tempe that i will go visit my best friend in the whole entire world, JORIE in Portland as i will be sooo close and it will only cost me 90 more to fly there for a week rather than flying back to Indiana. also, when i get situated and find a job in this crazy world, it will be so much more challenging to find the time to take off and the 500 plane ticket. so that is that.

4. then i return to Indiana for a week, and i drive to NYC for the Macy's thanksgiving day parade with my dear friend, Jayme, and we will see some of our big apple friends. This trip i am a little more nervous about as i will reaaaallly have no money. I'm considering staying there for the holidays if i can find a job, as i know i will make good money during the holidays there compared to Indiana. but i dont know. we will see about all that.

so what have i been doing since leaving Rome?

well i went to courtelay, Switzerland to visit my college buddy, neuman, who is traveling Europe as well. it was really great to see a familiar face! he was working at a home where these fantastic people lived. they were building a theater in their home and a gypsy band played that evening. it was great! all the people that lived there were so wonderful and the children were so interesting! they were learning trapeze and salsa and martial arts. so much cooler than i! they also grew all their own food and only used local products. i think it is the best way to live!

so after courtelay, i took a train to Zurich and walked around. beautiful beautiful place. but so so so expensive. people have told me before that Switzerland is expensive, but i had no idea it would be THAT expensive. we are talking 15 USD for a value meal at burger king. and the trains! ugh, i couldn't get out of there fast enough!

i took the train to Munich, which also is a really neat city. unfortunately, i was only there for the evening as i left to tour the Dachau concentration camp memorial in the morning. that was an intense experience. i had to carry my big old pack the entire time, which i think took away from the experience a little, but not too much.

it was really interesting to see how a society can turn into such a place. it was interesting to see some of the parallels of American society today. i dont think it will ever ever ever get that bad again, but there are some similarities.
of all the terrible things i rediscovered for some reason the fact that they fit 400 people into a room designed for 50 boggled my mind the most. ugh. absolutely insanity at that time.

after Dachau, i took the train back to mainz, where i started. i got in around 1am. it was so good to see malina and hanna!! the following day i did absolutely nothing and it was WONDERFUL!! it is exhausting traveling and felt nice to just relax.

we went to Amsterdam for 3 days. met up with neuman. what a beautiful city. certainly not as i pictured it in my head, as marijuana and prostitution are legal. but you would never know those things existed there if you were just walking around. very classy! the weather was gloomy, but we had a great time. i had a space cake and felt the effects for about a day and a half. it is not a comfortable feeling being elevated for that amount of time!

on our return back to mainz, we watched spooky movies, went to german karaoke, and ate a lot of delicious german foods!

i'm uploading my photos to my flickr account, so i hope to do a photo post soon.

thanks for reading! hope you are doing well <3

Thursday, October 21, 2010

rome

i wish i had more time in rome! 2.5 days is not enough!! i leave tomorrow morning to go visit a friend in Switzerland and listen to some gypsy music. it will be good to see a familiar face! i actually will be only seeing familiar faces from this point on, as i return to mainz after switzerland.

yesterday i went to the vatican. my mother is not a traveler and she is kinda whatevs about where i go..but she insisted i must go to the vatican. so i did. although, i would have gone anyways.

it was a wednesday, therefore the pope gave an "audience". there were thousands of people there from all over the world. it was a really neat experience. a marching band performed music that sounded like circus music, not very papal in my opinion, but maybe they are trying to soften the view of the vatican since the scandal?
so after the marching band, the pope comes out in his popemobile and drives around waving to people. everyone who had a chair (the people who prepared and got tickets) all stood on their chairs, so i wasnt able to get a good view.
he sits down on his chair in front of st. peters cathedral and some priests give readings, the same reading, in various languages. then the pope spoke, in latin, then a priest announced various pilgrim groups and people cheered and the pope waved. it was a really interesting experience. also i am pleased to report that the pope does not look creepy in real life! he is no jp2, but he is no sith lord.

i went to the vatican museum afterwards. the guy didnt charge me for my audio tour because he told me a silly joke about his friend learning chinese. i didnt really understand how that all worked in my favor, but i just added him to my list of people who are way too kind to me!! my goodness the museum is amazing! so many epic works. i was in awe! the skill and dedication these artists had blows my mind. i cant even really comprehend it. also! they have a really extensive collection of eqyptian artifacts, which i thought was interesting.

i went to st. peters basilica, which also, is mind blowing. it is huge and ostentatious and i dont really agree with a church having all this wealth while people are starving and blah blah, but i was able to quite easily put that aside and stand in awe of it all. also! the next time the jubilee doors (special doors that only open every 25 years so people make a pilgrimage?) open is 2012. add it to my list of conspiracy theories on 2012...

btw..sorry this post is a jumble of whatever. i need to leave the hostel in like 5 minutes!

after the basilica and sending POPEcards from the vatican i went to get some GELATOOOOO. it was pretty good. i saw a pigeon eating gelato from a bowl and laughed.

i returned to the hostel to do laundry and take a shower as i was a stinky chick. i talked to my italian friend, luca, who i met in kilkenny. he invited me out to a discotheque at 11pm. i went to that it was called i hate 80's. a lot of fun. no il imparo italian, so i didnt talk to thaaat many people, but i talked to some. and i got a free kanye west mask, so i am going to be kanye for halloween!
i took a taxi back to the train station, and got LOST, whoa, what a surprise! luckily since i was wearing my kanye mask on the back of my head, the street people thought i was just as crazy as they were so they were really nice to me. there were A LOT of people sleeping on the street. it was really heartbreaking.

so thats my roma update. i am going to the colosseum today and other great roman ruins after i go drink an italian cappuccino!

CIAO BELLAS!!


(me with my trusty pack in venice!)

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

iPod post

I'm currently sitting at a cafe in Venice. I just had the most delicious croissant filled with apricot jam and a cappuccino. I'm surrounded by old Italian women who are gossiping. The old people in Italy are so fierce and have amazing style. For whatever reason flicker had been a pain and not let me upload my pictures.

Cinque terre was incredible! I met some hilarious Aussies the first night then I had to sleep in an attic room alone for the last 2 nights. The guy who rented the room was kinda creepy and would just walk in the room and ask me random questions. I was afraid he was going to walk in while I was showering so I didn't shower for 2 days. Beautiful!!

Venice is so neat. I spent yesterday wandering the canals and streets aimlessly. I went and got my culture on at the Guggenheim as well.

I'm taking a train to Rome today and will be there for 3 days. I'm looking forward to seeing the coliseum and other roman surprises!

I'm slightly nervous as I return to the states in 13 days and have no job or apartment. I know it will all work out and keep trying to stay in the moment and keep on loving life!

Ciao bellas!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

ciao!

hi everybody. hope ya'll, whoever you are, are doing great!
i've been moving around quite a bit lately. hope to update soon, but right now i am planning my trip to this place. which is blowing my mind just thinking about it.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

goodbye ireland, hola barcelona!

sitting at the airport. was going to update this, but i apparently have to board my flight to barcelona.
ireland has been so good to me! i'm excited to see what spain has to offer, despite the awesome weather! (78 degrees!!)

have a great day!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Dingle is certainly the most beautiful place I have seen. I woke up on the bus to see the greenest hills I have ever seen, the sea and a double rainbow! Today I rented a bike for 10 euro and have been riding along the peninsula for the past 2 hours. I'm excited to share the pictures. It started to rain/hail so I pulled over to put my camera away. As I was doing so a little white pony came up and wanted me to pet him. Unfortunately I needed to keep my camera dry so no picture of the pony. I was fortunate enough to find shelter at the cutest pub in RIsac. Where I am writing this and just had a bowl of butternut squash soup and am finishing up a glass of Guinness AND the sun is coming back out!

Yesterday I kissed the blarney stone so I know have been bestowed the gift of gab/eloquence. Maybe that is why this post is so charming! :)

Hope everyone has a great day!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

The Submarines - You Me & The Bourgeoisie


saturday night. holler! going to get some dinner with jacyln, my replacement, then off to celebrate kilkenny livin.

what did you do saturday night??

Friday, October 1, 2010

last week in ireland

crazy. time is flying! i leave Ireland in 6 days!and return to the states in one month! what am i going to do when i get back? i have no idea! i just got paid for my time here, which was really wonderful and unexpected. :)
last night i went to my favorite pub, andrew ryan's, for the trad session.
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ryan's decor.
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a picture of the arthur's day 2010 celebration at andrew ryan's!the owner of the bar gave it to me as a gift.

a video of my pal, aishling, singing at ryan's

video of the trad session at ryan's
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denis is sad to see me go.
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my pal jane & i. she gave me a charm bracelet as a going away gift. so sweet.
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aishling, jacyln (my replacement), and fergus (my boss)

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they even let me pour my own pint!

we also went to hole in the wall
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michael. the owner. in addition to owning the hole in the wall. he is a cardiac surgeon and a big time metal concert promoter. amazing man!
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where we talked history and pirates.
it was such a lovely lovely evening.
kilkenny holds a special place in my heart <3