Coming home

It's 2:38 am here, and I am leaving the hostel, and Armagh, in 2 hours and 12 minutes. By the time I've finished this post I'm sure it will be less than 2 hours. I'm excited to come home, and extremely sad to leave. I can say now that I've lived in Ireland, and I wouldn't have traded this time for anything. I'm sorry that I haven't been able to post as often as I would have liked, but class time (and a lot of fun time!) has kept me very busy. This month has gone by so fast.

I feel like it was just yesterday that we walked into the hostel for the first time. I'm going to miss the AmmA Centre (and Liz!), Bagel Bean, , John & Phil from the hostel, JK (John Kelly), dancing at the Gas Lamp, and all of the good times (and good drinks- including the infamous Fat Frog) at Red Ned's, which became our pub, our place to go for fun. I'm going to miss walking past St. Patrick's Church of Ireland every day, and hearing the bells from St. Patrick's Catholic Cathedral every 15 minutes. I'm going to miss hanging out in the common rooms at the hostel, and ordering pizza from Bada Bing. I'll even miss getting caught in the rain every day, sometimes with my umbrella and sometimes without. There won't be anyone to say my new favorite things: "How's yous?" "That's grand" "For fuck's sake" and so many others.

The website should go up soon, and my video is on youtube now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19gXGS3i2kY

I was only able to post a very small fraction of pictures on this blog, and hopefully I will get to share all of mine with everyone once I'm home.

Goodbye Armagh. Thanks for an incredible month.

Dublin

Dublin: August 1, 2009

Inside Trinity College

Senior portrait time in Merrion Square

In St. Stephen's Green

Megan and I in St. Stephen's Green

On the bus to go back to Armagh

Remembering Jessie

Jessie Morehead is one of my best friends. We met in my senior year of high school when she was a junior; we were on the school newspaper together. She had just transferred from Oregon State University to UC Davis to be with her family. Sunday morning she was killed in a car accident when her car veered off the road and hit a tree. She was 20.

After her graduation in June 2007.

She got to wear the green and gold tassel for being on the newspaper for two years. In her senior year she was the editor of the sport section.

I saw her for the last time right before I left for Ireland. This picture was taken at my birthday party:

She is one of the kindest and best friends I've ever known. There's a Snow Patrol song called "You Could Be Happy" that makes me think of her. Here are some of the lyrics:

You could be happy, I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far

Somehow everything I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment it's all not true

Do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do

More than anything I want to see you, girl
Take a glorious bite out of the whole world

Rest in peace, Jessica Leigh Morehead

December 30, 1987- August 2, 2009