12 hundred pictures deep

wow! like everyone seems to say after an amazing vacation, where did the time go? Its a beautiful irish morning just before 7:30 am and im sitting in our "school house hotel" (thank you barb and doug!!) waiting to leave for my flight. Kim left about an hour and a half ago screaming and carrying on about how amazing the trip was and that she was unsure the US would be ready for her return, oh Kim! We arrived in Ireland only two days ago, on Monday evening and quickly found out we should have arrived much earlier. We wasted no time though, after arriving at the airport, hopping on the bus and checking into, finally, a hotel we were in town finding food, music and crazy old 'Irish' men (unvoluntarily). We made it to a place where we could enjoy a traditional irish meal and headed down the street to check out a Dublin evening out (although a monday night, i dont think the drinking ends with a weekend!). We stopped at a few pubs to enjoy live music and then of course to the famous "temple bar" to have a drink. Much to our surprise crazy old pennsylvanian guys, out for a trip golfing together around Ireland, thought it would be flattering to buy us a beer. Free beer, why not? These guys were crazy, probably old enough to be our fathers, talking about their trip and extremely interested in ours. Kim was very amused that in all our 5 weeks, the only time we get drinks bought for us (besides Agneses amazing friends of course!!) is in Ireland at a famous bar by a bunch of old Americans. Needless to say, last night she was convinced to find a few "hotties" to top of her vacation hoping to avoid mentioning our first irish pub experience. Yesterday was a full day, of course, making sure we fit in what we wanted with the little time we had left. We saw a few castles, cathedrals, a jail and of course, the Guiness "storehouse". From what we had heard the Guiness tour wasnt all that great but we took a chance and thought it was great. We would do it again in a heart beat and would recommend it to anyone who goes, not that the free beer had anything to do with it ;-) Later that evening we were on a hunt to find a cheap place to eat with the small amount of money we had left. We planned it perfectly with about $12 each remaining, just enough for a small meal and an ice cold pint, sacraficing the meal of course for that last irish brew. Need I mention...as we came back to our hotel, I asked a nice little Irish woman to take our picture and as she quickly noticed we were not from the area she asked where we live and without hesitation turned to me and said (insert Irish accent here) "ooooh myyy, I thought far suare you belonged here with us with thaa red haaiir and all", oh the irish roots!!

This trip has been the best thing I have ever done and just as I thought, it flew by faster than I could have imagined. We have so many stories to tell and as you can see, many pictures to share that will last forever! Thank you all who made this trip possible and thank you Kim for traveling with my pain in the ass and making it worth every penny we spent!!! Ill start saving, and paying off this trip, for our next excursion to Greek Islands, Africa, South America...whatever you've got up your sleeve!!

I better be off now since I CANT miss my irish breakfast in the "canteen room" (HAA) then im off...back to the U.S. to begin life in Chicago :-) WOOHOO!! (check back for a final post on the trip!!)