Moving Time

Yes. The new blog for the next stage of life has begun.

sharayahenargentina.blogspot.com. See you there!

(I'll probably post some thoughts from the final adventures eventually, but don't hold your breath!)

Surfin' Ireland (to the Beach Boys tune)

Yeah, doesn't quite work as well. And I often got strange looks when I told people I was going to learn to surf in Ireland. It was as if the land of leprechauns was not allowed to have nautical-type fun even though, hello?!, it's an island. Surrounded by water--conditions, as Flight of the Conchords would say, are perfect (just don't wear socks while surfing. THAT would be strange).

We took a taxi from our hotel in Killarney to Inch Beach, a drive that would take just about 45 minutes. But as you may have read in Quirks, our taxi driver was awesome and was even willing to pick us up when we were done (kind of difficult to find a taxi in the Inch Beach area).

So first came the amazing wetsuits; those things that will show off all of our God given curves. Or, as Ariel and I decided, turned us into superheroes (which we are). Look at those bangs! And look at Ariel's don't-mess-with-me face!Our instructor was great. He had crazy red curly hair, and told stories of the many places he had surfed. When he found out I was Texan, he told me about surfing in Indonesia with a Texan who wore his ten-gallon hat. When his Irish accent then proceeded to do a Texas accent, I had to laugh.

The better part of the story is that all three of us--me, Ariel and pops--stood up!!! Dad in fact, beat us to the punch (the same dad who was unwilling to go skydiving for my birthday I might add. Poke, poke.) The feeling was incredible, especially because on the last run for Ariel, we both went at the same time and stood! How beautiful is that?We ate at the restaurant on the beach before going back to Killarney. There we decided to kill time by watching a movie. Can I just say Inception is better the second time? Ahh! I love it!

Christmas in Killarney!

That is, more like Saturday in Killarney. Well first--a taxi to the train station. A train to Mallow. Another train to Killarney. A taxi to our not as cute hotel. Killarney!!!

Killarney has a beautiful national park that I had read about. I was told to rent bikes and just go for it. So that's what we did. The place was beautiful, the paths were great, and the bikes were only 10Euro each (no time limit that I know of). One word: GREEN!! I mean, I'm sure you could tell from other photos how green Ireland is, but this just hit the nail on its head.
We made our way to an old castle which we could only explore on the outside. Nevertheless, it was also situated on a beach which made for a great resting point. We continued on around and around until we came to a point where literally couldn't go any further. "Unless your bike was made for a guy named Peter," my mom had joked. I talked about how I missed Lake Tahoe and all its perfect rocks for some Little Mermaid singing. Sure enough, that's what Ariel and I sang on the ride back.
One of the workers for the bike company wanted to take a picture of us in front of his store. Good advertising, no? But I was thrown off when he said right before the picture, "Ok! Everybody say S***!" Say wha-? Oh well.We went to dinner at a traditional Irish pub called O'Donahughes. The food was very filling, but it was the dessert that was especially magical--a thing called Banoffi Pie! The end.

Notes

A couple valuable snippets from the Go Conference seminars:

Christ has not called me to a place, He has called me to Himself.

In Matthew 8 and 14 there are two storms. One Jesus calms, the other He walks through. We aren't asked to concentrate on the storms, but on Christ.

When it comes to reading the Bible, we need to view it like a feast. If we continue to have a good meal, we won't be tempted to eat the wrong things. But when we starve ourselves, when something comes by (some thing that we may even know will not satisfy or fill us up), we'll eat it. Then we'll get sick.

Too much

There is too much to say. Also, I can not upload pictures at this time because there are 500 of us using very little bandwidth. Is that the right spelling? I'm not a computer person..

Things to catch up on eventually (right now I should be leaving to have dinner):
1. Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Dublin.
2. The first two days of the GO Conference in Holland.
3. I eventually want to recap my road trip in Texas, but we'll see how that goes.

I do request that those of you who read this pray for me. I am learning a lot more than I think my brain can handle, but I am so grateful. Please lift up my transition time, as well as those I will be serving and living with in Cordoba.

Thanks friends!

My goodness, my Guinness and GOOOOAAALLL!!!

So it's still very clear that I don't like beer. I suppose that's not what this day was all about, so I let everything lead up to it in time.

First, Ariel came at 2:30am. She had taken the only direct flight from Athens to Dublin in order to spend time with yours truly before she goes back home to start the real world. Aww shucks moment I do believe. My dad had said, "Have fun reminiscing" as he kissed me goodnight. I remember saying that I was tired, but he was right. I don't think we actually closed our eyes to snooze until about 4:30 or 5.

So we wake up, eat some b-fast, and then head out toward Molly Malone and the very tall spire. Who's Molly Malone and what's the spire all about? I still don't know, but I reckon they're important to see. So we took the tourist pictures and moved on to the Guinness Storehouse. It's one of the biggest breweries in Europe, with the museum itself being 7 stories!

The museum is not all that interesting, well, unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY care about beer. Which I don't. There is a floor dedicated to learning how to pour from the tap. You even get a certificate for pouring the "perfect pint." Then you're supposed to drink your beer. Maybe that's how they try to make the museum more interesting. Get you drunk, then everything is awesome, man! No.. something to note though, is that there's a science to drinking beer that I never knew about. Apparently, you're supposed to take a breath, take a swig, gargle around your mouth, then swallow. Exhale through the nose. I definitely tasted a difference this way, but not a difference to convince me that it tastes very good. The main thing is that you're never supposed to sip beer.

Fascinating, I know.

We moved on to lunch-ish at Subway, the international safe haven for American food. Better than McDonald's at least, and more filling than Starbucks, although that has become a staple I've noticed for many American international travelers.

Then Ariel and I went on to St. Patrick's cathedral. I was thankful to get a redo on my picture taking. After too, the weather had cleared up so that we had some great sun in the green lawns outside of the cathedral. Mmhmm!!Something I've been wanting to do ever since finding out about Argentina was to go to a soccer game where the people actually care about what's going on. The World Cup helped me to care more about the sport myself, and I have been playing some throughout the past few years. I still don't fully understand it, but I have seen a certain Elijah Wood movie that led to the understanding of its great importance in our world culture.So here we are at the Shamrock Rovers game in Tallaght Stadium just outside of Dublin. They're like a minor league team in America, but they are very entertaining. Naturally the best part was hearing all of the memorized cheers that usually are sung to the tune of bar songs. What was most surprising though, was the sound of cheering even when players didn't score. The general feeling during the game was of encouragement: no wonder no one gets angry when the game ends in a tie. My whole family will stand by the fact that this is why soccer doesn't fly in America compared to the other sports.

Well, off to bed. I hope to learn to surf tomorrow! And stay tuned for the story of one of the best taxi drivers in the quirk blog!

Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paddy

Marnin' mates. It's currently day tree of the Ireland tour, but I've come to pay me 'spects to day two. Too pirate sounding? Lol. Trying to convey the wonderful Irish accent can be tricky.

I um.. didn't wake up until 12:30. I tried to tell mom that jetlag gets me every time. I s'pose now she understands what I mean. We set on our way to the hop on/hop off tour bus so that we could get to Christchurch and St. Patrick's Cathedral. I had heard in an earlier tour that the Gaelic word "Kil" means church: so think Kilkenny, Killarney, etc. as all referring to a church of some sort. Does that then mean Christchurch can translate to Christkil? duhn duhn duhn...

Speaking of kill, I dropped my camera in Christchurch and it officially broke. No hay funciona. I was trying to have a good attitude about it, but I was just frustrated that I had dropped it again (the first time was at Dachau). Thankfully, I have wonderful parents who supplied me with another camera, and this one with the proper outlet I will need in Argentina. God, you are amazing and I will never deserve you!

Time passed quickly this day, since I had gotten up so late, so while we wanted to go to Gaol, we ended up going straight to Trinity College in order to see the Book of Kells and Long Room. Word to the wise, the Book of Kells is not that interesting. I mean, it's interesting because of how old it is, but there's not much to it. Thankfully, we had skirted through without paying the 9 Euro a pop, as we arrived for the final ten minutes of the museum opening.

On the other hand, Long Room is most definitely worth it. I wasn't allowed to take pictures (well, nor could I!), but it is basically one giant library full of ancient books that also disperse that delicious ancient book smell! I think there's a scene in Harry Potter using this room, but I could be wrong. Just go see it!

I don't remember precisely when this happened, but at one point on the tour bus, we noticed that at every stop the bus driver was giving a different name. When we hopped on, he said, "Ay guys, welcome to the Dublin tour bus, me name is Mat-two." (They don't pronounce the "th" the way we do.) On the next stop, he was called Mark. You guessed it, then he was Luke. So all three of us shouted "John!" for the next stop

"Oh you caught me!" he had said, and then said that you could call him whatever you like. "In fact, call me Paddy!"

Classic.

We walked to the fair statue of Molly Malone, as well as a converted church. Hmm.. that's a funny phrase. A former-church-turned-tourist-information-center. Near there, we got a fantastic dinner where we were served by a kind waiter. One thing is for sure, Dublin is filled with perhaps the sweetest people I've ever met overseas. There's more to come on that in the next day's adventures. Also to be included: time with Ariel!!!