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!!!

Oh laddy

Ireland. It really is that green. So far, it really is that beautiful too.

I arrived after more than enough hours of traveling. 2 hours spent watching Invictus (Matt Damon!) on the plane, 3 hours layover in London Heathrow, and 1 hour waiting for my parents in the Dublin airport. All the rest of that time? Sleeping.

When we finally found each other, we took a taxi to a quaint hotel named after my roommate coming to stay with us on Friday. Okay, not named after her, but the same name. That is, Ariel House. Pretty perfect, eh? And it really is pretty great for only 65 USD a night!

We dropped off our things and then headed toward town to take a hop on/hop off bus tour. This way, we could see what there was in Dublin that we would want to spend more time on in the coming days. We have made a sufficient list, mind you, and even already have some good pictures from the bus (when it wasn't raining on us!).
After the tour, we decided to take a taxi to meet up with one of mom's friends from work. Funny story. Since we didn't know the specific address, we thought the safest bet was taking a taxi. When we told the taxi driver the address, I noticed him try to get over to another lane, but it was too late. Have I mentioned that they drive on the left side here? Any who, the driver makes a giant circle to a place, the place we were going, a mere two and half blocks away from our beginning location. Smooth, Longorias, smooth.

Dinner was at Temple Bar. Not only is this the name of the bar, it's also the name of the general location in Dublin. In this area are loads of pubs and restaurants (that are mainly pubs). I figured that just as when I was in Germany and I sipped a German beer, I should probably try a Guinness.
I still don't like beer. :P But I aimed to at least drink to the bottom of the label "Guinness" on my glass. I came so close!

Now it's 9pm and I'm calling it a night. Blame the jetlag, but also give credit to the miles of walking I did in NYC. I'm pooped!

Moment

Just a quick reminder of hope.

A woman, carrying a baby in front of her, holding onto another via leash, with a little girl (maybe 9) walking alongside. Obviously, this woman has a lot on her hands and it's dreadful she's traveling alone. (There is a ring on her finger, so he must just be at the destination, I assume.)

Baby starts crying, and doesn't stop, throughout the transfer from terminal 3 in London Heathrow, to terminal 1. Line after line of customs and security make the moment perhaps unbearable, but she doesn't lose her nerve. She just takes it. Trying hard to rock the baby; willing to carry the other and bounce him up and down when he whines every now and then. Not once, do I sense that she's upset or frustrated.

She was behind me quite a ways, so I didn't know what to do. Finally, another woman had the right idea. She let her pass in front of her in the queue, as it's called. That brought the woman closer to me. "Keep going," I said, waving her on. You would've thought that Andre the Giant had called everyone to move. The entire line split and let her go ahead. They all had happy looks, knowing that if they were in that position, they would hope the same was done for them.

Simply beautiful.