Snow...

I got up to make the 15 minute up-hill trek to my lesson and was
bombarded by a snowfall that wouldn't seem all that out of place back home. It's times like these when I'm glad I grew up in Iowa as opposed to Arizona, because no matter how bad the weather gets here it's still mild compared to home. Regardless of the weather, I managed to finally catch the bug that's been going around so I figured I'd give a quick update while I'm recuperating.

The last week was by far the funnest I've had here. I've experienced what many would consider as the 'true Ireland'; mingling with new found Irish counterparts and French friends over pints of Beamish and the ethereal sounds of fiddles, uilleann pipes and Irish flutes, looking at castles and cathedrals, and having "the craic" in some smaller villages. The weather has been consistently crappy, but I've started to travel a little bit, work out more often and actually find time to read some very inspiring Irish literature a la Samuel Beckett, Martin McDonagh, Thomas Davis and, of course, W.B. Yeats.

Last weekend I went on a field trip for my Archaeology class to North Cork and County Tipperary. We visited such esteemed sites as Labbacallee (or "Bed of the Old Woman"), the largest prehistoric wedge tomb in the whole of Ireland, Castle Glanworth, and the famous Rock of Cashel. Words or pictures can't really describe the level of awesome displayed by these places, but I promise today I'll try and get some pictures posted on my shutterfly account... I've been procrastinating on that too much.

Sunday night I played poker with a few of my Irish friends, Matt, Colm, Kyle, Roisin and co. before joining up with my American clan to watch the late nite live-air of the Super Bowl. I'll say that the game was great craic, and the Boss put on one hell of a halftime show, but not being able to see the U.S.A.'s legendary commercials took at least half the fun out of watching it. This weekend, the weather's supposed to be bad so my buddy Connor from UMass and I are going to start planning for the big EuroTrip on spring break. So far we've talked about hitting up Bruges, Amsterdam, Prague, Greece, Rome, Florence, Venice, Munich, and possibly a stop in Paris or Barcelona. Looks like we've got our work cut out for us and will have to buy some new shoe soles if we're going to nail all those spots in just a month.

Slainte!