The Long and Winding Road

Well, I'm safe and sound, back in the greatest country in the world. Ireland. Man, I love this place. To a gross extent. I literally kissed the ground when I hopped off the bus from Dublin the other night. But I was glad to be back indeed. The ride from Dublin to Cork was one to remember. The iPod battery was shot, but it miraculously played through a solid 4 albums before kicking the bucket. Sheep, cattle, hills, little towns with different colored buildings. It made me wonder what the hell I was doing in Dublin all day looking at gray buildings and a touristy brewery, when I could have been walking about, gazing at the Irish landscape. Beautiful. Especially Co. Tipperary.

Anyways, I've successfully made it through the thick, dense cultural beef stock that is the continent of Europe. The long and winding road has brought me back here. Over the span of 30 days, I have seen enough places and had enough insane/gorgeous/shocking experiences to fill four lifetimes. Over 30 days. My brain is a tick about to pop. Over the last semester, I have been to 11 countries, experienced at least a half a dozen or more different languages and dialects, and learned to conquer public transportation with an iron fist. And my legs couldn't be in better shape. I challenge you to a foot race when I return.

I've been ripped-off by a Roman cab driver, sang drinking songs with Germans, spelunked to various evening recreational locations in Prague, burned my pale, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant skin on a black beach in the Aegan Sea, walked the foothills of the French Alps, sailed a boat into the Atlantic in Portugal, rode a 4-wheeler up a Greek mountain, saw the throne where St. Peter was once seated, munched on tapas in Madrid, mowed down on pizza in front of the Pantheon, witnessed beautiful music in Venice, took a gander at the Book of Kells, scarfed a waffle in Belgium and capped it all off with a nice pint of Guinness in Dublin.

But that last sentence hardly scraped the surface of it all. Not even close. If you would like more stories, I'll be whipping up a huge PowerPoint over the month of June covering it all. The whole she-bang. I will gladly e-mail it to you. Or of course, I'd gladly explain it over a steak, some noodles or other meat/gravy/bread combination.

Iowa is calling me, and it's time to return. But the arms of Ireland will be forever tugging at my heels. In church this morning a lady said to me, "You might not have any Irish blood in you, but no worries, you will when you get back to the states. It'll be flowing then. You get hooked." I gotta tell ya, the blood pressure's starting to soar.

The next couple weeks are my last. I'm headed home the 18th. It's so close I can taste it. It's sweet and ripe. But to get to the strawberries, first I've gotta climb through the obstacle of finals and make a quick getaway to London-town. I'll keep updating as the week goes on.