Dublin, Ireland

**SPAM**

GUY, I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN SENDING OUT SPAM. 

I’M NOT SURE HOW TO DO THAT, ACTUALLY.

BUT I WILL TRY.

Home at last.

Returned at last to my parents’ house for three weeks before I head back to school.

The question is now, what to do with this blog?

England, England, England.

Saturday afternoon, the fam and I flew to London. It took us quite a while to get settled; we had to rent a car to get down to Brighton, we had to find the hotel, where there had been a booking mix-up (we still got rooms, but I’m fairly certain we were in the servant quarters; fine for a night, but it was funny). Once we were settled, we met up with Hannah, a friend of mine from the IES program in Dublin that I’ve mention more than a few times in this blog (I didn’t mention it at the time, but she was instrumental in creating the MS Paint sloth picture).

Hannah bravely submitted to getting dinner with my family. Don’t get me wrong, love them to bits but we can be a bit eccentric, especially after a day of travel, however short the flight. We had some really nice steak and ale pies, and I very casually had my first legal drink with my folks. Interesting.

After dinner, Hannah and I went for a super long walk around Buckingham Palace, through to Westminster (‘Look kids, Big Ben!), out to the London Eye (giant ferris wheel, fun times), and down the Thames to about the National Theatre, before crossing the river and heading back on the District line. 

We said our goodbyes before her tube stop. It was my last IES goodbye and appropriately nonchalant. If you’ll allow me to paraphrase Big Bird (of Sesame Street, yes), it isn’t ‘goodbye’, it’s see you later. 

Sunday, with the family, we toured the state rooms of Buckingham Palace, including the Mews, which are the stable and carriages houses (the name, like so many things in old cities, is more of a left-over/repurposed business than anything else— a mews is where you keep falcons, I think. Or something. Anyway, now it’s for horses and carriages and five very nice royal cars, only one of which you can look at). 

Needless to say, everything was opulent and beautiful. No pictures allowed, but you, dear readers, know by now how rarely I bother to take pictures. Laziness, I tell you, merely laziness.

Later in the day, we drove the hour and half or so to our family’s house in Brighton. We’re staying with my step-father Andrew’s cousin Julia and her whole family. They have a room the rent to boarding school students during the year with four bed that we’ve stayed in every time we’ve come over. It is funny, I haven’t been here in five years, but as soon as I got here, the whole house came back to me. Even the cat, Bobby, is still around, though sadly Lego the rabbit has passed since our last visit.

This is the part of my trip that feels like vacation. Don’t get me wrong, I had loads of fun in Ireland, but here, I slept in, ate a disgusting/delicious fried breakfast, and have nothing planned today but hanging out with family in the garden, maybe making it down the beach (but maybe not until tomorrow). The rest of the week is just picnics, and curries, and shopping in the lanes, catching up on five years of life in general with only the every-so-often phone call to go on.

Just A Few of the Things I Will Miss

The view from my window. Silly one to start with, but I just woke up it’s the first thing I thought of because I’m…in my room and have eyes? Okay, half-asleep writing. (Sidenote: Feel a little bad just waking up since all the sloths are like, at GSA already. Long day for them, one last touristy day for me. And packing. Sigh.) Anyway, the view out the windows of our apartment (which, let’s be real, is more like a hotel room with a kitchen), is lovely, even in the rain, and I’m going to miss it.

Walking everywhere. I know, I know, it contradicts my previous post. Deal with it, I miss my car, but I like have the option of walking everywhere. But let’s be real, if I had a car here, I wouldn’t be walking out Rathmines all the time. But the forced walking turned out to be pretty nice.

Drinking age. Now hold on, hold on. I’m just saying, I forsee myself forgetting that stateside I can’t drink with dinner, or sit at a lot bars. I mean, it’s less than a year at this point, not a huge deal, but the pub thing in general; it’s kind of nice, and I know I’m going to miss it, especially when I’m back at school. Ah, well.

Work. Don’t get me wrong, the week of vacation coming up is going to be great, and the weeks at home before school starts are also going to be great. I’m going to sleep in, for one (although I should say, neither of my internships started particularly early), and not needing to work will always be nice. But I liked both my internships a lot; I liked the organizations and what they did, I liked the people I was working with and most of the things I had to do. And the boring things weren’t that bad. I owe a big thank you to Caroline, the IES representative who set me up here, and to everyone I worked with. I know a couple of you read the blog, and I have to say again, than

My friends. As in the previous post, there’s no need to list names. But I have made some really great friends here. Like really great. Like they better keep in touch when we’re out of here, or I will be sad/upset. Supset.

I’m starting to get sad about leaving this place,

so here are a few things I miss about the 215 and the ‘burgh that I look forward to returning to. Don’t worry, there will be an even longer ‘Things I’ll Miss List’ soon.

Dollars. Don’t get me wrong, Euros are prettier. And the coin thing, all about the coin thing. But, my pay checks come (well, came) in dollars, and it’ll be nice to stop doing the math all the time. Not that I’m too lazy to do math, rather, doing the math and thinking about how much money I’m “really” spending sometimes makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.

Bagels. People keep claiming there are decent bagels at this place and that place and they are wrong because they live in Ireland and have never had a real bagel. Okay, I’m exaggerating, I’m sure you can find a decent bagel in this town, but in my limited experience, you can do much better on the baked-good front. Very much ready for a trip to Smallman’s in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh and Moishe and Itzy’s in Newtown. I would also take anywhere in New York. Same story for pizza.

Washer/Dryer. I get it, air drying is more eco-friendly. But my clothes are coming out weird shaped and stretched out. Call me indulgent; I look forward to drying some stuff in a dryer and doing a load of wash that only takes 20 minutes, not two hours.

Sammy J. Mom says my baby has cobwebs. COBWEBS! (Haha, read that out of context…). Sammy J. is my affectionate name for my 1994 Honda Civic. I miss driving very, very much. Dublin, your walking has been great, but I am product of the suburbs and I like to drive.

My pups. For those of you who don’t know, at my mother’s house, we have two dogs, Tizzy and Will. I love them both very much, and Will especially is hilariously protective of me (hilariously because I’m also pretty sure he is the dumbest dog in the world, and despite a loud and intimidating bark, is scared of my 4’11” grandmother). Even though it’ll be— what? 90F when I get home, Will will still sleep on my bed and I can’t wait. (Metric versions of those numbers: My grandmother is about 1.5 meters and it’ll be about 32C… much, much warmer than Dublin.)

Going down the shore. I just want to drive down the shore, grab some Wawa, and park by the ocean with a book. I’m too pale for July. Look, I’m not a huge beach person. The ocean sometimes gets in fight with my contacts, sand is just so sandy, and Avalon, where JP and I usually go to the beach because her grandmother has a house there, is super expensive. But man oh man, there is no nap like a beach nap, no book smell like the ‘I finished this book with my feet in ocean’ smell, no better way to disappear for just a few hours than wandering down the coast.

The Eagle Diner and all summer adventures that entails. Nothing like a late night diner run in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. There’s something super high school about it that I’m not over yet. One am scrambled eggs with rye toast, yes please. Also, not rye toast in this country. I’m sure that’s a lie. But mostly, it’s brown or white. So rye bread, add that to the list.

The Strip District. Cow’s Lane days have been nice, but I miss the Mexican guy making tacos out on the sidewalk, I miss Pittsburgh Popcorn and Penn Mac. I miss laughing at the Pamela’s line and secretly wishing we had a table. I miss the veggie stand, the bread store, Wholly’s. And mostly, I miss the homemade pizza after.

Oh, and people. Listing specific people I miss seems stupid. Youse/yinz/y’all know who you are.

Now for the sad list, things I’ll miss…

Anonymous asked: Good Story? Uh huh.

(Nice use of 'sassing'. Poetry Ireland Review... the sassiest lit journal around.)

Did you want a copy of Looking for Alaska?

It’s okay, I have one at home. I can wait two weeks. But thank you!

Last day of work today.

Dear readers, I feel I owe you long reflective post about the interning part of my summer adventure as today is my last day heading to the Fish (still pretty sure no one calls it that) and yesterday was my last day at Poetry Ireland. But instead, I think I’m going to sleep for another half hour and circle back in bit. In the meantime, I’m pasting in that hastily written paper I mentioned in the days leading up to Scotland (aka last Friday). Please (a) skim it, it isn’t terribly exciting and (b) remember that I wrote it in a sleep deprived hour-before-the-bus-the-airport state and didn’t bother to proofread.

Read more below.

Read More

And then we ordered pizza at midnight…

…because at the end of the day we’re a bunch of American college students. Take it for what it’s worth.