Memorial Weekend!

Yep, I'm in the Swamp. And let me tell you, D.C. is very swamp-esque. Extraordinarily humid, it's pretty brutal running around in the middle of the afternoon. But with so much to see, there's no way I'm just going to stick around our house!

I'm sure I've talked to most (probably all) of you about my summer plans, but for the sake of consistency, I'll toss out a bit of a recap. I'm out in Washington D.C. with eleven other students from CSB/SJU. We are living together in a row house about two blocks from the Capitol, and we are all interning at various organizations or offices throughout the city. I will be starting an internship in a Senate office on Wednesday morning. I'm not really certain what my job description will be -- just that I'll need to play the professional.

The past day and a half has been jam-packed with a bunch of orientation-like stuff. Had to find a grocery store for food, made a run to Target, and figure out the Metro. Those are all the practical things that had to be done. After that, I started the impractical things, such as a photo scavenger hunt across DC. Highlights of this include:

1. A search for Sarah Palin, who was making unscheduled, unannounced stops at various monuments, memorials, and landmarks across D.C. all day.
2. A conversation with a Secret Service agent outside of the White House, in which he described the weather as being "hot as balls." Never thought I'd hear that one from someone in his position.
3. A delicious (free) pizza dinner.
4. Things like this:

Yeah, I think I'll be enjoying D.C.

What's next?

This.

And the long-awaited return...

... of Evan Howard to blogging!

I'm sitting here at work, watching the State of the Union. And while I've been sitting here, I've decided that it's about time to re-start this guy up.

Now, it would probably be LOGICAL to start back up where I left off, but that's a loooooong time ago, so that's not gonna happen until I've got some notes or something with me. So pretty much, this is gonna be current stuff that's been going on.

This is my second week back on campus, and it's been incredibly busy so far. Apart from having a pretty crazy class schedule, I've been heading up the prep for our mock trial program's first competition of the semester this past weekend. We took two teams down to St. Paul for a tournament at St. Thomas Law School. We had quite a few new people to mock trial, which is really unusual for this time of the year, so I was going into this tournament with realistic expectations, not so much optimistic. In the end, one team placed 11th out of 18, which was pretty satisfying.

That's all I've got, I guess. This is way lamer than I hoped it would be... apologies. Check back later for a more entertaining entry.

What's to come

Finally, I’ve come to my last post of the night. Yes, I’m maxing out at four of them tonight.

I just wanted to take a few minutes to fill you in on what I’ll be up to for the next three weeks or so. Michelle’s leaving today (just under three hours from now… I guess that’s what happens when I’m up doing homework all night!), and she’s taking a bag full of stuff back to NYC with her. Among that “stuff” would be my laptop, so I likely won’t be posting anything else on this blog ‘til I get back to ‘sota.

Sadly, our time in Ireland is over on Saturday, December 4^th. Myself, Molly, Erin, and Taylor have a flight booked for Paris on Sunday morning, and for the next week, we’ll be in France. Afterwards, Molly and I will continue down into Spain (Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla? Not quite sure which ones yet) for about three days, then Italy for another three days (we’ll probably just stay in the northern part of the country). Then we head up to London for two more nights, and fly home to MSP on December 18^th.

Until then, I’ll share two bits of Irish wisdom that I picked up along the way:

May you have:

Walls for the wind

And a roof for the rain,

And drinks bedside the fire

Laughter to cheer you

And those you love near you,

And all that your heart may desire

~Traditional Celtic blessing

And a bit less traditional…

You guys are now starting to get the depressing cold rainy weather,

so drink early and often to battle the cold!

Slainte!

SNOW

While I'm in the festive spirit, I may as well fill you in on another fun fact!

Friday evening, we saw our first snowfall! Yes, snow in IRELAND! In fact, it snowed SO MUCH (1/4 inch) that one of our professors can't make it down to Galway, so it's a (partial) SNOW DAY!!

Apparently no CSB/SJU program has ever seen snowfall in Ireland in the 24 years it's been going on. WOO-HOO!!

Thanksgiving!

What can be better than...

family;

Michelle came to visit for five days!

friends;

and fellowship? (a good game of American-style football on a hurling pitch in Ireland)???

Oh yeah, how 'bout a fantastic turkey dinner;

Or enjoying the company of a good Irishman?

Or even seeing some spectacular views on our last full weekend here in Ireland?

Yeah, I think I had a good Thanksgiving!

Quick one on Dublin

We went to Dublin a few weeks ago, so I'm just going to give you a brief synopsis of what we did.

Thursday: Kilmainham jail, the place where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Uprising were "tried" and executed. Also, we went to the Abbey Theater for the play "John Gabriel Borkman." Afterwards, we got to explore/wander/indulge in the Temple Bar area.

Friday: Newgrange, a megalithic tomb. Newgrange was built over 5,000 years ago (older than the pyramids at Giza). The pictures can show how spectacular it was (sorry, not allowed to take pics inside)!

Saturday: Bus tour of Dublin. <--- Very bad. We had a pretty poor guide. Bummer.

Leprechaun museum <--- Very good.

We literally turned into leprechauns!

Sunday: Hill of Tara, the crowning place of the high kings of Ireland (and a pretty sweet place to chase sheep).

Yeah, this is a short one. Dublin wasn't really my favorite city, so I don't really have a ton to say about it.