Monday, January 14, 2013

All Good Things Must Come to an End. A long, rambly blog post.

"Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final"

Well... I'm posting this from America.  From my desk at St. Mike's in Vermont to be specific.    There's clear blue skies outside and people drive on the right side of the road, only one serving of potatoes with every meal, and no brogues. It's weird.  I'm wondering if Galway was just a really long dream that I had and finally woke up from.  Damn.  The last week there was unreal - it was just Emily, Mary and I left in Ireland for the Americans and so we rested for two days and then fully embraced our last few days in our rainy paradise before going out with a bang.  We spent the majority of the time Christmas shopping for people back home and then checking off everything on our To Do list we didn't get around to earlier - finally went to Lynch's Cafe and Carbon, discovered Napoli was actually way better than Mizzoni's, took pictures with our fave bartenders, won a few good rounds of pong against the irish, finally used that Kingshead Discount card, did the 12 Pubs of Christmas and had a lovely last lunch at McCambridges so we could enjoy the veg soup one more time.

12 Pubs was hilarious..  we were obviously late to it and missed the first two pubs, so we went straight to the Front Door (I swear it wasn't on purpose even though that was our favorite) and proceeded to down a few Bulmers so we could catch up with the rest of the group - which included no one we knew. We were flying solo for a little while but whatevs we were still happy to be there and to show off our Christmas swag.  After a few pints/pubs and chatting with people on the crawl,  Fionn from fencing showed up to join us at Kelly's Pub then we found a few more friends later in the night.  The night overall was great craic and left us in a overtired daze on Friday, so we spent it downtown doing last minute errands and buying more suitcases since we obviously did too much shopping at Penney's and couldn't fit everything.

 I somehow managed to pack everything up in my three bags and carry on duffel.. Yeah I know four bags is a lot - the little Irish man at customs gave out to me for all my luggage - "You really tend to pack light huh? Too many shopping trips?"  The flight was interesting.. I sat next to a guy named JP on my flight who drank too much - he went to the bathroom with one shoe on!!! - and told me a little too much about his ex-wife, and on/off again girlfriend and how he can't talk to men about this because they'll make fun of him but women understand and he's so glad I understand too and that he's glad I wanna talk to him too........which I didn't. I had my eyes closed and headphones on every time he interrupted me with another story. But anyways, I spent the  6.5hr  flight listening to his nonsense and reflecting over the last four months and everything that happened and how my world changed so much coming here and now how it was about to change again and I was nervous to go home because I didn't want anything to change and I didn't want to leave but I managed to keep it all together...until the flight landed and I turned on my irish phone to check the time and what pops on the screen but a text from Mizzoni's (my fave pizza place)  saying Happy Christmas!  Well maybe it was being wayyy overtired and maybe it was the Vodka Coke drink  JP bought me or maybe a bit of both but I burst into tears. and then I caught up with Emily and Mary who were a few seats away and we cried our way off the airplane to baggage claim where Laetitia was waiting for us with a camera - aka our tears forever caught on tape - and then seeing her made us all cry even harder until we finally all composed ourselves only to begin crying again when I saw my mom.

Note: I'm usually not emotional/wicked sappy. I'm gonna say it was the vodka cokes/being overtired that caused this nonsense.  Also: Laetitia you may never post those pictures on the internet. ever. and Finally: I am a really pretty crier. So are Emily and Mary, so keep that in mind while reading that and picturing it. HAHA just kidding we looked like fools.

But anywayyyyyyysss..
The Mayan Apocalypse didn't quite happen like the Mayan's hoped so Christmas and reunions happened and they were grand and then a sparkly New Years rolled on by and now I'm back up at St Mike's.  Finn and Kevin told us it'd take roughly four weeks to adjust and I'm on week three as of yesterday.. So maybe I'll post again later but I think I'll end this for now saying that the last four months were hands down the best of my life.  They were exciting and hilarious and there were some really nice, sweet moments too.. I was on my own, out of my comfort zone so sometimes they were scary, and even though I stuck out like a sore thumb with my Northface and that my accent screamed Boston whenever I opened my mouth to speak, I felt like I fit in.  And I fit in pretty well.  And the people there were so good to me. I might not see some of them ever again but I'll always remember them. Sometimes I think I'm a lot less confident than I might appear - but I went to another country and I lived there and I didn't just survive on my own, I thrived. I really did, so that makes me feel good and I think I can go back to these memories whenever I might doubt myself.  Being there made me feel so alive because it was so new and really a lot of those great feelings came from the people I met there. I can't say it was all me that was responsible for these changes. The friends I made over there are so invaluable to me because we went through SO much together and we've all gone back to our own hometowns now so I probably won't see them for awhile but I'm not worried at all that we won't see each other again. We will - I'll just kidnap them if I have to.  :)
Coming home was a bit challenging- big changes have already happened in my life, but it also was so nice to be back to my own comfortable couch and bedroom with my parents cooking lovely dinners and pets wanting to snuggle up with me :)

I've already got my first homework assignment and this blog post has gone on so long and I've rambled and gotten distracted halfway thru because of a youtube video Bernadette found and no one will probably read the whole thing so I'll finish up now.. Hope everyone has a lovely day.
Til next time, blog world! Even though Is le hÉirinn mo chroí (My heart belongs in Ireland) I'll be trying to make the best of coming home and I'm gonna start slow and try to go easy on myself and take this trip back to reality one homework assignment at a time.