2/28/05

We are starting to slip a bit with our blog entries here. Sorry folks. But really you don't want to hear about how we cleaned toilets EVERYDAY. hehe Actually we have had the last 3 days off together. Yesterday we took a short hike through the paths in our "backyard" at the hostel. We didn't want to go too far cuz it was cold. wimps hehe Today is much nicer. As we were walking into town our friend, Katrina, called from Wisconsin on our new mobile phone. It was sooo great to hear from her and be talking with her while we walked through the Killarney countryside. We did some interneting and posted some new photos today. Keep checking for photos on that yahoo link we sent most of you some time back. If you don't have the link anymore just email us and we can send it to you again. The Academy Awards were on in the States last night, but we couldn't watch them here until tonight so I (Ang) am realllllly excited to see who will win.. DOnt tell me yet!

2/26/05

We had our first day off together today! so we made full use of it. We were intending on taking a trip to Cork, but in the end we decided to Climb Tork mountian. We made pancakes for breakfast. Caleb decided to "help" me with the pancake batter. I nstead of adding 4 Tablespoons of sugar, caleb thought that he read 1 cup of sugar and put that in instead. haha the pancakes really tasted like cake. They were yummy and packed full of energy and we needed it. We chose to climb tork mountian. We hitched into town and got a ride right away. The guy dropped us off downtown. We walked about 8 minutes and then decided to catch another ride. We got a ride right away(good sign) from these extreamly nice people. The guy driving was from the Cataluyna area of spain(Didoc) and a couple origonally from France,(sebastian and Sophie). All 3 of them are living in cork right now. But as luck would have it they were also planning on climbing Torc mountian! Sweet! The ascent to the top or Tork mountian wasnt nerly as difficult or as wet on the feet as Carentool. When we arrived at the summit it was very cold. No snow, but some ice. There was an amazing view from up there. On our way back down we paused for a stream side lunch. A stray dow cam along and begged us for food and shook himself all over us(and our freshly washed backpack) After the mountian trek we hiked over to the muckross house with our new friends. We had some great conversations about organic farming and American politics. Fortunatly they are sane and think much the way we do :) If only we were making the would political decisions and not the power hungry currently ruling. Seb and sophie lived in canada for 7-8 years. We told them how we would love to live there along with 50% of the other American who are fed up woth our government. We drove to a pub in Killarney to have a pint. We talked a lot about My favorite subject, MOVIES. So it was grand. We also had discussions about other topics as well. They were kind enough to give us a ride back to the hostel. We had great fun with those 3 and hopefully we weill meet with them again. Our friends from the hostel invited us to go out with them to a pub in Killarney but we were to tired. Katrina called but I missed her call :( I was sad.

2/22/05

(caleb) today is angies birthday today woo hoo!
Angie wanted to celebrate her birthday by sleeping in today so that was quite nice. Then we started to walk into town only to realize that we woulnt have enough time to do everything that we wanted to do so we went for a nice walk to some ruins and Angie was taking pictures(her favorite past time) the whole time. We walked back with just a few minutes to spare before having to cook dinner for a boy scout troop from new jersey. It was nice having a little change in jobs and a change in shift. Another nice thing is that we had a free nice dinner for Angies birthday. We had fish, chips, chicken, carrot soup, boiled veggies, and apple pie for dessert. We had to wait for cake because we were so full. We had a devils food cake with vanilla frosting with chocolate shavings on top. We used tea light candles and made them in the shape of 2 threes. Angie got her birthday wish of her mom calling her for her birthday. :) Her friend Heather also called at midnight to wish her happy birthday which was grand!

2/21/05

(The day before an important day hint hint!)We worked today too. Besides doing our normal cleaning we also got the pleasure of changing lightbulbs, washing light covers, taking devet covers off duvets that are not being used and putting them into the lodge attic. Ahhh! the excitement of vacation.
...
we took so long on the internet and uploading the pictures that we had to walk home in the dark. But it was not bad because we had pancakes for breakfast so we needed the walk. And the walk back is beautiful even in the dark. :)

2/19-20/05

We worked both days cleaning. We played cards and watched Master and commander with russelle crowe sunday afternoon. The new french couple Cedric and Gaelle watched the movie with us. They are very nice. We will start a new work schedule tomorrow that will allow for Caleb and I to have both of our days off together which is great! Cleaning sucks(sorry mom) It is a bummer cleaning the bathrooms and making them perfect only to see them all messy the next day.
I am getting really tired of wearing the same pair of shoes, 2 undershirts, 4 t-shirts, and 4 pairs of pants.(caleb only has 2 pairs of pants) I dont think that I will ever want to wear them again by the end of this trip. Arghh! Bonfire!

2/18/05

Today Caleb cleaned but I had the day off. We hitched into town with bugsy and dave. Did internet, went shopping, put the photos on a CD. Then we walked back to the hostel though the national park. We made soup and grilled ham and cheese for dinner. We got a text about dancing tonight. We relaxed and played playstation 1 road rash. Angie kept crashing her motorcycle. We took a taxi into town and went to the club. We danced danced danced at the Grand. There was a better dj this time. We took a taxi home at 1:30AM because it was to cold to walk.

2/17/05

We had a day off of work so we decided to actually get back into the sightseeing mode again today. We hiked to the Gap of Dunloe with a french hosteler named, Carole. It is a series of moutain peaks all in the same general area where a great valley lies between and there is a mostly paved passageway big enough for one car to drive on. Mostly hikers and pedal bikers came through when we were there. Mountain sheep were out in numbers. That is a regular site in Killarney and the surrounding areas. Sheep in the middle of the road or on the green, green hills keeping the lawn mowed. If you ever want a cheap way to keep your lawn manicured, get a couple sheep cuz they really go to town. We ended up walking the whole Gap of Dunloe trail and then went into the Killarney National Park. All in all we walked for 7 hours. good exercise I should say! We ended up hitchhiking back into town with 2 german s who were staying at our hostel. What luck? We did stop at the Torc Waterfall before going into town. We picked up some groceries and then hitched back to the hostel. We made dinner, met the 2 new french people who will now be working and living at the hostel also. Then we hung out in Lucrece's room. We were supposed to go dancing but we were both too tired to go after our long day.

2/16/05

We both worked today. it isn't hard work of course, and we only work for like 3-3 1/2 hrs per day, but it pays the vacation bills:) We didn't leave the hostel today, we should probably be ashamed of ourselves for saying that while in a beautiful foreign town. C'est la vie. Speaking of french, or speaking in french...I don't know you if have heard Gaelic spoken, but if you have ever played the SIMS video game and heard the sim people talking, it sounds a little like that. We hung out with Lucrece in her room. That is becoming the usual.

2/15/05

First of all, Katrina, your comments for the 12th and yesterday...hilarious! And thank you to both you and Rick for keepin the comment love alive. hehe We both worked today. fun fun fun Then we watched the end of "Van Helsing", well most of it really cuz Caleb went to bed earlier than Ang last night and also ate some left over chili that Ang made last night for dindin. We also watched Troy last night. Mostly yawwwwn, but some nice revealing scenes heheh (angie). We hiked into town to return the videos and find the Public Library. FREE INTERNET!! Goddess bless the Public Library system for they bring you internet ala gratis! Then we walked back to the hostel (it's 3 1/2 miles one way out of town to the hostel-nice walk) to watch more movies. Ahhhh vacation...

2/14/04 Happy valentines day!

2/13/04

(caleb)Today we both cleaned again. Our friend gave us a phone and told us where to buy a card for it so that we can get calls yay!

I dropped off my CV and we picked up some milk.

Our walks into town seem to get more complecated as we get more brave. Its nice to get to know an area better then just overnight.

2/12/05

We both had to work today. Cleaning Mach frei! just kidding hehe
(caleb)Tonight we went out dancing. We took a taxi into town(ladeda) and went into the club. In the front of the club it was packed and there was a live irish band singing traditional irish tunes. They were pretty good, but there was little room in that part. So we went into the back of the place where there were lazers and multicolored lights and they were playing house music. Angie danced until she couldnt dance anymore. I had a murphies. Tasty! Its nice that smoking isnt allowed for a couple of reasons. 1 you dont smell like smoke when you come home and 2 you dont have to worry about the place catching on fire as much. Now you may think that fire would be the last thing on a persons mind, but by the time we went to leave thats all that we were thinking about because it was sooo packed in there.

We took a taxi home and I tipped the driver .10 hehe oops

2/11/05

Caleb cleaned from 11-2. Angie walked to town with a french girl. Angie did internet and scoped out the job scene. We relaxed for a while in our new room. It is really nice to have our own private room for more then a couple of days. I will never take privacy for granted again :) We made dinner and then played cards with one of the young daughters that the manager has. We also played connect 4. Her older sister who is 12, would pop in now and again.

2/10/04

We didnt have to work today :) We movied to a bigger, better room within the main house. IT is a bit louder in the new room because guests stay in the adjoining rooms. We walked into town to do internet. We havent found Free internet here yet. We made linner when we returned to the hostel and hung out with our new friend.

2/9/05

We worked in the late morning(11-2) cleaning and whatnot. Then we decided to go into town to get groceries at TESCO. Everyone kept saying how expencive ireland was going to be but compaired to most other countries we have been to, Ireland is pretty cheap. The only thing that is more expencive is the beer and cigs. The cigs I think is a good thing however, I wish that the beer was a little cheaper. The locals dont seem to mind that alchol is so expencive. The gorcery stores here are the most like American grocery stores, In fact, Ireland in general feels the most like home. It is kind of nice to feel at home for a little while. We met these 3 collage girls from Ohio that are going to school in Luxembourg for a semester. The watched "out of time" a denzel washington movie with us.

2/8/05

Today only Angie worked in the hostel, it was calebs day off. Caleb worked on his CV and read his book. After lunch we went for a walk in our backyard. There are many well manicured paths right behind the hostel. It is beautiful back there. Or own robin hoody forrest. We hung out with this cool french girl that also worked in the hostel. She had a cd player setup in her room so we hung out there.

2/7/05

The fires in the fireplaces here in ireland use sod. It is really hard to get lit, but once its hot it burns suprisingly well. It has a strange musky nice smell. The flora is very different too. Around the bottom of all of the trees is a fuzzy layer of wet moss. It rains quite a lot here but it usually isnt to wet to be out in. It stopps from time to time and once in a while you actually see the sun, but it seems kind of weird when you do. There are a lot of vines and its pretty green almost everywhere.

2/6/04

Caleb and I worked our first day at the hostel today. Cleaning rooms and toilets and showers. I never knew just how hairy people can be. But its a good days work. After lunch we went on a hike to town a back. We watched the Bourne supremacy and the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. We watched a rugby match between ireland in italy. Ireland kicked some booty. We like watching rugby, the action never stops they dont even take time outs when people get hurt sometimes. We are so glad that we came back to Killarney.

2/5/05

(caleb)
We don't start working until tomorrow. So today we went to the store and picked up some ingredence for some REAL pancakes. This time we got smart and brought an extra bag to the store. (the stores here charge 15 cents for each bag so we try to use as little as possible.) I think that we bought to much stuff but it was actually much cheaper to do it that way. For some reason buying more is actually cheaper then buying less. eg. for a small shaker of salt it would cost 1.20€ whereas a kelo of salt costs .40€ So with both of us weighted down with kelos of groceries we decided to walk the back way. At first it was wonderful the woods smelled great. But the path soon became unmaintained. We were climbing over downed trees and though fences. It wouldnt have been to bad normally but we were carrying so much stuff. Some spots were harder the others because the path turned into deep puddles that we had to waid through. We finally made it back(at 1:30) and had our great homade pancakes. It was a beautiful day so we decided to spend the afternoon hiking. It was cold but the sun was shining so it wasnt so bad.

2/4/05

We caught up on internet busness and then caught the 12:30p bus for Dublin to Killarney. We wernt expecting the trip to be so long. But it was 6 1/2 hours. Angie got sick the last half hour or so. So it wasnt very fun. We had to switch busses in Limeric again. The bus driver was nice enough to drop us off very close to the hostel we will be working for. We met one of the guys that works at the hostel, the one we were communicating with. He is a super nice guy.

2/3/05

We got up and had breakfast and while eating breakfast we started watching scary movie 3. But it was such a funny movie that we ended up watching the whole thing. We decided to check out the Guiness Brewery tour, which as it turns out isnt the brewery tour at all its just a holding facility for Guiness and its just a bar at the top. For a 15€ cover charge PP we didnt think that it would be worth it. You get a free beer at the end so it is a little misleading. We decided to take the position at the Killarney hostel so we got our bustickets. We will leave tomorrow and are very happy to be going back. It is the only place that we had been to in ireland that really felt like a home. And the nature there is very relaxing. We started watching Akira before we went to bed but the disk messed up half way through. Oh well.

2/2/05

We found short term free internet at the Dublin city public library. You can only use it for like 1 hour a day, but it is better than paying for internet. We were both offered jobs at a hostel in Killarney. We have decided to take it! At night we watched the movie, Human Traffic. Ang had seen the movie before at its world premiere at the Sundance Film Fest in 2000. Good film about the rave/club scene in general.

2/1/05

We started looking for jobs today. We will need resumes and neither of us have ours with us. We didn't know we would have to look for jobs while we were travelling here. However, it is so expensive to get computer time and to print things out here. We will try to find a cheap or free option tomorrow. the only other guy in our hostel room is this super nice guy from the Czech Republic (from Prague). He offered to make photocopies of our resumes at his workplace once we have created them. So generous. We watched "Black Hawk Down" in the common room. It was a rediculously one sided, propaganda filled film about the military action taken by the USA in Mogadishu (sorry for spelling) in the early 90s (caleb says 1996). But it filled some free time.

1/31/05 CAKE DAY!

We slept in a bit and boy did it feel good. We ate breakfast and showered. I had lost my flipflops in Segovia, Spain so taking showers without them felt less than sanitary in the hostels. So we went on a search for a new, cheap pair. We found a grand pair in Pennys for only 2,50 €! I'm looking forward to my next shower already. we found Internet for 1€/hour and caught up with all that. We went back to the hostel to chill around 3pm. 2 guys were watching Fahrenheit 911 so we sat down for about 1 hour to watch it with them. Caleb and I were SO DISTURBED again even though we had seen the whole film before at least once. It is truly upsetting what is happening to our country and the people of Iraq because of the Bush administration. People in the US need to wake up from their comfortable slumber and start taking action. Ourselves included. If you have been living under a large boulder for the last couple of years, do yourself a favor and watch this documentary. It's an education you should not miss. After that stomach unsettler we made dinner. After we rested up to get ready to go see CAKE live and in concert!!! It was the best concert either of us has ever seen. They are a great band! All such outstanding musicians. We had so much fun. It is the most decadent thing we have done since being here in Europe, but worth every single euro cent and second! The venue was Vicar Street. The performance hall was very small so we were very close to the band the whole time. Even with Angie's short legs she could see the whole time. So we liked it hehe. We were going to go see Cake in Indianapolis before we left for Europe. But we are glad we waited because the venue was smaller/better and even with the exchange rate it was cheaper to see them here in Dublin. Very cool.