A longer post... and maybe pictures?

Well I'd like to type a lot this time (free internet will do that, despite it being REALLY late) so here goes...

I left off getting into Ireland I believe. I'll overlap the stories a bit here.

Well, alot has happened since then! After arriving in Dublin airport I got my bags and made it through customs and immigration and all of that. No big deal. I then started to check out how I am going to get around and even start to decide where I want to go. After some research I decide that the best option was a three day pass I had to use on the tour bus and the other commuter busses for three days. I took the bus into Dublin on this and decided to just hop right on the tour bus to get the lay of things. I ended up taking it around in the circle two full times. Since it was a different driver I heard different stories each time. After that I decided it was time to find my hostel and make sure I had a place to stay that night. I soon did and after taking a shower met a few guys that I went out to a pub with for food and a few beers. We saw a real gritty traditional irish band and I really enjoyed that. There was also a great charachter there. He was really drunk and was dancing and telling sotries to anyone that will listen. I can say more on that but will have to add it later when I have time (it's getting late and he probably deserves his own post anyway).

The next day I headed out on my own and walked through Trinity College, saw the Oscar Wilde monument, went through the enitire National Gallery, which had some real neat paintings and a focus on Irish artists, saw the Old Guiness Factory, which is a vry well done museum and they give you a pint on the top floor in a 360 degree glass room with a view of all of Dublin. Then I was getting some potato salad for dinner in a small grocery store when I met another guy having issues with getting the label to print out. We ended up going out to a random pub (Dublin has over 800!) and saw another GREAT traditional band. He was from the US, but currently is owkring and living in Madrid. Hopefully I'll be able to stay with some of his friends in Madrid too! Nice people are everywhere.

The next day I took a tour of DUblin castle, which had some unique stories, looked around some more of the parks in Dublin, saw some manuscripts from Da Vinci that shared some very revolutionary thoughts in water, which was neat to me considering my studies have been in that area. I took a late train to rains are great! Let's see if I'm still saying that in a few weeks, but they are spacious, smooth and scenic.

I took a quick bus out to Blarney the next day and walked ALL around the grounds and in the castle there. I even kissed a stone that had been kissed so many times that it was actually worn down from it. I don't think too much is gross, but that was up there. Gave it a wet one too. This was a very interesting place and I soent almost 5 hours just enjoying myself around the countryside there, even though it was a pretty nasty day. Just wonderful history all over there though. That night I met up with some more people staying in my hostel and went out for pizza and "just one drink" with them. We stayed out until 2. One guy I met was from Ireland and was staying in Cork just for the night because he had a test the next morning. He was the one who convinced me to stay out later! The Irish are great fun all around. He told me he will never kiss the Blarney stone because 'that things been aorund for hundreds of years, and I'm telling you, they having jsut been kissing it for all those years'. I met a bunch of other people out that night too.

The next day I took a mornign bus ride up to Galway and enjoyed classic Irish scenery the whole way there. I wanted to take a bus to see the cliffs of Moher, but missed the tour by and hour and was "stuck" in Galway for the day. There were great street performers everywhere, great ocean scenery, and lots of food, so I lived it up and had to catch a train back to Dublin to get the flight to Stockholm the next day. The original plan had been to enjoy another night in the pubs before taking an early bus over to the airport. For some reaosn the earliest bus didn't even leave Dublin until an hour before my flight so I ended up going to the airport later that night and sleeping on a nice comfy couch there. Bad sleep, but could have been worse? Right? I wasn't alone by any means though. THere must have been at least a hundred other people there with the same problem as me. I'd even venture to call it a good time as well. It was only a short flight over to Stockholm and another bus ride to actually get to the city center.

From here I was able to find where my hostel was on a map and made it there my first shot. I was impressed because the words in Swedish are all very complicated and don't sound like anything in english. It was not so bad though, because most people speak English as well. I suppose only being able to communicate with other Swedes must not be ideal. It is a winderfully pituresque city. It was a cloudy day but soon I met up with Kev, we grabbed dinner and called it a night early.

Today we walked to the "old town" on a little island in sotckholm and researched what else we wanted to do and took in most of the sights. We eventually made it out to Kev friend's house and made plans for the next couple of days. In order to not be embarassed by how those never seem to quite happen I will fill you in after :-) Check this out! We are high enough North that the sun never fully sets.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed those quick stories! I'm trying to get more pictures up. Internet can be REALLY expensive and hard to use. Love, Eric