Sorry about that one.  I think this should work though!

I added my first video ever to youtube... horray!   Enjoy!

I am not sure how this will work, but I just finished a video with a few of my pictures.  Fun note... all of the music in the video was recorded with my camera while I was there. I thought that was fun :-)

Sorry if I got your hopes up and this doesn't work, but if it does HORRAY!!

The bulk of the trip is over (it went soooo fast... but I'm soooooooo tired).

This is my chance to say goodbye and thank you for reading.  I hope that my switching from sad attempts at humor to quality reflections on my time didn't hurt anyone's head too much.  This blog gave me a great chance to put my feelings into semi-coherent thoughts and I have been more diligent in posting then I ever have been in journalling.  So thank you all for being my motivation.

Please feel free to email me if you want a couple pictures or a few more thoughts, I am going to take this weekend on campus to rest up and sort through the life that I have put aside.

Again thank you for your thoughts and prayers, and I hope that I will be able to get another update or two on here in a few days with some reflections as my memory gets sifted with the sieve of time.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to All!

Green beer and leprechauns... not really, but when they were there it was to please the American tourist.

This morning started with Mass in the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dublin that was celebrated completely in Irish.  The traditional Irish language is gorgeous, but it is not pronounced like it appears on paper, so even following along was incredibly difficult.  The music however... AWESOME!  I didn't get the blessing to spend St. Patrick's Day Mass with the folk choir, but with the diocesan choir of Dublin who actually sang two or three (tree) of the songs that we would've sung.  It was so neat to see that we at Notre Dame do a rather impressive job of remaining authentic to the tradition of our homeland.  (Ireland... not the actual homeland of Notre Dame which would be France.)

We then just walked toward the music.  Sadly it was American pop music that was blaring over most of the speakers... We found ourselves a nice pub right along the river Lithy to grab a pint or two in before we headed over to the parade.  The parade was easily the biggest let down of the day in that we didn't even stay long enough to see it.  We stood on the route for for more than 30 minutes and decided that we would just head back to the pub to watch it on TV with fewer people pushing us around.  It turned out to be a smart decision.  All that we could get out of the parade was that it was Pan's Labyrinth themed... in other words it was odd and almost disturbing without any consistency or relation to Patrick's Day.

Obviously the day wasn't ruined.  We headed towards Croke Park to watch both of the GAA matches that happen every Patrick's Day.  It too was quite the atmosphere.  My second ever Hurling match and my first ever Gaelic Football match.  Pretty exciting stuff!!!  After dinner in yet another pub (with water to drink) I said my fare wells to the crew from Wexford and will be catching a bus to the airport tomorrow morning.

Overall, St. Patrick's Day in Dublin was fantastic, but not because of the parade or the big to-do's but because of the atmosphere and the general sense of community that everyone seemed to feel for each other.

Wednesday began by packing my backpack and saying goodbye to the beautiful town of Wexford.  We caught the 9:30 bus to get to Dublin with a little time to look around.

After the super easy bus ride (most of which I slept through) we dropped of our bags at what is to be home base for us for the next 2 days and that is the O'Connel House in Dublin.  This is an historic house that Notre Dame bought and maintains and also uses as the offices, classroom, student union, etc. for all of the students studying abroad in Ireland.  It was amazing how things then started falling into place.  We dropped our stuff off and walked around the city for a bit, just taking in the atmosphere of Dublin on the day before Patrick's Day (most people drop the "saint" over here).  We came back to O'Connel House for a music rehearsal at 3:30 and I knew it was going to be a good night when one of the girls walked in carrying an Irish Drum and a flute.  I was pretty sure that she couldn't play both at the same time, so there was hope that I could play the drum for a few of the songs during Mass... I did!!

After that, they started talking about the matches that ND got tickets for over here... a Hurling match at 2pm and a Gaelic Football match at 3:45 on Thursday.  Sure enough one of the girls who is studying here couldn't go and in an instant I was holding a free ticket to both matches.  We then sang for Mass and had a delicious catered dinner, but the fun picked up again afterwards when we had our own Irish "session".  Basically it is a time when everyone sits around and different people show off different musical or dancing talents that they may have... kinda like what my friends and I do at school except here it is awesome and everyone can do 4 different things and it is an integral part of the culture.

After rehearsal a couple of the students who were signed up to perform during the session asked me if I would want to play the bodhrán (Irish drum) with them for their two songs.  Never one to turn down a drum I said of course and before I knew it I was up on stage playing the drums as people were dancing and jigging!!  Apparently this is how things work in Ireland... everything just falls perfectly into place (it probably helps that the Notre Dame family was involved here too).

The night ended with a casual trip to a pub not too far away and an early bed time so that we can be up and awake and ready to have some fun on Patty's Day!

Since right now its 9am here... HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!!!!!!!

Horray! We made it to Dublin! but enough about that... (for now)... this post has to do with my Tuesday at the House in Wexford.

Hello world.  

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day full of work at the parish and leading Confirmation retreats and castles and community.  It was so great that I didn't really have time to talk about it, and there isn't much time now.

As I write this I have 5 minutes until a cab comes to meet us and get us to the bus for Dublin.  I have no idea if where I will be staying will have internet, so if it doesn't... so long for now.  No news is good news ;-).

At the next chance I have I will be writing out my blog posts (regardless of internet) because it is important to get things out while they are fresh.  Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers and know that you will be in mine as I spend St. Patrick's Day in Dublin Ireland!! :-)

So Jess and I have recently taken to saying "same *whatever*" and using it to point out something that is the same between Ireland and the US.  For example, last night I went out and looked at the stars and moon under a gorgeous clear sky and looked over and Jess said "same stars" and I responded "same moon" and thus continues this blog post.

Today was my first day of seeing the real life lived by the members of the House of Brigid and it was pretty awesome.  We started up making the now very familiar walk down to the parish for the rosary before Mass and daily Mass with the parish community.  (part of your job to go to Mass... sounds like a life goal to me :-)  )  We then joined the women of the parish office for a bit of morning tea which was absolutely lovely (this seemed to be the most appropriate adjective).  Sitting in a room surrounded by rich Irish accents from the 60 year-old women and the 3 year-old toddler was absolutely fantastic.  So much gossip!

Then after sorting a bit of music and getting some work done in the office Patrick, Jess, and I went into a fifth class to plan the class Mass for the month.  I have to admit that this was the most inspiring time I have spent so far.  This was the second of four meetings that the two of them had had with this class for the Mass and it started out by the students "turning in their homework" which as one of the boys put it "yah dedn't half to ruight it dohwn ya jus ad to tink abouutit."  It consisted of them telling Patrick what part they wanted to be in the Mass and then Patrick asked them how to spell their names because Irish spelling of names are ridiculous(ly awesome).  We then went over what the students wanted to pray for in their prayers of the faithful which went from the people in Japan to the one man in that picture from the flooding to "dedcha noh dat dey half live footahge of da flohds from dat ayerport?'"  This eventually transitioned into the youngsters deciding what gifts they wanted to bring up to the altar to represent their lives and after each individual student was told that they could not bring their pets things got significantly easier.  The hour wrapped up by practicing the music for the Mass and this was the part that brought a big ole' smile to my face (as if the little irish accents and awesome discussions hadn't already).  We sang each song through together and then asked the students to sing without the help of Jess, Patrick, and myself.  It was gorgeous.  Maybe not right... but perfect.

After this the day was about over in the workplace, but it was time for my tour of Wexford.  Jess, Clarisa, and I went out to lunch in the restaurant of the Opera house and then we walked around a bit.  We saw a couple churches (so great... as the pictures try to demonstrate.)  and then the waterfront.  After quiet a bit of walking we made it back to the House and had dinner as a community before walking back down for Stations of the Cross (as written beautifully by Jess).  There were over 50 people there, which didn't look like many but I actually counted because I am an awful guesser and 50 is pretty impressive.  I then got to hang around to join a bit of the day of Adoration that happens from Mass until 10pm each Monday and walked back up to the House.  After a stop for some Oreo's and a more traditional jam and biscuit I am sitting in the family room writing this blog.  Pretty great day.

I'm realizing more and more that things between the US and Ireland are very different, but very similar.  Time moves more slowly here, people are not always in such a rush, but at the core of the day it is the same things going on.  At the parish it's the "Same Mass."  In the Church it's the "Same prayers."  At the waterfront it's the "Same water."  When the sun sets it's the  "Same sun."  And in Adoration it's the "Same Jesus."

As descriptive as the title seems I will go a bit more in detail.  Today started off as any good Catholic's Sunday morning... being woken up by Patrick Duffey (a member of the House) and being told that we are going to Mass in 10 minutes :-).  (Apparently everyone in the house thought that the other folks had gotten me up, but it all worked out in the end.)  We walked down to the parish with plenty of time and had a brief rehearsal with the folk group and then sang Mass with them.  At some point I will take a moment and remember the moments in the Mass that stuck out to me as being different than what I am used to.  

After Mass we walked back to the House (its about a 15 minute walk) and had a little lunch and then hurried on down to a Hurling Match (Curling just made a better post title) at Wexford Stadium between Wexford and Dublin.  I had never even seen a Hurling match in my life, but going to one in person and surrounded by local (avid) fans taught me a few things.  1) the odd shaped Hurling club (called a "hurley") is actually perfectly shaped to achieve its goal 2) It's no wonder that the Irish are better at math than Americans (see picture of scoreboard below) 3) Vulgarity is no big deal if used perfectly fluently and pronounced "folk" instead of the typical way 4) People who are good at Irish sports are very in shape normal humans whereas people who are good at American sports are abnormal humans who are freakishly in shape 5) and last but not least, the number one requirement to be good at Hurling is a complete disregard for your well being.

After the match and a relaxing afternoon we gathered around the dinner table for some home-made veggie burgers (currently the House of Brigid is primarily vegetarian) and sweet potato fries.  We had a few great conversations and a few great laughs and then joined in the family room for evening prayer as a community.  After that we never really left the family room :-) (I'm still there).  We decided that in order to use the first scene of the Lion King for a retreat it was necessary to rewatch the entire movie and then thanks to technology we are watching the wrap-up of Selection Sunday on the interwebs.  All-in-all it was a pretty great day full of words that begin with "C" and most of all I would say that the life here, both in Ireland and in Teach Bhride specifically, is contagious.