The Countdown begins.....

Well there are officially 61 days until I return, and I'm very excited.

With this said, I'm not unhappy here, but there are so many exciting things to return to. For now though, I will indulge you with the quality things which have been happening in recent weeks.

1) Rose came to visit
So there are many stories to tell here..
Airport - Rose had requested that I be on time to the airport, and not an hour late like I was picking my dad up. Her plane was expected to arrive at 6:45am, and it takes about 1 hours and 30 mins to get to the airport from my flat. Well I set my alarm at 5:30am, but forgot to turn it on. So I ended up waking up at 7:00am, and go, "OH SHIT!" I do everything I can to get to the airport as quickly as I can, but obviously I was going to be pretty late picking her up. I finally make it, and I search up and down the arrival area and can't find her. We had joked around before that she would just make her own way to my place, so I was concerned that this actually happened. I then ask the information booth if the passengers would be out by now, and she said, they should just be coming out. I turn around, and there she is calling me. Imagine had I got there on time, I would have been waiting for her, and missing out on all that extra sleep. Hence why it always pays to be late.
Paris - So Rose and I had a train to Paris which left at 10am, and we got to the train literally 2 mins before it left. I'm noticing a pattern of being late (I think I should be concerned). We did make it though, and had a great time. Our hotel was great. It was about a 15-20 min walk to the Eiffel Tower (hotel is called Yellen Eiffel, for anyone who is thinking of traveling). Rose and I learned just enough French to get by (Hello, Do you speak English, and Goodbye). The first day we took a trip up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It had some unbelievable/breathtaking views of the city. The second day we walked around lots of the city. We saw Notre Dame, had a nice Italian meal with some French wine, and then went to the Louvre. There we got to see all the popular things, like Hammurabi's Code, the Mona Lisa, Nike of Samothrace, and Venus de Milo. After the museum, we walked down the Champs Elysee, and got some very nice French crepes. The next day we made our way out to Versailles, but not before getting some éclairs and croissants. Rose's initial reaction was like, "yeah, i've seen better", but we all know that was lie, as Versailles is the most beautiful palace in the world (as far as I've seen so far). She became more impressed as we took a long walk through the gardens, and then the rooms themselves. After we left Versailles, we went back, had some dinner, and then sat in front of the Eiffel Tower as it was all lit up at night. It was quite beautiful. The next day was our last. We went down the Champs again, and saw the Arch de Triumphe. We then made our way to Sacre Coure, then the Moulin Rouge. To put it simply, we had a lot of fun.

London - The last day Rose and I hit up Portabello Market in Notting Hill, where we had some fresh fruit, brownies, and paella. After we saw The Incredible Hulk, which also came in handy later this week. When Rose ended up leaving, we again were late to the airport. Luckily she made it on time and didn't miss her flight.

Work - This week at work I was pretty frustrated. A lot of it has to do with being tired, but also annoyed with my boss. I don't want to get into this again, but I feel like my boss is very critical of things which aren't necessary. I felt pretty angry about all this, and decided to see the big green guy in action again. It sounds dumb, but its like watching a sad movie when you are sad, I watched an angry movie when I was angry. Friday I got an email at work saying that UBS would like to keep me on. I don't have an actual job offer yet, but I accepted the invitation to keep me. This makes me feel quite a bit better about the job searching when was stressing me out (in part because I was a bit less active in it then I needed to be). This week I have applied to several more positions. Two positions at Omgeo in NY, and one at Millward Brown. I'm also contacting some friends with the hope of working at NBC. This feels more like a long shot, but I think this would be the most ideal right now.

Moving to NY - My brother has just officially moved to NY which makes me very excited about when I move. I'm going to most likely be living with Ross. I can't wait to get back to the states so that I can eat some really good food including pizza and hot dogs.

Future trips - I have planned some future trips to Lille, France and Amsterdam, Netherlands (yes, we all hate the Dutch). I still have two and a half days of vacation left, so now I have to figure out what to do with this time that is within my price range.  

I went to Dublin this past weekend, time to tell you about it.

First lets start with pre-trip experience. I had packed everything the night before. I brought everything with me to work, because the train station is right underneath UBS. So I go down to the train, hop on board, and put my head down to get some nice sleep. I was pooped from getting very little sleep, and working all day. It then occurred to me about 1 min before the train took off that I didn't have my passport. For anyone who doesn't know, Dublin is in the Republic of Ireland, which is not part of the UK (Northern Ireland is part of the UK). I jump off the train, and about a minute later it leaves. I run back home, and run back to the train station. Dodged that bullet. So I took an airline called RyanAir. This is by far the cheapest airline in the world, with horrible service/pilots. The plane takes off, and I finally fell asleep right as the plane landed. I didn't wake up because it was nice soft landing, quite the opposite. Most planes when they land glide in and roll to a stop. This plane bounced to a stop. The stuff that I put on the seat next to me was thrown out of the seat, and I was tossed around like a rag doll. I made my way to the hostel, dead tired. It was about 1:30am and I finally get to sleep. Then about every 20 mins people were coming in and out of the room, knocking on our door, and screaming outside. As you can imagine this was less than a good sleep. I took a hop-on hop-off tour of the city, which is rather small. I took this tour about 5 or 6 times, which I will explain later. I walked around the city, got to see much of it. First major stop for me was the Guinness Brewery. Guinness here is like Guinness in no other place. It was so smooth and quite yummy. After that I went back to the city and stopped off at a place called Dr. Quirky's Good Time Emporium. I had to check it out because of the name. It turned out to be half arcade/half casino. I then met up with a friend of Naz. This girl was also Turkish, and was studying at Trinity College. She brought some friends along with her (two turks and an Irish guy). They were all really nice and fun, and we hit it off really well. So we drank Guiness all night at the famous Temple Bar. It was jam packed. We stayed here for a bit then went to another place, where they were playing U2. They then had a live band singing as well, which was pretty awesome. Finally I made my way back to the hostel pretty tipsy, which is why I forgot to set my alarm. I had a check out time at 10am, but woke up at 10:30 to someone knocking on the door once, coming in and vacuuming, in spite of the fact that there were 4 of us sleeping. The guy mutter to himself, in what I believe to be German (hard to make out over the sound of the vacuum). I make my way down stairs and ask the receptionist if they could hold my bag, after arguing with her over the price (and me not having to pay a penny) I took off for the day. I started my day by realizing that I had to go poo. I make my way down to the main street and I find a McDonalds. I go upstairs, and get in line for the stalls. A few minutes go by and finally one of them opens up, out walks this teenage boy. Following him is this teenage girl. He turns to me and says, "don't worry we didn't do anything in there, we were just making babies". I couldn't help but laugh. So now I'm next in line for the magical event of the poo. The next stall opens up and out walks a guy. He turns around and talks over his shoulder to the stall, and a guy from that stall responds. Then I saw them handing what appeared to be drugs to each other (needles and what not), and thats when I decided to leave. I ended up forgetting I had to poo for about 4 hours, but thats the end of that story. I did more sightseeing, going to Temple University. This place was beautiful. I sneaked into a tour being given which was really well done. My two favorite parts of the tour were 1) The library is slightly larger than that of Cambridge's, and they relish that fact and 2) A former dean of the school, at the turn of the 20th century said women would be allowed to enter the school over his dead body. The next month he died and girls started attending the school. Thats kind of what you get for being a jackass. After that I had pretty much finished seeing the city. I decided to jump back on the hop-on hop-off tour and utilize them as a place to sleep. It was the best sleep I got while in Dublin. Also this bus tour was a 1 day offer. They give you a receipt as a ticket, and I just showed the ticket two days in a row. No one checked, and I got two days for the price of one. I went back to the hostel, and picked up my bag. The hostel only charged me for one night because they never asked me to pay for two, and I wasn't about to offer either. After bumming around all day, and seeing the city, I left and went back to the airport. Back to RyanAir. I get on the plane, which by the way, is a free for all to get a seat, and you have to run out onto the tarmac to get on the plane. I get on the plane and find my seat and the guy next to me is being told by the stewardess that he can't have his jacket in his lap in the emergency exit row. He responds by saying that every other plane lets you do this. She then tells him, then please feel free to go on any other airline. So the flight was basically the same, and we bounced into London. After all this I came back to the flat, and for the last two days I've been free of my god awful roommate.

Now let me tell you about Cambridge. The week before last I went out to Cambridge for some "fun" school activities. The first part was a tour of the city. This I went on, because it was actually a quality tour, plus I didn't want to be stuck in a classroom on what was one of the most beautiful days I can remember in a long time. I got to see Kings College, and all sorts of wonderful architecture. This is one of the prettiest towns in England. After the tour was lunch, but me and some friends decided, yes we need to get back to class to sign in, but we didn't want to go back. We go to class, and the woman is standing at the front shaking her head at us. My friend gives her a little friendly wave, and she breaks into a smile and says "oh you guys, go get to class". So we start walking to class when we realize that the woman's back was towards us and there was a door wide open. So we all ditched, and toured the city and drank the rest of the day. I drank for about 9 hours, and it was wonderful. Went to the pub and played pool and darts and trivia games. Then we drank on the train ride back.

Things are starting to get better for me here, but I'm also excited about getting away and going to Frankfurt this weekend. After that I get to look forward to meeting my family in Spain.

I have a funny story, but also horribly wrong.

I went to the movie the other night and i sit down in a row with a few empty seats on either side of me. The guy behind me taps my shoulder, and asks me to move over to the next seat because he can't see past my head.

I have been made fun of in the past for my large head, but I think its best to note that my brain is immensely huge, and therefore explains all of my smartiness.

I think this is horribly wrong because when you go to the movies you should expect people to sit in any seat, and therefore may block your view. It is the responsibility of the person who is having their view blocked, to move seats, and not that of the blocker. So go ahead and make your snide comments...KB!!! but I still think this was both funny, and uncalled for.