I'm typing this from my desk in Milwaukee, and, although I had every intention of keeping the blog updated when I returned, the craziness of these last few weeks has prevented me from really sitting down to write. So I apologize. I'll make it up to you.
Here's what happened at the last leg of the trip:
I left Brett on the 20th in Bayeux, France, after we stormed Normandy Beach and had a wonderful talk about the meaning of life in the American Cemetery. If you haven't been there, go. To stand on the beach and see the fortifications(and when the tide is out, there's 100 yards between the water and the foot of the hills) is a life changing experience. I had a wonderful time exploring Normandy, although it was much larger than I had imagined, and best explored by car(I tried to walk).
I went to Cherbourg, France to catch a ferry to Rosslare, Ireland(an 18 hour ride for roughly 100 euros), and met some french people along the way. I also had to call home to make arrangements for the bachelor party I was hosting on the 31st of July, and felt strangely stupid calling a paintball course in Eau Claire, Wisconsin while holding my baguette and brie cheese. Anyway, I made friends with three French people, one from Caen and a brother and sister from Paris.
On the boat, I met an American from Pittsburgh, Erin, who was working at a summer camp in Switzerland, and a Japanese guy, Kuya, who went to UW Madison. Small world. A French Canadian and a guy from Liverpool were also in our compartment on the boat, and we quickly became friends. We realized we were all going to Cork, and the next day, Mike from Liverpool offered us all a ride in his ambulance. He had bought it off of a nursing home and gutted out the inside, using it to drive around Europe looking for work. Luckily, Mike(who spoke french and english and looked and sounded like a younger Paul McCartney) was a great guy, and so was everyone else. We instantly bonded.
A couple hours later I drank the best Guinness of my life in a small bar on the south coast of Ireland, then we swam in the Irish Sea, and stumbled into Cork looking for Kuya's friends. I distinctly remember how friendly the Irish were, but once you called them over to help you, they proved mostly useless in direction-giving and other practicalities. Not that I mind, I enjoy their company immensely, but one fellow tried to give us directions at a bar and was clearly beyond his driving limit of frothy pints. Instead of writing down street names or a map, and writing down directions from there, he simply drew lines, half circles for bridges, curly lines for left and right turns, and said "now . . . you go left, and right, and then . . . f*%$ I forgot, where were you going again?" this continued for 10 minutes. I decided then and there that I loved the Irish.
Later that night, we wandered into Blarney, Ireland outside of Cork, looking for a place to sleep. We considered sneaking into famed Blarney Castle and sleeping with the Blarney Stone, but I had heard too many stories of Irish peeing on the stone for me to stomach it. instead, we wandered into a rugby yard looking to pitch our tents when we stumbled into the rugby house and into Senior Citizens Irish Dancing night. Five minutes later, I'm being thrown around this rugby hall by a burly 65 year old Irish woman and dancing Irish jigs. I pulled my friends into the mix and all eight of us danced Irish jigs until late into the night.
Ireland was good to me. My great grandmother is from Cork, and everyone asked where my family was from while I was visiting. I crashed on a dirty apartment floor the next night and drank Murphy's Irish Stout, which is sweeter and generally better tasting than Guinness. The last day was the hardest, as myself and the other american had to leave the group. I was sad to go, but all eight of us are staying in touch and doing well. Unfortunately the ambulance, which we nicknamed The Happy Bus, broke down outside of Killarney, Ireland and Mike had to abandon it.
I flew home the following day and have been doing well in Milwaukee and Rockford
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