5 days 15 hours 24 minutes 40 seconds

Gilmore Girls Season 2 Episode 3 Red Light on the Wedding Night. Emily Gilmore reminisces trying on her wedding dress every night for a week before her wedding. I've been trying on my sweaters and my raincoat quite frequently during my last week in America before heading to Ireland for four months.

So far the packing is slowing advancing, but I'm quite happy with where it is at. I have everything in organized chaos and it will definitely be in my suitcase the day before I leave. I know who I am staying with, Mary Jennings. I spoke with her Monday and I absolutely cannot wait to meet her in person. She loves theatre like I do and she already has tickets to take me to a show during the Dublin Theatre Festival.

Well I am working on reading Frank Delaney's Ireland and I am hoping to finish it before I leave so it is time for some late night reading.

I know for a fact I chose the right country for these reasons:

1) The weather will be great, I love rain and I love 50 to 60 degree weather.
2) Ireland produced some of the greatest literary geniuses to date and they even have a museum dedicated to this fact, the Dublin Writers Museum.
3) Trinity College's Old Library houses the Books of Kells. The Old Library along with other parts of Trinity College hold every other book published in Britain and Ireland since 1801. (Which means they are bound to have some earlier editions of Jane Austen's works than the most recent ones that I own.
4) I will also be stopping by the National Library and as the Fodor's staff refers to them, the battalion of bookseller's shops.
5) The Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival 2009 is going on from September 24th to October 12th, which is by far the most exciting thing I have come across. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait for the first four but they will always be there. I just happened to chose to study abroad in the fall and this festival happens while I am there. I can hardly stand myself. On a side note, I am going to see Rent April 17th at the Benedum!

If you can't figure it out from this post, I'm a reader, a writer, and a theatre enthusiast. Now all I need is some music, which I've read you can easily find in any pub, and it's live so it should be brilliant!

Books and Music

Two of my passions and I found a few stores in Ireland that I will have to make it to.

Bookstores
Waterstone's
Connolly's Bookshop

Music
Pro Musica
Vibes & Scribes
Walton's

I'm currently playing Irish Tin Whistle Legends in my flute lessons. My professor has a full set of tin whistles that he got in Ireland. I mentioned that I was going and he pulled out this book with the promise of playing tin whistles and driving the piano instructor next door insane. I can hardly wait, a little taste of Irish culture on Monday mornings.

Arrival and Departure

I have my official dates, I need to arrive in Ireland on September 2, 2009 and leave December 18, 2009 or a couple of days after that, I guess the departure date is flexible. Now all I need is a plane ticket!

A Few Random Things I've Learned

1) When exchanging United States currency, take $100 with Big Bens and not the old bills with Little Bens because Ireland won't accept them.

2) Dublin's economy is the fastest growing in Europe and they have become quite Americanized so to get the full Irish experience get out to the countryside especially the west side of Ireland.

3) It is possible to bike around the country, I know someone who's done it 5 times now.

4) Twinings Tea is to England as Bewleys Tea is to Ireland.

That's all for now, I'm sure there will be A LOT more in the future...

So Far

I am going to Ireland this fall and I figured I would set up a blog now to document the process. So far I have been accepted to Dublin Business School, I applied for my passport, and I am working on scholarships. I also have my day by day color photographs of Ireland calendar along with my Fodor's Ireland 2009 travel book. Now all that's left really is to arrange a ton of things on campus as far as me studying abroad and most importantly perusing my travel book so I can plan ahead as to what I may want to do and see. The last thing I want to do is get over there and waste the precious time that I will have to explore not only Ireland but other parts of Europe as well, because this time next year I will be back here in Clarion, PA wondering where the time went. So here I sit in Clarion thinking I should break open this book and see just what lies ahead for me, so I'm signing off for now.