The plan, Stan

Alright... so my mom keeps forgetting where I am going to be and when so Im going to post it up here just for kicks. I am currently in Spain, making my way through some of the must see spots in Europe. Anyways, here goes... from leaving Galway.

March 18th- Arrive in Barcelona
No set plan for Spain. Just kind of relaxing and seeing the sites. Checked out the aquarium, saw the magic fountain show and wandered around the city a bit. Plus, spent some time on the beach, barefoot. It was wonderful.
March 22nd- Arrive in Rome
Only two days in this epic city so I have a two day pass with the hop on/ hop off tour. Will probably just be checking out ruins and the like. The vatican would be interesting to see, but all the ancient stuff just interests me so much more and I have a limited amount of time.
March 24th- Pisa & Venice
From Rome I am making a quick stop in Pisa just so I can see the tower. Honestly, I will probably be there two hours. Which is still longer than I spent in Glasgow so, woo. After that, another train to Venice where I will spend two days. No specific plans there, will just be nice to see.
March 26th- Florence
My flight to Germany is out of Pisa airport which is easy to get to from Florence, so I am spending a night there. Should be gorgeous, I doubt I will have much time to explore though.
March 27th- Frankfurt & Munich
I am flying in to Frankfurt but not planning on spending much time there. Will poke around a bit then hop on a train to Munich. My main plan for Munich is a concentration camp tour, which will be intense but is something I have wanted to do for a long time now. It should be pretty eye opening.
March 29th- Berlin
Finally a city where I am spending more than two nights. I want some time to actually explore Germanys capital and I know I am going to spend an entire day at the zoo (biggest in the world, oh boy oh boy) so, three nights it is. Will be a lot of fun!
April 1st- London
Really excited for this one! So many museums! (yeah, im a nerd, deal with it). I am also going to do a tour which will cover Stonehenge, Windsor castle and something else. It is a bit pricey but will be soooo epic.
April 6th (ish)- Galway
Back to my home away from home for a few days of packing, organizing, shipping and goodbyes. Will be so sad to leave Ireland, but am already looking forward to getting home.
April 11th- Canada!

Anything after Munich isn't actually booked yet but that is the plan as of right now. Will probably go ahead and book most of that within the next day or so anyway. But I am trying to leave things open for a little bit of flexibility. Yay!

6 Months in Ireland!

Today marks 6 months since I moved to Ireland. Half a year here, wow. It has definitely been incredibe. I have met some amazing people, Canadians and Irish alike. I've seen some incredible things, (Blarney castle was awesome. I will try to remember to Blog about the rest of my Ireland week on a day that isn't my 6 month Irelandaversary) and overall just had an epic time. No regrets, loved it all.

So, after what happened in Mayo and the whole jobless/homeless thing I've got going on now, I've decided to go home. It's not so much that I don't think I could find a job, there actually seem to be quite a few more oppertunities coming up now. But really, I was only planning on staying until the end of June anyway. Finding a job within that time seems doable but kind of useless, and finding somewhere to rent for what... 3 months? seems pretty much impossible. I have too much stuff to live at a hostel with, so... home it is. The other reason behind this is that I came over here to travel and due to all my joblessness I haven't done nearly as much as I wanted. So, I'm going to do that all now before I head home. Not sure what the exact plan is yet, but I am planning on getting a railpass and seeing a bit more of the world before I need to go home and be a normal human being again.

Anyways, thats all for now folks. I'll keep ya posted.

Ireland Week

Well, in light of my recent lack of employment... I decided to take a week to clear my head and see a bit more of Ireland. I am in Sligo right now, which is really pretty. Strandhill beach= highly recommended. I am leaving here shortly to spend a couple days in Donegal, which is supposed to be beautiful. Then I'm going to head to Dublin for a day to see all the things I have yet to see there. Then Cork, for another few days to see The High Kings (really well done traditional irish music) and check out Blarney castle. If you ignore northern ireland, I'm pretty much hitting the north, south, east and west of Ireland in one week. Pretty epic I think.
I'm actually really looking forward to Cork. I think it will be a lot of fun, and seeing the High Kings, who I have liked for awhile will be epic and be a decent way to round off my week long tour of Ireland. After that, it's back to Galway for a few days until Saint Patricks day, then we shall see. Oh boy, oh boy. No, actually... I am really excited about all this. And it's nice to be excited about things again :)

Well, that sucks

So, no more job in Mayo. Patrick (the dad)'s sister got laid off from her job in Galway so guess what?! She get's my job. So, now I'm back to square one. More more square -3 because I'm also homeless. Liv and Sara have moved in somewhere new. I'm still in Mayo right now, going to leave tomorrow. Then I'll probably stay with Hannah for a couple days and then go ahead with my trip to Sligo to give myself some time to deal with things and come up with a new game plan. Such a pain. And sooo uncool of the family. They offered me a weeks pay for the inconvenience... have I mentioned I'm homeless.

The land of mayonaise

So, I have officially moved. And have been pestered into blogging by the one they call, my mother. So, last Sunday after a so-so last night in Galway (which is better than such a good night that it makes you sad to leave I guess?) I woke up after 3 hours of sleep, thanks to Ross and Barry and packed up. Paula, the mom of the family I'm now living with, picked me up around 2 and we took off for Mayo.
So, I've lived here almost a week now and am pretty much on top of the routine. This week Paula stayed home with me to make sure I could handle everything, next week I think Patrick will be home most of the week. The kids are pretty good except when they get tired, but I guess that's true of any kid. Cillian will be three in May and Tiernan will be 1 in April. Tiernan has had an ear infection all week and isn't really sleeping through the night, so I'm hoping he's a little less fussy usually. Overall, not a hard job... but childrens shows today are creepy.
Cillian eats next to nothing. He has oatmeal type stuff for breakfast and before bed and this weird mashed up potato/whatever the family has had for dinner recently dealio once a day. Then when the adults are eating, he'll have a plate of ketchup. Yup. Weird kid. If you try to give him a french fry (chip, sorry) he'll get all whiney (whingey) and will only eat buttons for a snack.
At night I've just been hanging out in my room and watching TV. I'm looking forward to the weekend when I can get out of the house for a bit. And next weekend I'm going to do some Ireland exploring. I was going to go to England, but they took away one of my days off. Bummer. And so glad I was lazy about booking my flight
I put pictures up on facebook that are worth checking out as this place is actually really pretty. The view from my window is the ocean, mountains and sheep. It's actually pretty stunning. Theres also pictures of the kids up there. They really are cute. I just get a little stir crazy sometimes I guess. I'm working 7:30-7:30 pretty much (with some down time in the middle) so by the time I get off, its too dark to go for a walk in the middle of nowhere when I dont know where I am.
Anyways, I'm sure this post is a little on the blah side, but... I'm adjusting? I really do like it here, and when the kids are in good moods, theyre great. It's an experience, right?

Whats new?

So, it has been a slow month and a half but there might be some big changes coming up for me. In a splarg of randomosity, I applied for an Au Pair job and then joined an Au Pair website and have had like five families contact me asking me to come stay with them. I went an met a family up in Westport, Mayo and am considering going to stay with them. It would be a big change, and I'd miss Galway but really at this point something has to change. I'm still jobless and not doing much most nights. So if I move to Mayo I can still come back to Galway on the weekends where theres actually stuff going on. I dunno, I'm still giving it some thought, but it looks like that's the direction things are going to take for me.

Gloria gets here to visit in a couple days and I'm soooo excited. Not sure what we're going to do to fill our time yet but whatever it is, it will be epic. Eppppiiiccc!!! Ahh, so excited! Especially if it's my last real week in Galway. Then my plan is pretty much to go out every night :)

Hmm, what else... Valentines day is coming up, a new Celtic Thunder DVD/CD came out today, annnnd I'm hungry. Pizza time.

A year in review- A little overdue

So, I wanted to do this on new years eve... but travelling takes a lot out of you annnd, I forgot. So... 2009. What a year for Kellie... alright, this is pretty much just going to come off as bragging I think, but I don't mean it like that, it's just interesting to look back.

Anyways, 2009...
12 Flights
NYC
Dublin
Galway
Belfast
Paris
Glasgow
Edinburgh

I started off the year ringing in my one year anniversary at Petsmart and wanting to quit soooo badly. I finally got to drop down to part time in April, which was honestly... probably the highlight of the first half of the year for me. My 21st birthday was also a lot of fun, but January-June is pretty much marked by things like break ups and my Uncle Ronnie dying.

It's the second half of the year for me that really stood out. The summer itself was pretty fantastic. Not only did I have one of my best summers ever because I got to see all of my closest friends on a regular basis, which kept me pretty happy but I also got to go see two shows on Broadway in NYC with my mom. And it was on the drive back home from that trip that I told my mom, my biiigggg news. That in about two months, I was going to move to Ireland for awhile. Moving to Ireland (not permanently) is something I had wanted to do for a few years already and it was the perfect time to do it. There was no way I wanted to continue my "career" at Petsmart, I wasn't seeing anyone and most of my friends lived in different cities/had serious boyfriends/were still in school/didn't have a lot of free time. So, after my super awesome summer that's what I did. The rest, anyone reading this probably knows since it's all been in my blog. But I've gotten to see some places on my must see before I die list (The louvre, Disneyland Paris, the shipyard where Titanic was built), as well as make some serious progress on my Celtic Thunder places tour (don't ask), got my first taste of living on my own (as well as proving to my parents that that's something I can do), met some fantastic people who I never would have met otherwise and overall, am having the time of my life.

And the best part about all that is... that's not even over yet. The 2009 portion of my Ireland trip is only the first 1/3 so there is still a lot more to do and see. So, 2010 will probably be more of the same as the second half of 2009 but I am totally okay with that. I'm in Ireland for another 6 months or so. Then I get to go home and enjoy some actual warm weather (hopefully)... after that, who knows?