IrIsH hOuSeS

Here are some photos of the B&B's we stayed at. All in all, I would do it all over again. A million times. The women that ran these were lovely, even the creepyoldlady.



This was the second B&B we stayed at. They had a lovely Golden Retriever that instantly became my friend and nibbled on my sweater. The cows chose not to be best friends with me, though. They kept their distance despite my sweet-talking.


And this little lovely was also on the property of the second B&B. We were not granted a tour of the facility. But we did some snooping and discovered it to be quite nice on the inside.


This was the manor house we stayed at in lieu of a castle. But I liked the manor house just fine- we got a free dinner with two bottles of champagne, a bottle of wine, and all the desserts you could hope for instead of spending a night at a "castle".


This was officially creepy old lady's house. She was nice and such, but in the main dining/living/kitchenish area, she had a stuffed fox on top of a bookshelf. She also had horses, sheeps, chickens, cats, and peacocks. They were not weird. The fox and the lady were weird.


This was creepyoldlady's brokeback horse. He looked friendly, although I didn't test him...


We stayed at this house the night we drove to Ennis for the music festival. Nice house, clean, etc etc. But the hosts were leaving to go to a funeral when we arrived. Kind of strange.


We stayed at this house for two nights in the south- Traemore, I believe it's called. We LOVED this family, loved being near the water, and also needed a break from being on the go for the week prior.

This was the first house we stayed at, in Northern Ireland. Quite friendly people, and it was also where Nikos fell in love.



hahahhha. I'm so funny.

*k

The Metal Man.

According to old Irish legend, The Metal Man was a statue created by a widow that lost her husband at sea. And now, for some reason, legend has it that if you are a single woman, you must hop around the statue three times on one leg, and you will be married in one year. Naturally, we searched it out and decided to hop for it. After stopping on the side of the road and parking, we had to climb over a hill, over barbed wire, traipse (trespass) through a farmer's land, and then get our hop on. We'll see if this nonsense was worth it. Only 11 months to go.

He's such a studmuffin, isn't he?

Taking the long way around...



I was seriously tired out after this nonsense....


*k

tombstones...

This was on one of the last days in Ireland, and they were just too beautiful to ignore. If I was to get a tattoo, I would seriously think about getting one of these inked.

Carrickfergus, Giant's Causeway & Rope Bridge

The first day was rough... we arrived after an overnight flight and were exhausted.


But we pressed on and decided to get a full day of sightseeing in anyway. We stayed at this quaint little B&B in Carrickfergus, a town in Northern Ireland on the coast.


After getting our bags situated, we made our way in to Belfast for the afternoon, where downpours greeted us. Nothing like walking around in the POURING rain (in a foreign city) with a raincoat, backpack, and no map.


We drug our exhausted selves back to the B&B for dinner and a long night's sleep. The next morning, after a ridiculous shower that consisted of frigid water and then "burn your skin off" hot water as Jenny put it, we continued on the coastline to head to the rope bridge.

The water was crystal clear and the cows were close enough to sweet-talk... but the rains came down again.

Not as hard this time, but enough. After that, we traveled over to the Giant's Causeway, which was an unbelievable rock formation- where Lava met the frigid waters, it created these hexagonal pillar-things.

And then we went to pick up suzanne.

Ireland

These next few posts will be of what I've been doing since graduation. My life has "flip, turned upside-down" fresh prince style. But it's great and I'm loving it. Currently, I'm sitting in a 40' RV... more on that later. I packed up my life and moved it to Texas to store it for a few months... more on that later as well. And then I went to Ireland for 10 days. Here is my favorite video from the trip. Poor quality, but amazing.



We went to Ennis, a small town in the southwest of Ireland. There was a music festival going on, so we headed to a local bar, drank some guiness, and hung out for a bit.

The ReEmergence.

Welcome back to life, kids. I've had such a crazy past month that if I haven't talked to you, my entire life is upside-down. The thesis exhibition and defense are complete- all that is left is turning in the book with a year's worth of research. In other news, Mom and Dad's house in NoVA sold after 3 days on the market- still waiting on something to happen with the Chesapeake house. Seriously, if you want to buy it, I'll let you. Mom and Dad put the down payment on the RV, and traveling life will commence when I am in Ireland. And between now and graduation, but after the book turning-in, I will be moving my life to a storage unit in Texas. Plans after Ireland are tbd, but it's looking more and more like I will be traveling with Mom and Dad in the RV for a couple months. So- the highly anticipated and exhaustipating thesis exhibition- here are some pics. So excited that it's over, and staggering at the amount of work that was put into it.


These first two are pictures of my exhibition space: The top is a photo of the entire thing, and the bottom is a closer shot.


My thesis model... This is what I got stitches for back at the end of the Fall semester...
Farris' tape art! Amazing, huh?


Janis' wall section and gold-leafed (leaved?) tree branch.

Cilvia's wall section and the intro to Sara's boards.And the conclusion of Sara's boards...

For more photos of the actual Exhibition, click here and scroll to April 26th.

*k

Hibernation...

I'm considering moving out of my hibernation mode. Possibly. Sometimes, it's just best to take some time off from it all and regroup. So in the meantime, here's a picture.


*k

Vacation House

With two contracts on the house in NoVA, I'm one step closer to my vacation home.