Slan

I guess this is my last post while I'm here in Dublin. It's cloudy outside, and I suppose that's fitting. I'm a little bit sad, especially when I think about leaving all of my friends that I've made here. I went to listen to Paul Washer speak last night at the Revival Conference. It is definitely a blessed end to a trip that I will never forget. He spoke on the importance of knowing the Gospel and what it really means to be a Christian. I went into the talk a little bit skeptical because he was scheduled to talk for 2 hours and I have been to conferences before where the speaker lost my attention in the first 10 minutes. I found out shortly through Paul's message that this would not be the case. After he had been speaking for an hour and a half, I looked down at my watch expecting to have been there for around 30 minutes.

He emphasized how man alone is not good in any way. Genesis 6:5 says "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Our thoughts of our hearts are evil continually. Without God we are absolutely evil beings. Anything good in this world comes from God and God alone. God would still be just if he let every person in the history of the world be condemned to hell because of their rebellion against him. It is amazing to know that I serve a God who is so incredibly loving that He has saved me from my own destruction even though he didn't have to. Nothing about me deserves to be with God, but because of Jesus Christ I am found clean in His eyes. It terrifies me to think about the judgment that I deserve, but it brings me inexpresible joy to know that Jesus is the atonement for my sins and I will spend eternity with the creator of the universe.

There are so many thoughts going through my head right now, but I can't get them all down because I am thinking so many of them so fast.

Anyway, the talk last night was really good and I'm glad that I got to go.

My time here in Ireland has been awesome, I'll miss everything about it. I don't want it to end right now, but I don't think the airlines will push my flight back until I say goodbye to Jill. It's hard to say goodbye, so I won't say it, or put a period on the end of my last sentence. Maybe that will mean I will get to comeback someday

You'll make it big eventually Ben Reel

Tim got here yesterdy and Todd and I were late picking him up from the airport. We got to the bus stop in time, but it took way too long to get there so Tim had to wait for a little while. We ate some pizza from four star pizza and then went to bed way too late because the laundry was taking a long time.

We picked up our rental car this morning and I felt like everything was a little bit unorganized from the beggining of the trip. We woke up earlier than we planned but then we realized that we hadn't really planned any details at all about the trip so everything was a little bit frustrating from the beggining. We didn't have a road map, we weren't sure where our hostels were, we didn't know where to park and we all found out later that Ireland has way too many roundabouts. We finally picked up the car and then picked up John at the spire in the middle of town. I was kind of nervous driving on the left side of the road and at the beggining I kep drifting to the left side of the lane because I'm used to sitting on the other side of the car. We had tiger bread and cheese for breakfast and then we ate tons of cookies and chips and stuff on the way to Galway. I feel like this is turning into a ramblefest so I'm going to highlight the rest of the trip.

Roundabouts are ridiculous and I am glad there aren't very many at home. The huge ones are alright but the medium sized ones stink bad. I drove around one roundabout and I ended up driving into someones driveway instead of the road to Galway.

We decided to try to find this national park called Connemara which is right next to Galway. We drove for a while trying to stay by the coast but I ended up taking us inland somehow. The fields and bogs or whatever they were outside looked awesome, so we found a random side road and got out and hiked through a giant bog where there were tons of rocks and bog and wet. I liked it a lot because it was like we were in Ireland a long time ago or something.

Some more things happened also but I feel like this is turning more into a journal where I ramble on about every detail of my day. Today was pretty eventfull though, so maybe that's ok sometimes.

Galway is nice. I'll post some pictures of it later. My shoes got real wet but I dried them in the bathroom dryer. Some guy did some serious business in one of the toilets at the hostel and smelled up the entire hall which is about a quarter mile long. I'll end it there.

Work-ed

It's a little strange to me that it has only been 5 days since my last update because of the massive amount of things that have been happening here. It feels like my trip to Ireland started about a month ago because that is about the time that awesome things started to happen. When I say awesome things, I'm talking about this group of friends that I have found here. I know that I talked about them a couple of posts ago, but they are defining my trip here in Ireland and I love it.

I also know that I said finding these people was an answer to prayer a few posts ago, but I'm going to say it again because of how much I enjoy being with them. It had been a little frustrating and depressing in the past because I didn't find many friends that I call best friends while I was in college. I still refer to a group of my high school friends as my best friends because even though I had a lot of friends in college, I didn't get really close with many of them. I am daily becoming closer with my friends here and it hurts me to know that I will be leaving them in two weeks. After every time I hang out with them I feel refreshed and built up because they are some of the strongest Christians that I have ever met. Constantly conversations randomly end up about a passage in The Bible or something else Godly. This is what real friends are and I will miss them.

I'll leave it at that for now. I feel like writing more but it will have to wait until the morning. The mo-town 6 live on.

I found a euro on the ground yesterday so it was a pretty good day.

The sun

I think it rained the hardest I have seen in Ireland last night. It reminded me a little bit of the rain we have in Texas but without gigantic thunder and 1000mph winds. So it was raining hard with a lot of drops but none of the stuff that makes the lights go out. I got up this morning (11am) and it was still coming down pretty hard. It prompted me to write in the blog while listening to Trace Bundy about something dreary and wet, but as I started writing the title the sun crept out from behind the clouds and blasted me in my face. So instead of calling this post "The rain", I changed it to the current title while squinting because instead of a dark room, I now sit in a bright good morning room.

I am quickly finding that Trace Bundy is good music to listen to while writing a blog.

I saw the movie Julie and Julia the other day with my friends. I went into it pretty skeptical because everyone seemed to think it would be a giant girly movie. It turned out to be pretty good and I laughed a lot. It made me want to blog a little bit more and at the same time learn to be a dominant chef because that's what happens in the movie.

I only have about one more week on my work visa here and that stinks. I am starting to like it here finally and now I have to leave.

We are going camping at some place next week and it is going to be really awesome. Half the people that are coming with us haven't ever gone camping so that will make it even better. I don't have any equipment or anything warm so that stinks bad. Anyway, the apple log is done in the oven and it's time to eat. Maybe Randoo.

It's hard to write about things sometimes on here. Partly because I don't know if I have written about certain things already in the blog, partly because it has been so long in between posts that the massive amount of things that have happened since then all melds into one big thought that I can't figure out and partly because its hard to find the right music to listen to while I'm writing. Apparently if I just start typing about something then I will start thinking about other things and then I will have something to write about because that is what happened just now.

Within the past few weeks I have finally found a group of people that I really enjoy hanging out with. It is really good because I think that was the last thing I needed before I felt like I was actually living here. It's just kind of crappy that I didn't find these people a little sooner than a month and a half before I am going back home. These people are really an answer to prayer because I have been in need for some Christian friends ever since I got here. The only thing that stinks is that I will have to leave in a little while and they will all stay here.

One thing that is strange about living in the same room as someone else is the variety of smells that are all around us. Each smell only lasts for a short amount of time, probably not even a day, so almost every time I walk into our room I am caught off guard. Most recently our bathroom smelled like pickles while our room smelled like bologna until Todd brought in his Subway sandwich which made it smell overwhelmingly like an onion. The other day something smelled like a huge turd in there, so we had to do an emergency clean-up which was successful.

I don't think I'm in a writing mood right now so I'll try to do more later after I get home from work. I do what I do what I do what I do.

A few more pictures

Cheers.

I know, I am slacking.

Seriously, more will come... Anyway, these edits were lousy. It's hard working on the ole mini. Peace.

I smashed a tomato

I didn't realize it had been so long since my last update, so I guess I'll do one. I think a lot of things have happened since I wrote on here last but I can't remember when or what order they went in. Nothing too big, but there are a lot of little things. I'll start with the most recent.

People that we live with have been complaining that there is not enough room in the refrigerators here. With good reason I suppose because there are 10 of us living out of two small refrigerators the size of one that maybe you'd win at prom and keep in your dorm room in college. Todd and I have been getting by alright though. I think we unofficially claimed a shelf in one of the fridges, so we have been able to make due. Except Todd bought a pizza and didn't have anywhere to put the leftovers because there was no room on the shelf. So the landlord finally gave in and brought in a third fridge that is somehow a little bit smaller than the other two so that everyone here would be satisfied. That's fine, except by doing so she took the last available plug in the dining room that Todd and I have semi taken over. That also wouldn't be a problem except that when they built these houses however many centuries ago, they must have used some sort of lead to fill the walls because the wireless only reaches one room over from the router. Since the dining room is the one room over from the router, it has become Todd and I's internet sanctuary. But now since I have no plug, I have to bring my computer all the way into the living room where people are constantly watching BET and giant racks of drying clothes fill the empty space. So today when I was moving my computer into this room and moving the couch out from the wall so I could plug it in, I happened to step on someone's cherry tomato that had somehow rolled under the couch. I was wearing only socks on my feet. That smashed tomato is what prompted this update.

Besides all of that, I worked 4 days the last couple of weeks. I can't even remember that much about any of the days, but it was Todd's first few working days, so it was fun. We walk with a swagger when we are on the way back to the kitchen to pick up more plates. It helps keep things alive when everyone else that works with us is really boring.

I fed a bunny a carrot the other day. He sits in a big cage in the front yard and every time I go outside I do what this guy does and yell "bunny!" at him to see if he will scream at me. But he never does.

I work Monday through Thursday this week. Back on the grind.

A few more pictures

Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile. I haven't taken any pictures in awhile, but I plan on dishing them out soon. Here are a few more of Bray and the Guinness Factory.

The bike lane is for bikes

I'm still getting used to this new place we are living, but much faster than the last place we lived before. I feel like these people are actually living here as opposed to the Brazilian guy in our last place who's extent of the English language was giving a thumbs-up to me when I walked into the kitchen. There are only 3 other people living at this place. A Nigerian guy who I thought was Jamaican, and his wife who is from some other country that sounds similar to Russia. They seem an improbable match, but this is Europe and I don't know what the crap is going on over here. There is one other lady named Tes or Tao or Tipi or something like that. I'm not sure where she's from but she is short and seems really happy all the time.

Todd and I have been cooking dinner every night lately. It's pretty good, because the entire time I have been here I have been eating very strange meals for dinner, so now I have something to get excited for every night. We bought a grill at Argos and had some trouble putting it together but we eventually got it. The first night we had grilled chicken with some rice. I ate pretty hard that night. The next night we had lone star chili, then burgers the next night, and tonight we had orange glazed chicken and rice. The meals are pretty good but they would obviously be much better if my mom was cooking them.

Either yesterday or the day before I was riding my bike back from the grocery store. Over here on most of the streets they have a bike lane on the outside of the outside lane. It is about 3 feet wide and cars aren't supposed to drive in it. Lots of times they drive in it anyway or they leave there cars parked there which I guess is fine. So I was riding the other day in the bike lane going pretty fast and I was passing a line of cars that were stopped at a light. When I was about 3 feet away from one of the cars, the door opened and I had enough time to say, "come on lady" before I smashed into the inside of her door. She seemed really shocked that she had just opened the door into a speeding cyclist that was riding in the bike lane. I looked at her and asked her if the door was ok and after getting a wave from her husband, I rode off. She was apparently getting out of the car to put a letter in the mailbox. I didn't get hurt, but I thought it was pretty funny that before even knowing it was a lady that was opening the door, I was already blaming one.

That's pretty much the story up until now. I got my shifts for next week today, there are only two again. I wish I would have at least 3 days a week so I could stop living check to check. Hopefully in the next month things will pick up and I will be able to rock and roll. Todd is working with me next week, so that will be awesome. I work tomorrow so hopefully I'll have some good stuff to write after that.

New place, different problems

It has been a while since I updated. Its because I had shifts all week last week at UCD. There was some environmental epidemiology conference going on there all week. People from different colleges were there presenting whatever they had. Stuff like "the effects of smog on people living in houses of different heights"? I'm not sure if they did a study on people living in tall houses or people living at high altitude. Most of the studies seemed dumb and they were all done by people whose names I couldn't pronounce. What I did at the conference was facilitate the tea and coffee breaks and serve the lunch everyday. They had about 4 tea and coffee breaks throughout the day, so it was ridiculous. The environmental people are weird though, and it seemed like they didn't like talking to people, especially the tea and coffee people. I would walk through the main hall while they were all in there looking at their boring posters and I collected trash but no one would move out of my way when I was coming through with a giant trash bag. One guy asked if there was a bag for recycling, so we told him that we separate it in the back which was a total lie. They also got real mad if we ran out of cheese sandwiches because they are vegetarians. It was probably the most boring thing I have worked, but it was good because it was all week long and it was very easy.

Random things on my body have been hurting lately and I don't know why. Maybe I have arthritis.

Todd and I moved into a new place that is much nicer than the last one. It isn't very far away from the other place, but somehow the neighborhood is much nicer. There are no loud Italians, or weird Brazilians, or slow internets. However, the wireless here doesn't reach all the way to our room, so I have to go into the living room every time I want to use it. And there is a refrigerator in the dining room that has a dead rat in it or something. When someone opens it a wave of stink blows through the entire house. We told the landlord about it and he is supposed to come get that thing out of here tomorrow.

I randomly remembered that I used to have a livejournal in high school so I looked it up and it's still there. You can go look at it if you want. Just click THIS THING. It takes place in the last semester of my high school career. I thought it was pretty funny. Alright, this is red 5, I'm going in.

Bray

Long one

It's 2:15pm and I feel like a lot has already happened today. I cranked up the job search machine again. Man, when that thing gets going, there is no stopping it. I don't know how many jobs I applied for this morning, but it was a ridiculous amount. It's a little bit frustrating because the way to apply for jobs here is on the internet, so I feel like I'm not really getting the application through to anyone because it is only online. That's mainly why I send them out in the masses. I also changed a tactic a little bit today and if it works, I'm going to be a little bit mad. In the past I had been using the Word 2007 .docx type of file. I thought today, because I'm in Ireland and they might be a bit behind the times that they might have the old Word and might not be able to open my resume so every one of my applications would be for crap. Anyway, I applied for about 4 yesterday and who knows how many this morning and on the way into town on my bike, I got a call for an interview at some cafe this afternoon. In the past, the soonest I'd heard from anyone was about 2 weeks after I applied. Anyway, hopefully I'll get this one and then I'll be able to save some money instead of living check to check.

I decided to put a couple pictures from the Guinness storehouse on here since Todd hasn't done it yet. His will obviously be better than mine, but he's lagging his picture uploading. Maybe its because his mac can't connect to the internet for more than 5 minutes at a time so it takes him an entire day to upload any amount of pictures. My dell doesn't have any problems though.

Italians are loud. Jane the Scottish girl left so now Todd and I are the only English speakers in the house. Someone took a dump in the bathroom in the hall the other day that smelled up the entire place for about 2 hours. I want to play halo.

Still no job....Yar

Well...still no job, but things are feeling a bit more comfortable.  Sorry I haven't posted anymore "artsy" pictures on here.  I've been really busy.....O.K.  that is a complete lie.  I have, however, have been working on a portfolio blog (www.toddpiersall.com)  It is not ready yet and is still bare bones, but I figure why not let the people see.  Anyway, somedays I feel like a photographer and somedays I fee like a dud.  Most days actually....

But let me catch you up to where I am right now.  I have recently gone to the Guinness store house, where I learned how they make their booze (pictures to follow).  The best part of that tour by far is the view you get at the end.  You can see all of Dublin in a circular room high atop the storehouse.  Splendid.  

I met a missionary named Kelly who is from Colorado.  He just so happens to be a captain of an ultimate frisbee team here.  He was a great blessing to meet.  As I was telling David, it was definitely an answer to a prayer.  The second answered prayer actually...the first was when David thought he lost his wallet and was about to call it quits on Ireland.  He found it though.  Hooray God.  

I eat a ton of pizza.

I am now volunteering (I think) at the Delfin language school here in Dublin.  I offered to have conversations with non-english speakers.  Sounds noble doesn't it?  Well....at first my intentions would purely to get some money.  But once I discovered there was to be no money awarded, I was still excited to do it.  So, I had my first conversation tonight with Caridad at a coffee shop close to where I live.  She asked if I wanted to learn Spanish and I said yes...but I suppose she picked up on some hesitation in my voice because she said... "If you want to learn Spanish you must commit!!"  Yikes.  Anyway, she invited me to a party at the language school tomorrow at 7.  I promised I'd go..... Oh, I forgot to tell you about Todd vs. The Swiss part of the story but since this post is already long, just ask me about it via facebook or something.

And for those of you who were expecting artsy pictures.....here you go!!

 

 

 

I work

I started my job working for a catering company called With Taste. I worked at the Dublin Horse Show, which apparently is a huge deal in Ireland. I had a row of 14 tables that were set up in the Grand Stands. It was ridiculous and I don't want to explain how everything was on here because it would be too huge of a post. You can go to the horse show website here. I worked 9 hours last Tuesday setting up everything, then I averaged probably 13 hours a day every day after that for the next 5 days. My feet hurt

Last night I worked at the Dublin Castle. You can look at the website for that here. It is also the building in the pictures that Todd recently posted. Apparently it was establish in 1204? The rooms I worked in were ridiculous and to be able to book an event there, you have to have permission by some high up government people. We served a bunch of Americans from Metlife. I wasn't able to take any pictures of the place because the only camera I have is my video camera and I didn't want to lug that around everywhere. If you click on the 360 degree panoramas and then click on St. Patrick's Hall you can see where the drink reception was at the event. It was pretty good, and now I finally have some money that I can blow on stupid stuff.

I was riding my bike past a taxi on the way home from the horse show the other day and someone stuck a balloon animal out the window and hit me in the face.

Dublin Castle

I didn't actually go in here...although I soon will.  Somebody must help me with this whole blog thing.  This system keeps resizing these photos for me and cropping them.  Blah.  Kyle...Spenser...I'm looking in your direction.  Anyhoo, B&W is my favorite.  David worked all day.  I explored.  Ha.  

These are the botanical gardens in Dublin.  It's actually fairly close to where we live.  I'm only loading these because it takes forever to load images with the internet(s) that we have. 

Phoenix park and some others.

Howth

The Howth system.  We did some 

hiking.  We saw a few sea lions...as you can see by the picture of the water (you can play find the sea lion). David likes making fun of my artsy pictures.  Meh.  It was really pretty though.  Very windy.  

-Todd