What I'm Doing When Not Blogging.

The answer is simple. I'm reading this book.... Grapes of Wrath. Which is 600 pages. I read 160 pages yesterday, and I'm so close to being done..... So close!

And I'm also going to be watching one of my favorite YouTubers, John Green (he created the fantastic movement, Nerd Fighters *does the hand sign for nerdfighters*). The goal of that group is to decrease world suck.

But anyway, he's a writer and he's doing an analysis of The Great Gatsby in his videos as the new little project. So I'm going to go watch what he has for the first few sentences :) And I'm going to read the book at some point...

Video from Curran

Setting the scene:

Sarah was our driver and we had no idea where to go to find my great Aunt Julia. So basically we were told to go up a big hill. And we find a big hill, try to go up it, and the engine stalls. Sarah's freaking out, we're on a steep hill, and it's very narrow and the flipping ocean and a cliff behind us. And then Annie starts screaming. And I, being the one with perfect timing, whip out the camera. BOOYAH.

Video from the Restaurant

Bad Restaurants and the Trip to Mayo

Don't ever go to this restaurant. My family was throwing up and they had other assorted and unpleasant symptoms. DON'T DO IT.

In fact, just don't go to American themed restaurants ever.

And this is where the pictures from our really long, 5-hour trip to Mayo starts. Also in the region are Ballycroy and Curran, where Annie's dad's relatives and my dad's relatives are from, respectively.


CANDYYYYY!!! CANDYCANDYCANDY!
He was being ostracized....
The "Wesht"! These are not rolling green hills.
The view from our AMAZING hotel.

The seaaa. Now, in between these two pictures, we had visited Annie's granny and my great aunt from my dad's side. It's funny, there was a picture of a cousin of my dad's on the wall and he looked like a Mexian boy just like my father. Haha.


And the cliffs. Also, interesting anecdote from these particular cliffs. I was getting REALLY excited about all the sheep on the road because I THINK SHEEP ARE ADORABLE *hyperventilate*

And Uncle Dominic should have been there because he would have wrestled one for me to pet :(

But anyway, we stopped so Michael could get me a sheep. But he's afraid of the rams, the big baby. So we were just stopped and enjoying the view. All of a sudden someone calls me over to look at this little sign post on the pull-off. It talked about the Spanish armada crashing on the cliffs and then they intermingled with the locals.

WE FOUND WHERE MY DAD GOT HIS BIG BLACK BUSHY 'STACHE FROM!!! I'M A SPANIARD!

And from there on in it's been a running joke that I'm an adopted Mexican child.



I took this picture in honor of my favorite fiddler, Mairead Nesbitt of Celtic Woman.

Graveyards and Gaelic Football

Irish graveyards are a lot different than US graveyards. It's not just a "Stick 'em in the ground and throw flowers on it every year" thing (though I find that weird anyway because I know the decomposition process and it's gross to think of it). Each grave has it's own gigantic square of gravel and they're kept pretty clean. There aren't any small ones that can't be seen because grass is covering it, and the inscriptions are different.

It's the same church we went to a mass at for a funeral a week later - the amount of flowers covering the graves was amazing.

And it was kind of funny to trail my grandma around the cemetery; she makes a lot of comments. We got to her mother's and father's grave and she stopped and said, "There's only one person in there that's happy."

We went to a different part of the cemetery where you could look off at the town and gram said, "Where did all the people come from?" And Annie thought she meant the people in the graveyard... So she walks over and says, "Well, Grandma, when a boy loves a girl..."

I do love my family.

This is a grave from the 1800's - I can't quite remember the exact date.
This is just a vicious child.

I also have some videos of a Gaelic football game but it might take a bit to get them up as Annie's computer is touchy!

Beginning the Vacation, My 15th Birthday, and Frank and Cliona's

I WAS IN IRELAND :D

So we pulled up to our little houses and Makenna goes, ".....We're staying HERE?"

Girl's got sass.

But yeah they were a little bit rundown. But they were warm and clean and I had a room to myself! LOVELY! This is my room, and I think I kept it nice and clean the whole time:

We were there and we decided to go eat some substances that were Irish (HOORAY IRISH). I found the venue really pretty and took some pictures. And this is also the place we went to a bar around the last day. I think it would make a really nice painting.
But anyway, it was pretty nice inside even though the music was RIDICULOUS. It was old, old music that could be called groovy, honestly. And I found that I started to really like Sarah's sense of humor when she started boogying out in her chair (oh, and by the way, you try fitting a billion people in a booth and some chairs).

P.S. they don't have honey mustard and sometimes ketchup so try the garlic mayo, it's pretty good but a little rich.

Annie Bananie likes candles.
Aaaand then the rain came. Of course. This is right by the river outside the cabins.
And this was the first trip to Tesco's - the Irish WallieWorld!!! It was also the mall. And we got a surprise at the mall....... STORMTROOPERS!

The first sighting:
Michael, the first passerby to go up to them.
Here are the boys Dominic, Colin, and Liam doing their thang.
And here's my FAVORITE COUSIN WHO MAKES ME FOOD EVERY NIGHT UNLESS IT'S SARAH'S NIGHT. And I.
And then our next trip was to Frank and Cliona's. To be honest, I can't remember if they're related. But I know that everyone likes them and we act like they're family. They also throw good parties. They also have a pretty house!
The guys were playing a card game and I think I was just chilling on the couch. And I fell asleep (this would be the fourth or more time on this trip). Sarah and Annie took the time to show their love for me.

Oh, yeah, look at me with that beer. I'm so cooool.
Haha. Well I actually learned after my grandma woke me up that this was a birthday party, soooo....
And here's Nan and grandma.
This is Michael doing something probably awesome. He and Annie actually taught me how to play cards so I need to be nice sometimes.
This is the view from Cliona's backyard.
And her frontyard!
Yaaaay blogpost.

Traveling: Part II

Goodmorning, Starshine! The Earth says hello!

Not even thinking of Charlie and all his chocolate could make me happy to be up for this flight at 7 in the morning. So our actual flight was around 11, and we had to get there early AND it was in Cleveland. HIP HIP HOORAY.

We get there, we check in, so on and so forth. And then we chill in the terminal for a bit. Also a delightful experience. I took pictures and enjoyed my time.

I think I should do parties, I managed to keep Makenna entertained!
And OFF we go! We flew from Cleveland to Toronto where we'd have a 9 hour layover. The only problem is, the airport didn't count on the Pender/Ginty clan coming on through.
A 9 hour layover, what to do... Oh yeah. We're Irish. We walked around for a bit then the inevitable sit down for who knows how many beers happened. And let me just say, my family was a wee bit sloshed. Dominic and Liam were legal in Toronto, the drinking age was nineteen. So they had at it and the "it" one. On the flight I was sitting next to a crewmate of Daniel O'Donnel's and I was pointing out my family as they ran to the bathrooms.

And I loved it how they were all sad that they didn't see Mr. O'Donnell because they were out of it. He was right by them! Silly family.
Here you can see the "I love you mom" stage.
Liam's favorite line was, "This can't be Ohio, I'm drunk right now!!!" I found it just really fantastic.
After the horrible flight abound with "food poisoning", we reached Dublin and met Sarah and Annie. Sarah is Annie's roomie and she drove us the whole time. Here you can see me behind a bit of the trunk that wouldn't fit over the bags. Annie's a sadist.
Annie and Sarah up front because they're the big girls.
IRELAND!

P.S. You know how you see pictures of places and the place is never like the pictures? Ireland is the exception.

Traveling: Part I

This was my leaving party: Haleigh eating food that she brought over to eat. Usual stuff, haha.

SO. Getting there. That was just so much fun.

Or not.

Bit of advice: DON'T FLY US AIRWAYS. They suck. A lot.

So we started off in the airport with all 12-ish of us. That was a little bit stressful to start with. And with an 8 and an 11 year old who hate each other and can't stand when one gets something that the other doesn't, getting food and liquids can be just joyful. Here we have the adults in the bar where I got my coke and had a drawing session (you see, we all thought "Oh, we're going to be in Philadelphia in a bit, lets not eat"):

And then we got past the bar and we went to our terminal place. Where we waited.... And waited..... There was a delay. We FINALLY get on, and then guess what. We waited. For hours. on a tarmac. IN A TINY PLANE. Not fun. At least I was seated next to someone interesting - a park ranger who was in Ohio to take a test.

And then here's the kicker: we'd already missed our Dublin connection. And we'd stayed on the plane so long, that the food places in the airport were closed and if we left the security part of the airport, we wouldn't be able to get back on. They didn't have any new flights to give us. Yet my cousin Meghan googled it and found one on a different airline. That was after the really annoyed waiting game in the lobby as we watched the plane take off. I had a camera, so.... I used it. What better way to pass the time? After all, we'd been there a total of ten hours.

Me being artistic.

My lovely Aunt Kate and I.

My little cousin Kenna.