a friendly lil update...

these are some pics from my adventures with april. they were grand adventures, truly grand.

we'll start from the bottom...

*this is the view from my apartment that's right in the middle of the city center, about 10 steps away from my job and a gift shop called Tribes, and basically on a roof.
*these are some men pulling a net off a large fishing boat at a dock where the ferries leave for the Aran Islands.
*this looks to be an abandoned church building that april and i stumbled upon at the beginning of our looooong bike ride around Inishmor (largest island of the 3 Aran Islands).
*this is my dear friend april staring out at the stone fences and the bit of atlantic ocean that seperates the inishmor fromt he mainland.
*the next seven photos are just different views of Dun Aengus, the fort at the highest elevation on inishmor. breathtaking!
*this AWESOME photo is of a far off crazy looking water spout that i don't know how i spotted as april and i were riding bikes. kinda wish it was closer but then again i'm kinda glad it wasn't!
*this is me with a fat frog. this picture is dedicated solely to katey dowd!
*this is the ferry dock on inishmor where april and i departed from the next morning.
*the next two photos are of me and april on a beach on galway bay about a 30 minute walk from where jacob and i live. jacob works at a mocha beans coffee shop/sandwich bar just across the street a few steps away.
*the last two photos are of april and i and then my friend jess at Oconnor's Famous Pub that is full of crazy antique stuff hanging and resting on every surface! pretty sweet place not far from where jacob works, so it's a bit of a hike at night.

can't believe we've been here a month! things are going wonderfully! hopefully we'll get to do some traveling again this coming weekend. maybe down to co. clare to see the cliffs of moher and possibly get to surf a little!

anyone is welcome to come visit!

love!

ok.....so...this picture here, on the left, is doyle in 15 years after he takes piping lessons from my bro. it's a little blurry, but i mean, come on. there's no mistaking it. this guy is pretty great as you're passing by, but when he's playing all night not even half a block from your apartment, you can imagine it gets a little annoying. oh well.

the four pictures above old man doyle are of the quay just past the city center during low and high tide. amazing difference! sometimes it floods here during high tide, but thankfully we haven't been having too much rain.

the two pictures at the top are of our adventure to Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. we took a day tour of the area and it was beautiful and magical.


just a couple more updates of what's been going on with us. jacob is now working full-time for a coffee/sandwich shop called Mocha Beans. he's bringing home the bread, so that's good. i've turned down two jobs in restaurants (one of which was Mocha Beans) and am currently on the prowl for a part-time job in retail. i have some pretty promising prospects, so i'm hopeful that work will begin this week. either way, i'm not really worried yet. we have some great roommates in an apartment right on the main street (shop street) so if anyone wants to come visit, you'll have a free place to stay. we've had some good times and gotten to hear some good trad irish music and we also got to see State Radio, a band started by one of the former members of Dispatch (look them up on myspace, bro!), for FREE in a really sweet venue about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. all is well and beautiful. not too much rain yet until today really. life is good. April comes to visit this week, so that's very exciting. hopefully we'll get to have some amazing adventures together in the motherland!

love to all!

just some pics!

in order from top left...

piper in galway
largest dread of my life!!!
johnny and me at the b&b we stayed in the first night
downtown galway
dublin street performer
dublin from a bridge
4 leaf clover! (i don't think these really exist)

the city we've been waiting for...

we arrived in Galway last night so today begins the job search and everything else! wooo! PRAY PRAY PRAY that we find an apt. or house soon...we've heard it's really tough around galway to find a place. shouldn't be a problem finding jobs as there are places all over galway with staff wanted signs up. praise the Lord for that.

galway is beautiful and seems really fun and exciting. i can see that i'll be feeling right at home in the very near future...that is if we find a home. there is much to be done. right now we're just camping out in a hostel that's right by the bus station and the city square. i'm so glad we chose galway, even if it will be difficult to find a place, it's seems so wonderful and full of character and heeps more impressive than dublin was. we almost had to stay in dublin 2 days longer and i wanted to fall over when we were working through that. but everything worked out, we got here yesterday evening and today it's chilly and cloudy but great.

also! we got a phone!!! you can call us and it's no charge for us! yay! the only thing is that it would be ridiculously expensive for us to call you...so we'll just have to get a calling card or something whenever we want to do that. oh well. so the number is 086-239-9017. you'll have to look up the country code and all that good stuff, but feel free to call whenever. right now we only have one phone for the both of us and it's a pay-as-you-go. we'll get a second one if it gets to be to complicated. but i think it'll be alright for now. so that's about all the news i have the time to give you now.

woop woop! pray for things to work out smoothly, especially the living situation. i'm already starting to get anxious about it and we haven't even begun our search. ha!

paz y amor,
danielle