Thursday, March 12, 2009

Germany tomorrow!

So we are heading off to the land of Deutsch for a couple days...leaving tomorrow morning at 8am from Dublin airport. To get to the airport on time we need to take a bus from Galway at 2:15am. 3 hour bus ride, 3 hour plane ride, then 2 hour bus ride from the Dusseldorf airport to Cologne (Koln). Going to be a long day of travelling on what will probably be little sleep. Despite that, we're looking forward to it!
Alyssa met a German girl (Lotte) at Amnesty Internation and all three hang out pretty regularly now. Lotte is from Cologne and asked her mom if we could stay with her, and she agreed! So we are sleeping there tomorrow night...not Saturday though. On Saturday we need to get on a bus from Cologne at about 2:15am to get to the airport before our plane brings us back to Dublin at 7:15.
So yeah, it is obviously a short trip, and early travelling times, but it should be nice to finally go to the continent, albeit briefly. We are planning on doing a couple week excursion there in April so this will give us a little preview. Plus, it's Germany..Chocolate and Beer!!! I don't think there is anything that could better appease these two travellers. We are going to a Chocolate Museum in Cologne that apparently has a massive chocolate fountain. Hurray!! We are bringing our swimsuits :)
PLUS Ireland will be great to come back to! We are going to spend Sunday in Dublin and then on Monday Alyssa's Mom and sister (Cindy and Christy) are going to arrive in the city! AND THEN on Tuesday it is St. Patrick's day, which we will be marching in the parade in Galway and of course engaging in all those Irish festivities (and by all those, we all know there is really just one 'Irish festivity'...whether it be a wedding, funeral, or any other occasion).
We can't believe our trip is halfway through already but we definitely are seeing this weekend and next week as the beginning of a very good second half. We've been bumming about more than we planned to this first half so we are going to play some catch-up!
Hopefully we'll have computer access when we are in Germany but who knows. If not we'll just have to write when we get back to Galway Monday night. We'll definitely have some foamy, chocolatey pictures to put on photobucket too.
Cheers!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Pray tell--where does time go?

We recognize it has been a considerable duration since last we kept interested parties updated with the excursion we are at present pursuing...
Erik has been busy, for once, this past week with working on some school work. He had an argument due at noon on Tuesday and a portfolio due five hourse thereafter. HThe argument--Dublin's suffocating effect on Stephen Dedalus's artistic necessities as a modern intellectual. Great fun. Yes.
Portfolio--Presentations of God in Royalist literature of the English Civil War (or somethinglikethat). Very interesting. Mhm.
This last weekend taught him a lesson he learned long ago, but apparently there was a relapse: Procastination is not a profitable way of leading one's scholarly career. No 'tisn't. He hasn't done very much for quite some time regarding his school work, as it all seemed so distant--when suddenly it is days before two documents are due and he hasn't started! Nostalgia of Freshman year <>. Now he will surely try to keep himself on top of things. About four weeks to go and four papers to write. Simple math shows this is roughly one paper for every week. While it is unlikely they will be produced in such structured fashion, he will make a more conscious effort of at least working, sorting, thinking on, out, about these papers in a timely manner.
Alyssa has also been quite busy working with Amnesty International (Promoting human rights on a global scale for nearly half a century). The organization is to hold a position in the upcoming 'St. Patrick's Day Parade' which will take place in Galway City. She has been labouring with two others, James and Lotte, Irish and German, in the construction of the party's theme and presentation. After some struggles and discussions, the members have decided on banners, signs, a personified candle with personified and minionated flames revolving around, as well as a percussion/samba band to march the personifcations in uniform cadence.
The previous evening to the current date (that is, 5 March 2009), the Alyssa and Erik went to see a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. While the script was superb and the venue charming, the company, as a whole, was perhaps a bit lacking. It was a very enjoyable stage production, one must consent, but at times some players acheived an air of haughtiness about them; although this is Wilde's intent with some characters, it has always seemed to be on a subtler scale--as if the characters don't know of their pomp. Exaggerated, these actors made their characters very aware of their pomp, which detracted from the very irony and wit that bites every line. Lady Bracknell was fabulous.
Another reason, beyond that of business, that updates have not been as regular, is the lack of electronic-hyperspace availability through the medium of evanescent networking. Only that of direct linkage has been available at the Hoppe abode; and that hardwire manifests itself in a living area often occupied by numerous persons. It has been a most difficult task to join the multitudes on this most advanced mainframe. For this, we duly apologize.
A fond farewell until our next entry on this WeBlog that excitingly connects so many persons and frighteningly shrinks our world to that of a prompting screen.