HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Love,
Larissa, Samantha, and Annie

P.S. We got turkey and [American] football, too. Score!

O'Bama

One more thing about Ireland...

Barack's great-great-great-grandfather, Fulmuth Kearney, was from Ireland. And every single Irish person in Dublin, from the barmen to the cab drivers, told us this.

There are even t-shirts!

Hearts, Stars, and Horseshoes....

I've been freaking out a bit because half of my pictures from my day in Ireland were corrupted on my memory card. All my scenic day pictures came out fine, though, so that's important. I was only around Ireland for less than 32 hours, so I had the most intense day ever.

Itinerary:
8:00: Wake Up for Irish Breakfast
9:00: Find out what's actually in an Irish Breakfast
9:30: Get eggs instead
10: Get on a bus to Winslow, Ireland, where P.S. I Love You was Filmed. Awwwww.
11:30-3: Hang out in the Irish countryside
5:00: Back to Dublin for the.....Guinness Factory.
6:00: Guinness Factory Gravity Bar for an amazing view of the city
6:30: Dinner in an Italian restaurant because all the pubs close early for dinner
8:00-9: Head back to our friend's place, get ready for the night
10:00-????: Dublin Pub Crawl

So that was the Ireland in a Day Marathon, which was hugely successful if not entirely tiring.

The Spire of Dublin a.k.a. the strangest monument I've seen in Europe. Literally....it's a giant pole.

The Irish Constitution. Erin Go Brah and all.

Traveling through Dublin

Around Ireland, the doors are all painted different colors. Apparently it's so everyone coming home from the pubs can find their house.

Real Life Irish Countryside

The Town of Winslow

Me & a Mountain

I can't even begin to describe how absolutely delicious the Guinness is in Ireland. It's a completely different drink than the US version.

View from the plane

Ireland vs. England

On my way to Ireland, someone explained to me the difference between the Irish and the British.


British people are polite, but not nice.

Irish people are nice, but not polite.

Three Cheers for the President with A Name Incredibly Convenient for Slogans

I watched T.V. for the first time since I got to Europe two nights ago.

Man, is the X Factor a great show.


Umm...just kidding.

As much as I love Sarah Palin jokes (fabulous parody available here), I'm so excited about the results of the election. It's amazing to see how excited everyone in London is, too. Being abroad for such an incredible event is such an interesting experience because you get to see an entirely different perspective. Yesterday, London-ers were giving Americans high-fives, just because they were American. Everyone was talking about the election and most people at my office had already watched Barack's speech before I came in in the morning.

Unfortunately, I only made it up until around 3 a.m. (an hour before Barack made his speech), so I watched the Daily Show recaps at work the next morning (I'm actually a great, hardworking employee. Coincidentally, I'm looking for a job...resume here).

Yesterday I also went on a really cool photo shoot for Uniqlo. The photographer used a thermal (heat-seeking) camera like the kind from National Geographic. Here's what the pictures look like:




A bit creepy...but posing in front of the camera was a lot of fun. At least you know I'm keeping it real in the LND.

And now, for your moment of zen...

Happy Halloween (ish)

I just got back from Stonehenge, which was great. The only problem was that the bus left at 8:45 am (clearly not an appropriate time to expect someone to be awake) and our tour guide really liked to talk........about nothing. So instead of instantly passing out as soon as I got on the bus, I got to hear the tour guide ramble on and on with such insightful tidbits as "Stonehenge is an incredible monument" and "It looks like all the Londoners are still in bed right now, but later they'll go get their Sunday papers.....that they won't finish reading until later that week!" Dear Lord. But after she eventually got tired of talking I zoned out until we got to Stonehenge.


It's such a weird landmark because it's in the middle of a bunch of roads......and also it's a bunch of rocks just arranged a pattern in the middle of a field. It was really cool to see, though, especially after all the new discoveries from this summer about how Stonehenge had been a burial site, how the stones probably weren't actually dragged hundreds of miles, and how Stonehenge is older than previously thought.


The reason I was so tired was because the night before my roommate and I had gone to a Halloween-themed British/European Pro Skateboarder Expo.


Really.

It was better than actual Halloween, which was a disappointment. People in England don't usually celebrate Halloween, and when they do it's nothing as great as it is in the US. But I did make sure there was Halloween-themed music at my work on Friday and "bloody" punch (made with Pepsi Max and some sort of berry syrup...very British-y).

My internship is going really well. The last week I was working on making a film for the game Wii Music that will be shown on the European Nintendo Channel on the Wii. In simpler terms, it's a video about a game that no one will watch. But here's the set:



And here's a boy getting his makeup done:


I got to be "Wii Music Band Manager," so I got to make the actors play these two songs (The Entertainer and Ode to Joy) over and over again for 6 hours. It was fairly torturous, but I can't really complain because I was just watching people play a video game.

When I don't go to my internship, I'm taking a class called "Architecture and Urbanism in London." It's great because we just get to walk around a lot and we usually end up at a museum so we can do that after class. Last week, in between seeing Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Trafalgar's Square I saw the official center of London,


and the official measurement of a foot.


Good times.