Corrib Sunrise

Gorgeous sunrise on the River Corrib near the Claddagh

Posted via email from James Britton's Interwebs Firehose

Nun's Island, Galway

Oileán Ealtanach

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Exams are finished

What a relief! Exams are done and I can stop studying!

Exams in Ireland

Exams in Ireland, and I think in most European institutions for that matter, constitute the bulk of your grade for a course. In most cases, the 2 or 3 hour exam accounts for 100% of your marks! Talk about pressure... I had four exams in the past week, two of them counted for 100%, one was for 70% and the other for 60% of my course grades. Needless to say, I think I got a few more gray hairs and a few more wrinkles around my eyes from studying, on top of my research.

It's been a huge challenge for us this year: moving the entire family to a foreign country, selling our home in St. Louis, taking out student loans to pay for 100% of our expenses, moving to a new apartment after the first 3 months of living in overpriced hell (make sure you do not agree to lease a place without physically examining it first like we did!), managing a three year old that gets sick all the time because of the Galway water problem that was only announced about 1 month ago but was apparently kept secret for most of the time we've lived here. This certainly has make it difficult for me to boycott bottled water lately...

Great Craic

Sorry for the rant, but not all was bad about our first several months here. We've had some great craic in the Galway pubs. And, we've met some fabulous people from all over the world right here in little old Galway City. I had to say goodbye today to a German girl that shared the same passion, perhaps even more so, for economics as me. Best of luck Fran! I'm also going to have many more goodbyes in the coming days as many of us will part ways. So tonight, I will celebrate with some great craic, pints, and a football match at The King's Head tonight.

Thanks for your patience during my blackout on this blog for the past several days.

Slainte!

Jimmy CraicHead TV visits Galway

I've been up to my ears in alligators lately but I decided to take a bit of a break from my research to meet up with a fellow video blogger from Philadelphia last week and have some great craic . We had fun geeking out about Macs, blogs, and politics.

John Coffey, aka Jimmy CraicHead, and his girlfriend Samantha, aka Demanda Diamond, came to Ireland during Easter and visited Galway and the surrounding area for a few days to experience the real Ireland. John rang me when they got into town and we met at my favorite pub, The King's Head. Jimmy and Samantha interviewed me about living in Galway and produced a wonderful segment titled Galway Craic and Guinness Beer.

This and Jimmy CraicHead's other videos are professionally produced and edited and look great for a part time blogger. Galway Craic and Guinness Beer features some great shots of the River Corrib, Galway City, Clifden, and Connemara with Irish trad music in the background. Jimmy and Demanda Diamond (a play on Amanda Congdon) are a perfect video blogging duo, traveling the US and the rest of the world in search of interesting people.

JCHTV is not your average video travel blog and Jimmy and Demanda have put together some great segments. I've got loads of video footage from my travels here in Ireland as well, but as Jimmy and I discussed it's difficult to produce a polished segment. JCHTV makes it look easy! Just don't laugh at my terrible interview skills. Let me know what you think of the video and check out the others at JCHTV.

Here's to John and Samantha...may your travels take you far. It was great to meet you and the hangover was worth it. Slainte!

Up to my ears in alligators...

In case you don't know...that means I'm freakin' busy.

I am coming down to the last few days of my gasoline tax research paper, which is due this Friday afternoon. I apologize to my regular readers for the decrease in posts lately but I hope you will understand. At least twitter has helped me stay in touch with the Twitter Tools plugin.

With all this writing lately, I think I need a study break tonight and someone has come to the rescue. Jimmy CraicHead, aka John Coffey, recently commented on a few of my posts including this one about craic. He was Googling around and found my blog when planning for his trip to Ireland this week. Jimmy contacted me when he arrived here and now we're going for a pint tonight at The King's Head!

I can't say that I've ever met anybody online before but thanks to my blog and twitter, I will be meeting a popular video blogger from Philadelphia. He just rang me and we are grabbing a pint at the King's Head at 6 pm tonight if anyone wants to enjoy some craic. Jimmy will be interviewing me for his next installment.

What a strange, exciting and connected world we live in these days!