Something Surreal

Well the new term has started back up at West Dean and I have been given a very curious object. It is an exhibition catalogue from a Salvador Dali exhibition....and boy is it a strange one. As you can see it is a figure made of hair with a drawer coming out of her face. To make matters even more surreal they decided to make her breasts flip open and show off little images of the work in the exhibition. Needless to say it is an interesting project...to say the least.

Bookie-palooza 2008

Ok, so I know that is the most LAME title EVER, but that's all I could think of. So today Sonia and I head off for a little road trip to Loughborough (no idea where that is) to attend the annual Society of Bookbinders Conference. (I know I'm lame) Anyway, people are requesting posts and I figure I should deliver, no matter how boring and close to losing the will to live I push you guys to.

So the Society of Bookbinders operates under the acronym SoB....I realize I am about 11 years old, but how funny is that? I think when your acronym makes inappropriate three letter words or acronyms for other less than PG phrases, maybe it's time to set that idea aside and go by your full name. Just had to get that out there because apparently I have yet to move up to the 5th grade.

Needless to say I will be away for a couple days and nowhere near a computer, but I just wanted to get something out there for M and J who have been telling me I am missed lately....thank you very much, I miss you too.

Snow in Brighton

Well I am currently staying in Brighton with Catherine while writing my really really boring paper for the MA that is due on my first day back from Easter break. On Friday Catherine told me that there was an arctic chill heading to England and that it would snow this weekend. I did not believe her at all, just assumed she was pulling my leg. Well I woke up yesterday morning greeted with a blanket of snow on everything and continued snow fall until about 3pm. CRAZY! Snow! In Brighton! In April!

Anyway, I know I promised to "up the funny" and this is in now way shape or form even remotely entertaining, but it was so unbelievable that I couldn't resist posting about it.

Dear Jenny,

I so swear that I will start blogging more often. Consider your invitation to up the funny accepted.

Love,
Kristi

Things I want to know

1. Did anyone see Dan in Real Life?
2. Was it any good?
3. What movies have I missed since Christmas that are worth seeing?
4. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Well while it did in no way come close to being as great an extravaganza as last years St. Patrick's Day party, we did manage to have some fun. Jenny is in town so we have been filling all of our time with fun activities. On Saturday Catherine, Jenny, Sarah and myself decided to go out to dinner and bowling. Our first game we played a normal game and by the second round we needed to spice things up a bit. So, we opted to do crazy bowling/regular (to ensure we knocked down a few pins). So we did things like the "reverse Granny" where you look through your legs and lob the ball down the lane. We bowled with our opposite hands, did a run and slide bowl and even gave under the leg bowling a good college try. Needless to say it was a very entertaining game with VERY low scores. Catherine managed to win with a score in the low 50's.

Taggie taggersoned

1) Where I was 10 years ago:

A junior at Plano Senior High School. Most likely sitting in the back row of a choir rehearsal or taking part in some sort of shenanigans with Jackie and Megan.

2) 5 things on my “to do list” today (today is over, so I'm going for tomorrow):
1. Email Katy

2. Put leather corners of my rebound copy of Nicholas Nickleby

3. Make a survey to send out to pop-up book makers

4. Gather research for 1st MA paper

5. Sleep

3) Things I would do if I became a billionaire:
Buy a stately home in England, a vacation house in Belize, a yacht with full crew to haul my ass around the world in luxury (don't worry you're all invited), a couple thousand shares in the Nordstrom Corporation, a new wardrobe including shoes and accessories, all the kit for my own conservation studio, plus the space in a scenic South England location with full views of the South Downs. Ok, lets be frank, I could do this all day, but I'm gonna stop now.

4) 3 Of my Bad Habits:
1. Procrastinating

2. Listening to someone give me driving directions and pretending I understand when I have no idea what they are talking about

3. Texting far too much

5) 5 places I’ve lived:

1. Plano, Texas
2. Provo, UT
3. Pilot Point, TX
4. London, England
5. West Dean, England

6) 5 Jobs I’ve had:

1. Gravel sweeper for Steve Westberg
2. Baker for some random start-up company in Utah
3. Financial assistant for BYU
4. Graphic Designer for Sebo Marketing
5. Conservation intern at the Guildhall, London

7) Something Most People Don’t Know About Me:
Last week I conducted a single person parade to celebrate the completion of Sonia's big conservation project, complete with marching, singing, and flailing of arms.

I know this is boring, but.....

I thought you all might want to see some of the things I have made and repaired during my time at West Dean. I recently applied for an internship at the Library of Congress and had an interview that went really well. As a result they asked me to send images of my work and due to their large file size I was forced to set up a flickr account in order to be able to send them everything I wanted to show. So if you are REALLY bored and want to see some old and new books go here and take a look.

Lookie!

Well as I've told a couple of you Jackie and I learned how to knit over Christmas break from a random lady in a shop. Well a mere two months later I have made one hat that would only fit a small child or a pinhead AND this little baby.

My degree in pop-up books

Well, I'm sure you don't want to hear any more about my actual academic experience at West Dean, but the MA portion of my program started this week and I thought I would tell you what I'm getting an MA in. Pop-up books. That's right, I am getting a degree in the repair of pop-up books. Don't get me wrong there is a science to this stuff and I will be performing loads of tests on repair methods and what not, but I think it's hilarious that I'm focusing my degree on something so cool. So far I have visited a couple places with pop-up collections and I thought I would show you some of the cool stuff I have seen.

Lots of Books

Well my work placement has ended...sadly. To be honest I didn't even want to come back to West Dean, although now that I'm here it's not so bad. I spent six weeks working in the Guild Hall in London which means I was right next to St. Paul's Cathedral. Everyday I got up at 6am got ready and was at the train station in Brighton by 7am to take the train to London. It takes about 90 minutes to get there, but luckily that gave me lots of time to catch up on lots of reading. I managed to read the three Philip Pullman books The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, The Life of Pi, The Kite Runner, and Withering Heights. And all along I have been reading Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You). Needless to say a lot of reading was accomplished in my 3 hour a day commute.

I managed to get lots of work done while I was there, three books were conserved and about 40 pamphlets, so not too shabby. I think the best part about working there was the people, they were fantastic. Everyday Paul, Paul, Alberto and I would go across the street to Pret for a nice coffee and maybe a little snack and a nice chat. Everyone was really nice and friendly which always makes a job more enjoyable. Honestly I'm not really sure what to say about the placement that won't bore you all to tears, but I did have a great time and I am going to miss being there and being in London again. Ok, I'm done now, I will move on to more interesting things from here on out...promise.

Finally!

Well as you might have noticed I have been a little abscent from the blogging scene as of late. This is because I was doing a work placement at The Guild Hall in London. As my first trial by fire I was handed this lovely piece of work which had been severely eaten by mold. (Sorry if I'm boring you already) Anyway I had to repair the vellum and remove the cover from the old boards and make a new case for the manuscript. I t ended up looking like this:


Ok, I promise that's all I'll bore you with for now and I will fill everyone in on the actual placement and goings-on of my time there, but I just wanted to post a little bit to get the previous post off the top of my blog and appease Annalise who might die if it does not change soon. :)

Jammers and Windy Pops

If you recall this summer I told many of you stories about jam. It seemed to be a running theme at West Dean for a while that kept cropping up. I told Jill about "jammers" this summer and she immediately latched on to the idea and even came up with several new ways of using the word. Well since I've been home I have had the privilege of meeting Alex for the first time and got a real kick out of him being called "Tooters" by his mother. This is a very appropriate nickname......as in if you hold him you are destined to be tooted on more times than you ever have in your life. This made me think of my new favorite British phrase "windy pops", doesn't take much imagination to figure out what that means. I knew Jill would get a real kick out of that one and sure enough she has started to say things like it's "windy pops jammers".

Four Girls and a Baby

"sittin' in my office with a plate of grilled bacon"

I can NOT get that line of Michael Scott's traing video out of my head! Have I mentioned I've watched series three of The Office all the way through plus ALL the bonus features and commentaires at least 4 times since school started?! I clearly need to bring back more dvds.

Dear Readership,

It's been a while, but the good news is I'm leaving for Texas tomorrow!

Love,
Kristi

Maroon 5 Concert

Well last night I had a little night out in Brighton and finally got to cash in my Maroon 5 tickets! It was quite a different experience from the last time I saw them in the McKay Event Center in Provo, Utah where their show included a sizable banner and a couple lights. This round they had a huge light board behind them, a giant Maroon 5 logo that changed color, loads of lights, huge screens, smoke, some MAJOR amplification and much much more. I gotta say of all the guys in the band I have a new found love for the keyboard guy Jesse Carmichael who showed up wearing a pink button up and always seemed to be sitting at his keyboard playing one finger at a time but doing so VERY well. The concert went by far to quickly and after one oncore the house lights came up and immediatly people with hard hats swooped in to take down their kit. All in all a little too short for my taste, but a good concert none the less.

Mouldy Stuff

Well for the last week or so I have been trying to work up the strength to write a 3000 word essay about moisture and its effects on books. Needless to say I only have about 1200 words so far and am struggling to keep going. May the gods of bookbinding and mould give me the strength to keep going and finish this baby off.

Lookie lookie

Every year at West Dean the students in each department make a raffle prize in order to raise money for the Christmas party. This year each bookie made a photo album, and here is mine. Just thought you might want to see a little something I've done lately.

Somethine I love about England

When people here say the word "boogie" they pronounce it like this "boo--gie". As in they say boo and add gie to the end of the word, unlike us Americans who would make more of a U sound. Anyway, I woke up to the song "I found a place, where we can boogie. Boogie tonight" and the radio DJ kept saying "boo--gie" over and over again. Fantastic!

A Phone Call Between Catherine and I

Catherine: Well, Chicken, I'll talk to you later.
Me: Did you just call me a chicken?
Catherine: Ummm...yes.
Me: From now on you will be known as Turkey Leg

*Apparently in Ireland calling someone a "chicken" is a nice thing....interesting.

Fingerless gloves?

I made a purchase today, and that purchase was a pair of fingerless gloves. When I actually take the time to think this concept over I can't help but think that these things are the bastard children of a nice normal practical pair of ACTUAL gloves. I realize that it is the point of gloves to keep your hands warm, and that your fingers are the integral portion of your hands, so why would anyone need a pair of gloves sans fingers? The answer is I have no idea, and probably never will, however when I saw these a couple weeks ago a little virus entered my brain telling me I needed these babies, and today I gave in and bought a pair. After a day like the one I had yesterday fingerless gloves just seemed to be the only remedy...after chocolate and a nice viewing of The Blues Brothers.

Dear Kanye,

I'm sorry man.

Love,
Kristi

Birthday Report

Well, it's official, I'm 26. As of yesterday I lept over the hurdle that is 25 and began my progression towards the big 30. As Jackie put it I'm in my "late 20's" and am now quickly approaching the great dirt nap....and I am 10 months closer to that nap than Jackie. It was a good day filled with sweets, cards, phone calls and a fantastic Thai meal. I went out with Catherine, Sonia and Stephen and then drinks with a bunch of other people from West Dean. All in all it was an excellent day that could only had been made better if a few of you were there too.

My Pet Snail

Well since I moved back into my room this year there has been a little yellow snail slowly circulating around the panes of one of my windows. In true English tradition I have decided to share my space with him and embrace nature....if it were pretty much any other bug this would not be true, but oh well. Today when I opened my window he was stretched out further from his shell than normal and to my dismay he started heading for the other side of the window. After nearly 5 weeks of making his way around the window he decided to head out, I'm not gonna lie I was pretty sad. Luckily moments later he realized just how lucky he was to be my roommate and came crawling back to me.

Decorated Papers

Well last week was one of those full on jam packed weeks. All of the postgraduate students were on a decorated paper course which taught us all sorts of things, 0ne of which was that when I grow up I want to make decorated papers. We learned several techniques including suminagashi (bless you), traditional marbling, block printing, guilt papers, and paste paper. It ended up being a really good course that was very tiring as we worked from 9am to 10pm. Here are some of my favorite papers I produced.

My attempt at a traditional stone pattern

A fun paste paper

A form of marbling called Ebru where you make pictures with the marble

Suminagashi

A Party to Remember

Well the West Dean Halloween party took place this weekend and it did not disappoint. Here are some pictures of the costumes.

Catherine as a witch and Sarah as a gargoyle

Alex

Removing my brain freeze

Zack in his sweet mask

Matt, Catherine and Julie

The costume contest

You can't milk an oat

Catherine and I were in this really cute tea room this weekend drinking yummy hot beverages and enjoying the lovely atmosphere when I started perusing the menu. One of the beverages had the option of coming with "oat milk" what is oat milk? You can't milk an oat....can you?

I miss you Michael Scott

A dyer situation has come upon me. As many of you most likely know The Office is no longer sold on iTunes....wtf?! And the completely illegal highly questionable web site that I was watching copy-write questionable versions on has been shut down....AND all the episodes that were posted in segments on YouTube have been removed. NBC you are killing me. What are poor Americans living abroad supposed to do in this situation?! I think you should stream the episodes so that people in foreign countries can still view the show online....PLEASE!

A decision has been made

Well I figured out what I'm going to be for this Halloween party that is taking place on Saturday night. After much thought and consideration I have decided to be the guy from the game Operation. This will involve sticking various pieces to myself such as the "breadbasket" and the "Charlie Horse" and somehow attaching one of those cyclists flashing red lights to my nose. Needless to say it's going to be a pretty kick-a/jankity costume. I will be sure to post pictures and share the entertainment with you all.

Another Herd of Dog Deer

This weekend Catherine and I took a little day trip to a place called Knole, another run of the mill stonking British home filled with history and antiques. The house was fantastic and had loads of conservation going on which is interesting to the two of us. The house contains some of the oldest original textiles in the country (which I must say are really worn and a bit ugly but textiles are quite fragile). The most exciting thing about the visit was that the house has a deer park much like Petworth House had. You may remember a previous post about "dog deer", well this time I was able to feed one of them. We had some dried berries in the car for a snack and lucky for us dog deer happen to love dried berries, so one of them ate them from our hands!

Dear Readership,

How cute are they?!

Love, Kristi

Help!

A couple people are hosting a Halloween party in a week or so and everyone is dressing up as something. Other than the obvious choice of Georgia O'Keefe, what could I go as? I would like to go as something funny, but several people have insisted I go as something scary....I'm not too sure I can pull off scary, but I would be willing to give it a try should I be unable to generate anything funny. Any suggestions?

Mandolin Extraordinare

Well as usual West Dean has started providing me with interesting situations. The other night I was watching this show about "wild food" or in other words a show about people scavenging for things in the wild that you can find and eat should you desire a break from the grocery store. Anyway, I was watching this show when several people came into the common room with an assortment of instruments, everything from a french horn to an elecrtic guitar.

So someone hands me a mandolin in order to include me in on the band practice. Needless to say I have no idea how to play the mandolin and after several heinus F minor cords I opted out of the job. Instead I sang along to a song called Down with Bonaparte while the following instruments played along: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard, french horn, bass, and to top it all off a dulcimer. It's times like these that make me love this place, where else would that happen?

Bobble Head

A very exciting purchase was made this weekend. There have been a few cold days here in jolly old England the past couple weeks and my head and ears have been feeling the burn. SO, I decided to make it my goal to find a new winter hat and was lucky enough to find this little baby in the streets of Brighton this weekend.

The really amazing thing about this hat is that I tried it on one year ago in the same shop with Jackie and took a picture of us in the mirror to document the event. Well, less than a year later I was back there trying to make a serious decision about which color scheme looked best and was in need of being purchased. So after many many trials I ended up with the dark pinkie red one with the big blue bobble. Of course it's not nearly cold enough to wear it now, but soon enough I'm sure I will be bobbling around West Dean in my new cozy hat.

I'm an Aunt...AGAIN!

Say hello to little Alex! He was born on Friday and weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces. What a cutie!

The Threatdown

Well a threat has been made and a response is necessary. Someone…. I won’t name names, made a comment that if I did not blog lickity-split they would begin a very serious fast. One similar in seriousness to a somewhat famous person called Gandhi or a young man who goes by the name Jesus (sorry so sacrilegious). A fast so serious it would no doubt require removing this link from their blog and perhaps even clearing her browser cache in order to remove the temptation.

Well I would hate to lose this particular member of my readership and I must admit I have some doubts as to the actual strength of this person coming through with the threat, but just in case she was truly determined I felt I must blog to appease her.

In keeping with my love of list making I decided to make a little list of some of my favorite moments from week one (these are in on particular order):

1. Sonia falling asleep during the fire talk…these people are obsessed with fire.
2. Figuring out the limits of Sonia’s label maker…my favorite label was in a waving banner, with shadowed and outlined text…nice.
3. Singing about a “salty dog” in the bar with the jug band
4. Gold tooling sentences like “Sonia is a riot” and “ititt isti sit rato”
5. Joining a queue on the streets of Brighton without actually knowing what it was for…just saw a queue and joined, no questions. Then when Catherine and I got to the front we just sat there bumbling like idiots to the person who was apparently handing out parking permits
6. Learning the ins and outs of the new icemaker in the bar. Who knew someone could be so excited about a little frozen water, but he has even managed to name the parts, one of them being “Scoop”.

All in all it was a good first week and I’m hoping the next 12 only get better.

Something I saw recently

A Visit to the Bennetts

Sorry it's been so long and let me begin this post by saying that there will be no pictures for a little while, but yesterday Catherine and I visited the house she is working on, Groombridge Place...the Bennett's house in Pride & Prejudice.

It was a fun trip, and although the house is currently covered in scaffolding because it is being worked on it was still fun to see. The house is surrounded by an "Enchanted Forest" which was filled with things like a dragon's nest, a serpent's lair, a mystic pool and even a little village called Mossy Bottom. Whoever came up with all of the little spots along the way must have had a real hoot coming up with not only the places but the very entertaining sign posts. After walking around a standing stone backwards three times were were able to make a wish, then we walked a double spiral in order to find ourselves and we also had the opportunity to see into the future through the mystic pool...all in all a pretty good day superstition-wise.

Leaving on a jet plane

Well I leave today to return to England. I had a fantastic summer filled with lots of visits and even more shenanigans. Just wanted to let the readership know that I will be out of the blogging commission for a little bit, but have no fear I will return as soon as I can sit myself down and get my computer up and running.

A hotdog....really?

We all have moments in life that we would like to forget. After seeing pictures of Katy and her sisters growing up I decided to look through some of my old pictures and boy did I find some real gems. Take for example this little beauty.Yes, that is me. Not only am I sporting a red and white striped belly shirt, but I was somehow convinced to pose triumphantly with a hotdog in my hand. Part of me is incredibly embarrassed that this was caught on film, and yet another much larger part is a little proud that this picture is in existence.
Next comes the phase of my life where I was obsessed with dance. This Polaroid (can I just say that I love that this was caught on instant film) is of me and some girl (no idea who that is) at dress rehearsal. Notice the extensive use of blush and red lipstick, nice. I am also fond of the sequined pillbox hat.Now this one is a phase in my life that I REALLY wish never happened. Jackie and I were discussing how when we’ve met new people in new places we conveniently leave out minor details of our lives. Let me tell you my membership on the 98’ Jasper Jazz drill team is one of those things that may be left out of my past from time to time. Again, more sequins not to mention fringe.This final one is by FAR the most amazing family picture in existence. Where to begin?! Lets start with the fro my mom is sporting, love it. Now move on to Jenna’s awesome shirt complete with an embroidered medal that I can only assume she won for wearing such awesome shorts. Moving further to the right is Jill wearing a festive belt made of curly ribbon and what I believe are Z. Cavaricci jean shorts. Once again I am in a red and white striped ensemble luckily this one is a little less revealing than the previous. And to top it all off my dad is dressed as the spitting image of Uncle Sam if he was beardless, bald and preparing to lead the Plano 4th Ward 4th of July Bike Parade. I LOVE THIS PICTURE!

Hope you enjoyed the memories, I know I did.

Yo, I'm in the booth

Well you saw all of Jenny's photo booth pictures and I just wanted to add one of my own.

An amazing conversation:

Jackie: (listing her movies) The Kid
Me: I love that movie!
Jackie: Really!?
Me: The one with Bruce Willlis?
Jackie: No, the one with Charlie Chaplin...
Me: Clearly we have different tastes in movies.

Something I gotta know

I've been catching up on my Colbert and he is wearing a cast-type wrap around his wrist, what happened to him?

Junktiques

My mom and I stopped at a "junktique" yard on the way home from Kentucky and boy was I amazed at all the crap this place had. I mean look at it! Have you ever seen so much crap piled outside like this with such pride?! It was truly amazing. I took some pictures of a couple things I found interesting:
I never realized just how huge a stop light was until I was standing looking down at this baby. I mean it's HUGE!As I walked through the endless piles of stuff I came across this table filled with old fans and I couldn't stop thinking of Pottery Barn, people pay good money for crap like this and here it was baking in the Kentucky sun just waiting to be sold.

Another Sweatshop

Well this weekend I visited my sister Jill in Louisville, Kentucky. The real reason for the visit was her baby shower which took place on Saturday and turned out just fantastic. She got lots of stuff for little Alex and is well on her way to being prepared for his grand arrival. Jill also decided to take up quilting what with her extra time and recruited me to help her with the job. After many many "jammers" situations and sewing machine troubles we managed to knock up this little baby in a day and a half, not too shabby. Anyway, it was a great weekend and I'm really happy I got to see her.

A Little Trespassing

Well last night I fulfilled a little goal of mine. There is this really amazing property near my parents house and on that property there is a dead tree. The owners must have decided it would be a grand idea to decorate their loss with a bunch of brightly painted chairs hung from the branches, because that’s exactly what they did. So with a little bravery I hopped the fence and took some pictures of this VERY interesting sight. It was fun, and a little exciting.

Life Changing

Well this weekend I took a little trip to Utah...again. I was exposed to many many new and interesting things, the choicest of which was a little game called Guitar Hero. The above picture shows me doing some serious shredding and raising my goblet to the gods of rock.....right.

Anyway, I had an amazing weekend filled with lots of movies (Hot Fuzz, Super Bad, Knocked Up, The Simpsons Movie and The Prestige). When all of those are listed together it seems as though I have quite poor taste in movies, wow. Rio was eaten a couple times as well as some really good sushi, poker was played and some]video games. All of those things aside it was fantastic to see some people I have missed very much, Annalise, Kristin, Jackie, Adam, Kaleb, and Kelly. Good times guys, I had a blast.

Quick Question

If you had one hand in your pocket what would the other one be doing?

Strange things in Texas

I was driving through Pilot Point today and noticed a huge billboard that said: "quality stud seaman" it's not everyday you see something like that advertised quite so boldly. Sometimes I love the country.

I Heart Ireland

Well I posted several days ago claiming to tell stories about my trip to Ireland. After sending out pictures my momentum seems to have struggled, however I will now make an effort so share some of my travel stories. I feel like I’ve told most of you these stories so bare with me if you already know this stuff. There were many highlights and plenty of craic (pronounced crack…and means fun) as they say in Ireland. Because we drove there I had plenty of time and opportunity to take in all the Emerald Island as it’s called. The scenery was beautiful and filled with lots of rolling green hills and mountains broken up by many many stones. It was amazing to see how many castle ruins we passed along the way, there were far too many to count.

The road from Rosslare to Galway brought lots of stops. My favorite was probably the cliffs of Mohr. I’ve seen ocean cliffs before, but these were unlike any I have ever seen, steep, with lots of inlets and very green. Catherine’s family lives in Galway, a city directly West of Dublin on the opposite coast. We spent most of our time in Galway in search of the craic and were able to find it in many forms:

One night we met a street performer called Todd who proclaimed several times that he was from Detroit. He managed to put himself in a straight jacket and wrap himself in chains, then climb to the top of a ladder and get out of his little predicament.

We went and listened to traditional Irish music (diddly-aye) in a pub and I got to watch as an Irish man decided he fancied Catherine…very entertaining.

We went on a little walk along the coast and I got to take part in a Galway tradition of kicking the wall at the end.

I was also able to impart my love of basketball and air hockey on Catherine at the local game center where I earned the high score on the basketball shoot-out game…not too shabby.

Next we headed to Dublin for a couple days and stayed in the home of two of Catherine’s friends Maggie and Roisin (pronounced Rosheen). They have been slowly redecorating the place and it is really cute. In Dublin we tried to visit the Natural History Museum but found that it was closed for remodeling so we went to the National Gallery instead. We ran into Sonia and Stephen on the street and had a fun meal at The Hard Rock Café (Sonia’s favorite), which was fun. Most of our time was spent walking around the city which I really enjoyed. Our last day there we decided since I’m doing book conservation I should see the Book of Kells at Kings College. We managed to get in for free because we arrived just before they were closing so the man working the till where you pay told us to go on and go in without paying. The books were beautifully illuminated with gold and other natural pigments. I would have to say the more impressive sight was The Long Room where hundreds of volumes are stored.

On our way out of the city we stopped in the equivalent of New York’s Central Park (but in Dublin). A herd of deer lives in the park and we (by we I mean Catherine) were able to find them and get very close to them. I had never heard a deer make a sound before and am here to tell you that their voices are not pretty. The young ones sounded a little like cats crying and the older mothers made a sound that I cannot even begin to describe.

After that we headed back to Galway and the following day I flew back to England for a night and then back home. It was an excellent trip and if you ever have the opportunity to visit Ireland I would strongly recommend it.

You find out something new everyday.

Yesterday I found out several things about my eyes. For example, my cornea is very thin…I always new there was a part of me that could be described as thin, however I never thought it would be the light refracting portion of my eye. I was also informed that I have very large pupils, which I feel cancels out the newfound thin body part (if a cornea qualifies as a body part). They give me thin cornea and immediately take it away by telling me my pupils are large. And man did they prove the whole large pupil thing by dilating my eyes as you can see in the picture above. Those babies are huge!