It's not you, it's me...and the fact that I'm seeing Wordpress

Hey everyone --

I've decided to ditch Blogger, as far as this blog goes, and move on over to Wordpress. All the old posts are there, but according to my beta tester (AKA my mother), it's easier for her to navigate and it's also easier for me to make pretty and keep track of.

So, from now on, you can find me at: http://dublincityyank.wordpress.com/

Slainte!

Let it...well, whatever

You can't really tell, but that man is running like he's running for his life.

One of the saddest things about my moving to Ireland and my parents moving away from Buffalo was that I was pretty convinced I wouldn't see snow again for the foreseeable future.

My parents were sick enough of shoveling out the car every day for six months that they were thrilled at the prospect of their first 60-degree winter, but for most of my Buffalonian life, I had been able to enjoy all the snow-related fun while encountering none of the responsibilities. I never had to dig out a car, plow a driveway, or try to drive to work on an ice-covered road.

Instead, I got build snow fort after snow fort, or, when I got older, I could sit safe and warm indoors and drink hot chocolate while watching a fresh few inches slowly cover the crusty old slush lining the streets. It's no wonder that the one sound that can take me instantly back to my childhood is the sound of a snowplow.

This is the view from my kitchen window. The DART station almost looks pretty with all that snow.

Today we got snow in Dublin -- well, not really snow. Snow Irish-style, maybe. According to everyone I have talked to, it rarely snows over here. Especially in Dublin, as we are really close to the River Liffey and the Irish Sea, two large bodies of water that make extreme weather really incredibly rare. So while a blizzard was clearly out of the question, we somehow have managed to get probably two inches of snow-like hail in the past 18 hours.

Whether this is something to celebrate, or if 18 hours of hail actually signals the end of the world, I'm not sure. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the view.