There's No Place Like Home

Yesterday I felt like Dorothy. I could finally understand that fictional character time honored statement. Even when she was surrounded with a yellow brick road and a wondrous place called Oz, she still missed Kansas. Why would you miss Kansas-- there's nothing special about that place. Except that it contains all the people that you love. So where I don't miss the cornfields or the flat lands of Illinois, yesterday for the first time, I missed home while being in Ireland. Now, its not a "pack my bags, I'm on the next plane out of here" kind of missing, so don't worry. I just didn't think I'd miss home while being in Ireland. I mean, it's pretty awesome.

On the flip side, I feel like I've experienced so much in the last two weeks. And opened my mind a little more each day. Last night, in Irish History, I found a new perspective on America as I listened to the history of this Emerald Isle. The colonization of Ireland by the British was often justified by describing the native inhabitants as barbaric. England used the differences in their lifestyle, in their economy, and in their religion to justify going to Ireland, taking over, and taking the natives' land. Their rationale was that they were helping these people, by showing them the "right" way of doing things, the English way, English law, English farming, etc. When you hear this, or at least when I heard it, the reaction is kind of like -Just leave them alone, and let them do what they want-. But England wouldn't, couldn't do that, because the Irish land was appealing, and their location was threatening to the continued safety of England. As I listened, I began to see the similarities between England and the United States. While I am as patriotic as they come, I wonder if sometimes the decisions and international policy that we enact isn't very similiar to the English colonization of Ireland. We justify it, claiming that we are bettering their lives, promoting freedom and economic prosperity, but really, are we just trying to gain land and power?

There's your international perspective for the day.

Otherwise, things are pretty quiet around here. I just got home from grocery shopping at Tesco. I ran out of peanut butter, so the trip was necessary. I stocked up on the essentials....yogurt, granola, clementines, frozen vegetables, cheese, granola bars. Then I made myself some lunch of makeshift mac & cheese...basically pasta with butter, milk, and cheek melted into a sauce of sorts. Going exploring again this weekend..maybe to Cork, maybe Howth, wherever the wind blows us.