"Atlantic"

It's been so long, and tin cans and string for years
Is all that we've known, could it be you're really here

'cause my eyes are open, and everything still moves in slow-motion,
reathless and blue, and behind your eyes the sea
oceans of light envelop me

But things can't be as they seem, I'm so far from home
this must be another dream, but my eyes are open

We move for all mankind, a million miles from everything we've ever known
and we're on their hearts and minds, a million heads are bowed to bring us safely home
Hemmed in by emptiness, a million ways that everything could be undone
this hollow in my chest is filled with reasons not to sing but I found one, I know

We are not alone, we feel an unseen love
We are sons and heirs of grace
We are children of a light that never dims
A love that never dies, keep your chin up child
and wipe the tears from your eyes

In sleep we saw ourselves, a million years we had been waiting there it seems
while someone weaves a spell, a million stars look on in witness to our dreams

We feel an unseen love
We are children of light
Stand ready and tall, reflect the light

Will I see them November 13th? I hope so. 

It's just so surreal that I've been gone in Europe around 35 days. The longer it went on the more I was forgetting certain things of home life. It was an adventure being with my mom that long, but I thankfully got through. As hard as I try I will never be able to walk her pace. Anyways, I thought it was cool that, with a lot of patience, and a good rental car, you can get anywhere in Europe that you choose. 5 hours of driving goes by faster than you think. Driving through the Alps was a really neat experience. One thing I learned is that when ordering pepperoni pizza, you don't actually get pepperoni. You get actual peppers. Full on huge peppers. Happened in Germany and Italy. Berchtesgaden was the highlight of the trip. That whole area was really beautiful. Country that I really don't want to go back to is Italy. Yeah I saw Maranello, and yeah we saw Venice(which wasn't that awesome as some people say), but the Italien people overall just aren't that nice, or should I say upbeat. Just not very positive people. The people we encountered anyways. I had my best meal of my life in Dublin, at this place called the Steps of Rome. It was this riggatoni with parmasean, cream, eggs, and bits of ham. It was food nirvana for me. And the dessert I had afterwords just sent me higher.

Now its onto a job, and in January, college life. That was quite a trip.

We have arrived at O'Hare airport in Chicago. Thank God. Then had a 5-hour driving journey ahead of us. Now I'm home. 

View out over the Atlantic. Seemed like there was clouds the whole way home. Plane ride was quite boring. But the food was really good!!! 

A street singer in the Temple Bar district of Dublin. We watched him for like 45 minutes. Man was he good. Reminded me of Jason Mraz. Sang some newer songs and some older ones. Mom loved him. 

"Good to be back home." Sure was good to be back in Dublin, after the airport fiasco.  

Nightime decending into Dublin. View of the River Liffey on a bridge.  

Arc De Triumph. Mom went absolutely nuts when she saw this. The round-a-bout that goes around it is an absolute nightmare to go through.  

First up close view of the Eiffel Tower. On our way to the airport we stopped into downtown Paris to check out the sites. And this was one of them. 

This was my bed at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris. Yep, on the floor.  

Ok, so before the trip my mom books plane tickets from Dublin to Paris, and at the end of our trip from Paris to Dublin, where three days later we would fly back to Chicago. Well, from Dublin to Paris there was no problem. The plane was really small, but there was no problem putting our huge luggage onto the plane. We would be using the same plane on our way from Paris to Dublin. Well, end of trip comes near. We arrive at Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris on Thursday night. Our plane leaves Paris the next morning at 10:15. We get about 1 hour of sleep the whole night, and at 8:00am the next morning, we decide to check our luggage in. We get up to the counter, give them our passports and tickets, and a few moments later, the lady tells us that the tickets we have entail us to have only 20 Kilograms total of luggage. Thats how much total we can have for each of us. She says that even though the flight from Dublin to Paris was alright with our luggage, there was a ticket "change," and now there is a luggage weight restriction. We put some of our luggage up on the belt to be weighed, and one of my mom's carry-on's alone weighed 19 Kg. Allowed 20 total!!! We still had 4 huge, stuffed suitcases to be weighed. My suitcase weighed 27 Kg. She then told us it would cost 6 Euros per extra Kg to send. She then weighed the rest of our luggage, and it came out to 98 extra kg!!!! Thats 588 Euros!!! Ahhhhhh!!! Mom is asking them why there was a ticket change. During the time she booked the tickets it never told her there was a ticket "change." Lady says its the travel agency's matter, and not Air France's. By this time my mom had had enough; I won't even tell you the state she was in:( The French bastard of a lady then tells us that we can book a flight on another plane for later in the day, but she wasn't sure if we would have to buy new tickets; wasn't sure if we could just transfer our tickets. We trudge along with our luggage to the Air France ticketing lines or whatever and they tell my mom that she would have to buy new tickets. We then consider sending stuff home through the Post Office. We go downstairs and get into the airport Post Office and ask one of the ladies if they had some big boxes we could send lots of our luggage in. Nope; the biggest box they had was the size of a laptop carrying case. We then got out of there, and just stopped, because we had no idea what to do. Its now like 9:30am, and we have no idea what to do. I decide we should call my dad, to see if he can syphon money into my mom's credit accout or whatever, and we go do it. Of course, after a little bit we realize thats it like 1 or 2 in the morning at home, and why would my dad answer the phone? So after calling like 2 other people, with no luck, and with me nearly breaking down too along with my mom, she reluctantly go to the baggage people again and pays the 588 Euros, which is like $700 or $800 dollars. We then rush through the carry on baggage check, we seems to take forever, because they check our passports THWICE, and check my mom's purse THWICE. Its now like 10:05am, and we book it down to our gate, to only find our boarding has been delayed like 15 minutes. Ug. We were just so pissed. Really pissed. Fucking french. I wanted to poop on the conveyor baggage belt thing. After that fiasco our last 3 days went really well. Now I'm at home, chilling on the laptop, in a house that now has WiFi! Woo!!!

View from inside the cockpit. Its me watching my racing as usual. 

On our way to Dijon, France. Nice, open roads. 

Porsche 911. In the streets of Augsburg. Yeah... 

Like these cute little things. They loved this little kid's food. They made these cute sounds. I wanted to take one home. Being a duck would be cool. 

Lake that is near castle Neuschwanstein. Had lots of duckies. 

A view out of our balcony in Augsburg, Germany. Doriant Novotel 

Where I'm at this moment. In the lobby of the Doriant Novotel in Augsburg, Germany. 

Nice lookin' Audi TT. Pretty small looking brakes though. 

First time seeing this. 

Outside was more interesting than the inside. Didn't even complete the inside those stupid heads. 

Look at me! Full of happiness! Right. 

View of car related merchandise shop in Maranello, Italy. It was sooooooooooo hard to get myself out of these shops. Just too much stuff. All of the shops were just screaming, "Tom. Look in here! More stuff for you to buy! Come come!". Ug. 

A Ferrari 430. Saw many Ferrari's going around town, including what looked like a 612 Scaglietti with a bunch of spy crap materials all around the body. 

The Bar Cavallino, which was connected to the Cavallino restaurant, which wasn't open at the time. Lady serving in the bar said it opened at 7:30, but we didn't have time to wait, so we had some drinks. Place is right across from the factory. One of the two famous diners in town. Forgot the name of the other one. 

View of the workers at the Ferrari plant leaving for the day. Still hasn't hit me that I was actually in front of the factory.  

This should fit into my 1991 Cadillac Deville engine compartment shouldn't it?