After I left my job I went to London for a long weekend to have a reunion with some friends I met in Tenerife in the Canary Islands this past December. It was really my first dose of freedom and reality hit when I didn't have to go to work on Monday. I found myself wandering through Camden market, eating deep-fried halloumi cheese, soaking it all in.

I had a previous trip home planned a few months earlier. I went back to Chicago to stand up in my best friend's wedding. I want to point out that I was the best man and absolutely killed my speech. I was very humbled by the amount of people that complemented me after talking for 10 and a half minutes. It really gave me a boost of confidence. Not to toot my own horn or anything...

It was great to be home for a while but I soon had the urge to get back on that plane. Less than a week back in Dublin I hopped on another plane to Munich. I ended up staying one night with a girl I met in a hostel during my first 2 weeks in Dublin. It was interesting to say the least and I found myself itching to get on a train to Berlin. I ended up taking a midnight train that would take 10 hours. It went from Munich to Frankfurt to Hannover to Berlin. Well, I ended up getting drunk before getting on the train and the ride started out a little rocky. I bought a few beers and met a drinking buddy on the train. We would hop out at every stop to take a puff or two of our cigs and hop back on before the doors closed. I had a few close calls where I almost sent my bag on a solo trip. I made the first connection and ended up sleeping through my second connection so spent an impromptu two hours in Hamburg. I had nothing but time so it didn't make a difference to me as long as I didn't have to pay extra for my mistake.

I ended up talking the ticket lady into letting me on the next train to Berlin free of charge. To be honest a little charm, a touch of innocence, and being respectful can take you far in life. So it was off to Berlin where the beginning of a love story would unfold and a potential situation with customs was avoided. But i'll get to that in my next post.