Tacoma!

Whoah, it's been forever since I've updated. My apologies for that. I figured "what's the point" of having a blog after the marathon that was Ireland and Europe, but then I also thought to myself "hey, getting thoughts down for family, friends, and complete strangers is always fun"..so here we are. For those of you still checking this site, feel free to leave comments, though I think alot of you are also going "What's the point? He's not in Europe now."

Well, I'm in Tacoma. It's not quite Galway, but it's still nice. I spent four days at home before I headed over to Tacoma for my internship. Home was great. Mom made me breakfast the next day which I had missed severely (they don't do pancakes, eggs, and bacon over in Ireland) so I ate heartily and then visited Grandma and Grandpa over at Badger Lake. It was great to see them, and they're still full of energy and fun. It old them about my Fitzpatrick Quest and they were pretty happy to hear about my adventures. All in all it was great to be home, I also saw Adam and we did our mandatory "Laser Quest and a movie" hangout with an all you can eat pizza buffet interspersed. It's amazing how much more we eat here, which I'm also started to realize.

Well I arrived in Tacoma four days afterwards, mom and Dad came with me and helped me move into my house, which turned out to be pretty pleasant. I have my own room overlooking a busy street and DSL internet access, so no complaints here.

The internship is on a building right next to Stadium Highschool, which was where the chick-flick teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You" was shot. The building itself is very nice, it was built in the early 1900s, so it has columns, and the interior is a history-nerds delight, with many artifacts and old documents. My job is to catalogue, mark, label, and sort artifacts that need it, so I've been gradually learning all of the ropes. It's amazing the work that goes into preserving things that most people would consider junk and then keeping them at a constant temperature and humidty so that they can stay preserved forever. Socially it's been an experience, as most of the employees there are mid 40s women. Go me! Nothing beats being upstairs for lunch talking about elementary school children, the latest varieties of food, or other museums. Rock on.

So yes, compared to the Spring, this summer has thus far been very lazy after work, with Xbox and dinner being my biggest priorities..but hey, everyone needs a break. I finish up on July 15th and then it's back home to work for Dad, although I'm going to be doing a counselor gig at a Summer camp in late July which should be great.

Hope everything's going well with all of you and that your summers are treating you well.

Cheers,

-Nate

Ballykeel and Kilkeel

Well, it turns out I was able to meet our long lost Fitzpatricks afterall. I talked with mom on Sunday, and she convinced me that I should get over to Northern Ireland before I left, which I did in haste. My Spanish amiga, Laura, accompanied me for the train/bus-trip and we made it into Kilkeel on Monday afternoon. Thanks to some information I'd gotten from Theresa Milne and Nora Murphy, two ladies that have been working on genealogy, I found out that our Fitzpatricks own a B&B called the Cranmore House and owned by (this is pretty funny), Yvonne Fitzpatrick. After arriving in Kilkeel we walked about 15 minutes and found the Cranmore House and met our Fitzpatricks!

I still haven't figured out exactly how the geneaology works out between our two families, but the assumption on my end is that John Henry Fitzpatrick (Grandpa's Grandpa) was either born in Northern Ireland OR in Canada shortly after the family emmigrated. Anyway, Kilkeel was beautiful and the Bed and Breakfast was very nice. Yvonne made a great brekafst, and I also met Maura Fitzpatrick, wife to the late John Fitzpatrick (born in 1915). Maura was wonderful and gave me some useful genealogy advice. We also looked at some old pictures and found that one of John's brothers looks almost identical to Uncle Don! Crazy!

I also was able to make it to Ballykeel, which (according to a map) I thought would be about an hour trip from Kilkeel, but it turns out there are a few Ballykeels in the county, and that each parish has its own name. Ballykeel was about a 10 minute walk from the B&B and I got a picture of the old farmhouse and the view from the farmhouse. The day was beautiful, and the coast of County Down is truly amazing and very pretty. It's an agricultural and fishing area, but I have a hunch our Fitzpatricks were farmers.

Only 2 days before my 11 hour flight home.

Cheers,

-Nate