It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Galway is in the grips of its semiannual week of nice weather right now! This means that it is sunny and in the high 60s-low 70s. Yesterday, I went to the beach with friends Jenn, Bri, and Jason and sat in the sunshine for about four hours. I wore a knee-length skirt and short-sleeved top, while Bri and Jenn actually wore bathing suit tops-- I thought it was too cold for bathing suits, but here you have to take advantage of any teeny bit of sunshine. Today it's supposed to be equally nice, though I have lots of work to do. (Especially since I spent yesterday sitting around the beach.) So, in order to enjoy the nice weather but also work, I am sitting outside a cafe with my laptop and books. It's a good compromise.

So why do I have so much work to do? Because I am going to a conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, this week! Not only am I attending, but I am also presenting a paper. It's a serious, big-deal sort of a conference and I am actually pretty nervous about the whole thing. And after the conference, I am flying to Ottawa to do a couple days of research at the Library and Archives Canada, which is like the Canadian Library of Congress. It's all very exciting... though it's going to be a pretty darn busy week. My itinerary is as follows:

-Wednesday 16 September: I take a bus to Dublin and spend the night at the airport Days Hotel.
-Thursday 17 Sept: I fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by way of Newark. (I have a five-hour layover in Newark, which is just annoying. If it were much longer, I could leave and maybe go get a bite to eat in Brooklyn or Manhattan with one of my friends that lives there. But 5 hours is too short to leave, but too long to easily kill with going through Customs and security. Oh well.)
-Friday & Saturday, 18-19 Sept: Conference! Haven't gotten the programs yet, so I don't know what day I'm giving the talk, but it will probably be Saturday afternoon.
-Sunday 20 Sept: I fly from Halifax to Ottawa. I am staying in a hotel in Ottawa, not a hostel, because I honestly didn't want to go on a research trip so soon anyway. Lionel talked me into it, and I decided that having my own room and bathroom would make the prospect much more palatable.
-Monday & Tuesday, 21-22 Sept: Research at the Library & Archives Canada. I'm just going to be sussing out their collection, seeing if they have much that can be of use to me, and making contacts. Then I can decide if I'll need to go back later for more in-depth research. I still don't want to do this right now, but I admit that the nerd in me is excited to see a national archive. My hotel is like five minutes away from the Canadian parliament and supreme court and all that stuff-- basically where I am staying is the Canadian equivalent of Capitol Hill. Neat!
-Wednesday 23 Sept: I fly back to Ireland. I'm getting in to Shannon at 7am on Thursday the 24th, so I should be back to my flat before 10am.


Whew. Just reading that makes me tired... oh well. I'll manage I'm sure. And really, if the biggest complaint I have about my job is that I have to travel too much, things really aren't so bad.

Ok! Back to work!