So as another year ends and a new one begins, I reckon it’s time for the obligatory end of year review that graces almost every bloggers webpage.

I’m not usually the type to make new year resolutions, since I’ve never been particularly ambitious and since after about 2 weeks I’ve all but forgotten and given up on keeping said resolutions. However, that said, 2009 is my last year as a student which means decisions to be made and the start of my career. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

To this end, I’ve put together a list of my 5 favourite things from last year, and a list of 5 things I want to achieve by the end of this year. Not so much a ‘resolution’, but more of a goal or target. So here goes.

My top 5 moments of 2008

1. Hawai’i

Right at the start of the year, last January I spent a far-too-short 4 days in Honolulu with 2 of my favourite people. I has wanted to go to Hawai’i for years and finally got the chance to do everything I wanted - surfing, snorkelling with turtles (no jokes, please) and meeting Hawai’ian people. My time was way too short, so I’ll definitely be returning to see the North Shore and the other islands.

2. Big Summer Trip Across the US

My last 3 weeks in America were spent travelling, with one week in San Diego with Valerie, one week in Chicago, and a few days in Washington DC, Boston and Philidelphia. It was fantastic and the perfect way to end the perfect year.

3. River Rafting in Gold Country

I got a great deal on whitewater rafting through my work, so myself and 4 friends headed up to Coloma at the crack of dawn for 21 miles of rafting fun. The weather was roasting, I actually got a little burned despite slapping on the suncream like it was going out of fashion. I then went to the site of the first gold nugget found, sparking the California Gold Rush. This is probably one of my favourite days ever.

4. Santa Barbara Road Trip

Myself and Valerie rented a car and spent three days on the road driving almost as far as LA, stopping at Santa Barbara, Monterey, Big Sur and a ton of other places. It was great fun and I got to see Hearst Castle which is definitely not to be missed if you ever get the chance.

5. Yosemite

I spent two days with Valerie and my two friends from NI in Yosemite National Park where we did a lot of hiking and sightseeing. It was absolutely beautiful and I really wish we had longer to see it.

There were loads of other great things - Paris, Snowboarding, Reno, Santa Cruz and the Google party to name a few but I think the ones above top the list.

So here’s the tricky part.

Top 5 things to accomplish this year.

1. Live away from home again

I’ve done for the best part of a year and a half. Even being in Belfast is not living at home. Having done if for a while and seeing what’s out there I think I’ll do it again. Given the competition for jobs and the current state of the global economy it’s obvious that the best jobs are not going to land on your doorstep. I’m thinking either the US or Canada.

2. Set up an online venture

I’ve got this blog going but it’s mainly for my own personal use, so I want to either set up a blog of some description, or at least run a successful website on something else. If it makes money, then that’s a bonus. With my final year project, this one stands a good chance of being done.

3. Visit a new country

I have a mental list of places I really want to visit. Depending on where I end up working, I might not get to see all of them. But if I can stoke one off the list, then it’s a success. I’d really like to visit my sister in South Africa, or drive across the US.

4. Get a job that I like

I’ll admit that my placement wasn’t my ideal job, so this time I want to find somewhere that I really feel comfortable in. Actually finding a job at all will be tough though.

5. Get into shape

Ok, so this one is a typical new year resolution, but I’d like to make a point of it. I’d like to get into better physical shape and go out and do something to challenge myself, like a marathon or something. I’m halfway there already as I’ve been at the gym quite regularly all year so it’s just a matter of sorting out my calorie intake!

So there you have it. I’ll check back in one year and see what I’ve achieved.

Last Tuesday was a cool day. Earlier this year in good old SF, Valerie worked with a guy named Michael at the St Francis hotel. I got to meet him at a company barbecue at a Giants game, and he was indeed an interesting guy.

Anyway, he was over in Ireland for about a week on holidays with his friend, Jamie (both of them are originally from Boston, but Michael now lives in SF and Jamie in LA). On the final part of their holiday, Valerie and I drove down from Belfast to Dublin to spend the day with them and catch up a little bit.

That’s us at the Molly Malone statue, Michael in the middle and Jamie on the right. We spent most of the day doing touristy things - Trinity College, Dublinia, Temple Bar, St. Stephen’s Green…it was fun as I don’t visit Dublin very often. The weather wasn’t too bad, it rained a bit but was mostly clear. Was definitely colder than Belfast, though. I was freezing all day!

We had dinner together at the Westin hotel, and as Michael is an employee with Westin - we had the whole meal for half price. Unfortunately saving money wouldn’t last long.

At the end of the day, Valerie and I went back to the car park to get my car, expecting a big parking charge of around €25. To be fair, we did eventually pay the €27 fee, but turns out the car garage closed at 7pm (what sort of place is this??) so my car got locked in. Nightmare.

I phoned the number to get help, and was told it would be a €60 callout fee to release the car. We briefly considered staying overnight and picking the car up in the morning, but eventually Valerie and I concluded that we just wanted to go home. 20 minutes the guy said and somebody would come and open the gates.

1 hour later and there’s still nobody, and the directions for where to meet this guy were so vague that I was beginning to worry if I was ever going to see him. Eventually after another half hour he shows up, with the thickest Irish countryside accent I’ve ever heard (like Tom from Father Ted). Still have to pay the car park fee, then pay this swine his €60 tax, and the amount of time spent on the phone cost me another £5 at least. Expensive night, but worth the effort.

It all got a bit much for Val, she barfed just outside Newry.

This is likely to be my very last post from American soil for a very long time. Tomorrow I fly out of New Jersey to Belfast, arriving on Sunday morning. To say I’m sad is a huge understatement. Of course, it’ll be nice to be back as, although it’s been a while, the US is definitely not my home. But at the same time I’ve had an absolute blast over this past year and a bit so it’s just a little unnerving to go back to what I know is going to be a tough year at university and lots of hard work. And rain, dear me if there’s one thing I don’t miss about home it’s putain rain (sorry, my French slips in sometimes). I haven’t seen a proper rainshower in a very long time.

Today was my last day, I wish I could say I spent it in spectacular style but I’d be lying. It was interesting though. I’ve been in Boston for the past few days, deciding to ditch New York and come here. I did want to see NYC, but booking last minute meant that the prices for rooms was way out of my budget and I really didn’t want to spend a lot of time there anyway. As it turns out, I did go through there briefly on my way up here to Boston, and I will be returning for a few hours tomorrow on the way to NJ. Shame that the 9/11 effect on security means I’m bound to my luggage at all times or else I’d store it for the few hours that I have and go see the Big Apple.

The trip up here on the Greyhound wasn’t too bad, and I met the regular mix of characters I’ve come to expect on this staple of American culture. I think everyone should at least ride the Greyhound once if they visit the US, as I believe it’s a great way to get about for not a lot of money. Fellow hostellers have opted to ditch the Greyhound over stories they’ve read on the news about safety, but when people aren’t getting their heads lopped off by the person beside them it’s a perfectly decent way to get about. On my trip, I sat next to a guy from NY who was had just wanted to “get out of this mother f’ing poor town”, in reference to Philly. He was quite entertaining, and had nothing but bad things to say about the city of brotherly love.

On arrival in NY, I had a 2 hour stopover until the next bus and had a great chat with a few people waiting to take the same bus. I didn’t get much sleep on the bus, which was a shame as the bus ride was long and an overnighter but the big woman beside me got plenty of sleep lying half on top of me. Luckily she was replaced by an even bigger woman with a distinctive musk on arrival in Hartford, CT. She wasn’t sleepy at all and just full of chat, which I wasn’t interested in at all.

Today in Boston I did a few different things - the Duck Tour in a converted WWII amphibious vehicle, the Freedom Trail, Cheers pub and Blue Man Group. For the Freedom Trail, which is a big red line around the city which connects various historic sites, I had a free audio guide on my iPod. It sucked, it takes a few hours to walk the trail and my guide was only 10 minutes long. Get what you pay for, I guess. It was free.

Blue Man Group was fantastic! Not what I expected it would be, but certainly very entertaining and well done. Got half price tickets so it didn’t cost a fortune. Had I gone to NY I had an insider’s tip on getting in for free by volunteering as an usher, but that plan went out the window now.

Boston is a nice city, and is old by American standards. It feels quite English in it’s appearance and architecture, which is obviously no surprise given it’s Puritan heritage. It lacks a grid system of city blocks, like European cities, and has English names for streets and places. But every few blocks you see a 7 Eleven or Dunkin Donuts which just reminds you that this is the US. I was warned that I’d be bored in Boston as there’s not a lot to do, but I’d definitely rate it higher than Philly so far. It’s a college town so the population seems young, but it’s got way more going on than Philadelphia does.

Anyway, I’m rambling. I prepared a list a while ago of my favourite parts of this last year. I won’t put it up here tonight, but come back another time and you might find it here. Until then, I shall see some of you very soon. Others, I may not see you for a long time so please keep in touch. It’s been a good year, my best year, but all good things must come to an end.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Mark Twain (from a painting on the wall of my hostel)

After my terrible experience at the airport, I finally made it to Washington. Baltimore is a solid 20 or so miles from DC, so I grabbed a shuttle van that would drop me off at the front door of the hostel. The driver was a nice guy from Nigeria, he knew quite a bit about the NI political situation from living in Belfast about 12 years ago.

Washington, DC

After checking into the hostel, I headed out for something to eat. It took a while to find any life in the city, but I eventually wound up in Chinatown which was bustling and grabbed a burger.

Washington is very easy to navigate. This is mostly due to it being a planned city. Around the time that the founding fathers of the USA were signing the Declaration of Independence, they were scouting an area to become the new nation’s capital. They didn’t want any jealousy between the 13 original states, so this city would be in an incorporated federal area, rather than a state. They eventually chose the area now known as the District of Columbia, due to it’s central location and proximity on the banks of the Potomac River. They drew designs for the city’s layout, and planned out every detail. Looking at Washington today, the Washington Monument sits almost in the center of the city, with four diagonal streets dividing the city into it’s four quarters - aptly named NE, NW, SE and SW.

So later in the evening I made a quick stop at the Capitol to snap a quick photo of it at night all lit up. It didn’t come out so well…

The next day I intended to see a good part of the city but it actually took me all day just to walk the National Mall and stop at a few things along the way. All the photos are on my Flickr. A highlight of the day was the National Air and Space Museum, which like all of the Smithsonian museums, was free. They have some cool things there, like the Spirit of St Louis - Charles Lindinburg’s Trans-Atlantic plane, the Wright brother’s famous bi-plane, and the Bell X-1 - the first plane to go supersonic. I also stopped at the National Museum of the American Indian, which was interesting.

The walk along the mall was quite long, about 2 miles from start to finish but I had to take a lot of detours to go around museums and to view the various monuments. The most disappointing part of the day was that Ford’s Theater, the scene of Abe Lincoln’s assassination, was closed for repair work, and the White House had some sort of event going on so Pennsylvania Avenue that runs past it was closed. The best shot I got of it was from a grassy area close to the street, but it was very far.

The walk down the mall is rewarding though. It ends at the Lincoln Memorial, which has a series of steps leading up to the top. From the top, you can see the entire mall, and the Washington Monument reflected in the pool in front. I stuck around there until close to sunset, as it was relaxing to just sit on top of the steps and watch the world go by below.

Philadelphia

I got a bus to Philly for the bargain price of $15. It arrived later than expected, so I missed out on a lot of the things I wanted to do that afternoon, but I still got a great Philly Cheesesteak from a bar nearby along with a good pint of Sam Adams beer. I took a walk around the downtown area afterwards and went back to the hostel for a movie night. Movie was crap, didn’t really watch it, can’t even remember what it was.

Today I went to see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and a few other historical sites. It was quite interesting, but it rained hard in the morning.

In the afternoon, I went to the Museum of Art, made famous by the Rocky movies as the place where Rocky Balboa runs up and down the steps training for his big fight. I made a rather crap movie of my attempt:

Afterwards, there really wasn’t much else to do so I headed back to the hostel and made some arrangements for tomorrow. I’m going to Amish country then taking the night bus to Boston, which will end my trip. I’ve decided to skip New York, as it’s waaay too expensive for a room and I’m getting kinda tired of dragging all my stuff between places. Tomorrow - Amish Paradise.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - I hate airports. There are some places I find unpleasant, and I don’t really like doing it - like the dentist or going to work, but I don’t hate them. Airports, though, I have a greater dislike for. Unless you’re having a particularly bad holiday, the airport is probably the worst part of your trip.

This morning I needed to get up early to catch a flight from Chicago’s O’Hare Int’l Airport to Baltimore, MD. I worked out last night that getting up at 7:30am should give me plenty of time to catch my flight at 10:40am. I don’t have an alarm clock, so I set my iPod’s alarm clock and my laptop, hoping that one of them would wake me up. I didn’t sleep particularly well for fear that I would sleep in, but eventually I relaxed and got to sleep.

Lucky for me, I had no need for an alarm clock. 6am on the dot, the old, fat guy in the bed gets up as if it were the middle of the day and does everything within his power to piss everyone in the dorm off. He packs his bag, slams his locker a few times, keeps opening and closing the door and lets a few farts go without much consideration for politeness. Plus he’s a big guy, so the exercise of packing the bag is causing his breathing to become seemingly asthmatic, making louder sounds than the guy passed out in the corner bed after a night on the town.

Of course, it wasn’t the noise that woke me up - I’m quite a heavy sleeper. His bag has one of those extendable handles, which happened to smack me right on the back of the head when his bag fell over. Only took him 5 minutes to realize that he’d hit me. He was nice enough to apologize though, with a sympathetic chuckle and a “sorry”. Made all the difference.

Fast forward a few hours and I’m on the blue line subway heading to O’Hare just a few minutes behind schedule as I just missed the train I was supposed to take. The website says this train takes 48 minutes to get there, so I should arrive at 9.20am, 1 hour and 20 minutes before my flight giving me time to get checked in.

Well, at least that’s the plan. About two thirds of the way down the line the voice comes over the intercom announcing construction at the next stop, so everyone has to get off, board a shuttle bus and then get back on at the following station. Fantastic! The bus is SLOW…and on the way to and from the bus I get caught behind the old people on crutches. The continued blue line train waits at the station for 10 minutes trying to maximize it’s load. I make it to the airport at last for 10am, over half an hour later than I expected. Check-in usually closes half an hour before though, right? United Airlines uses both Terminal 1 and 2, so where do I go? An employee tells me 2, so I go there and find a sign saying “Check in at Terminal 1″. So I have to board the train and get to Terminal 1. Of course, I’m now too late to get onto the flight because check in now closes 45 minutes before flights.

Which brings me to now - I’m on standby waiting for my name to be called for the 1:50pm flight to Baltimore. My chances are good, barring 20 people booking from now till then. I checked my bags, United seem to punish you for bringing any luggage - my first bag cost $15 and my guitar cost another $25, and I had to take a bunch of stuff out of my bag into my carry on bag to avoid the $125 overweight penalty. I bleep going through security, it’s my belt, but they search me anyway. They don’t have any vanilla shakes at the McDonalds, only strawberry. Oh, and it’s cash only.

And at my boarding gate, there’s a family with two kids who are having a screaming contest, encouraged by the parents. I love travelling, but if I had to go through all this crap on a regular basis then I’d crack up. Thankfully I’m just one flight away from home.

I’ve been having a great time here so far in Chicago, keeping busy most days. On Tuesday, I bought new shoes as my old one almost fell apart on me. Take a look:

Quite proud of myself, as it only cost me $22.

Yesterday I had a particularly produce day. I got up early and went to visit the Museum of Science and Industry, which I got into for free as it was one of their free days after Labour Day. It was a huge museum, and actually really interesting. I spent the entire day there from 9.30 to closing time at 4pm. They had the U-505, the German U-Boat that the US Army captured during WWII, the Apollo space lander training module, which Neil Armstrong et al. used to train for their Apollo moon landing in 1969. I saw a coal mine, baby chicks, an IMAX movie about the Grand Canyon and loads of other things. Really, really cool. Only gripe I would have is that they served one of the worst burgers I’ve ever had. And I paid $7 for it. Yeuch.

It’s me, as an astronaut. This is probably the only photo I’ve taken of myself so far…

A waterfall of dry ice at the Science and Industry Museum

One of the Wright Brothers’ biplanes at the MSI

I went back downtown afterwards, entered a raffle for cheap theater tickets and checked out the Marilyn Monroe exhibit at the Cultural Center. It wasn’t fantastic, but was worth a look. I went back to the theater and was lucky enough to win front row seats last night’s performance of Wicked, which is a kind of prequel to the Wizard of Oz, for just $25. My seat wasn’t fantastic as it turned out, my view was blocked by some stage props so I could only really see one side of the stage and I was right beside the speakers so I missed some dialogue but overall it was a very impressive show. The story is very clever and is worked very well around the classic 1930’s movie.

Today it’s pouring out of the heavens so I abandoned my plans to see the zoo and went to the Field Museum, which is a natural history museum. It was quite good, but rather expensive for someone who wasn’t all that into it. Better than standing out in the rain, though.

Rainy day in the Windy City

One of the many dinosaur skeletons they have at the Field Museum

So now I’m preparing to go out to Kingston Mines, which is reportedly one of Chicago’s best Blues bars. I’ll get soaked on the way, so I hope it’s worth it!