Moon-led

Hmmmm, today was a bit disappointing. On a good note, I stopped by the tourist office, so I have plans for what I'm going to do next. Tomorrow I'm going to get started early and tour Muckross House, Muckross Abbey, and if I'm lucky Torc falls. Then I'm going to drop by my tattoo artist to see if my drawing is complete. If it is and I okay it, I'll set up an appointment to actually get it done. Once I have that date set, I'll know when I'm going to head up the coast. I'm going to take a bus tour up the coast to Dingle. I have to decide if I want to make that a multi-day tour, or if I'm going to stick with the rest of the tour and just do the day trip. If I chose to split up the trip, I will head up to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher another time and stay in hostels for a few nights.

Now to the not so good news. I dropped by the immigration office today, and apparently what the Irish embassy in San Francisco told me isn't true. They said that I should just check in at the local police department as soon as I get here and I would be able to stay here, no problem. Not so.

I will be coming home on December 10th, which is my ticket date because apparently I can't stay longer than that; and there's no way around it--simple as that. Then I have to stay in the U.S. for another 90 days, at which point I'm free to come back here for another 90, and so on. If I want to work here, I have to go home, wait the 90 days, pay around $400 to the American government for a work permit, and then I can stay in Ireland for a year but no longer. Which sucks. As much as I want to see all of you again, I was really looking forward to staying here for longer, and I'm pretty pissed that the embassy didn't tell me this over six months ago when I both emailed them and called. Very very frustrated.

No matter though, it is what it is--I'll just have to enjoy my time while I'm here. Still very disappointed though....