Where, Where, Why?
 

Craig asked me why I was in Georgia and it gave me an idea for a thread.
Where are you from, where are you now and why are you there?

I'm London Irish, living near Atlanta GA because I married an American chap and he got a job with Delta so we moved here.

Craig: the Irish live to argue - no other race of people other than Scicilians hold grudges longer... :)

love
Jo

I grew up in rural southern Oregon and moved to Portland almost 10 years ago b/c my best friend was going to college here. I had no plans to stay this long, but here it is: 10 years later and I feel very rooted here.

My great-grandparents came over from Sicily!

"The Irish live to argue - no other race of people other than Scicilians hold grudges longer..."

That's nonsense. *getting out little book and writing down Craig's name*

Cleveland Irish-American here, lived all over the country and came back here on the tattered tails of a nasty divorce, some nineteen years ago -- met a native Clevelander who's lived here all his life and ended up marrying him sixteen years ago. But I wish I was in Boston or Taos. (Sorry if TMI -- I know you didn't ask for why we'd rather be elsewhere....)

^^^hahahaha! Craig's getting the blame for something I said....

Go to any pub in Ireland or Kilburn and you'll hear the boys arguing over anything - the crossword, football, politics, especially politics, especially 800 years of English oppression politics. Maybe Cleveland Irish have mellowed over the years... :)

Believe me, Jo, the Cleveland Irish have not mellowed. If anything, living in a rust belt city with a combustible river has made us just a wee bit more acerbic. ;)

That's not really fair. The river hasn't been flammable for oh, 20 years.... heh heh heh

But as for the argumentativeness -- well, my mother and father used to tell me: "You'd start a fight in an empty room". I rather think I learned this at home (but I would never assert such within earshot of a relative, lest I hear, "Your father was a good man with never a harsh word for anyone, God rest his soul, and don't you be tellin' us...." blah blah blah LOL).

And as for the expatriate-patriotism angle, I think I knew who Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins, Eamonn De Valera and Napper Tandy were before I knew who Mighty Mouse and Jesus were. Probably all in that order.

My favorite scene in "Angela's Ashes" is where the drunken father rousts the boys from bed in the middle of the night and makes them swear they'd die for Ireland, whereupon the disgusted mother threatens him with mayhem and puts everybody back to bed. You'd have to grow up in the middle of that to think it's funny; most people think it's awful but I still laugh recalling similar scenes.

BTW, sorry to hijack your thread. :)

most of you bastards already know where i am, how long i've been here, and why i'm still here. if anybody else wants to know, and i can't imagine why you would, PM me.

i know all about the irish, my dad's from mullingar.
;)

born
exeter, devon

lived (uk)
balham, london
eastbourne, sussex
forest row, sussex
hendon, london
twickenham, london
sileby, leicestershire
keal coates, lincolnshire
thurmaston, leicestershire
syston, leicestershire
thorpe fendyke, lincolnshire
bexleyheath, kent
lewisham, london
plumstead, london
greenwich, london
stratford, london
new cross, london
camberwell, london
brixton, london

(germany)
schoeneberg, berlin
kreuzberg, berlin
prenzlauer berg, berlin
neukölln, berlin

the story of how i came to berlin is incredibly romantic
but will have to wait for a day when i don't have a cold.

loking forward to marge's answer...
;)

Old school Irish/scottish roots, legend has it that two scottish brothers where drafted in the war of 1812, they jumped off their boat and where picked up by an american boat and joined the american side. So I guess I am just an american mutt.

SoCal...cause it rules.

Craig's a gypsy like me:
London: Marylebone, St John's Wood, Maida Vale, Shepherd's Bush.
Outside: St Neots, Plymouth, Penzance, Mousehole, Hayle, Praa Sands, Wincanton, Milton Keynes, Wolverton, Flint, Yr Wyddgrug.
Further outside: Farmington, UT, Atlanta, GA

My brother lives in Ladywell...

^^

My MIL lives in Truro. We've been to that pub in "Mowzl".

per mom, my story is not how we got to america...it's just where we got our wild blood from..

Where? Niagara.
Mom grew up here then moved to Los Angeles, where I was born, parents split, Mom moved home.
I moved out but only 45 minutes away. Lived there for 15 years. Then North to Napanee. Yes we knew Avril Lavigne. Then north again to a place where I had a lake, no neighbours, and the closest little town had about 100 people.
Then I moved back to Niagara.
I love it here.

Born South Bend Indiana. Lived in suburbs, college in Waukesha near Peef. One cold day drove with family down the whole coastline of Florida's east coast, looking for a place to relocate, We'd seen most of the west coast, didnt want to live there. We got to Miami, turned west on Alligator Alley and the road dead ended on the west coast, in Naples. We'd never been down that far~ we were amazed at what a sleepy fishin and tourist town it was. It was beautiful. What we didn't know, was that 150,000 other people would find it right behind us. The only good thing was that the 5 acres we bought 15 years ago has gone up in price 4x. Now we can scout out the next place to wreck.