Who will be our next president?

Wow... ...There's absolutely nothing like that in Ireland. I think the highest 'waterfall' we have is, well, nothing spectacular. It doesn't even look like a proper waterfall:

http://www.eveandersson.com/photos/phot ... ize=medium

You were in Oregon? That's west-coast isn't it?

That looks pretty good to me, if I can get enough money together we'll be visiting Ireland in about 5 years.

We're lucky here, just 3 hours away from Portland, OR and 3 hours from Vancouver, BC in Canada. Seattle has mountains on all sides and the Columbia River Gorge that separates Washington and Oregon is amazing!

http://www.waterfallswest.com/page.php? ... rivergorge

This talks about the drive we took:

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/05 ... art-1.html

We didn't make it to all the waterfalls, just a few of them... but we'll be going back often. We saw Horsetail, Multnomah, Bridal Veil, and Latourell Falls before heading up the wall of the gorge to Crown Point where the winds were blowing about 80 mph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Poin ... c_Corridor

Then we stayed in Portland to see my grandma and some of the other family in that area.

hehe, you know what this reminds me of? - The fact that you have everything there in your own country and don't need to holiday abroad, ever. I mean, the USA is a large nation and has diverse landscape. In Ireland, everythng is pretty much the same. Anyway, I don't blame you for never leaving your own borders!

You kidding, I'd love to be able to go overseas more. Remember you have history... "old" here is 1780, and you have "real old" there.

True... ...When I think of 'old' Ireland, I think back to the 9th / 10th century when the vikings first settled here and set up a town called 'Dubh Linn' (Dublin). European history is very rich... ...There is so much to study about that it's overwhelming. What do you guys study in history class in school?

Not sure what they study these days but I was always into the ancient civilizations myself. Big fan of the middle ages as well.

Currriculums vary from state to state, but where I am, there is a year of world geography, world history, US history (civil war forward), and a half a year of government and a half a year of economics.

Not near enough as far as I am concerned.

I'd like to see how your text-books portray the American War of Independence and the two World Wars. I heard before that they were quite one-sided (in favour of the US, obviously). Man, it's so easy to bash the USA. That's what you get for being world leaders though.

Chucky,

The American Revolution is covered in the 8th grade in my state. If I can get my hands on a textbook, I will see what it says.

As for the two World Wars, I don't think there is much on either one. There is, however, a lot of revisionism and emphasis on multi-culturalism.

Don't feel bad about picking on us, if you read our history books, you wouldn't like us either.

Obama wins