Irish Hats... Mikako, me, and Elena

After yet another visit to the gift shop (we seem to go in here a lot!) We went to the market and had a grand day there watching the Irish dancers, listening to music, shopping (I bought Jason a flattened Jameson bottle for cutting cheese or for hanging or for whatever he wants) and eating, of course.  That’s all for now!

Oh, from the bar crawl a few weeks back…

Me in front of a pub

John Hewitt and the girls

John Hewitt is a bar that has great music and we discovered that they also have tremendously delicious chips.  SO good.  Happy days!

In not so front page news, I’ve got my tickets to Vienna and Macedonia.  It’s going to be the most convoluted trip to Skopje, but I won’t get into that.

I went to a Celtic music night at Brice and Olive’s church last Saturday which was good fun.  Elena came along… she thought people from up here were a little mean, but now her opinion is changing.  As it should, you all know how I value Brice and Olive.

I am taking Tuesday off next week and going to do St Patrick’s Day things.. parades, parties, Celtic Music, dancing… also doing that Monday night and Sunday maybe and Saturday the Irish market at St. George’s.  I’m looking forward to this weekend!

I’ve been debating what my Easter plans should be.  They’re talking about doing a forced shutdown the week before Easter or the week after (the week directly after Easter is already a shutdown week).  I was thinking I’d head home if that was the case, but they haven’t made a final decision yet.  So I guess I’ll stick with my original plan, and go to Vienna to visit a friend for a few days.

My friend Elena is going home for her Easter as well and said I am welcome to visit for a few days.  She lives in a city somewhere near Skopje, so although it’s quite expensive and I’ve been seriously debating it, I just have to go while I have the opportunity.  So my new plans are to go to Macedonia somewhere around April 10th and stay until the 15th ish and then fly to Vienna until the 19th and then back to work, provided that week is still a working week.  It will cost more to just fly to Vienna then to Skopje then back to Vienna then back to Dublin than it would be to go home, but I guess I’m just gonna have to suck it up and take the cost.  This way, though, I’ll be at Elena’s for Easter which is the week before Easter in her country then in Vienna the week after Easter here, so I won’t be in the way of other people’s Easter plans.  I guess I can really break the bank and do something else if I hear about a forced shutdown of some kind before I make airline reservations.

Today, Elena, Mikako and I are doing a picture pub crawl.  We went to a pub last weekend without a camara, so decided that this weekend we’d do a pub crawl with a twist.  There are so many pubs around here so that’s the plan… at 3:30 this afternoon!  That way it won’t be too crowded.  It’s after 11 now, so I better get my lazy bum to the gym soon.

One last story that I find quite hilarious and proves that I live with all students…

On Wednesday night I went to bed at a reasonable 11:30 and woke up around 2:00 when I heard the guys come home from a night out.  They’re usually quite loud but I’m not too bothered.  Anyway, around 2:30 or so somebody came up the stairs.  Nothing unusual, it’s usually Patty or Kenny waking Mick up for no reason.  But then someone came into my room and turned on the light, then turned it off and left.  Then went into Mick’s and I hear Mick say… “Kenny?  Patsy?  Who are you, get the f*$# out of my room!”  Then the kid (not a stranger, just not one of my roommates or my friends, his name was Shane in case you’re wondering) decided that my room was more welcoming and came back in with every intention of crashing in my bed for the night.  It took me about 20 minutes to convince him otherwise after he tried to crawl into my bed.  The whole thing was so funny, especially when I went downstairs and tried to get one of the guys to remove said drunk Irishman from my room.  They weren’t so helpful, probably owing to the mass amount of alcohol they had most likely consumed.  When I was downstairs around 6:30 making my breakfast, there were two passed out guys on the couch underneath their coats with alllll the lights on.  They didn’t move at all the whole time I was down there making noise.

That story got quite  a few laughs from the fellas at work.  And I learned to lock my door at night.  Even if it takes away entertainment for other people about the crazy things that happen to me.  The Dunluce house is always quite entertaining.

Oh, one of the guys at work was talking about how much they’d drank the week before… and this was actually said, “You must have had 25 drinks the other night.”

25??!?!?!??!?!  Even if I drank fairly heavily for an entire week, I’d doubt I’d get to 25.

Well, time for me to go work out.  I’m charging my camara for our pub crawl this afternoon, will get pictures from that one of these days.

Anyway, for a quick breakdown, here goes.  I am so tired, not much sleep lately, was at the gym (I actually felt quite angry at myself as I forced myself to get to 10800 in 50 minutes on my fun little rower), haven’t showered, and I made my bed and halfway cleaned my super messy room…. so that’s my excuse if this is short.  I feel like I want to gossip about something or other, but just the weekend.

Day 1… Belfast to Dublin to Clonmacnoise to Galway

Got up at 4 to catch the 5 bus down to Dublin, got to the hostel, and at about 9 or so the bus came and got us.  At this point, there were 5 of us- me, the three sisters originally from the Philipines but all three living in different places (Sacramento, Vancouver, and Dublin), and the middle-aged Russian lady- Hazel, Dara, Suzanne, and Oksana.  Clonmacnoise was an old monastery with hundreds of graves and crosses.  It was on an old crossroads and quite old and historic.  Great pics… click here, hope it works.  Then we got to Galway and I wandered a bit.  We met up here with the 10-dayers, all Aussies… Georgia, Sinead, Adam, and Jarrad and the other two Anya and Jeff.  Then we went out and got hammered in Galway, it was grand.  Day 1 over.

Day 2… The Burren and Cliffs of Moher to Killarney

We did some scenic driving here.  Saw some castles, saw the weird rockiness of the Burren, and then saw the fabulous Cliffs of Moher.  We picked up another Aussies, Kei.  We crossed the River Shannon and eventually made it to Killarney where we had dinner and all that then went out and danced and… well, drank.  It was very pretty on the west side of the country… Trying to get a photo album.  Will update when I have a link for you.

Day 3… Killarney to Blarney to some lookout castle

Here we got up and then drove to Blarney where I kissed the Blarney Stone and enjoyed the scenery.  And slept in the bus.  Then the group split and another bus driver took the original 5 and Kei back to Dublin via some castles.  Got to Dublin, then took a frigid bus back to Belfast.  And that’s all… well that’s the short and sweet version.  The pics speak louder, yeah?  Well, when I get them up, that is.

Cheers!  Slainte!

No word on my job.  At all.  Seriously.

I’m going to take a tour from Dublin round the south this weekend.  I’ll be walking to the bus stop around 4:3o Friday morning (or a taxi if the weather is bad.)

I’m still laughing at London’s inability to handle 3-4 inches of snow.

I’m seeing a ballet tomorrow… Tchaichovsky’s Sleeping Beauty by the Royal Scotland Ballet (or something like that.)

Catch up with things next week, this week has been quite hectic.

This article is better, I think.  More detailed, for sure, with more stories.

And here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth, as the saying goes.

After the new year, I have acted as if I have had New Year’s Resolutions.  I don’t.  I don’t much like resolutions, but my lifestyle has changed, that’s to be sure.  I still don’t sleep as well as I would like to at night and my love of cookies hasn’t decreased in the least, but my beer consumption is almost nada (I’m averaging about 1 a week… ridiculous) and I go to the gym about 5 times a week.  Granted, I go to the gym because I’m paying for it, but I also really like pushing myself at the gym.  I also got into a huge book kick, which is saying something, except the books I tend to pick up are no-thinkers, thrillers, and other easy reads I pick up at Tesco’s (2 for 7 quid!)  I am reading the Shack right now, and while I’ve just started, have heard brilliant things about it and see myself enjoying it, maybe even elevating it to Alchemist status.

Anyway, on weekends on my way to the PEC (gym at Queens), I get to walk through the Botanic Gardens.  I love the gardens.  Beautiful, green, and an all around more enjoyable walk than up Stranmillis and past all the brick flats.  The park is only open during daylight, but now the time is changing so dramatically that in a few short weeks the park will be open far later than 5, which it just changed to recently.  Everyday, there is about 5 more minutes of sunlight overall than the day before, so one week is quite a change.  We drive home mostly in the light now, whereas a couple weeks back we didn’t even see daylight all day.  But I digress (actually, come to think of it, there was no real point in this except to write.)

Anyway, here’s some photos from the gardens.  It is so green and I ought to be used to it by now, but I simply am not.  Check out the gallery… just a few photos from my meandering on my way to burn the calories.  I posted this instead of watching House, which I just downloaded.  So, there’s the love

When I got home tonight, my flatmates were cutting hair in the kitchen.  They offered to cut mine, as in shave it clear off.  While something needs to be done, I don’t think that’s it.  They also asked when I was making another apple pie- I said when they buy me the goods.  I am also allowed to use their eggs if I’m going to make baked goodies.  Next time I can’t sleep, I predict choc. chip cookies, American-style, soft and gooey.

I am planning trips to places- but with my job/visa uncertainty, it’s not so easy.  Edinburgh is first on my list, wanted to go in early Feb., but need a place to stay and hostels are filling quickly.  Might go to Glasgow instead.  Have an invite to Vienna for several nights come April, wish I could make plans!  Anyway, I’m off to bed (or to watch House, we will see, it’s nearly 11.)

Also random, but I must tell you- my milk intake has increased significantly as I use it in my daily wheatabix, my porridge, and my several, SEVERAL, cuppas daily.  And my nails have grown as well.  Weird how that works.

Also, I have lived here for about 4 months now, and I literally got lost walking home.  Granted, it was a different route but streets don’t go through.  I quite literally hiked through some little trail by the theological college.  Didn’t even know it was there.  I was quite lost.  But, since it’s a tiny city, you just walk til you find a recognizable street.  Teach me to take a shortcut to Tesco’s (I didn’t make it in time and had to go to the Co-op anyway where they didn’t even have ONE loaf of bread.  Didn’t need the carbs anyway.  Got wheatabix for breakfast instead.  Also, they were out of bananas so I had to buy grapes.)

By the way, I have gone to the gym 5 days in a row.  And today, I rowed 6k in 30 minutes.  Go me.

(If I do get fired, I have to leave the country… stat.)

Grand.  I’m stuck in a rent contract here that far extends my job.  According to the money I have now, I can pay rent through April, all my electric/gas, 50 a month for food, my gym, my charity giving (it’s only 10  a month), a flight home, and a package to home.  But that is the extent of it.  Nothing else.  My rent contract is through June, soooo, there seems to be a problem there.

I am all the way over in Europe and I can’t afford to see, well, any of it.  I guess there will be another time?  I hope so, it feels like such a lost opportunity.

The recession, in the scheme of things, is affecting me on such a small level, but, trust me, it feels very significant to me.

In other news, I went to the gym today for the first time in months.  45 minutes of working out and 45 of walking later (it’s not all that close), I’m quite tired.