this is what my evenings look like...

I went the other way...

I went for a walk tonite after dinner. I headed north, I usually head south because that's towards town. But to the northwest is Phoenix Park, the largest park in all of Europe. The park is so large that it houses a zoo and the Presidents house. As well as several other structures, monuments, ponds, and gardens. I headed out around 7:30 so only had an hour and a half till it started getting dark so I didnt get too far but it was absolutly amazing. The park is only about a ten minute walk from my house.

Here are a few photos that barely do the park justice:

football?

Football here is not soccer like in the rest of Europe. This weekend there was a huge football game, Dublin VS. Mayo in the All Ireland SFC semi-finals. So what is Gaelic Football? I have no idea, it looks like a combination of American Football, soccer, basketball and rugby. Guess I should read this to learn more...

Another thing i find funny is the "News." I've been watching the "News" in the mornings when i eat breakfast. It's just the normal good morning shows but they break it up with these news segments which include the headlines from newspapers like The Sun, aka Tabloids! This morning, in between news from Iraq and about the Kentucky plane crash was, Man Killed by Ghost Train!.

Funny!

The coast

Today we headed down to Dun Laoghaire for the Festival of World Cultures. We hopped on the DART for a 30min train ride there, cheap too only 3.50 round trip. When we got there, it was a festival much like any other I've ever been too, lots of stands lots of stuff mass manufactured in some other country. There were TONS of people, and 50% of the stands were food stands so that was good. We walked around all the stands and smelled all the foods. Then we headed through town to the Market area, where apparently a children's area was also. We had good craic watching the children play in a fountain full of bubbles. A couple of boys wereridiculouss!

We then headed towards the stage and a for a stroll down the coastline, finding ourselves on a jetty with a tower dedicated to James Joyce (most things here are). This was next to a tiny beach, 50ft long maybe, but complete with a lifeguard.

We wondered around for about 3 hours before hopping back on the DART and then the LUAS back home. After some dinner we're going to head out for a beer at the Dice bar. Good times.

the DART
Lunch: potato rosti and tomato chutney
boys will be boys
rescue me?
the Dun Loaghaire coast
Van gogh?
a window:

entertainment

last nite went well, after work a few of us headed over to O'Neills for a few drinks and a dinner of chips (come on, fries) and little wieners on toothpicks. It was a good time, at 8:10 Treasa and I headed around the corner to The Screen Cinema. We watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley. It was very educational and good. Turns out Lizzy is friends with Cillian Murphy he was born in Cork, southwest of Dublin. Emily, I'll see if i can get his number for you...

After the movie i got to ride my bike home in the dark for the first time. It was great, there were barely any cars out (only taxi's) and all the streets are well lit. Of course, i also have bike lights...So, no problem!

where i live...

By the way, this is my house...for the next few months at least...

The "garden"

The living room

My room


There's also a great kitchen with very tall counters and cupboards

I'm very impressionable.

I've been reading a lot of Tom Robbins (what's new). He always inspires the best imagery.

Anywho.

Things are going swimmingly here. I had meetings all day today mainly with manufacturing type business men. The majority of our clients are builders and architects, and mostly middle aged men. They all went rather well, I was worried I might be totally lost with some of the vocab/accents but it was fine.

New vocab:
Fleeced - cheated. Like i got fleeced by that taxi driver the other nite...(only by a few euro).

Here are some pictures!



How much is that doggy in the window?

looking out at the world

Preach it Tom...

Things. Things attach themselves like leeches to the human soul, then they bleed out the sweetness and the music and the primordial joy of being unencumbered upon the land. People feel tremendous pressure to settle down in some sort of permanent space and fill it up with stuff, but deep inside they resent those structures, and they're scared to death of that stuff because they know it controls them and restricts their movements...
-–Tom Robbins

the cars

i forgot to mention something about the cars. Apparently a few years ago the government took the inititive to get all the old cars off the streets by giving anyone who turned in their old car (before 1990) a fistfull of money, 3000 euro i think. So now everywhere you look there are new cars. It took me a few days to figure out why the cars were so different, it's cause they're all new.

Pictures from my outting today:

Christ Church, I didn't go in today but i will someother day.


The liffy from James Joyce bridge

Only a sampling of the Irish Whiskey available

Phrase for the day

Irish Fashion Accessory=Umbrella

Today I got a taste of the real Dublin. I waited until 2 for it to stop raining so I could go walk around. Well, the rain stayed away for about 10 minutes. Then started coming down really hard again. It's not the rain that's so bad, its the wind, which makes in nearly impossible to use an umbrella. So by the time got to the museum, Collins Barracks (yes, that's Michael Collins), I was completely soaked.

The museum wasn't exactly the louvre, but it was free. There was a huge gallery with silver and another on currency. There were three floors, which game me plenty of time to walk around and dry off.

On my walk back, I found an organic market...don't think of this as a typical european market, think more Whole Foods. But guess what they had???? Refried beans!!! yep. I didn't buy any, they were El Paso brand, and 3 euro a can. I just couldn't do it.

I was thinking about heading out tonite, but with the rain and all I just might stay in. It's not raining at the moment, but I know the moment i step outside it will start to downpour again. Oh the good thing about the rain is it usually comes in short bursts and then clears up.

Drinks from the pub last nite.

Friday!

Today was a good day.

Work went well.

For lunch we headed to some fancy Italian restaurant where i paid $14 for a salad, but it was good. It was super busy and took us almost two hours to get served, eeeek. Everyone is crazy about text messaging here, infact people rarely make phone calls, just text messages. So we just text'd our boss and said lunch was running late. It was okay.

After work we all headed to the local pub, O'Neills for drinks. My boss told me, "Oh, good you're a seasoned drinker." I think that was a compliment.

Around 6:30 I headed to the Screen Cinema to watch The Notorious Betty Page. It was pretty good. Better than the reviews made it sound.

Bettie Page

Gretchen Mol

After the movie I headed home, but decided to stop into the Dice bar for one last guinness. Sat at the bar, drank a guinness and did a sudoku.

Not a bad evening.

high stress!

Well that was stressfull. Long story short, jess and I agreed over email that i would help her pay rent until she could find another job. When I got here she said she wouldnt even be able to pay what she said, and even when she gets a second job she won't be able to afford the house. When we told Lizzy, I said i'd pay more but she wouldn't let me, it was unfair (which it is). So she's letting jess pay less instead of me covering for her. This is only for the month of September, okay confusing. Very stressfull, expecially when jess can't speak english, assumptions were made and words misunderstood.

So, here are some pictures to look at:




this is what it's like on my bike! And this isn't heavy traffic!


this is my work

Nose to the grindstone

I didn't get much sleep sunday nite. Missing flynn mainly. It's too early for homesickness. I dozed off around 3am only to awake for work at 7am.

Monday was filled with learning the ways of Dara Creative. That took about 3 hours, it was hard to believe how much their processes are the same as those i'm use to. The major difference is it looks like i will be handling almost all of the project management after the estimate has been approved. Another difference is the amount of work that they contract out. To set up my email, they called their "IT Department" which is actually a company down the street.

We went through most of the clients, current and past jobs. Dara's portfolio is quite impressive and a bit intimidating. There are only nine employee's, 5 are designers, two who are fantastic illustrators and it is seen in much of the work produced.

The work space is small. This is not a complaint, it seems to be very cozy. The building has a downstairs lobby and separate printer room and conference room. The upstairs has several offices and a studio where 5 of us sit.

The remainder of the day was spent eating lunch in the garden, and surfing the web. Most clients around here take the first two weeks of August off so there is not much work to do right now. But next week should pick back up. There are several jobs in the hopper.

The commute into work was good, only took me 15 min. Not too bad. The way home was a bit longer simply because of i have to go out of the way just to get to a one way street going the right way. The way home is much more confusing and not as direct. I'll get the hang of it after a few more attempts.

Tuesday i headed to work a bit late because i had to stop by the immigration office and get registered, get a pps number (like ssn), then get my tax info taken care of, so i can get a bank account, so i can get paid. I got as far as applying for a pps number. Hopefully it will come through by the end of this week. Money is running thin, and i can't get a wire until i have an account. No worries though, dara said they can front me if i'm in need.

The second day went just fine, got in a few pojects, just some updates to some templates. normal stuff.

Jess insisted on making dinner again. I can't complain.

Words for the day:
Feck and Shite: everything is fecked and it's all shite. This is said by everyone and heard everywhere; work, streets, markets, even in church (or so i've been told).

About the food...

Overpriced and overcooked goes the saying. The saying is correct. Lunch today consisted of some cafeteria style mushy lasagnia, mashed potatoes, boiled carrots and cabbage. For this I paid over $10. I must officially be a Dubliner now, because complaining about the price of things is their favorite topic. At least I'm full, right?

Day 4 part 2

I took a 2 hour nap. After that i felt great, i think my jet lag has finally gone away. Although it wasn't too bad to begin with.

For some reason doing things for the first time are kinda scarring me. Like riding my bike around. After an hour of stalling i finally set out the front door on two wheels. Not much to worry about. Riding a bike around is actually much easier than i thought. And there are actually bike lanes, you just have to occasionally share them with cars. After riding around town for some time I found an Apple store! Awesome. They still didn't have a converter plug, only the pack (which includes adaptors for every country. Dude, i just want one!) So looks like I'll stick to the one i have with the adaptor.

But they did give me a good tip on "free" wireless. It looks like the only place in town that offers free wireless is...McDonalds. yep. sucks. so since i refuse to go there, even just for internet i headed to the mall where the Apple salesman informed me there were several unencripted signals. Unfortunatly the part of the mall he told me to go was closed off for cleaning. When i bought a coffee i got 20 min for free. Not enough time.

So looked like my internet plan was busted. I closed up and headed back out into the city, now around 5pm. Back to my bike, and across the river towards home. Wow, TRAFFIC! I got very confused on my way back so much traffic that i turned down several cross roads, and long story short went the VERY long way home. I basically ended up looping around the entire city! Actually pretty impressive when you figure it only took me an hour or so.


This reminded me of the dog I use to always pat on the head at the corner of 2nd and Monroe in Corvallis

So the bike is good. Tomorrow is my first day of work. Yippy! I'm excited, these few days off were perfect. I feel pretty comfortable with the city and getting around. I have yet to ride the Lucas but It seems fairly straight forward and now that I have my bike I will only take it on rainy days...umm so most of the time. these few days have been overcast with a bit of sun peaking through and occasional mist. The wind picks up a bit too, but afterall this is a coast town.

Time to unpack the room some more.

see previous posts for new pictures

Dublin Day 4

Actually back to day 3. Lizzy stopped by last nite with a friend, Sally, on their way to temple bar for a drink and invited us along. At first I declined, i was tired and had already spent a lot of money that day. But after some reconsidering, it would be nice to go out with some people who know the area, and perhaps make some friends, Jess and I both joined them. We went to The Morgan Bar. It was right in the middle of the Temple Bar district but for some reason it was not quite as packed full as the other bars, perhaps because it was not a traditional Irish bar. It was more of an arty/upscale bar. Most the people in the Temple Bar area are tourists and are looking for the "authentic" Irish experience. The Morgan was like any bar you'd find in Portland or Seattle, reminded me a bit of the Doug Fur. We stayed for 3 drink, met several of lizzy's friends, most were artists of some sort.

Temple Bar at nite with Jess

Around Midnite Jess and I headed home, walking about 10 min then taking a taxi the rest of the way. It looks like late a nite a taxi is the best bet anywhere. Fairly expensive, but safe and quick. On the ride home we were stopped by a police road block, who were checking every car to make sure they had their seat-belts on and that everything was okay. Our driver said that is a regular evening occurrence. A great public service he called it.

When we got home, i went back outside to view the Meteor shower, it was overcast.

It takes a bit of energy always being around Jess, trying to constantly explain things, but so far it is okay. I'm no so sure how i'll feel about it a week from now. Although, she is getting better all the time.

New things I have to learn here include:
- Stickering the garbage (garbage stickers cost 7e for 3) and gets picked up monday.
- Recycling is strange, they do not recycle glass or plastics....so paper is about all.
- Turning the hot water heater on before taking a shower (I'm waiting for it to warm up right now).
- Turning power to electrical outlets on. Every outlet has an on/off switch.
- Ride my bike on the opposite side of the road.
- Look left then right before crossing the street.

New vocabulary:
- Good Craic - good time/fun
- Brilliant/lovey - great/or any positive word.
- The leu - toilet

Dublin Day 3

On our way into town today Jess and I came across a rather sketchy bike salesman. Sketchy or not his bike prices were competitive. We talked him down from 120e to 95e. It's a decent bike with everything I was looking for; splash guards, gears, and a rear, oh and breaks. Emily would not approve, it's another hybrid and a Giant at that. From there we went to the bike store where i bought a lock and lights for almost as much as the bike itself. But these things are a necessity, i will switch between bike and Lucas to get to work. I'm a little apprehensive about riding a bike in the city, but others do it so i should get along okay. Jess is also looking for a bike, but before she moved here she was in a bike accident and broke her collar bone!!! So if she is to find a bike it has to be a special one because she can no longer bend over to the handle bars. sucks.

After a quick stop in at Quizinos for a sub we headed further into town to see about getting our cell phones fixed. We were sent to three different shops before they were finally able to fix Jess' phone, mine on the other had everyone said nothing was wrong with it. I hope that is true. Maybe i just needed to give it a day to activate. I hope so, I'll just have to wait and see.

We meandered around the town for most of the day, from 2 to 6. We found our self in the Temple Bar district without knowing, but once we were there it was obvious. Temple bar is the most tourist filled area in Dublin. It is very traditional and expensive.

Overall the town is very easy to navigate. Small streets can become confusing because they don't run parallel but once I find the river Liffy I know right where I am. It's strange because I work on one side of town and live on the other, which is only about 2.5 miles. The central town is very small but there are no direct routes to get anywhere involves a lot of turns.

The people are nice. Everything is OK to them, no real strong opinions, the attitude of "whatever happens, happens." I guess Dubliners (and the Irish in general) are known for not complaining. And if you do speak out you get dubbed as an American. I guess that means we American's complain a lot.

We ended the day with stopping by the market on the way home, only to find out that the particular market did not take credit card. Putting our groceries on hold we searched for an ATM. Found one about 5 blocks away. A long walk home carrying groceries and walking my bike.


Stoneybatter, the neighborhood

I made dinner for both ouf us, good ol' stir-fry. The cabbage here is much tougher, i guess that's why the boil it for so long.

Tomorrow I will set out on my bike to see if i can survive.

My feet hurt.

Dublin Day 2

I slept until noon, which I wasn't too happy with because I had things to do! But i also needed some good sleep. I was very surprised by how quiet it was during the evening time for being so close to the city. I had the house to myself when i woke up, jess was at work. Around 1pm, after calling some banks and determining that I won't be able to open an account until next week, I headed out into the city. For some reason I was a bit apprehensive. I don't think it was culture shock, more like city shock, Dublin is a huge change from cornvalley. The area we live in, Stoneybatter, is the oldest residential area in Dublin. Houses as far as you can see, but only a few blocks over are shops and city-life. We are a ways out from the heart of the city, about a 15 min walk.


Dublin Comon House

A unicorn for Emily

The river Liffy

I walked down to Dara to see how long it will take me, a good 45 min walk. I think I will try taking the Lucas on weekdays, at least until I can get a bike. I also tried going to the immigration office, just my luck they were closed. I have a month to register with the city. I bought a cellphone, but am not sure how to use it. It appears i can call out but no one can call in and it comes with free text messaging but i can't get it to work... I will head back to the shop today and see if they can fix it or tell me what I'm doing wrong. I also bought an umbrella, map, guidebook. I stopped in for lunch at a wonderful shop called Lunch! it was delicious!


After 5 hours of walking, my legs started hurting and i headed back home to meat Lizzy (who we are subletting the house from). She gave me the proper introduction to the house and then took me for a drive around the neighborhood. We are very close to Phoenix park, the largest park in all of Europe! Wow, it is huge, and the president lives there. Home again. Jess returned from work around 7 and then we had beer and a chat. Somehow we both ended up in the kitchen cleaning. She cleaned out the cupboards while it took on the fridge. Lizzy had some strange kitchen habits, mainly keeping food way past the expiration date.

Around 1am we both headed off to bed. My bed is quite uncomfortable, but lizzy is looking into getting a new one for me.

Dublin Day 1

After a the short delay at the Atlanta airport we finally headed off to Dublin. For some reason the airplane ride wasn't that bad. I was immediately greeted by Eduard who sat next to me. A very nice and entertaining, spanish/american. He gave me several tips including the ingenious idea of having flynn get me a vonage/lingo box and then I can make and receive calls from the US for very cheap. Eduard was a master architect and also a history buff, detailing to me cultural, economical, political and other info about Ireland and Spain. Made for an interesting flight, so interesting i couldn't even stop to watch Mission Impossible III. I'm sure i missed nothing.

Once at the airport, Eduard and I exchanged business cards and said goodbye/good luck. Then off to meet Treasa and finally finding out how to pronounce her name (which i was wrong with both assumptions). She knew of my late arrival but had no idea it was because of thunder, unknown to me, there were major bomb threats in London and most airports were shut down. Treasa took me for a quick look around the city and then to 138 Oxmantown Road, my new home. After a cup of coffee i settled in for a 5 hour nap.

The house is nice, very small more of an apartment/townhouse. It is in a neighborhood that is just rows and rows of brick houses, each with a different colored door. Our kitchen is very nice, but it appears that the person who remodeled was a giant, most counters come about to my chest and we have to use a stool to get into most cupboards. The living room is good sized, both bedrooms are upstairs, also good sized. Every room has a fireplace, but only the one downstairs is ever used. A coal man comes around the neighborhood once every other week, more often in the winter. The shower is great, or maybe just because it felt so nice to take one after such a long trip.


Home Sweet Home

Around 6pm I called Treasa, who came and picked me up and we met up with her husband, Jess (my new roommate) and a few of their friends at a gallery opening. Then off to dinner for my first authentic Irish dinner...we had Italian. Pizza for me, just like Italy again, the staff kept breaking out into song every half hour or so. After our table had split a few bottles of wine I could barely keep my eyes open. We headed back home around 11pm. Once at home Jess and I had our first real combination. Her english is much better with me than with the Irish because it is hard for her to understand the Irish accents. It's hard for me to understand the accents, I can only imagine how hard it is for her.

Pictures to come...

safe and sound

This is just a quick note to let you all know I am fine. We are getting wireless at our house next week and I will post a more detailed entry. Lots of love to all.

Lightning is a girls worst friend

Lighting strikes! Lighting is landing on the airport field and thunder is rattling the floor i'm sitting on. The airport is shutdown, the play in delayed indefinately, but the weather sure is putting on a show.





I'm still alive and sane...

Empire State of the South

Ah the south. I can't really have an opinion of Atlanta, this is the second time I've been here but I've never stepped out of the airport. It looks hot outside, I just put my sweatshirt on cause I'm cold. The first flight went well, flynn dropped me off at pdx, we said our goodbyes (or cried them) and then my mom met me at the terminal, after some more tears I was off. The first 2 hours of the flight were awful just because I was so tired and could not get comfortable. Once I had in an extra hour of sleep the Sims, Tom Robbins, and a crossword puzzle kept me company.


Flying into Atlanta

I've got a good 2 hours still before boarding my 8-hour flight to Dublin. To kill some time, I've purchased 24-hours of wi-fi access for $8. Flynn and I were able to test out our the video chat, seemed to work great! Nice resolution and even with all of the airport noise behind me flynn could hear me fine. You've done it once again Apple, bravo.

The goodbyes went well. I had a couple of cling-on's, no names necessary.

courtesy of Sarah here are some more party pictures!


my handsome boyfriend at Club 21


That's my bestfriend Sarah.


This is my other bestfriend, Emily.


Raine was the bell of the ball.


Three cherubs


Waves of goodbyes, bye guys!


These are some kitties I'm going to miss.


We'll my computer is 89% charged now. Ipod is fully charged and ready for the next 8 hours. I'm hungry, I think I will find some food. Popeyes? Probably not.

Main Entry: ambitious
Part of Speech: adjective 1
Definition: driven
Synonyms: aggressive, anxious, ardent, aspiring, avid, ballsy, bent upon, climbing, come on, designing, desirous, determined, driving, eager, eager beaver*, earnest, energetic, enterprising, enthusiastic, fireball*, goal-oriented, hard ball*, high-reaching, hopeful, hungry, industrious, inspired, intent, longing, power-loving, purposeful, pushing, pushy*, resourceful, self-starting, sharp, soaring, spark plug, striving, thirsty, vaulting, zealous