How to get your adrenaline pumping

1. go to any shoe store, try on a pair of boots
2. look in the mirror at the boots, while leaving your purse on the bench
3. turn back around to find your purse gone and a man walking out the door with a strange lump under his coat.
4. take off the shoes your were trying on, yell "that man just stole my purse!" and high tail it bare foot after him down Grafton street.
5. Grab the guy and demand your purse back.

Your heart will race like it never has before.

My how time flies

I've officially been a resident of Dublin Ireland for 70 days. I'm learning lots of new things (mainly project management blah!) and i'm really enjoying my time so far. The cold weather is starting to set in and it's really starting to feel like winter. Next week we turn the clocks back so it will really be dark by the time i get home. It will be nice to light a fire in the fireplace, maybe i'll have to go cut myself some peat. I'm also learning I can do without a lot of things, how unfashionable I am and that public transportation is either completely awesome or completely horrible.

And of course I'm learning new vocab!

I hear some of these words daily and am finally starting to incorperate some of them into my own speech.

Culchie: a country person
Deadly: very cool
Fair play: well done!
Fry: fried breakfast (sausage, bacon, eggs and black/white pudding)
Jaysus: Jesus
Knackers: basically white gangsters usually young boys
Muppet: fool, idiot
Snogging: making out
Wrecked me head / headwrecker: makes me mad or someone who makes me mad/frustrated
yer one: a girl your talking about
yer man: a guy your talking about

weekend adventures!

Saturday: Viking Splash Tour!
I met Martina and Kathriona at Stephen's Green for the tour. This is one of the more famous tours in Dublin. It consists of taking a DUKW all around Dublin City center to all of the famous viking landmarks, and while driving "rawring" at people along the street. Then it continues into the water for a 10 minute float around in the man made canal basin, where we got to see where U2's recording studio use to be(everyone: oooohh ahhhh). I'd have to say the best part of the tour was that we were on it with about 15 small children, 7-10 years old. They were good at rawring and had the best answers to historical questions. My favorite was when the tour guide asked if any of them knew which English queen built Trinity College, to which one young man quickly answered, "Elton John!"

A true viking maiden

Capt'n Judy

St. Patrick's cathedral...maybe you've heard of this guy?


Sunday: Wicklow Mountains
Treasa picked me up around noon and we headed down to Wicklow County, south of Dublin. Wicklow is known for its mountains and it was absolutely beautiful. We were also accompanied by Treasa's 2.5 year old son who made the adventure all the more exciting. He's absolutely adorable and very imaginative. After a long day of walking in the mountains and forest I'm ready for a hot shower.

Thoughtful

Guinness owns this valley...

The graveyard at Glendalough

Treasa and James walking towards the lake


On our trip Treasa told me all kinds of superstitions, apparently the Irish are (still) very superstitious. I learned all about fairies, leprechauns, banshees, and magpies. The other thing we talked a lot about was Guinness. I learned how much the Guinness factory helped the people of Ireland. They built houses for the homeless and low income, if you were lucky enough to get a job working in the factory you were set for life (as well as your family), and every nice building you see in the city was somehow linked to the Guinness business. In fact, the house and neighborhood where i live was built as living quarters specifically for the factory workers. Very interesting stuff.
okay...on to that shower, goodnite.

weak in the knees

On my way home from work today I stopped at Easons (think Borders) to buy some paints and a map of Ireland. The place is usually busy because it's right downtown on the main street, but when I walked in, it was PACKED! I thought, "Wow, there are a lot of people here!" then realized they were all girls...strange. I made my way toward the escalator (feeling as though I was in a mosh pit, working my way to the front) when a group of girls next to me started screaming and then (I'm not exaggerating) one of the girls puts her hand to her head and falls over! What the hell is goin on??? I'm thinking.

Finally I make it too the escalator and on my way up I can now see that the crowd of (young) girls is gathered around a table and there is some blond dude signing books and kissing cheeks. Now it all comes together, its a book signing! So who is this dude I'm wondering. There was no one up stairs (in the art area) so as I'm purchasing my paints I ask the girls behind the counter who this dude is, they reply with "Gary Barlow!" Umm I still have no idea. On my way down i got a glimpse of this guy sitting at his table:

He's a real looker aye? So now I'm sooo curious who this middle-aged tool is...I made my way back outside to my bike trying my hardest to remember "Gary Barlow" on my way home so I can google him. And I did. Click on his picture to find out who he is...

Oh and if you read his book let me know how it is, cause I'm not going to be reading it.

Best/worst nite

Had a great nite tonite, headed out after work to grab some dinner with Martina. We went to Aya, one of them revolving sushi places. We're talking gooood sushi here, not the kind that has been making its way around the conveyer for an hour, nice and fresh and lots of variety. After that I headed to Powerscourt Townhouse to meet up with Susan. Her friend Chris Judge was having an exhibition opening. The gallery was filled with this bright and happy paintings creating a wonderful atmosphere (or maybe it was the free beer and wine, we'll never know). Headed back to Dara to get my bike around 9:30 and then home.

now comes the worst part...

I come home to find this in my inbox:

hey guys sorry about the mass email but i got into a pretty nasty bike crash yesterday. i got doored! on ne 21st. ambulance, hospital, lots of stitches. i broke my shoulder and landed on my face, so it's not pretty. also have quite a lot of dental trauma. but i was wearing a helmet thank god or the drs say i'd be dead. love you all.
emily

Now i'm freaking out cause my best friend almost died and I can't even see her. very upsetting. Probably more so for her than me, but still...

EMILY GET WILL SOON!

Pictures

I went out walking for six hours on Saturday. Took some pictures:

The potato famine sculpture

This is a memorial to an immigrant ship that was taken over by pirates!

Sign that basically sum's up Dublin

The Ha' Penny bridge. The most famous bridge in Dublin. Back in the day you'd have to pay a half a penny toll to cross it.

The Liffy River is lined with anchors dating back to the medieval period.

I'd be dead if it weren't for these signs (they drive on the other side ya know...)

This is my favorite monument in the city, the O'Connell Monument. Shown here is only one of the four angels that are at the base of the monument. This one is wrestling a snake and if you look closely at her right breast you will see she's been shot, yep with a real bullet during the revolution. She's one tough cookie.

ha!

Wednesday nite everyone at my work (sans two) went out to the pub to celebrate Claire's last week of work. She's heading off to Brazil to teach English. We had tons of fun and I ended up staying until the end of the evening, headed home around 11:30 my bedtime! Leonnie challenged me to a beer pouring contest... I figured, oh sure, I'm from Oregon! Beer pouring is no problem for me. Can you guess which one is mine?


An excited Claire:



I'm also no longer the "new girl" at work. We had two new starts this week, Kris a designer and Maria, taking Claires place in sales. There's a chance that Maria may be moving in with me but she has yet to come see the place... Next week.

TTFN time to watch six feet under.

Realization: I'm lazy.

A beautiful day today. Around 3 I went out on the town. I found a great place for people watching, its on the steps of the tourism office. Which means there are all kinds of people around. Fun stuff.

Next on the agenda was going to Tesco to get groceries for the next few days. The Tesco is about a 10 min walk away, so roughly a mile round trip (slightly uphill I might add). So I was in Tesco, got my groceries and by the time I got outside, Ireland had decided to show me exactly how fast the weather can change, it went from sunny with a few clouds in the sky to downpouring. Of course I didn't bring my umbrella, that would have been smart. So I'm on my way home with my grocery bag being very heavy and I'm starting to feel sorry for myself as the rain is dripping off my hat and soaking trough my clothes. I'm starting to complain to myself about how this sucks and my groceries are heavy...Then a little old lady passes me! Not only does she have twice the amount of groceries, and no umbrella but she was walking at top speed and says good evening to me with a smile as she passed. Wow did that make me feel silly. She's probably been walking to and from the store for her whole life, rain or shine. I doubt she complained.

On the subject, I watched as these clouds roll in. Then raced the rain home from work, and I won.

Oh baby.

Wow what a cute baby! Way to go Erin and Nick. Thanks katie for keeping me updated through all of this. The sun is out today!

Rainy day update

We'll I did it, I suited up and hit the town. It's great walking around in my plastic rain suit. I accomplished something as well. I got my glasses fixed, for those of you who didn't know, the second week I was here I got a huuuuge scratch on the lens of my glasses. 2 weeks ago or so I went to a store to see if I could get them fixed and I got a huge runaround about it and that they would need to contact my doctor in the states yadda yadda. Well today I passed another store (same chain, different location), long story short, in under 2 hours they were fixed. I also picked up some much needed socks, unmentionables (which I am mentioning), and a shirt.

Oh, and in case you were curious (I was)...click here.