It's raining again, but I looked up the weather forecast at home and the week ahead doesn't look much better there, so I'm not quite as disappointed as I might be. It held off long enough for us to get a 'friendly' (aka scrimmage) in against another Gaelic Football team last night. I somehow got in for most of the second half and didn't do horribly. I missed a shot on goal (actually wasn't 'on goal') but set up the only two points of the second half. Like an assist, if they have assists in Gaelic. I play 'full forward' which is center forward on a field of 15 players. I'm tall and can catch a ball so it's a good spot for me as the ball gets shot high and long up the field to that position. Or, as my coach once so delicately put it, I 'make a big target'. Thanks, Coach.
Since the topic of shopping at Target has come up twice in the past two weeks I thought I'd touch on shopping, in general. Mainly because I miss Target and wish there was a store just like it over here. Everything is mom and pop, which is great for customer service - when I go into certain stores people know me by name and if I can't find something they'll tell me if a store up the street carries it or if they can special order it. What's not good is that all of those stores close at 5:30pm, which is the exact time I get out of work. That leaves Saturday for doing any shopping that needs to be done.
Having Saturday to shop wouldn't be so bad except that everything here seems to be scheduled on Saturdays, so time tends to run low for running errands. A typical Saturday shopping for towels, sugar, a hairdryer, and muffin tins would go a bit like this:
Spend 15 minutes looking for a parking space. Find one way off Main Street and walk a couple of blocks to get there. Go to the 'department store' to get towels, since it's the only place in town that carries them. Head across the street to the grocery store to buy sugar. Head down the street to the electronics store to buy a hairdyer, and then double check at the 'home store' for muffin tins before heading to the other end of town where you eventually find them at the cake making store. That's 2 hours, 5 different stores, and 4 different checkout lines to pick up what would have taken 10 minutes in Target.
I have to admit, it IS part of Ireland's small town charm that there aren't huge chain stores like Target - but you really miss them when you're in a rush, moving into a new place, or trying to throw a party. However, I have to say my bank account doesn't really miss Target. How many times have you walked into one of those stores to pick up one or two things and somehow walk out with a few shopping bags BRIMMING with stuff? I don't think that's happened in a single store since I've moved here...
Speaking of shopping bags - you know how you drive down the road and see the white plastic ones hanging out in the shrubs or caught up in trees? It was getting a bit out of control over here so the government passed a law that required a 15 cent charge on alplastic bags. It removed 90% of the 2.1 BILLION bags that were being distributed and raised almost €10 million that went into and environmental fund to help organize further efforts. People protested at first but it wasn't hard to get used to using the re-usable bags (they only cost a € or two anyway) and how cool is that for the environment? If it had that big of an effect with such a small area, can you imagine the difference it would make in America? ;-)
Since the topic of shopping at Target has come up twice in the past two weeks I thought I'd touch on shopping, in general. Mainly because I miss Target and wish there was a store just like it over here. Everything is mom and pop, which is great for customer service - when I go into certain stores people know me by name and if I can't find something they'll tell me if a store up the street carries it or if they can special order it. What's not good is that all of those stores close at 5:30pm, which is the exact time I get out of work. That leaves Saturday for doing any shopping that needs to be done.
Having Saturday to shop wouldn't be so bad except that everything here seems to be scheduled on Saturdays, so time tends to run low for running errands. A typical Saturday shopping for towels, sugar, a hairdryer, and muffin tins would go a bit like this:
Spend 15 minutes looking for a parking space. Find one way off Main Street and walk a couple of blocks to get there. Go to the 'department store' to get towels, since it's the only place in town that carries them. Head across the street to the grocery store to buy sugar. Head down the street to the electronics store to buy a hairdyer, and then double check at the 'home store' for muffin tins before heading to the other end of town where you eventually find them at the cake making store. That's 2 hours, 5 different stores, and 4 different checkout lines to pick up what would have taken 10 minutes in Target.
I have to admit, it IS part of Ireland's small town charm that there aren't huge chain stores like Target - but you really miss them when you're in a rush, moving into a new place, or trying to throw a party. However, I have to say my bank account doesn't really miss Target. How many times have you walked into one of those stores to pick up one or two things and somehow walk out with a few shopping bags BRIMMING with stuff? I don't think that's happened in a single store since I've moved here...
Speaking of shopping bags - you know how you drive down the road and see the white plastic ones hanging out in the shrubs or caught up in trees? It was getting a bit out of control over here so the government passed a law that required a 15 cent charge on alplastic bags. It removed 90% of the 2.1 BILLION bags that were being distributed and raised almost €10 million that went into and environmental fund to help organize further efforts. People protested at first but it wasn't hard to get used to using the re-usable bags (they only cost a € or two anyway) and how cool is that for the environment? If it had that big of an effect with such a small area, can you imagine the difference it would make in America? ;-)
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