Jet Lag and Friendship

Wrote this a few days ago but couldn't get it posted... sorry for the lapse while on vacation....

The jet lag is killing me - not so much at night when it should, but because I wake up WICKED early (you didn't expect me to be home and not use 'wicked', did you?) and nobody is around to hang out with. Well, maybe Crystal since Ben seemingly wakes her up every two hours to eat, but she usually heads back to sleep. Kelly's up that early but she's so busy with the wedding, she's out the door before most people would think it sane to open their eyes!

It's been FANTASTIC seeing all of my friends this weekend. I knew I missed them all but I didn't realize how much until I saw them all again. I've gotten to spend loads of time with my friend Crystal and her family. Her oldest (Emma) is 2 now and she's SO funny. She had me in tears I was laughing so hard. I can't believe how much she's grown up since I left. I hate that I'm missing things like that being over in Ireland, but there's no experience quite like moving to another country for a stint. As a comforting note, she adores the Good Luck Bear (the Carebear with the four leaf clover on his tummy) that I gave her before I left and she seemed to remember me. She's also taking very good care of the little baby boy Cabbage Patch I got her so she can practice being a big sister. Thanks to Crys and Jamie for reminding her I exist every now and again. I can imagine a 2 year old has lots of other important things on their minds, especially one who's become a brand new big sister.

Last night I went to a Hangi, which is a New Zealand traditional BBQ where all of the food is cooked in 'earth ovens' (buried in the ground and cooked all day). The weather was terrible all day (pouring rain and wind) but there were heaters in the tent and everyone seemed to have a great time. It seemed like every time I turned around there was a new person I hadn't seen since I've been back. I'm really looking forward to the wedding tonight. I'm sure it will be a blast!

Anyhow - just thought I'd give a quick update since I'm up and already downloaded all the new music I wanted from I-tunes, updated all of my virus software, and am waiting for the rest of the world to wake up!! ;-)

Traveling Light

Okay - it's really early and I can't sleep and my trip over here was certainly blog-worthy, so here goes...

Wednesday, as I mentioned in my blog, was a bit of a washout. Training ended up getting cancelled and everything flooded out. One of the roundabouts I went by had a guy directing traffic in waist-deep water at one of the exits. I managed to make it home in one piece and got everything packed and ready to go for yesterday morning.

Everything yesterday morning seemed to be a little slow going - getting out of the house, getting to the airport parking, getting to the airport from parking... Anyhow, we got to the front of the check-in line about 5 minutes after they closed our flight. Perfect. The flight I was SO looking forward to. Time to go to the ticket counter and sort something out. Turns out there's not flight that will get us to Heathrow in time to make our connection. I'm already willing to give up and go home at this point because I can just tell it's one of those days I just shouldn't have gotten out of bed. So we try to book a later flight and almost have that accomplished when an AerLingus rep finds us and tells us the flight's been delayed and we can board.

She escorts us through the airport (hopping lines at security and everywhere else) rushes us to the gate and gets us on in time. I think they overbooked the flight and didn't want to tell us, because they closed the gate almost an hour ahead of the flight, there were still 6 people missing, and we took the last two seats. Math just didn't add up.

We make it to Heathrow on the correct flight and I'm so excited that I don't care WHY the whole closed gate thing happened as long as I'm on my way home. As we get off the plane and are going through the arrival terminal to switch to our next flight, we notice one of my bags coming off the luggage belt. Well, that's not right, so we wait to see if any others come out, but they don't. Weird. Off to the luggage lady. She says she'll bring the bag down below to be transferred and off we go to terminal 4. If you haven't been to Heathrow, you should know that it's HUGE. You have to take a highspeed train to terminal 4 to catch international flights.

We get to terminal 4, get our boarding passes and get on the plane. Lucky us -we have an entire 4 seats in the middle to ourselves to stretch out and relax. Watched 'The Break Up', with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn, ate a not-so-bad salmon dinner, and caught up on some sleep. I finally get to Logan, get through customs (where the wise-but-nice guy at the desk picks on me for being from NY until I note that he should let me into the country anyhow because although my passport says NY, I'm still a Sox fan - which seemed to work because he had no further questions), and go to the baggage claim to wait for luggage. I've never seen the luggage come out so fast. It beat everyone through customs and the little blue bin (denoting the end of the line) came out within 10 minutes of me standing there. Umm.. that's all well and good - but if you notice, I'm still standing there, the little blue bin came out and there was no mention of me picking up luggage.

Right - no luggage. All bags are lost. Second trip to the baggage desk. This time I fill out a form and have them promise to deliver to Crystal's. Ugh. I got a good deal on the rental car, did lots of shopping at Wrentham Outlets, and made it back to Kelly's near Worcester. Ahhh.. home sweet home. Even though Kelly's in a new place, everything is still so familiar from when we were roomies (and a GREAT roomie she was!!) that it's a good finish to a long day. AND Crystal called last night to say they were dropping the bags off overnight.

Now it's 7am, I've been up since 5.30am and it's time to get my bum out of bed and get to IHOP!! Keep your fingers crossed the rest of my trip is a little less adventurous! ;-)

Would you still love me if I were bald?

If today keeps going as it has been, I may pull all of my hair out by the time I leave work today. There's nothing quite like the last day of work before you're heading off on vacation to do your head in. It seems that no matter how hard you plan and how organized you are, something always goes amiss at the last minute and I'm working hard to avoid that today! Then why am I blogging instead of hard at work? Because if I plan on saving any of my sanity for my week of vacation I needed to break for 15 minutes, enjoy something to eat for lunch, and take my mind off work for a bit.

It is POURING out here. It's going to make me feel a bit better about missing soccer training tonight. It's not so tough to miss it when you know you'd be soaked and freezing if you were there. I've got to finish packing for my flight tomorrow morning, so I've got a good excuse. It's been a busy week and I made it to Gaelic training last night (which is why I'm not packed yet) so I don't feel so bad. It's looking like some Chinese takeout and suitcases are in my future. Maybe my fortune cookie will read well tonight. :-)

I occasionally jot little things that occur to me as being different from home down on a sticky note to write about. They don't really make up their own blog but they're handy little things to know:

Mobile Phones: They aren't called 'cell phones' over here and you can easily distinguish a mobile number because ALL mobile numbers begin with either 085, 086, or 087. It's a handy little thing they've organized over here.

License Plates: They're registration plates over here and they belong to the car as opposed to the person who owns the car. In other words, if you sell your car the plates go with it. Since they use this system with the plates, they're able to list some info about the car within the digits. A license plate in Ireland has the general formatting of NN-LL-NNNN. N's are numbers and L's are letters. The first 2 numbers denote the year of the car, the letters denote the county the car was first registered in (usually the first and last letters of the county name - but not always), and the last 4 numbers are seemingly random. So a 2006 Honda Civic bought new in County Wicklow might have the plates '06-WW-8375'. If it were registered in Dublin: '06-D-8375' and so on...

Computer keyboards: I have my laptop from the States over here at home and I use a native keyboard for work so I'm constantly having to look and see where certain punctuation keys are. I don't even have a '€' symbol on my U.S. board and the '@' and quotation symbols are in funny places over here.

Those are a few odd bits about all things Irish. I'm going to try to make an entry or two while I'm home, but if not I'll see you in a week or so. Don't forget I'm here in the meantime!!! ;-)

Irish Soaps

Soaps. Not the kind you use in the shower to keep you from getting stinky... the kind you watch on 'the telly' to keep you entertained. The Irish watch a lot of soaps. To make this entry a little easier to follow I'll give you a bit of a background on Irish television, in general.

There are about 4 to 6 main channels that come with a normal cable hook up. These include RTE 1, 2, 3, and 4 and BBC 1 and 2. RTE 4 is funded to provide programming in Irish (the language) although there are only so many Irish programs out there, so you occassionally find some good shows/movies in English. The remainder of the channels provide fairly typical programming with reality TV, gameshows, news, and SOAPS!

As I said before, the Irish watch A LOT of soaps. 'A LOT' registers in two ways: first there are a lot of different soaps that play on the telly over here. Second there are a lot of people who watch those soaps. Soaps in Ireland aren't just for women... Oh, no. Men of all ages are addicts here. It's no wonder - you'd find updates on all of the soaps in every magazine, paper, tabloid printed over here. The funny thing is, the papers usually spoil the week anyhow so you KNOW what's going to happen.

They also tend to play the soaps over and over again here, so you never really have to worry about missing an episode. Take 'Emmerdale', for instance. (Or Coronation Street or Eastenders... there really much the same no matter which you choose to watch.) It plays at 7pm, but if I miss that I can catch it at 6.30am when I get up in the morning, or in the early afternoon if I have a day off, or if I miss the whole week it's okay. They play every episode back to back during the day on Saturday. It's called the 'Emmerdale Omnibus'.

An interesting thing about Irish soaps - none of them are Irish. They're all British or Australian. For all of the flack the Irish give the British, they're awfully in love with their soaps. Another interesting thing about Irish soaps - the actors and actresses are not all stick thin, perfect models who look like they live in a gym when they're not on camera. (See photos.) They even age on TV. I've always been amused to turn on shows like 'The Young and the Restless' at home and find the same actresses who were on it when I was 5 looking EXACTLY the same as they did when I was 5. Honey, I don't care if you were 20 when I was 5 - there's no way you're still looking that young naturally.

The soaps over here aren't particularly great, but they seem to be so easy to get wrapped up in. Perhaps it's because they're on all the time or perhaps it's because there's really nothing else on. Maybe it's just because the weather often lends itself to curling up on the couch in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and staring at the telly on cold, wet, dark winter evenings. Maybe you should come over and see for yourself! ;-)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

Ahh... Back to work after another weekend. I've got a nice short week and a trip home to look forward to though! I never really thought I'd be so excited to go home... Shows that absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess.

As for my adventures over the weekend: I made it to Avoca Handweavers on Saturday. I didn't make it into the weaving area for a tour, but the shop alone is pretty cool. It's got all sorts of handmade things - scarves, throws, hats, gorgeous suits and coats... Not to mention the loads of chocolates and sweets and things. The place was spilling over with Americans! It's funny to watch because Americans really WILL buy anything that comes from Ireland. I have to admit I fell victim to shopping while I was there - but I've gotten quite a bit of my Christmas shopping done already. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculously early, but I want to get stuff home and wrapped next week so I don't have to ship it over.

The living wake didn't really happen as such - just a few of Billy's friends stopped by and had a few drinks with him. He was worn out and in bed by the time we stopped over. It sounded like he had enjoyed the company, which was nice to hear.

In sports news: We lost another soccer match, 2-1. It was terrible though because we were actually winning up until the last 5 or ten minutes and then everything just seemed to fall apart. I'm still proud of the ladies though - especially considering it was only the 2nd game most of them had ever played.

I also decided I should open up a catering business. Not that I really have time for it but I managed to pull off one heck of a party/meal spread the other day. Everything from homemade mac & cheese to scallops wrapped in bacon. I think there were about 10 different dishes and I fed about 15 people. It's fun to cook a lot of dishes that are typical at home because they're more of a novelty item over here and people think they're new and exciting. It's okay by me - saves me the work of having to think up new food ideas!

Lunch is ending - time to get back to it. I've got a lot of work to do if I plan on leaving things organized and running smoothly at the end of the day Wednesday! ;-)

Baaaaaaaa....

I love sheep. Most people close to me know I have a strange collection of sheep things. Sheep stuffed animals, sheep drink coasters, sheep pajamas... I even had a sheep bedside lamp named 'Larry' at one point in time. I'm going split the blame on this odd collection between two people: My mom and my dad.

My dad chose to name me Rachael, which apparently means 'innocent lamb' so he gets the blame for that half of it. My mom gets the blame for thinking it would be cute to start a lamb/sheep collection in honor of my name. I don't really mind because little lambs really are pretty damn cute. It's not like my name means 'nasty ogre' or something. Everytime my mom sees something with a lamb or sheep on it, she buys it for me. I've got a really fun mug to drink my tea out of at home with a lamb on the outside that says 'I miss ewe!' and when I drink my tea I can see the little lambs running around on the inside. Like I said in my last post, I'm easily amused so don't be surprised by that

That being said, I planned a fun little trip for myself to Avoca Handweavers tomorrow! they have loads of lambs and sheep because they use the wool to make the yarn, which they turn into beautiful scarves, sweaters, etc... The stuff is supposed to be on the less affordable side, but very high quality. I can't access the site for some reason to see exactly what goes on there. From what I gather you can take tours and watch them weaving and visit the petting zoo.

I can't imagine that many Irish people would be interested in visiting a petting zoo full of sheep because on any given day you drive by hundreds of sheep and lambs. There seriously must be more sheep than people in this country. The hills are dotted with little white specs that turn into sheep as you get closer. It's great in the springtime because all of the little lambs are out following their moms around. When it's chilly out, the farmers even turn on big heaters for them to crawl under out in the fields!

I'll let you know more about Avoca Handweavers next week but I'm sure it will be a nice little fieldtrip. I drive through Avoca every day - it was just a matter of doing it while the place was open. A bit of trivia for you: Avoca is where they film Ballykissangel if you've ever seen the show on tv.

My other adventure for this weekend is a 'living wake'. An older friend of Baz's has been terminally ill with cancer for quite some time now and he's only been given another week or two to live. His last request? A big party. Baz thought he was crazy to want a party but I have to agree with the man - if I knew I were going to die in a week or two I would be having the biggest party anyone's ever seen. I'd want everyone to come! So asking for a small house party to 'wake himself before he goes' sounds entirely reasonable to me. Let the man die with a smile on his face! I'll also have to let you know how that goes. Hopefully everyone will be able to put on a brave face and have some fun, like we know he's hoping they all will.

I'm off to start my weekend soon. I hope your Friday flies by and you have a great weekend! ;-)

So damn cute!

My friend Crystal just sent me photos of her brand new baby boy, Benjamin. He is adorable, isn't he? I'm in love already and I haven't even met him yet. Another reason to look forward to home next week! One week from now I'll be on a plane headd to Boston!

Don't get me wrong - I love Ireland, but I really miss my family and friends. Plus it will be nice to get some of my Christmas shopping done where things aren't quite so pricey! I'm hoping I might even catch a glimpse of the tail-end of autumn leaves changing color. They only seem to turn brown a little at a time and fall off over here. Everything's pretty much a duller shade of green - not quite so desolate looking as New England in the winter time when there's no snow.

I'm so tired today. I was up watching Riddick last night. Not all of it - just part of it. I know it's not a great movie, but I'm easily entertained (as most of you well know) and I just couldn't help myself. Regardless of the man's acting ability, I could watch Vin Deisel for hours and just stare at the man's muscles... Mmmm... Very nice!

So a couple of funny facts about Ireland. Most places have real milkmen. Like the old days - they come and leave you milk every day so it's nice and fresh on your doorstep when you wake up. I wonder if this leads to people telling their siblings they were the milkman's child, like my mom used to do to her twin brother... Unfortunately for me (since I go through a couple of gallons a week by myself and it won't all fit in the tiny fridge) I live too far out to have one of my own.

This being Ireland, they also have the Potato Man. Yes - there is a man who comes and delivers potatoes to your door on a regular basis. However often you'd like them. Baz's mum was getting ready to leave on holiday for a week last Friday and we were all in to say goodbye when the Potato Man showed up. Everyone asked why she didn't cancel her order for the week. Her answer? 'You can't have a house without potatoes!' Seriously - my dad would LOVE it over here. Meat and potatoes every day of the week and more beer and whiskey than you can 'shake a stick at'. I wonder where that saying comes from. Anyone out there know?

Tomorrow is Friday. I can't wait. This week work has been insane. If something could go wrong, it did. It makes me SO glad the workdays are shorter. Less time to spend worrying about things during the day. Lunchtime's over. Time to get back to it! ;-)

Where have all the accents gone?

I have officially been here too long. The accents are starting to dissappear. I find myself talking to people or listening to the radio and asking myself 'Does this person even have an Irish accent?' because I can't really tell sometimes. I'm even starting to be able to read the accent within an accent. Did you know that just about every town in Ireland has a distinct accent? I haven't gotten so good that I can identify towns, but I've gotten better at identifying regions.

There's something about the way a person talks that lets you know if they're from a different region. After meeting enough people from enough different places, you start to pick up the differences. One of the first areas you'll notice a difference in is Dublin. The Dublin accent is pretty easy to pick out and it's easy enough to find examples of because it's over-exagerated in every skit featuring criminals, thugs, or mischeif makers. To the point where Dublin people actually complain about damage to their reputations because of it. Everyone else just laughs.

One of the funny things you'll notice about the way Irish people speak is that their 'th' becomes a 'd'. It has something to do with 'th' not being a sound in the Irish (Gaelic) language. So a popular phrase 'no bother' becomes 'no bodder', 'tree' becomes a number after two, and 'duh' (as in 'the') becomes more popular than it was in 'Clueless'. It's good fun to pick on friends every once in a while ('Tree' tea bags? I didn't know they made tea out of trees...).

They've also got some fun phrases and popular sayings over here. I'll make a mini list of the most popular or useful:

Craic - (pronounced 'crack') - good fun, good times, good laughs, good company - pretty much anything good. An example would be if a friend called you up at a party and asked 'How's the craic?' to find out if it's worth coming.

Lads - It doesn't actually get used like 'little boy' over here. More like 'guys' in the U.S. So when we're at training and need to set up a drill somebody might address all of the girls 'Come on, lads! Grab a ball!' and they wouldn't be calling us men.

Yer one - Kind of a nice way of saying 'what's his/her face'. When you're talking to fast to remember or just don't know somebody's name you can use it as in 'I was takling to yer one down at the shop and he said...'

Himself/herself - Instead of actually referring top a husband or wife by name 'Where's Herself this evening?' or 'I left the kids with Himself.'

Cop on - Kind of like 'catch on' or 'get with it'. 'Why don't you cop on to yourself?' would be kind of telling you to stop be stupid and get with the times.

No bodder - Really 'no bother' and used if something is no big deal. If you asked someone to do you a favor they might say 'No bodder. I'll pick the milk up on my way'.

Arse - Ass. Yep - pretty much the same use as at home.

Gobshite - One of my favorites. If somebody does something silly or stupid you might call them this.

Cuppa - As in 'cuppa tea' except somebody would ask you 'Would you like a cuppa?' without actually specifying tea. Could turn out to be coffee in some cases, but mostly tea.

Babby - Like baby. They call them babbies though.

Shite - Take off the 'e'. Same meaning but not as offensive. Like in Gobshite.

Fek - Like the other 'f-word' but not as offensive. It's okay to use 'fek' on TV and on the radio and in front of parents here.

So that's my mini-list of fun Irish words and sayings. By no means is that even remotely close to being complete. If you keep reading my blog I'll throw them in now and again so you'll be a pro when you finally get over here to visit. ;-)

It's a Boy!!

Congrats to Crystal, Jamie, and Emma on the latest addition to their family. Little Benjamin James was born at 1:01pm on Friday the 13th, and according to his daddy he has 'lots of dark hair and big balls'. Good for you, Ben! :-)

Between missing little Ben's entrance into the world and having trouble booking flights home (nothing like leaving things to the last minute but I was really hoping the prices would come down a little, which they did) I had my first homesick breakdown on Sunday morning. I'm not really sure what set me off but all of a sudden tears were pouring down my cheeks and they just would NOT stop. It caught me a bit off guard because I've done a lot of traveling and I haven't really lived at home since I was 18, so I wasn't really expecting to get homesick at all. I suppose it's a good thing I'm heading home for a bit of a break!

On a good note - our Gaelic game went surprisingly well yesterday. It was a well-deserved victory over Blessington, who had beat us in the County Finals but were not so lucky in this run-up to winning the league title. As predicted on Friday the girls celebrated to entire day away at Kitty's and had a blast doing it! Yeah, Geraldines!!

As it goes, Mondays are my grocery shopping days. I'll head there after work and stock up for the week, so today's lesson on life in Ireland is on grocery shopping. The latest craze in grocery shopping here (thank goodness) is 24 hour stores. Between training and work and everything else I find myself doing, it's great to be able to shop late if I have to. I already explained the charge on plastic bags so the first thing you have to remember to do when shopping is make sure you've got your bags with you. They even make the trolleys (shopping carts in U.S. speak) with little hooks to hang your bags on.

The next thing you'll notice when you get to the store is that the trolleys are all locked up. You can't just pull them away and zip into the store with them. You have to insert a €1 piece into the handle, which releases the lock and lets you take the trolley. It's actually a very clever idea because in order to get your €1 back you have to put the trolley back where it belongs and lock it back up, which pushes the coin back out.

Side note: Euro is the currency here and in most of Europe - a common currency brought into effect to help make things as uncomplicated as possible financially in Europe. It's taken off well and is stronger than the US$ right now. The coins are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cent pieces - €1 and €2 coins and then 5, 10, 20, 50, etc... bills.

Anyhow, once you've got your trolley and are in the grocery store, not too much is different. Things in Ireland aren't usually sold in bulk like they are in the U.S. but for good reason. The refrigerators over here are MUCH smaller, as a rule. Probably about half the size of the typical American fridge. You can get American refrigerators over here. A few of my friends have them and I get SO jealous every time I go to grab something out of their fridge. If I weren't renting I would SO splurge on one.

For that reason, you notice little differences: milk isn't sold in gallon jugs, eggs are kept near the fridge section of the store but are shelved instead of IN a fridge, juices come in smaller cartons, etc... You can get most things you'd find at home. Exceptions to this that I've found are powdered drink mixes (iced tea, Crystal Light), artichoke hearts, onion soup mix, macaroni & cheese, ranch dressing, Cool Whip (or any non-dairy topping), frozen berries, and a few other things that come to mind.

Those are about the only differences I've noticed. They've even got the self-checkout lines at most stores, although I notice that more people here tend to use them than I remember using them at home. Sorry if this wasn't the most exciting post on my blog but I promised some practical advise about living in Ireland and I shall deliver!! Until next time... ;-)

Happy Friday the 13th!

I'm sorry for those of you who are anti-Friday the 13th, but today is a lucky day for me and I LIKE the few chances I get to enjoy it. I've got a few theories on why this might be the case but the front-runner is this: Friday the 13th is a lucky day for me simply because I am the unluckiest woman in the world every other day of the year and God felt like I was owed one. Seriously. I'm not the type of unlucky where I buy a scratch card and don't win. I'm the kind of unlucky where the Lottery cash register jams up so I can't even BUY the scratch card. Really - that happened to me last month. So I'm starting this Friday off with a smile on my face.

There's another reason for starting the day off with a smile on my face... A certain best friend of mine is having baby #2 today!! No, she won't be late. It's a c-section. I guess the doctor's office called her about 10 times to ask if she realized it was Friday the 13th and make sure she didn't mind. Good thing she's not superstitious, eh? After asking her about it myself I found out that not only is this baby being BORN on Friday the 13th, it was CONCEIVED on Friday the 13th. I told her if he/she comes out with little devil horns and an evil laugh instead of the traditional crying, we'll know why.

On another note - I'm a country music fan. They only country music they play over here is on 'Southeast Radio' on Saturday nights. There aren't any country music radio stations, no country music videos, and I certainly haven't seen any country music stars performing concerts over here. Lucky for me, I have my Launchcast Radio. It's an online radio that has loads of different stations you can tune into anywhere you've got an inernet connection. There's rock, pop, country, rap, classical, alternative... you name it. You can listen for free or pay a small subscription fee (which I did - well worth it). Just a way to keep in touch with the latest releases and what's going on at home. I know I'll be home in a few weeks riding along in the car and will say 'Wow! That's a great new song' and somebody will laugh and say 'New? That's been overplayed for about 6 months now!' and I'll be missing out on all the latest music. Damn the British for hogging airwaves! :-)

I was looking through some fairly recent photos and found this one of my Gaelic Football team. I liked the pic and thought they'd earned some face time on my blog since I talk about training and matches so much. This was taken after we lost the county final match. We play the same team on Sunday. If they had this much fun after a loss, can you imagine the fun when we win on Sunday? Just a fun party pic to get your weekend started. Have a good one!! ;-)

How do I love Sam? Let me count the ways...

I've been a bit sporadic with my postings, which I apologize for. Work has hit full throttle here and it's been keeping me super busy, which is great because the day flies by a lot faster even if it means I don't have time to blog. The great thing about work here is that as much as I like my job and as busy as we are, I never take it home with me. Not in paperwork, not in thought, not in stress. I didn't even know that was possible. :-)

Last night's training was for soccer. I haven't been so busy with sports since college. It's great! I'm having fun AND keeping fit. This week was Gaelic Tuesday and tonight, soccer last night, and two matches on Sunday. We actually had a coach last night. He's one of the guys who plays for the men's team opposite our women's team. He had us running organized drills and working on actual ball handling skills. It was great because we could certainly usse the practice... watching the first set of drills was a bit like watching the beginning of The Mighty Ducks. John, the new coach, has his work cut out for him!

All of the teams over here have club sponsers. Most of the sponsers are local pubs - they buy jerseys and other items and in return they get their name printed in big bold letters on everything you wear. It works out fairly well on both ends. We finally got a sponser for our new soccer team. It's going to be Kitty's of Arklow (pictured left) and they're supplying jerseys, shorts, socks, and bags. They're also giving us two free drinks each after every match and letting us run quiz nights there on Friday nights to raise money for the team. It's really a great deal - we get free stuff and they fill their pub on Sunday nights.

So the highlight of my week was last night. I was on my way home from training and in the mood for some wine, so I stopped at the new 'off license'. That would be a package store in MA, or a liquor/beer store anywhere else I've ever lived... I picked up a bottle of wine and was heading for the checkout and decided to cehck the beer fridge. I wasn't expecting much because everywhere here serves the same beer, but it's abig store and I thought I might luck out and get something a little different. Imagine my surprise when, sitting in all of it's blue and maroon glory, I spied a six pack of Samual Adam's Boston Lager sitting on the top shelf! It was like Christmas time in the beer market! I snapped it up, drove home, sat next to the fire place, put my feet up and took a lovely long sip. Ahhhhh....

You are probably wondering about my excitement at seeing Sam. Well, for all of the drinking the Irish do, there really isn't much selection. The photo at the right shows ALL of the beers (with the exception of Corona, which is served at 2 pubs in town and the occassional Beamish Stout) that are served in every Irish pub I've ever been in. Guinness, Smithwicks, Carlsberg, Bud, Bulmers Cider, and Heineken. That's it. The end. Not even Bud Light. I often start evenings out figuring out what I'm LEAST sick of drinking. Mind you, by the time I've had two of whatever it is I've decided on I've usually forgotten I was sick of drinking it but STILL, some selection would be nice. Hence the reason for my excitement at finding the Sam Adams. Not to mention a little taste of home is always nice.

Speaking of Boston Lagers and home... Two weeks from today I land back in Logan! I can't wait to see everyone... I can hardly believe it's been 6 months! ;-)

Mmm....

I just finished the BEST cup of hot chocolate ever. It's made by Nestle and it's called Aero. It's bubbly and smooth and creamy and just plain yummy! Especially after waking up to a morning like today. It was FREEZING out. Literally. I started my car and turned on the windshield wipers and it was all ice. It was 2 degrees Celsius by the time I went outside, which is in the low 30's in F. That's apparently cold enough to make the little temperature read-out on my dashboard blink. Too cold for me in October!

On a note of good news - we won our Gaelic match on Sunday so we're still in the running for the league championship. It was a close game and we came from behind to beat Bray by 2 points. The weather was ridiculous. It rained so hard you couldn't see the other side of the pitch at times. If it had started earlier they probably would have put the match off for another week or two but we were already there and ready to go, so what could you do?

Earlier on Sunday was my team's first soccer match. That didn't go quite as well. We were beat 7-3 and I think we broke the world record for most illegal throw-ins in a single match. There had to be over a dozen... At least we could all laugh about it. It was, after all, the first time most of the girls had played a soccer match and most of those who HAD played before only played half a match because of the Gaelic match in the afternoon. The team we played was the best in the league. Everything from diving headers to attempts at scissor kicks. A few even had soccer balls tattooed on their thighs. Think they take the game seriously?

What else? Let's see... I went to a great surprise birthday party on Saturday. It was my friend Darragh's dad. He turned 60 and he never suspected a thing. He's best friends with the owner of the hotel it was held at so the party was well put together and completely over the top. They were pushing to fill your glass there was so much wine and the food spread was great! The best were the guests though. What a fun crowd! The birthday boy's brother was a sweet older Irishman and he kept singing me old Irish love songs. So cute!

As per usual the weekend flew by too quickly but another one is just around the corner. Only a little over 2 weeks before I'm back in the States! Yeah!!! ;-)

Where the Great Guinness Flows

If you know anyone who's Irish or who has been to Ireland, you have no doubt heard that the Guinness is better here. Very true. I honestly can't even drink the Guinness at home, with the exception of a few Irish establishments where the pour has been perfected. Even then it's just not the same. There's something about sitting in an Irish pub and sipping on a perfectly poured Guinness that just makes me say 'Ahhhh....'.

I remember my first Irish Guinness. It was at Christie's Pub in Arklow at lunchtime on my first day here last year. I was really only having a Guinness because I figured I was in Ireland and that's what you're supposed to do here, right? I really never liked Guinness before so I wasn't looking forward to the pint at all. I had tried it before and it was kind of bitter and filling. Imagine my suprise when I took my first sip and found it smooth and easy on the tastebuds... I can tell you it may have been my first but it was CERTAINLY not my last.

As for the pouring of Guinness - if you ever order a Guinness and the bartender puts it under the tap and fills the pint to the top, leave the beer on the bar and RUN!! That is SO very wrong. The following was taken from the Guinness site and it is the ONLY way they pour it here:

"Six Degrees of Preparation

GUINNESS® Draught is best served at 4-6°C (that's 39.2-42.8°F), with the legendary two-part pour. First, tilt the glass to 45 degrees and carefully pour until three quarters full. Then place the glass on the bar counter and leave to settle. Once the surge has settled, fill the glass to the brim. It takes about 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint. But don't fret. It's worth the wait."

The reason for the yummy taste and perfect pour in Ireland? The Guinness Quality Team. There are a group of people hired especially to travel to every pub that serves Guinness (so every pub in Ireland) to work with the owners and bar staff to ensure that the Guinness is of the highest quality and poured to perfection. They check for clean lines, proper pint glasses, and all sorts of other things. That's not the best part though. The best part is the cool little van that has 'Guinness' painted all over it that they get to drive everywhere. You see them driving around and parked outside pubs all the time. No wonder the Guinness is so good!

Guinness also runs a special series over here of different brews they try for a season or so and then take off the market. I guess the first one didn't go over so well, but the second one (Tuscan Brew) was out for the summer and I was impressed. Tuscan tastes like Guinness, it looks like Guinness, and it's poured like Guinness but it's LIGHTER going down. This is good and bad. Good because it doesn't drink so slowly and it's easier to drink more. Bad because it doesn't drink so slowly and it's easier to drink more. See the dilemna?

The new hotel just opened up this week down the road from my place. I'm planning on stopping into the bar later this evening to make sure they know how to pour a proper Guinness. I'll be sure to check one for you too. After all, we wouldn't want them surving bad Guinness, would we? ;-)

An Post for Everything

Looking for someplace to get a dog license? How about pay that traffic ticket? Or maybe pick up your welfare check so you can buy some Lotto tickets? It's time for you to hit the local post office, or An Post as it's known in Ireland.

There's one in every town, no matter how small, and they're all easily marked with a distinct green sign. Not that An Post is strictly a post office as we know it by any means... they can often be found in magazine stores or corner shops and I've decided you can do just about anything there.

When I first moved over I was looking for Lottery scratch tickets to send home for a birthday. When I called Baz to ask where I might find them I was told 'at An Post' like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Duh. The post office. Of COURSE they sell lottery tickets. What was I thinking?

Not only do they sell lottery tickets... On top of actual mail delivery they also do pre-paid phone top ups, passports, dog licenses, you can pay your Garda (police) fines, pick up welfare checks, pay electric bills, buy gift vouchers and purchase prize bonds. Of course, you wouldn't want to forget to pick up your TV license while you're there.

Uh-huh. You need a €150 ($190) license to watch TV (lucky for you, Kara, they don't monitor how MUCH TV you watch). They have people who go door to door and check for it. They even use the funny (and slightly crude) little TV characters Podge and Rodge to advertise the need for one. What happens if you don't have your TV license? The fine is over €600 ($760) for the first offense and twice that the 2nd time around. It sounds a bit silly, but they really do a good amount of public broadcasting over here and it's how they pay for it instead of the week-long telethons you see on PBS (when you might actually ever turn PBS on). It helps fund things like Irish-speaking programs. Yes, 'Irish' really is a language.

I'm sure I didn't even BEGIN to dig into all of the things you can do at An Post, but I'll keep you posted as I come up with more. In the meantime, feel free to stop by An Post and pick up your welfare checks so you can buy those lottery tickets to win enough to pay the electric bill to run the TV that you just purchased a license for. ;-)

Monday, Tuesday, Friday?

Is it Friday yet? Doesn't it sometimes seem like the weekend was so short that it may have been a figment of your imagination or it may not have happened at all? My weekend was a pretty quiet one, by Irish standards. No 18th birthdays, 21st birthdays, communions, christenings (although I was invited to one), confirmations, retirements, weddings, or funerals.... Although next weekend I've got a 21st birthday and a 60th birthday.

I don't understand the whole '21st birthday' thing over here. They hire out halls, throw dinner parties with bands and catering and fancy dresses... all for the 21st birthday. What's so great about turning 21? At home you can drink legally for the 1st time when you turn 21 - here that already happened at 18. Nobody here really seems to know either, because I've asked. From what I can tell it's just a great excuse to throw another party and drink and dance the night away. Who am I to complain? :-)

Friday was my first soccer training with the new team. Not that it's much of a 'new' team because with the exception of a young woman named Leah, it's my Gaelic Team wearing shinguards. If you read my blog about Gaelic, then you might recall me describing it as 'kind of like soccer, but you can use your hands'. Now picture a group of women who were used to those rules on a soccer pitch (that's what they call the fields over here). It was pretty funny. I'd say maybe 50% of the girls knew the rules and that might have been pressing it. It should be a good time season though - we were certainly having a good laugh and a lot of fun. Our next training is tomorrow night and our first game is next Sunday. Should be interesting...

Saturday I went to buy shinguards. Didn't exactly think to throw them in the suitcase on the way over since I haven't played soccer in years... Our assistant coach for Gaelic (also a bit of a coach for the soccer team - go figure) works the till (register) there. She got a call from another teammate of mine while she was checking me out to tell us our Gaelic coach got engaged a few hours earlier. He's been dating the girl (a sister of another teammate) for 10 weeks. Are you starting to see how small this town is? It gets better. So I walk up the street, turn into one of my favorite pubs to see if anybody I know is in there (which of course there would be) and run into my coach's new fiance's sister (they're triplets - one plays gaelic, one is engaged to my coach, and this is the third) and my friend John who stop me to say 'You'll never guess who got engaged today!!!'. I bet you a pint I will!!! :-) Yep - my coach. No joke - same rumor in less than 2 minutes from 2 completely different sources. Gotta love this place.

Sunday was even quieter - caught the local rugby game and enjoyed the lovely weather. I love being outside. There's nothing like a beautiful Sunday to end your weekend. Now if next weekend would just hurry up and get here... ;-)

Crash!

Crash. That was my bad dream last night. It was this horrible dream where I crashed my car on this super skinny, winding, wet road. Nobody was hurt but there was this impossible man who was behind me and just kept yelling at me because I made him have to hit his brakes. It was so strange.

Not surprising though. Road accidents are probably one of the most talked about items on the radio over here - every fatal accident is reported on the radio (country wide). The death toll is counted starting with the New Year and is announced every time there's another accident 'A 53 year old man from Co. Cork died this morning in a crash on the N11, bringing this year's total to 254' or something like that. When you drive into a new county you have two signs. The first says ‘Welcome to County Wicklow’. The second says ’54 deaths on County Wicklow roads in 2006’. Every county has them on every road in and out. It’s a bit depressing and they really are trying to improve road safety but it doesn't seem to be very effective. A few of the major faults are pretty obvious. One is the licensing system over here. When you turn 17 you can sit your Theory Test to get your Provisional License. Kind of like a Permit at home. Except here everyone then drives around like they've got a full license with no experienced driver in the car. It's not legal. Well, not for your first Provisional License – but if you happen to fail your driving test… THEN it’s legal to drive around by yourself with your 2nd Provisional License. I don’t get it either.

Then there's the drinking and driving. You can lose your license for it here, but like I said - there aren't usually any police around to stop you for it. That, and if somebody dies in a drinking related accident in the U.S., it seems to be the first thing they tell you about it. Not here though. They announce the time of the accidents, so you know that more than half of the fatal accidents occur on weekends between midnight and 3am, but must just be bad luck or something because they never mention drinking. Don’t you think it MIGHT just deter people from drinking and driving if they thought all those deaths were because people were dumb enough to drink and drive in the first place?

I’ve got my Provisional License but can drive on my American License while I’m waiting the average 53 weeks it takes to get a slot to take your road test. It’s only about a 50% pass rate in most counties. So yes, the system needs a little work. In the meantime I suggest you just hang on tight and be sure to buckle up! ;-)