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... ;-)
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... ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment