Can I get giant nightlight over here?

As if the rain and wind weren’t enough in the wintertime here, the darkness is becoming a bit depressing as well. Only 22 days left until the shortest day of the year but it’s already dark for 2/3 of the day. The sun come up at about 8am, as I’m getting to work and is set around 4pm, before I even think about leaving. At least I’m used to driving in the dark now. The first few times I drove in the dark over here were a little weird because it stays light until about 11pm in the summer, so you don’t get much opportunity for ‘night driving’.

Let’s see – what’s been going on this week? I got more Christmas presents in the mail! My mom has sent 2 boxes over so far, with multiple presents in each. She must feel bad about me not being home for the holidays. It’s just not the same when I know I’m not going to be waking up at my parents’ house with everyone on Christmas morning, you know?

Anyone who has been to my place at Christmas time knows that I have accumulated quite the collection of Christmas decorations, dishes, towels, etc… I miss having all of those to decorate with over here. I’d normally have most of them up by now and I’d be planning my trip to pick out a tree sometime this week/weekend. They aren’t even selling trees here yet. I don’t own any decorations here either, and it’s kind of silly to go spending all of that money on things when I don’t know how long I’m staying or if I’ll get to use them again.

I did get myself a little nativity. It was really inexpensive and the baby Jesus comes out of it. That’s important because in my house baby Jesus doesn’t show up in the manger until Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. I figure I’ll set it on my mantle above the fireplace. I really miss having my Hallmark ornaments here. I didn’t want to risk shipping them or travelling with them because it would break my heart if they were damaged. I’ve gotten one every year since I was born so there’s quite a collection sitting in a box at home. Maybe my mom will take them out and hang them on her tree so they won’t be neglected this year.

On a brighter note, my boss stopped up the other day and seemed pretty pleased with things. I work on-site and so I’m not in the office and don’t report to my boss on a daily basis. I kind of AM the boss, but it doesn’t feel as empowering as I always though it would. Anyhow, I guess my boss ran into the architect/engineer who works here at a dinner last week. The architect was complimenting my organization and communication skills and saying that he was really surprised somebody could get the muddle of projects up here sorted and running smoothly. That made me smile for the better part of the day!

I also ordered a new phone yesterday that I’m waiting to show up in the mail. It’s the Motorola V3 Razr in black. There’s a fairly limited number of phones available with the prepay service I use, but that one seems pretty handy. I’ve always loved my flip-phones so I wanted to stick with that style even though they don’t seem to be as popular over here (and they call them ‘clam shell’ phones). The buttons and ringer on the super cheapo one I got when I moved here are starting to go. I can’t have that because I use it to text a lot and I also use it as an alarm. If the alarm goes I miss work and that wouldn’t be cool…

This weekend is looking like a good deal of Christmas shopping is in my future. I’ve actually got most of my shopping done, but I want to pick up one or two more things and I need a new dress for my company Christmas party. Well, maybe I don’t need one – but I’d like one. I’ve got a 40th birthday party coming up as well, so it will get good use.

Back to work for me. These lunch breaks seem to get shorter and shorter… ;-)

Santa and SingStar

As for other non-Thanksgiving items, the weekend was a still a busy one. I did a bunch of my cleaning for the dinner and then headed into town to pick Baz up from having a 'pint or two' after work with his brother Anthony. I got to the pub just in time for them to get into a bit of a spat about work and who's better at what and other things you normally hear coming from little children. I was sitting between them at the corner of the bar and it was a bit like watching a tennis game - back and forth, back and forth. As the childish banter got louder I felt like I was transported back in time to what life must have been like for their mother when they were about 10 and 12. Except now they are not 'little' boys by any means and standing well over 6 foot each with not-so-small frames. I had to stop my amusement and extinguish the flame before they started wrestling around the bar and broke something (or someone).

My Saturday was spent cleaning, grocery shopping and baking and doing other various pre-Thanksgiving prep like picking up extra chairs and tables and plates. I also went to check out the Christmas section at Arklow Building Supply to see what they've got for decorations. Santa was there! This may sounds insanely childish, at first but really there was good reason to be excited. Every year since I was born my mom has dragged me to go get my photo done with Santa. First it was me, then it was with Anne, and then the three of us. Every year. If you don't go, you don't get presents.

So I was excited when I found out he was there because it's not like home where you go and stand in line and Santa's in the middle of the mall for all to see. Here, Santa hides out in a little tent and you have to pay €7 to go see him. This doesn't include a photo or anything so it's a good thing mine is surgically attached to me (not really but all of you who know me know what I mean). Anyhow - I don't think Santa minded, as he seemed pretty eager to have me come sit on his lap, and the little elf lady thought it was sweet and took the photo for me. I think I also restored faith in a few small children who must have thought that if an adult like me was going to see Santa he must be real.

That was one of the highlights of my weekend though because even though the three of us aren't in the photo, I should be able to digitally alter it with pics from Anne and Shaine and make it look decent. Plus, my mom will be SO psyched I didn't miss a year just because I was out of the country. It's the first Santa I've met with a brogue. I wonder how little Irish kids feel when they watch The Night Before Christmas and Santa has an American accent? He did give me a cute little stuffed bear to unwrap though.

I ended up going out with the ladies from the Gaelic team Saturday night. My first girls night out over here. It was really a fun time. Noush brought her (other) drinking Jenga game, which nobody else had ever played before and that was good for laughs. Then the SingStar playstation karaoke came out. Wow, was I laughing. I don't know as many real words to Ice, Ice Baby as I though. Our captain hosted the little party and is banned from pouring/making/fixing/giving drinks anymore. She was handing out shots and mixing up liquor cocktails like it was our last night of drinking. Ever.

We eventually made it down to Kitty's for more karaoke (where I found out they're having a 'fancy dress' aka costume party in two weeks!) and Noush and I did a fantastic rendition of Devil Went Down to Georgia (she's from Atlanta) with do-see-does and all. Really fun time and I made it to bed at a decent hour to get up and cook, although I was completely EXHAUSTED all day.

I told you the weekend was busy! It was great to get all of the girls out. Now if I can only get them to all dress up for that fancy dress party... ;-)

Thanksgiving Dinner - Irish Style

I've never cooked Thanksgiving Dinner by myself. What made me think that cooking it for 22 people would be a good idea??? Why didn't anybody slap me to try to knock some sense into me? Doing it on a Sunday (yesterday) also left me with no time to recoup. Back to work today!

Actually, the whole thing went over pretty well. Everyone got to try a few dishes that were new to them and I won't have to cook for another week with all of the leftovers. I'm still not entirely sure how I fit that much food into my tony Irish-sized fridge. It was fairly classic Thanksgiving dinner. I had appetizers out to munch on when people got there:

- Celery stuffed with cream cheese and Spanish olives
- Cheese platter
- Veggie platter
- Devilled eggs

And then there was the main course:

- Turkey
- Stuffing
- Mashed potatoes
- Gravy
- Sweet potatoes
- Butternut squash
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Cranberry sauce
- Jello Salad
- Coleslaw
- Dinner rolls

Last but not least - DESSERT!!

- Pumpkin pie
- Apple pie
- Rasberry cheesecake
- Chocolate cake
- Pastry Tower

I think that was it. I like throwing in a few new foods to see how they'll go over. This meal it was the butternut squash (actually labelled an 'exotic vegetable' in one store) which I baked with butter, maple syrup, and nutmeg. The jello salad was new (which most of you wouldn't have had either) and they thought it was SO funny that I served something so sweet WITH the meal. Pumpkin pie was a novelty as well. I actually managed to make it from scratch and not ruin it. This was very important because pumpkins aren't as easy to get over here so I actually brought the canned pumpkin back with me from my trip home.

They fell into the tradition pretty easily too. The guys spent the afternoon watching sports on TV (although it was rugby instead of American Football) and all collapsed on the couch, half passed out afterwards. As much help as I got cleaning up last night, you can only clean up so much when you have that many people in your house so there's a decent amount of cleaning waiting to be done once I get home tonight.

All in all, a good meal and good times. ;-)

Here I sit...

...at work, eating my leftover spaghetti and meatballs at 'dinner time' on Thanksgiving. :-( Where's the TURKEY????

My normal Thanksgiving traditions are all out the window this year. I didn't go to the pub last night to meet up with all of my high school friends like I normally do. Granted, every year we sit there and think about how we don't really want to go but what if we miss something (like the prom queen shows up and she's pregnant with triplets and has developed an acute case of adult acne) and then you go and wonder why you ever bothered going in the first place and swear you won't next year (like you swore LAST year).

I was usually pretty good about not drinking much on those nights anyhow because I would inevitably have to get up early the next morning to run the Turkey Trot (okay - so I only ran the 5k, which was more or less considered the 'chicken trot' by the 10k runners) and having a hangover SUCKED. I've lost track of when it all started but I know that this will only be the 3rd one since then that I've missed. The 1st I missed because I was in England for Thanksgiving (that was the year Linda Dayton cooked us a 'make-up Thanksgiving' meal when we all got home) and the other year was when I broke my leg and had my cast removed the day before Thanksgiving. I still went that year - I hobbled around without crutches which was probably more work and more painful than most years running the damn thing!

Next would be the Thanksgiving nap - which my mom would always allow if we ran, even if it meant waiting a bit longer for us to help in the kitchen. Those were always the best naps! Followed by stuffing myself stupid with dinner and falling asleep on the couch with my cousin Alexandra. We usually rent a movie to watch as well, because you can only watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade so many times. I guess I'll just have to wait until Sunday for this year's turkey.

In the meantime, I've got a couple of pics from Blarney last weekend. For those of you who haven't been (most of you, I'm guessing) you'll see that you have to lean upside down and backwards to kiss the thing. The two yellow bars you can see in the pic to the right are all that are keeping me from plummeting to the bottom of a 4 story drop. The weird part was that it didn't even phase me. I think construction may have cured my mild fear of heights. The guy that holds you is really nice and even managed to convince the girl ahead of me that she shouldn't be scared and that he really hasn't ever dropped anybody - she eventually got down and kissed the stone.

Thanks to the winter weather in Ireland, the tourist traffic was pretty low. There was no line to kiss the stone (only the scared girl in front of us) and we could climb all over the place to explore and take photos. The castle is in pretty good shape so you can walk around in what was the kitchen, old bedrooms, entrance hall, etc... The photo at the left is from the top of the castle. It's the watchtower and castle grounds. Very pretty - even in winter. Mother Nature was kind and granted a mild day full of sunshine for my first visit to Blarney. It's another one of my favorite places so far.

I think I've rambled on long enough and should probably get back to work. It's like my brain knows it shouldn't be working full tilt today! I hope everyone back home has a very Happy Thanksgiving!! Eat some turkey and have a few drinks for me! ;-)

Who likes taking photos?

I DO!!! I FINALLY got my pics from the Halloween party burned to a CD to share with you. I have to say my night started off on a creepy note. I was cooking and heard a knock at the french doors and when I pulled the curtain back I found these two staring me in the face on the other side of the glass:

Yeah - just plain creepy. I think one of my favorite costumes was my friend Noush's boyfriend. He dressed up like Borat and looked great, but he also had a great accent to go with it. Unfortunately, I can't post the accent here so a pic of the two of us will have to do:

I was impressed that everyone dressed up. Baz was certain I'd never get people to do it but we had everything from Cowboys & Indians to cats, Vikings, and baseball players:

It was a fun time and I'm on a photo roll, so expect some from Blarney tomorrow.

I'm back to what seems like a normal training schedule. My Gaelic team lost the league semi-finals but we've still got one game left so back to training Tuesday and Thursdays, with soccer on Wednesdays. Ahh... should keep me fit even if it doesn't leave me with much time.

I stopped into the new spa at the new hotel the other night. They gave me the grand tour and I can tell you that I can't WAIT to book an appointment. I'm waiting to get the price menu in the mail before I do anything too crazy. Maybe I'll treat myself to something simple like a manicure or eyebrow wax this weekend. They can't charge anything too crazy for either of those. Besides, I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 20-something people on Sunday so I'll probably need a break from prepping on Saturday.

Speaking of dinner - I stopped at the grocery store after training last night to pick up some food, since there is NONE in the house, and found sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce. I was so excited. I'd been looking and I think maybe they're starting to stock the cranberry sauce for Christmas dinner - I bought 3 small jars of it. I wasn't sure what to expect but I decided to try my luck since I haven't been able to find the sauce or fresh cranberries to make it. I opened a jar when I got home and it was perfect. A sort of mix between the jelly-like stuff you get in a can and the fresh stuff you'd make at home. One questionable ingredient down, only a few more to go.

I think that if customs had stopped me on the way home they would have brought me in for questioning based on the insane contents of my bags: cans of pumpkin, cherry pie filling, and pumpkin bread mix, to name a few. I can't get those things over here and they HAD to be part of my Thanksgiving dinner so they came back in my suitcase. Can't have Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie!!

I have to say that I'm jealous of all of you who have a half day today and the rest of the week off, but who will be laughing at Christmas time when I get a full week and a half off? Or Easter when I get to relapse into the days of 'spring break'? Especially with Crystal and Kara coming! Watch out 'Girls Gone Wild' - you've got nothing on us!

I also received my first package of Christmas presents, which reminded me that I have to get my ass in gear and wrap and send some so they get to the States in time. It's nice to get presents but it's sad to realize I won't be opening them with my family like I have for the other 27 Christmas Days. :-(

I've also got to get my Christmas cards done, so any of you who have moved in the last year or so or would like to receive a Christmas card from me (I like sending them and don't expect them back - so don't worry about that) - send me the new address. Most of you will be getting an e-mail about it shortly anyhow... 33 days 'til Christmas! ;-)

Started My Monday with a Giggle

My friend Kara made me start my Monday with a giggle when she referenced this site on the death of VHS. What made me giggle was her point that both she and VHS are 30 and VHS is dead. Well, dead to the commercial world, I suppose. I still haven't upgraded my parents to a DVR and therefore all of my favorite shows are recorded on VHS and sent to me via snail-mail. Yes, I know. Very stone age. It works for me though. I'm allowed to spend several hours of my week wasting away catching up on episodes of Bones, House, The O.C., and Prison Break. Seriously - I don't remember any of my fellow Civil students ever looking like that.

I went to Blarney for the weekend and kissed the Blarney Stone. You have to hang upside down to reach it and this guy holds on to you to make sure you don't plummet down the side of the castle and land on other tourists below. I've obviously been working construction heights for a while because the idea of falling between the wall and the stone and plummeting to my death never really occurred to me. Five years ago (before I had to hang off the edge of buildings to plumb steel at work) I probably would have freaked out about it. Yeah for me overcoming a fear of heights. :-)

I love that my sister Anne is such a night owl. We're 8 hours apart now with her living out in California. Anne's always been one for staying up all night and sleeping all day. She'll try to blame it on her night shifts at Denny's but she was like that well before she ever put on a good ol' Denny's uniform. So I wasn't incredibly surprised to get an e-mail from her at noon here. Yep - 3:30am on a Monday where she is. Leave it to Anne. It was good to hear from her anyways and get to chat back and forth a bit.

I should be posting Halloween pics tomorrow. Something is wrong with the CD I have them on and it won't read properly. I'll use a new CD and see if I can't get them up. It's going to be Christmas by the time I get these silly pics up. Better late than never I suppose.

I'm planning my Thanksgiving menu for this coming Sunday if anyone has any good ideas for things to serve. I know Thursday is traditionally on Thursday but that's one of the few days this year I DON'T have off so I'm going to have to improvise. Any help would be appreciated. ;-)

Got 'Em

Got my tickets to the Dave Matthews show. I didn't think it would be hard to get tickets, but I had to settle for getting just 2 tickets at 9:05am when tickets went on sale at 9:00am. By 9:30am you couldn't even get a single ticket. That's crazy. The seats are in the upper balcony, but since the place only seats a couple of thousand (it's mostly used for boxing, I've been told) they should still be pretty good.

I have in my possession a bottle of Poitin (aka Potcheen, Poteen, etc...) for the first time ever. What exactly is that, you may ask? It's an Irish Moonshine. The bottle I've got is only 70% alcohol. Yes - 'ONLY' 70% because they do make it 100% strong. It's not advised you drink it when it's that strong though. It's been said it will burn the hair off you when it's that strong, so I can't imagine what it would do to your insides. The guy who makes the one I've got actually won't sell it to anyone unless he's sure they're only using it for rubbing on the muscles of horses and greyhounds. It's THAT strong. Apparently it works to relieve pain in sore muscles.

From what I've been told, it drinks a bit like vodka - you mix it with juices or lemon-lime soda for the best mixers. It's also good for spiking punch at parties, as a few very funny stories have shown. It's a bit of a miracle cure according to some people. As I was handed the bottle I was told to keep a bit in my medicine cabinet and when somebody comes down with the flu you can put a bit in a glass, add a bit of hot water, dissolve a teaspoon or two of honey in it and sip away. One cup of that before bedtime and a person will wake up feeling newly reborn! Probably a bit of an old wife's tale, but it seems to work for people around here.

It's slightly sunny out today but quite cold for Ireland. It's not supposed to get out of the 30's today and they've got warnings out that the roads might get a bit icy this evening and tonight. I don't think it's that cold, but having gone to CU that's not so surprising. My hair used to turn into icicles on the way to class if I didn't have time to blow dry. Seriously. I'm not too worried though. Even if it DID get that cold out I'm pretty sure one good sip of Poitin would have me feeling all sorts of fuzzy and warm! ;-)

I would still marry him...

I can't believe I forgot to mention Dave!! I know, sounds like a good friend, but really I've never met him. Although in some ways, I guess he could be considered a good friend. He's been through lots of things with me - the good, the bad, the ugly, the fantastic... love, hate... college. I remember sitting with my friends Sara and Nicole and professing our undying love for the man in our dorm up at CU. Who wouldn't love a man with talent like that? Dave Matthews is amazing.

Anyhow - the reason I mention Dave is that he's coming to DUBLIN! How cool is that? My friend Abby sent me the info on the concert or I never would have known about it. I haven't heard a word of it over here and not many people know who he is so I'm hoping it won't be hard to get decent seats. Tickets go onsale tomorrow morning at 9am, so I should know by the time I blog again. Great seats would be a fantastic way to start off the weekend.

I love just chilling out and listening to Dave. There are seriously about a million and one memories that belong with his music. His concerts (and the pre and post activity) were always an adventure at SPAC. I've seen him in Canada too, so this will be country #3. That's kind of fun, now that I think of it. The concert is just him on tour so it should be different for me and I'm still expecting it to be cool. It's Feb 26th if anyone wants to come with me!!! ;-)

The color may be penetrating...

I think the blonde highlights are getting to me. I sat down last night and took all of the photos off my camera so I could post some new pics on here. I looked on the disc I burnt them to when I got in and somehow managed to burn all OLD photos on and none of the new. So tomorrow's the day I guess. Oh, well.

I love that my friends and family are good enough to tape my favorite shows at home and send them over to me on VHS. I especially love that my former roommate Kelly DVR's them and when she taped them she left out the commercials and everything! It was sweet. I sat through 3 episodes of Prison Break the other night, two the next night, and one episode of Bones last night. They're all in order and she didn't miss a single one before her VCR blew out.

I was looking online and they have this really cool thing called a Slingbox which allows anyone with a TV and broadband to 'sling' anything they can watch on their TV to anywhere in the world that has a computer and broadband. Unfortunately, I don't qualify because Eircom (the phone company) is slow to get broadband upgraded and we don't get it as far out as we live. It would be great to see some of the new shows people talk about and watch the local news on occasion. Kind of like being at home in my own living room. I even watch the commercials on the tapes my mom sends over sometimes just so I can catch up on news bulletins and the latest products. It's terrible!

I've finally got training tonight. It's going to be cold, but it should be dry. I don't think it's supposed to get out of the 30's here tomorrow. Brrr.... That's cold for Ireland. I never made it to the gym last night. It took me over an hour to get home, which is about twice as long as usual, between the rain and wind and slow traffic. You know it's bad when the Irish radio announcer actually uses the word 'brutal' to describe the weather. Is it summer yet? ;-)

Great Weather

For ducks. Yet again thankful that I work on top of a hill. :-) One of these days our trailer/office is just going to float down it like a white water river raft. I can feel it.

The photo above arrived in my inbox while I was at home on vacation. I just saw it again today and decided to post it because it makes me smile every time I see it. If it didn't make you smile, take a look again and concentrate on the left side of the frog pond. That's little Cadence Ann and she's just as cute as her mommy, Jess! I figured after the pretty depressing posts I've had, I'd add something kind of cheery. But the cuteness doesn't stop there.

My friend Crystal also sent pics of her little ones over. These two are Emma and Ben. Emma's a big fan of Shrek (that's her watch over-and-over-and-over again movie). Lucky for Crystal and Jamie there's a Shrek 2 - at least now they only have to watch each one half as much. I remember watching Babes in Toyland about a million times when my sister Shaine was little. And there was Beauty and the Beast. I know every line of that movie. Thanks, Shaine. Sorry to load up on the baby pics but they make me smile and smiling I am.

There doing an 'Emergency Response Joint Exercise' here today. Kind of like when they do a 'test of the Emergency Broadcast System' but instead of closing down your favorite radio program, they're closing down all of the roads in the area and re-evaluating evacuation routes and other emergency items. That's supposed to be happening from 4-5pm this afternoon. I say 'supposed to' because everything in Ireland runs a little slowly and since I'm supposed to leave at 5.15pm I just know it will run late. Nobody is allowed on or off site during the exercise.

Safety is pretty big here. I work at a pharmaceutical place with loads of chemicals, corrosives, and explosives. Sounds safe, eh? Everyone here has to wear safety glasses at all times, unless they are in a designated office space. That includes everywhere from production areas to sidewalks. Can't walk between buildings without your glasses. It's crazy but the norm here.

It's a pretty big campus. It's a good 10 minute walk downhill from my office to the front gate. Any time a smoke alarm or heat sensor goes off this ear piercing alarm goes off and the whole campus has to evacuate. Hundreds of people out the front gate and to their designated meeting points along the sidewalk to do a roll call. If you've been paying any attention to my weather bits on this blog, that's something you especially want to avoid this time of year. We've done 2 this week. Luckily the one last night was at 5:15 so we just went home. Let's hope there isn't another one today!

I'm thinking of hitting the gym tonight. I haven't been in a while but I figure 3 nights of training and 2 matches a week is doing pretty well. Things have been cancelled left and right (including training tonight) so I thought I'd check out the new gym in Courtown. They've got a cool pool area with a lap pool, kids' play area, big twisty slide, sauna, steam room, and hot tub. I've been to the pool but the gym was being renovated and was supposed to re-open at the end of last month. All new equipment would be nice to check out. It's a summer resort and pretty quiet in the winter so it shouldn't be crowded. I'm looking forward to a good workout anyhow. Hopefully they'll have TV's so I don't get too bored staring at the wall. Wish me luck getting there! ;-)

This is getting rediculous...

Not to mention incredibly sad. I'm sorry to say I'm going to start my blog off on a sad note again but I want people reading to realize what a big problem this is over here. The fact that I've had two posts in less than a week regarding suicide is a bit alarming to even myself. The latest was a 15 year old boy on Saturday who apparently had a fight with a family member and decided that ending his life was the best way to deal with it. His sister plays Gaelic Football with me, which is why the match was cancelled on Sunday. I found out shortly after my post yesterday.

They're holding the funeral today and I would normally be going with the rest of my team (who went as a group wearing their GAA jackets) but we already lost half of our small work crew to the funeral and somebody has to stay on site. I don't mind as I had never met him and the guys missing were all school mates and neighbors. I'm just so sad for the family.

It's weird because although you hear general radio announcements when they're trying to raise money for the crisis hotline, you don't see much else about it. As an American friend of mine pointed out - why aren't they papering the town with crisis hotline numbers? Why aren't they holding forums to discuss what might be happening? Where are the public speakers to address the kids at school and discuss what's going on with them?

I can only imagine that if something like 2 suicides in one week happened in my home town, there would be psychologists and counselors running rampant in the schools and board meetings and PTA meetings and every other kind of meeting going on trying to prevent the next one from happening. From what I can tell from listening to people talk and listening to news radio in the evenings, it's a topic people don't like to discuss - it's 'swept under the rug' like a lot of issues here. Suicide, sex-ed, child abuse, underage smoking/drugs... Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away? Don't get me wrong. They're making progress, but having come from someplace where we finally have so many of those issues out in the open and where real progress is being made to deal with things like that, it's tough to watch.

On a less dreary note, I've planned a completely touristy trip for this weekend. Blarney. Yep - Home of the Stone of Eloquence, better known as the Blarney Stone. Will I kiss it? I'd like to say no because the idea is kind of gross, but everyone I've ever known who says no (even my sister Shaine) ends up going and kissing the damn thing anyhow. So yes, I will probably kiss the stone that millions of people have gone and kissed. Did you know they hang you upside down to do it? There's a guy who holds on to you as you tip back and kiss it. Blogger is being a major pain in the toukas today and won't let me upload the pic of my mom kissing it this summer. Maybe later...

So I'm looking forward to the trip because I promised myself I would do lots of touristy things while I'm here and I've been a bum about it for the most part. I'm just hoping they don't reschedule the Gaelic match for this weekend. Guess I'll have to wait and see. ;-)

To Be or Not to Be...

I guess playing any matches this past weekend was not to be. Gaelic and soccer were both cancelled without much of an explanation on either account, so I guess I'll just have to wait until the next training sessions to find out what happened. It was kind of odd that they cancelled Gaelic though, since it was a semi-final match and had been scheduled for weeks.

I'm not really complaining because I hosted a Halloween party on Saturday night and was feeling anything but 100% yesterday and was not really in the mood the be running around a pitch chasing a ball. My better-late-than-never Halloween party was a pretty big hit. I even had one guest who had NEVER dressed up in 'fancy dress', which is what they call costumes over here. Never dressed up??? I never MISS a chance to dress up (hence the REALLY late Halloween party).

I've had better hostessing nights, in all honesty. I was so busy cooking that I forgot to eat before the party and was only 4 drinks into the evening (granted, they were 4 pretty stiff Captain and Cokes) before I became a bit too drunk for my stomach's own good. I ended up retiring earlier than I would have liked with a not-so-nice feeling in my tummy. Note to self - remember to eat some of the yummy food while cooking instead of munching on the veggie platter. I'll post a pic or two once I get them downloaded off my camera.

I'm very excited about having booked my sister Shaine's plane ticket to come visit. She hasn't been over to see me yet and we didn't get to spend nearly enough time together while I was home, so I'm really looking forward to her coming over for a week around the New Year. The very cool part is that since I'm working in Ireland, I only have to work fro 3 days in the two weeks that Christmas and New Year fall in. Yeah!!!!

It's Monday and it's pretty busy here so I have to cut this post short, but I didn't want to leave it too many days without something new. I apologize for the lack of pics in my posts lately. I'll try to get the latest off my camera and up online tonight. ;-)

Tragedy and Tears

It's been a fairly sad week since I've been back from the States. It seems that all anyone has been doing is going to wakes and funerals. A funeral in Ireland is an event in itself, so to be swamped with more than one in a week can be a lot to handle. One woman I know had to attend 5 this week. I don't know if it's the dreary weather or the cold or what - but I hardly remember more than one or two funerals happening all summer long.

Most of the funerals have been members of an older generation, most of whom had been sick for a long while and passed on peacefully, surrounded by loved ones who had a chance to say goodbye. Although these funerals are still sad and the people are sorely missed, they seem to offer a chance for people to remember and celebrate the lives of the deceased.

There was one funeral this week that marked the unexpected death of a young member of the community who was only 24 years old. He owned his own plumbing business, had a caring family, and an established relationship with a young local girl. He had been missing for about 5 days before a woman from a local rural area found his van while out walking one afternoon. She reported it to the local Guardai (police) and they discovered that the young man was inside, having rigged his exhaust to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The community was shocked. Nobody had seen it coming and hardly anyone could understand it. I had never met the chap so I didn't attend the funeral but it was a large one, full of grieving friends and family members trying to make some sense of the situation.

It's a shame to hear so many similar stories in the news and throught he community each week. Ireland has the fifth highest rate of suicide in the 15-24 year old age group and it has quickly become the leading cause of death in that age group. It's become so alarming that the government has been quick to develop Suicide Prevention plans and task forces. They want to make people aware that there are ways to deal with depression and that there is help out there.

I know that there are a good number of suicides in the States each year but I don't remember hearing about them nearly as much as I do over here. I don't know if that's because I have been fortunate enough to not have suicide touch my life directly or if it's because the communities are so much closer over here. It provides for a nasty rumor mill at times, but it also provides a lot of support for family and friends when they go through a crisis like being affected by suicide.

I know this has been a bit of a downer of a post, but it's been a pretty widely discussed topic this week, both on the news and in the local community. It's not something you'd probably hear about at home, so I thought I'd share a bit of the darker side of Ireland.

I'll try to think of something super cheerful to post about tomorrow. Promise! ;-)

Block vs. Timber

Last night was my first night back at training in a few weeks. It wasn't nearly as painful as I was expecting, but I could tell it had been a while since I had worked out. I finally broke the crazy jetlag pattern and was asleep at 10:30pm and slept all the way through the night. It felt fantastic. What didn't feel fantastic was waking up to a freezing cold house. The heating system doesn't have a thermostat, but it does have an auto clock timer. I had it set to turn on about an hour before I had to get up but for some reason the clock was running slow and it never did. There's nothing like getting out of a nice warm bed and putting your tootsies on a cold laminate floor. I have SERIOUSLY got to find a carpet for that room - even slippers don't completely kill the cold.

I was watching a program last night on timber frame construction. That's what they call building houses out of wood over here. It's a new idea, so far as I can tell. The tradional method for residential construction is to use cinder blocks (remember those things you used to prop your bed up on in college?) to build cavity wall style houses. It's kind of hard to explain without drawing a sketch but it's basically a whole house made out of concrete and cinder blocks. The exterior and interior walls are block and the floor is concrete.

I have multiple issues with this method of construction. First of all - it's a pain in the ass to hang anything on the wall. You can get special little hangers that pin into the plaster and block, but you can't take them off without a three inch hole of plaster coming with it. Not quite fixable with the old tube of toothpaste. Anybody who knows me knows how much I love photos and I have a whole pile of them sitting in frames in the living room because the landlord doesn't want too many holes in the wall.

I'm also not a big fan of the crazy cold floors. There's just something about concrete floors, even with laminate flooring, that is just cold and hard. I just don't like it. The block houses are also harder to heat and remodeling is a big no-no. It's way too much work. You can't just move walls around and throw in windows like you would in a timber frame house. There's cutting block, and placing lintels, and patching block, and replastering. Way too much work for most people.

The big argument from anti-timber people seems to be that they won't hold up in the weather or they won't last as long. I don't know about that. There's some pretty nasty weather in the northeast and there are plenty of old farmhouses that are hundreds of years old where I grew up. With the quality of today's building materials and treated woods, I can't see where that argument would hold up. Besides - who really wants a house that will last forever? You're eventually going to want to demo it and building in block would just make it ten times harder!

Yes, I know I'm a construction geek in today's post. I can't help it though. I miss the coziness of houses built out of wood. They remind me of home. There's actually a family somewhere in Ireland who imported a log home from the U.S. They went online, found a plan they liked, contacted the company and had the whole thing shipped over. They even sent a representative to supervise the construction. I thought that was a pretty cool story. I read about it in one of my construction magazines.

And to think I didn't have anything to write about when I started typing. I suppose construction is an easy enough topic for me though. Speaking of - lunch is over and I've got work to do before I have to leave for training. I hope it tires me out as much as last night so I get another good night of sleep!! ;-)

48 Days Until Christmas

No, I'm not being a crazy Christmas fanatic. It's a countdown they do every day on the morning show I listen to. It feels like they were announcing 100 days until Christmas just the other day... Anyhow - it's a little different over here for the start of the Christmas season because they don't have the definitive cut-off point of Thanksgiving as the start-up for the decorating and lights and music. If you walk into certain department stores now, not only are they all decorated but they've got songs like 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' and 'Jingle Bell Rock' playing!

Come on, people! I haven't even had my Halloween party yet! I know I'm a little late, but my recent vacation to the States caused me to miss both weekends right around Halloween and it's got to be pushed out to this weekend. I am NOT missing a year of dressing up even if people in Ireland don't get as excited as I do about it.

Halloween isn't as big a deal here as it is in the U.S. People aren't big into theme parties and dressing up, in general. I feel like I went to at least 3 theme parties a year when I was home, whether they were Halloween, 70's, pimps & ho's, etc... You'd think people would enjoy the break from pint after pint at the local pub. House parties in general just aren't as popular here. I think it may be because the houses aren't as spacious as they are at home, so it's much easier to just book a place for a party. The size of most families around here would let you fill a party hall or event room with no problem...

I'm going to brave having everyone over to our place on Saturday. I've got decorations and I've been working on the food list. If anyone has any good Halloween recipes feel free to share them. I've also got most of a costume. I'm wearing my nurse's uniform but I can't find my white pumps anywhere! We even ripped apart all of my storage boxes at home. I tried in vain to find a pair in the stores at home (way out of season by now) but I'm hoping I'll have a little more luck here, if I can get to a store before they all shut in the evenings. I've seen women wearing Ugg boots in August, so I'm guessing there isn't a 'off-season' in Ireland.

Another funny note on the food for the party - I make a lot of dips and dishes with sour cream for parties (onion dip and chips, veggie dip for the veggie platter, spinach dip with bread). Most stores in Ireland stock shelves early in the week and sour cream just isn't a very popular food so what they stock is what you get for the week. I know this because I've tried to find sour cream on Fridays before. Anyhow, I saw they had 6 things of it left and so I bought them to use this weekend. It's SO rare for people to use it that the girl at the checkout actually asked me what I use it for because she'd heard of it but never knew anyone to buy it. She thought it very strange to suggest putting it on baked potatoes or tacos. Another 'weird' thing I eat as an American. I'm just glad they sell it over here. My beef stroganoff just wouldn't be the same without it!

So if you have any ideas on fun foods for Halloween feel free to send them my way. Until next time... ;-)

Back Again

There's really nothing like the first day back at work after a vacation to make you wish you could win the lottery! I'm beat. I've been hit by jet lag both ways. It's SO much easier traveling west to east. I don't think I've ever really been jet lagged going in the other direction. My body misses that!

My trip home was great. My mom and dad both took Tuesday and Thursday off and were around when I left on Friday, so I was able to spend loads of time with them. My credit card company is loving me for all of the shopping I did while I was home, but looking back - most of it really was stuff I needed (new running shoes, new soccer cleats, new waterproof winter boots) that were so much cheaper at home. I put off getting any of that stuff until I got home so it just LOOKED like I spent a lot more because it was all in one little time span (at least that's what I keep telling myself!) A few of the 'wants' as opposed to 'needs' were the multiple bottles of Captain Morgan I stocked up on in Duty Free (can't find it in Ireland), a pair of cool suede boots, and a couple of cute tops. At least it's done now. I don't think I'll allow myself to buy anything new until I go home again next time though!

Some highlights of my trip (in no particular order):

- Getting to hang with my sister Shaine. She's got some cool new highlights as a result of my trip home - wish she hadn't had to work as much though.

- Eating lots of yummy chicken wings! I think I had my fill while I was home... I ate them just about every other day if my memory serves me correctly.

- Seeing my friend Andrea from high school. She managed to get a free pass from her husband and kids and came over to help me drink lots of wine on Wed. night. It was tons of fun to catch up and she even had her mom pick her up like when we were in middle school! :-)

- Getting to meet baby Ben and play with Emma! It was so great to spend so much time with Crystal, Jamie, and the kids. I miss them when I'm away...

- Seeing Kelly and getting to have her as my roommate for a few days again. I just wish it hadn't been so busy.

- Hanging out with the Boston crowd and catching up with my cousin Alex again!

- Seeing snow! I took a picture since I wasn't sure I'd even get to see any this year. Everything was covered in snow when I woke up at 5am one morning so I went downstairs and took photos. Good thing because it was almost all melted by the time I woke up for breakfast!

It was eventful and busy and I feel like I need another vacation (known as 'holidays' over here) to recover. For now I'll have to settle for going to get something to eat. My body hates me - it thinks I should be eating supper and all I gave it was a cereal bar (no milk for regular stuff) for breakfast so far today! I promise to be a bit better about blogging now that I'm back! ;-)

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! ;-)