Luck of the Irish

If things keep going like this I might not be quite as poor at the end of my summer trip as I though! I had placed an early bet on Padraig Harrington to win the Irish Open, and he came through, taking it in a playoff hole - the final result sees me €100 richer.

Lately all the talk at work as revolved around the upcoming election (this Thursday). As with any event, everyday the guys print out the odds from PaddyPower.com and debate their own predictions. I wish I could say that I have been following it and have an idea of what is going on around here, but without tv or a newspaper I've kinda just let it slide by unnoticed. From what I hear, there have been the typical allegations against the current Prime Minister over misappropriated funds, as well as childish banter back and forth during the televised debates (so not exactly any different than back home at all.)

Speaking of work, things are going fairly well. I'm set up with a workstation that conveniently has my back to the wall, so I am able to indulge in wasting time with MSN and facebook while still looking like I'm hard at work. . . Just to fill you in, my latest contract has be compiling information from safety audits of off-site warehouses. This basically involves me doing a few hours of data-entry and re-formatting of existing reports all day. I've been told that (because it's a tediously boring job; hence, the reason an outside contract worker was brought in to do it), they will try to get me involved with a couple other projects outside the scope of what I was hired to do. Even if this doesn't come to fruition, I'm only there for another 7 weeks before I take off for Spain.

My birthday came and went on Friday - woke up to a flat full of balloons, had lunch with my old co-workers from my last contract, then met up with friends and flatmates that night after work to go out to the bar. All in all, a great night - I'm just happy I had nothing to do on Saturday. I should have pics to put up in the next few days.

Back to the grind (sort of . . .)

I had my first day back at work today, but in typical Irish fashion, nothing was really in place. I had no computer, no security pass, no food card and my manager was away for the day. I ended up getting a tour around the parts of the brewery that I had never seen before (mostly the kegging, storage, international export and bulk liquid/fermentation areas), and went for tea 3 times (with different groups of people around the office), then met up with a few of the people that I had worked with on my last contract. I took off early and will hopefully have a workstation ready for tomorrow (I still won't have actual work to do until after I get training on the database system later in the week, but at least I should have access to Facebook and MSN . . .).

Latest "Must See" movies: The Lives of Others [Das Leben der Anderen] (Stasi surveillance of East Germany in the 1980s) and Goodbye Bafana (Nelson Mandela and South African Apartheid) .
I'm not sure if either are showing back at home, but they are definitely worth watching.

Saturday afternoon we (myself + flatmates) made our way out to Malahide for the 10th Annual International Festival of Piping and Drumming. I was definitely up for checking out Highland Games (I just wanted to watch the caber toss), but we had the added benefit of "knowing the band". One of our friends, Andrea (a fellow Canadian - from Nova Scotia), is a piper with St. Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band here in Dublin. They are the current World Champions and kept up their reputation by winning the Grade 1 competition that day. There were 48 bands that played throughout the day, as well as a Drum Major competition and Highland Games (stone throw/hammer toss/16lb+54lb weight toss/caber toss/haggis throwing). It looked like we were going to make it through the day without rain until they gathered all the bands together to play a final song - at that moment the clouds opened up and the rain/hail came down in sheets. The great part about living in this area is that it only ever lasts for 5-10 minutes before blowing through. Everyone had run for whatever cover they could find, then reassembled for their final song and began the parade after it had all cleared. Apparently the way these competitions always end is by having the bands march from the fields into the towns, breaking off in groups to settle in the pubs for the night.

Rather than try to get a pint in an overcrowded pub full of soaking wet pipers and drummers (along with their instruments), we opted to catch the train back to Dublin and grab nachos at the Aussie pub (The Woolshed Baa and Grill) at the end of our street. One beer with nachos turned into two, which led us to another pub, then another. 7 hours later we made it back to the flat, a little bit poorer but quite content. The same can't be said for Sunday morning, but it was nothing that a day on the couch watching downloaded episodes of The Wonder Years couldn't fix.

Pics from the weekend are up.

Only 2 months left in Ireland

I've got my new contract with Guinness signed and will be officially employed for 8 weeks starting on Monday morning. . . I haven't even started, but can't wait for it to end - let me explain.

With my last few weeks of unemployment and surplus of free time I started looking into making travel plans for the summer/fall. I'm happy to say that rail and flights have now been booked and I'm set to start my tour of Western Europe on July 12th. I don't have all the details ironed out, but this is an idea of what I have planned.

July 12th: Dublin - Madrid - Pamplona (for the last 2 days of the San Fermin Festival - Running of the Bulls)
- Northern/Central Spain (Madrid/Salamanca/San Sebastian/Bilbao/Toeldo)
- Portugal (Porto/Lisbon/Lagos/Faro)
- Southern Spain (Seville)/Morocco (Marrakesh/Casablanca/Rabat/Fes)
- Southern Spain (Magala, for a bullfighting festival/Barcelona)
- France (Paris/Normandy D-Day Beaches)
- Spain (Valencia, for La Tomatina)
- Germany (Bonn/Cologne/Aachen/Hamburg/Berlin/Dresden/Nuremberg/Munich, for Oktoberfest)
- Austria/Switzerland - as time permits
September 27th: Friedrichshafen, back to Dublin

I got cheap RyanAir flights to and from the Mainland, and have bought rail passes to get me through the continent:
InterRail Single Country Passes
- Spain: 8 days of travel in one month
- Portugal: 6 days of travel in one month
Eurail Youth Select (15 days of travel in 2 months) for Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria

Needless to say, although I am sure I'll enjoy working at Guinness (and the money will be much needed), July can't come soon enough.

Non-travel news:

At the start of the week, on a sunny, lazy Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from Aengus (former UBC exchange student) - his co-workers were having a "roof-top social" just down the street from my place and I was invited along. Turns out that the girl hosting the shindig is from North Van and graduated from UVic 2 years ago. Her flat was in a brand new building in the heart of the city with an AMAZING view of Dublin (it rivals the view from the Guinness Gravity Bar, for those who have seen it). The fact that it was a cloudless, hot day was unbelievable (if you can fathom it, we had ZERO days of rain in April and just finished the driest 6 weeks stretch in recorded history!). What started out as 5 people having a few beers on the roof developed fairly quickly into a full-out BBQ. A dozen more people showed up, the music was brought out and we started cooking (garlic bread, burgers, hot dogs, sausages and octopus). After about 7 hours of lounging on the roof we moved inside to watch the semi-final of the Champions League. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday at all.

Earlier in the week they were showing a special screening of Top Gun for no particular reason. In trying to recruit my flatmates along with me we discovered that Whitney had never seen it before (when I asked, "Do you want to check out Top Gun at the theatre tonight?" she asked, "What's that?"). After I picked my jaw off the ground, I explained to her all the glory of this theatrical masterpiece. We recruited Vanessa to come along too (she was in as soon as she heard it was playing) and made our way to a sold-out 11:30pm showing. I was thrilled to see that Top Gun is internationally renowned - people were singing the theme songs, reciting lines and cat-calling throughout the movie (which turned out to be hilarious and not a distraction like usual - see previous post).

Last night the three of us went out to the International Comedy Club to watch some stand-up. It wasn't near as good as Yuk-yuks, but all 5 comedians had at least a few good lines and the last guy killed.
Some memorable lines:
- "I was never rich, or poor enough to own a horse"
- "Saving yourself for marriage, now there's a savings scheme I don't want to buy into; however, the longer you wait the more your interest grows"
- "If abortion was legal in Ireland they'd have a 9 month waiting list" (hands down, joke of the night)

My Beef with the Cinema

As I've mentioned before, I've seen my fair share of movies in the past few months. Having no tv at the flat, I have to get my fill of staring blankly at a screen in some form . . .

I've gotten pretty good at timing it just right so I can walk in having missed the previews, but made the mistake of going early (read: right on time) last time. I remember when we were lucky enough to have just two or three previews of new movies before starting the film, but this is no longer the case. The ads and previews (see list below) lasted just over 20 minutes, and they even started 10 minutes late. I the end, my 2pm movie didn't start until 2:35pm - If I actually had some place to be after the movie I'd probably be fairly choked, but I can't say I was too impressed.

This is what you now have to sit through:

• Bulmers Cider
• Coors Beer
• Chevy Trucks
• Suicide Preventian
• Rape Crisis Hotline
• Guinness
• Playstation
• Car ads for Opel and Fiat
• Drinkaware.ie
• Irish Literacy
• Adidas
• 5 movie previews

Also, It seems like an accepted practice to text throughout the entire movie, leaving your bright mobile screen on the majority of the time. You even get the occasional conversation, and not a whisper of "I'll ring you back later", I'm talking about a full-blown discussion. I only wish that if I was going to be interrupted I would at least be able to hear/understand what was so important. Unfortunately the last time it was in such poor English (think Irish Valley Girl) that it was completely incomprehensible.

I would gripe about the fact that they charge an insane amount for food (who pays €12 for popcorn and a coke?), but they let you bring in whatever food/drink you want.

Finally, I didn't appreciate having to play "Try to use the urinal without peeing on yourself" - Who in their right mind designs a urinal with a flat back that slopes toward you!? I'm happy to say that I won this time, but don't know if it's worth challenging again.