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)
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)
posted by Trevor Schofield at 12:51 p.m.
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