Happy [green] Christmas

My weekend was good. On Friday night I went to Whelan's with my flatmate, Renata and we had a great time! I met an Irish guy named David who is living in San Francisco and has been for the past six years. He's here visiting his family for the holidays. He's very nice and we got in touch on Saturday and spent the day together, he took me around Dublin which was nice because he knows places that I obviously don't!

We went to Christ Church Cathedral, which begun in 1038..! Very old, so much history, it's amazing. In the basement of the cathedral, there's the crypt. Kinda creepy!

The mumified remains of a cat and rat found in an organ pipe during renovations, it is assumed the cat was chasing the rat and got stuck. These pair made an appearance in one of James Joyces books, "as stuck as that cat to that mouse in that tube of that Christchurch organ".
Creepy!! I didn't take a photo of that... it's forever ingrained in my mind, so I just borrowed this photo from the net.

Anyway, after that we did DUBLINIA, which shows how Dublin was settled and how it progressed until the medieval times. It's crazy how people lived back then. This was definitely a place worth visiting!

And after that, we went to Trinity College. The campus is beautiful. We went to the old library to see the Book of Kells, but it wasn't there. So admission was 50% off. There were copies of the book, so we got to see that. We also saw the very old part of the library with extremely old books. It was amazing... like something out of a Harry Potter movie!

Finally, David took me to probably "the smallest pub in the world", called The Dawson Lounge. This place is TINY. Only has a capacity of about 30. And this place was packed, seems to be quite popular. Or it may only seem that way 'cause it doesn't take much to fill it! But we had a lot of fun there. We met a few guys, who were loads of fun.

Saturday night Holly came over to my place to predrink, then we went to a pub, The Thomas House, near my place where one of her friends was DJing. After his set we went another bar, and stayed there till close. Met a few new people too! It's not very hard to make friends here because everyone is very friendly and they all love Canadians. haha.

As you can imagine, I was very tired on Sunday and I knew I'd be working 11 hours on Monday. So I didn't do much on Sunday, which was kind of a nice change!

Monday I started my new job at the Irish Stock Exchange. I was kinda nervous about it, but I had no reason to be. It's very quiet because most people are on holidays, and the people that are actually here are very nice. I worked till 5:30 then I went off to my other job and worked till 8:30. After that I went to Whelan's for a show [I should say "gig" since that is what they call concerts here] with Jess, David, David's sister and her friend. It was good fun. The other three left and Jess and I stayed and drank a bit too much. We ran into friends there too, so we had a great time!

Yesterday morning was brutal, but I made it into work in time and looking fine..! hahah. Last night I didn't anything except watch a movie with my flatmates. And around 2:30am this morning, our fire alarm went off. We figure it was because the heating was on too high and we leaned some clothes against one of the radiators. But everything is fine, it was just a rude and very annoying wake-up call.

So today is Christmas Eve and I'm at work. I only work till 1pm today so it's not too bad. After this I have to go to the supermarket... Not really looking forward to dealing with the crowds, but oh well! I'm not 100% sure of my plans tonight, I've been invited to Renata's friend's party, but I'm not sure what Jess and Holly are up to yet. Tomorrow we're having lasagna for dinner... one vegetaraian, and one meat-lovers. One of their flatmates, Ludie, is a cook so apparently he'll be cooking up a storm. Yum!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Love you all.
xo.

December 16, 2008

I received a phone call from a temp agency on Friday offering me a part-time job doing data entry in the public sector. It pays pretty well, 14 euro/hour [minimum wage here is a little less than 9/hour] but it's only for four days this week for a few hours a day... but it's better than nothing! My first day was yesterday and it was fine. There's about 10 of us there, and I'd say about 7 of us are Canadian. A couple from Vancouver, one from Winnipeg, one from Toronto, me from Ottawa, one from PEI, and I forget where the other girl is from. So we have coast-to-coast Canadians! haha.

After work last night, I went to a concert at the venue called The Academy. Aunt Nadine got me + 2 [Jess and Holly] on the guestlist. We were able to go in the VIP area and everything! Very cool. So THANK YOU AUNT NADINE!! Unfortunately I had to work until 8:30 so we missed the first band, Fighting With Wire, who's the band that we were on the list for! But luckily they're playing again on January 24th, so I'll have to check them out then. The headlining band, Biffy Clyro, are Scottish and are pretty good! Apparently they have a pretty big fanbase here because the show was sold out and everyone was going crazy for them. I took a few photos, so I'll be uploading them onto facebook soon-ish.

The new flatmate, Pedro, is working out very well. He's very nice and he seems like a cool guy. We actually have similar tastes in music, he likes a lot of American punk bands like NOFX, Strung Out, and even the Canadian band Propagandhi. I found this to be a bit surprising, but definitely cool! His brother is the guitarist for a couple of Spanish punk bands. He played me some of their stuff, but of course I have no idea what they're singing about. Pedro moved here to improve his English and he said he's very thankful that he's living here because I've already taught him a lot! I've been teaching them [him and my other flatmates] slang too, and it's so funny. He asked me today what "no money, no honeys" means. HAHAH.

Today I received a phone call from the same temp agency and they offered me another job for over the holidays. Since I'm not planning on doing any travelling over the holidays, I said definitely!! So I'm going to be working as a receptionist at the Irish Stock Exchange. Crazy!! I start on the 23rd and finish on the 3rd. And it's only a half day for Christmas Eve and NYE and I get Stephen's Day [Boxing Day] and New Year's Day off. So pretty perfect. I'll be making 12 euro/hour, so not too bad. Again, definitely better than nothing! So I am pretty happy about that! And I'm sure that'll look good on my CV here.

After that, I got tickets for Holly and I to see The Streets on January 25th. Kind of an acquired taste but I'm pretty stoked to check out that show!

I don't know if I'm going out tonight. Probably not. Pedro invited me out with some of his friends; they're getting together for a girl's leaving party. I'm not sure if I'll go or not, 'cause I'm pretty tired.

Irish for the Year

Yesterday, I had to register with the Garda [police] at the immigration bureau. They took my photo and fingerprinted the index finger of each hand. It took me about three hours... so boring! Luckily I had my iPod and was reading a bit of the paper. Apparently the cost of living is higher in Dublin than London! Can you imagine? But, I'm having a great time and wouldn't change it for the world. On the other hand, I don't think I'll ever get over having to pay about 8 euro for a barcardi + diet coke. Mind you, they give you the little glass bottles of coke, so you can make that last 2 or 3 drinks... depending on how strong you like it. ;)

Anyway, I took the LUAS [Dublin's tram system] on my way home from the garda yesterday, and a Spanish guy asked me how to get to the Guinness Brewery. I was so happy I could actually give someone directions! hahah. I told him what stop to get off at, and then he asked for more directions from there. Rather than explaining it, I told him I could walk him most of the way since I live about a minute away. On our short walk, I discovered he's looking for a new flat because his flatmates are boring. I suggested he come look at our flat 'cause one of my flatmates is leaving ASAP. So I showed him the flat, introduced him to one of my flatmates, and he really liked it. So he called me and said he'd like to make the deposit on the flat! So funny how things like that work out. All of us had put ads on the internet, and Harry [the one who's moving out] puts ads up in Trinity College, stores, etc.

So, we have a new flatmate moving in tomorrow! His name is Pedro, he's 26 and from Spain. He seems nice. Like so many other Europeans from non-English countries, he moved here to learn English. Which is really weird because even I have a hard time understanding Irish people. So he's happy that I live here and that I'm a native English speaker, so I can help him. It's funny to be helping people with English words... Just the other day I taught Renata the words "fancy" and "auction".

Tonight I'm going over to Jess' and Holly's place, then going out. Our plans keep getting skewed so we'll see...

No more news on the job front, really. A lady called me from another temp agency... she saw my CV online. So I'm meeting with her tomorrow at 3. Hopefully one of these agencies will hook me up with a job and soon!

Still no snow yet, but I guess you guys in Ottawa have enough for both of us, eh?! One of my flatmates saw white stuff on the ground and he was so excited because he thought it was snow. A lady looked at him with disgust and said "that's SALT". Hhahah, poor Junior, he was so embarassed.

Oh, I also found my new favourite store that I can't afford. I'm thinking maybe applying to work there part-time. It's called TopShop and is very popular here and in the UK. So this is definitely going to be a place where I'll spend a good chunk of my pay..!

Sick [from the Drink]

Well, things have changed since my last entry. I no longer have a job! I decided that I didn't want to work in a pub because that would mean working till 3am on most nights, which conflicts with my friends' schedules. It would have been fun, but it'll be more fun to spend time in pubs with my friends. ;)

Saturday night I went to Whelan's [new favourite pub] and then a late-night casino. I lost! I played roulette and I lost, but oh well. It was pretty fancy in there and I won't mind if I never go back. It was quite the experience, though. They digitally fingerprint you and everything. A little too intense!

Yesterday I stayed in all day because I have a cold and a cough... so annoying! But it's not surprising because I'm sure my system has been taking a beating and it's just damp here.

Today I called my landlord [an agency] to come fix a couple of door handles. This was my third time calling them so I wasn't too impressed. They came over right away, today! Hahah. So after that I went and bought a concert ticket for one of my favourite American punk bands, NOFX. I saw them in Montreal in October, and now I'll see them in Dublin in May!! Pretty cool, eh! After that I went to set up an Irish bank account because I finally received my PPS # [like Canada's SIN]. So my Irish bank account should be up and running within the next week or two. Just in time for Christmas...

After that I went to an internet cafe to job hunt online. I submitted my CV all over Dublin. I honestly think I applied at 20+ places. It feels very weird for me not to have job. As I was coming home from city centre, I received a phone call from a lady asking me to meet her tomorrow at 9am. Since I wasn't in the door yet, I asked if she could send me all this info by email. She said she would but I still haven't received it. I received one email which I thought could be it, so I called a number of that particular agency. That agency told me it wasn't them, but after looking at my CV they'd like to meet with me anyway! Haha!
Right after that phone call, I received another call from a lady asking me to meet her tomorrow at 3pm. She told me I have quite the impressive CV and she's not sure if she has anything for me but it's worth checking out because my CV is so good. Can you imagine?! So, I'm pretty relieved. I'm sure I'll find a job by Christmas... at least I hope so!!

Tonight, I'm going out even though I'm still recovering from my cold/cough.

I think on Saturday, Jess, Ludie, Abbie, and I will be going on a little road trip to drive around Ireland. We'll be hiring [that's the way they say 'rent' in terms of car, they say 'let' in terms of flats and houses] a car and doing a little driving around Ireland. Luckily Abbie and Ludie are both Aussies and they're used to dirving on the 'wrong' side. Whereas Jess and I don't even have our licenses!

Love you all,
xo.