a new chapter

so i've been aware for a while that the title of my blog is somewhat misleading. although i did originally move to ireland to live in dublin, in reality i've spent only about 3 weeks there. and i feel like i've sort of started anew again since leaving chugging behind, so i have decided to start a new blog. it'll be called 'Having Moved To Galway', and it'll be at havingmovedtogalway.blogspot.com. surprised?

a few changes

so.... bec and toast have finally left me... turns out i lived with toast for 3 months all up.. spent most of our waking hours together.. she's left a hole in my life that will never be filled... sob... but really, i miss them both. shaved all bec's hair off before she left, so every time she looks at her bald head she can think of me.

found a job in galway.. just working in retail.

also found a house.. i'm now living in an attic, which is pretty deadly. got ocean views from one of my windows (so i've been called out on the 'ocean views' thing.. matt pointed out (fairly) that the view is actually of a road and part of a dock. touché -ed.). rooftop views from the other window...... but it's pretty exciting to have a real home again.. sharing the flat with five other friends; an australian, three canadians and an american, but he's leaving in a couple of months. in my mind the house is called 'the new commonwealth'. it's great to live overseas and have a genuine experience.. you know.. get to know the locals and all that.

will post photos of new place soon.

jonsi's cello bow

this is jonsi from sigur ros' cello bow. a sacred item. the expression on my face is unadulterated glee at the rare opportunity to touch an item of such significance. i actually cried.

sachsenhausen & holocaust memorial

berlin pub crawl

had a stupidly stupid night on halloween. went on a pub crawl in berlin and got a little silly with the free vodka shots between bars. of course i do this the night before a very early flight back to ireland. so i joined a few new clubs that night and the next morning-

1. people who've thrown up in a berlin bar
2. people who've thrown up in a berlin hostel. multiple times.
3. people who've thrown up on a train station
4. people who've thrown up on a train
5. people who've thrown up in an airport directly before an international flight
6. people who've been green

i've never actually seen someone so sick they went green before. i thought it was some sort of stupid english expression. but i actually went green. so i've had my yearly reminder of why i don't drink much. maybe i'll be smart enough to skip it next year.

profundities

love holds no bounds.. but kentucky does
-jarrod on josh's relationship with australian girl

cheese-eating surrender monkeys
-danny on the french (a provoked attack.. he was woken early in a hostel room by several french people chatting loudly and obnoxiously about unimportant nothings)

obligerant
-accidental contraction of oblivious & belligerent by tyson on the berlin pub crawl

look! it's the mr. gay uk convention!
-louie louie to a group of AIB suits that never stop for fundraisers

don't worry, it won't take long.. like most men i finish in under a minute
-darlin' trying to convince people to listen to his charity dialogue

c'm'ere and i'll be lovely t'ye
-another stop

RARRR! i'm a charity monster!! ... no.. not really, i'm actually really lovely
-bec's stop

a churgling of fundraisers
collective noun for a group of fundraisers.. not in common usage

festively plump
bec, apparently

are there five people in this car?/ there must be.. pretty close to it anyway... i've got an idea.. let's all just jump in the car and see what happens
conversation between louie and myself

Berlin Wall

"i am claiming this space. i am defacing the visual record of a history which is not my own. but why not? this site is now a sight which has split from the continuity of berlin culture. it is heritage which belongs to tourist culture. we are recording out own history here now. and i was here." - unknown graffitist, berlin wall.

AMSTERDAM & FRANKFURT

soooo.. amsterdam was fun..

really good to see martin in frankfurt too. didn't really do anything unique to frankfurt, but what is there to do there anyway?? we had a good time just wandering around poking about in fun little shops &c.

now in berlin. proposed to english guy called ash. he said he'd be okay with moving to galway. i'm not that keen on living in the UK.

-----

(later that night i was proposed to by a kiwi dude... this whole proposing to strangers thing must be part of some sort of quarter life crisis -ed.)

leaving notts

leaving notts tonight for luton airport.. we're going to spend the night in the airport, our plane for amsterdam leaves at 6am tomorrow.

nottingham is gorgeous.. we went to sherwood forest and met robin's band of merry men. ate lots of good food, drank some chai etc etc.

below: pauly in a tree in sherwood forest.

nottingham

just arrived in nottingham.. sitting in internet cafe waiting for llewella to finish work so we can head to her place. looking forward to exploring this place, drinking lots of chai tea along the way!

you can't fire me! I QUIT!

i quit my job. they didn't try to fire me at all, but they probably should have! i was doing terribly, not even making budget, and having a horrible horrible time of it. so i decided to leave, convinced someone else to leave with me, and we're going on a holiday! so all in all a fine start to the weekend.

toast and i are heading to belfast and giant's causeway for some sightseeing, then going to visit llewella in nottingham for a week or so, then heading to amsterdam to party for a couple of days, then heading over to germany, and i'm going to meet up with uncy martin there at the end of the month before heading back here to ireland to settle down in galway. very exciting! i'll be going to a few places i've never been to before which will be grand!

the money situation isn't ideal, but the worst that can happen is that i'll end up homeless and broke in a foreign country, and there must be a charity for that! i've probably fundraised for them, so i'll be fine :)

pics: my last roaming party, 1. family portrait, 2. the quitters!

the atlantic is cold in autumn

jumped in the sea in galway on saturday afternoon as an indirect result of australia losing to france in the world cup. it was very very cold.

lyndon, a guy i work with, is somewhat passionate about rugby. after watching the game on saturday he proceeded to get himself shamefully drunk, and so decided to strip off and jump in the water off the quays in galway. in an act of solidarity, a couple of other guys i work with jumped in after him. after watching them somewhat exasperatedly, i looked towards bec, shrugged my shoulders, and we both went after them. twas the beginning of a very crazy weekend... i'm still sort of recovering.

isn't the tree below pretty??? this is autumn! this is how the whole country looks!

finish this sentence: 'only in ireland...'

- do you find two road signs pointing in opposite directions saying exactly the same thing
- do people reach 80 having never left their own county
- do two houses and a pub count as a village
- can people use just their name and the name of their village as a full mailing address (because the mailman just knows everybody in their village)
- are there traffic lights in some small towns which are only turned on on sundays, for sunday mass rush hour
- are there 34 shades of green (there used to be 51... but global warming, yknow?)
- do people waste 50% of their conversation complaining about the weather (even when it's sunny... they can always complain about yesterday or tomorrow's rain)

ho hum

no news really... i'm sort of getting ready to leave my current job.. i can only work with the company for another four weeks before my visa restrictions require me to change jobs. i think i might try to find a gaff in galway. i thought i'd live in dublin, but galway is much more laid back. it's a college city, so lots of weird interesting young people.

experienced my first frost last week... when we got into the car in the morning there was ice on the windscreen. we had to pour hot water on it to melt it. it's usually just a couple of degrees above zero in the mornings. the landscape is beautiful at the moment, every day there's more yellow, red, orange, even purple in the trees... it's really extraordinary. i'm going to try to find some time to take some decent photos.

the louie dance

this is louie, having unexpectedly found a bottle of buckfast tonic wine the morning after a night of hard drinking. hair o' the dog.

buckfast is apparently made with care by the monks of buckfast abbey. it's cheap and strong, and a staple of the fundraiser diet.

more photos

1 - couple of guys i work with, phil and scuba steve, with their x-box faces on.
2 - toshwidger butcher in waterford. couldn't walk past without taking a photo. i mean, really.
3 - myself and lyndon the bear. lyndon was given to bec by a guy whose door she knocked on.
4 - the coast off dun laoghaire
5 - some of the incredibly masculine men i work with. louie louie herbert (his actual name on his birth certificate) and 'darlin' josh with the kentucky drawl.

door to door

for the past two weeks the company i work for has been doing door to door fundraising rather than street fundraising. it was horrible. i was absolutely rubbish at it, and it was BORING! and i don't like bothering people at home. we met lots of nice dogs on the street though. the first photo below is a dog we called 'badger' because it looked like a cross between a dog and a confused badger. so in the photo we all have our best impressions of a badger face on. we didn't realise until looking at the photo that we all made the exact same face. the second photo is laura and bec working hard, knocking on lots of doors, and the third photo is us 'hi-ho-ing' and 'off to work we go-ing'

i'm really excited about the leaves changing colour. it's really pretty... some leaves have started to fall too.

wet aussies, cold aussies

autumn!

the leaves are changing colour! getting cold too... the other day it was only 7 degrees! at the beginning of autumn!

irish roads

nice little perk of my job is that i get to drive '07 cars all around ireland with petrol paid for. as team driver i get the car to myself for the weekend too. unfortunately, irish roads and drivers suck. the worst part is signage. they feel the need to have several metre tall orange signs for 'ramps' (speed bumps) on suburban side streets, but only m 'n' m sized speed limit signs on major roads between towns.

don't have much time now, but i feel this rant will continue in the future.

some irish expressions

grand - as in "you're grand"/"it's grand" (ie. everything's fine)
sound - as in "he's a sound lad" (ie. trustworthy)
deadly - as in "that was deadly!" (ie. a positive exclamation)
here - as in "here, why'd you do that?"/"come here, what does he want?" (ie. to get someone's attention. alternative to "hey". nothing to do with physically moving closer to a person)
gaff - as in "we'll be back at the gaff in a few minutes" (ie. house, residence)

electric picnic

spent the weekend at the electric picnic festival, which was absolutely ridiculous. highlights include bjork, polyphonic spree and deerhoof.

i absolutely cannot believe how much fun i had. wish it lasted forever. will post pics as soon as i get a chance, as pictures will speak louder than any words i know.

here we go.. pics.. first one is me in disguise. if you look closely you can see my moustache drawn on my finger. next pic is just me with random festival people. they gave me some beer. thanks guys. next is lovely bec, doing the classic louie louie pose, and the last pic is just me with more people i work with. the guy on the left is louie louie, named after the song. he's my team leader. tall simon in the middle, then bec and laura (my darling australians) on the right.

21st

Happy birthday to me for my 21st on the 21st. Had a brilliant time with all my fellow chuggers. We were all living in an enormous house in Kilkenny, near a tiny village called Barry. There were about 16 of us living there, and as soon as the clock ticked over to the 21st everyone ran into my room with a candle and sang happy birthday then jumped on top of me haha. Good craic.

Having a brilliant time fundraising..

Heading to another party tonight, this time in Drogheda (droh-heh-duh). Currently in Dun Laoghaire (dun-leary). Gotta love Irish phonetics.

Must be off.

Pics: First is a little irish cottage. The door is just behind us. It was clearly made for hobbits. Second was taken from car window leaving a roaming party. Just some of the people I work with.

oh..

a "chugger" is a charity mugger. a street fundraiser. me!

chuggers!

... it's amazing the places life will take you..

two days ago i went to a party in cork.. took a four hour bus with three other fundraisers just to go to this crazy party... imagine a room full of people who are fundraisers for a living! they get told to stick it five times a day, but they keep going out being crazy and having a good time with strangers every day. so put them all in a room together, and that was my weekend. very confusing and fun, still not quite sure what happened.

i'm currently sitting in dublin airport at 3.18 in the morning after taking a three hour bus from galway. talked to an aussie guy called zak on the bus, who i'd met earlier on the street while i was working. i'm a little drunk, because my colleagues bought me drinks because i outdid them both today and it's only my second week. so we were sitting in a pub chatting with some women they'd met on the street yesterday, and a girl one of them met today, and a guy called eddie that i'd met today came along to talk to the girl who he was in the same hostel with. so we were craicing around with all these random people having a brilliant time and i almost missed my bus.

catching an early plane to brussels, then a train to amsterdam, then a bus to appelscha for a weekend of camping and being hippy-rific. hooray!

oh, and i'm working on my irish accent.. here goes... "c'mere to me, what's the craic?" .. what do you think?

seomra spraoi

so i got a job as a roaming fundraiser. starting monday i'm one of those people that stand in the street and try to guilt you into signing up for a monthly donation to a charity. but i get to see ireland with travel and accommodation paid for, so can't complain. if it's terrible i'll just come back to dublin and start from square one.

when ya got nothin', ya got nothin' ta lose

an example of the indecisiveness of irish conversation:

"Do you want to close the window? Are you cold?"
"Well..." (shrug) "... I'm not warm either... you could close it.......

..if you want to...."

dublin har har

aahaha! i love irish accents!

istanbul not constantinople

so, we're in istanbul. i love this city. i love all the beautiful mosques, and the way they make for such a different city skyline. i love hearing the five daily calls to prayer blaring out over the city through crappy speakers. i love sitting in a tea garden with a fruit hookah and drinking apple tea for hours. i love having my fortune read from my turkish coffee dregs by our waiter, and listening to him bringing us up to date on gossip in the turkish tabloids. i love all the beautiful street cats wandering the city, and the fact that they're never underfed.

but i'm still counting the days till i get to dublin.

i really like this photograph.. this is a photo of myself, alistair, daryl and caroline in our tea garden. the photograph below that is titled "stupid tourists"

the adriatic coast OR fun with languages in croatia, montenegro, albania and greece part 1

the title pretty much says it all.. turned our little eastern european adventure into a relaxing beach holiday mmm.. although there have been some trying times involving public transport, language and currency difficulties. i may post a story titled "getting from croatia to albania by land in less than 14 hours using five different kinds of vehicle: an adventure story" or i may just leave you with the title and your imaginations.

budapest & ljubljana

hmm.. budapest was ok.. can't think of anything ridiculously interesting to say about that.

currently in ljubljana, slovenia.. staying in a former prison.. the current prime minister of slovenia was held here once. had a crazy night last night on the train from budapest.. the guard came and tried to get us to give him money, but didn't speak english.. we showed him that all we had was about 1500 forint between us (about AU$10).. he just kept saying "shtampa" and making a stamping gesture at out eurail passes. so apparently we were supposed to validate them at budapest before we left. and because we didn't, he was trying to charge us 50 euro. which was fair.. it was all in the small print.. but we just didn't have any money.. so he eventually gave up, and we ended up essentially getting a free trip worth about $120.. so.. sweet..

got lots of new fun stamps in my passport. hooray.

praha & karlovy vary

been staying in prague. we paid for a 36 bed dorm, but they overbooked, so we ended up in a 6 bed dorm instead! sweet!.. and we had a private kitchen and bathroom in our room and only paid about $20 per night. so that's cool.

yesterday went to a place called karlovy vary, which is famous for 12 'healing' hot springs. we went and tasted them all (disgusting.. very salty and iron-y tasting.. but perhaps they have healed some great ill i was unaware i suffered from).. they directed each of the springs into a sort of fountain, and the tiny fountains were housed in these enormous, ornate, beautiful buildings. it was very strange. but it was a beautiful little city and an interesting day. and now i have a spa cup in the shape of an elephant (you drink from its trunk.. awesome) and who doesn't need one of those???

tonight an overnight train to budapest, hungary. i believe we're staying in pest. so.. interesting times ahead.

oh.. awesome vegan restaurant in prague called 'country life'.. they have heaps and heaps of fresh, raw or cooked vegetables as well as tofu and rice dishes and so on. so we'll be heading back there before we leave prague to stock up on much needed nutrients. i have the ghostly pallor of a vegetarian living in a place that only serves potatoes and meat. potatoes on their own are not a healthy diet for anyone (HA), though i love them dearly. no.. it's really not that bad. don't worry dad.

edinburgh

currently in edinburgh.. it's lovely.. there are seagulls all over the city. climbed a mountain yesterday.. met great people at the hostel. i hope i can find a place as nice as this in dublin. they have a system where long term residents of the hostel can earn a free night's accommodation by cleaning for two hours in the morning. which is a pretty good deal. so something like that in dublin would be ideal.

went to 'treefest' a couple of days ago. it was great.. just my kind of festival. all about environmental this and that. you know.. hippies and whatnot getting together for a good old fashioned bongo/african drum jam session.

i've been invited to travel with a really interesting person around south africa for a month early next year, and stay with their family there etc. so that might be fun if i can afford it at the time.

heading to london tonight, then on to prague on saturday.

Los Angeles

So I'm currently in LA..

It's a pretty strange place.. I've been proposed to about three times by people on buses or just in the street (in case you're wondering, I politely declined all three)(After all I'm in Los Angeles, not Las Vegas)...

People talk about 'the business' (show business) in one of two ways:
Either in hushed, respectful tones, as if anyone who succeeds in said business is either a genius or blessed by God
OR
With absolute scorn.. anyone who wants to work in 'the business' is obviously a moron.

Personally, when I saw the Hollywood sign I crossed myself and said a quick prayer.

Went to the Elliott wall, which was of course life changing. I feel truly blessed. Will post photo of me there with serious 'pilgrimmage face' as soon as I get a chance.

Also been to downtown Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Pier, Mann's Theatre with the hand and footprints, and the walk of fame etc. Planning to go to a couple of art galleries in the next two days before I leave on Wednesday. I will arrive in London on Thursday. Looking forward to staying in a hostel again, and going out to some English pubs. And being able to drink legally again! I think having 21 as the legal drinking age is crazy..
























this is what LA looks like to me



















gloria, myself and adri



















couldn't go past this without taking a photo.. it's outside mann's theatre



















and this is me with my "serious pilgrimmage face"

Texas Love

ok... it's been a while since i've blogged, i know.. so a very short version of the episodes you've missed:

sydney was great, but it was time to move on. i went back to brisbane for about six weeks to put things in order before leaving on a Grand Adventure. had a spiffing time catching up with my brisbane friends.. they are well loved by me.

left on may 1 for wellington, new zealand to visit mums family.. spent a few days in wellington, a week in new plymouth with dads family, one night in auckland. caught up with a couple of friends in wellington and auckland.. explored a beautiful cemetary in auckland with dylan..

am currently in san antonio, texas with aunt, uncle and cousin. having a lovely time. i'm definitely going to have to come back and visit again soon..

that's pretty much it in the short version..