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.