The other day, Cindy, Cathy and I were walking home from the bus stop and we had to stop and gander at the swans. Mother-Bird Cathy chewed off a piece of chocolate biscuit and fed the regurgitated pieces to the behemoth fowl. All the while, I sat there like a starving paparazzi taking a billion photos, trying to get the million dollar shot. Below is a testament to my "best"; eh.
Cindy, Jason and I took a trip down to the green and beautiful County Wicklow where many movies have been shot, such as Braveheart
In the middle of the Wicklow Mountaines, lies ruins of a 6th century monastery in called Glendalough. The Round Tower is the most dominate structure of the ruins and was used as a bell tower and refuge during an attack. There is also St. Kevin's Church which was build entirely out of stone and today's archeologists and engineers cannot explain how the triangular roof is able to support itself.
Overall, we had a wonderful time looking at the rich history and country beauty of some of Ireland's top tourist spots.
During the Easter Holiday 4 day weekend, Cindy and I decided to take a train ride across the country to Galway. From Dublin, the train ride took about 3 hours to get all the way across the country. The train ride was very green and open due to the beautiful day which went well with reading peacefully by the window bathed in sunlight. Once we got to Galway, we walked through JFK Memorial Park (aka Erye Square) where JFK gave his speech in 1963. The shops down the main pedestrian area were also very cool and crowded. Later in the day, Cindy and I took an open air bus tour which drove us through the city and gave us some of the history in Galway.
Here are a few pictures from St. Patrick's Day when Jason came to visit. It was so crowded that we could not see any of the floats due to the wall of people lining the streets. So instead of taking pictures of the parade, we decided to take them of the bystanders.
Now that Nick has settled into his job and I have finished my last round of essays, therefore (temporarily) gaining my life back before beginning thesis research, we thought we would update all of you on our Dublin adventures (and misadventures).
February
For those of you unaware, Nick was a refugee in both The Netherlands and Germany for a total of three months while waiting for his work permit to be issued. This is a process that generally takes three to four weeks, but we were lucky enough (cough) to have to deal with an HR representative who was almost completely incompetent. To make a long story short, his repetitive errors culminated in Nick's extended extradition. At the beginning of February, the HR department finally got it right the third time around, thus issuing the visa and allowing him to return to Ireland and begin working at the CRANN. The third time around is, indeed, the charm; we realized that HR's success in the matter warranted our joy, but not our praise. A triple failure, after all, deserves little merit.
February was also the month that we realized our landlords were scoundrels. Ours is the basic tenant tale of terror that is best surmized in detailing the fact that the landlords sent out eviction notices to everyone in the building, including those like us who had paid. We were told to "disregard the eviction section", (you know, just the entire subject of the letter,) and were told that the point of the note was "merely to inform those still living on the premises not to let in the tenants being evicted". How does an eviction notice equal a message that instructs one not to answer the door? We remain mystefied. Needless to say, we'd had enough of these people and decided to move elsewhere. We ended up finding something larger, nicer, and cheaper... an elusive trifecta that almost never occurs. In the end, we ended up someplace better, which we can be thankful for, and all the pent-up rage that we had acquired during our dealings with HR was unleashed unto the evil, former landlords. I think it was rage well-spent and much-deserved, which brings a large smile to both our faces. Just joking. Almost.
The remainder of February was spent settling into our new apartment and Nick settling into his new job. I must point out that moving to a new place while relying soley on public transportation is one of life's rare situations that elicits effusive profanities coupled with incomprehensible amounts of laughter and public gawking... a circumstance that my Scotish classmate terms a "bombscare". I think I must work on removing this word from my vocabulary before returning to the U.S. Anyway, I digress. Nick's job is going extremely well! His co-workers are all extremelyy nice and he is learning quite a lot of new information. The lackadaisical work-ethic (e.g. excessive breaks, people leaving increadibly early, etc.) is, ironically, one of the harder things to which he must adjust. His American sense of professional responsibility is an attribute that has led to him being described has "that new, really motivated American". Motivated? I suppose, if you consider working while at work an act of motivation. I guess it's hard to shake the Yank. All in all, February presented several interesting situations, some good and others not so good, but all making for great stories and experiences.
March
March started off with a visit to Newgrange for my birthday. (See previous post). My classes came to an end and I began working on a couple of final papers that would define my existence for the next month, of course taking a break for St. Patrick's. Nick's old college room-mate, Jason, came out to celebrate the craic (Irish word for fun, maddness, merriment, etc.) of the national holiday. The City Centre had a massive parade with loads of people coming to witness the festivities. Of course, this mass of people completely barred our view of the parade, so we decided to take pictures of the random Irish climbing every phone booth, light pole, and statue in hopes of catching a glimpse of a float. We think it was more fun to watch how creative (and daring) some of these folk would get with their acrobatic attempts. Guinness, undoubedly, gives courage. After the parade, we journeyed to The Gingerman Pub, getting caught in a massive human bottle-neck (I cannot emphasize "bottle-neck" enough) in which the Gardai (police) were useless. Typical. True to Irish form, the citizens began yelling and rebelling until, finally, we made our way through the seemingly endless sea of people. The best part about St. Patrick's? The sun was shining.
April
April is still young, so further reports will be in subsequent posts. I have finished the life-draining essays (joy!). The completion of 30+ pages of work combined with the brief freedom before beginning thesis research required a celebratory night on the town. Nick and I, along with my classmates, started the night off with a pre-party at a classmate's house, followed by a wine-filled taxi ride into the city in which all seven of us passengers were instructed to "keep the bottle low" so nobody would spot us through the window. Firstly, nobody would care, but secondly and even more importantly, clearly taxi-driver Bernard seemed to have an inherent understanding that simply asking us to put away the nectar of the gods would naturally be out of the question.Bernard is good people.
In other news, my sister is coming to visit at the end of April! This will undoubtedly lead to further adventures of bombscaring and banter to be documented in the near-future.
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