merry christmas from ireland!!

heyyy you guys!

what's up and all that good stuff? it's christmas! that's means you're all eating chocolates, drinking booze with your fam, and stuffing your face with turkey deliciousness.

wanna know what i did today? i walked to a beach...because it was 8 degrees and sunny in ireland, the land that snow and ice forgot!

happy christmas! love, swamp beach!

and also, there were a lottt of people out for a christmas walk, so we didn't feel so foreign. but here on christmas, children play in playgrounds, instead of building snowmen. which is sad...i think?

or maybe it's just sad that foreigners take pictures of them playing in a playground?

so besides sea-side christmas walks and creepy playground photo-taking, what's new, you ask?
i work...a lot. like all the time. today is my first day off in like two weeks! and i go back to work tomorrow...until january 2nd. so you can feel bad about that a bit, thanks!
 i'm finally gonna get to start doing some ireland travel in the new year though! so that's exciting!

also, i had my first ever work christmas party this year! it was the most fun! everyone i work with is super cool and really good at partying, especially when the food and drinks are free.
i'm going to a christmas supper now with a group of swap/usit christmas orphans, so at least i get to eat like a pig on christmas, which is what it's all about really...isn't it? 

happy christmas from me (that's what they say here)! may you days be merry and brightttt, and may all your christmases be white...cuz mine isn't! 

peace, love, happiness, and turkey!
xo

sometimes i forget i'm in ireland.

today i had to walk to TWO grocery stores to get what i needed (mostly because i forgot some things at the first grocery store, but that's really here nor there). there are two things you can take away from this extremely short but riveting story 1)the next time you get in your car to drive to sobey's, think of me. 2)i took some pictures when i walked to the second grocery store, three pictures, to be precise. and here they are, for your viewing pleasure...

this is from my fall/winter collection. i call it "trees and stuff". because there are trees...and some stuff, i guess. i'm a very literal photographer.

 

see? see the trees. they're RIGHT there!

every time i walk past this next area i like to imagine that at some point during the week there are many strong, handsome irish boys playing some sort of sport that i don't understand but would watch anyway (for the strong, handsome irish boys). it's more realistic that a children's league plays here...because we've seen the children playing there.

a rugby field?...pitch?...place?

the final picture in this timeless series is of a big silver ball/fountain thing...behind a playground, because really who has the time to walk AROUND the playground to get a better picture? not me...except i do. but...c'mon! there are random ball things all over dublin. one is on fire, this one has water...maybe there's like an "elements" thing going on? someone irish can fill me in on that later i'm sure. anyway...i present "ball fountain/playground".

notice the juxtaposition of the playing equipment with the ball. that's talent.

so anyways, other than all my really awesome picture taking, what else is new? i have some work coming up with the temp agency next week and the week after! and i just interviewed/did training at a hostel, so hopefully they like me enough to give me a real job. maybe the next time i post something it'll be all "heyyyy guys, guess what? i'm going to ______ (insert random european country there)"...and you'll be all "aww man i'm so jealous of her life." then five minutes later you'll forget who i am and continue on with your day. a girl can dream!

over and out!
xo...and stuff!

update: i ate a tuna fish sandwich.

so nothing really that interesting is going on at the moment. we're applying to jobs, exploring the city, going out and about, but since we don't HAVE jobs yet, there's no traveling or cool stuff to share. so here's some randomness.

i DID eat a tuna fish sandwich. my first irish tuna fish sandwich. it pretty much just tasted like a tuna fish sandwich. this is pulitzer prize-worthy writing, folks!

a few days ago meg cooked us our first family supper. we had roast chicken and veggies, just like real grown ups eat! it was delicious, and succeeded in feeding us for the next couple of days via leftovers. leftovers is a riveting blog topic, right? anyway, here's a picture of deliciousness.

aren't we adorable? place-mats and all!

all that was missing was the gravy, which meg is gonna make next time, because she likes to cook. she really likes to cook, and we don't have spices and things and that makes her sad. so if you wanna send care packages of spices...get at me and i'll tell you how to do so haha. or send money, all your money!

umm what else? we watch irish tv (telly, i think i have to call it telly now). there are some pretty epic australian soap operas available. i'm partial to "home and away", meg's partial to "not really caring about australian soap operas", and today there was one on about a lad stealing some sausages and cheese, but here's the kicker...he was a vegetarian, so like WHAT was he thinking? is this how housewives feel about their soaps? here's hoping i get a job soon!

also, here's that tuna sandwich i went on about.

so how's the night life?!

i've been out and about in the great city of dublin three times since we got here, which might seem tame, but we've been getting our lives together, and being hungover is not conducive to productivity. we're trying to mix it up and go to different bars, clubs, pubs, so i'll just break it down night by night.

night 1.
our first stop was the quay (pronounced key, not kay. don't be a doofus like me). it's in the temple bar area, which is basically like george street on meth. it was absolutely packed and there's not a big coat check culture over here apparently. so you're dressed for winter, and you're damn sure gonna wish it was summer the second you stand in a packed bar with nowhere to put your coat. but life goes on. we go to the bar to get our first official drinks in ireland. meg knows what she wants, she's been here and she drinks beer and cider. i get a vodka cran, like i do at home, because i'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. except over here mix is not included in the price of the drink, so you get charged the 4-5 dollars for the booze, anddd 3.50 for the juice. this lesson was learned after viewing the receipt after the second vodka cran, and quite possibly my last vodka cran until i return to newfoundland (probably with a beer gut). also, the bartender told me he loved me. after the quay we went to...another place, which is slipping my memory at this current time. not because i was black out drunk or anything, but because it was a week ago and i'm senile (update...it was the storehouse and it was my favourite bar we've been to so far. a few more of my brain cylinders kicked in this evening!). we ended night one off at dicey's, which is like dusk, except with weirder music. then supermacs, nom nom nom.

night 2.
we had our first house guests this weekend, they brought vodka as a present. we will probably insist this of all future house guests. we had to check out our "local", so we did. it's called cusacks and they have cash-prize bingo every friday night, and lots of old, irish men drinking pint. here's where a picture would be a nice supplement...i don't have one because taking pictures is hard. then we went to sweeney's, which i don't remember much of at all because having house guests made me nervous and i drank too much and forgot life.

night 3.
last night we decided to go out at 10 o'clock. the old drink/get ready at the same time routine. luckily, our apartment is small enough that music played in the kitchen is heard everywhere. so we've got a good system going. we headed to whelan's. 10 dollar (euro, i just can't bring myself to talk in euros yet, sounds pretentious) cover, not my favourite, 3 dollar beers, thumbs up! also, this is the bar from PS i love you when gerard butler sings "galway girl" to hilary swank. i got creeped on by an extremely drunk, extremely handle-bar-mustache-having dude for the majority of our stay, while his friends tried to explain to us that he was harmless and even they couldn't understand him when he was drunk. it's nice to know that internationally guys are basically all the same. some are nice, some are creepy, some walk by and kiss your hand and carry on, some grab your ass on the dance floor. and the dance floor was packed. people dance much more violently in ireland. i'm sure i have bruises. night 3 also ended with supermacs, because chicken nuggets are delicious and i don't need to defend myself to you!!!!

beers and more beers!

that's about it so far for our bar experiences. there's a lot of them, so it might take a while to write reviews, but it's what i'm here for right? oh...and to find gainful employment, i guess!

peace out! xo

baby, this is a blog instead of a kiss.

first off, props to anyone who picked up on the alannah myles reference. you are now as cool as me, which isn't that cool at all, sorry.

so it's been a few days. a few productive days! go team! 

we did a bus tour and saw some pretty cool spots around town. we went to christ church cathedral, a masssive church where they actually filmed the show "the tudors". i'll post a bunch of pictures from there at the bottom, because that's just how i'm gonna do it. deal. (and because our internet hates me it might take me a year to upload them. see below)

we also found an apartment! it's a tiny, little two bedroom with a spiral staircase. we each have our own bathroom, and there's a kitchen/sitting area for group fun time. it's super close to city centre, and, most importantly, it's cheap. so we're living the dream. i'll try and post some pictures of the apartment too, but, ya know...below.

we have the internet (this is below), but our portable modem that we purchased seems to be much fonder of meg than it is of me. or of my computer...but probably just me because i feel like there's a personal vendetta happening. i can connect for about a minute or two at a time then it hates me forever...or for another few minutes. but so did the wifi at the hostel...computer nerds/cool guys, could this be a problem with my laptop itself? holla atcha girl with helpful tips!

tomorrow's another proposed eventful day. i'm gonna get my resume (it's a CV here) all spiffy-ed up tonight so i can start applying for jobs tomorrow. we're also gonna go pay our immigration fees so they don't kick us out, and apply for our PPS # (that's basically an irish sin number) so we can work legally and let the government take our money for taxes. hooray legal employment!

so that's about all i've got for now. once we have jobs we'll start doing interesting stuff like traveling and shopping and getting irish boyfriends. here are pictures. i'm sleepy.

christ church from outside...or maybe another church. i can't remember things.

here's our baby kitchen, complete with baby fridge, baby stove, and baby breakfast nook.

we sit here. see? meg is sitting there as proof. hi meg!

this really isn't as magical unless it' flipped. i swear i know how to do that, but i'm so sleepy-dumb right now.

turn your laptop sideways if you really care.

oh c'mon...whyyy did i take everything sideways?

i sleep here. flowers grow here too.

this is a building. i can't remember why i took a picture of it, but it's classy.

pretty lights on grafton street. festive wha?

part of dublin castle...maybe?

christ church cathedral. it.is.massive. and i can't figure out how to flip it.

i guess this is where the term "cathedral ceiling" comes from?

people sit here...and pray, maybe.

a holy book. and some stain glass windows. classic church paraphernalia.

painting a person did. i read about that person. he seemed alright.

meg wanted to play the organ. i want to know how to flip pictures.

another building that looked classy.

ps. in my brain i'm now almost positive i have to flip images before i upload them here. so look forward to that for next time.

over and out, 10-4, see ya real soon!

day one/night one in dub city!

made it to dublin, you guys! so begins the annoying bragging about all my super cool daily activities.

to start, here's the liffey.

dublin wut up?

this is the river that divides dublin into the north and south sides. our hostel is on one side and temple bar is on the other. temple bar is basically a mini george street, with a bunch of pubs and clubs. it's a huge tourist area and most places are packed almost every night of the week. last night we went to a couple of pubs there and it felt like being in o'rielly's, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. also, the drummer played the bodhran and another guy played tin whistle. so i guess we're pretty irish? and the drummer was a babe. then we went to a club that was dusk/sundance-ish in nature, except all the music was weird house music, and an indian guy thought we were lesbians...because meg told him we were lesbians. he experienced some sort of spiritual awakening upon meeting two "lesbians" and thanked us repeatedly for living our lives to the fullest. "god bless you, you are lesbians, woooo lesbians" was basically what i gathered from anything he said to us. another indian guy rubbed my arms, it was weird.

yesterday in the day we walked around the city and tried to find our bearings. walking around dublin feels like walking around new york in every movie i've ever seen. there are SO many people and no one walks in any order or direction. so basically i'm famous now. also, i bought boots.

we're staying in a hostel until we get an apartment/find a rich irish man to buy us a castle. here's our homebase for this week, abbey court.

it's purple!

we're in a dorm room with 12 beds, and there are like 5 or 6 spanish girls in here with us. they talk loud and fast and i don't think they like us. or they don't like that we don't speak spanish. either way, we aren't friends. i sleep on the top bunk, because i'm at girl guide camp. the bathroom is about 4 square inches, it makes showering the most fun. the internet is sketchy at best most times, so if i click "post" on this and it fail to connect i will probably throw things (you'll know if it worked the first time by the absence of obscene language in this portion).

today we did a bus tour and went to check out the area where one of the apartments we're gonna look at is. it was a nice, little area that seemed safe and had birds chirping and trees and houses that look like this...

these house were about 4 feet tall. leprechauns live there (unreliable fact).

so that's pretty much it of my first bit of time on the emerald isle! i'm gonna take a nap now, because walking places is hard, and also i always take a nap now. 

peace out, homes (plural)

xo  

     

do i live in an airport now?

so it's now 4:25pm and i'm in philly. that means it's almost 6 o'clock at home. i left newfoundland at 7:30am...yesterday. i've been en route to ireland for almost 36 hours now, and i've still got several more to go. but it ain't no thang. i cried once, though. i'm twelve.

so yeah i'm in philly...and i'm having the most difficult time finding a friggin plug to charge my computer and watch a movie. there are literally 4 plugs in this entire terminal. i'd complain, but i feel like it's uncanadian of me. earlier today at a security check a soon as the guy saw i was canadian he asked what my favourite hockey team was. is that racism?

this will probably be one of the least coherent entries in history. i'm getting hungry, and instead of eating a philly cheesesteak, because...when in rome, i think i'm gonna eat a salad. is THAT racist? i don't know what's real anymore, but i do know that if i eat anymore grease i'm going to have to start hoping irish lads really enjoy pudgy girls. 

there's also an italian place in my eye line with, what appears to be, pretty delicious mac and cheese. is mac and cheese as bad as philly cheesesteak?...she asked to the imaginary internet audience who isn't reading this.

anyway, i'm in philly and i'm gonna eat salad or mac and cheese. you're welcome for this exciting update in my life.

xo
jack attack.