Excellent Weather... maybe...

We had excellent weather for the whole week, but alas, the good old days end sooner or later. This morning, it was not raining when I left for work. However, when I got off my bus, it started pouring. It was like the timer went off and the tap went on. It took only a few minutes before I was completely drenched! It was just a 5 minute walk to the train station from the bus and when I arrived, I was completely soaked! My waterproof, breathable, helly-tech jacket and my non-trusty umbrella were missing in action. Actually, my umbrella is broken. It went to its doom when it tried to pick me up like Mary Poppins. But unknown to poor brella, I was much heavier than her and brella was never the same again, sniff sniff. Anyways, I haven't gotten around to replace it yet...

Start looking...

On Monday I gave my month notice to the manager. He was quite surprised and convinced me to stay. He said I did good work, so I hope I'll get a good reference from him. Now i've got to start to look for another job...

Today I found out that in Ireland, there's something called the TV license. So anyone who owns a device that are able to receive cable needs to pay for a yearly TV license (per household) of 150 euros. This doesn't include any cable fees. (Sounds ridiculous to me!) There's supposedly TV license officers that randomly go around to households checking for the license. But according to this guy I work with, he hasn't heard about anyone who has been checked.

Some pictures

Hello Everybody,
Here's some pictures we took in Dalkey, Bray and around Dublin. There's also a picture of Sophie, and one of the outside of our flat. http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/Bray/

We went to see Batman Begins this weekend. I think it's pretty good, and alot better than the last one. But it seems different than the comics. Last time when we went to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith it was in the evening and we were able to reserve specific seats while we purchased the tickets. There are ushers that took us to seats. I've never been taken to my seats in a movie theatre... When we watched Batman this weekend it was a before noon show so it was a first come, first serve on seats.

We went to have Dim Sum at a place called 'Imperial Chinese Restaurant' on Saturday and we will never go there again. Their food is cooked by using the microwave (not steamed) and yes, we can tell! So far, we have found 3 Dim Sum restaurants in Dublin and this is the worst (the worst we've ever tasted anywhere!) All were around the same price... pricy. The one in Stephen's Green, just beside the Gaiety Theatre is the best Chinese Restaurant (Dim Sum and dinner) called Millennium.

Gaiety Theatre will be hosting the Riverdance for the next 3 months. We got some tickets for next Saturday so we'll let you know how the show is...

Bad Sophie, Bad!

Sophie is not behaving! She keeps peeing around me. On one evening, I had to mop the kitchen floor twice and it also crapped on the carpet! That little creature must go, it's now stinking the whole place up. My housemate is not home enough to tend to it, so I guess he's not as responsible as I first thought.

I'm no longer freaking out with unexpected things popping up with our flat... it's like, 'Really, we have no more water again, wow, I didn't think we'd have water for so long...' So yesterday, we have no water (YET AGAIN) Last time when we had no water, it took them about aweek and a half to fix. This time it only took them 2 days to restore our water. Actually, this time is even worse than last time cause even the showers don't work. It's like living in a little third world flat where we have to fill up buckets with dropplets of water.

At around midnight last night, there was these two drunks singing (loudly) outside our flat. We had the window open because Ireland is currently experiencing it's one week of summer so it was abit hot. Fortunetly, we had ear plugs and it did the job. We were able to get a good nights rest. (Never leave home without one)

Our 7th housemate, Sophie!

We have a new addition to our apartment recently. Her name is Sophie, and is only 8
weeks old and really cute. She's crawling around stubling over everything. I want to hold her, but i'm afraid that I would drop her, or get pee on. She's not making alot of noise in the middle of the night, so everyone is sleeping well. But tends to wake up really early in the morning wanting attention. My house mate is pretty young, only 24 years old. He's taking good care of her, giving her regular baths so she smells good (most of the time) I have some pictures of her, i'll try to post them soon.

On Tuesday, we went to check out another flat (in the city centre area). The flat looks pretty good. It would have costed almost double our current rent (but it's ok). It's got 2 bedrooms and ours was pretty big and had an ensuite. I liked the place until I found out that one of the guys sleeps on the couch (the other guys gets the other room all to himself) On Saturday, we saw another flat in the Dublin 8 area (just a couple of blocks from where we're living now). This flatt is not in the city centre area but is only about 15-20 minutes away (walking). In short, we didn't like this one. The place looks like it hasn't been cleaned for a long while. The carpet looks gross and the room stinks. (There's 2 other guys living there) Needless to say, we shall look some more, and fast, cause the music in the bar is getting louder than when we first moved in! The bass is so loud over the weekends that our room is vibrating!

On another note, I think i'm going to give my one month notice sometime this week and try to find work closer to the City of Dublin. In a month I think I would be able to complete the major parts of the project so it's not like i'm leaving them hanging (so I don't feel bad for them) Amazingly, I'm all up to date on the documentation so they should be able to maintain it without much trouble.

There are loads of Chinese restaurants here but almost all of them offer the northern cuisine. So far, we found 2 southern style Chinese restaurants in Dublin. Yesterday, we had DIM SUM in one of them. It's taste is suprisingly good. Compared to Calgary, it's about double the price and the selection is limited. (My southern taste buds just screaming for moms southern style dishes)

Today Bo decided to make it a cleaning day, and I helped move furniture around while he's vacuming. Bo vacumed the room and also his laptop keyboard. His keyboard keys are all secured so none of the keys got sucked in... remember, alway check that your keys are all locked in place before vacuming it (Max)

Sleep, work, and TV, what a balanced life!

We aren’t doing much these days except work, sleep, TV and video games. Riley lent us his Nintendo Cube and we just bought the Donkey Kongo game (the one with the drums) One of my house mates also has a PS2 so I bought the UK version of DDR and a 8-way dance mat (yes, this games uses all 8 directions). But I don’t really like the layout of how the arrows come out. They come from the center and moves outwards. So it’s a bit confusing. I think the next version of the UK DDR game has the same layout as the North American and Asian versions. We also received care packages from Kitty, with the whole season 4 of 24, Apprentice 3 and HK shows. So we were busy watching North American TV shows and playing video games. (P.S. if anyone else wants to send us care packages, our mailbox always welcomes them)

We just watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith (just came out this week in Dublin) I thought it was a really funny movie. A must see for Brad Pitt fans!

Got sick again...

Eeek, I got sick again. My throat is giving me problems again. Luckily, it turned into a cold instead of a flu. I missed 2 days of work. I think it’s the air pollution that’s caused me to fall ill. There are so many people smoking here. Little kids are smoking and drinking in plain sight! Maybe we are just in a dodgy area. I guess that explains the 10 police vehicles that suddenly showed up directly outside of our little apartment one evening. We had no idea what was going on. Maybe it was a bar fight? But it was a big scene, one side of the road is blocked off, lots of people were screaming at each other, and also at the cops. But at the end, we only saw one person get arrested.