Berlin Pictures...

Here's a link to our Berlin pictures:
http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/Berlin/

Our trip to Berlin...

We went to Berlin on Sunday September 18th for 5 days. But we almost didn’t make it there cause I was in so much pain on Saturday that I couldn’t move. My back was just killing me and even when I didn’t move, it was painful. I thought I accidentally injured it when I was doing this yoga move, but its not like I haven’t done it before. I actually called the Alberta Health Link for advice, and they advised me to go and see the doctor. It was a Saturday so I couldn’t find a clinic that was open. Besides, I had a hard time walking anywhere so I didn’t physically go out and see if they were open. Luckily I live 5 minutes from the James Hospital (one of the largest in Ireland) We found the non emergency doctors to take a look at me (they made an exception to see me cause I didn’t have a GP and one was required) It was nothing serious, just a kidney infection. I guess that was why my back hurt on one side only. My muscles were only inflamed on the left side by my kidney. I also live 1 minute away from the chemist (aka pharmacy) so that was handy. Took my pills and 2 hrs later, it was like nothing happened.

Everyday, there’s only one flight going out to Berlin and it was at 7am in the morning! The flight was only 2 hrs so we arrived into Berlin at around noon (1 hr time zone change) Bo’s cousin (Jie) and her boyfriend (cute German guy) picked us up from the airport. We didn’t know what she looked like but we she saw our pictures online so she found us. Bo has met her once but he was only hand held size so he didn’t remember much of it.

We will be staying at Jie's place. She lives in East Berlin, and very close to city centre. We went there to drop off our stuff, before going to Sunday brunch at a café by her area. The food was excellent, and it cost about half as much as Dublin. But I got attacked by a bee. It kept flying around our food and around my face. I tried to run away from it but it just kept on following me. Arg. We walked a lot today. I was quite tired afterwards. We went around East and West Berlin on foot. I saw graffiti everywhere. (No walls were spared!)

On Monday, we were on our own since Jie was heading off to work in Brussels and will not come back to Berlin till Friday. She works in Brussels but travels back to her home in Berlin every weekend. So we got her place all to ourselves. We each bought a welcome card, which allows us to use the public transportation for 72 hours, so we’re all set. It also comes with a voucher booklet for attractions in Berlin. But we didn’t make much use of it.

When we were in Paris, we took a bike tour with the Fat Tires Bike Tours. They also operate in Berlin so we took another tour from them. I really enjoyed the tour and we covered a lot of ground. We went to the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, Potsdamer Platz, Victory Column, Hitler’s Bunker (they didn’t excavate it and there’s apartment buildings around it), Reichstag (German Parliament), Museum Island, Soviet War Memorial, Bebelplatz (site of Nazi book burning) and the list goes on. (We didn’t go into any of them) It was a long tour; we took a lunch break at a beer garden. The food was excellent! But I got attacked by another bee! (I think it was a bee, I can’t tell bees or wasps apart) Arg. Overall, the bike tour was great. It was around 5 hours in total but we probably rode for about 4 hours so it wasn’t hard work. We stopped quite frequently to look at the site and talk about the history of what we’re looking at.

In the evening, we went to see the Blue Man Group in a theatre around Potsdamer Platz. We arrived 5 minutes before the show started and score excellent seats! They were premium seats, in the middle, on the ground floor. We had no idea what the show was about, so we had no expectations. I saw the glossy brochure for it in the tourist info centre (it’s the nicest brochure there) and it reminded us of the IBM commercial (the one with the 3 guys all painted and dressed in blue) It turned out to be an awesome show. The visual effects were great and included audience participation. Only 5% of the show required the knowledge of German. (narration and on large place cards), so without knowing German, I thought the show was about visualization, animation, music and their evolution. I googled it and found the description for the same show in Las Vegas: A "Blue Man" (called such because of their entirely blue heads and hands) is "the curious being from inner space who wants to 'blesh' with the audience through sound and color."

On Tuesday we had breakfast at a café close to our crib. They didn’t have an English menu so we randomly picked things off the breakfast menu. When the food came out, it was the most nutritious breakfast that I’ve ever had. My plate had about 5 different types of cheese, 4 different pieces of fruit, 2 different types of sliced meat, 3 types of bread and a hard boiled egg, with grapefruit juice. Bo’s was similar, but in additional, he had smoked salmon, yogurt and olives. After our grand breakfast, we went up to the East Berlin’s TV Tower on Alexanderplatz. It’s 1198 feet high with some great view of Berlin. Then we went to a shopping mall and Bo bought a huge Lego set (Technic 8421) that just came out this month. This thing is bigger than my backpack. So we went home early. After a tiring day yesterday, I accepted the chance to relax and watch 2 movies. Bo starting building it right away and he kept building even after I went to bed.

On Wednesday, we visited the Sea Life Centre and the AquaDom. The Sea Life Centre housed many interesting sea creatures, but it was more for kids. The AquaDom is where there’s tons of different sea creature in the outer tube of the elevator. Picture a hollow see through cylinder that an elevator can go through, with a giant tank surrounding it. It’s interesting but it seems to be a short ride to the top. It would be better if they stopped the elevator longer in the middle of the tube. Again the narration was in German only. Then again, when you’re in the elevator, it’s like looking at a giant fish tank that has you surrounded.

Later on that day, we went up on the Berlin High-Flyer, one of the worlds largest helium balloons. It rises up to 150 meters high. I always wanted to go up on a hot air balloon, but this will do for now. The balloon uses helium to rise up and there’s a cable attached to it so that it doesn’t float away. But they said that even if the cable breaks, we would still be safe. However, they didn’t explain how we would be able to get down without the cable. We had a birds eye view of another Jewish Memorial (this one was huge; there was many blocks of different height that represented the different characteristics of the fallen Jewish people. We spotted the Canadian Embassy, which wasn’t too far from where we were. (We checked it out afterwards, it’s very nice in there.) After the balloon ride, we went to another large shopping mall and I was able to find a post office where I can send out postcards. That night, I did something that I’ve not done in months… I finally took a bath! We started to pack tonight cause we had a morning flight to Dublin. This was the only departure time.

On Thursday, September 22 2005, we arrived at the airport at 10am for our flight to Dublin at 11am. We were cutting it pretty close, luckily, we made it through security with some time to spare. This was the first time that I saw security use a hand held metal detector and padded everyone down. Maybe the big ring metal detector was broken? I didn’t take any motion sickness pills this time cause I miss placed them in Dublin. The flight was fine for me until the last 30 mins. I had to get up and go to the toilet. A few minutes after returning to my seat, I felt extremely sick on the plane. I think I broke into a cold sweat in minutes and I felt my hands shaking… I almost puked! (Which I really really really hate doing) Luckily, I was able to hold it in… otherwise, ewwwwww.

Interesting notes on Berlin
- Not much difference between West and East Berlin
- Graffiti is almost everywhere, lots of them look pretty good
- West Berlin has normal looking pedestrian lights while East Berlin has a short, fat chubby guy with a hat on. (but some of the East Berlin lights did get replaced by the West side lights, until the East Berliners protested)
- East Berlin is the only place in the world where the pedestrian guy has a hat (According to our guide)
- Lots of Germans can speak English, and they are nice.
- Germany has the third largest Turkish population other than Turkey
- Lots of Donor shops (most likely because of the large Turkish population)
- Many memorial sites to Jewish victims during the Nazi regime
- Lots of construction
- East Berlin is slightly cheaper to buy things than West Berlin
- Very multicultural

Nice T

Bo, proudly wearing his half-marathon t-shirt after running for a bit over 2 hours. It took place in Phoenix Park on Saturday, September 24th

Paris Pics, Encounter with Kev, Berlin Trip...

My Paris pictures are up: http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/Paris/

On the 4th of September, Bo and I were walking down the street and when we turned the corner, Kevin Foster was there! What a fluke, I had classes with this guy and I took him out to his first snowboarding trip to Sunshine. Prior to Dublin, Kev was in Brazil for the last 4 months. We went back to where Kevin was staying and met more people from U of C. Callum was also there, went boarding with him too. If his name sounds familiar, then it’s probably because he TA a lot of classes, 355/455 (Assembly and Hardware classes) I think he’s finished his PhD and got married (for 2 years). There was Pauline (I hope it’s spelled right) from Tim’s party, and others from the graphics department. It turns out that everyone was attending the Eurographics 2005 Conference in Dublin. Kevin is now the second UC person that I know that I’ve just bumped into in Dublin. We hung out and chatted for a bit before all going for fish and chips. It was cool hanging out with Canadians in Dublin. They’ve been here for 9 days already and all except for Kevin will be boarding planes to leave Dublin tomorrow. Kevin will stay for another day before leaving for Toronto on Tuesday. He needed a place to stay for a day so Bo and I offered him our place to crash for Monday night.

On Monday, I played guide and took Kevin out to a day trip to Bray, in County Wicklow. We were supposed to hike up Bray Head but I missed the turn and we ended up hiking to Graystones instead. So our 40 minutes hike turned out to be over 2 hrs. But then again, the view is awesome. We still made in back into Dublin on time before the shops close to get some dinner… we had hotpot that night and we introduced Kevin to Donkey Kongo. (Nintendo Cube game) I don’t know about Kevin (hope he had fun), I had tons of fun. But now, I’m going to blame him because after he left, I felt home sick.

Hopefully our upcoming trip to Berlin will keep my mind off of Calgary. I’m going to do a lot more planning for this one. We’re leaving on September 18 and coming back on September 22… to my beloved readers, please post comments, I’m feeling lonely out here! =)

We went to Paris...

...on Thursday August 18th for 5 days. We arrived at the airport 1.5hrs early but found that our flight was delayed by 30mins. The flight to Paris from Dublin is about 1.5hrs long and though we left Dublin at around 5:30pm, we didn’t land in Paris until about 8:15pm. Paris is 1 hr ahead of Dublin time. Security in Paris was not too strict. Finding the Metro station to get into town was a little tricky but we managed. We got out in Terminal 1 but the Metro is in another station so we had to take the free shuttle to the Metro terminal. Going into town by Metro will set you back 8 euros, but I wouldn’t recommend this if you had luggage, unless you don’t mind carrying it up and down the stairs while you’re changing lines and exiting the stations. We both had a backpack each so the stairs didn’t bother us much. It’s now midnight, but we finally arrived in our Hotel (Hotel Le Quercy, 2 Star). I did some research and found that many hotels were more economical to stay at than hostels. We paid 40 euros per night for the hotel and breakfast was included. It was not in city centre but it was only a few minutes walk from the Metro station, on the border of zone 2. Even if we did find a place in city centre, we would still need to take the Metro anyways. Tonight was unbelievably hot and humid. It felt like that China trip we took a few years ago. I had a hard time sleeping and instead of a blanket, I used a towel for cover. Luckily, it rained really hard the next morning so the weather was just perfect for the duration of our trip.

On Friday we got up a bit before 9am to catch the breakfast. There was juice, cereal, buns, tea, coffee and croissant. It turns out that today would be the only day that we got up early enough for breakfast, which ends at 9am. The first place we went to was the Arc deTriomphe. This big yellow Arc was in the middle of a huge traffic circle with multiple lanes and speeding vehicles. Crossing it at the right time would be a bit tricky but doable. We’ve seen people successfully crossing it. Personally, I would take the underground to the Arc. It would be so much safer and French drivers wouldn’t be pissed off at you.

From the Arc, we started to walk to the Eiffel Tower. From afar, it doesn’t seem to look very special. At first, all we saw was a radio tower, since only the tip of the tower was visible, we were questioning if that was the Eiffel Tower. However, as more and more of the Tower were expose, we realized that it was the Eiffel Tower and it looks brilliant. The view from the Palais de Chaillot is the best for taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. The Palais de Chaillot (Chaillot Palace) houses 3 museums. But we’re all museumed out from London so we passed. Instead, we took a lot of pictures of the large chunks of metal, also known as, the Eiffel Tower. The line to buy tickets to the top of the Eiffel Tower by lift was very long, but the line to buy tickets to walk up the Eiffel Tower was quite short in comparison. Walking up was Bo’s first choice anyways, and though at first, I thought it would be an outrageous thing to do, I eventually surrendered to Bo’s preference. The walk to the first level was shorter than anticipated. I was only a tad bit tired after arriving on the first level. We hung out here for a short period of time, checked out the view, and took some pictures. The walk up to the second level was a bit longer than anticipated and I was quite tired after the walk. We took in the view and it was magnificent. I was quite proud of myself for successfully walking up the two levels of the tower. This would be the highest that one can walk, since the lift is the only method to get to the very top of the Eiffel Tower. The line up for this lift looks never ending. It was so long that they had to shut down ticket sales for an hour. So we decided to hang out for a bit on the second level and wait for the ticket booth to open up. There was a renovation to the Tower a few years back and though this move didn’t make the lifts go any faster, they did put in some shops and a restaurant. I had my one and only dessert in Paris, it was a waffle with whipped cream. Bo didn’t like it at all, and I couldn’t even finish it. The first bite was excellent but after that, it was like sucking down sugar! I think I consumed a whole week of my sugar quota in half of this waffle… eventually we made our way to the top of the Eiffel Tower (ET). The view and the winds are amazing. Even on a warm day, make sure you bring a jacket when visiting ET. We spent a long time at the ET and it started to get dark by the time we left. The lights on ET were on but the sky wasn’t dark enough for the lights to make ET shine. So that was our Friday. From here on, we were quite unorganized.

On Saturday, we got up really late, missed the free breakfast and left the hotel at around noon. Our first destination was Notre Dame Cathedral. Notre Dame is located on a little island in the Seine river that runs through the middle of Paris. It was made famous by the story of the hunchback of Notre Dame. It was probably famous before then but that’s how I know Notre Dame. The line up at first looked really long, but it was quick to get in. There were people going in and out none stop. It was quite dark inside, there were many candles available for the visitors to light up and put up. Admission is free but a donation would be nice. There was even a priest available for people to confess their sins to. The lineup is quite short but I passed. Its been never since the last time I made a confession. The particular priest available only speaks French, Italian and something else and not English. The English speaking priest was on break. All the glass windows inside has pictures on them. I wonder if they were the originals. Its hard to believe that glass windows can last so long. We sad in here for a bit and there was this creepy organ music playing in the background. I say its creepy cause it sounds a bit like the phantom of the opera music. After leaving Notre Dame, we took a stroll around this little island in the Seine river attempting to find the Sainte-Chappele and Conciergerie. Both should also be on this little island but they just eluded us and we found the Palais De Justice building instead. Bo assumed that this building took over the space cause it’s currently under construction. So we gave up looking and walked around Paris aimlessly. Eventually, we found what were looking for, but they’re closing soon. We will go there tomorrow. We came across many places that sell crepe. I wonder if this is was where crepe originated. I was tempted to get one, until I remembered the waffle experience I had on the Eiffel Tower… after some more aimlessly walking, we arrived at the largest Metro station in Paris, Chatelet Les Halles. I’ve heard that this station is not a friendly one to make connections at night because of the long tunnels. So I always remind Bo to find smaller stations to make our connections. But right now, this station is very lively. There’s a large shopping centre underneath this area and the metro station is located below the mall.

On Sunday, we got up and left at around noon. We’re in search of breakfast and found a nice seafood restaurant by our metro station. We saw ads for this restaurant and there was a large picture of a platter of mussels luring us in. The menu was all in French and I couldn’t understand any of it so we just ordered from the picture. But the picture always looks better then the real thing. When Bo’s platter of mussels came out, it seemed to have been blasted by a shrink gun. It’s just breakfast… this afternoon, we went back to visit the Sainte-Chappele and Conciergerie. However, we made it to the insides of the Conciergerie only. The line up for the Sainte-Chappele was quite long, we took a glance inside this place and it didn’t look like anything special. We thought that this place couldn’t top Notre Dame, and we saw that yesterday, so we skipped it. Eventually, we made our way to the Louve. This place is huge. We went down the pyramid to the information desk and found that they were closing shortly. Another reason why we should have done more planning. But things still worked out. We made our way to the base of the Eiffel Tower and joined the night bike tour. It was an American owed business so all the tours were in English. The tour was very nice. I would recommend it to anyone visiting Paris. They have sister companies in Barcelona and Berlin so we will likely visit them again. Our tour covered all the places that Bo and I visited but the difference is the time of day. Saw the Louve building illuminate with the lights and we biked around the fountain in the Louve. We did a bike by sneak peek of a lady statue with no arms (I don’t remember what she’s called) It was a 3 hr bike ride and we covered over 7 miles. Then we went on a one hour boat tour. We mingled with our group and enjoyed complementary wine from our bike tour company. We passed by the Eiffel Tower and it had lit up nicely in the dark with blue flashing lights. It looks magnificent and we have a picture to prove it. We also saw the statue of Mini Liberty. It looked so cute! We finally made it home with our McDonalds take out at around 1am.

On Monday, we had to pack up our sacks and get ready to checkout. Fortunately, the check out time for this hotel was at noon, so we slept in again. We checked out a minute early and went for some breakfast at the Japanese restaurant. Like any other day, I had nothing planned. After our delicious meal, we proceeded to the Rue Mouffetard. According to the pamphlet, this is “one of the Quartier Latin’s treatures. This lively street combines creative boutiques, friendly bars, and ample space for strolling” We got lost many times before finally finding the place. We wandered around that area for while. I had a large gelato; it looked brilliant and tasted delicious. However, this area didn’t look as lively as the pamphlet made it out to be. It was definitely aimed towards the tourist and I don’t think there were any French people hanging out there except for the employees of the shops. With the remaining time we had left in Paris, we walked over to Luxembourg and spent 15 minutes relaxing in Jardin du Luxembourg. There’s a beautiful garden in this large park area, with a pond where people sail toy boats.

London Pictures and our next trip...

London Pics: http://www.travelgoats.ca/Europe2005/London/

We have our next trip scheduled. We're going to Paris on Thursday Aug 18 for 5 days. Like our London trip, we have nothing planned. We will decided what to do and where do go when we land. But no worries, the guild book will steer us...

Trip to London!

We went to London on Thursday July 27 for 5 days. Because of the recent events, we decided to arrive at the airport 2 hours before our 7pm scheduled flight. We went through security without any problems and boarded the Aerlingus plane (though there was a 20 minute delay for no apparent reason) The flight from Dublin to London took only 50 minutes. We arrived in the Heathrow airport at around 8:30pm and took the tube to our Hostel. Some of the lines in the tube was out of service, due to some unfortunate events, so our tube ride took a tad bit longer (1.5 hrs) It was a short 10 minutes walk to our Hostel. By the time we arrived it was close to 11am. The reception was closed and we were checked in by the security guard, which was on his cell phone for the majority of the check-in duration. Even when he was taking us to our room, he still chatted away. We stayed at the IFor Evans Hall, in a dorm room for the University College London students. We booked a twin room, but ended up with 2 single rooms. The rooms are decent, clean and about the size of my room in Calgary. Except that this one has a sink. Each section of floor shares two toilets, a shower and a tub. Both sexes shares this same facility! The kitchen area is also shared but though there was a stove, there's no pots or pans and the sink had a pile of dirty dishes... We ate out quite a bit so the lack of kitchen utensils didn't affect us much.

London is a very beautiful city. The city gave me quite a positive first impression. Surprisingly, London turned out to be a bit cheaper than Dublin. Especially when it comes to eating out. The service is better and the food tastes awesome! London Rocks!


Friday was a busy day. I was so tired from all the walking. Our first stop was at Trafalgal Square. There were many grand statues on each corner of the square with several water fountains in the middle. I sat on the bench where I can see the statue of Kind George IV on his horse, overlooking the square. On the other side of the square, there were several lion statuses that kind of reminded Bo and I of the lion on the Hong Kong dollars. Trafalgal Square is a great place to sit down, relax and have your lunch or snack. Occasionally, bands would play music in the square. Today, there was a band that played jazz. The fountains were turned off when the band was there, so I guess they schedule these groups. Across from the square, I can see the Canadian flag. It must be the Canadian Embassy. We went into the Embassy and they had an exhibition of the cooperation of how the Canadian and the British soldiers fought in World War II. They also provided internet service and a lounge area for visiting Canadians to relax. So we hung out here for a bit. Then we search and found Chinatown. I felt so at home with so many Cantonese speaking Asians here. Finally, we can enjoy a real Hong Kong meal.

After lunch, we went to the National Gallery, and took the guided tour. There was much to see and so little time. I'm sure one can easily spend several days in each of the museums. But we moved on after the guided tour and did a quick walk through the National Portrait Gallery, before heading over to the British Museum where we spent the majority of time in. Words cannot describe the grandness of the British Museum. We got back to our Hostel at around 7:30pm and I just crashed and slept.


On Saturday we walked around our Hostel area. We walked through the Camdon Market. There were many different things for sale, from clothes to food. It reminded us of the outdoor street shops in Hong Kong. Today we watched Stomp. I always wanted to watch Stomp, ever since it was in Calgary. This show consists of people making music with ordinary stuff from around the house. They used brooms, garbage cans, sinks and a bunch of other stuff. An excellent show, I would definitely recommend it. Later, we went over to the Westminster area, where we saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and London eye. Shortly after arriving, rain started to pour on us heavily for about 1.5 hours. Luckily, we packed our Helly Tech jackets. We were one of the few that was still walking around on the streets during the heavy rain. We stopped by a Japanese restaurant for dinner. We haven't had any sushi for months, the last time we went to a sushi restaurant was back in Calgary!


On Sunday, we went to Victoria and Albert Museum and joined the guided tour. Then we went to the Science museum for a short show before going for lunch at another Japanese restaurant. Then we went back to the Westminster area to take more pictures of Big Ben and the London Eye. Close by there was an exhibition of the Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanjing. It's about the Japanese occupation of China in the second world war. There was very graphic and disturbing images and information. I felt sick. It was horrifying to know that a human being can do such things to another human being. I think this was many times worse then the Holocaust. You would be lucky if you were simply killed! For more info, check out this site: http://www.gendercide.org/case_nanking.html

From Westminster, we went to look for a bus that could take us over to Buckingham Palace. After walking 10 minutes, we realized that it would probably be easier if we just walked there. We passed through Green Park and Hyde Park on our way there. They look like nice places to sit down and have a picnic.

After a long walk, we arrived in front of Buckingham Palace. There was a nice fountain in front of the gates and more huge statuses of lions. They're similar to the ones in Trafalgal Square except that these ones has someone on them. We took some pictures by the fountain and of the palace. Eventually, I made my way on top of a lion and sat on it's back for a picture. I'll try to have some pictures posted soon.

We're flying out today, Monday, so we had to pack our backpacks and carry them with us as we visited the Tower of London and the Science Museum. We were on a tight schedule today. Our flight leaves at 7pm but since we need to check in 2 hrs before and it takes us 1 hr to get to the airport, it means that we must leave for Heathrow at 4pm. From our hostel we took the tube to the Tower of London, and took some pictures of the London Bridge. We opted not to go into the Tower and decided to go for a good lunch. We made our way to Chinatown and I had an excellent bowl of rice noodles with roasted duck. I haven't had such tasty roasted duck since I was in Calgary. After fulfilling our stomach, we went to the science museum. I think I can spend at least a few days in here. There's so many interesting things to learn about. Today was pretty tiring cause we were walking around with our backpacks all day. Next time, I’ll pack much lighter! In fact, who needs a change of clothes? =)

Today when we flew back to Dublin. I decided to not take any drugs (motion sickness pills) cause it was only a 50 minutes flight. Luckily, I didn't puke or anything... it's a good first step, but I dare not to go without it on an international flight.

I'll try to have the pictures posted soon. It should be up there since I have no job and obviously should have time to write up the blog and post the pictures... but I had no idea that I could be so occupied with nothing! Well, I’m looking for another job, learning to make new dishes, reading up on ASP.NET, learning to write Chinese… keeping myself busy. Still homesick though.

Observations of London:
- People seem to look nicer and wear nicer clothes
- All museums do bag searches
- We didn't get searched when we had our bags with us on the tube
- Very much like Calgary with the multicultural faces
- Very tasty Chinese food, comparable to Calgary
- All museums had no admission fee, but had a donation box
- Every corner we turned, there was a theatre
- Tube is very very very convenient
- People are nice
- Taxi's look funny. They have 2 fold down seats attached to the back of the driver and front passenger seats. So 4 people can sit comfortably in the back

Movies...

We watched the Wedding Crasher and War of Worlds. Wedding Crasher was funny but I think it would probably appeal to guys more. I can't believe War of the Worlds did so well in the box office. It an alright movie... probably good to see it once but I wouldn't want to watch it again. The two movies both have a typical hollywood ending.

Today we went to a photo gallery. It was a football (soccer) theme, so all the pictures were about football. It didn’t appeal to me too much because I’m not a football fan. The pictures were taken in many different locations around the world. I guess it’s trying to say that one commonality between everyone around the world is football…

Bo bought a book today. It’s called ‘My Life by Bill Clinton’. I would say that the book is about Bill Clinton, perhaps his autobiography? I wonder what compelled him to buy this book? I give it a week before he finds something better to do or read.

My computer at work crashed...

... and I lost everything in my profile! The application that i've been working on for the past few months is gone... luckly I backed it up on one of the servers so I only lost about 2 days of work. The application that I'm currently building is a VB.NET windows appplication. 'I was responsible for designing and developing an automation application which automates the CD replication process with the Rimage™ machines. This includes sending production order media components and print components to the disk replication device and the printer.' Does that sound impressive? I hope so, cause it's in my resume... so my last day is on Wednesday, July 27th. On the 28th, Bo and I are taking a trip to London for 5 days. Yes, we did see the news about the unfortunate events that occurred in London...

Anyways, I added links to fellow bloggers on my blog, it's near the top left corner. Give it a mouse over and the links will appear. (Fairly simple Javascript and CSS) If I missed your page, that's cause I don't have a link for it. Send it to me if you like a link to your page.

All about Bo...

Last Sunday, Bo got up really early in the morning even though he didn't have to work. Bo signed up to participate in the Adidas 5 miles challenge. Way too early for me to get up and run 5 miles. (I don't think that I can even run for 5 mins without stopping) Bo left at 8:30 to make it to the start of the run at 10am. He was able to run it in around 45-50 mins. There's going to be an Adidas 10 miles challenge next month, then a half marathon challenge in September and a full marathon in October. Bo is starting to train for the Dublin marathon in October so I think he's planning on participating in all those runs. I had thought about participating in the marathon but that thought lasted about a few minutes. I find it difficult to think about exercising when i'm stuffing my face with chocolates and chips and drinking pop. Hey, can someone in Canada check if the coke cans has'vegetable extracts' as one of the ingredients?

Riverdance at the Gaiety...

We went to see the Riverdance in the Gaiety Theatre on Saturday. The Gaiety Theatre is not a huge theatre so none of the seats were horrible. We were sitting in ground level, about 6 rows back with center seats. We bought what we thought were the best seats. This theatre has two more levels and though we were in the best seats, I would likely go for the first row in the upper floor. Even though each row on the ground level had a slight incline, I was too short to get an absolute clear view of the entire stage. This also be because there was this 'big head' lady sitting in front of me. However, I still enjoyed the show very much, and would consider going again if anyone's interested. (Riverdance will be in Dublin until mid August) The show was about two hours long, with a 15 minute intermission in between. I don't want to say too much about the show, you can come see it for yourselves. We watched the afternoon show so it was 6ish when it ended. We almost got tickets to go see Elton John that night. We were ready to pay for them until I found out that they were standing tickets and the seated ones would have been another 60 euros more. Oh well, I think it was a good decision not to go anyways, since the show was scheduled to start in less than 1 hour and we had no idea where it is...

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.

Day trip to Bray (Wicklow)

We went to Bray for a day trip. It’s in Wicklow which is south of Dublin. It was only a 40 minute train ride away. If you haven’t gathered already, places are pretty small in land mass, therefore everything is pretty close. In Bray, there’s a nice beach area just 10 minutes from the train station. We walked across the whole beach, and at the end of the beach there was a nice little hiking trail. But it’s nothing like K-Country. It’s a fairly easy hike and took us only 30 minutes to get to the top of the hill. The view is nice at the top. We can see parts of Dublin from up there. We will probably recommend this area to anyone who comes to visit us. I’ll try to put the pictures together, stay toon.

I still miss everyone!

It's been a while since I updated this thing and not too much as happen, but I promise to update the blog more often.

I bumped into Riley at the outdoor shop, one of my lunch mates at the U of C! He's been here for four years studying dental school at Trinity Collage. I didn't think I would find anyone here I know. He said Dublin changed alot during the last 4 years and it's '100% better'

We went to see the 'Book of Kells' at Trinity Collage with Riley (more like he took us there). Then we walked the hills in 'Killiney' where many of the rich and famous reside. We walked by Bono's estate...

Bo and I haven't moved yet and I haven't quit my job yet. I've finally started to code in dot NET. Anymore document writing and i'll be going mad.

One of my many moments of frustration:
So one day, as I was on my way to work, walking towards my train station, I was told that my station was closed. So I quickly dashed to the next station to catch my train. Alas, I was there and on time. I waited there for while and no train came. Very long story short, they screwed up (so typical) and all of us, who needed to take the ICE (Inter City Express) to the North, ended back at the same station in city centre at 10:30am. Keep in mind that I was at the city centre train station before 8am. Needless to say that I called into work and asked for a day off (they probably don’t want to pay me a full day of pay for a half day of work anyways). Someone had committed suicide and jumped in front of the train that day so everything was delayed. It turns out that this happens a few times a year.

It seems like everything works really (NO EXTREMELY) slowly here. I've finally got my PPS AKA SIN number after working in Ireland for 2 months. It was also hard for me to talk to them since they are only open on weekdays between the hours of 9:15-noon and 1:30-4:30pm. I had to take time off from work to go and talk to them! It took numerous tries and it was always this one person who will NOT issue it to me. One day, after I got turned down again, I waited around there for a while wondering how I would ever get this PPS number without moving! I mean all they wanted was a proof of residence from the landlord, but the landlord just doesn’t want to give us the letter of residence. Luckily as I was contemplating nothing, the guy went on break and another lady took over the one and only window that deals with PPS numbers. I went and talked to her, gave her my proof of residence (bank letters and employment letters) and she took care of my PPS application right away.

Bo also had troubles with his PPS number and he also had to deal with the same guy I had. This guy was constantly refusing to process Bo's PPS application. However, Bo eventually got his PPS number when the guy went on break, and he talked to some other person. Bo and I both came up with the same conclusion about the guy… *$%#

On another note, I haven’t been disturbed by any ‘knackers’ lately, so my experience in Ireland is getting better. ‘Knacker’ is a term used by the locals who describe the jobless people who cares about no one but themselves, who has no interest of working or finding a job, who are most of the time drunk, who has tons of children (so the government would give them a bigger place to live), who likes to give anyone and everyone a hard time.