I want to rock and roll all night, and party every day

This week at work was totally wretched, so I won’t waste my breath talking about it, or my energy reliving it. I think I left off last time talking about the Ojos de Brujo concert in Dùn Laoghaire (it’s pronounced Doon Leary – pronunciations in Irish make even less sense than in English, if that is possible). It’s really pretty, much more so than Dublin. If only I hadn’t forgotten my camera I could have posted some pictures...not that I’ve posted any of Dublin yet anyway! (soon soon, I promise) There’s a picturesque harbour with lots of little boats, some cute cafés and of course pubs. It reminds me a bit of Port Douglas actually, but less touristy (thankfully).

Anyway, the Festival of World Cultures was on, and every single Spanish person in Dublin was pretty much at this concert (it was free). We’d brought some beers, like everyone else there, but were made to tip them out onto the grass by an overzealous garda. While technically we were breaking the law by drinking in a public park, really it was a bit ridiculous as EVERYBODY was drinking and having a good time, nobody was drunk or fighting or anything. We were just enjoying some beers at a show, but the gardaí weren’t going to give anyone any leeway whatsoever. This in a country where the pubs close at 23:00 because the citizens start drinking at 10:00 and don’t stop until closing time.

Anyway, enough about that. The concert was great, out in the open air (it didn’t rain); we were dancing and generally going crazy.

Afterwards Eoin was going to check out this other guy, Declan O’Rourke, who was supposed to be playing outside some pub. That sounded good, so Eoin, Alan, Barry, two friends of theirs and I made our way to the pub where he was supposed to play. Declan was amazing – what an incredible voice, and he writes the most beautiful lyrics:

Galileo fell in love, as a Galilean boy
And he wondered, “What in heavens...who invented such a joy?”
But the question got the better of his scientific mind
And to his blind and dying days he looked up high and often sighed and sometimes cried...

“Who puts the rainbow in the sky?
Who lights the stars at night?
Who dreamt up someone so divine?
Someone like you and made them mine?”

and with the melody those words are made a thousand times more beautiful. Plus there were only about 50 people at that gig, as opposed to the hundreds at the other one, so all in all I enjoyed it much more than the Ojos de Brujo, even though both were good.

After Declan’s mesmerising performance we danced the night away at the pub and finally caught the night bus home at about 02:00.

Right. Now skip forwards almost one week to last night (Friday). I was feeling lousy at work so thank christ I received a text from Alan who was having an impromptu shindig at his place. Being able to look forward to some fun times helped me get through the day, and by 17:00 I was so ready to relax with a couple of beers and a bunch of mates. (Side note: the downside of working with almost all Muslims is we never go for after work drinks on a Friday!).

Thankfully Alan’s place is only 10 minutes walk from my place (not that my directionally-challenged brain could remember how to get there, so I had to ring him and ask for directions, how embarrassing). When I got there the party was already in full swing, so I sat down with some French people and co-incidentally began talking to the only Italian in the bunch. Fascinating guy, an electrical engineer with a passion for abstract art. Pretty soon we were joined by Maria and Eric, a fun Polish couple. Maria invited me to go and visit her city in Poland with her and she’d show me around. We may even be taking a trip to Paris together (depending on my financial situation, which at the moment is quite dire). I can’t wait, as exploring a new city is always better if you have someone to be excited with. Maria also gets almost as excited about things as I do, which is quite fun, but we can get quite loud as you can imagine!

I had lots of fascinating conversations touching on just about any topic you can think of, drank some beers, ate a lot of potato chips, and danced to everything from the Beatles (yay) to 50s backbeat to blues to hip hop to rocking guitar tunes to psychadelic experimental crazy stuff (including a mad wicked version of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations”). It started off as a raging party but by 03:00 or 04:00 we were wittled down to five or six people listening to the crazy psychadelic music and talking. It was such a great vibe and none of us wanted it to end, but finally at 05:00 we decided to call it quits and go to bed. Robbie (the Italian guy) did the gentlemanly thing and walked me home, although Dublin is pretty safe, and I’m sure I would have been okay on my own.

Today I had all these plans to hop on the Number 44 bus to Enniskerry and visit the beautiful Powerscourt Gardens, but as can be expected I got up late and lazed around listening to my new Declan O’Rourke CD (which I so cannot afford at the moment). It’s quite a nice day outside so I might go to the park later and write, and/or have a snooze. To all of you who have been urging me to, rest assured, I’ve finally started writing again. I always meant to, but I never got the motivation until last week at Alan’s place, I said that I had always wanted to be a writer, and Eoin said, “Well, just fucking do it”. So I’m going to just fucking do it.

Shopping, conversation, and my digestive system

It's been a week of ups and downs - in reflection, I think the ups have outweighed the downs, and the weekend is just coming up! Not a bad effort. Things started well last Saturday as I decided (in a very non-Lucia-like manner) to go shopping. I needed a new pair of jeans really badly, as my current ones were starting to look quite ridiculous. Thankfully I found a pair in the first store I tried, so the pain was over and I could enjoy the rest of the shopping excursion. And enjoy it I did. I found this absolutely fabulous retro vintage shop selling original clothes, accessories and furniture from the 60s and 70s, all at reasonable prices! They had this awesome clock, some cool glasses, and some fabulous purple flares, among piles of other cool stuff. When I have money I am so going back there and buying everything not nailed down.

Next up I found a second-hand St. Vincent de Paul type charity shop, in which I bought a t-shirt for 1 euro (bargain) and also something which I have been looking for for a long time - a badass (fake) leather jacket that actually looks good on me and doesn't have a million pockets, zips or other paraphernalia. Also a steal at eight euro.

Saturday night I painted the town red with Antonia and her friend Alex from work. We went to Q bar and danced the night away. We had an awesome time, but my good mood was short-lived as I woke on Sunday with horrible stomach cramps. These later turned out to be gastroenteritis (yay), but all I could do was lay in bed and groan, thinking, "Great. This is the day we decided to spring-clean the flat". Dragging myself out of bed at 1, we began the long and arduous chucking out and cleaning process. I must admit I quit half-way through when the others insisted I go back to bed and I wasn't really in a position to argue much. I put up with the gastro until Tuesday afternoon, when I finally went to see a GP (45 euro). She prescribed Buscopan and Motilitum, both of which I took and they proceeded to have no effect whatsoever. Modern Medicine: 0, Just wait until it goes away: 1. I did get Wednesday off out of it though, and can I just say what a difference it makes to have a day off in the middle of the week. Suddenly the time spent at work seems merely long rather than interminable.

On Wednesday at about 4pm, Maria rang and informed me she was having a barbeque that night, and to meet at the Spire at six. We bought a whole load of food and went back to Allan's place where about 10 of us proceeded to have such a great time that although I had promised myself I would be in bed by 10:30 at the latest, we left the house at about 1am. All we were doing was talking and listening to music, but there was a great vibe, and we had lots of fun. There was one scary moment when I accidentally ate some raw meat(it looked cooked, I swear!) but I didn't have a gastro relapse thankfully. To be honest I was more worried about the fact that I looked like a total idiot for eating raw meat than about my stomach. Shallow but true. Plus we arranged to go to the free "Ojos de Brujo" concert in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday, which is going to rock everyone's socks off.

You would think after that I would have a quiet night on Thursday, but no. I had invited Emily, the girl I met in Belfast, to the barbeque the previous night, but she couldn't come, so she invited me for drinks on the Thursday. I didn't know when she was going back to Philly so I gathered up what was left of my energy and went out. We met up with Alison, a friend of hers, and her boyfriend Sean (fom Donegal - coolest accent!). We chatted for hours and pretty soon Alison and I were fast friends - she's from Galway and she promised to take me there and show me all the cool places. I'm excited by the prospect but also because I'm finally making friends "by myself" - I mean, not through my flatmates. It's a pretty big deal for me to get over my shyness enough to even swap numbers with someone (ridiculous, I know, and at 23!). Then it took me almost two weeks to even get up the courage to text Emily! I guess I just feel like they'll be like, "Lucia who? Oh, er, I'm busy". Either that or we'll meet up again and have nothing to say to each other or nothing in common. But of course that's completely irrational and in real life I get on with most people like a house on fire, so if I just remember that, I'll get over this shyness thing.

Anyway so I went to bed after 1 for the second "school night" in a row - very, very bad. Today at work was ok, stomach pains nearly gone (after six days, about time). I didn't know how I was going to make it when I first got here, but I woke up a bit as the day progressed, and actually achieved things. I'm still at work now writing this (after 5 of course) but I'm going to head off now as (surprise surprise) it looks like it's going to rain. The weather's not too bad actually until I remember that it's summer here. Then I realise winter is not going to be much fun at all.

The concert tomorrow is going to be a blast. Fill you all in then. I just had a thought - what if it rains? My rain jacket so does not go with the outfit I planned to wear! Hmmm, better dig out the brolly.

The story of Belfast

I was going to wait until I recovered from my extreme exhaustion before I started this post, but it's been three days now and I still feel like I've had my energy sucked from my body by some power-hungry sci-fi movie baddie. Therefore I am going to relate the story of my trip to Belfast, fatigue notwithstanding.

I got out of work somewhat early on Friday (boss was away, hurrah!) and met Kath at the bus station. We bought our tickets (€12 return, how good is that?) then searched in vain for the platform. We did find a sign saying "Platform 16" with an arrow, however following it merely led us through a packed waiting room to the front door of the bus station. Asking at information was no help, as the lady behind the plastic grate gestured pointedly at the sign as if to say, "Are you blind, stupid, or both?". Anyway, long story short, we found the bus, already nearly full, and jumped on without further ado (just in time). I had brought "Crime and Punishment" with me to read on the bus, but my plans to finally finish the damn thing and find out what happens in the end were ruined by the Book People. Who are the Book People? They leave samples of a bunch of books at your workplace for a couple weeks, then they come pick them up and you can order whichever ones you want. So the books were lying there on the coffee table, and if you know me at all you know I can't walk past a book, no matter how trashy the cover looks. So on my coffee break I picked up one called "Where Rainbows End" (yes, I know) thinking I could read it for 10 minutes and forget about it. Of course I was hooked by page two, and I stole it to read over the weekend, being careful not to bend the spine, so I don't have to pay for it when the Book People come back (hehe).

We arrived in Belfast two and a half hours later and proceeded to search for our hostel. On the way we passed some men marching up the main street, very English and pompous, but with these silly high-pitched screechy flutes which didn't go with their macho demeanor at all. It's so weird, even though Northern Ireland is in Ireland, it really does feel more like you're in England.

Once we'd found the hostel, and the guy gave us the fright of our lives by not finding our booking for about 3 minutes, we decided it was time for food. It was about 9ish by that stage, so I guess you'll hardly be surprised to hear that our search for an open supermarket was fruitless. In the end we decided to patronise a skanky looking pizza joint we just happened to walk past. It turned out to be a good choice, as two 21 year old Belfastians (Patrick and Johnny) were also dining in that particular establishment, and pretty soon the four of us were gasbagging like old friends. By the way, the Belfast accent is the second coolest in the world, after Liverpudlian. Much better than the Dublin accent (sorry any Dubliners reading this). In typical Irish fashion, it didn't take them long to invite us round to their place for drinks, so off we went. We ended up talking till 5 am, and learnt a lot about living in Northern Ireland in the process, particularly about the Troubles. No matter how much you read about it in books or in the paper, it just doesn't hit home as much as when you talk to people that have lived through it. Patrick told us about how his cousin was shot, for no other reason than being a "Catholic". I put that in inverted commas because despite all the rhetoric, something I've learned this weekend is that the war in Northern Ireland these days has very little to do with religion. The labels "Catholic" and "Protestant" in Northern Ireland have more to do with the family, background and culture you were brought up in, and the geographical place you live in, than who goes to which church. Johnny, for instance, calls himself a Catholic even though he doesn't believe in God and doesn't go to church. But he's on the side of the Republicans, so that makes him a Catholic as far as the Northern Irish are concerned. Anyway, listening to them talk about what it was like to have family members shot in the street, and to grow up in a town where you just had to be bigger and stronger than everyone else as a matter of survival, really moved me.

At 5 am the four of us collapsed into bed, and Kath and I woke at 8 and let ourselves out of the house while the boys were sleeping...well, we wanted to see Belfast! And we left them a note. First up we went to see the Queen's University (bet she's never even been there) and the botanical gardens, then we went to the Ulster museum (shut) and then a walking tour of Historical Belfast, which was interesting, but not fascinating, since Belfast is actually quite a new city. Plus it's quite industrial, and other than the city hall and some old linen warehouses which are quite pretty, most of the architecture is very boring. Funnily enough the tour guide made no mention of the Troubles or anything unsavoury about Belfast's history, which makes sense if you're trying to get tourists to come to Belfast but it all seemed a bit artificial to me - I mean, who are you trying to fool here? The weather that day was bizarre - sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, you get the idea. So we walked home slowly, ducking into shops when it started to rain, and I successfully managed to not buy anything! (Well done me). Clearly by that time we were dead on our feet after three hours sleep, so we curled up in our beds for a short nap, only to have this complete English wanker (no other word for it, sorry) waltz into the room and chat away loudly on his mobile and to his son, for about half an hour, and then afterwards say "Oh, sorry, did I wake you?". F*** you. So the nap thing was ruined, and when we went to make dinner we made friends with this American chick from Philly called Emily. The three of us and another American, Alex, went to a pub for some drinks and chats, and had a jolly old time. Emily knows this guy I know in Dublin too (Eoin), which is really weird, but awesome too of course. I chatted to another guy at the bar (possibly Domenic? or Derek? Can't remember) from Derry, so I've decided that'll be the next place to go on my list. I wanted to go there anyway, but that was like a sign or something. Anyway we had loads of fun, then headed home for the 2am curfew. Mr. English Wanker wasn't in bed yet, so of course he woke us when he came in, then snored loudly all night till 4:30, when he woke us again because he had to walk his son to the bus station and they had to have big long chats in the room (because they couldn't just go downstairs to the common room to talk), then he left with his son, then came back to snore and keep us awake some more, and THEN, at about 8, his alarm went off, he let it ring for AGES, and then proceeded to have a conversation at the top of his lungs with a Scottish guy about how he has a yacht and a house by the beach, and he's going to sail through Greece and blah blah blah. Yeah, he's loaded and spending the night in a six bed dorm for €16 a night. By this point I was ready to rip his skin from his body with my bare hands and teeth, but refrained from all but a loud sigh, got up, and got ready to take a taxi tour of Belfast. I couldn't wait, as we were going to see the murals that are painted all around Belfast (but particularly in the dodgy parts) depicting aspects of the war there. Nothing gets me excited like political history! The murals were amazing (I'll post pics when I get them off the camera) but also very sad. Most of them were memorials for people that died, or pictures of fighters holding guns and looking scary. We saw the big Berlin-wall-esque fence dividing the Catholic part of town from the Protestant part, oddly named the "Peace Wall" (is that Orwellian or what?). That was really sad, particularly for the amount of memorials near it, as that wall basically designated the front line of the war, as it were. Jack, our tour guide, was very informative, and tried very hard to be impartial (he can't help his bias, no-one can). I'm glad he was from the Loyalist side, as that meant I'd had the two perspectives. Anyway, after that wholly depressing visual political history of Belfast, we were at a bit of a loose end, so we just hung out and did a bit more shopping until it was time to get on the bus. Kath slept all the way home, and I finished the book (Guess what? They got together in the end. Yes, I'm surprised too). We got back to Dublin and it was the weirdest feeling - I felt like I was just arriving in Dublin for the first time. I guess because it's the first time I've left Dublin and come back. Anyway I did nothing but loll on the couch till it was time to go to bed, and I don't think I've recovered yet. I think it'll probably be this weekend before I really recover from all the excitement and lack of sleep. But finally I've seen Belfast, I didn't get blown up, and things are good.

Stomping on the accelerator again

I recall a few posts ago I wrote about how life seemed to have sped up to a frenetic, almost whirlwind pace. Now it seems as though the great cosmic brakes have been put on my life, and it has slowed, not to a screeching halt, but at most a crawl. Well, even that isn't strictly true. What my life has become is routine. I get up at 7.20. I go to work. I get home. I cook (sometimes). I watch TV or read. I go to bed. Repeat. This kind of life is comforting for me - I take a lot of pleasure in routine. But it's also what I moved to Dublin to escape. Living each day like the day before it leaves little room for learning and growth.

I do accept that life can't be an adventure the whole time. The levels of adrenaline going through your system if you did something new and crazy every day would be at best unsustainable and at worst would probably kill you. But now I've had some downtime, and it's time for me to break the routine again, lest I get stuck in the same trap I was in in Melbourne.

Therefore, next weekend, I'm actually going to Belfast (as opposed to last time, where I planned to go but didn't). I'm sure I'll actually get there this time, because

a) I’ve been paid my first month’s wages (hurrah!) and
b) I'm going with my friend Kath who I met on the tour and she's coming from London especially so I can't change my mind.

And in reality I'm burning to go, I just lack motivation to organise it...does that sound like me or what? If you haven't heard, the IRA has agreed to decommission all its weapons (leading to the aptly but humorously named Commission of Decommissioning) and abandon all non-peaceful and criminal activity. The British government has responded with the promise of withdrawal of half of the troops stationed in Northern Ireland (from about 10,000 there will be about 5,000 left). The Irish Unionists (Pro-British) are up in arms about this, saying it's putting the safety of NI citizens in jeopardy, but most people agree that they're just power-hungry and don't want to share power with Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA, who they promised they would talk to once they agreed to pursue only politics, not violence). Anyway, to cut a long and probably boring story short, it's an exciting time for Belfast, and I'd like to go and check out the mood.

You won’t believe what has just happened. This morning I turned on my laptop – and it asked me if I wanted to join the DIT wireless network (there’s a Dublin Institute of Technology across the street). I clicked yes and hey, presto! Free internet connection! It’s extremely unstable but it’ll do to check email and update my blog and such. I can even use web messenger but it sucks because the connection keeps dropping out. Anyway, who cares? Free internet! Who cares if I’m kinda stealing it? It serves them right for just leaving it there for anyone to take. Right? Hmm, lucky I don’t believe in Hell or I probably just bought a one way ticket.

I didn’t do anything exciting today, just shopping (guess where? Yep. Penneys! And Dunnes, the second-cheapest store in Ireland.) I bought really exciting things like towels, an oven tray, a dustpan and brush, mop heads, etc. I never thought I’d spend

a) so much time cleaning and
b) so much money on cleaning chemicals and accessories.

I’m very tempted to take some from work (we’ve got boxes of the stuff) but I think Khalil and Joe might get mad. Plus I shouldn’t steal things. But I think it should be a criminal offence to make basic necessities like cleaning accessories expensive. It’s not like we’re going to stop buying them, they’ve got a guaranteed lifetime demand for their product, surely they can afford to make it cheap! I’ve found I can’t stand the place to be in a mess, which it is in most of the time, so Saturdays I clean up – vacuum, mop, clean the bathroom and kitchen. Sometimes the others help, sometimes they don’t.

Maria’s found a flat with her own room so she’ll be moving out soon, maybe even on Monday which will be really sad. I don’t want her to move, but if she needs her own space, she needs it. I am happy for her, but I just don’t think that having her own room will be as great as she thinks it will be. Besides, for someone who doesn’t like being alone, wanting your own room is kinda strange. I love sharing a room, well, really I don’t mind it, as basically I sleep in there and nothing else. I hang out in the living room if I’m at home, so why spend another 100 euro a month to have my own room?

By the way I bought a camera – 250 euro down the drain but I really needed it (no really, I did!). So pictures of Dublin etc are on the way (finally). Oooh, the sun just came out outside. The weather here recently has been true to its reputation, that is to say, terrible. Anyway, I’m going to post this now, with my stolen internet connection. Muahahahaha!

Dublin's Top Ten

Okay, time for the list of things I love about Dublin:

1. It's so small. I can walk EVERYWHERE. No need for a car which is a relief since the driving here is...well, let me put it this way. Up until a few years ago you didn't need to pass a test here to get a driving license, you just applied for one and got it. That said the cars here have a lot of respect for pedestrians, who cross the street all over the place at any time (we hark back to the traffic light phenomenon). I walk to work, I walk to Temple Bar, I walk to the shops, I walk to the bus stop if I want to go far away. It totally rules to be able to go out at night and not have to worry about who's going to be the designated driver.

2. The people here are totally friendly. I've had more conversations with random strangers here in Ireland than anywhere else. Granted not all of them have been with Irish people, but I guess the culture rubs off. The other day on the bus this German couple didn't have the right change, so this random girl on the bus is like, "Does anyone have change for €5?" And someone did, and everything was ok.

3. Grafton Street on a sunny day. It's a pedestrian street, with buskers and all, lots of crowds, lots of cool shops (for window shopping only) and the famous statue of Molly Malone at the top of the street (totally underwhelming).

4. It's cosmopolitan, like Melbourne, but it's a different mix of people. Back home it's Italians, Greeks, and Asians. Here there's a few Asians but mainly stacks of Spanish and Polish people, which makes things interesting. I know the Spanish people come to Dublin because companies recruit them over in Spain and pay their relocation costs to come here, but what the hell all the Polish people are doing here I have no idea. Well, actually, the fact they get paid €2 an hour back home and here minimum wage is €7.50 an hour may have something to do with it.

5. This has nothing to do with Dublin as a city, but I love the freedom I have here. It's a sort of limited freedom, since my work restricts me a lot, but basically I answer to no one. I do what I want, when I want, with my own money, have my things, I can satisfy my every whim (within reason). It's totally hedonistic and I love it. Clearly the novelty will wear off soon but I'm enjoying this string-free life while I have it.

6. The Spire. It makes me laugh every time I see it (at least twice a day going to and from work). What is it? A huge phallus, right in the middle of O'Connell Street. The biggest, shiniest, pointiest pointy-sticky-uppy thing you have ever seen. And it's completely useless. It does nothing, except stand there and look pointy and shiny. Why did they build it? Who knows. I can't wait till I have a camera and can take a picture of it to post here.

7. Guinness here is about one thousand times better than Guinness back home. I assume this is self-evident, but I thought I might just put it down to make sure.

8. The accents. Not too many Irish ones, to be sure to be sure, but enough to keep me entertained. I'm still terrible at imitating it, but I should improve with time. Sometimes I have trouble understanding it, which is a bit worrying, since I'm not even in the country, where the accents are as thick as two planks. The poor Spanish and Polish people must have no hope.

9. At any given time there is a 90% chance there is an Oscar Wilde play being performed that day in Dublin. I'm going to see "The Importance of Being Earnest" soon. That play cracks me up. "A Ha-a-andba-a-a-ag?"

10. The Irish Times. Well, it actually irritates me a bit too, because it tends to be a bit repetitive, which gives one the impression that there's not enough news to fill a whole broadsheet in this country. Which is patently untrue, since every day I open it up to find a fresh gruesome murder has occurred somewhere in the Republic. Not to mention road deaths which are sky-high (16 in less than 24 hours last weekend - see my notes on Irish driving licenses above). But it's a bit more lively than "The Age" - the journos here have a bit more of a sense of humour. The letters to the editor are longer here too, which is nice, but it means they don't have as many. At the moment the big news stories are:

*The upcoming IRA statement to be released later this week (allegedly), which (allegedly) contains a statement to the effect that the IRA will be dismantling all its weapons and will proceed to "liberate" Northern Ireland through non-violent means only. The Irish Government's reaction to this (alleged) statement is "Fat chance, they've said that a million times before".

*A leaked document from Aer Lingus that outlines a policy to try to force people to take voluntary redundancy packages (as opposed to sacking people, an IR disaster) by making them work crazy shifts with lots of overtime, changing the uniform to something tacky, giving pilots menial desk jobs, and basically making life difficult until everyone got sick and tired of working for them. Totally illegal of course, and more of an IR disaster than firing the 1200 would have been in the first place. (Though I hear that John Howard and co. are making an IR mess for themselves. Somebody has to stop them!)

*Five people jailed for protesting a Shell gas pipeline which they say is a danger to the health and safety of the residents living near it.

Anyway that's what's going on in Ireland at the moment. Of course they've got lots about London, and that poor Brazilian chap (I am absolutely LIVID about this whole "shoot first ask questions later" policy) and about the Galway races. The Irish are obsessed with racing.

Well, there's a lot more things I love about Dublin, but I think 10 is enough for now. It's a Bank Holiday on Monday, so long weekend for me! I think I might go to Belfast. I've been dying to go there since I got here. I'll keep you all updated.

"Accio Inspiration!"

For the second time in two days I've sat down in front of the computer to write this blog and my inspiration seems to have vapourised. Therefore I have decided I will share with you some of the things I love about Dublin and some of the things I don't love quite so much about Dublin. But first a little lowdown on my weekend.

I had a fabulous time - another non-stop party weekend after which I needed another weekend to recover. The highlight was the house party I went to in Blanchardstown on Saturday night, where I spent most of the night deeply engrossed in conversation with Pim, a totally awesome guy from Holland. Dutch people are so incredibly cool. They are generally more liberal, more relaxed, and more knowledgeable than any other nationality I have encountered so far. Of course that is a huge generalisation, and should be taken with an enourmous hunk of salt, but that's the impression that I get. Dutch and Scandinavian people have no idea how cool they are - and Dutch people are even cooler into the bargain because they aren't so reserved as the Scandinavians, so they are much easier to get to know. Before you ask though (you know who you are) no, I am not interested in Pim, he's not my type (a right-wing voter...eeeek!). True to my idiotic nature I didn't think to get his phone number or email address or anything before I left, so I will probably never see him again. The flames of another potential friendship doused before the blaze had even got going.

Moving right along to the next most exciting thing to happen last weekend - the moment I have been waiting for for over a year. Yes, the release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". Originally the plan was to wait one week until the price of the book had halved, which is what usually happens, but guess how long it was till I caved? About 24 hours. And it was so totally worth it. I read it cover to cover on Sunday, and am currently re-reading it because, well partly because it was so incredible (the second best I think in the series after "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban") and partly because I don't have anything else to read. I am bursting to talk all about it, but if I ruin another Harry Potter ending for someone I think I'll just have to ban myself from reading books ever again, and nobody wants that. (By the way Bri and Tim, I still feel bad about that. SORRY!)

Well, it turns out I had a little more inspiration than I thought I did. Anway, onto my little lists. Some of these will be directly related to Dublin as a city, some of them will be more about me and how I am in Dublin, and don't reflect of the city at all. Firstly, things I don't love about Dublin and the life here:

1) I know I've brought this up before, but it's so expensive. The worst thing is everything looks like it's a reasonable price, until you convert it. Today for example, I went to buy a coffee, and it was 1.80, which looks cheap, until you do the mental calculation and in Aussies that's about three dollars. Which, actually, now I think about it, is about the price of a coffee in Australia now, at least at Flinders St. Station, so I should shut up and stop whingeing. Trust me though, other stuff is expensive.

2) There's no rubbish bins. Strange but true. You put all your rubbish in big black bags and you put a sticker on them and put them out for collection. You have to pay for the stickers (2.50 each!) too. Anyway the part I really don't like is the fact that as we don't have bins or skips or anything for the apartment block, you have to keep your rubbish in your apartment all week until collection day. Thankfully we have a tiny balcony so we can at least have it outside, but it still stinks, literally and figuratively.

3) Addresses here are weird. Some areas have postcodes, some don't. Some have no street numbers. Some have two different streets on them. Some have a county on them, some don't. Lord knows how the mail gets from A to B in this country but it seems to work. The Irish seem to understand the system but I sure don't.

4) Again I've mentioned this but I feel compelled to go into more detail because anyone that knows me well knows how much this irritates me. The traffic lights here are completely insane. Whoever came up with the traffic light system in this city was either totally crackbrained or completely drunk. I hate, hate, hate, crossing against the lights. But here it is a necessity as the traffic lights will halt all traffic so that there's not a car going through the intersection, yet the little red man prevents you from setting foot on the bitumen. You stand on the sidewalk like an idiot with a perfectly clear path in front of you for about a minute. Of course the second you decide, "stuff it - I'm crossing", the lights change and there's cars all over the shop. After the lights have allowed every car in Dublin ample time to make it through the intersection, including all the grannies and grandpas, you finally get the green man. Of course by this time you could have designed and built a scale model of the Eiffel tower out of matchsticks, but at least you've made it over the road. To cut a long story short I've gotten over my phobia and now I don't bother to even look at the lights, I just walk onto the street if I think I can scurry across in time. Incidentally that's a key indicator of a tourist in this city - all the stunned mullets lined up at the kerb while all the locals stroll nonchalantly across the road (on which there are no cars of course, since all the lights are red, but the pedestrian lights are not green for some reason).

5) Internet coverage. Look, I'm not being unreasonable here. I don't live in the sticks. I don't expect anyone to unroll miles and miles of cable solely for my benefit. But (as the Marias would say) COME ON! I live smack bang in the middle of the city. My postcode is "Dublin 1" for crissakes. You'd think I'd be able to get connected! What is the deal??

Well, I'm running out of time here. I'll leave the list of things I love about Dublin for the next post (trust me, there's lots more of those). Now it's time for sleeping, ready to attack another workday tomorrow (Thursday, almost Friday, then Saturday, the most magical day of the week!). Till then, good luck, have fun!

Life in the fast lane

If my life was a movie, this would be the montage part with the 80s pop music in the background. You know, shot of Lucia going to work, shot of Lucia working hard, shot of Lucia laughing with friends, shot of Lucia collapsed on the couch, with an Aretha track or something over the top.

It feels like a montage because I've crammed so much into the last week and a half that I feel like I've been living my life in fast forward. It feels especially incredible because when I left Australia I felt like I was living it frame by frame. Work has been a crazy ride so far. Sometimes the pressure is incredible (payday, when everyone wants to be paid but nobody gives me the sheets telling me how many hours they worked), and sometimes I'm doing menial, brainless tasks, which I love, because I can let my mind wander a little. I'm slowly learning accounting, by trial and error, which is the worst way to do it, because every time I make a mistake it's recorded for ever on the company ledgers. Oh well, they're the ones that didn't want to explain to me how it works.

I'm getting used (slowly) again to getting up early. It takes me about an hour to get to work each day, but to be honest I don't mind it at all. In the morning I like the walk to the Luas station (about 40 minutes) because it wakes me up. The Luas is a big tram line that takes me to within a five minute walk of work. It costs 3 euro for a return ticket though, which sucks. In the evening I like it because I walk along Grafton street, which is a pedestrian street, with heaps of buskers and things, all playing that really bad soft rocky kind of easy listening music, which is perfect for that time of the day because you've been at work for eight hours and you've been awake for 11 hours and easy listening is about all you can handle right then. The only problem arises when they try to do Beatles. Just today there was a guy massacreing "Across the Universe". Why do they do that? So I leave work and before the dizzying high of being free for the day wears off, I walk along Grafton Street and the music and the crowds put me in a good mood, and then I cross the river, making sure not to get run over (I don't remember if I've talked about this before, but here in Dublin it's legal to cross against the lights, probably because if you had to wait for the green man, the sun would go supernova before you made it across the street) and walk up O'Connell street (the main street on the North side) and Parnell Street, pick up some groceries at the Aldi if I need to, and turn into Bolton Street to go home.

I finally got all the stuff I had sent over from home - but what a debacle! I had planned on leaving work at 1:00 to make it to the airport by 3:00 (the place supposedly shut at 5:00). Anyway my boss said I could leave when he got back at 2:00, but he didn't get back till 2:30, so already I was running late. The buses here in Dublin are notorious, they're infrequent, frequently late, sometimes early, never on time, and sometimes they never turn up at all. In addition you have to have the exact fare in coins, no change is available. Anyway it's stinking hot (at least 30 degrees) and I'm dressed in my work clothes (long black pants and long sleeved shirt) racing up O'Connell Street to the bus stop. Miraculously there was a 16A due about five minutes after I got to the stop. I asked the bus driver to let me know when we were at Furry Park industrial estate, which was where British Airways Cargo is. He said "Sure sure!" but next thing I knew we were at the airport which is where the bus terminates. Great. So I took a taxi to Furry Park industrial estate, which cost me 16 euro for about 2 miles. I get there, and they tell me to fill out some form, and that I have to take it to customs to get stamped before they can release my stuff to me. Where is customs? At the airport, 2 miles away. Not wanting to spend another 16 euros on a taxi, I asked how long it would take to walk there. They reckoned about 20 minutes, at a conservative estimate. At this stage it was just after 4:30. I said, "Well, I'll run then!". "In this heat?" they replied. But I had no choice. I had already left early that day, there's no way I could get another afternoon off. So, in the searing heat, I ran the two miles to the cargo terminal at the airport, and made it there at about two to five. They stamped my form, and it occurred to me that I didn't have my passport with me (they only ask you to bring ID, not a passport specifically, but you know, if you don't bring it, they'll ask for it). In the end they didn't even ask me for ID which is good since the goods were being sent to Lugia Fernondes, whoever she is. Then, as I was still panting for air, they're like, "I don't know why you're in such a hurry. You can get this form cleared up until 6 o'clock". I didn't have the energy to feel angry at them, or the BA people for feeding me the BS that it shut at five, or at the world for conspiring against me, since I still had the two mile walk back to the BA freight offices. I turned up there about half an hour later, soaking with sweat, dehydrated, hair frizzy and messy, generally dishevelled and gasping for water. Thankfully the BA chick was totally cool and let me use the staff kitchen and bathroom to get myself some cold water and then she let me into the offices to sit in front of the fan in a comfy chair to wait for the taxi rather than wait out in reception in the hard chairs. The taxi from the airport to the city centre only cost me 12 euro (less than from the airport to two miles from the airport. Just goes to show, never take an airport taxi, always call one). I could have taken the bus but it drops me about 15 minutes walk from my place and I couldn't face another walk in that heat with 26 kilos of baggage. Anyway I felt a lot better when I unpacked all my stuff. It was like getting a big present! I packed all this stuff 2 months ago so I'd totally forgotten what I put in there. Of course, I packed all wrong. I listened to everyone telling me how terrible the weather in Ireland would be, so now I have 6 jumpers and a massive warm coat, 5 pairs of pants, and it's 30 degrees outside. I didn't pack even one skirt. Oh well, back to Penneys (yay!) It also seems as if I've lost some weight since I've left Australia since everything that used to fit is too big on me - today I had to hold my pants up as I walked to and from work because they sit so low! Better get a needle and thread and take them up. I got a big kick out of spinning some of my CDs, and I've got my computer too now, so soon I'll have an internet connection, and this blog might actually get updated more than once in a blue moon! I'm just too tired most days after work to walk to the internet cafe (including today, but I just couldn't leave it any more!).

Here's something funny. I have to issue a warning though. I am going to talk about girly things, so if you have a Y chromosome and you think women's personal hygiene is icky, perhaps you had better skip this paragraph. I bought a new brand of pads the other day, and have since discovered that they've got stuff printed on the wrapping. They're like fortune cookies with the fortune on the outside. Today I had one that said, "Plan important meetings in the middle of your cycle. Your oestrogen levels will get you super-motivated and make you more productive". What on earth is that? Career advice on sanitary napkins? I couldn't help laughing out loud, I hope nobody heard me.

The situation at home is still peachy. I can't seem to get the hang of cooking for one, so I've been eating the same curry since Sunday. I've had it with korma now! Usually we share but the other girls don't like curry (strange but true). Shelley, our new Chinese housemate, is a great cook so sometimes I steal some of her food. Ony thing with her is, she snores! What with her and the fact that it gets light here at like 4 am it's a wonder I ever sleep. I'm already using those little patches you get on aeroplanes, I'm going to have to get earplugs as well. Ah, they joys of shared housing. But all in all, I still really like my flat and my housemates. Shelley doesn't smoke either, and it's amazing how much difference that makes to the air in the flat, having half and half, rather than 3 smokers vs. one non smoker. On Sunday I actually felt the first twinges of homesickness since leaving home, because Maria B's in Amsterdam, and Maria M and Shelley were working (yes, not only on a Sunday, but on a beautiful sunny day). I had a great day reading in the park, (though I got sunburnt) but all that time alone meant I had too much time to think about home. Not to worry, after I got into the swing of things at work on Monday I was fine and have felt great since then.

Anyway, I'm beginning to fall asleep in front of the computer (I made the mistake of checking my email first and then had to write several replies before I made a start on this blog entry) so I'd better sign off here. Hope you are all taking care of yourselves, there's still lots I haven't covered, particularly as regards my social life, but that will have to wait until next time. Au revoir!

Irish times

How was my first day at work you ask? Pretty damn great. I got there at 8:45 to find the place locked and nobody there. I waited till half past nine when someone finally came to let me in. The boss came in at 10 or 10:30 and gave me the grand tour (the whole office is the size of a small flat, so it didn't take long) and something to do. Invoicing is a breeze, and I imagine doing the payroll won't be very difficult either. They've just moved into this new office, so everything is straight out of the box - new computer, printer, photocopier, fax, shredder, you name it. There's even a state-of-the-art phone system that nobody really knows how to use properly. I'm gonna have to do training in it. Other than that I started on a Friday so it was pretty quiet, and Monday is going to be an interesting proposition. Despite that, I'm sure soon I'm going to be able to do this job blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. It makes me a bit angry actually as I feel like I'm probably overqualified for this job, but there's no way I could get something more challenging, because of my lack of experience. I guess that's what they mean when they say you have to work your way up.

On the way home after work I was walking along Grafton Street, and this woman asks me, "Do you drink gin and tonic?" and I was like, of course! She explained they were doing market research into gin and tonic, and if I wanted to I could try four different gins, give my opinions on each, and at the end they'd give me €10. I was like, where do I sign up? So I was full of gin and €10 richer when I found out the bad news of the day...it's going to cost a minimum of €180 to get my camera fixed. I figure for that price I'll just get a new one. Honestly, I know capitalism creates a "disposable society" where planned obsolescence makes you constantly have to buy new items, but this is ridiculous. Nobody knows how to fix things any more, you just throw it away and buy a new one. If you do find someone who can fix it, it costs as much as a new one anyway, or more. When I first got to Dublin and was going for interviews, I only had the one shirt with me. I wanted to get it cleaned, but it would have cost €7.50. I went to Penneys and bought a new one for €3, a 60% saving. Unbelievable.

Yesterday one of my flatmates, Diana, went home to Holland. We went to the airport to say goodbye, and it was quite sad, but the doleful mood was soon shattered by blind panic when we weighed Diana's luggage and it was 24 kilos. On Ryanair they only let you take 15, not a gram more, or you have to pay. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, Maria and I went home with 11 kilos of Diana's stuff in a big bag. Our new flatmate, Shelley, moved in in the afternoon. She's pretty nice, and she's Chinese, so we should be having some yummy stir fries in the near future. She's going to show me where you can get chinese dumplings for 50c each! She's also got heaps of illegally ripped movies but hopefully I won't turn into too much of a couch potato.

Then last night, the moment I've been waiting for...I finally met some Irish people! Hurrah! Again, they're friends of Maria. We had a quiet pint in a great pub next to the Liffey called The Bachelor, and watched Live Aid. There was Maria and I, "Clarkey" (who's first name I can't remember...Carl or something), Allan, an interesting guy born and bred in Dublin, Owen, another city boy (an intellectual, yay!) who has spent a lot of time in Spain and speaks great Spanish, and Miguel, a photographer from Argentina who now lives in Barcelona. He's having an exibition of his photographs on Monday (political photographs from Communist countries...how fascinating) so that's going to be awesome. After the pub we went back to Allan's place (he lives in a huge Georgian house about five minutes from my flat. But his place is really lovely) and had some 10 year old single malt scotch whisky. I'm never going to be able to look at a bottle of Jameson the same way again. It's just not going to cut the mustard next to this stuff, it was delicious! But way out of my price range, so Jameson it will have to be until I'm rich and famous. We had great conversations about politics, ecology, rock festivals, drugs, reggae vs hip hop, you name it, until about 2am when Maria and I decided we'd go home. All in all I had a pretty great day. Today is shaping up to be pretty good too, I'm going out for lunch, then tonight we're going to see a movie, "We Don't Live Here Anymore" with Mark Ruffalo (I looove him). Tomorrow is the beginning of my first week of full time work. Scary, but I think I'll be able to handle it.

Show me the money!

Break open the bubbly - I am finally a real, authentic working girl. That's working girl like Dolly Parton in "9 to 5", not working girl like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman". The gun has gone off and the rat race has begun, I am officially stuck in an office working 9 to 5 for the man. Oooh wow, could that sentence be more packed with cliches?

It's not a great job, but it's a good job, and it'll pay the bills. Unbelievably I am again working for a cleaning company (why why why??) but this job has more responsibility, more administration (I get to do the accounting and payroll...hmmm, how much do I want to earn this week??) and last but definitely not least, more $$$. Well, actually, more €€€. So now I have a job, a flat, a credit card, and a handbag...does this mean I have a life? People have been telling me to get one, and I have.

I'm having fun listening to the Irish accent, but to tell you the truth, it's difficult to find. You're more likely to run into a Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, French, Chinese, German or even Argentine person here rather than Irish. But they have fun with my accent too, there's not too many Aussies here, nowhere near as many as London, so I guess it's still kind of a novelty. The thing I find funny is that the Marias say I speak with an Argentine accent...when I speak Spanish it's always with a really terrible Australian accent, but they can hear the Argentine accent underneath it. But they are Spanish-alising me...pretty soon I'll be saying "falda" instead of "pollera", "piscina" instead of "pileta" and even "coger" instead of "conseguir" (no, never!)! By the way, they do have 2 Ojos de Brujo CDs, they are really cool! I'll ask them about Bebe.

Anyway, better go learn how to do accounting and payroll - I have 36 hours or so before my job starts, that should be enough right? Or I could go on a spending spree at Penneys instead...that sounds like a better idea. Eeek, I really hope I don't suck at this job!

ATTENTION JOANNA CHAN: I have been emailing you for ages wondering why you don't reply. Do you still check your tigerstars email? Email me and let me know what's going on!

Home sweet home.

Congratulate me - I get to pay €285 per month for the privelege of co-renting four walls, a floor and a ceiling with three other girls. It's better than sleeping on the streets, right? Actually the place is reasonably big (for inner-city Dublin) and the girls I'm sharing with are great. There's Diana, a Dutch girl who has just quit her job at Xerox because she can't stand it, loves travelling and partying, and, among other things, shares my room. There's Maria B (from Bilbao) who's just landed a job at the airport, is a real softie (but brave) and looks a bit like Penelope Cruz. Last but not least there's Maria M (from Madrid) who looks quiet and innocent, but I'm sure there's hidden depths to her (she used to date a scruffy bass player from a band that's apparently quite huge now in Spain (they're called elbicho and I like them a lot). I like all my housemates, but Maria B and I really get on like Vegemite and cheese. She told me yesterday she was really happy that I'd moved into the flat, and I said the same. It's like we've already known each other for years! Maybe it's because we have the same kind of background. I was telling Maria B about my favourite record in the whole world, a recording of a concert by Vinicius de Moraes, and lo and behold, she goes into Maria M's cd collection and pulls out that exact recording! I couldn't believe it - probably about five people, tops, would have that record in Ireland, and I move in with one of them.

The three of them smoke profusely, which can be trying at times, but I'd rather live with three great girls who smoke than three dull or mean non-smokers. Fast forward 50 years to when I have lung cancer and I'll be singing a different tune, but for now I like it here. It still doesn't feel like "home", it's like I'm crashing at a friend's place. But hey, I've only lived there for five days. Soon I won't be able to imagine living anywhere else. I don't miss my house yet - family and friends yes, but not the physical space I call home.

Last night was great fun. Unfortunately, Diana had a headache and went straight to bed, but when Maria B got home we made dinner together and chatted away with some music in the background. In fact I almost felt like I was in Spain as we were talking in Spanish, with Spanish music on (elbicho) and we were eating spaghetti bolognaise with red wine - altogether quite Mediterranean. Afterwards I helped Maria study for her test at work, Maria M came home, and we stayed up late watching an elbicho concert on DVD.

This whole housing thing has worked out quite well. I must admit I was anxious since I've read "He Died With a Felafel in His Hand". What if I hated my housemates? What if they stole all my stuff and left me high and dry with the rent cheque? It could happen you know - I've been quite lucky. One small downer. I still don't have any way of paying for this cool new flat. I've realised that my daydream where I sail into a great job a week after landing in Dublin is just that - a dream. It's probably going to take a month or so to get one, so I'm going to have to be patient.

Don't mind me, I'm tired and cranky.

Jobhunting is totally brutal. I don't care how intelligent you are, or if you have a degree, no one wants to know unless you have 25 thousand years experience in a similar position. Even in the best case scenario they take three weeks to interview you, then a week to decide they want you, and by then you've spent a month sitting on your butt, and your bank account is wailing.

At least today at the Department of Social and Family Affairs things went kind of smoothly. No one demanded paperwork I hadn't brought, just for the fun of it, as beaurocrats are wont to do on occasion. They just glared at my forms, glared at me, and said, "You'll get your PPS number in seven days". (PPSN is like a Tax File Number).

Is it a prerequisite for government staff to be bad-tempered? They must put out job ads like, "Are you bitter and twisted? Is your life so terrible you have to pick on other people to make yourself feel better? Become a government employee! You'll get the chance to make hundreds of people's lives hell on a daily basis, just by throwing unnecessary red tape at them! And service with a smile? Forget it!"

Either that or the job is so mindlessly boring it turns them into lunatics that want to kill you for having the cheek to ask for a form you need to get employed in their country. That said, everything went smoothly, for me anyway, not so much for the non-English speakers.

Tonight I'm going to check out a flat. I'm not expecting much since the last one I saw was the size of a postage stamp. But what can you expect when your criteria is "dirt cheapest thing I can find"? In fact, I was going to take that place, but another girl beat me to it. Yes, we're fighting over every square centimetre here. There's a housing crisis in Dublin, haven't you heard? I like living in the city though, especially after having lived in Eltham for so long. I'll probably want to move back to the suburbs eventually, but for now I'd like to try city living. I'll be glad to get out of this dorm anyway. It was fun at first, with all the cool people I was meeting. But when you've got an interview early in the morning, and you're awake till 2 am because there's people drinking on the steps of the hostel, and then at 4 am a group of six boisterous Yorkshire lads comes home from a night of boozing and wakes you again, you get over it. But it's only temporary, a little glitch on the cassette tape that is my life.

I found the craic

I spent most of yesterday sending out resume after resume, up until about 3:00, when a) my internet time ran out, and b) I got sick of it.

I didn't have a clue what to do for the rest of the day though; no work to do, no friends to see. I turned to my trusty Lonely Planet guide, which includes some self-guided walking tours around Dublin. I should get some touristy stuff done before work starts taking over my life, no? So I set off to do some sightseeing - but I didn't get far. I hadn't reckoned on the legendary friendliness of the Irish people. No sooner had I spotted the first sight of my tour (some big ol' church) than a lovely old Irish gent said hello to me. I said hello back and we got to talking. He told me some lovely Gaelic poems (in English) and I told him about my travels.

After a while (being Irish and all) he invited me down to the pub on the corner for a pint. So we sat and chatted over a Guinness (my first in Ireland, and might I say it's a damn sight better here) and he told me about being a shipbuilder, and fighting in the IRA, and about meeting the love of his life. Sean Halpin, his name is. We were soon joined by another random bloke who was sitting at the bar, and the three of us were chatting away like old friends. When we parted ways, Sean showed me a secret IRA hideout where he and his mates used to live back when they were "fighting the British".

This is what comes of actually taking the time to say hello to someone, instead of walking by in a great big hurry like I would normally do (granted, it's not often I don't have anything else to do other than chat to strangers). Add a little Irish warm-heartedness and you have a very pleasant afternoon.

Welcome to the Emerald Isle

I'm finally in Dublin. I'm more scared now than I was when I first got to Europe, because now I have to stop being a silly party animal and begin my life anew. A big scary life, with responsibilities. I don't envy my parents, who moved countries and started a new life in Australia with two children, not knowing the language, or what lay ahead of them. I'm terrified because I don't have a job or a place to live, and I don't even have children or a foreign language to worry about.

Speaking about languages, it's so good to be back in an English speaking country. Things like catching the correct bus become merely confusing rather than insanely difficult. I made it to the hostel with relative ease, and proceeded to catch up on some more sleep (thanks to another late night in Copenhagen). When I woke there was a man in my room - which was ok since it's a 10 bed dorm. He was from New Jersey and we got chatting, and went out to get dinner and so on, till we finally made it to bed about midnight. About 1 am, a group of 9 Americans waltzes into our room, finds there's not enough beds, goes down to reception, figures that the other American guy (the one from Jersey) is in the wrong room, kick him out and go to sleep, after apologising profusely. We got chatting in the morning about Bush, sports, the educational system, Australia and so on. I'd love to live in hostels for the rest of my life, you meet the most interesting people! Can't wait to see who's in my room tonight. I've got an Irish SIM card now, I'll email the number around later, so tomorrow I will be jobhunting in earnest instead of this half-assed walking around I have been doing so far. But it's a little pointless applying for jobs when they can't contact you to tell you if you have them or not. Right now I'm anxious, but feeling kind of okay given that I've still got 11 more days to find a job and a house. Well, 10 after today. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please. I need all the luck I can get at the moment. I'll keep you all posted when I find something! Take care!

Scandinavia/Russia: The lowdown.

The 21 day whirlwind has finally come to an end, and the time has now come to review, reflect, and tell you all about it. I had originally intended to begin at the beginning, go through all the middle parts in chronological order, and finish at the end. After attempting this method I realised two things: firstly, writing down every single thing that happened is going to take another 3 weeks; and you would all be terminally bored after the first five minutes and would never read this blog again. So this will just be the highlights, in kind of chronological order, with a lot of glossing. It's still gonna be long though, so go and get yourself a caffeinated beverage. *Deep breath*

I arrived at the hostel in Copenhagen very wide eyed and not having a clue what to expect, from my tour mates in particular. Will they be awful? (Doubt it). Will the tour suck? (Maybe). Will I have an unforgettable experience? (Most likely.) My fears were allayed almost at once when I found out one of my roommates was a big Beatles fan. I figured the trip can't be all bad if there's Beatles fans aboard.

Dinner that night was lovely but very civilised - everyone was on their best behaviour. I can barely believe it now that we've gotten to know each other and become quite the raucous bunch. Everyone was keen to go home to bed afterwards too, which I found strange since I'd heard so much about Contiki being a non stop party.

Our tour really started the next day in Copenhagen with a tour of some totally underwhelming sights - the little mermaid statue (tiny statue on a rock); the Carlsberg brewery (closed, but they gave us free beer so it was kind of worthwhile); and of course, Amelienborg palace, where Fred and Mary live, with Fred's mum Queen Margarethe next door (Plain palace with requisite stony faced guards outside wearing silly uniforms and hats). After we got dropped off in the city we did some real sightseeing, first stop the Rosenborg palace, home to the finest crown jewels I have seen so far in Europe. We climbed the 400 steps to the top of the Church of Our Saviour (breathtaking views of Copenhagen, if you don't have a coronary first). That was a real "Oh my god! I'm in Europe!" moment. We strolled down Nyhaven, sort of like the Lygon street of Copenhagen, only better because of the picturesque old buildings and the canal in the middle. It was a lovely warm Sunday, everyone was dining al fresco or sitting by the canal.

Day 3 we crossed the ferry from Copenhagen to Stockholm, but not before we had our first crisis. Standing at the docks, someone asked semi-casually, "Uh, where's Chris?" At Copenhagen Central station, it turns out. Oops. He made the boat in time, although slightly red-faced. Lucky Richard got all our mobile numbers before the trip. We stayed in cabins that night, might I tell you I was not happy at having to walk through the entire campsite to reach the showers. Such is life on a Contiki tour - at least we got showers.

Next day the highlight was a tour through the town hall in Stockholm, where the Nobel Prizes are awarded. I got a big kick out of standing at the top of the stairs where the awardees come down and thinking, "Richard Feynman stood here!". Not to mention plenty of others, but he's the one I remembered first. I was pleased to find that about 50% of Sweden's parliament is female...go girl power! I found this out courtesy of our tour guide, who by the way, not that it matters at all, was really good-looking - hurrah for Swedish people!

Next was the Vasa museum, all about this big ship that sank. The ship itself was pretty cool, but I'd had my fill of maritime museums in Greenwich. We wandered around the Old Town (Gamla Stan) checking out all the old buildings and the shops, not that we could buy anything. Scandinavia is horrendously expensive, you spend your whole time converting things into Aussie dollars and cringeing. Aside from the expense I could totally live in Sweden or Denmark. They are totally safe, law-abiding, clean and interesting. The Danes won't cross the street without the little green man, not even in the middle of the night when there's no cars around. They also love candles. There's candles everywhere in Scandinavia.

The next night was the infamous Baltic Ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, notoriously nicknamed the "Love Boat". Three guesses why. There was a Smorgasbord dinner on the ship, with as much beer and wine as you can drink in two hours, so you can imagine what the atmosphere was like. After dinner, the moment I have been waiting for for God knows how long: the final of the European Champions League. Up until the final I was convinced that Liverpool would be eliminated any moment, but hell, if they made it to the final why couldn't they win it? I was totally excited to the point that my tour mates were remarking on it (I guess they still didn't know me all that well) and when they finally won it I couldn't stop hugging everyone in excitement. I just wish there was another Reds fan there to enjoy it with me. The guy at the bar played "You'll never walk alone", and I sang - it was a magical moment. After the match, time to head over to the nightclub on the boat, where we danced the night away while trying to avoid what were surely 13 year olds trying to pick us up. That was also where I saw the most gorgeous man in the universe - 6 feet of blonde Swedish yumminess. We all partied hard and eight of us fell asleep in the one room (for four people) at around four am.

I woke up the next morning dead tired but looking forward to seeing Helsinki. Yes, Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where I would quite like to be. I got off the boat and astounded my tour mates by skipping and jumping around and generally not looking like death warmed up, which is how most everyone was looking. (My secret? Drink water, not vodka! It's that easy!) Kyle especially was the worse for wear and had to be escorted to the hospital by Amy and Amanda! How do you say "alcohol poisoning" in Finnish? Anyway, how could you not be excited in a new city? We saw the Sibelius monument (very cool), the Olympic stadium (closed) and an interesting church who's roof is made of a giant coil of copper wire. There's actually more to do in Helsinki than you might think, but we didn't get a chance in the 24 hours we spent there. The excitement level was rising though - next day, Russia! This is what I had been waiting for all trip.

The border crossing into Russia was just what I was expecting - dour-faced and humourless border guards. They didn't even crack a smile. This was also our first exposure to the epidemic that is taking Russia by storm - miniskirts. All the women wear dead short skirts, some of them have quite bad dress sense too. After the border crossing, a seemingly interminable drive to St. Petersburg. When we got there we drove out to the Baltic sea, where we had a little vodka (When in Russia...right?) then to the Bronze Horseman statue, which was totally exciting for me, for a little champagneski (that's what the Russians call it).

It was so incredible to finally be in Russia. There was a live band playing at dinner that night (well, a pianist and a singer). They were singing Russian music but they played one Beatles song and it got such a good reception they kept going. They must have played their entire Beatles repertoire that night. Eventually Richard herded us out the door, but the party continued on the bus ride home, singing and dancing in the aisles, and being generally rowdy, poor Matt (the driver).

St Petersburg is a Western city, built in ancient Greek and Italian styles. There's literally a palace on every corner - the Tsars would have them built for their lovers and friends or whoever. The Hermitage was totally awe-inspiring - They have two Leonardos and a couple of rooms full of Picassos, not to mention almost a floor of Impressionist paintings (Impressionists. *yawn*). The tour guides gave us the full course load of Russian history - from Peter the Great to Putin. The Romanovs were not very nice people actually - half of them were killed by family members or had a family member put out a contract on their life. But boy did they have beautiful clothes, carriages, jewelry, furniture and works of art.

At night (if you could call it that, it gets dark in St Petersburg at around midnight in the summer months) we went to see the Russian Ballet, which was good, but not as exciting as I thought it would be, and the next night we saw a Russian folklore show, which I was convinced would be totally boring but was fabulous. Those Cossack dancers have amazing strength and flexibility! After the shows it was back to the hotel for a rowdy room party, which were always a fun time to chat and mess around, especially if you were sitting near Aly, a sassy Texan from San Antonio. She was always good for a few laughs. But you know me, it gets late into the night and all I want to do is talk philosophy and the meaning of life, and usually I was able to find someone to have a good D&M with.

The best thing about St Petersburg was the Leningrad memorial. It's there to remember those who died during the seige of Leningrad in WW2. It's a massive ring with a portion missing, symbolising Lake Ladoga, which is how they managed to finally get food past the German soldiers into the city (the lake freezes over in the winter) and break the seige. Inside the memorial are 300 candles, one for each day of the seige, made out of shells that were actually used in the war. The most chilling thing was the metronome-like clicking that echoes through the memorial. It's a beacon to Moscow, and if it ever stops, the Russians will know that St Petersburg has been destroyed.

Next stop, Novgorod. Totally flattened during the war, it's now a funny little Russian rural university town. It's a holiday spot for the Russians, thanks to the beach and Lake Ilmen. The oldest Kremlin in the country is also there, since Novgorod was actually the first capital of Russia. There's also plenty of war memorials. If they saved up all the money they spend on war memorials in Russia they could probably pull themselves out of economic crisis.

Next day, onwards to Moscow. We got there in the early evening, and the first thing we saw was St Basil's cathedral, which is fabulous, but reminds me of ice-cream, which takes a little away from the awe-inspiringness of it all. I stood in Red Square, took a deep breath, and thought, "Holy Shit! I'm in Moscow!". I noticed Kyle was barefoot, and asked him why. He replied, "I'm connecting with Mother Russia". So I whipped off my shoes and socks and felt the Red Square under my feet.

Moscow was totally incredible, I've already talked about Lenin and Putin, but even the ordinary things are totally extraordinary, like the subway. Many of the stations are decorated with intricate mosaics, busts of Lenin or whoever, and more chandeliers than you can poke a stick at. Our guide Galina told us that the government is slowly taking down all the communist related memorabilia around Moscow, from the Lenin statues to the red stars atop the Kremlin. They even want to bury Lenin once and for all. Apparently it reminds the people of the "good old days" of Communism where the state provided everything that people needed, like housing, education, and whatever, which they have to pay for now. I wanted to point out that what the government said they were providing and what they were actually providing were two totally different things, but I kept my mouth shut. Anyway so all this memorabilia is getting taken away and melted down into raw materials, it's not even getting preserved in a museum, which is totally sad. I feel priveleged to have been able to see it while it was still around.

Moscow was slightly scarier than St. Petersburg - we were told to take photos very unobtrusively outside the KGB building, and that all the black Mercedes were Mafia bosses' cars, and you get shot if you scratch one. Later, on our way to a museum, Amy scratched one with the zip on her jacket. Her reaction? "Oh dear". Then she bolted to the museum. Another time, at the Kremlin, Kyle leant against a wall to throw up, and a big chunk of it came off! So he not only threw up on the Kremlin, he broke it as well. Silly boy. I don't think he even got nietted for it.

While we're on the topic, I have to tell you about nietting. When we first got to St. Petersburg, our guide Anna told us about the "niet niet ladies" in the museums. They are middle aged or old ladies who basically sit in a chair in the corner of one of the rooms of the museum and look sour. Some of them watch you like a hawk, some of them sleep. If you touch anything, go through a door you shouldn't, or breathe in the wrong direction, they'll yell "NIET! NIET!" (NO! NO!) at you, and you're in all kinds of trouble. So anytime we were refused anything, or got busted for something, we got "nietted". By this stage we had also developed a checklist for new towns - we had to see:

* A "pointy-sticky-uppy-thing" (i.e. an obelisk, not hard to find)
* A cathedral named "Redemption" or "Assumption" or similar
* A war memorial
* A fort or significant bridge
* A statue of a guy on a horse

and we could say we'd seen the city. Oh, by the way, we bought black market CDs and DVDs off Dogdy Serge, because we could.

From Moscow to Yartsevo and the ultimate in dodgy accomodation. On the way there Richard (alias Richie Rich) mentioned we would be staying in a brothel. I assumed he meant a converted brothel. This turned out not to be the case. After a dinner of schnitzel and chips (fifth night running) there was an interesting dance show put on by some girls from the local dance school. Naturally when the music started up again I figured it would be more dancing girls. I was right, but these ones were also removing items of clothing. Us girls tried not to look too disgusted as we sipped our beers, and the guys tried not to look too interested as they sipped theirs. After the strip show, a singer (Alexei) appeared and started singing Russian pop songs, and all the "ladies of the night" got up to dance with their prospective clients.We decided dancing looked like fun, so we got up and boogied too, much to the amusement of the locals. We danced and talked and danced and generally had a jolly old time, until Liz told us there were going to be fireworks outside in honour of Alexei's (the singer's) birthday. By this time it was about two or three am, and there was only about five or six of us Contiki-ites awake. We watched the fireworks, and us Antipodeans sang Alexei "Happy Birthday", and then the staff sang something in Russian. It was great, probably one of my top three moments in Russia. We went back inside where Dodgy Mikhail and Dodgy Vladimir (Mafia cousins of Dodgy Serge) were giving out free cognac and beer. We stayed up dancing till five or six am, and then went to bed for some well deserved rest. I must say, aside from the dodgyness of it all, that that was one of the funnest nights on tour. It just sounds weird when you say you had a great time in a Russian brothel partying all night with prostitutes and Mafiosos.

Minsk was a welcome change from Yartsevo, although anything would have been better than that place. It's small, clean and pretty, with still more war memorials. Apparently it's the custom in Russia to visit a war memorial to pay your respects when you get married, because we saw like 8 brides at the main memorial in Minsk, and I swear to you none of them were a day older than 23, and some looked not even 20. Scary.

Next day to Warsaw, through the border out of Russia which miraculously took only two hours, an unbelievable time, and we were on our way. Truth be told I wasn't looking forward to Warsaw that much. What's in Warsaw? Well, apart from yet another currency (zlotys) there's a pretty city with nice parks, statues and yet more war memorials. The poor Poles have taken a beating over the years, invaded by the Russians and Germans and whoever else felt the need over the years. They really got a pummeling in WW2 - out of 3 million Polish Jews there are 300,000 left now. That's a whole order of magnitude! The hotel in Warsaw was something else - finally comfy beds, real food (with vegetables - *gasp*) and service with a smile! We went out to a raucus jazz club for a few cheeky drinks before we headed back to the hotel.

Next day was the drive to Berlin. We drove and drove and drove all day till we finally made it to the wall and took a thousand pictures. Then to a German beer hall for wurst, saurkraut and kartoffelnpuree (sausage, saurkraut and mashed potatoes) and a stein of beer, which is a litre. Those things are massive, I couldn't drink a whole one, but we all had a good time. In true Berlin fashion the night didn't end there and we stayed up all night at the hostel bar playing pool and dancing. Sarah, my roommate, must have wanted to kill me by this stage, as she was usually in bed by 10 or 11, and I hadn't come in before three am in about a week. Next day in Berlin, a third reich walking tour with our pommy geezer guide Henry, who was totally gorgeous and intelligent but has a girlfriend *sigh*. After that I met up with Emily which was totally exciting - she showed me the "real" Berlin - Kaffe und Kuchen, punks and their dogs, and people relieving themselves in public. Plus we chatted and caught up on general stuff which was fun.

That night was dinner and a pub crawl to some interesting East Berlin bars, and we ended up at a nightclub which thankfully wasn't playing doof doof music, and danced the night away. That was fun but I was totally spent from all the partying and the next day on the drive back to Copenhagen I actually slept on the bus for the first time on tour. It was a melancholy bus ride, we were all exhausted not to mention it was the last full day of the tour. We had relaxed chats in the sunshine as we waited for our ferry, then pretty much slept all the way to Copenhagen. We went out for Mexican food (in Denmark, go figure) which was totally not exciting but the room party afterwards was totally fun. Steve and Sheena asked me to do the thankyous for Richie Rich and Matt, and although I was totally nervous I got a few laughs in the right places so I survived.

The next morning the tour ended after breakfast but everyone was tired and cranky, like the morning after a slumber party in primary school where everyone just wants to go home. It was still hard to say goodbye to everyone, especially Kath and Jill who I got quite close to during the three weeks. I wasn't homebound though, I was a woman on a mission. A laundry mission. I finally found a laundromat, but my excitement was short lived as I spent the next half an hour standing there, reading the instructions (in Danish) over and over and trying to figure out how to get the soap out of the dispenser. Thankfully a lovely Danish lady came in and helped me, or I'd probably still be there. Armed with my newly cleaned clothes, I collapsed on my bed to catch up on three weeks of sleep.

I couldn't spend the whole next day in Copenhagen sleeping though, so I tried to find some free stuff to do. One thing that jumped out at me was the Assistens Cemetary, which holds a who's who of Danish history, including Hans Christian Andersen, Soren Kirkegaard, and Niels and Harald Bohr. I took pictures of all of their graves, and then just spent time wandering around the cemetary, since it was so beautiful. Perfectly manicured, it was like a lovely park with headstones. I spent about three hours there, then went to a dodgy museum (it was free, so I guess I couldn't expect it to be interesting) then walked around Copenhagen so I could say my last goodbye to Scandinavia, at least for a while. Goodbye to the fun, holiday part of my trip, and hello to the scary, work part of my trip.

From Russia with love

I don't have time to write a detailed (or even a brief) account of this whole Russian experience, but here's a little instalment to keep you up to date. I'm in Moscow at the moment, which is fantastic. Though I like St. Petersburg better, Moscow is just as fascinating. I'm up to my eyeballs in Russian history, Romanovs, Tatars, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev, Gorbachev, Putin, the list goes on forever (trust me). It is all incredibly fascinating, I just hope I can remember it all to tell you all properly when I get to Dublin.

I just wanted to share my incredible day yesterday. After dragging myself out of bed and helping myself to a buffet breakfast (say what you like about Russia, their hotels know how to do a buffet breakfast like the best of them) we were off to the Red Square to check out Lenin. We barely had to queue (an unheard of luxury, perhaps due to the drizzle) before we walked into the mausoleum complex where Lenin is buried. When I say the place is crawling with guards, you can regard that as an understatement. There are two outside, then groups of three of them every time you turn a corner in the mausoleum. The place is dark and the steps and walls are black so you can't really see where you're going. You go around yet another corner and up some stairs and there he is, laying in a coffin with red velvet cushioning. The whole place is dark save for the light shining from above the coffin onto Lenin's face, which gives him a kind of angelic aura (I don't think any of us were fooled). Even in the darkness it's hard to ignore the seven or eight guards around the coffin. You walk around him and don't stop (if you do you'll get "nietted", more about this later), and then you step outside into the daylight. Then you're supposed to walk around the back of the mausoleum out of the Red Square, but as there were not many people there, I asked Richard (our Tour Manager, alias Richie Rich) if I could go around again. He said to grab a buddy and give it a shot. So Kath and I jumped over the fence and went round again, sure that we would get "nietted", but though the guards gave us funny looks, they didn't say a word. So we got to see Lenin a second time, which was awesome since the first time I was so preoccupied with the guards I didn't have time to really get a sense of the whole Lenin thing. He's really small, and waxy looking, but it still gave me the shivers when I looked at him and thought about all the things he did and lives he cost. After that we went around the back of the mausoleum and saw where a whole lot of other Russian important people are buried, including Stalin.

Anyway, after all this excitement, you'd think my day couldn't get any better, but you'd be wrong! That afternoon when we went to visit the Kremlin (more about the Kremlin in a later post, I'm running out of internet time) we were waking between buildings and who should drive past but Vladimir Putin, President of Russia! So I got a real buzz out of that and the thought that I saw Lenin and Putin in the one day. Am I a politics nerd or what?

Got to go now, Moscow circus tonight, that should be awesome, I'll write more probably at the end of my tour when I have time, and I promise I'll tell you all about the "niet-niet ladies" and getting "nietted". Prepare for a long Russian history lesson!!

Stockholm Syndrome

Touring really is hard work but I am having so much fun I don't really mind. I've walked more ks in the last few days than I probably have in the last six months, but I'm no longer getting blisters, my back has stopped hurting, and I'm not (as) exhausted. I think I'm on the traveller's equivalent of a runner's high. What's especially keeping me going is the thought that in a few days I will finally get to see Russia. I am so excited about it and to add to that all my tour mates are really mad about it too, so it rubs off.

I'll try and describe some of the stuff I've seen, it'll be a cheap knockoff of the real thing, but here goes. The coolest things in Copenhagen were the Rosenborg Palace and the Church of our Saviour. The Rosenberg Palace has four floors and a basement (where the crown jewels are kept). As you go up the stairs, each of the four floors was more lavish than the last, with intricate tapestries on the walls, gilded everything, rooms of glass things and porcelain things, big long halls, and of course, thrones. The crown jewels were really impressive, much better than the English ones (I reckon anyway).

The church was awesome not only because it was really beautiful, but also because once you'd climbed up the more than 400 steps to the top of the spire, the view of Copenhagen was pretty amazing.

There's also a street called Nyhaven, which is like a sort of Danish Lygon street, only with really picturesque buildings, and a canal, and well, really not like Lygon street at all. But everyone was out eating on the street and sitting by the canal, and it was all very atmospheric, probably due to the fact that it was a Sunday afternoon and the only sunny day we had seen in Copenhagen. There's a lot more to tell, but not much time to tell it in.

Stockholm I think is almost as pretty as Copenhagen, but a bit more "city-like". We had a guided tour of the town hall where the Nobel prizes are awarded, and it was totally cool, a really beautiful building. One of the rooms had mosaic walls made mainly out of real gold. There were other, nicer rooms too, one with tapestries, heaps with really high ceilings (I love cathedral ceilings) and beautiful furniture. The tour guide was really cute too, which always helps the concentration span.

The Gamla Stan (old town) in Stockholm is just gorgeous, and it doesn't cost anything just to look at the picturesque old buildings. Just don't decide you're hungry, thirsty, or want to get a souvenir. Today we went to the Icebar, as the name suggests it's a bar made entirely out of ice. It has an airlock, and they give you big silver eskimo coats to wear, and the bar, walls, lampshades, decorations and even the glasses are made of ice. It was so cool (boom ch!). I'll post pictures of all this when I get to Dublin and can get them off my camera.

The tour has been great so far, my roomates are fun, but not too crazy, so we all have fun but get to bed at a reasonable time!

I probably won't be able to access the internet much for a couple of weeks, so don't freak out if I don't update this so much till I get back from my tour, or at least till I get out of Russia. At the moment I'm in the central station in Stockholm, and I'm actually stealing this internet time and not paying for it (naughty naughty) so I keep looking over my shoulder expecting the Swedish police to jump out and arrest me any second. Take care all!

Mmmm, Danish....

Copenhagen is absolutely quaint and old and totally lovely. I did a walking tour this morning in the pouring rain, and of course now I'm headed off to the hostel it's lovely and sunny outside. I can't wait till I can post all the pictures I took. It's very different here - I wasn't prepared for how Danish it would be. So many people told me "You'll be fine, everyone there speaks English" that I think I started to believe it would be just like being in England. Although everyone I have spoken to so far speaks perfect English, I feel so rude asking them to speak a foreign language in their own country. But this is what happens when you realise at Copenhagen airport that the European guidebook you have does not include Danish (though it does, bizzarely, have Scottish Gaelic).

I kind of wasted the afternoon (and a lot of money) by going to lunch with two girls (Kate and Fiona) I met on the walking tour. Tell you what, I won't be buying lunch anymore! I am freaking out about how much money I am spending, so I am going to be totally frugal from now on. The upside was I had a traditional Danish meal - pickled herring and rye bread, and a danish. It was absolutely delicious.

Also, I wanted to let you all know not to call me (except of course in an emergency) in the next three weeks or so, it costs me a lot of money to receive calls when I'm not in England. You can message me if you like! Anyway, better go find the hostel! Wish me luck!

I'm in London still

I fulfilled two lifelong dreams today. First I took a tour of Lord's Cricket Ground, then walked down the street to Abbey Road studios. The tour of Lord's was fantastic - not only did I stand on the hallowed turf, but also went inside the press box and the member's pavilion (including the Long Room, Committee room, and players' dressing room). Then we of course saw the urn in which the famous (or indeed infamous) Ashes are kept. I learned from where we get the names gully and silly mid on, and saw the first known record of the Laws of Cricket. I could barely suppress my excitement. The whole place is covered in memorabilia, and of course all the places where the MCC members hang out are totally opulent, so everything we saw was interesting and exciting. Our tour guide was a member, a typical moneyed English establishment type, but nice enough.

Abbey Rd wasn't quite so exciting, because they don't let you in to have a look around, but I got a big kick out of taking my picture next to the sign, and imagining how many times John, Paul, George and Ringo would have traced the same steps I was taking. I took a picture of the outside of the studio, but as the snooty receptionist in the lobby told me, "This is a private recording studio", so no looking inside. Makes sense really, or the place would be crawling with tourists and nobody would get any work done.

More typical English weather today - but as I was on cloud nine I didn't care at all - it could have been raining spiders and I would still have been skipping along singing "Strawberry Fields".

These last few days have been so exhausting I think I might actually be kind of relieved when the time comes to settle down for a while and work. While sightseeing is fun, it takes a lot of energy to keep going and going all day, and frustration mounts as you find that you don't have time to see anything properly. One hour in the Tate Modern Art Gallery is a travesty really. I just got to see enough to really want to explore the place, and I had to leave. I was just as surprised as anyone to find out I liked modern art though. It's a far cry from that yellow mattress sculpture there was such fuss about in the Nillumbik Leader! But I feel I got as much as humanly possible out of these last five days, and that makes me happy.

Tomorrow I leave for Copenhagen. Again I feel the same fear that plagued me before I left for Europe, since from now on I won't have Bianca's friendly face to keep me company. But I know I'll make many new friends - as well as Klaars, the doctor from the plane, I got talking to a bus conductor from Yorkshire today, she was a lot of fun, and had a totally cool accent.

Oooh, I almost forgot! Yesterday I hung out in Greenwich, which I have wanted to see for ages because the Royal Observatory there stands at the Prime Meridian, the longitudinal line from which all the world's time starts. But what I didn't know was they have a planetarium there! I've always wanted to go to a planetarium, and now I've been to one. It meant hanging around in Greenwich all day, since the show was at 3:00, but Greenwich is a pretty place, and they have a cool maritime museum and of course the Royal Observatory, which were both free (yay!) so I didn't mind. Planetariums rock.

Tonight B and I are having a quiet drink at her local typical English pub, to say goodbye to London. I know I'll be back though, since it's only a hop, skip and jump from Ireland. Not to mention I still have to go to Liverpool. So I won't really be saying goodbye to London, but, as the French would have it, "Au revoir"!

"Please mind the gap between the train and the platform"

Wow. Sightseeing has to be up there with the marathon and boot camp as one of the most gruelling things you can put your body through. London should come with a warning label - "Caution: Do not attempt to cover the entire city in five days. Doing so could be harmful or fatal." Despite the blisters and aching back, I have seen some amazing things over the past days. Highlights have been: the Houses of Parliament, the Science museum, the Cabinet War Chambers (underground rooms from which Churchill and his cabinet planned and fought the war. Totally not to be missed), and the Tower of London, which was beyond words in how totally awesome it is. I have been pleasantly surprised by the museums and galleries here. I thought the Tate Modern Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert museum would be totally boring, but they were awesome.

Other cool things in London I have seen/heard: A 41 gun salute (very British and pompous);the antiques and silver departments at Harrods; looking down at the floor in Harrods and realising I was standing on a £21,000 rug (about $63,000); pidgeons everywhere; French schoolchildren at the Tate; red double decker buses and black cabs; one girl saying "innit" (only took 10 hours after touching down at Heathrow to hear my first "innit"); and magic mushrooms being sold quite openly and legally at Camden market. Weird. If I was to relate in any sort of detail everything I've done over the past few days, I'd be here all night, so you'll have to make do with this small taste.

For the zillion people that have asked, the flight was similarly gruelling but fun. Dad warned me not to, under any circumstances, get talking to the person sitting next to me, because if they were boring, I'd have to talk to them for 23 hours. I got on the plane quite intent on following that advice, but my neighbour struck up a conversation and that was the end of it. Luckily he was a doctor from Amsterdam, so we chatted quite happily all the way to London, covering politics, religion, family values, medicine, geography, and probably anything else you can think of. It was one of the types of conversations I came to Europe to have. The weather when I got to London was lovely and sunny - that didn't last long. All in all I'm exhausted but contented. Tomorrow is Greenwich, Tate Britain and 10 Downing Street...

D-Day

In a little over three hours I'll be on a plane to Heathrow. Everything feels so normal: soccer on the telly; Miro gaming up a storm on his computer; Mum organising everything in sight. it doesn't feel at all like this is the last time I'm going to see my home and family in at least a year, maybe two. I imagine this is due to either:

a) I'm giving this going-away moment an importance it doesn't really have, or
b) I haven't realised fully yet exactly what I'm getting myself into.

I'm putting my money on the latter. Either way, I can't back out now. And I don't want to. I think finally all my fears are starting to give way to excitement. This morning, I put my U2 CD on the stereo, pressed random, and said to myself,
"Please be 'Angel of Harlem'. Please be 'Angel of Harlem'."
'Angel of Harlem' came on, and I couldn't suppress my squeals and giggles of delight. I'm taking that as a good omen. It's time to set off for the airport now - see you on the other side!

Edging ever closer to the end of the diving board

Who knew things would get this far? For so many years Europe was an impossible dream - something to occupy my mind during an interminable bus ride or an Algorithms and Data Structures lecture. Now I can hold the aeroplane ticket in my hand, I have all the correct visas (I hope) and the entire affair is paid for. All I have to do is get on the plane in five days. Do I want to? I don't know. Here I am the conductor of my life; I know where everything is and how to work it. Everything is comfortable, safe, decadent. Across the seas is Europe: cultural mecca; historical treasure chest; diverse as a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. There lies the unknown, the threatening, the difficult. But in Europe lies also the invigorating, the thrilling, the amusing. This trip will not be easy, but it will be an adventure. Nothing of real value is ever easy. So I will get on the aeoplane, and I will have my adventures, and hopefully return a richer person. In experience of course - I have a strong feeling my new richness will not be reflected in my bank account.

Since this trip has taken more planning than the invasion of Normandy (and you all know how good I am at organisation, right?), sometimes I find myself thinking, "Why am I going to all this trouble?" So I've been diving into my trusty Lonely Planets, and let me tell you, nothing is more exhilarating than reading travel guides. Is that just me? It's definitely a case here of the anticipation being as good as the actual event. The only problem seems to be I cannot draw a line anywhere, since I'm just as excited by the prospect of doing the 9 day Kerry Walk along the Irish coast as I am about exploring Budapest or seeing the Tate Gallery. Somewhere in my mind I know it's physically impossible to cover the entire continent of Europe in 2 years, but for some reason most of my brain refuses to believe it. It will be interesting to see how much of Europe I am able to see by the time I have to come home. If Phileas Fogg can go around the world in 80 days, imagine what I can do in two years! At this moment the future is brimming with possibilities - I cannot wait to explore them!

There's not much left to do now except wait for Saturday to roll around, then jump off the diving board and hope I don't belly flop!

It's all coming together

Well it's almost 4 months until I leave for Europe, but seeing as I've already set up this blog I'd better put at least one entry in it, just so it looks like I know what I'm doing and how to use this thing. Anyway, the idea behind this is: Most people write bulk emails when they go on a trip; I've decided to keep a blog. Anyone that cares can check to see if it's updated any time they want, and everyone else won't have massive emails cluttering their inbox. As an added bonus, I'll have a ready-made diary of my trip when I come home. Everybody's happy.

The flights are booked and the deposits paid - I leave on Saturday May 14. So far the plan is: Land in London, see Bianca and the sights for a few days; then a whirlwind 21 day tour through Scandinavia and Russia; then settle down and work in Dublin for a few months; at Christmas to Argentina to visit the family; then to the USA for a visit (and to see my cousin); then back to Barcelona to work for a year. This plan can (and probably will) change at any given moment, but thanks to the internet revolution, most likely you'll know about it as soon as I do.

I don't know whether I'm more scared or excited. Hopefully my excitement will drown out my fear. I have no idea what to pack, I've already bought a $200 coat, then realised I'll be having 3 summers in a row - this summer, the European summer and then the South American summer. Hopefully we will see some of that famous UK rainy crappy weather so I can at least try out the thing.

Anyway, I'd better go and look for a second job, because otherwise I know I'll end up stuck in Vladivostok or someplace without enough money for a cup of coffee.