To Dublin and Back... with lots of events and sillyness inbetween.


Wow, I think this is quite possibly the longest I've gone without blogging. It was nice to have a break. It's not easy trying to discipline yourself to write every day...

Left very early ie: 4h20 on Thursday morning last week. Stayed up till 2h30... so the two hours of sleep didn't do me much good. I had gone to the Hayward gallery with Hazel to finally see the contemporary Japanese culture exhibit. It was really good. I especially like the piece that this one guy did, that involved transporting an octopus from a fish market on one side of Japan and then setting it free in the ocean at the other end of the country. It was done in video format and was accompanied by a really nice 11x17 run out of his octopus projects. I'll bring it into work one day soon and transcribe some of the paragraphs. He's truly brilliant. I like his mind.

Got to the airport with not a minute to spare. 500 people (at least) stood in the line in front of me... to get through customs. Knowing full well that if I waited I would never make my flight... I sauntered around and nestled into the front half of one of the lines. Presto.. Through customs and onto the flight! Arrive to find fab Denise waiting for me at the airport. Indeed it is still such a thrill to re-unite with a friend like her after all these years... mind you now after having seen her for 8 out the past 30 odd days.. it's kind of hard to say we never see each other. Had a great time on Thursday just relaxing and sleeping while she was at work. I read some Wittgenstein and Butler (some light reading provided by the fab Hazel) *smirk*. After a few hours my fidgets got the better of me and I laced up and went for a jog. It didn't take me long to realize that jogging in Dublin was not a common occurrence. People stared at me with worried looks on their faces, wondering if I was being chased! Ah it was all good.

Friday night Denise and I met up with her BF named K.P and his friend Simon at a bar in town. We stopped in briefly at a Kebab shop so that KP could get something to eat.... That is where I snapped my fav. photo op in recent history. On the board listing all the specials I found a listing for -> Homos £2.50 Wow what a bargain! LOL. Don't believe me? write me, I'll send you the pic. We ended up at Whelan's and had a great time dancing to some Indy tunes that reminded us that we were getting old. Ah well, you're never too old to dance the pixies and stone roses! Met up with Dan and Sally there too! It's neat to see people that you know from home in places that are normally out of context.

Saturday was a relaxing day. Did a wee bit of shopping with D and just generally hung out. Bought a new pair of pumas... thought I deserved a treat... Went out again Saturday night... didn't have very much energy to stay out all that late so I left Denise and her fab friends at the Tomato bar and walked home. It's quite a surreal thing, to walk through the streets of Dublin at 2am. They are just teeming with people... not just that, it's kind of surreal because everyone who is in the street is between the ages of 18 and 35... and everyone is pissed. The only thing I can liken it to, is Frosh week in Ottawa, where tons of students from both Uni's are all milling about.

Sunday was all about rest and catching up on the marathon episode of Eastenders... sad to say, I've not been here quite 4 months and I already am up to speed on all the trash TV! We finally ventured out in the evening to get some food. We met up with Brendan, Denise's brother. Followed by, what is now my favorite Dublin bar " The Globe". D and KP went home to rest and I stayed on and chatted with Brendan. It was a good laugh.

Monday Denise had the day off of work and she and I did a little bit more xmas shopping or "crimbo" shopping as they say here... had a nice lunch and then headed to the Guinness storehouse. It's a really neat place. Saw how it was made did the whole tourist thing... It's strange because I normally have to be dragged kicking and screaming to any activity such as that... Got my dad and grandfather some neat little souvenirs. Met KP and went to see Zoolander that night. It was a funny film... but as always, they give too much away in the previews...

Headed home early Tuesday morning and before I knew it, it was 13h and I was back at my desk with stress pain in the neck wondering where my holidays had went...

Doing the late shift tonight, good time for me to write this all down.... so much in the works leading up to mass... I just can't wait to have some more time away from this madness!
Yea, so I can't be arsed to put up all the 150 odd pics I took... if you're interested in seeing any drop me a line sj_chick@yahoo.com