30 May 2006

Ode to my Oven Accompanied By County Cork Pictures

So, I finally took the time to put up with using bluetooth between my mobile and my iBook to get my photos off my phone and onto my 'puter. It was a tedious process, but since the cord doesn't have Mac compatible software, it was a requirement. So, to go with my earlier tales of woe in Cork - here are some of the pictures. One from my rainy Sunday in Blarney and one from my sunny Saturday in Cork. Enjoy the pictures.

And since people keep wondering - does my stove work? Will my stove ever work? How is my stove?

My oven would like to report that it is merrily able to cook me delicious food now that it turns on. About 2 weeks ago I finally gave in and e-mailed my landlord to ask if there was "some secret to Irish ovens". He responded by calling me that evening to ask what was occuring and when I explained to him my predicament he "hrrrmmmed" for a moment and then scheduled to stop in the next evening to have a look and drop of the manuals that I didn't have for my appliances.

I was utterly and completely humiliated at having to ask this question - it's an oven - it's got 2 dials - how hard can it be??? But no - it just blinked at me stating it's proud mastery of electricity but refusing to heat.

So when my landlord arrived the following night I wasn't surprised at my feeling of dread that this would be one of those "let's see how American Yvette is" events in my welcome to Ireland. And, as to not disappoint, the oven obliged with being a lovingly odd European appliance.....

You have to set the clock on the oven before you can get it to turn on. No matter what. Who'da thunkit?? Not me!!!

My landlord deftly set my clock and turned on the oven and there was a light and heat and everything!!! Blonde moment!

Somehow, the completely wordless oven needs it's clock set before it will turn on - and apparently it's this way to make it "the same throughout Europe"... ummmmm..... ok..... I still think it's weird. But my oven works wonderfully and I've been cooking in a lot now!


Cork City Centre
Originally uploaded by yvettemn.
And as my third trick for this evening, I'd like to once again proclaim that the rounds system in Ireland is entirely dangerous and very fun. Tuesday night I went out with a few coworkers to celebrate a work related triumph although having just gotten over food poisoning - I stuck to Diet Coke and water. Wednesday night I saw the Editors in concert which was absolutely amazing!! Thursday night I went out for yummy yummy Indian food. And Friday night I went out for "a pint". (The "a" part of that qualification is a complete misnomer - no matter who says it.) And then I spent the rest of the weekend doing chores, relaxing, trying to figure out what I'm doing with Amy when she visits and we head to Northern Ireland and making sure my entire weekend in London is all setup (I leave for London Friday night).

29 May 2006

slow moving Monday

I think I might be the only person who feels guilty about having a housekeeper come once a week. Seriously - it was a shock the first time, delightful the second, and now I just feel guilty! It makes me want to be cleaner! She's a delightful woman who speaks no English but does a lovely job at picking up after me. I just have to remind myself that this is her job and even if I'm not the one paying her fee someone is. And I'm honestly not ridiculously dirty or anything - she just does a few dishes, counters, sinks and sweeps. But but but.... I'm so spoiled!

22 May 2006

Weekend in Cork

I decided Thurs afternoon that I was really going away this weekend - not just thinking about it - and made room and train reservations for Cork in Southern Ireland. So Friday right after work I took off for Cork.

It was a trip with badness on the beginning and end, but a perfectly pleasant middle:
  • I had my camera stolen somewhere between Dublin and Cork on Fri which confounds me because it was in the bag between my legs the entire ride to Cork. (or I lost it - which I'm just as likely to have done) I didn't realize this till I was leaving the hotel the next morning. I wanted to sob with frustration. My new baby camera!!!
  • Got to the hotel and checked in. I started laughing uncontrollably when I did my normal "I'm in a hotel test the bed by flopping on it" entrance to the room. That was the most abysmal bed I've ever spent 5 mins on, let alone 3 nights. Ughs. Well, I guess I only really spent 2 nights on it since last night I didn't really sleep at all. Thank god the rest of the hotel was acceptable and the staff was friendly.
  • I was across the street from what has turned into my favorite pub ever. It just had so much character. There were lots of "regulars" and non-regular locals there. Both Fri and Sat (yes, it's sad that I went two nights when I thought I'd only go Fri - but it was that much fun) there were local musicians just sitting in a circle playing their hearts out. Mmmm - random Irish music with cute ass flutists who wink and buy you a pint. Good Fri night and pretty good Sat night (no flutist - so it didn't live up to it's preceding night).
  • Spent Saturday walking - I walked soooooooo disgustingly much. It was gorgeous and sunny out and Cork is an absolutely lovely city. I'd share pictures if I had them. Ok - so I have a few but I don't have the cable to get them off my mobile. The highlights were the pretty quaint local church I wandered into somewhere just outside the city centre, and the Cork City Gaol. Had an amazingly yummy dinner and then went back to Sin E.
  • Woke up to pouring rain Sun morning with 2 options for things to do: go to Blarney or go to Kinsale. I was either going to not-kiss the yucky Blarney Stone or go take a long walk on the beach and their surrounding hills. Due to the rain, I decided that Blarney would be more fun and because of this got to sleep in. Grabbed the bus to Blarney and did the touristy romp to the top of the castle where I hung myself upside down (eeep) over the air (and some safety rails) to air-kiss the Blarney Stone. I wasn't kissing that thing - germs! Then wandered the grounds forever in the rain (so pretty) and grabbed myself a great lunch at the local pub before catching the bus back. I was rained out, so after stopping in 2 stores for some shopping, I caught a showing of The DaVinci Code and grabbed pizza on my way to the hotel.
  • Got back happy and ready to go home to my Dublin apartment. And then hell broke loose in my stomach and I didn't sleep. So I spent all day today in bed or the bathroom hating life itself.
So that's that. If I ever figure out how to get my low-quality pictures off my mobile, I'll share with you a favorite or two.

14 May 2006

Rainy Sunday

After staring in consternation at the gazillion buttons and knobs on my washer, I managed to turn it on! There were no circuit breaker switches to confound me. It's now making spinning sounds like I've never heard before.. if it eats my underwear I'm going to be seriously upset!

I might not be able to turn the oven on (still) but at least the more important washer is now supposedly washing my clothes.

Oooo - it sounds like a plane turning off after landing... I'm concerned!

13 May 2006

Yvette's First Irish Pub Crawl

From Lonely Planet's Guide to Dublin
Pub Etiquette

The rounds system - the simple custom where someone buys you a drink and you buy one back - is the bedrock of the Irish pub culture. It's summed up in the Irish saying, 'it's impossible for two men to go to a pub for one drink.' Nothing will hasten your fall from social grace here like the failure to uphold this pub law. The Irish are extremely generous and one thing they can't abide is tight-fistedness.

Another golden rule about the system is that the next round starts when the first person has finished (preferably just about to finish) their drink. It doesn't matter if you're only halfway through your pint, if it's your round get them in.

Your greatest challenge will probably be trying to keep up with your fellow drinkers who may keep buying you drinks in every round even when you've still got a clatter of unfinished pints in front of you and you're sliding face first down the bar.

You should be aware that banter is the fibre of sociability. 'Slagging', or teasing, is the city's favorite pastime. If you can give as good as you get, they'll love you. Remember to pack a wad of self-deprecation, for they'll warm to you much quicker if you don't take yourself too seriously.

And now I'll start with a guide to how to be a single and alone traveler in Dublin:
  1. Spend a few days not smelling the brewing stench of the Guinness Factory.
  2. Walk around and watch for people standing outside pubs with pints and cigarettes. The pub with the fewest dodgy blokes standing outside is probably a winner.
  3. Now that you know your destination for dessert, go get a good dinner in you because that Irish beer is good strong stuff and drinking it on an empty stomach isn't advisable - even if you're only planning on one pint. And if you have a glass of wine with dinner, you're just acting like the locals because it is Friday night after all.
  4. Go find that pub that you were eyeing earlier and once you find the right door, enter, stop, scan the crowd and find yourself a perch on a barstool right near a friendly looking bartender.
  5. Order a pint of Guinness. Put it down to let it settle out.
  6. While waiting, look left and right to see who's there - and if there's a nice looking person start talking to him or her.
  7. Continue talking and start drinking the Guinness that is now beckoning you.
  8. Ireland is a land of merry chaos - go with it.
And that is how I had a fantastic night of pub-crawling in Dublin. More specifically, that's how I started an unimaginable night rambling through Dublin.

I walked through the yucky rain to the crepe stand I really wanted dinner at, but they were closing so I went to the Italian joint next door. After a nice dinner I decided to walk to a bar I'd seen walking around Dublin my first night here that just really caught my eye: The International Bar. I squirmed my way through the smokers and drinkers on the stoop (there's no smoking inside establishments in Ireland). At first I didn't see any empty places to sit, but I worked my way to the back of the pub and found a stool. I ordered my first Guinness - and let it sit obviously to let the bubbles fall through appropriately. I'm rather amazed that I could actually drink Guinness after the atrocious smells of the past 2 weeks. But I did.

There was a local entertainment paper on the bar next to the woman sitting to my right. I asked her if I could see it to check if it was dated through this weekend. It wasn't, but we struck up a great conversation. The guy she was with came back in having gone out for a smoke and we were all just chatting away and drinking our pints.

2 (or 3? can't remember) pints later we'd talked pretty much every taboo subject you could think of for an international contingent to talk about in the first acquaintance: politics, American politics, religion, sexuality and the perceptions of one country on another. My lovely drinking companions were Siobhane and Paul - 2 native Dubliners - although Siobhane now lives in Berlin and was on holiday so had gotten together with Paul to catch up. However, my new "welcoming party" to Ireland decided to move onto another pub and next thing I know Siobhane has one of my arms and Paul has the other and I'm being dragged half a block away to Grogan's Pub. It was PACKED! And after Siobhane spilled a pint on some rather unattractive lady's lap and picked up a round for our table, we were back to chatting away. Some more pints later we had flipped through the entertainment guide for this weekend (Grogan's had it) and decided to make our way to The Sugar Club which was a short hike away. Swigging down the last of our pints, we were off...

After traipsing silly-illy through St Stephen's Green, we made a quick top off at Hartigan's because crossing the street was looking daunting to Paul. Ran into Paul's brother and some of his brother's friends so they bought us our fortifying round. This was a true no-frills pub which my lil' guide to Dublin describes as follows:
This is about as spartan a bar as you'll find in the city, and is the daytime home to some serious drinkers who appreciate the quiet no-frills surroundings.

Then we finally made it across the whole 2 lane street to the Sugar Club and after grabbing a great table towards the bar - we managed to get drinks and started listening to a kickass ska band. Siobhane dragged us both to bring us down to the dance floor and we alternated songs dancing and drinking for the rest of the evening. Since it was a club license, they were able to serve beer past the pub cutoff of 2am so I was there until around 3am when I finally bid my newfound Dublin friends cheers and grabbed a cab back to my flat with 2 new phone numbers in my mobile and many wishes to have my visit Berlin by Siobhane.

Talking to my mother quickly (thank you mother for putting up with your rather hysterical daughter) I dragged my drunk ass to bed. Woke up at 9am with a hangover that could kill a cow having had at least 10 pints last night...... After a rough day, I finally got out of bed for a "final" time at 4pm feeling human. And now that I've fortified myself with a yummy sandwich and tea I feel human again.

Now that's one hangover I earned by participating in the Irish National Sport: Drinking and Pub Crawling... and I don't regret it in the least!

Traditional Irish Men Served 12-3

Ask and ye shall receive. You asked - so here you go! Who wants which man? They are traditional smoking, drinking, Irish men with accents!

I was just walking from dinner to a pub in the rain in the City Centre when I found where all the male prostitutes stand??? Hrmmm....

The pictures a little blurry because I was laughing, it was raining, and I hate snapping photos with subjects that are human that are unaware they're being photographed. So I didn't go for a take2. But it gets the point across.

11 May 2006

The Evilest Oven in all of Ireland (and the world?)

I cannot get this oven to turn on. It's been sitting with it's dials all turned on for the past 15 minutes and it's still cold cold cold. Now, I will admit that I didn't realize that Ireland has little light switches that act as sort of breakers for every electrical outlet and there's a red one for the stove. I found this out the hard way when I couldn't use the stovetop. But, bloody hell, it's on! - the light's blinking!


Dinner Waits.
Originally uploaded by yvettemn.
In the meantime, I'm staring at my pizza longingly and hungrily. I've started on my glass of wine early as I have a stare down with the oven.

I wish I could console myself with the fact that I finally have broadband. Eircom came through.

10 May 2006

Eircom 1, Comcast 0

Getting my internet actually setup in my apartment is proving to be rather hysterical. I feel really bad for my landlord who's the one that with our agreement is responsible for having to at this point threaten the phone company (DSL - wonderful).

But I must say - my landlord is absolutely hysterical and adorable. I've never met him, but our correspondence keeps getting more ridiculous. He asked me today if there's anything that compares to the annoyance of this in the states. I didn't think - I just answered a loud "YES". Comcast Cable. But seeing what Eircom is doing, I think Eircom is worse than Comcast hands-down.

At least this time, I'm not the one calling!

Oh Eircom - hook up my internet.

Thank you landlord for being so nice!!

The Office

Let's talk a little about the office here... It's very different from the Seattle office.
  • It's one big room with 3 offices for the very few managers here squeezed into them. All the developers are just at these huge joint desks with no cube partitions.
  • During the day it's exceptionally quiet - I'm used to people shouting over tall cube partitions or standing on things to look over cube walls. I've held conversations with colleagues before routinely who are more than just across the single divisional wall. Here, there's no talking -- until the phones start ringing around 4pm which is around when Seattle Folks start getting into the office. Thank god for my iPod.
  • Location location location.... meaning lunch options lunch options lunch options.
    • The Seattle office is located in the International District - this means lunch is Asian Asian Asian or Specialties Deli -- unless you desier walking to Pioneer Square. The Dublin office is located in the midst of the Guiness Brewery. This means there's nothing around to eat so you're pretty much limited to 3 options: go to the Spar (posher version of 7-11 with a sandwhich counter), go to Manny's (pretty decent panini lunch spot), or go get free admittance to the Guiness Storehouse Visitor Center and skip the tour to go to the resteraunt on the top -- all of this, again, unless you desire walking to Temple Bar.
  • Hysterically, there are 2 lunch shifts pretty much: the software developers and their managers; everyone else and their managers.
  • The people that I used to have rather entertainingly disjoint and at-odds conversations with via e-mail and other correspondence methods now sit behind me. So we're now nice to each other and I get so much more done.
  • Paperwork? I thought paperwork was non-existant at the Seattle office - ha!! Dublin shows them how to make paperwork non-existant.
  • The time difference and the small size of this office makes me much much more productive - not nearly so many interruptions and pretty much no e-mail after my first purge in the morning.
  • It's so damn international it's wonderful!!! Today's lunch talk was politics in formerly Communist countries (I was one of the few people who hasn't lived through the abolition of Communism in my home country at our table); amazing stuff.
  • The people are friendly and my team is hysterical - talk about team bonding. I think the Tester for my team and I are going to get kicked out of the office some mornings though... it's so quiet (see above) that when we get into our normal morning gossip session much laughter ensues and it sounds so loud! We've taken it down to a whisper with some practice since our desks are caddy-corner to each other and we tend to play bumper roller-chairs all day.
  • Too many people, too little space - love your neighbor!
  • It's ridiculously weird being in the top 5% of seniority in the office.
There's the quick and dirty rundown. Hope it didn't bore you too much - but you guys do keep asking, so I aim to please.

09 May 2006

Hate Mail to my Nose

Dear nose,

Why did you suddenly regain your ability to smell and stop leaking? I mean, I'm happy about the lack of necessity for tissues - you are red eventhough I loved you with lotiony tissues.. but why do you have to smell? Couldn't you have waited until I got to work to regain your ability to inhale? I mean, wouldn't it be nice to walk by the Guiness Brewery for one more morning (because they only seem to use whatever part of the process smells unghastly in the morning) in utter blissful ignorance about the wretchedly nasty smell? That was the only reason I was ok with being sick - and I'm still sick - but you've given me back my sense of smell to taunt me with the gag-nasty zone that is my walk to work.

Nose, today you are not my friend - I'm glad you're raw from being sick - you deserve it for making me smell Guiness this morning.

With much scorn,
Yvette

ps - to people who are illegally reading my nose's mail. Yes, I am bitter about the smell of Guiness. It's just that bad.

07 May 2006

What to do on Sunday in Dublin?

So, although I was feeling utterly miserable, my cough had let up so I went to see The Fiery Furnaces last night at Whelan's. It was a great show and I loved the opener (Scissors for Lefty from San Fransisco).

Today, I'm not sure what I'm up to. I've been scouring for things I want to see and do in Dublin as well as in the rest of Ireland. I finally have an explorer for the rest of Ireland (although I'll probably go see Galway in the Inis Mor Cliffs another weekend since she's already seen them).

In other random news, I was thinking maybe I'd check out a movie since it's a very low-energy source of entertainment. In reading the reviews of a girlie movie, Tristan and Isolde I found the following line far to humorous:
Another major faux pas is that the Irish are depicted as organised bloodthirsty, slave trading warmongers. At no time in the history of this country were we organised.

Ahh - happy Sunday all. I'm off to debate movie versus getting myself ready to take a walk over to Trinity College to see if I can get in to see the Book of Kells.

05 May 2006

TV in Ireland

My channel options are limited as I'm crashed on the couch whimperingly sick on my first full weekend in Ireland (exciting eh?)

However, I do have the following insights to share with my dear friends and family:
  • Beauty and the Geek: The geeks are still geeky, the beauties are still attractive and ditzy..... BUT - at least this time if you close your eyes the geeks have a sexy British accent. I made it through a whole five minutes before being disgusted with myself (I think I could make it through the US version for about 5 seconds if I really tried - but that's not one of my life's ambitions).
  • Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on BBC1: I found the most random late night talk show on BBC1 - but it rocks a lot - the host is hysterical. It's got the great British drawling sarcasm and the interviews were fun (as is this band that's currently playing - I didn't catch their name - dagnabbit). Keifer Sutherland and Kristin Davis were hysterical.
  • Shipwrecked Battle of the Islands:Hysterical remake of Survivor. It's like the rich kids version of it with more hookups, more stuff and completely twisted rules. Ahhh - the Brits and their take on reality tv - wonderful.

In other words, Irish TV is highly entertaining for a changeup - and whenever it starts to disappoint there's always the channel showing the original episodes of WB shows in syndication.....

03 May 2006

Oh bloody hell!

I'm verymuchso obsessed with the nastyass smell of Guiness brewing. Maybe it's something to do with the gag reflex that kicked in while I tried to hold my breath for 0.5 miles this morning on my way to the office and the fact that the smell evolved from nasty rotting beef stroganoff to nasty rotting beef stroganoff doused with old vinegar and left in a stable. Double nasty yuckies! I love beef stroganoff but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat it again.

In other news, I'm gravely embarassed by my inability to comprehend some people through their Irish accents. You always learn accents over time, but it makes me really feel bad that I can't understand someone just because they have an accent - especially when it's doing something mundane like ordering lunch. On the other hand, I'm learning some new ways of phrasing things so that I'm understood. Always qualify the amount of beer you want (a pint); most Americans like red sauce on their chips; bloody hell sounds good with an Irish accent (and I'll say it even with my American accent).

My amusement of the day was babbling to Christy on IM while trying to figure out why I couldn't use the | key on my keyboard (it's an integral key if you're a programmer). It was completely out of place - rather than being in the upper right it was in the middle left of the keyboard!! And don't get me started on making the keyboard type the euro sign (which I can't figure out on my lovely American keyboard here); the keyboard indicates that if you press some miraculous combination with the 4 (not shift - that's showing the American-centric-culture of computers and shift-4 still makes a $), but if you press some other combonation with 4 you will get the euro sign. However, the keyboard is a big fat hairy liar (ok - it's not hairy). You hit Shift-Control-e to get the euro sign. Who'da thunkit?

Off to enjoy my absolutely phenomenal dinner courtesy of M&S. I hate to admit that shopping for yummy food at Marks & Spencer makes me feel absolutely and completely dirty........

Will I ever drink Guiness?

So, although the pub where I grabbed dinner tonight proclaimed that "beer is what was invented so the Irish wouldn't take over the world" I still think that the Irish could've fought back with Guiness.

If the mass population had to live and play and work near where that stuff is brewed, they'd not be so excited to drink it. (or maybe they would?) I work right next to the Guiness Brewery here and yesterday when I went to find the office I noticed the neighborhood smelled rancid. I chalked this up to the fact that it's a sketchier part of Dublin and that's just that. Today I got off the Luas and was getting lost on my way to work when I inhaled a lungfull (or 2) of the same putrid stench: the smell of beef stroganoff gone very bad; the smell of Guiness brewing. YUCK!

Needless to say, I didn't touch Guiness tonight with dinner eventhough I haven't experienced the supposed joy of "Guiness tastes so much better in Ireland". Instead, I stuck with Smithwicks which was happy making.

01 May 2006

Why do I beat myself up in new cities?


Look Right
Originally uploaded by yvettemn.

"Look Right" - thank you crosswalk for the warning. I have the utter inability to understand the lines on the road and what designates the direction traffic is supposed to go. It's not all multi-directional streets - the one way streets are the worst. So I love these crosswalks - they are my lifesavers.

This being said, I felt comfortable walking 10ish miles today to orient myself in Dublin. That is, until I got back to my apartment to find my gate card wasn't working and I was loaded down with the heavy part of my groceries that I didn't get yesterday. Woe is me.


Tulips & Christ Church
Originally uploaded by yvettemn.
I managed to see: Dublin Castle, the Beatty Library, all of Grafton Street, Christ Church and the office. Plus I found the Tesco which is a marvelous and wonderful thing.

But now I'm not moving. Except to go out and get dinner - because although I have food, I found out the hard way that my stove and oven both don't work. Hi landlord, you get to hear from me yet again.

I can't get over how people do a complete doubletake when I start talking. It's either wide eyes, or suddenly stopping mid whatever they were doing before and staring for a second and then looking down embarassed. You'd think with all the random accents around here that an American accent would be just another one for the recordbook. I mean, I've heard 'em all by now - predominantly (the non UK and non Ireland ones) French, Spanish and Italian accents. But Americans? Ha! Except the one woman in the grocery store who asked me for directions back to where she was staying. Now that was hysterical.

Thank you for shopping at M&S!


Thank you for shopping at M&S!
Originally uploaded by yvettemn.
I'm far too amused by my adventure today which included running through the rain to M&S for groceries (and a few other stops). I really need to acclimatize myself to the time change. Which means I should get to bed now. But I leave y'all with this hommage to M&S - for my coworkers fair - happy Monday!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering. When I learn to speak Gaelic (all you Americans think I'm coming home with an Irish accent - we'll see about that)... well, when I learn to speak Gaelic I'll be surfing Google in Irish! Yup, that's right - it detected my ip's location and asked me if I wanted to view the page in Gaelic.