Ancient Ireland with Amy

We hired a car to take us up to Boyne Valley. Amy had a good nights rest (or as good as you can get on an air mattress in a new place with strange noises) and headed off to County Meath. Amy may have worked at AMAA with me, but she luckily is not an architect, her interest lie with archaeological artifacts and not the stunning buildings of Ireland. The first stop on our little bus tour was Knowth for Neolithic passage tombs and megalithic artwork. What made this site so interesting is the amount of kerbstones that show ancient artwork. We climbed to the top of the burial mounds to get a great view of the valley.

Next stop was Newgrange on the other side of the valley which is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world. How handy that it is right by where we live. Only 17 minutes for 4 days a year around the Winter Solstice the light will pour into to illuminate the passageway. There is a lotto draw, but of course I forgot to put my name in since only a few people each year can watch the event live from the passageway. You just have to hope for sunshine that day..... now I think I have more luck winning that lotto then sunshine.

We took a lunch break, and were smart enough to pack our own lunch of cheese, bread, granola bars and juice. We save lots of money and precious time by bringing our lunches and since Amy was a vegetarian we did not have to worry about trying to find something with no meat. We loaded up into the car and headed towards Monasterboice which have some of the tallest Celtic Crosses in County Louth. The crosses are covered with pictographs from both the new and old testament. It is always interesting roaming around old cemeteries, especially ones that have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years.

We then headed to Hills of Tara since there will be a new motorway going straight through the middle of it in the next year or so. This is where St Patrick's church is and some of the old ring forts were for the High Kings of Ireland. The hills are so green that I had to run down the hills and then roll down them. Since a lot of the Druids used to go there and the birds migrate over it since there are strong magnetic connections, I also decided to try some headstands, which were quite successful. We went to the fairy tree to make our wish, and I found my old wish there from several years ago. And of course that wish came true! So I made another and Amy made one too.

The three of us rushed back to the car to make our last stop of the day, Trim castle. This medievel castle used to be the centre of commerece of that county back in the day. It has also been used for such movies as Bravehart. Sadly it was closed by the time we got there, but we got to walk around and climb all over it. Ben has now become an expert driver by this point and flew back to Dublin. We ended the night heading back to Bruno's for a large dinner with a large group of all our friends that Amy could meet.

Sing Song at Karen's

This summer has already been about 10 times better then last year. Since Karen has a large terrace she decided that it was high time to get a BBQ. Amy had just flown into town from the States so I tucked her into bed and headed back to Karen's. Karen's pad is only a 4.32 minute walk from work. She had loads of food and gargle.

As the sun set, the iPod was running out of juice and since we were not going to be short for tunes, Niall headed back to the office for that close walk to pick up the guitar he keeps at the office. Niall was giving guitar lessons for a while and Monday nights are jamming night he always has one there. Sean, Colin and Tom have been part of the jamming group so we where expecting great things from them.



While they were getting warmed up, I get the mood set by singing a little Tenacious D. We pulled out the whiskey and tucked in for an entertaining night. Maurizio was loving the whiskey with Karen and I as we took turns finishing off Karen's good stuff. As the boys were playing Karen also helped out by strumming the strings for them. It was great to watch all of them in action. As the session started to turn mental, I headed home since we were going to get up early to go sightseeing with Amy......

J&J: American Invasion

Since I am so good at keeping up on this blog these days...About a month ago my Mom (Jean) and Aunt Judy came all the way over to see us here in Dublin. It wasn't an easy trip for them, for a variety of reasons, but they made it and we were able to do quite a lot in a fairly short period of time.

They were only here for about five days, so we had to try and get a lot in within only a few days without sending them both (or ourselves for that matter) to the hospital from exhaustion. To be completely honest, there's not all that much to do in Dublin. In a few days you could cover all of the major sites and get a good feel for the city. But, as I see it, most of the really great things about Ireland are not in the cities. I suppose it's a bit like Portland. Portland itself isn't loaded with weeks of interest, but you can get to a lot inside of an hour by car. So it goes for Dublin.

On Thursday they landed and I escorted them from the Airport to the hotel. Then I had to go to work. They were exhausted for the most part, though, so they were fine with just resting and getting their bearings for the hours that I would be stuck at work. That night we had a nice dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants and just called it early.

Friday was all walking. Mariah had to work, but I took the day off and we did the main Dublin sites: Stephen's Green, Grafton Street, Kilmainham Goal (Jail), the Spire, etc. We skipped a few things, like the Guiness Brewery, that weren't really of interest, and there was a lot of breaks for sitting and the like, but we made it. For the evening I took them out to our thumb stamp of an apartment (they stayed in a Hotel near Stephen's Green to save all of us from feeling like sardines in our place) and we had a great dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, Diep (my favorite restaurant here so far).

Saturday I got up early and picked up the rental car so we could explore the outer reaches of the Dublin surroundings. So, Saturday and Sunday were spent driving all around the not so distant areas including: The Avoca Weavers Mill (something my mom, an avid fibers fan, really wanted to see), Glendalough, Powers Court Waterfall, Johny Fox's Tavern, and countless one-car-should-fit-here-but-lets-try-two-ok? winding Irish roads, flanked tightly by hedges and stone walls and...sheep... I'm not going too deeply into these places because most of them have been covered in one post or another on this blog previously, and I don't want to bore... You can see the pictures from this trip here if you need a refresher or you missed those posts.

The weather they got for this trip ended up just being amazing! It was bright and shiny. A series of consecutive beautiful spring days (though the Irish consider May the start of summer), so luck was on our side for enjoying the beautiful landscape without the hinderance of that wet stuff that falls from those big puffy gray things in the sky...Rain?...Clouds? For a few days there were able to forget what those were.

Moday we decided to get passes on the commuter train that runs through the many coastal downs just outside of Dublin and see a few of those. Mariah and I both had this day off as a bank holiday (for May Day I believe...). Again it was a beautiful day, but this was going to turn out the way many an Oregon beach visitor might find the ocean's edge. There was a point on the train that it was nothing but glorious sunlight. Then the train passed through what must have been an invisible wall holding in some of the thickest fog I have ever seen. I wouldn't say fog is common in Dublin, so I was shocked. When we got to our destination (Bray, south of Dublin) the fog moved out a bit and we got filtered sun here and there, but the wind was cold and biting (like it always seems to be in Dublin). We took a short jaunt and then decided we would try another town. We headed north of Dublin to Howth (also featured on the blog previously). The weather was better, but not much. Starving by then, we spent most of our time standing in line to get fish and chips. We sat around where we could find sun, but this wasn't nearly as successful a day as some of the others. At least we had some nice views from the train, though. The funny thing is, just 20 minutes away from all of this in Dublin you were hard pressed to get out of the sun...

The next morning they headed back to the US having completed their European adventure. We went back to work...

Operation Aussie Out

Luke has been my new Aussie mate at work, but with slowing down, the office did not renew his 2 year work visa so he had to go. He did end up working for another architecture firm where his girlfriend works within just a week or so of leaving here. We were all sad to see him go, it will not be the same going down to the first floor printer for a bit of banter. So in true OMP fashion we had to send him off proper. We headed to Dicey Riley's, not one of our regular places for once, which had a great outside beer garden area, dancing and stiff drinks. Good combination.

Tullia and I headed in late so the lads could get a head start on us and maybe we could keep up into the wee hours of the morning. Luke was having me try all sorts of whiskies since that is what I drink. Needless to say, several drinks later I was tearing up the dance floor for the next few hours. There was a small group of us that made it to the very end. I had one of the lads escort me part of the way home since I was so hot from dancing and a bit of a walk is good before heading in for the night especially when it is not a rainy night! I tucked myself into bed by 4:00 and was the superstar back up by 8:00 to make it into work to let everyone in. Lucuzade to the rescue to get me through that next day!

New Social Committee Outing

Niall's girlfriend got our committee's name on the VIP list to a black tie affair after work for an opening of a new nightclub that wants social committees all over Dublin to book their venues there. How could we pass up gate crashing a party with free food and booze! It was a 'hot' Dublin day and I was actually got sunburned sitting out at lunch that day, so Anna and I started drinkng the super sweet red fruity drinks. This was my first mistake, always avoid the drinks that are red and you cannot taste the booze in! The team comprises of Me, Anna, Niall, Tom, Declan and Moiz.

There were stilt walkers mingling with people, jugglers, Little People as the bouncers and other characters dressed up to entertain us. We waited for Tom to arrive to kick off our first actually meeting. By the time he got there, we were feeling pretty good and the ideas were flowing! By this time I had Anna grab the pitcher of red stuff and fill our glasses one last time as the bar was closing. The champagne was still flowing strong, so of course we switched to that (second mistake).

We headed downstaris for the actually presentation of the facts when the free food and drinks then ended. We were not ready to go home quite yet, so on to Jack & Coke! We danced the night away to a great band that was playing that we may hire for our own Christmas party. That has been my task of late trying to book, and so far not much luck for the venue. The place we were at was nice, but not our type of place. By about 1ish I knew I had to head out to collect Amy first thing the next morning. And oh, how that next morning was a long one.... OUCH! The craic was ninety so it was worth every minute of it. We are a good team and have so many great ideas for the coming year to entertain the office!

Strange Anomaly #17

I know I am fitting in when I have been stopped twice in one week by Irish people and been asked for directions. Not only was I asked, but I knew the right answer and could get them right there! Now I am the anomaly!

Oompa Loompas

My office is sponsering a co-ed tag rugby team. I have never played rugby before but have been watching loads of it since moving here. We have only been training the last few weeks and I will miss the first 4 games due to a mate visiting from the States and our upcoming Holiday (more to come on that in future posts). The guys have all played since they were little and have not made it to training, but the girls have come out in full force. John O'Mahony, the OM in OMP, came out to just watch, but he could not just stand by and watch us, so he started to ref. Next thing we knew, he pulled on the tag shorts over his suit and started playing with us. Claire tried her hardest to catch up with him, but he is so fast! THe gang in the photo is Me, Ruth, Edell, Catherine, then Leslie, Tullia, Claire and Katrin.

My side had 3 while the other side had 4 while we were scrimmaging against each other. I am the biggest girl and maybe the most aggressive and competetive. May not be good, but I will try my darndest. I scored a few tries and had great craic trying to catch Claire as she blazed past me, she is a triathon athlete and can run! We crushed the opposition with 7 tries for their 1. I do my little ballarina turns to avoid my tag getting pulled and have tried to master the dodge and weave. It is a total workout and great fun. I have also been 'hired' as Tullia's personal trainer to get her in shape. The weather has been nice almost the whole month of May, so it has been quite a pleasure to meet in the park after work and throw the ball around and run drills. I cannot wait until the first game I can make it to! Who knows where those pesky bruises come from.

Strange Anomaly #16

There are rubbish bins all over the city and they have small cigarette disposal on the top of street garbage cans. Since you shouldn't litter by just stamping them out on the ground it is better then just throwing the still smoldering butt way. But still there are rubbish bin fires. Sometimes there may be a little metal box mounted on the side of the building for cigarette disposal as well. Good ideas to help keep butts off the streets!

Next Social Committee Member

Our social committee has done an amazing job over the last year and more. Sports day, skiing, Christmas party, pub quiz and other fun nightw out. But all good things come to an end. To mark the end of an era, we headed to our local pub, McSorley's, and had a few scoops with the group with OMP graciously paying. As Pierce, Michelle, Marcella and Glenn step down the new kids in town are Tom, Niall, Moiz, Declan, Anna and I will take over. Sean just happened to get in the picture as well. We hope to make the next year just as fun as they did.



It also was Michelle's last night out before she left to go to school for HR training. Claire and I are going to miss one of our partners in crime! But we know we will see her again soon!

Change in Politics

Our Taoiseach (tea-shock) Bertie Ahern stepped down from office April 2nd and he will tender his resignation to the President May 6th. The Taoiseach is the 'Prime Misister' of the country although there is a President, Mary McAleese When I first moved here it was elections and Bertie had just been voted in for a third time for his party Fianna Fáil (fee-na fall). The political parties are Fianna Fáil, Fianna Gael, Progressive Democrats, Sinn Féin (IRA legitimized), Green Party and Labour Party. Their terms last for 5 years, so Bertie did hold office for the last 11 years all during the big boom in Ireland. It is a long story but the reason he stepped down was misappropriation of funds. He just addressed the Dáil (or what would be a congress per se) for the last time before the Tánaiste (tan-ist-a) a sort of 'vice-president' takes over. Since the party was voted into power within the party they voted who would take over and it happened to be the Tánaiste Brian Cowen. One of Bertie's last acts was in front of the US congress stating that Ireland is at peace for the first time. Not a bad way to go out I must say!