I spent about 2.5 hours in Tesco yesterday spending 76Euro on groceries and toilettries. Long live thee credit card! But you know how it is, you need to have a base stock of food at home and then things here are really expensive so it does make sense. I also bought a cork screw but I think I left it in the shopping cart, as I couldn’t find it anywhere at home in my bags. *sniff* Good thing that was only 2.99 but still – another night without good wine (as in without the cork in the bottle).
But yeah, I also got some surimi (those fake crab sticks) so I made sushi this morning for my lunch box. Its cuteness never fails to brighten my day at lunch time. Will upload the picture later. Can’t wait to eat it! Yum! Still haven’t found ranch dressing but I did find garlic and herb dressing which looked a bit like it so I’m trying that with celery today. Sorry for boring you but I love food! 😀
Anyways, after hauling all that home last night – my shoulders are still hurting – I just had some toast and tea and then watched 5 episodes of Sex and the City and briefly talked to my Mom but their phone line was kind of broken and cut us off. Oh I also chatted with an old roommate from Charlotte times. We used to always fight because he never cleaned but our chat last night was quite nice. Always good to catch up with old acquaintances.
This morning I am wearing one pair of my new shoes (black ballerinas) and I love them but unfortunately when I got to the office my one foot was bleeding pretty badly. Outsh! Good thing my company makes band-aids.
Oh and also on my way to work today, guess what I saw! A car with Hanover license plates! Home sweet home! Was pretty surprised to see one here.
By the way, the phots on flickr are from my walk to work yesterday just to show you the horrible sidewalk and all the trash that’s everywhere. Surprisingly, one corner looked much better this morning with only about 5 pieces of trash (we’re not just talking chewing gum but bigger stuff like cups, newspaper…) laying around. 🙂
Today’s agenda has a trip to Lidl on it because they have clothes airers (laundry racks) on sale and I need one. Used my last pair of black socks this morning and well, now one of them is bloody. Ewww! 😉
Alrighty, have a fabulous day and enjoy your lunches!
Sunny Pancake Day
Happy Pancake Day everyone!
Wikipedia.org:
Pancake Day
In United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, Shrove Tuesday is known colloquially as Pancake Day. The traditional pancake is a very thin one, (like a French crêpe) which is served immediately and optionally sprinkled with caster sugar (confectionery, superfine or powdered sugar in the United States) and a dash of fresh lemon juice or alternatively drizzled with golden syrup or jam.
In Australia, UnitingCare Australia (the social services arm of the Uniting Church in Australia) has promoted Pancake Day as a nation-wide community event that raises awareness for the plight of disadvantaged people by raising money for UnitingCare’s work.
So of course I had to eat some pancakes today. You know, when in Rome do as Romans do or as in my case when in Dublin, do as Dubliners do. 😉 Well alright so almost as Dubliners do because I don’t have a whisk or a mixer at my place and thus I just ate the ALDI pancakes that you can see in my lunch box. 😀
Sunny Dublin
Woke up in shock yesterday: the sun was shining and that on a Saturday and not a work day! Woooohoooooo! Of course I had to take advantage of that and so I went to the city centre and strolled around. I had a nice walk up the Liffey River on the little boardwalk they have and then took the lift up to the Chimney – an old chimney of the Jameson destillery from which you have a beautiful view over the city up to the mountains. Gorgeous!
From there I walked to the south side of the river and got some Italian pizza wrap for lunch which I ate at Dublin Castle. Last time there I couldn’t find the castle garden but this time I did and so I sat on a little stone bench in the sun there for a while. Felt so nice to have the sun shine into my face and the warmed stones in my back. After a while I set off to Trinity College to get some more pictures with blue sky and the sun. I only hung out there for a tiny bit because my co-worker texted me and asked if I wanted to join her and her hubby for coffee downtown. So of course I agreed and we had a cup at the Powerscourt Townhouse Shopping Centre. So beautiful in there as it really used to be a residence for this Powerscourt family. We also walked around it a bit to look around and Aly and Eamon bought a pretty painting at a gallery there. We decided to have some pints then because I hadn’t yet set foot into an Irish pub and so we did that. They serve Coors Light with ice cubes here! Talk about one cold beer! Never seen that before but it didn’t taste much different – just damn cold!
In other news, the Irish girl moved into the room next to mine on Friday night and we had a few glasses of wine together that day. She seems really friendly so that takes away another pro moving issue on my list. I also found an air mattress at argos.ie for 30€ so I’m almost certain that I won’t move now. The people at the nice place actually offered me the room but I think if I move, I’m gonna move to a place with an ensuite bathroom. Otherwise I’ll stick it out here.
Alrighty, it’s another sunny day here so I’m thinking about going to Dalkey on the shore or do something outside anyways. Have a great Sunday!!
Edit 4pm: It got really gray and cloudy so I stayed home and relaxed. Should probably work on the diploma thesis now. 😉
Who’s talking??
I always thought I could speak English but then, what is it the people here speak?! Irish English sure is different from American English (and obviously from German ;-)).
For example, everything here is grand, gorgeous, lovely, perfect. They say “Oh this soup is gorgeous!” Uhm no, sorry, it’s delicious I’d say.
What’s really cute is, when they say words that have a u in them like bug, stuck, luck, bugger off. They pronounce it more like the u in sugar or as the oo in look. Cute! (which they pronounce the right way though they called my “cute” lunch box a “lovely” lunchbox of course).
The Irish also seem to be fairly friendly. There’s no “thanks so much” “thanks a lot” or “thank you soooo much” but rather they thank you a big deal greater – that being “thanks a million”. I wonder if the equivalent to “thanks” would just be “thanks a hundred”? Hmm!
The bad weather that is so famous here also made them inventive and it’s not just bad weather here, it’s bloody weather, rotten weather, f#cking weather or just simply nusty weather.
A nicer version of f-ing a-hole is bloody eejit and bullpoop could be gobshite. That I know these words alone tells you something about how informal things are at work here (in a good way). 😉
I’m starting to pick up bits and pieces here and there and I fear that when I’m done here I’ll be speaking a weird mix of redneck-yankee-German-Irish English.
Anyways, hope y’all are having a lovely day out there! 😀