Culture, Germany, Travel

Sonata for a Good Man

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… or in my case, a Good Woman. Thursday night I hung around the world’s third busiest airport, London Heathrow, waiting for my connecting flight to Dublin. Anyone who’s been there knows it’s huge and involes a lot of walking. I was pretty hot and knowing that Aerlingus doesn’t serve free drinks, I went about and looked for a little shoppe to buy me some H2O. Naturally I didn’t have any Sterling on me but you can normally pay in Euro or with credit card. Well, turned out you had to pay with Euro bills and then got pound coins back (and this was in Terminal 1’s Ireland and UK departures area). I can totally understand that they want bills to exchange them back to Pounds but I’m sure they’d be fine accepting coins with all these people travelling to and fro’ Ireland. I obviously didn’t want to break one of my bills and get back a handful of British coins especially since they always seem to screw you over with the exchange rate. So I was standing at the till a bit gobsmacked after not being able to pay him the exact amount in Euro coins when this lady who had been in front of me was just like “Ah come here I’m sure I have it” and she just handed the cashier 1.60pounds. I was pretty amazed by that! You know how people are normally kind of stressed out at airports and seem to be ruder than normal. Well, this complete stranger just bought me a bottle of water just like that. How nice was that?! I’m totally meaning to pass on this kindness and be really kind to some random stranger.

The flight thereafter was really nice, I had this cute Italian investment banker Piedro sitting next to me, which was cool because I got to practice my Italian and got to listen to il suo accento italiano – sexy! I also had a really nice cab driver from the airport to my apartment (yeah I’m not waiting for a bus that late at night and then walk 15 minutes with high-heels). He lives an hour away from Dublin and just comes to the city every day to drive his cab – and that’s his main (and only) job! Wow!

But anyways, the title of this entry is of course from the movie The Lives of Others. My co-worker Andreína had invited me to come along with a couple of friends of hers and of course I wanted to see this one! I was honestly quite surprised that it was showing here, in German even. Definitely an excellent movie!! I really like most of the recent movies about East Germany (think Good-bye Lenin, Sonnenallee) as obvisouly I don’t really remember a lot from back then (I was 7 when the wall fell) but I studied in the East and am fascinated by what people say about life back then. Almost always sounds like a bad joke (to quote my friend Doreen: “I was only allowed to buy 4 bananas because we were only 4 in the family” etc.).
I remember once visiting relatives in Thuringia for a wedding. I was maybe 5 or so and I helped getting the empty glasses from the tables and to the bar at this big pre-wedding party and everyone gave me little coins. I had a HUGE pile of GDR coins but they weighed nothing! I also remember that we had to wait ages at the border control and that they searched the whole car oh and! I broke a glass when I set my teeth to hard on it. Argh! 🙂 So I obviously don’t remember much, just bits and pieces and I guess it didn’t seem so different to me than home then but I was oh so little. Even better that there are all these movies out now and that I know there’s a happy ending to the GDR (even though a lot of people probably don’t find it a happy ending but that might just be the German’s love for complaining about everything).

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Culture, Ireland

Unknown Celebrities

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Last night I went to a party for my company’s sponsorship of a British TV soap here in Dublin. The location was a snazzy hotel by the river and there were about 200 people plus some local celebraties from the show. Too bad I don’t have a TV so I had no idea how anybody from the cast looked like. I had a fun time with my co-workers though, hunting for canapes and drinking Corona. My roommate was really psyched about my going to the party for the show so I promised her to take some pictures. I found out who the famous ones were and thanks to the beers I wasn’t shy to ask for photos. I met her, him, him, and him though he’s not part of Hollyoaks but is the lead singer of The Blizzards. I guess they all have to be somewhat big if they’re all on wikipedia, hmm!?
Anyways, after that party was over around 9 we headed to the bar for 2 cocktails – yay Caipi! Were able to grab some food, too, chatted a bit with Nick Pickard and then headed to some other bar/club place. By that time I was seriously drunk so I stopped drinking but the others seemed fine and had even more. Oh-kay! The place was deserted really – well it was a Tuesday night – so around 1am we left. Gosh I was soooo tired this morning not to talk about the tiny hang-over… Should have known though, no one was in work until 9:30 and even later. Of course I was there at 9:08 almost on time!
Well peeps, I’ll upload the photos later or next week as Michaellyn is comming tonight and is staying the Easter weekend. Weeheeee!

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Culture, Ireland

On Being Irish – Or Not.

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Shabby sidewalkI bet you’re all dying to hear more glorious stories from the emerald islands, right?
OK here’s something I’ve noticed and had confirmed by others as well. You’all’ve seen the pictures from my walk to work, right? Well, on two days of this last week they were even more disgusting than usual. That one day me and Richard were both walking there – me to work, he to the bus stop – when some bloke gut out of a car and started walking in front of us. We-hell, what a nice view we had, right down his sweatpants into his butt crack. Ewwww (sweatpants)! Ewwwwwwwww (3cm of his buttcrack)! Gross! Then, a couple of days later, I slowly trot to work (still not Friday *sighs*) when I notice someone walking ahead of me (I usually pass many people cause I’m that fast (ha!) ;-)). Couldn’t keep my eyes of his butt! Not because it was hot but because there was a huge hole in his sweat(!)pants and I could see right through to the skin of his butt. Yuk! I actually started laughing because of the ridicule. All these people in sweatpants here and then what’s up with showing off their arses?! Geeee! Alcohol kills brain cells….
Another piece of Irish culture became clear on one of my many walks to and from work as well. The sidewalk is usually about 1m wide and there’s a fence on one side and the street to the other (without a gutter) so not much space really. However, this does not keep the Irish away from walking with three people next to each other. When you walk into the other direction you’d think they’d budge and make some space to let you through. Well no. Wrong idea. They don’t really do that. They so don’t go out of their way – today some girl even ran into me in the shopping aisle even though she had loads of space on her side to make a bit room for me. You know, even when they’re walking alone they sometimes don’t feel the need to move a bit to the right or left to let me walk into the opposite direction. Tzzz!
But let me tell you about some other Irish cultural artifact: Shandy! I went to the pub last night (yeah Wednesday…) with some people from xing and I was saying how much I’d love a Alster/Radler (beer and sprite) right now and well, turns out, not only do the Irish know beer with lemonade but they even have a name for it: Shandy! Well, they do know they alcohol. 😉 Tasted different because they use bitter lemon instead I think but still quite good and I’m sure I could say “Shandy with sprite or 7up please”.
Now I just need to figure out how Irish light bulbs work because I can’t get my broken one out of the lamp – and it’s not like I don’t know how to do that but it just won’t come out. Hmpf! Annoying to sit in the semi dark here (even though I should be used to it by now ;-))

Well me dears, have a fantastic weekend! Me family and I’ll be driving south on Sat after I pick them up at the airport and I won’t be back until Tuesday. Toodles!

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Boys, Culture, Ireland, Weather

St. Patty’s in Ireland

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Thank you St. Patrick for doing whatever you did (I think bring Christianity to the Irish?) because we had a fabulous celebration in your honor on Saturday and the day off today!
After a some beer at the pub here on Friday, Rich and I got up early (uargh) and went to the city centre to secure a halfway decent spot for watching the parade. We found a really good one because we were able to look at a really hot guarda (police man) the entire time. Rrrrr! 😀 The costumes in the parade were really spectacular and the weather stayed dry for the most parts (of course not the entire parade but this is Ireland afterall).
After all that standing around we were kind of hungry and wanted to sit for a while so we searched for some not über-crowded restaurant and landed at this Italian place. Food was good and we had a good time even though the waitress kept pushing me in the back to get through the chairs. Hmpf! When we were about to leave, I ran into my co-worker Andreina, which was totally funny. A quick chat with her and her husband and then we were off to the pub.
The atmosphere was awesome, as Ireland had just won a rugby match against Italy and the blokes were fun and I got loads of kisses from Irish guys as it’s supposed to be on St. Patty’s. Only on the cheeks of course! 🙂 Met some weird American guys and since they gave me such a weird gut feeling we soon left and went to the pub next door where we met up with my other co-worker Anna. She was there with a crowd of people and we hung out there for a while, while enjoying some more Irish beer.
From there we walked arond the city for a while – in the rain of course. Then had some McDonalds (I’ve eaten sooo much McDonald’s these past two weeks, it’s not even funny anymore). Walked to yet another pub for yet another glass of Guinness and then took the bus home. Long day! But oh so much fun!
I have to say, Dublin really grew on me this past weekend. The pub culture is so nice and people are super approachable and easy going – sooo totally not German.

In other news…
some funny coincidences from this week:
– I was emailing with someone at another affiliate and she passed my email on to someone called Charlotte Mecklenburgh. Are you kidding me?! #1
– I was flipping through the program of the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade and something cought my eye. On second glance it turned out that the marching band of Charlotte Catholic High (from Charlotte, NC) played in the parade here in Dublin. Are you kidding me?! #2
– I received an email from my ex in Charlotte this weekend, which in itself is super rare. Later that same day, we enter a restaurant and the first waiter we see is called – you guessed it – Massimo. Are you kidding me?! #3

That phone interview the other day aparently wasn’t as bad as I had thought it was and they wanted me to fly out to Germany for a real interview next week. Well, thankfully after they realized how much the flights are ~700€ since it’s such short notice they’re just gonna invite me to the assessment center next month. Very happy about that as it would have been super stressful with flying out at 6am and getting back at 11pm and having my family over the next day. So yay lucky me! Though it would have been 4000 frequent flyer miles and a chance to stock up on cheap groceries ;-).

Your favorite travel bug has also booked some cheap tickets to fly to London, England in May. I’m so excited! Gotta love Ryan Air’s deals. I’m paying 25€ for the tickets plus 5€ for paying with credit card and then 12€ for checking in a bag. And that’s to Gatwick and not some far away airport! Weheeee! Now I just have to book a hostel bed (oh yeah I’m still young for another 3 months so I might as well behave like it!). Have never been in the city, just at its airports so I’m really excited to see it! Woohooo! 🙂

My friend Rich left this morning and I did today was relaxing, reading, watching Sex and the City and more relaxing and just enjoying some privacy and space. Had meant to get going on these loads of laundry and cleaning everything up here but oh well. Tomorrow’s another day. Plus I was too gready to pay the 3€ for washing and then 3€ for drying. Eh! This country is so ridiculously expensive!

Oh yeah, yesterday we had meant to go to the shore but it started to snow storm and so we didn’t really feel like doing that anymore. Went to town instead and wanted to walk around some museum (cause it’s what you do when you’re a tourist and it’s raining) but after seaking refuge from the snow storm at Burger King (I refused to go to McDonalds again) and a book store it was too late. Instead we found a great Asian store and I was able to pick up some cool things that can go into my lunch box. Ha! Yay! Good dinner at home then and then just some chatting and Rich packed his suitcase.

Hope you all have a great week!

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