Dust off your hoedown outfits....

I'm going to try to be a better blogger. My blog has been sorely neglected. Now listen people, I just read about this here concert at the starlight and I want to know if anyone wants to go?? It's going to be the shit+.

Saturday April 7
THE HOOTENANNY REVUE BUY NOW
Featuring: Carolyn Mark, Luther Wright, Hank & Lilly, Jenny Whitely, Jim Bryson
$16 advance
Door at 9 PM19+

Luther Wright is going to be there! If you're not shitting yourself, then I just don't know about you.... :) naw, we can still be friends.

Belated update: Po Girl was amazing! I made friends with all the Po' Girls, and bought my very own copy of the new album. One of them even complimented my shirt. How fuckin' cool am I? Afterwards we went to visit Sonal, who was waiting with homemade brownies and tea. So cute! We had a fun sleepover, even though she didn't get to come to the concert, which was sad, sad, sad!!

Now I'm just vegetating my way through a brutally annoying job (drive-thru and all), waiting for something better. I think whatever that is, it's in Toronto. I have a mind to become a fancy vegetarian chef, or a rockstar, or whatever.

Po Girl

Po Girl is going to rock my socks off tonight.
Today I opened up my copy of the Toronto Star, and the first thing I saw was a giant picture of a girl that I went to Highschool with, who's apparently in this new improv comedy show playing in the T.O. Who knew? And then I flipped over the page, and there was a picture of the lovely Po Girls staring up at me. All cute like. And on top of this all, there was a crossword puzzle? whoa. I shat.

Yay! I have meaningless employment! I can drink beer and drown my sorrows again!!
life is good.
When does the whole grownup thing happen??

This is what kind of lesbian I am:

You scored as The Bohemian Dyke. Your down to earth attitude
and intense sense of fashion make you one of the most
interesting lesbians on the earth.


edit: had to get rid of most of this, because it messed up the format of my blog. don't cry.

back in canada

well, I'm back. In Belleville. sigh. Well actually I'm visiting in Waterloo at the moment, but I'll be back there later. Paris was pretty fun, although we were getting sick of sight-seeing. We got to stay in Nisha's old apartment, which was lovely. We drank and drank of the wine there, especially the Beaujolais neauveau (probably spelled wrong). There is one night in Paris where the new Beaujolais is ready to be drunk, and the whole city gets HAMMERED. What an interesting phenomenon. I wish canada had this day. Not that we don't use every possible holiday to justify the whole city getting staggering drunk, but it was a special night. We saw lots of pretty sights, and all the famous, required viewing sights (Eiffel tower, L'ouvre/mona lisa/venus de milo, etc). Some wonderful galleries there. Our favorite was the musee d'orsay. Good good, delicious times were had. I'm glad to be home though. :)

Köln, so so rainy

Well, we're in Köln now, we have been here two days, and tomorrow we leave for Paris at around 4pm. It's a pretty city, but we haven't really had a fair look at it, because the weather has been total shite. It has the biggest, pointiest cathedral that I believe exists. It's so big, I can never fit the whole thing into one picture. Our hostel is decent, although it is very smoky, and I feel like I'm in a techno party while I eat my breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh the sacrifices of travelling. Also, this is a DYKEY city, although I've no idea why. So many girls, snuggly holding hands down the street. awwwww! hold back the vomit. Anyway, I'm off to sip some wine in the techno party lobby, wish me luck....

Berlin is the COOLEST place in the world

It´s funny that I never really connected with Ireland - I thought... it´s not you, Ireland, it´s me... But the second I got to Germany, I fell dorktastically in love with it. Berlin is such a beautiful capitol city. Everyone should come here! We went on a fantastic walking tour of the city yesterday, and the guide was brilliant. The city has so much interesting and disturbing history, and I learned a lot from the walking tour. Some highlights were the Jewish WWII memorial, the memorial for the books burned by the nazis (a clear panel in the middle of the Bebelsplatz square reveals a large underground empty book storage area representing the negative book space for all the books burned), museum island - an island made up of museums(!), and the Reichstag (German Parliament), which was restored in 1990, with a glass dome on top, which you can go into and look out at the city, or down upon the parliament at work (very clever). Another place that I really enjoyed was the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche, a monument to the damage from WWII, it was nearly destroyed except for the front entrance, it´s spire is broken off, and it was eventually partially repaired, and converted into a museum. We also saw the location of the underground bunker where Hitler was hiding out, and committed suicide. That was really creepy - luckily, it was destroyed long ago, and nothing is there except for grass, which apparently gets covered in dog shit in the summer. Today we are doing some more in-depth museum exploration - The museums are incredible, and (plus bonus), are leaders in the field of Near Eastern Archaeology, and I have studied a lot of the famous items in the Pergamonmuseum. yay!

Goodbye Ireland, Hello Deutschland!!

Someone mail me my dirndl, because we're goin' to Germany!! As most of you know by now, we've decided to pack it up and come back to Canada. Before we get there, we're going to squeeze out one last budget trip - To Berlin, Koln, then Paris (this one's actually in France, not Germany). I'm sooooo excited to see all the art galleries and Archaeological exhibits, especially the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin (very important Near Eastern Archaeology coolness). Sorry the posts have been less frequent - it's hard to keep up with this mowfk when you're travelling. I will be better, I promise.

Scratching his fleas in heaven

The saddest thing ever happened this week. My dog Kermit had a stroke, and had to be put to sleep. He couldn't use his legs, and couldn't eat anymore. I just found out last night, and I cried and cried and cried. He was a wonderful, kind of dumb, hairy mutt, with a crooked tail, and bum leg, and he always tried to hump the little male poodle down the road, and I loved the little guy. He was very old though, 15 people years, and I knew he might not live much longer. Rest in peace, my Garbage-monster.

I miss sweet home Waterloo too

Sigh. I can't seem to get ANYONE to phone me back about jobs. I'm not unemployable, so what that fuck? Maybe we came at a bad time of the year - incoming students in early September seem to have scooped up all the jobs before we got here. I'm broke and stressed out. (Who isn't?). We've decided to take a new approach and try a farm. My cousin Sarah may be able to hook us up with a farm in Northern Ireland (assuming that we don't need a Northern Ireland Visa to do this). We've also joined WWOOF independents, so we could also try a farm in Southern Ireland. We're waiting on our acceptance info (which is being sent to my mysteriously non-functional Laurier address). I think maybe my Laurier account got infected from using sketchy internet Cafes. Anyway - I miss home, and can't wait to breathe a sigh of relief when I get home. I feel so unsettled here. Perhaps a job/farm would remedy this, but I'm running out of funds at a rate which exceeds the time it would take to get this all taken care of. Hence, stress.

Stingrays are surprisingly endearing

Yesterday, for shits, we went to see the Atlantiquarium - which is a wonderful, slightly cheesy, quite educational place to learn about Irish sea/river life. It was AWESOME! The best part was the stingray tank. I made friends for life with a Stingray who flipped over on his back and swam across the tank for me. I'll show you pictures of him when the internet thing is sorted. There were Seahorses, crazy flat fish that hid on the ground, and fuckin' HUGE lobsters. The best were the Stingrays, though. They kept swimming up to me, and poked their little heads out of the water to have a look-see.

Returning to the slippery slopes

We enjoyed Connemara, and their ponies, sheep, and scandalous Nuns sooo much that we've decided to go back for several days to go hiking through the countryside. Hopefully we'll be able to rent some bicycles also, because there are some sweet hills to coast down (and to walk slowly up). We'll be going for 2 or 4 days (depends on whether we have jobs yet), and hopefully we'll come back smelling of sheep, and bringing back WAY TOO MANY pictures, which you will all be subjected to looking at when we get home.
Actually, speaking of sheep/goats, I have an important story about Heather that I think you should all know about. When we were on our Connemara bus trip, we climbed up a slippery (goat-poo bespeckled) hill to get some pictures. On the way down I said "be careful Heather, it's really slippery"... Two seconds later, her feet were above her head, and she'd slipped and landed in GOAT POO. Then she stood up, and SLIPPED AGAIN. in GOAT POO. AGAIN!!! It was awesome. (Now I'll be in big trouble... uh-oh!) :)

Kittie tree

I dreamed about a tree full of kitties. There were big kitties, tiny kitties, and wee kitties with hummingbird wings. What a good dream. I miss the kitties - give them a squish for me. And give yourself a squish for me, because I miss Miss MISS you too!!!!

Green Green, Greenity-Green Green Greeneroo

Sorry for the randomness, and infrequency of my posts. The internet is not working at my house, and it turns out that it may be out for another month yet(!). poopy.
We just went on a fun, but extremely soggy bus tour yesterday to the Connemara region. The rain was pretty relentless, but we managed to get a few nice pictures. We'll post them as soon as we get Heather's laptop hooked up to the internet(for now, I'll just put up some links).
Luckily the rain stopped for the two hour stop off at Kylemore Abbey. It was so pretty that I nearly lost Heather to the Benedictine Nuns there. It was in an area full of gorgeous mountains that were covered with enough vegetation to supply the world with oxygen. The leaves were green, the grass was green, the tree trunks were covered in green moss and vines, the road was somehow green as well. EVERYTHING was green - except the sheep. And there were plenty of them. I also saw the CUTE little 'Connemara ponies' that are bred in the area. They were short, fat, and lovely. I think I've found my perfect souvenir. Neeeeighphhh!! (shh!) (that was the pony in my backpack.)

Alien temp-monkey

I just got back from my first temping job - a whopping 12 hour shift - working in a fancy shmancy hotel conferenceroom/event-hosting thing. It......SUUUUUUUUCKED. I'm never doing anything like that again. I will stick to little restaurants and cafes. Everyone was so bitchy and mean and catty. fuuuuck that. I need a job, but not that badly. I also have had some annoying experiences with the immigration office here. We've been there three times this week (to get our "alien cards); the first time, we couldn't find it because the stupid bus driver didn't tell us where our stop was. the second time we went, almost didn't find it, and when we did (the sign was 1/3 of a piece of paper taped up in the window), they told us to come back tomorrow. So we did, and they were closed. Until October 1st. Fucking immigration office asshole motherfuckers. Well, that's my shitty Irish week rant. I'm off to eat pizza and beer (that my woman got for me, because she's awesome!)(shitty coors light...ha!!)

Moher and Burren

Today we went on a pretty tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. It was so much fun - and it's no wonder: the ten thousand tacky tour busses that visit daily can't be wrong! We'll post pictures soon on the shared blog. The west coast of Ireland is so gorgeous - I can't wait to see the rest of the coast. and I will, oh yes.
Tomorrow is our moving day - we found a very nice room in a very nice house, for a very low price. I'm sure I'll find out the catch later, but for now, I'm stupid happy about moving in. It's so funny though - it's in a neighbourhood quite similar to Markham: rows upon rows of identical houses, with identical cars, and identical lawns. Maybe that's the catch?

The Lady Who Belched

Tales from a Hostel Bed: Episode one...

so, our first night at the Sleepzone hostel was a symphonic whirr of strange nasal gurgling. The lady below me kept murmering, gurling snot, and openly hacking her lungs our her nostrils, making no attempt to muffle herself even though there were ten people sleeping. The girl across from me was sawing logs like a lumberjack, and woman below Heather was passed out drunk in a football jersey, and was also snoring admirably. Picture these noises, all in unison... that's what I heard the nine or so times that I woke up... But the best part was when passed-out-football-jersey-lady finally woke up (after everyone else, of course), she sat up, flipped her legs over the side of the bed, leaned over, and BELCHED. Like she'd squeezed the belch out. It was awesome!

Job/apartment searching

I wish I had a job and an apartment so I could get on with the vacation part. This stuff is booo-ring. last night we finally went our for pints in Galway, only to be HARASSED by a huge asshole. note to self: don't talk to anyone.... nice way to start off the year. There are assholes in Canada, too, I suppose. Although none of them have ever threatened that they could "punch us in the twat" if they wanted to. What a fucker. Anyway, there's no point in dwelling on it, I suppose. I just can't wait to have a place to live, some privacy, and a cosy bed of my own. I also wish we knew some people here - but we're both too squirrely I guess.
ooo... and on a different, and altogether random note, the coffee is very yummy here. just so everyone knows.

I'm famous here: here's proof!

Look! It's my family's native habitat: the historic.... Powerscourt....

And also delightful is our own zesty brew of Whiskey - Grandpa: I always knew you were up to something... :)

Galway is WONDERFUL - I love all the water here. Although water means stinky seafood... And the pubs - let's not forget the pubs. I miss you all, and give you all long distance hugs. I wish I could bring everyone here with me - we would tear up the country. I know you'd all love it.