I hate it when...

I hate it when...you haven't checked your email in a while and you see you have a new message and you are all excited to hear from someone you know...and it's spam from a credit card company...or some internet mailing list you ended up on...I really hate that!

Party Weekend in Stockholm, Sweden

Ok, I have been a very bad blogger so I have decided to try and catch up on all the experiences and travel weekends I've had over the past few months so that I don't forget all the good memories.

After my last post I took a trip to Stockholm to visit my friend Marie for a long weekend. I landed in Stockholm on a Thursday night late and since I was very tired, Marie and I went back to her apartment in Solna and caught up since we hadn't seen each other in over 2 years. It was a really nice evening.

We awoke Friday and decided to spend the day doing one of my favorite activities... Shopping:) So we browsed the mall near her house for most of the day and came home that night full of shopping bags and decided to head to the clubs.

We started the evening at The Soap Bar, where we ran into some of Marie's old friends and had a few drinks there with them. After a few hours of partying there, we went to a club a few blocks away called Hell's Kitchen. We ended up with a group of new friends there who had a table with a huge magnum of champagne. We had a great party evening that turned into an afterparty that lasted well into the next afternoon.

On Saturday, after a quick nap, we had decided to take a cruise from Stockholm to Finland, supposedly a "party cruise". We decided to get massages when we got there and we were so tired after our all night party the night before that we ended up eating the cruise ship dinner and going back to the cabin where we slept all night. Swedish massages are THAT GOOD, lol. We missed all the club activities and spent the next morning having a buffet breakfast and shopping at the cruise's duty free.

We then took a mini walking tour of Stockholm for a few hours before it was time to head back to Marie's for an evening of cooked mushrooms (different than LA mushrooms - they're wild and dried) with toast and had a nice evening at the house before going to bed early to catch a very early flight the next morning back to Dublin and straight into work.

Unfortunately, my luggage didn't make the connecting flight so I had another travelling lesson learned... Never put your keys in your luggage. My luggage landed in Dublin at 11pm at night, much later than I did and I had no way to get into my apt after a very long party weekend. Gavin and Fran, my neighbors/co-workers were kind enough to let me stay at their house until my luggage arrived.

All in all, it was a great trip, I loved Stockholm and would definitely go back. I would love to go in the summer for mid-summer and spend some time in the rural areas of the country as well. Good times.

One Year In Dublin

It's a sleepy morning and I am drinking my first cup of coffee for the morning and thought I would write a little bit. Alot of people have been asking why I made my blog private...mostly I just decided that I didn't want the entire world wide web to have access to my private thoughts, pictures and life. I also realized that I was really sensoring my blog and I shouldn't have to do that so this was the better option. I hope you all continue to log in and read and enjoy it.

I went out with my friend from work Rena last night. It was a beautiful evening. The sun was out all day yesterday and so we headed into town right after work for dinner and a few drinks. We had a lot of fun hanging out in the outdoor beer gardens at Crawdaddy, made friends with a few of the guys of this really good Irish band that had played there last night and eventually called it an early night since she was heading south for a day of massage today after her triathalon last weekend.

I am finally finishing my medicine from being sick and I have to admit that it has put me a bit on edge. The medicine had steroids in it so you have to come off it slowly to allow your body time to adjust and I've noticed that I'm really cranky and irritable and even irrational for no reason. I hate feeling that way but today is the last day that I have to take it so hopefully it will even out soon. So I've been trying to stay low key to avoid any more dramatic situations because even though I know I have been way over-sensitive to everything, I can't tell what is from the medicine and what is from reality.

Yesterday marked the one year date from when I arrived in Ireland. I cannot believe that an entire year has gone by. Sometimes it feels like it has flown by. At other times, it feels like it has been forever - too long. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I am glad that I came here and tried to shake things up in a bit. I have learned alot from the experience. I have tried to accomplish things while I was here, travel goals, long-term career goals, but I have to admit that I don't know if given the opportunity, I would do it again.

I am definitely an LA girl. I love sunshine and the beach and outdoor activities and the social and cultural variety that comes with living in such a big city. My friends and my family are all there as well so of course that makes a big difference too. I notice that my experiences are so different here even when I have only a few friends in town. It becomes an entirely different experience, than when I am in my daily routine which is primarily spent at work or alone. But given the choice right now, I would come home at first opportunity to be back in the City of Angels with the people I love most.

I think I will continue to travel for the rest of my life. I absolutely love visiting new places and seeing the culture of each environment be so different from place to place. I do think it is different to spend a few weeks on vacation than to actually relocate your life and it has been good for me to experience some of the challenges that come with completely changing your environment. But one of the biggest lessons learned is that I want to spend my life with my family and friends and have travel as something I can do on vacation, not spend long lengths of time away from them.

So the ultimate unanswered question becomes, will I survive another year in Dublin? And is it worth it? I ponder that thought daily and I don't have an answer yet. I take things in baby steps now. I am meeting a friend in Sweden at the end of this month. I will be hopefully heading to Italy for a weekend in October. My birthday weekend, I will probably go to London with one of the girls from work. The weekend after my birthday, I will come home for a week into Thanksgiving. I will also come home for Christmas into New Year's.

Most of you already know that when I return I will hopefully be starting my own recruitment firm. I work on the business plan weekly while I am here. That keeps me very busy and keeps me focused on the long-term reason that I moved here in the first place. I saw this as an opportunity to not only get outside of my "comfort zone" in LA where I was way too comfortable...ie. not growing or learning but also to financially put me in a position to take the next step career wise.

There are several reasons that this is important to me. First, I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to work for several successful companies, both large and start-up and I would like to take what I have learned over the years and actually create something that is as successful for me as it is for the people I work with and for. I want to do something different and better than the current standard of recruiting as it is something I am passionate about. I enjoy finding people good jobs that will further their lives and careers. At the same time, I would like to also benefit more of the rewards of that as well.

I also want to eventually be in a position that if I ever have a family of my own, I will be able to make them my priority but continue to contribute to the financial security of my family. Recruitment is ideal for that because I can do most of my work from home and still balance that with the other areas of my life. It is extremely important for me to be able to have that balance and hopefully not have to sacrifice the lifestyle I have become accustomed to. I have worked hard to get myself to this point and I would love to see it all come to fruition where I am doing work that actually helps others but also helps my own life as well.

So even though I don't have a family of my own now, the things I do now will ultimately affect in a positive way, the things that I can offer in the future. So for all of these reasons and more, it was important that I take this step and moved here a year ago because had I not, I may have continued to stay in my daily LA routine and not made the efforts required to take the next step. Being here has definitely put my focus on creating these things for my life so that my time here was not a waste and that when I return it will be to something better.

All that said, it is easy to get discouraged when you don't have your family and friend network close by to support and encourage you which is where I struggle most with being here. I find that I have more energy when I am around the constantly energizing people in my life. Most of these people are in LA and I crave that constantly while I am here. I am trying to make the most of it while I am here though and stay positive in what can sometimes be a very draining situation to be in.

OK, enough truths for now.

To be continued...

Trouble with pics.

I uploaded all the pics for the past few months today only to discover that Picasa is having issues with posting them on the blog and for some reason they are not visible. So rather than spend another 8 hours doing this again...I am going to wait a week or so and see if they resolve the issue. So frustrating!!! Crossing my fingers that it wasn't a total waste of a day.

Kindness from the Locals

I walked into the local hardware store this evening to pick up a transformer for my new Vonage phone, which is a fabulous new toy since now I have an LA based phone number that calls me at my house in Ireland and I can call LA without having to pay international rates. While I was there, I met three of the nicest people at the store, the owner (who has owned the store for 20 years), his assistant (a sweet Romanian girl) and one of the owner's friends. The four of us stood and chatted for almost 2 hours.

While chatting about electronics and such, I remembered that I have needed an electric coffee grinder for about a year now. I have at least 5 bags of coffee beans to be grinded and hadn't found an electric grinder since living here...and trust me, I have looked. Not only to my complete amazement did they have exactly one electric coffee ginder, but one of the older gentlemen I was chatting with, bought it for me as a gift for giving him great advice on gadgety things to buy (I introduced him to Vonage and suggested he buy an external hard drive and back up his computer). WOW, there really is still true kindness and generosity in the world! Happy Days!

And now I'm off to go brew some fresh coffee:)

A bit of craic!

So as I posted earlier, my car engine blew last weekend in the Ring of Kerry. I am officially in a holding pattern until next week to determine if it at all repairable as the one guy that I know who may be able to help it is "ON HOLIDAY". So this morning after literally running to the bus, I barely jumped on it in time to make it to work on time. I had "grand" plans to hit the gym this evening...foiled due to this breaking news:

14/8/2007 No DART services running south of Dun Laoighaire
There are no rail services operating south of Dun Laoghaire on the DART line due to a DART failure at Sandycove. Dublin Bus will honor tickets.

Of course I had already caught the shuttle to the DART in the POURING RAIN when I discovered this fabulous news. And there is no bus near the train station we were dropped at. So after waiting 30 more minutes in the POURING RAIN for the next shuttle to come back to the DART station, I was shuttled back at work just in time to run in the still pouring rain to catch the Dublin bus back home in rush hour backed-up traffic to arrive home two hours later. OH how I miss having a car and a 15 minute commute!!!

And in the middle of August here is the 5 weather forecast:
Tuesday RAIN 12 to 19 °C
Wednesday SHOWERS 10 to 17 °C
Thursday PARTLY SUNNY WITH SHOWERS 9 to 17 °C
Friday INTERMITTENT CLOUDS 9 to 17 °C
Saturday SHOWERS 10 to 18 °C

See a pattern here...the high for the week at 19* celsius translates to 64* fahrenheit. I have to find humour in all of this, it's become more amusing than annoying because it seems unbelievable to have more rain in the middle of summer than I typically see in a year:)

And finally, you know you are really WET when you have to change your jeans and your shoes when you get home, because the rain has crawled all the way up your pant leg to your knees. The one new thing I have learned since living here about why people wear their pants too high as if they are flooding....to avoid the floods:)

Happy DAYS!!!!!!!!

The Castle Tour of Ireland

Jude and Tara came to Europe for a three week tour of Sweden and Ireland. They first stopped in Dublin on a weeknight before heading to Copenhagen and then to Sweden for Vilda's Christening and a visit with Petra, Andreas and Hanna's family and friends. Since we only had one night before they continued to Sweden, we decided to head into Dublin City Centre and had a nice dinner at Peploes Wine Bistro which I would highly recommend for their ambience, selection of excellent cuisine and fabulous wine. After dinner, we walked around Dublin for a bit before heading back to Blackrock so they could taste a local pint of Guinness.

They returned to Dublin last Friday night and we decided to have a night of rest before beginning our tour around Ireland on Saturday morning. We started our castle tour by heading down to Kilkenny, where we had lunch followed by a tour of the Kilkenny Castle. We then did a bit of shoe shopping and headed back on the road to Waterford where we saw the Clock Tower, the Reginald's Tower and the Waterford Crystal Factory. The original plan was to also hit Wexford but I was told by several locals that it was too far for a one day trip so we skipped it. We then headed into Cork City for the night.

That night we had dinner at a local italian restaurant and stayed at the Imperial Hotel and walked around a bit in the rain. The next morning, the rain was a bit lighter so after an interesting breakfast experience at the hotel, we walked around a bit through the quays, Parliament Bridge, through the English Market which was unfortunately closed, and into the shopping district. We also got to see the Red Abbey and st. Mary's Dominican Church as we were searching for the car park where my car was hidden a few blocks from the hotel.

After finally finding the car, we hit the road and headed to The Blarney Castle where Jude and Tara kissed the Blarney Stone. Kissing the stone is said to bring the gift of magical eloquence or the "gift of gab". I declined as I have been told by several locals that the locals of Blarney actually pee on the stone. Yuck and no thank you...I already have the gift of gab and am eloquent enough without kissing it:) It was a beautiful castle to visit though.

We then headed toward the Ring of Kerry which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. There are winding roads and exquisite views over the ocean and quaint villages. Unfortunately, just as we were heading out of the Ring and towards our next intended stop, which was dinner and a night's stay at Bunratty Castle, my car literally blew up. We were coming down a hill towards a cliff and as I went to make the turn, my car literally lost all power including steering and brakes. I am not quite sure how (divine intervention maybe) but I managed to turn the car as hard as I could to not head straight off the cliff while pulling on the hand brake to get the car to a stop. Thank God I had ordered AA (which is Ireland's version of AAA) the week before as it took an hour and a half to get a tow truck to come and get us and take us to the nearest city which was Killarney.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we never would have seen Killarney if my car had not died and it turned out to be one of our best evenings. Jude found the name of a hotel out of one of our travel books and I called and booked the room at the Killarney Park Hotel. This hotel had the best service I have ever encountered in my life. Not only did they give us their last room at a discounted rate because of how late we got there, but they helped with everything including finding us a rent-a-car the next morning. Killarney turned out to be my new favorite place in Ireland. We found a late dinner spot as we were all starving at this point and then found a cool spot playing fabulous live music called McSorley's. McSorley's also has a two story night club which we danced at after the live music ended at about 1am. It was a great night and of course not at all part of the plan.

I awoke the next morning at 8am to get the car situation sorted so we could get back on the road, we finally found a rent-a-car place at the Kerry Airport (with the help of the staff at the Killarney Park Hotel) and were back on the road by noon, a bit behind schedule. Now I was learning new skills as driving a car on the opposite side of the car on the opposite side of the road with a stick-shift around the roundabouts is quite a skill, I've decided.

We headed up the coast, through the town that hosts Kirby's, Jude's family name, to Bunratty Castle which I've visited before. Bunratty Castle also hosts the best apple pie I've had in years which we got to taste as the weather decided to take a turn for the worse and was downpouring. Finally, Jude and Tara were seeing the "real rain" of Ireland. We then high tailed it up the coast to Galway as I was supposed to catch the 6pm train that day from Galway to Dublin so that I could make it to work on Tuesday after the bank holiday weekend. We made it to Galway about 45 minutes too late though so we headed another hour up the coast to Jude and Tara's hotel for that evening at the Ashford Castle.

The Ashford Castle is unquestionably the most beautiful castle I have seen with an amazing golf course, although I didn't find the service there to be as nice as at the Killarney Park Hotel (Jude said the service was better the next day). We had a beautiful dinner and I did a tour of the castle as I wouldn't be there the next day to really explore it. I then woke the next morning at 5:30am, caught a cab to Galway, took a 3 hour train to Dublin and headed straight to work where I proudly arrived by 10:30am. Wow, what an adventure!

Jude and Tara continued to tour on Tuesday and saw the Cliffs of Moher, somehow got a flat tire in the rent-a-car(what was it with our bad luck with cars) and spent that night at the Drumoland Castle while I spent the evening getting some much needed sleep. They came back to Dublin on Wednesday night and toured the Hills of Tara and attempted unsuccessfully to tour Newgrange. They did see the Newgrange Museum but the actual tour of Newgrange had sold out by the time they got there. Apparently, you have to get there early or book through a tour due to it's popularity. So they returned to Dublin and we had our last night in Dublin at a great recommended restaurant Fire at The Mansion House. Tara was not feeling well at this point so we headed briefly into St. Stephen's Green, over to St. Patrick's Cathedral and then caught a taxi back to Blackrock and spent the rest of the evening packing for them to return to LA.

Other than my car exploding (I have since confirmed that the engine is blown and I will share that adventure in a later blog), it was a fabulous tour of Ireland. The castles were amazing, the memories will last a lifetime and it was so wonderful to have Jude and Tara visiting to share the experiences with. I was sad to see them go as it was so much fun to see so many things here that I may not have even attempted had they not been here. And we are already planning "The Comeback Tour" of Ireland to plan a trip back here to spend some quality time in the towns that we enjoyed the most. I already know I would like to spend more time in Kilkenny, Killarney and The Ring of Kerry.

Special Thanks: Thank you so much Jude for coming to visit, for all of your help and constant generousity with everything. I love you and will see you at the Barker Ranch for Thanksgiving dessert:) xoxo.