Well it's official I am back in LA for good. I am no longer working for Pocket Kings and have relocated back to the states. The experience of relocating back has been surreal to say the least. I never realized that with moving home for such an extended period of time, that my routines and lifestyle would grow to reflect the adjustments to the new culture and now that I am back home, I feel I am somewhere in between what my life used to be and what it is now. It takes a bit of adjustment.
I had a nice going away dinner before leaving Ireland. It was great to have one last night out with my "Ireland family" before returning home. When I was driving to the airport, I found myself humming "Everything's gonna be alright" by Bob Marley. Interesting...
There was so much to do to prepare to move in such a short period of time, that I have found myself overly exhausted since my return. That combined with jet lag has led to what feels like an excessive amount of sleep although it must be necessary because I am still tired and it's been a week.
Other than that I am just adjusting to new routines, job searching, and getting my life back on an LA track... more to come...
Monday, March 10, 2008
Monday, November 5, 2007
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!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
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...
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...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
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.
Friday, August 17, 2007
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:)
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:)
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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!!!!!!!!
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!!!!!!!!
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