Photos of Lil Ol Me!!

Drink a pint of Kilkenny in Kilkenny, it's gas!

My falconry experience with a harris hawk called wexford. (can you see the mud all over my shoes, ruddy cows) Falcory is so cool you'll have to try it one day!

This is my witches brew Halloween night. The devil in me! It was smoking, but you can't see the effect here. (Don't worry mum that's a glass of water sitting next to me!)

"Joy to the world and all is grand"

That's right ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls it's only one month till christmas, and in less then one month I'll be shoop shoop shoopin down the slopes of the french alps. How excitement.

I hope your all getting into the jolly christmas spirit. It's a bit weird seeing all the beautiful christmas lights, and decorations, santas, jesusus, and snow in such cold weather, where it really could be snow. There are some clear differences in this country. They really do eat a massive roast turkey for christmas dinner, they call Kris Kringle Kris Krindle, and Santa is not Santa he's Sandy (maybe they are saying Santy, but it sounds clearly to me like Sandy). Don't get me started on eggnog, hmm.

If your not as busy as me during the holiday season your just not trying. This weekend, just before December hits I'm off to the west coast again. Staying clearly out of the cows of congs way I'm going to a small town called Sligo. Will be wet, cold but very pretty. Armi & I (girl from hostel) are going down for a couple of days just to visit the little town and get out of Dublin. More on that one when I've been, could not be as adventurous as my last west coast holiday.

Next weekend 6 or 7 Aussie girls are going to see Pete Murray, which will be just fantastic, not very well known this end of the country, I'd imagine that is why the tickets were such great value! Saturday night is my gym christmas party, little worried about the outcome of that night as they have a dare wheel and that could get messy. Did I mention over 60% of Dubliners are under the age of 30, just FYI........ (may explain the christmas party???)

Before christmas I'm also off to Northern Ireland which will be an adventure and a half I'd imagine, I've spoken to a few Northerners, and if you thought the Republic accent was bad try and understand Northerners!!

More christmas parties to come with my suburban family (Kelly, Gail, Kate, & the gang), work where nothing like the pyjama party of last year, a big formal doo with a night time feast and free drinks, plus the hostel christmas, and the girls are leaving 'sniff':(

People are going to come into your life and leave again, some make footprints, others make big whopping craters, but they're all memories. I'm glad so many people I've met have made some great footprints and craters in my life!

Thanks for being the craters.

GO YOU BIG RED FIRE ENGINE!!

The Irish Mailman and Buckets of Beer.

I can't believe in the middle of winter all you southerners are getting snow, and up here in the north all the Irish are running around in shorts and t-shirts saying "fiddle de de potatoes, what a beautiful sunny day" Global warming eat your heart out people.

To be honest the weather is getting cold, but apparently this is a very mild November!

So for over a month now I've been working in the Admissions office in St Patrick's college, and after a month of work and thousands of letters going through my hot little hands I have discovered the backbone to the country. The complete success of Ireland is down souly to one occupation. The Mail Man. Not the postal service, no their job is quite basic, but the poor bloody country mail man. There are no post codes in Ireland, not one, just areas. The only place there are house numbers are in big cities like Dublin, Galway and Cork. And to top it all off every single house has an address in English as well as Irish (Gaelic). The country postie must be a gem. (But Beaufortarians I'm sure they've got nothing on Pete!)

The typical Dublin address would be:
Mr Patrick Kavanagh
45 Smithton street
Drumcondra
Dublin 9

In Irish:
Mr Póidrag Ní Kalvná
45 Snítn sté
Drúmcondá
Ún Airé 9

The Typical Country address:
Mr Patrick Kavanagh
Coolcholly
Ballangatha
Co. Donegal

In Irish
Mr Póidrag Ní Kalvná
Cólcholly
Béal átha seanaidh
Co. Dhún na ngall

You might not find that impressive, but I sure do, thats why I added it to the blog. And I must say it is a highly successful system. With all these thousands of letters going through my hot little hands the has only been one problem (we think that's down to the reciever, not the mail man or woman).

CHANGE OF SUBJECT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So every Tuesday night my mates & I meet at a local pub called The porterhouse for Quiz night. You don't need to know anything because it's based on Family Fued, you know "we've surveyed 100 people and the top answers are". It's a great laugh! We stumbled across it in my second week here and have not missed a quiz yet. It's €2 to enter for the whole group, and the prize what else €50 and a bucket of beer. I warn the ladies at work the night that if we win the bucket of beer there will be no Carmen in the office on Wednesday. As we have not even got close to the bucket there's a fair chance this will never happen. Slowly we've gone from 3 southern girls unsure of what we were getting ouselves into to 8 people from all over the globe, so at this rate the bucket is not gonna go far. Our team name is Team Antipadees, because thats what they call anyone from the southern hemisphere (it means opposite ends or something). So trust me you'll all know when that bucket of beer comes my way!!!

Croke Park

Kelly & I all our aussie glory

Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi International Game Croke Park (WARNING MAY CONTAIN LANGUAGE OFFENSIVE TO IRISH)

Well what a brilliant day out! Thanks to my wonderful family I was well prepared to cheer on the Aussies in their grudge match againsed the Irish.

Kelly (in the pic with me) and I prepared for the day with just a touch of aussie style, thongs, tattoos, boxers, flags, we were ready to relish in Australian glory. We had to walk from one end of the city centre to the other, a number of toots, waves, and even rude fingers saluted our way through Dublin.

We met up with the rest of the group at a bar in the city, most of them Irish and quite embarrased to be seen hanging out with such proud Aussies. Loaded with tattoos, stickers and mini flags we got as many people as we could to proudly wear the flag, unfortunately this only lead to three other irish, a couple of polish, a large number of Aussies and an uncertain South African.

Making our way to Croke Park stopping at many bars along the way we had our first serious republic of ireland debate. An older man said aloud to his friend "what is de union jack doin in dis pub". I'd never thought that it may have been a lack of resepect before, but there was our first reminder of the rage between the republic and the north.

We arrived a little late to the match and watched the kick off in the first tier, great seats really and was a gem because the crowd were too busy watching the before game tussle to be worried about a ball game anyway. Ran into some jolly irish boys who were more interested in Guiness than the match, tagging them with flags we were on our way again...

Rushing to our seats way right up in the nose bleed section we could hear the croud cheering, based on the noise level we knew it had to be aussies not irish, the excitement was building. We found our seats, only to discover we were totally surrounded by Irish, not that that mattered the score board was much in our favour.

NB very interesting feeling sitting in a square stadium instead of an oval, never before and quite bizzare, there is a totally different feel.

After a good half hour of jumping up and down in my seat hailing things like 'Bullshit, dickhead, and wicked' an irish man told me he would have to gag me if I did not shut up! (all in good fun, he was the one who took the photo).

By the end of the match, very much aware the Aussies had won a whole buch of Irish left, leaving me to run up and down the Isle waving my flag and dancing around like a mad crazed fan.

After the match we walked to an Autralian bar, where all the Aussies could relish in the success together. It was a brilliant day, a fantastic match and a once in a lifetime experience. Australians really banded together as a minority and came out trumps!!!

I met an Aussie guy in The Woolshead (Aus bar) who went to uni in Ballarat and played footy for lexton, it was grand to talk to someone who knew about home and many people I knew. His name was Ollie for any of the Franc girls.... Quite a good looking guy too with possible gay traits, hmmm.

Copped a lot of flack at work on Monday, but they were just sour loosers who did not want their boys to be hurt. 'Fair play to them'