Updates, Updates, Updates!

WARNING THIS PAGE MAY TAKE AWHILE TO LOAD AS IT'S A CHOCK FULL O' PHOTOS!
Well, life has slowly settled in here. I found a job working at this neat/bar and hostel called Bru (Bru is Gaelic for "hostel"--how original). The owners are really cool. One is from New Zealand and the other is Irish. It's nice because it's one of those jobs that doesn't really feel like work. I can drink behind the bar and i'm meeting lots of really interesting (and some really stupid) travellers who are staying at the hostel. So that's what my Wednesday and Friday nights consist of right now. But as for real work, well i've been doing that too. I got a job through a job agency at the actual job agency. I've been temping at Premier (they own the job agencies la creme, Premier, Verkom, Brunel and in the UK Nigel Lynn). And it's not just lowly data entry, i'm one of 4 credit controllers. How cool is that? I get a title! It's a lot of what i was doing at Euroffice. I'm entering cheques on the the ledger. Doing the banking and then chasing people up for money. Suprisingly i've not been struggling with the irish accents too much (i'm on the phone at least half of the day) but the irish names are proving to a be a bit different. For example Aoiffe is pronounced "Eveffa" and Aine "On-ya" and Sioban "Shovan" and Aislyng "Ash-ling" which coincidently is gaelic for "a dream or a vision". The pay is great and its a nice and relaxed atmosphere to work in (it was just named one of the 50 best companies in Ireland to work for). But alas, it is temp work and after this week my total of 3 weeks there will be over and i'll be back on the job hunt. It will be nice to not have 16 hour work days on Friday's!

This is a picture from the bridge i walk over everyday. It's crossing the River Lee which divides Cork. Cool pic huh?



Things are good. Last weekend i decided we'd had enough of staying in and playing videogames and we made a move to get out of town. Saturday we had a bit of a late start (as most Saturdays do considering i usually don't leave the bar 'til about 3:30am) and based on the pretty pictures in our guide book we decided to go to the town of Cobh (pronounced "Cove").



As you can see it's a beautiful coastal town thats just a short 25 minutes away on a train. It's where the Titanic stopped prior to it's fateful journey across the Atlantic. We didn't end up getting out here 'til about 4 so we just went on a nice walk along the water.



There's a GIANT cathedral in town. I didn't take more pictures of it but i did take this cool one. Notice all the neat gargoyles on the turret.

So the following day after our wander through Cobh we decided to make the trek to Blarney. Ha, it's hardly a trek as it's only 7km away from where we live (and if there weren't hills in the way i bet we could see if from our house).



We lucked out and had beautiful weather and so we packed a picnic. But first on our list was the ever so important task of kissing the Blarney Stone. As legend has it Queen Elizabeth bestowed the gift of gab (or eloquence for 7 years). Kissing the stone is something new but we had to do it. You climb all the way to the top and let me say the stairs inside the castle are short, worn and very slippery. And when you get to the top and you get an amazing view (and a bit of vertigo if you're me). Anywho the stone is over on the back side and to kiss it you have to lay on your back, grab these guide rails and lean back to kiss it. There's a guy that holds on to you but the drop of several hundred feet does scare the crap out of you.

Here's me kissing the stone and then Matt:




Here are a few more pics from around Blarney.



I like my little hole...


This is where being short pays off...





This is the view from underneath the Blarney Stone


Blarney is not just the site of a castle but is also on Ancient Druid grounds. Sadly the brouchure didn't really tell me more but definetly had some cool places marked that would have been relevant in the day.



Underneath this tree is this place known as the witches kitchen. It's this tiny room with a fire place. It's really really cool tho. The tree on top had these long roots (as you can see and just looked really old).



Aren't we cute?


So that's about it really. We still don't have internet in our house. We keep getting the run around which really really sucks. This week starts St. Patrick's week and St. Patrick's day on Friday is a national holiday here (i'm off work at the office but alas will be working in the crazy bar all night). There will be big parades and should be fun.