Tired and Wired

It's Sunday and I'm online, but not at work! After much struggle and many trips to PC World, Brian finally got the flat wireless network going. And to him we are eternally grateful.

So now I can be on instant messenger if any of you ever want to talk for free, drop me a message. I have a webcam too, so if you want I can give you a virtual tour of the flat. Yay for laptops and wireless internet!

There's nothing really exciting to tell. I was generally lazy and slept in a lot this weekend for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately there are no new pictures either. Better luck next week.

We did have a bit of excitement this week though. But not the good kind. We had a mysterious visitor(s) in our flat who left through the window with Mary Ann's laptop and digital camera, so we've been a bit on edge about going to work and leaving our expensive gadgets behind. Security here is very good, and they were very responsive and took the situation seriously. They dusted for fingerprints and are taking a look through the CCTV tapes to see if they can catch the jerks. No word yet. Since then I've realized the importance of backing up the contents of your computer and making sure that it is password protected and security cable locked. Even though they can break through the locks, at least it might make it a little less attractive as a target.

My job suddenly got a lot more interesting (or maybe 'busy' would be a better word). I had a chat with my manager about my tedious and menial tasks, and she decided that it would be good for me to get to present the research I'm doing to the clients so I can get a better feel for how NORIBIC actually interacts with their customers. So on Tuesday I'll be in Belfast presenting my competition analysis to Golden Popcorn Ltd. And after I finish the few briefs I'm working on, I'll get to start doing some country analysis on the new EU accession and their opportunities for growth in information technology. That probably sounds really boring to most of you. Oh well, that's what I do, and I like it. :-)

I'm really happy that I will finally get to do something beside copying and pasting addresses into Excel. That was really getting old.....

Well, I'd better run for now. Some friends and I are heading up to Buncrana, Donegal tonite for a festival and fireworks.

P.S. Happy Birthday Samiyah!!

Giant's Causeway revisited & Learning to Drive

Friday night was another successful dinner in our international series. Brian, Mary Ann, Samiyah, and I treated our American, Italian, French, Swiss, and Scottish friends to charcoal-grilled burgers, corn on the cob, Tex-Mex dip, banana pudding, and brownies and ice cream. So maybe the corn wasn't such a big hit, but the burgers and desserts didn't last long at all. I sliced up one of the pickles my mom sent, and they ate it up. It was a hot topic of conversation since they knew we didn't get them here in Ireland. (The "American style" pickles here are apparently "rubbish". haha)

On Saturday Brian and I searched for a car to rent to go to the Causeway. No one had an automatic available, so we had no choice but to learn to drive stick shift the hard way. Our little Megane had a card key and a push button start which took some time to get used to. It was hard to tell if the car was cranked or not. After some instruction from the rental guy, a few times stalling out, and a few times peeling out, we were on our way! The hard things about driving here aren't remembering to stay on the left hand side of the road or even navigating through the roundabouts. What's really hard is the hills and working the clutch! Oh yeah, and staying close enough to the right line so you don't hit the curb, car, tree, ditch or whatever
might be on the left sidewalk...

The Causeway was neat as before, and I got to see some things I hadn't already seen. We sat on the edge of a cliff and enjoyed our PB & J sack lunches. What a view! On an unintentional detour while looking for the rope bridge, we ended up on the steepest, hairpin-curviest road I've ever seen. That was scary. It was only big enough for one car at a time, but there were cars going both ways. Brian was fine going down, but I had to drive back up. I got to the first steep turn and didn't have enough momentum to make it and the car stalled. Talk about freaking out! There was also a car coming down towards me. Luckily no one was behind, so I guided us back down (backwards) SLOWLY into the parking lot to wait for traffic to come through and my legs to quit shaking.

Enough bad driving stories.

My German friend Chris came up from Dublin and stayed the weekend with us. We went to Portadown for church. It normally takes over 3 hours to make that trip via bus and train, but we made it in 2 in our trusty little rental. In the extra time before church started, we went traipsing through a field of cows to get to the edge of Lough Neagh (say 'Lock Nay'), the huge lake in the middle of Northern Ireland. Yeah, I was in church clothes, but oh well. The worst part was the bugs, literally like a plague.

Here are the latest pictures:
Pictures 79-106

At the end are some pictures from Nicola's camera. He didn't sleep through the 12th parade like I did, so there are a few shots of that as well as some from the road trip to Galway. Enjoy!

Happy Dog Days of Summer to those of you sweltering at home. I'm so sorry! It's not like that here at all: breezy and cool.... I hate to rub our 65-70 degree weather in your face, but I think I just did. ():-)

The 12th, Sligo, Clare, and Galway

Hope everyone is doing well wherever in the world you are. The past couple of weeks have been relaxing, getting into the routine of working, walking, and learning how to cook! Last week was our big holiday week. July 12th was the Protestant marching day so most of the town was shut down Tuesday and Wednesday. I was lucky enough to get Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday off work. The girls took off to Scotland, and had a great time, judging by the pictures. I stayed in town to go to church and to catch the marching day festivities. Brian arrived on Monday and we spent the day getting him settled into Derry life. He had the benefit of our fountain of knowledge gained through trial and error. You know, important stuff like where to buy groceries, how much to pay for a taxi (since they sometimes try to rip you off), and what store clerks really mean when they say "Are you ok?" (They mean: can I take your order, etc.)

Tuesday we meant to go see the parade but didn't get up in time. Apparently it started really early in the morning and we missed it.... So we took a walk along the city walls. They are about a mile in circumfrence and are the most complete city walls in all of the UK. There are some great views of the city from up there. On the north side of the walls is Free Derry, the Catholic area of town. Just around the corner from that is a Protestant community. We noticed a bonfire and heard a little scuffling, glass breaking, and shouting and decided that it was best to move in a different direction. The Twelfth of June is known to be the most contentious day in the marching season, so we didn't want to get in the middle of anything. We made sure to be inside before dark as that's when things get especially rowdy. News reports the next day mentioned that there were 50 or so petrol bombings in various parts of the city. I don't mean to worry anyone by telling you that. We weren't in any danger whatsoever. Basically, if you don't go looking for trouble, you'll be fine.

The past weekend, the four of us went with our group of Italian, French, and Swiss friends to Galway. It's about a 5 hour drive, but is much more exhausting because of the crowded cars, small roads and hair-pin turns. We stopped in County Sligo along the way and saw the church and cemetary where author W.B. Yeats is buried. We drove
through County Galway and into County Clare to the Cliffs of Moher, which were amazing! But by then we were all really sick of being in the car, so after walking the cliffs for a while we set out to find our hostel in the middle of nowhere. I've never stayed in a youth hostel before, so it was quite an experience. There were 5 girls and we stayed in the girls room with 4 other girls. There were 9 guys in one room, and 7 guys in another. All 25 of us had to share 3 toilets and 2 showers in the same bathroom. THAT was interesting...

We went back to Galway City the next day for the Arts Festival parade, found the home of the Claddagh rings, ate some yummy shepherds pie, and started the trip back home. I had hoped we would get to see Kylemore Abbey and the Connemarra region, but we ran out of time. What a bugger, we'll just have to go back! ;-)

The drive was really tiring, but that didn't prevent us from stopping to ride rides at the carnival in Bundoran. Samiyah is a great negotiator and got the operators to let us ride the Crazy Mouse two times for a fourth of the price! We took a walk on the beach and played on the playground before squashing back into the car for the ride home. We didn't get back until after midnight and went straight to bed to recover for our 9 to 5 routine.

My job's going ok, though it isn't nearly as exciting as I had thought at first. The girl who assigns my briefs doesn't realize how boring and time consuming it is to do what she asks me to do. Looking up names and addresses of companies in online yellow pages and retyping them into Excel isn't exactly the best utilization of my skills, and it makes for a really long day. She works in the Belfast office, and doesn't communicate much with me, but she'll be here in our office tomorrow, so we're going to have a chat.....

As always, there are more pictures, starting here:
Pictures 64-78

I think we're going back to Giant's Causeway this weekend since Brian and Denise haven't been there. We're going to try to rent an automatic car since none of are very confident stick-shift drivers. I'm learning, but I have problems with reversing out of parking spaces. I always end up stalling out. It took me a bit to figure out why the car wouldn't crank back up. You have to have your foot on the clutch AND
the brake to crank the car... Smart girl.

1 Month Anniversary

It's hard to believe we've already been here a month! If it keeps going at this pace, I'll be home before I know it.

Friday was Desi Night and Samiyah outdid herself cooking excellent Pakistani food for us! Saturday we rented cars again and our group of American, Italians, French, and Swiss drove to Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, in the southwestern part of Northern Ireland. We toured the Marble Arch Caves which thankfully weren't very tourist-ey. It
reminded me of the time Dad and I went spelunking in the Cumberland Caverns, without all the crawling in the mud and loosing my shoes of course.

After we were thoroughly chilled from being underground, we had a nice 150 stair climb back out to the car. Way to get the ol' circulation going...

The group decided to go pony trekking around the grounds of Crom Castle. I passed on that since riding in a skirt is kinda awkward, even side-saddle. Instead I went for a walk in the woods. It was a nice, peaceful walk, and I managed to keep track of the turns for a while... Then I got completely lost chasing after a camera-shy bunny. I had the keys to the car, so no one was going anywhere without me, but I ended up about a mile from where I needed to be. A passing car was nice enough to give me a ride back. I would never do that in the States, and I was nervous about it at first, but people here are really nice! Don't think I didn't pray under my breath as I got in though... I managed to arrive back at the car just as everyone else did.

Back in Derry, Nicola and Alessandro took us to a hill in Waterside overlooking the River Foyle and downtown Derry. It's a great view. We'll have to go back sometime after dark to see all the lights. Of course, waiting till dark means we'll be waiting till around midnight...

Sunday I made the trip to Portadown for church. During my walk to the bus station, I ran into a lady who got her teaching degree from Memphis. What are the odds?

I stayed on at the MacFarlands for their 4th of July party, and we had a blast. I left my camera at their house, so those pictures will have to wait until next week.

In the meantime, here are the latest ones!

Pictures 47-63

Happy 4th!!

Just a note to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July! I'm with the MacFarlands and all the AIM'ers this weekend in Gilford. We're having a big dinner and tons of fun. As you can guess, it's not a holiday here in Northern Ireland, but my boss was nice enough to give me the day off to celebrate my "Yankee Holiday".

We don't have fireworks, so you guys will have to set some off in my honor. I'm wearing my red, white, and blue! Weeee!

Have a wonderful holiday!!