Irish you were here...

Alright, this is my online scrap book. Whilst I'm living in Dublin for the next three months, I'll be posting short musings, random links, videos, facts, fiction, pictures and any other miscellanea that I find interesting and can convey digitally. This will likely entail a fair bit of puerile humor and as you might have guessed, many bad puns.

I've been over here for two weeks now and it's been a great time thus far. All went smoothly with my travels here - aside from what was perhaps a poor choice for my final meal: a super carnitas burrito from El Castillito. This was consumed shortly before boarding an 11 hour Aer Lingus flight from San Francisco to Dublin. Actually,'poor' might be the wrong descriptor, 'inconsiderate of my fellow passengers' is probably more apt.

When I arrived in Dublin, after leaving a sunny and fairly warm San Francisco, I was greeted by a traditional Irish spring. Which is to say blustery, wet, and cold. Took a cab from the airport for 30 euro, and found my flat. Which, after getting to the building, actually took some time.

It's apartment number 72. Which you might assume is on the 7th floor. Not so. It's on the 5th. Which for us would be the 6th. I can't tell you how confusing this was at what for me was 2 in the morning.

Still, it's a very nice and modern 2 bedroom, 2 bath pad that far exceeds the quality of my former abode. I'm trying not to get too attached to the sweet dishwasher, stainless steal oven, and in house washer/dryer, as it's unlikely I'll find its equal when I return. There's really nothing quite like corporate housing.

Thus far I've done some poking around the city, have visited Grafton and Henry streets (the two fancy shopping areas) and took a peak at Trinity and Dublin Castle (see left). I've eaten at a few restaurants - one really great pizza place, with the appropriately Italian name of Miller's Pizza Kitchens.

We've also eaten at a Filipino place called Bahay Kubo which had this great, for lack of a better term, Filipino-mariachi band. Calling themselves the Manila Rhythm, this three piece band did all kinds of great covers - they absolutely crushed a version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I've got a video here of them doing Pretty Woman. It was awesome.

Bahay Kubo also had my favorite sign thus far (one I should probably carry around with me as a constant reminder):




Also, here's some of my favorite Irish slang thus far:

A jar - a pint (We're going out for a few jars, care to join?)
Knacker - near as I can tell, it's a cross between a hoodlum and white trash, best to be avoided if at all possible. I hear this term was originally used to describe 'travelers', but now it's anyone who wears jewelry and matching track suits out to a club. And, just to clarify, apparently all hooligans are knackers, but not all knackers are hooligans. Incidentally, according to my Aussie counterpart, the Aus term for this is a 'bogan.'