ccTravelAbroad

masterpiece {CHECK} sorry bad title!

2007-07-30T14:44:00.002-07:00

On June 17^th I made it back to Duluth. I spent about 3 weeks trying to find a job and have now found a part time doing graphic design for a firm who makes promotional merchandise and as there catch phrase says “your logo on stuff” so that is going well, and I am also working at Barnes & Noble again. It has such a shock to come back to Duluth, it is so different here, considering I feel as there are not many people I know here, no independent theater, and my biggest obstacle, driving a car everywhere-except to the nursing home! I walk to the nursing home whenever I can to visit my grandmother. It is so wonderful to see her, in fact is so wonderful to see my family. I found out in the end the only thing I missed about the US (as this is a very common question) was my family and positively 3^rd street bakery! (cookies and organic bread for a buck!) So in the end where will the wind or the water or my own will take me? Who knows hopefully someplace not too warm, rainy at times and teaches me something new everyday, that’s what I ask for and good friends of course! I meet so many interesting and beautiful and friendly and loving people in the last year and I saw amazing things and experienced things as a fine Canadian one wrote, “don’t forget that there is only one of you and you are the only person who can experience life how you experience so just charge straight fucking ahead into life!” and that’s what I did and that’s what I try to do and that’s what I want to do more of. So here it is the travel journals mostly complete, I have trails and tribulations that did not make it into the typed version. If I see you in real life you may be able to jog my memory about something and I will relay the tale. I appreciate everyone in my life who has maintained their presence in my life, I appreciate you so much even if you don’t know it or don’t feel it. So here’s my story of 2 months of travel around Europe and the United States. And the blog, well maybe it will become my travels in my lifetime. Love you all lots and lots, and this is starting to look like a Minnesota Goodbye, dragging on and on so goodbye and love you all so much from the bottom of my heart with all my soul.

xoxo,

christie

are you from "I" taly?

2007-07-30T14:44:00.001-07:00

italy

On April 23^rd, 2007, i left Edinburgh Scotland for Verona. My friend Francesca had signed her “X” on the dotted line and agreed to pick me up from Bergamot Milano, an airport about 2 hours outside of Milano but only 45 minutes from Verona. So at about midnight my plane landed in a hot sticky climate, not relatable for someone who had been living in wet climates for the last 10 ½ months. it was amazing to see Francesca, after not seeing her for 6 months. You have an idea of how people look the last time you saw them, it is not always an accurate photograph of how you remember them.

After catching up for about 3 hours we were both tired so we went to bed. i saw many churches in Verona, i believe i listed them in previous blogs but here we go: Basilica di St Zeno, Chiesa di St Lorenzo, Duomo, Chiesa di St Anastasia, Chiesa di St Fermo. All of which i don’t remember, that’s why i wrote copious notes already about them. i must have already written about Venice as well, so let’s just skip ahead to Rome!

On May 3^rd 2007, i took a train from Verona to Rome, it was about a 5 hour train ride, but that’s alright, i better get used to this now right? The hostel i stayed in was about a 10 minute walk from Termini train station, which is the main train station in Rome. First stop that evening was Fontana di Trevi, maybe it was all the tourists, maybe it was too hot, but hey Trevi fountain, kind of wavering on thumbs up to thumbs down, in fact that kind of sums up how i felt about a lot of things in rome, not super impressed, not what you want to hear i know, it is still an absolutely must to visit, i’m just sayin’ all that art history kind of deflates the balloon a little bit when you see it in real life, and you imagined it bigger or what have you. The following morning, it was pouring outside and me with no trousers or an umbrella, talk about ill prepared! So i haggled with a man on the street for an umbrella and got him down to 4 euro for the super cheap umbrella, better then 10 euro! First stop the Vatican, it was about a 2 hour wait to get into the st peters basilica, but the bernini statues of the 4 saints i can’t remember and the pieta by michaelangelo and the personification of some pope as Constantine by bernini all worth it. i studied this stuff and bernini was definitely a master of the sculpture, is blow-y garment things are absolutely like nothing you can describe. After that i went and stood in the line for the cistine chapel to see some Raphael. The Musei Vaticini has so much art you wouldn’t believe me if i told you, including Egyptian and Etruscan stuff. i stayed in the Musei Vaticini until it closed at about 6…i think. After that i headed towards castle st angelo, it was very beautiful but didn’t go inside. i then wandered along the river looking at some of the ruins. i met some very nice Canadians, an Australian, and some other Americans at the hostel, so we all chipped in for some wine and tapas at the hostel.

The next day i set my sights on villa borghese, another deceased pope who had an amazing collection of masterpieces. i got a little bit lost and somehow ended up on a highway walking, or running for my life into a parking ramp with no path on the side! i was disappointed when i arrived at the villa and found that the next available day for the villa was Tuesday and i was there on Saturday and i was leaving on Monday. So instead i went and found the Museo del Arte Moderna. But my heart was just not set on looking at modern art. You just don’t come all that way to look at modern art in italy. i found a few artists that i enjoyed including Alberto Burri who melted plastic wrap on canvas frames. There was also a contemporary photography exhibition by Paolo Ventura and Maria Ricci who created en exhibition entitled “a journey of remembrance” Ricci inserted herself in photos from her mother’s life and Ventura created cold war painting/photos with mannequins. The park was lovely by the villa, there was even a zoo! i then hopped on the Metro and met Cheope in the Termini station. Cheope is an italian boy i met through Francesca in Dublin. i emailed him out of the blue to tell him i was in rome and he gave me a ring on my mobile, super happy.

My guide around Rome with a real Roman, included such fun things as Colosseo (The Colosseum), Arco di Constantino (the Arch of Constantine), and then to the Pantheon, but it was closed due to a religious ceremony. After Cheope took me to the river and we went to see the eternal flame and Julius Caesar’s burial site in this weird modern building with lots of windows. They wanted to create a building that would protect the burial site after they restored it so they erected this really ugly modern building around the grave, bad choice italy! The Roman’s don’t even like it according to Cheope. Later on we hopped on the B line which took us to Cheope’s University. i have to say if you ever got to Rome, you will want to ride the A line as much as possible. The B line is super sketchy with tons of graffiti and people playing instruments for money inside the trams-an experience in and un itself. i was also informed by Cheope that the best thing about Rome were the drinking fountains! So free water for all! We then proceeded to point out all the drinking fountain. The evening was pretty uneventful but that was okay.

Sunday morning i got up about 7.15AM to catch the fast train to Florence. The train ride was about 3 hours so super quick. On the train i met this super nice woman who was from Morrocco, living in italy. She told me all these amazing places i had to see and wrote some cities down. Super cool. Upon arrival in Florence i found out there were 4 train stations in Florence, and i was definitely not in downtown Florence, so i went back to the train station to catch a different train into town, and lucky for me, the train to the city had just arrived. Upon exit of the train station, and entrance into the city centre there were Romanians on the left and Albanians on the right (here i am babe, stuck in the middle with you…remind you of a certain bob dylan song?). These are 2 groups that are a strain on the state. i wandered into a square where there were people selling things like a flea market it was packed and i was just trying to find the Uffizi Museum. On consultation of my navigational system (map) i realized i was in the north of the city and i was supposed to be in the south of the city to the museum. On my way south i passed the duomo-made of many pieces of marble, one of the largest catholic churches on earth. The cue time at Uffizi was the longest out of anything, anywhere, about 2 hours. But it wasn’t a problem as I brought a book (“the unbearable lightness of being” super good by a Czech author about living in Czechoslovakia) and it started raining an hour after I got in line and rained (for about 4 hours) until I left the museum (perfect timing my globally warmed weather). So masters I saw: Bottecili, Caravaggio, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, Titian, Carracci but overall I am frustrated that they shove everything into a museum and then you can not wander back and forth once you go forward you can NOT I repeat NOT go back from whence you came! After, everything was pretty much closing as it was about 5/6 at night so I wandered to the west part of the city over the river and then to a few piazzas. I also stopped for some pizza at a restaurant for some pizza with buffalo cheese, the buffalo cheese was excellent. Once I got to the train station I found out that the last train to rome was the super slow train and would take about 4 hours and would arrive in Roma about 1 in the morning. Also, I found out they do not dim the lights on this train, at all, so super hard to sleep. The other really fun thing about this train was that the brake stuck so every time the train stopped and restarted it would jerk forward then stop then start again.

The following morning was my last day in roma and then back to Francesca time. I wanted to sleep in but someone’s’ alarm went off promptly at 7. So I was out of the hostel by 10 and off sightseeing. I headed south on the east side where I was to see santa maria maggiore, giardini piazza Vittario where there was a villa with 2 statues of the God of Pregnant Women, then on to Colle Oppio, I also got some great shots of Colosseo and Arco di Tito, I saw the other side of the Colosseum which is what the Colosseo is called. I saw some other random things that I took some photos of but I think the notes in my journal were more for me trying to label the photos more when they came out because my last day kind of turned into a “see everything else you haven’t seen quick but with no thought”. So I list some stuff in the journal and that I bought this amazing scarf with a large paisley in the center, even though I knew it wasn’t Italian I still bought it because it was beautiful. I also made it back to the Pantheon, which for Italians is for all religions and someone really famous and important is buried there but I can’t remember who. It also has a large circular hole in the ceiling probably to let sunlight in to light the kind of church like thing since it has no windows. I attempted a visit to Temio Adriano but they were under construct and being restored, but the Italians were nice enough to blow up a photo on a big tarp so I could see what they looked like. I also made it to the Spanish Steps, and up to the top of the steps. And that was about the end of Rome, I made it to the train and back to Verona in about 5-6 hours and when I arrived there Francesca was running around like a crazy woman getting things ready for her arrival to Dublin, to work for Cultivate for another summer festival. We had Italian ice cream for the last time for a while and then back to her house to pack our bags, talk about our days apart and when I will arrive in Dublin for a visit.

xoxo,

christie

A little bit of Eastern Europe, a country held together by dikes, and a little south, east, and central Germany!

2007-07-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

germany

On the 9^th of May I got on a train at 11am to Munich Germany (direct from Verona to Munich) pretty nice, no train changing yet! The train goes through the Alps across Austria to Germany. Human ingenuity is amazing when it comes to the train going through the mountains and then to be able to see them through the train window. It is absolutely picturesque with the little towns or villages on the sides of the train tracks with the mountains in the background. But in my mind no highlands. It took about 6 hours to arrive in Germany (and no border patrol on the trains when we crossed the border) and it was pouring rain on arrival in Munich. I went to the tourism office and found out there were 3 vegetarian restaurants in the city for me to choose from. The vegetarian restaurant I chose to go to was called Prinz Myshlain a German character in a book or something. I found the food really dairyish. There was one thing on the menu with beans and that was hummus! Upon arrival I realized that in Bavarian they really liked sausages and even more they like to smoke...everywhere, even on the trains!

Another day of more rain on May 10th, in fact the whole day. I walked to the Deuchers Museum which is a huge science museum. The museum had 4 floors of fund with science and technology. I wish I could say I learned a lot, I did but I basically forgot it all. It might be tucked away in the old brain but where, I’m not sure. For dinner I tried a vegan restaurant called Vielen Dank, it was a fairly good salad with tempeh. In Munich I found that Henrich street turned into Paul Heyse Street (my old flat mate in Dublin’s name is Paul Hayes) so I found it kind of funny. That evening I hopped on a train to Prague. Sleeping sitting isn’t too bad but it is definitely not the best. I arrived in the Czech Republic at about 7am to be woken up for my passport. Since the Iron Curtain and the Czech Republic has joined the EU the Czechs’ are really cautious about border control. I think that their economy is fragile so they are super careful. And I got the 5^th stamp of the year in the passport in the Czech Republic. Upon arrival I sleepily crawled off the train and with poor directions and no Czech Crowns I used my ingenuity to trade in some Euros to get on the and bought a 3 day tram ticket so I could ride the tram anywhere for the next 72 hours or something. I found the tram that took me to my hostel, out in the middle of nowhere, on the river (which I still don’t remember the name of). I took a shower at this hostel and it was amazing to get out of the shower and be looking at the river and across the river in the distance is the old towne where the castle is. I bought some new walking shoes today, as mine were water-logged and giving my blisters (I will never ever buy NorthFace Shoes ever again!)

czech republic

The following day I got up pretty early to go to the castle Pražský hrad. I went there with an older French Canadian who now lives in France. There was a beautiful cathedral with so many different kinds of stained glass, all of it being done at different times or some if it probably had to be replaced at certain times in Czechoslovakia’s unstable state etc. Aside from the cathedral I purchased a ticket that was good for Old Royal Palace, The Story of Prague Castle (which was like the history of the monarchy in Prague), I also went to St. George’s Basilica which is the 2^nd oldest church at Prague Castle (aside from the first cathedral I went to). The Basilica served as a burial site for Premyslid family and the first Czech female saint, the Princess Ludmila. When I was in the basilica I sear I could feel the presence of Ludmila in the crypt. As soon as I stuck my head through the bars into the crypt I felt this sadness and cold move over my skin that cannot be described to those who do not believe in old spirits or ghosts. I also visited St. George’s Convent-National Gallery with Bohemian art from the Czech Mannerists and Baroque art period. Then I walked down to an area called the Golden Lane which was a bunch of shops that used to be inhabited by the castle’s riflemen and later by goldsmiths. I also visited Daliburka Tower which is named after the first prisoner Dalibour of Kozojedy, the tower is now a museum of ancient torture devices, maybe the photos will turn out even in that low light situation. The last place I visited was Prague Castle Picture Gallery which was the old stables, not great but fine for a collection of art. This gallery had many students of art replicating some of the paintings in the gallery, kind of interesting to watch the students paint these works of art. Next on the agenda for that day THE MUSEUM OF COMMUNISUM, did that seem ominous? That’s what I was going for. I learned all about how Czechoslovakia went from a Republic to Communist to a Republic (the monarchy was around way before the republic fell the first time so no info on that) there was lots of memorabilia, as well as propaganda and other antiques. There was also an excellent film about the Velvet Revolution and young men setting themselves on fire as a form of peaceful protest against the Communist state. If only I had taken notes during the film maybe I would have remembered more Czechoslovakian history. Later I found a vegetarian restaurant called comfort living with good cheap cafeteria style vegan/vegetarian food. I also made it to the clock tower to watch the tower change on the hour. The 12 apostles come out of the two windows and the skeleton rings a bell. Really neat to see, if you ever go the Prague the clock tower is a must, right in the middle of town the tourists all stop and stare at this clock and point and talk in all the different languages.

Some crazy things in Prague…

Aside from the super cheap great beer there is a store called “Bank Rot” which is like a dollar store/pound saver etc.

While on a tram I passed a house boat with a banner across it that read “Botel” clever I know.

“TV Products Store” the store that sells products “As Seen On TV” and lots and lots of channels with infomercials, whether or not people buy this stuff I have no idea.

Today was my last day in Prague and then off to Dresden for a night and then on to Berlin. First I headed towards St. Nicholas Church \located near the Castle of Prague when Nicole (a girl I met from Holland) and I arrived at the church we found that there was a morning mass church service taking place so we could only go into the back of the church. This church is one of the most memorable churches I visited in my tiny travel because it was super garish with fake marble and gilded statues. We wandered towards the Mucha Museum who is the epitome of Art Nouveau and he can probably be named as the most influential of the movement. The museum held many proofs as well as photographs of the artist and his family. Towards the end of his life he created a series called the Slave Epic which consisted of some 20 odd paintings about the history of the Slavs using Allegorical figures from their pagan past. Alfonso was Czech and Slovak. His commercial work defined a generation in France and changed the way posters were made but his paintings were his masterpiece. Nobody really wanted to commission him to do the Slave Epic, and in the end he found an American to fund the project. He was later interrogated by the Nazi party which in the end became the death of him. After the museum we met up with Anna who accompanied us to the church where we went earlier, but we could now get into the church. We got to go up to the 2^nd floor as well as look at some paintings of the Passion Cycle. After that we went up to the top of the bell tower-beautiful view of the city-then we separated as I had to head to the hostel for my things and then to the train station. Once I started on my trek to the hostel I was alarmed to find that was a marathon and the tram was not running that way so I had to walk 40 minutes to get to a metro and then I ran to the hostel and back to the metro and realized that I was not going to make it so I got off at the closer station to get a new ticket but they would not get me one and the woman in the window told me i was at the wrong station so I asked her how to get to the other station and she just turned away from me. I figured out how to get on the metro and found that my train was 15 minutes late.

germany

Somehow karma had worked in my favour and I was on my way to Dresden, I found my hostel took a shower and went to bed. I got up at 7.30 to walk around the city; you can visibly see that everything in the city had to be rebuilt after world war II. I stopped at a café for a machiatto an omelet and something called Hausgemachie Quarkkeulchen quiet a mouthful but it was a fried dumpling made of cheese and raisins-very heavy, but delicious. The café was right outside Church of Our Lady which had a piece of the old dome outside the church. Since I was out the door at 10 to 8 I was able to arrive in the city center to enjoy the bells of the churches-absolutely picturesque! Later in the afternoon I visited the northern part of Dresden (where my hostel was) called Dresden-Neudeust, literally translated as New Dresden, oh the Germans and their literalism! I went to a couple of churches and to a park and then headed to the train station, after almost getting stuck in Prague for another day I was 30 minutes early for my train! In mid afternoon I arrived in Berlin I found my hostel, in the forest of west Berlin and then headed for the internet as it was free at the hostel! Later on I met my roommate, an Australian guy named Luke, he had more of an English accent then an Australian accent, but that’s besides the point we headed into town for a cheap veggie burger beer and French fries and then to the Eastside Gallery which is part of the remaining Berlin wall covered in graffiti. The wall is amazing to see in person, you see old video from the wall being broken down but you are a bit disconnected from it until you actually see it. In 98 there were artists who were invited to come and do some murals on the wall, they are awesome.

The following morning I left at around 9.30am to find the Bauhaus Archive, which houses a lot of Bauhaus work including work by Moholy-Nogy, Kandinsky, Herbert Bayer (typography) so great work as I will not make it to Dassau where the school that was designed by Groupis is. Lots of history about he Bauhaus. Later on that day I went of a free tour of East Berlin which included Brandenburgh Gate, the Reichstag (the Government Building/Parliament), Hitler’s Bunker (which is now a dirt car park where Germans choose to bring there dogs to shit), The Holocaust Memorial-for Jewish people of Europe (controversial because what about the 3 million people the Nazi’s killed?), Postdamer Platz, The Berlin Wall that has the Topography of Terror, SS Headquarters, Checkpoint Charlie (after Alpha and Beta) Museum Island, Gendarmenmarket and the Book Burning Memorial. Later on that night I went to the Reichstag a beautiful parliamentary building which you can climb up to the top of a glass dome and look down on the Parliament-and it’s free! The info I read about the government and how it works it instilled in me the hope that this government will work for the people. It made me feel a sense of nationalism and pride in the government of Germany I wish my own government did that for me.

May 15^th, in the morning I chose to go to the Sachsenhausen Museum and Memorials this was the sight of the new more efficient concentration camp designed by Henrich Hilmner. It was constructed by Estonian and other Baltic State prisoners for the state of Prussia. This was not like a death camp like Auschwitz but a concentration camp. The site has 3 museums two mass graves and examples of the barracks both these are not the original barracks-they have been rebuilt twice-they were burned to the ground in 1992 as an act of anti-Semitism. I’m a bit dumbfounded at the moment and can’t really make a comment on the site at this moment in time. There was an empty pit of sadness that kind of was my stomach, and I had the knot in my throat like I could cry at any time and I could not speak. After going to this sight I think it is necessary to have these and to visit these kinds of things, even though we are so far removed from the time and the place, it makes you realize any feelings you have for humanity. That same afternoon I went to the Helmut Newton Gallery where i saw some work by David LaChappel, who shoots photos of celebrities which are usually shocking, for instance he shot a photo of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain in the pose of Michelangelo’s Pieta. Also at this exhibition was a war photographer, which by the time I started looking at the photos of Bosnia, on the verge of tears, I thought this is too much for me today. First the concentration camp and now photos of genocide and tragedies of war. The on the next floor of the gallery was an exhibition entitled “Humanism in China” the poverty and the amount of people going this way and that, and there were so many photos it made me a bit claustrophobic. Then I went out and looked at all the different sites that I wanted photos of and the Berlin wall, once again. I tried to go to the Botanical Garden but it closed at 8 and I got there at about 8.15L Then to find a restaurant was a little bit impossible but I managed to find a Greek restaurant but more cheese! Then later that night I found out my roommate was a crazy girl from Florence who married some random guy she knew for 2 months and he started drinking heavily and snorting stuff-and in the end left her. Super tragic. So she was moving back to Europe.

denmark

The following morning I was up at 5.40 to get into town for a 7.22 train to Hamburg I got off and had the pleasure of experiencing the lack of seats so I had to wait between cars to get a seat. It was no more then 10 minutes before I got a seat. Once in my seat I fell asleep and when I woke up it looked like I was in a warehouse-no just a ferry! So it is amazing how they get to Denmark, Copenhagen, rather then drive through the country, they load the train on a ferry and it takes about 40 minutes versus 3 hours! When I arrived in Copenhagen it was raining so I wandered towards my hostel (city public hostel) passing sex shops and kebab food huts. Once arriving at the hostel I realized where the name came from, it was a public hostel, as in down and outs lived there when they had enough money. So I was a bit apprehensive and asked, oh how many people in a room etc. and found they had smaller rooms with only 10 beds, for backpackers. So I stayed in one of the 10 bed rooms with 2 girls form Holland and we were the only people in the room. So I had the fortune of getting a bed that squeaks- a lot to the point where every time I moved I made the bed squeak, move my foot ‘squeak squeak squeak’. The afternoon I arrived I went to the Rundetaarn a tower in which you can see the entire city from, it was nice enough out for my time in the tower, there was sun and no rain. While up in the tower I heard some drunken singing and as I was leaving the tower there were people with pitchers of beer and a man with an accordion and I can only guess it is a tradition when the students at university finish classes they drink with their professors and then go up to the top of tower. Like in the university of Rome (as according to Cheope), you jump into the fountain after your final final!

So the next day in Copenhagen it was pouring rain but I went out anyway-I believe it was also some holiday as most shops were closed including the supermarket, but all the 7-11s were open! So I wandered by the castle-not so impressive and then towards an area called Christinia-an area in which a hippie commune still exists. There are people who are just squatters where they on the build a shack out of scraps and there are paintings everywhere absolutely amazing that the city lets this area remain; but apparently it draws in a lot of people. I also found a great sandwich shop near to Christinia which sold a huge sandwich with hummus and sun dried tomatoes-no dairy! Then there was wandering back to the hostel for my luggage and then I went to the train station-one thing really amazing about Denmark and Sweden-linked by a bridge you can get to Sweden in about 30 minutes, Malmö to be exact. Then I took a 5 hour train ride to Stockholm. The first night there I stayed in a 3 star hotel- I was able to wash my clothes and dry them on the towel heating rod. I also enjoyed my beer I bought in Germany along with a cheese and lettuce sandwich and an episode of Scrubs, with Swedish subtitles.

xoxo,
christie

Sweden ship to Estonia ship to Finland (I hope i'm not ship out of luck about being on the sea!)

2007-07-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

sweden

The following morning I booked a boat ride to Tallinn and a hostel for that night. When I arrived at the hostel the guy behind the counter offered to show me a vegan restaurant- I had a vegetable chickpea Malaysian curry with brown bread. I then went back into town and saw the Island, Old Town Garäm something, lots of old buildings before arriving in Stockholm I did not realise that Stockholm is made up of 14 different islands that’s kind of crazy that a city is made up of a bunch of islands, it seems the Swedes and myself are not on the same page as I would have named the islands different things and they would have been different cities, but I suppose the islands are all relatively small. After that I wandered into what I thought was a park (well, according to the map) but it was not a green park, it was an area of outdoor concerts. There was a cover band that played/sang a Justin Timberlake song and at that point I was like, nope I need to leave like now, because I really don’t think it is going to get better. get out the banners and the balloons Stockholm is the first city I ever experienced a woman peeing in the street. Later on that night I went out with hostel worker desk guy to a bar and had an alright time talking to him and some guy who told me about how he used to live in Newark NJ for a while.

The following morning I went to an east island where there was a real park, a bunch of museums and some walking trails, very nice relaxing day considering I was tired hung over and had a headache. I did go inside the Swedish history museum where I learned all about Vikings, wow, lots of interactive sites as well as stuff that was trilingual. That afternoon I got on a ferry to Estonia and I noticed the coasts of Sweden look just like the coasts of Minnesota lakes and on the train, traveling through southern Sweden to Stockholm looks just like northern Minnesota with the trees and fields it’s so strange the Vikings found the exact same kind of area so far from there homelands.

estonia

May 19^th, so this evening I got on a ferry to Estonia. One of the Dutch girls in Copenhagen suggested visiting it she said it was a very quiet and nice for a few days, to visit. So the 15 hour ferry ride arrived on the 20^th of May in Tallinn yet another stamp in my passport. So I arrived in town and found I was walking far to southeast of my hostel, and old town. So I looked on another tourists map to find out where I needed to be going. Once I reached the hostel the guy working the desk was like “oh you were supposed to check in yesterday” oops, Christie forgot about the one night on a boat meant no hostel needed. So I dropped my bags and wandered in and out of all the handicraft stores after settling on a few gifts I found a restaurant called something like the league of natural food and had a wonderful 4 rice dish with some bread, lots of bread, I think I age about 12 slices of small bread. Afterwards I did some more wandering and found the museum of applied art and design. I have to say I was quite impressed with the collection considering they had 2 major times of design the early 1970s and the 1930s and a small resurgence in the last coupe of years. Once arriving on the third floor the man who entered the gallery with me asked if I wanted to go for a beer afterward I said sure and found out that he was from Dublin! A very pleasant man so we spent the afternoon talking about architecture and the like but in the end he had to catch a flight home, so we went our separate ways. So I wandered around the quiet city until I found a jazz bar called Basso Lounge which I didn’t realise until the 20^th that I did not leave enough money to cover the bill so I will probably do some online research and send money that I owe.

The following morning I got up around 9.30 and was out of the hostel at about 10.30 which I forgot to mention previously that I found soy milk in the super Estonian market-uuuuuuuuuuuuuu! So I found a café for an espresso macchiato and a roll and then I wandered into St. Michaels Covenant of the Cistercian Order church and climbed the tower then I went towards the Dome Church (14^th century) and my favorite Russian seeming cathedral, Alexander Nevski Cathedral, built in the 18^th century, I didn’t go in but still beautiful then it was off to the ferry for Helsinki. Oh but first I passed the really tall tower of “Kiele in de Kok” tower built in the 15^th century-too funny a name! I arrived at the ferry and was sitting outside enjoying the cold sea air when a man came up to me and said “You have no room?”

Me, “No”.

“You want beer?”

“No Thank You.”

“I have some in my room.”

“No thanks.”

“No sex, no sex!”

“No, that’s alright I don’t want a beer.”

“My boy there.”

“Oh yeah.”

“You from London (or something like this)?”

“No.”

“I in mafia London!”

“I don’t understand.”

“You speak English?!”

“Yes.”

“That’s nice!”

“Somedays (nervous laugh from me).”

“You tired; you come sleep in my room?”

“No thanks, I’m alright.”

“You could come to my room, no sex!”

“No thanks though.”

“Okay!”

Straight out of a bad Russian film, I don’t know maybe he though I could be a mail order bride. Afterwards I went inside the boat and sat and had a cup of tea. I was right next to a lounge where there were singers! Now don’t confuse live free music with good music, quite the opposite out of key and not being able to hold notes I just started laughing because it was so bad. I found out lots of people go to Estonia and Denmark for cheaper alcohol, if they were planning a trip they bring back vodka by the carton! Upon arrival in Helsinki I start walking towards town. A nice gentleman asked “where are you trying to go?” so I showed him and he told me the tram to take. So I found this office booked my hotel for the 23^rd and then off to the hostel. I took the long way around and couldn’t get out of the tram at my stop as it was so packed! There was some sort of conference going on so lots of men in suits got on the tram at different times. Once out, I tried to figure out where I was and a woman came up behind me and was like “do you need some help?” so she turned me in the right direction. I thanked her started walking one way then another gentleman came up and asked me if I knew where I was going. my god I have never in my life experienced such eagerness in assisting someone who is lost. I found my hostel, which were the old Olympic stadium apartments from the 1987 Olympics. So I took a shower and then I checked my email and booked the rest of my hostels and my flight to Dublin! Then I went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant called Ravintola Gandi excellent fairly priced food, super good Indian food but the server wanted me out of there, he came up to my table after I was done with my food for about 10 minutes and told me, “we are closing in about 20 minutes, so do you want anything else!?!” fair enough the sign on the door said they were open until 11pm and it was only 10pm so whatever, false advertiser!

finland

the following morning I slept in and left the hostel around noon. I decided to also post on Couchsurfing that I was in town if anyone wanted to go for a drink or something just text me. So in the end I got a text from Imo who said he was the Couchsurfing Ambassador for Helsinki. So I met him for drinks at about 5 and then we went with another group called Jolly Dragon (another online group that organizes drinks or bowling or things like this). So on this night we went to a bowling alley. I haven’t bowled since I was about 14 or so. The more cider I drank the worse I got as a bowler; I even threw the ball backwards, whoops! Before the night life began I spent the day doing such fun things like going to the Cable Factory, you guessed it, and it’s an old cable factory where they now have photography and other art exhibitions as well as have theater events. I went to the photo exhibition as it was open, and they were installing a new exhibition in the hall. It was free, because it was Tuesday or something like that, so that was nice. Lots of Finnish artist, but others as well. One thing that is quite funny is in Finland they put the artists birth year instead of the year that the work was created on the wall next to the art. Some artists that I wrote down include: Raoul Grüstein, Citizens Portfolio there was a photo of a woman that was so beautiful, she had this amazing skin tone, and the shape of her face, if beauty of a woman had a poster child, I’m sure this woman would be it. There were some other artists that I listed with no words about their art so kind of useless to list the artist without any descriptors. “SLIPPERS!?!” You’ll get it if we’ve had this conversation. I also found a book called The Helsinki School of Photography, which has amazing contemporary Finnish photographers in it, since I had no room in the suitcase I just listed it in my journal so that I could look for it here in the US. So some interesting things to drink in Finland include: vodka with Fisherman’s Mints (kind of tastes like cough syrup), vodka with salty licquorice. And this is the spot where I bring up how much I love licorice but not really in my alcohol. Interestingly enough licorice has a component called glycyrrhizin and this stimulates the adrenal cortex which can cause headache, raised blood pressure and in some cases cardiac arrest! So I guess the Finns could always say “it wasn’t the drink that killed him it was the licorice!”

The next day Timo took me to Suomenlinna and island fortress built by the Swedes when they occupied Finland to fight the Russians. It is a beautiful island with the fortress walls still remaining and many other features-plus we needed to take a ferry there. Another ferry ride, which was number 3 in about 4 days! So we arrived back to the city and walked through a square and then I went to meet Tiia (someone I met at the bowling night) and we went to the MOA. The Masters of Arts Exhibition. It is an exhibition with people who did their Masters of Arts or final projects/thesis’ in all types of design and mixed media and photography, with more focus on technical design then art (i.e. painting). I wrote many things in the exhibition book I got so if you want to see my notes or some of the exhibition stuff you will need to ask me for the book! After that I went for drinks with the Jolly Dragon group again with my first ever 2 hour bar hop, The small group included myself, Timo, Minttu (a finish girl named whose name is mint in Finnish, super cool), and a Danish guy who’s name I can’t remember for the life of me.

xoxo,
christie

amsterdam Utrect Paris (snap fingers to add flare to title)

2007-07-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

the netherlands

The following morning was my flight to Amsterdam. So 30 minutes by bus to the airport and then I arrived with about an hour before my flight with a line that stretched so far, I was like there is no way I am making this flight. So went and pestered the woman at the self check out and got my bags checked and through security for my flight. Again I am really sorry Scandinavian airlines for my poor planning! So the flight uneventfully landed in Amsterdam, with no delays or bomb threats! It was quiet warm in Amsterdam but I gathered my luggage took a train to the city centre, chatted with a guy who was from, somewhere (all I remember is he had a home in Amsterdam, and his wife lived in Venice i.e. rich business man). Dropped the stuff at the hostel and then headed to a vegetarian restaurant called Bolhoed. No idea what the name means, but good food anyway! Then I was so tired I tried to go to bed at 11.30 but there was someone who was snoring already by the time I got there! I should also mention the irony of the hostel I stayed at in Amsterdam; apparently I wasn’t looking at the hostelworld thing some well because somehow I booked a bed in a Christian hostel. Fair enough to be Christian but in Amsterdam, the land of legal prostitution and marijuana? So a little bit funny.

The following day I made it to Anne Frank’s House, it’s really sad to be there, you get to walk behind the movable wall and into everyone’s rooms. Obviously not much was left over, but there were a few photos of celebrities that were attached to the wall that Anne put up to decorate the families homes. I also ventured into the Marijuana Museum; you can’t go to Amsterdam and not go there! It was kind of interesting to see all the little tid-bits of information they had about the cannabis plant. I already knew the fun little fact that Henry Ford, the creator of the Model T never wanted cars to be run on gasoline, he wanted them to be run on soybean oil and hemp see oil. I also marched my way into the Sex Museum. Lots of photos of 1890s pornography and Betty Page! As well as the interesting little morsel of knowledge I learned, that is that American’s are really the only people in the developed Western world that like anal sex! In fact the exhibition went so far as to say that American’s love anal sex! After that I went and saw some “socially acceptable” forms of entertainment including the FOAM museum (fotgrapfia of Amsterdam Museum) where I saw the same photographer as I did in Berlin about the victims of war photography. I also went to the “Centre Voor Photography Amsterdam” where there was an exhibition called something like “Photos of our Parents”. Later in the afternoon, after getting lost a few times, I made it to Wertheimpark and then back to the hostel to collect my luggage and to the train station to Utrecht to meet Nicole (girl I met in Prague). As I was going to Utrecht I found my pone hand not topped up and I could not contact her but I found a payphone and attempted to call her, but with no luck. So some very nice person let me use their mobile phone! So Nicole came and picked me up and we went into the city centre for the night. First I thought Nicole said we were going to ride bikes into town and I was a little bit nervous, but then she said no you need to hop on the back of the bike while I start peddling and sit there. So the two of us got on the bicycle, doing it the Dutch way on the bicycle. Nicole pedaling and Christie trying not to tip the bike. Utrecht at any time of day is beautiful, whether at night with all the people at the cafes or bars, everyone sitting outside as the Dutch summer can be very short. As soon as we got into town Nicole said “ohhhhhhhhh ice cream!” so I had hazelnut and tiramisu ice cream. Then more wandering around while we found a Greek place with a salad and rice for me. Later we went to one of her favorite bars and we sat outside in the beer garden with drinks and watched the people go by. While sitting there I asked Nicole, “do you ever run into people you know while you sit in the outside bar?” and who should appear not more than 15 minutes later but her ex-boyfriend visiting from Spain! So after our drive we walked back towards the bicycle, only to find the Miffy museum! So we peeked in the window and were both very excited by what we saw-so we both knew we needed to go to see Dick Bruna’s work. So after the bike ride home it was pretty obvious that the bicycle was done until it got more air in its tires. We both felt every bump in our bottoms! Upon arrival at Nicole’s home we both took showers and went to bed.

I was amazed at how late I slept; I didn’t get up until about 10am. After breakfast we left the house at about 11.30 and walked into town (as the bicycle tire desperately need air) The first thing we went and saw was Miffy Square, in Utrecht. We were both amazed at what shambles the square was in, cigarette butts, and litter everywhere! And poor Miffy had graffiti all over her. It’s a good thing we took photos from far away! After the square we headed to Nicole’s favorite coffee shop, alas it was full so we got some scones and a brownie bar for take away and went to a different coffee shop. The waiter at this coffee shop asked if I was visiting from France. I told him, no I am from the US but I had been out of the country for a while. So we sat and drank our cappuccinos and cheekily ate our treats, our strawberry scone and coconut brownie. After it was to the Central Museum, to see Miffy! The Central Museum had an exhibition about the Evolution of Technology and both Nicole and I were scratching our heads and it was a really confusing set up- and there were live chickens with no ventilation-yuck! So we went to the Bruna Huis and looked at the Exhibition and acted like children for the afternoon. Then we headed to get some food-we stopped and got some Turkish bread and tried to find some ripe fruit but we had no luck. So we rushed to her house and found were still running late for my train and still I missed it-so I had to take like 4 trains to make my train in Brussels, to France, but it all went well. One thing I noticed upon arrival to Brussels and Paris IS THAT Holland, Belgium and France all have legal prostitution. The directions given to me by my hotel were crap I asked the security guard in the train station and he did not have a clue, as I did not have an address. So i called the hotel and couldn’t figure out what the person was saying then I had the security guard call and he got the info for me, the tram/train stop they had listed was incorrect. He showed me how to get there using the Metro and told me I really should take a taxi and not really wanting to deal with the metro at that moment in time agreed and he took me to the taxi cue. So 5 minutes later, through the Red Light District we arrived at my hotel. The following day I found my other hotel and then went to Cimetre Du Pere Lachaise, where I saw Oscar Wilde, Eugene Delacroix, Ingres, and Jim Morrisons’ graves. Afterwards, I caught the Metro to St Chapelle, Palais de Justice, and the Conciergerie. St Chapelle is the chapel Louis XIV built for himself; it was built in about 6 years while Notre Dame was still being built. There is a lower chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the Upper Chapel has the most amazing stained glass you could ever imagine. It shows, I think the 12 books of the bible in each window. The concierge was also very interesting-many revolutionaries were held here during the French Revolution. It was also really sweet, because if you were held you could pay money to get a better cell, if you were slightly wealthy you could get a cot instead of straw to sleep on. If you were a lord or something you could get a private cell! I also saw what the cell of Marie Antoinette would have looked like-they think. The models in the cells were hilarious; the wigs were not on right or straight! Maybe they wanted to show that revolutionaries must have disheveled hair. In the afternoon I just sort of wandered around looking at all the funky independent shops until I found a café for a salad and a passtarie for some cookies-one with jam and hearts and one with chocolate, then bed early so I could get up for the Louvre!

May 28^th, Monday, raining againL So I woke up early to pack and to get to the Louvre! I was out of the door about 8.15 and was in line by 8.50 and through security with ticket in hand by 9.15! I think the fastest famous museum time ever in my travel! Rather then write down all the stuff I saw, I am just going to put the map with notes in my journal-and hope it doesn’t pop out and get lost. Here a few notes that did not make it onto the map: Antonio Corradini (1668-1752) “Femmé Voilée” statue with a bucket over her head and copper water coming down with stones and silver balls between the copper. This statue was modern with the metal over the statue’s head it was a little bit bizarre to see. Gloria Friedman “The Contemporaries” 18 people in plaster with clocks, this piece was to show how short our time on earth is and how precious each moment is. There was some other stuff that, again I need to google in order to know why I wrote it down! The special exhibition I went to was Praxiteles, who is a Greek artist who created a lot of the Hellenistic statues that the Romans copied, and artists who were creating historical and allegorical paintings would use these poses to reference the statues and the Greek stories behind them. It was an amazing collection with 3 originals and then the Roman or more contemporary copy. The exhibition included one excavated statue from a ship that is 500 feet below the surface. After six and a half hours of the Louvre and being burnt out on art, I walked to Notre Dame to climb, what else but a tower! I believe it is close to 300 steps that I stepped before I got to see “Emmanuel”, the bell in the south tower (which is one of the largest bells in Notre Dame). The security guard started ringing a little bell and saying “it’s Emmanuel’s’ grandson!” Perhaps the real Quasimodo? I also took a photo of Esmeralda’s cell, the Concierges’ wife. I stepped inside the church one more time before I left. Somewhere around Notre Dame I misplaced my faithful umbrella that kept me dry from Italy on throughL Luckily I still had my raincoat! I was in rough shape running to first catch the metro to where I needed to catch my bus then running to find the parking lot where I needed to catch my bus in the rain with my two backpacks strapped to me like I am a pack animal! I got stopped by a red light to go and catch my bus and while waiting 2 French men decided to remind me that I was getting all we standing in the rain waiting to cross the street laughing and pointing and speaking in French, but oh well I couldn’t understand them so no skin off my back! During my time in the Louvre I saw one of my favorite paintings “Liberty Leading Her People to Freedom” by Delacroix. Absolutely beautiful-although I thought it would be bigger! Joking! The colors are so dramatic the flag and liberty the lightest things in the painting to show that this is the light in a bleak world for the French. The men’s faces show such emotion, a lot of them border on grotesque looking. I also saw the painting the “Grand Odalisque” which is a famous painting by Ingres. She is elongated and the colours slightly brighter then in the photos or slides. And of course Mona, I thought it was sweet how they let the children get so close to the painting and the adults with their video cameras are herded like cows through the line and you can not spend many moments starring at her, you would need to go through multiple times in order to view the painting. If DaVinci could see us he would be pointing and laughing at all the nimrods amazed by her and totally passing by other equally amazing paintings!

xoxo,
christie

Ireland and Northern Ireland

2007-07-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

ireland

So after the crazy run to the bus and getting teased by some French guys I made it to the bus and the hour long bus ride to the satellite airport operated by Ryanair.com. checked in ate a sundried tomato and goats cheese sandwich then went through security to wait until I could get on my flight to Dublin. I cut down on my travel times, meaning I cut days off Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands, and cut Belgium out completely! I did this in order to see my friends in Dublin before I left, and I have to say, it was one of the best decisions I could have made. I was so happy to spend a few more days with Francesca before I made my way to the United States. So I arrived in Dublin about 11.30pm and caught the last bus in to town. I found Fra at the Siné the local pub and met a couple of her friends there and then we made our way out of the pub, as it was last call 30 minutes before I had gotten there. So we went back to the house and pretty much chatted over a tea and then we both went to bed. Angielle was visiting her family in France so she was not in so there was a free bed in the house! The following morning I went to find the office to apply for dual citizenship and was pretty much shut down. Bummer! I also went and visited the Down to Earth family and bought another salt crystal lamp. It was nice just going around and seeing the old city. The following day I took an hour bus ride out to meet my friend Ruth and see her baby. So I got to see Joey and her husband Paul came home during lunch so I got to see him as well. Ruth is a wonderful mother, she was so ready to become a mother and I am so happy for her and Paul. They have their house on the market to try and sell it and get a larger house. Ruth used to work at Down to Earth, and she tried going back but she wanted to work mornings and it just didn’t fit into the Down to Earth schedule so Ruth wasn’t sure what she wanted to do but she was just living in the moment, enjoying being a mother! And actually the day before I think I had lunch with Eileen at Yamamori. I found out that they no longer carry their turtle cheesecake, which was the best dessert in Dublin, as it didn’t contain a shitload of butter! So it was so awesome to see Eileen as well, she is studying to become a naturopath and she works part time at Down to Earth and she also sings in a country western band. I have the myspace page if anyone would like the site address, I just don’t have it with me while I am writing this bit of the travel! So she is doing awesome and healthy! I arrived on a Monday in Dublin and on Friday morning I took a bus to Belfast, to see Giant’s Causeway. The bus ride is just over 2.5 hours, so it really wasn’t too bad! We also got to go through a tunnel out of the city centre to go north of the city. (let’s go on a pigeon walk shall we…so Dublin built a tunnel so that semi trucks could get out of the traffic within the city centre, because if you have ever waited for a bus in Dublin, you will know that it does not run according to schedule, being up to an hour late at times! Which is why I wanted a job I could walk to! So this tunnel was built to reduce traffic, unfortunately the tunnel is not tall enough for the trucks and double-decker buses in Dublin! Ooops! So the tunnel is built to European standards but for some reason semi trucks and double-decker buses in Dublin are all about 10 inches taller then trucks and buses in European! So long story short I rode the short bus to Belfast (LOL) but most of the other buses don’t fit!)

northern ireland

Upon arriving in Belfast, I visited some stuff including a Botanical Garden, inside the garden was a statue of Sir Kelvin, if you scroll back to January 2007 I visited Glasgow and saw a statue of Sir Kelvin by the river Clyde! So while I was trying to find the name of the statue, a man came up to me and said “do you know who this is?” and I said, “why yes I do it is Sir Kelvin, the man who figured out the law of absolute Zero 273 degrees Fahrenheit = 0 degrees Kelvin, super necessary when dealing with chemistry.” And so we talked about physics for a little while and he started writing a bunch of books down that I need to read, in my life on earth, so we will see what happens. Cyril then told me that he as Aspergers syndrome, so he knows a lot of factual stuff, but he is nearly incapable of showing emotions or having tact when talking to people. He was fine enough though, a cool old Northern Irish guy who told me about the city, most of it I forgot, if anyone needs the necessary book list of books to read before you die, let me know I will be happy to post the book list. So I went out for Indian food this night as well as buy snack food for the trip to the Giant’s Causeway. Rachelle and her sister arrived at about 2am but we had a nice 3 bed room. The following day we had to catch a bus at 8am and then we got off at a rope bridge that the men used to salmon fish on. The rope bridge stretches over the sea from a small fjord like island thing. And just as we were about to walk across the bridge, the gale winds started to pick up. Besides, it was typical Irish weather, rain and wind! So after that we had some lunch and then started walking towards the causeway, little did we know it was more then 7 miles away! So I started walking really fast to get to the causeway but Rachelle and her sister did not make it to the causeway. I was able to find a later bus to a train station and take the train to Belfast. Rachelle and her sister were a little bit stranded, I felt bad about leaving them, but this was the one thing I wanted to see in northern Ireland before I left! So I made it to the causeway was only there for about 20 minutes before I had to got catch a bus. Meanwhile Rachelle called to find out when a bus was coming their way and they somehow missed it even though they were standing at a bus stop. So I said, people in Ireland are really friendly, go and knock on someone’s door. Luckily they picked the right door and a really nice farmer drove them to a train station. I wasn’t worried that something would happen to them, A) because there were 2 of them, and B) people in northern Ireland are friendly from my experience. So I met a girl from Chicago at a bus stop and had dinner with her, and then when we went back to the train station there were Rachelle and her sister waiting for the same train back to the Belfast! So that night we did not go out, Rachelle’s sister was none too happy about having to spend the night in a dorm room with 25 other girls.

The following morning we went on a black taxi tour of the dangerous areas of Belfast, including: Shankhill Road and I can’t remember the other one for the life of me. I just learned what to get “shanked” means in slang this year so that’s why I remember the road. We also went to the Sein Finn office (Jerry Adams…IRA) and learned about the marching season and the Orange man March starting on July 12^th so it is an amazing city the Berlin Wall has nothing on the “Peace Wall”, 2 stories high and gates that close at night that children/teens stand outside either side throwing petrol bombs and shouting obscenities at each other, of children/teens they have never met. Really interesting to be there and see how Belfast is making an attempt to have peace amongst themselves. The city of Belfast looks to me very similar to some of the cities on the Iron Range, like Virginia, especially Virginia. I found that really interesting and tried to draw a correlation but hey maybe it has to do with both being kind of poor cities now. But we went to the Catholic part of town and the Protestant part of town. There are murals on the two roads. So the Protestant murals includes a mural of a gunman with a ski mask on and if you look down the barrel of his shot gun it follows you wherever you guy, kin of like the Mona Lisa’s eyes! So that was a weird correlation. After our tour we went to the downtown part of town and then out for lunch, and then I headed for Dublin. I was so happy that Rachelle and her sister came to visit me in Belfast; it was so good to see Rachelle before she headed out on her own travel adventure around Europe. I can’t remember about the time I got into town but it was some where around 4 in the afternoon. Francesca and I went out for dinner and then we met Patrick for dessert and then we went to a pub to hear one last session of traditional Irish music played by Eoin Dillon. It was so good to talk to Patrick and Francesca before I left. Paul was unfortunately sick so he did not come out with us.

xoxo,
christie

The East Coast of the United States

2007-07-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

Then I got up the next morning to catch a bus at about 8am and then I had a 2 hour delay before flying back to the US. I won’t go into my US airport travel horror stories, but let’s say I have never hated flying so much as I hate flying in the United States! Upon arrival in Boston, my friend Derrick picked me up from the airport. We spent the next 13 days doing really cool things on the East Coast. For instance we drove to Vermont to see the Ben and Jerry’s Factory, then Magic Hat Brewery, followed by a walk through Burlington during the jazz festival (I got a free hug from some strangers there are photos!) then we camped on the shores of Lake Champlain. The following day we drove to New Hampshire to Mt. Washington the highest point in the New England part of the Appalachian mountains. One thing that I read while I was there was that the Appalachian mountains are much older then the Himalayan mountains, because they no longer grow in size but the Himalayan mountains grow like 1 inch every 100 years or something. I guess those tectonic plates are done moving! We also took a 5 day road trip to Maine where we camped for a few days in a remote campsite which meant getting in the canoe and paddling there, I mean Derrick paddling and me pretending to paddle! We also did some things around the Rhode Island area like eat Del’s and go to Water Fire and go to Foreign Independent film in theater. Sorry for not being very descriptive about New England, I have no copious notes to look at about our travels around the area. Maybe Derrick will email some of his words and then we can know what he thought about the trips, I know there were lots of inside jokes at the end of those holidays!

xoxo,
christie

hello from helsinki

2007-05-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

well hello out there,

i made it to helsinki finally and i am here for about 4 days. i am going to cut my trip a little shorter and go back to dublin and visit my friends there before i go. i will be flying out of paris on the 28th of may. so the plan is 24th fly to amsterdam 25th go to utrect, 26th take a night train to paris. so arrive on the 27th and stay the night and then fly the next morning to dublin. i'm tired of travelling and i just want to see one of my fake families before i leave. so that is the plan. so far after berlin, i have been to copenhagen, it was pissing rain the entire time i was there so kind of like munich, but i got to see the largest hippie commune i have ever seen in my life in Christinia, one of the islands of copenhagen. then on to malmo and stockholm, i will warn you as well, if you ever plan a trip to sweden, just know it looks exactly like MN, exactly, except for stockholm, which is unto itself. then i took an overnight ferry to Tallinn Estonia, beautiful and not full of the cold war despair like prague. and now im in helsinki for 4 days. i have kept detailed notes in my journal but i just don't feel like writing right now. so ciao ciao.

xoxo,
christie

SO where did the name Berlin come from???

2007-05-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

well just a quick note to say i have made it to Berlin, Germany, and i will be on my way to Copenhagen on the 16th of May. then farther north i go from there. when last you left me i was on my way to prague. wow what a wild city that is, beautiful sights and crazy people. Prague castle was absolutely amazing and exhausting. other sights of prague included the History of Communism Museum and the Alfonzon Mucha museum, the guy who basically invented art nouveau on his own! i have more exciting adventures that i will tell you about later.

i also made it to Dresden Germany where i stayed for one night, always wanted to go and now i have. beautiful city, i got up at like 7am and walked around the city before all the german tourists came out, as there are not very many english speakers there. the city was basically flattened during the war but they rebuilt the city beautifully. hopefully the photos will be amazing as the city is!

In the afternoon i took a train to Berlin, didn't do too much the first day, just went to the wall and an all veggie burger place. i went to the part of the wall called the east side gallery, and basically after the wall came down so to say, the city invited a bunch of artists to do murials on the wall. so today i went to the bauhaus gallery, as the school is out in the middle of nowhere so i will not get there, on this trip. I also went to a free sight seeing tour of the city. basically the most amazing tour i have been on i learned so much german history as well as to why berlin is called berlin. so basically berlin was originally settled by some slovaks and since berlin is built on a bog or marsh and the slovak word for this in bern and lin means city. you have the name bog city born out of this mangle of words. pretty cool. i also visited the old Reichstad building, it's called something else now but i forgot what but it is the HQ of their government. the building is amazing, it made me have so much pride in the german country and people-and i'm not even german. it basically made me want to write a letter to there state leader and say when can i sign up to come live in your country, because basically it is amazing!?! it made me wish i had that much pride in my own country but hey it's something to start thinking about when i return home. the people here are so kind they just don't know how to tell a joke. but i had a man today ask me where i needed to go as i was looking at the map and the street signs and then he told me the directions that has never happened b4 in any country i have been in! so good night and hope to go to shushenhausen or something like that tomorrow, which is a concentration camp. so that should be intense. so off to bed for me.

xoxo,
christie

Guten tag

2007-05-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

well hello everyone,

just a quick message to let you all know i made it to germany today, i am in munich and it is raining so i will not be going to a beer garden tonight! and tomorrow night i take a train to prague, where i stay on a house boat for 3 days and then back to germany, dresden to be exact, i am making my way north slowly but surely.

so how roma panned out for the rest of my stay, well first of all i need to say i am typing on a german keyboard therefore the y and the z are switched so if you see a z where you think a y should be, it probably is! so on saturdaz i did some wandering by myself, and in the afternoon i met my friend cheope, who i met in dublin, who lives in roma and he showed me some of his favorite sites and his university. super nice, i have a photo of him that i took so you can all see what a sweet boy he is.

on sundaz i took the train to florence, super beautiful city, i saw a bunch of art shrugged and wandered to one of the largest and most beautiful catholic churches in all of europe. it is made of all different color marble, and the bell is amazing. then i headed for some scenic shots over the river and then after that some pizza with buffalo mozzorella.

and thats about it as i need to book a hostel for dresden. so hope all is well.

xoxo,
christie

Day 2 of 5 in Roma

2007-05-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

well hello there in other parts of the world that aren't Roma.

I forgot to add that i went to the Treivi Fountain last night, lots of people and i didn't take any photos as how do you capture a fountain. Hope you are all doing well, looks like global warming is getting the better of all of us. In Verona Francesca told me that it hadn't rained in 52 days, which is like almost there entire winter without rain! and here in roma, well it decided to be craptastic and started raining 2 days ago in Verona and in Roma today, rain until about 2 in the afternoon. and who didn't bring a jacket or an umbrella for their 5 days in Roma??? you guessed it...i get the genius award. i was barttering in the street for an umbrella in the rain:) but since i had purchased an umbrella in ireland i knew about how much they costed, some guy tried to get me to pay £10 for an umbrella and i handed it back to him and said £4 and he slowly came down in price and we agreed on £4.50 so there you go. so i hoped on the underground today and went to the Vatican City. A word to the wise don't go if you don't want to stand in line for ages or never sit! did i mention that i stood in the rain to get into to St Peter's Basilica and the Cistine Chapel, i think i am just over the old masters because i was like yep studied this and don't really care so much that i am seeing it in person, i think because there were so many people, and it isn't even the height of tourist season yet! so there you go. but i must say the statues and that canopy thing that was made by bernini amazing. cistine chapel, too much hype, raphael is amazing but i think all the cattle ranching you go through to see it is stupid, also you can't back track once you are in. so tonight i am going to the spanish steps to probably have some wine and do some journaling. i love when i travel and i feel that i don't need to speak to anyone just enjoy what i see or do some contemplation about everything in general.

so here's the plan for the summer/end of europe travel business...i fly back to Boston on June 4th where my friend Derrick picks me up and we go to a few places on the east coast of the united states, maine or vermont or RI wherever, it should be a good time, too many castles and churches can sometimes spoil you! so miss you all and hope to see you upon my return which is sometime in June.

xoxo,
christie

if you have any requests for things from european countries put those in now!

days 3 through 5 in Verona

2007-04-28T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hello,

i will make this short as i have other things i want to be doing besides writing. so here it goes on wednesday we went to the foothills of the alps, and to a natural land bridge it was amazing, it was a little warm but still beautiful and green and lots of people picnicking and napping. that night fra made us some rice she learned to make in india but with risotto rice so it did not turn out the way she had planned, and dun dun dun we opened the easter egg she received from her mother it is a large egg (larger then the ones you can get in the UK) and inside is a prize, my mother will remember this as she brought one home for me when i was about 7 from Italy.

the following day we got up and toured some churches in the area and spent some time by the river. That night we went to the bar Malacarne, which translates to the bar of bad meat. Or an old butcher shop to be precise! it was a little bit eerie being a vegetarian in the meat shop especially when we went into the basement for a musical video show thing. it was pomo art at it's finest. so i can assure you that pomo art in Italy is the same as in the US, sometimes a little bit crap when you aren't in the mood for it!

on friday we got up ate some breakfast and went back to bed, then in the afternoon we went to the lake about a 40 minute car ride away and walked along the beautiful lake walk, on the way there we listened to some Punjabi music, it's the music played at weddings in india! then fra's mom came home, she works out of town and just comes home for the weekend, and made us some tortellini and then we at the "colomba" which translates to dove, it is a type of cake with candied oranges that is eaten around easter time, good stuff.

so today, who knows, maybe not so much.

hope all is well with everyone, the photos will be amazing:)

xoxo,
christie

I made it to Verona

2007-04-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello,

Well the blog is back in action, thank god. so now there will be no mass emails but extracts from life about traveling. so i made it to Francesca's home on monday. the flight was a late one, it didn't leave until 8pm out of Prestwick airport in Scotland. And i landed at about midnight, so it was a late night. and then last night we went to a tango-trans concert which was pretty amazing, so many people know the tango here it is amazing. it is a beautiful dance, that came from the brothels of brazil, i believe, you will need to google it.

well anyway after not rising until noon on tuesday i ate some breakfast then we took the bus into the city centre, where we stopped by Juliet's balcony, and i had the opportunity to touch the tit of Juiliet but i chose not too, maybe when i can have a good photo taken of it:) you do this for good luck. so after that we wandered around town and fra bought a new pair of sandals, she destroyed her's from living in india for the last 4/5 months. so new sandals then we went to the famous catherdral duomuo beautiful church, i also bought a ticket which allows me to visit the 5 famous cathedral's within Verona, so good stuff. I also enjoyed some real italian gelato. I got two scoops rice and cinnamon, riso and cadella or something like that. That night we went to visit Fra's Argentinain friend for dinner, and she made us pasta primivera, excellent.

so today we will probably go to the mountains, as there is a celebration in town for the american's liberating the italian's from the german's during the second world war so everyone is off from school and the like. but as i have found out it is not a proper holiday....(shrug). So that is what is happeing here in Italy. So ciao ciao:)

xoxo,
christie

bye bye scotland

2007-04-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

well everyone it is my last day in scotland and i am franticaly typing and gathering and throwing and all those other verbs. so i went to glasgow on saturday where i went to the barras, which is the largest flea market i have ever seen i bought a crepe and a tea towel-ooohh. so that was good times, i also went to the national scottish art fair on saturday. it was a bit of a let down, image hundreds of people milling about it a tent in 50 degree weather outside but inside the tent bright white lights and no windows. let's just say i wanted to get out of there. There was nothing really in my price range which i was upset about but oh well. later that day i headed to edinburgh castle for the free castle day-hurray, no more castles please:) i can't name them all but there were lots! I even got on the canon and had my photo taken, so i will be printing those once i get back home.

on sunday i went to a horribly girly french film and then on to portobello where i walked along the seaside and had my first can of irn bru. oh it's a wee can a ginger, lassie. if you can translate that u's lucky. then on to my friend chantel's house for a sushi party. good times. now today i am meeting my old coworkers for one last luch and then off to the airport for my flight to milan to visit francesca.

xoxo,
christie

here's an old message that i saved to blog

2007-04-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

Well hello there everyone. Christie here just letting you know what’s going on here in Edinburgh. Well since my last blog totally didn’t work except the title. I don’t know. I think maybe my blog is too big. So perhaps I will need to create another one or delete a bunch of stuff of this one who knows. Well anyway just wanted to let you all know what has gone on the last little while.

I joked to Rachelle 2 weeks ago, oh I’m going to win us tickets to this music show, called Soul Britannia All Stars. The first half of the show was Northern Soul and the second half was Funk. So it was basically all these people who were popular in Britain during the late 50s through to the 70s. The groups who played were all great. It was a smaller audience, like 100 people so it was a nice concert. The following week I went to Glasgow for a Graystone Gig, you can check them out on Myspace. They are my co-worker Katy’s husband’s band. The same week on the Friday, I went to the play Monks, about 3 Glaswegians going to the top of this mountain to a monk who performs miracles. They went because the son or brother or whoever has schizophrenia so they were hoping the monk could cure him. It was a strange play of Glaswegian accents that in the end wasn’t great, but hey I stood in line for an hour to get a free ticket, so that was cool.

As far as this week goes, well my friend Bethany had her going away party on Tuesday, and then she flew away on her 4-week holiday around Europe, and then back to Minnesota. So I was sad to see her go but happy she was doing some travelling before she went back. Which brings me to my next point, if you have any suggestions on where I should go in Europe, speak know or forever hold your peace. I will probably be back in Europe if I can help it once again in the future but who knows when that will be.

Well I am going to the Miso Funky Market and then over to the Filmhouse for We are All Christs. A polish film about a now sober father and the son that had to take care of him. So that’s the scoop here in Scotland. Hope all are well

xoxo,

christie

making contact can be difficult when the satellite is always down:(

2007-03-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

Fair Trade Convention

2007-03-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

well hello folks,

yep u guessed it i went to a Fair Trade Convention this weekend. I went on Saturday to Glasgow to the Fair Trade Event with Rachelle. We ate free food free wine and a chocolate fondue. I got a great tShirt that lists all the chemical use as pesticides insecticides and it is made from fair trade cotton! then after that a little tour around glasgow, less map work then before and then back to the city in order to go to a Mannequins concert.

So later on in the evening i went to a pub for a concert, in which 5 bands played but we were there to see the Mannequins. You can check them out on MySpace. They kind of sound like the Strokes and they have a great song about pirates. ooooooh.

2Morrow is film day, i'm going to go and see the Idiots. A film about people kind of living in a commune environment in Copenhagen that is often criticized. so hopefully that will be good. that's about it in my neck of the woods. Hope all is well in sunny Minnesota:)

xoxo,
christie

Sunday through Wednesday

2007-02-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know of a few updates. On Sunday I went to the National Museum, again for like the 4th time. it was great, i saw all sorts of taxidermed animals as well as these cool little things that Derrick pointed out while he was visiting of these little wooden coffins that they found buried on Arthur's Seat. The little exhibition all about witchcraft was super interesting. also that day my friend Rachelle and I made Calzon-Es. she pronounces the Es while i do not, any I-talians out there if you know, can you set us straight.

on monday evening i made fudge and guinness brownies for my made up February day. The fudge was not so successful but the brownies were great, as usual. so the funny thing is once i got home and was ready to make them, i realized i did not buy a key ingredient, Guinness, so i hopped down to the corner store and purchase a can of Guinness, and i couldn't believe it got carded! apparently i look about 14, the first time ever in Scotland of getting carded.

on tuesday night i had my made up holiday party at Hector's bar in Stockbridge. with Fruili fudge and Friend's it was a success. Fruili is strawberry beer if you didn't know. so it was a fun time but we stayed into the wee hours of the morning and they had to kick us out. wednesday aka hump day was not so great for any of us at work, too much fun and fruili makes for frantic flabbergasted furious friend's or something like that, if you have some better descriptive F words send them my way.

so things are a-Okay here in Scotland.

xoxo,
christie

Happy Birthday Dad:)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-02-24T07:48:00.000-08:00

operator ERROR

2007-02-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

hello cruel world:)

well i have finally gotten my blog to work again. sorry for being gone for so long. google owns blogger and wants everyone to have google email accounts (big brother perhaps) so i was trying to get myself a google account and then trying to set it up and link the blog to the email account. who knew it could be so difficult.

so anyway here's some of the things that have happened in the last weeks. after st. andrews my friend derrick came to visit me. we went on a tour of Loch Lomond as well as Stiriling Castle. Also we went to North Berwick and Dunbar. Then off to Glasgow for a few hours where I got to see the Mackintosh house, amazing. I also have attended some exhibitions around town. i can't really blog what i saw and did as i don't really have the energy to do so but you can look them up on the map and ask me if i saw this or that and i will tell you yes or no.

so to live the now today is saturday and i have done not too much, i went to the women's suffrage exhibition in the Parliment building and then i will perhaps go to North Berwick tomorrow, assuming it is not raining, as i have already seen it in the rain. my phone is not working today so i am a bit frustrated by that as my friend Chantel has just gotten back from China/Japan and i would really like to see her-so only time will tell.

i went to the Vagina Monologues on Thursday, great performance, no sleepiness in that theater, quite funny and interesting subject matter.

on friday my friend Rachelle and i went to the Socialist Militant Group forum-to see a film about homosexuality in a communist society, it turned out the film was funded by the cuban government and was all about how yes we are a communist society but you still have a voice and to respect everyone, so it battled racism as well as homophobia. interesting film indeed. will i go to another one of their forums, probably not but if there is another film, not a talk, then i will probably go for sure.

so that's about it from here in Scotland. Glad to be back online.

xoxo,
christie

a busy weekend

2007-02-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

well guys it was a busy one this weekend. it was a craptastic work week so it was good to get out and do lots of stuff. so on friday fiona wasn't there, so typical when the cat's away the mice will play. we were invited to an on floor social hour/get to know your coworkers thing. so on friday afternoon at about 1:45 Elise, Rachelle and myself went over to the finance wing of the new building helped ourselves to some free wine and cookies. then Catherine had to come and retrive us and tell us we had to do some work:( so later that night I met Rachelle, Elise, Elise's boyfriend Steve, and Steve's "hetersexual lifemate" aka his friend Brian at the Black Bull and then we went on to my first night club, called Ego and the theme of the night was modern lovers, where we listened to a bunch of northern soul and danced till the wee hours of the morning. It was really fun to go out and the music was from the 50s to the 60s, just one rolling stones song. On Saturday i got up at 10 and did a bunch of fun things like get camera batteries as well as new contacts and nigglie stuff like that. Since everyone bailed on me for Sunday i went to St. Andrew's by myself. i am used to going places by myself without a map (Paris, Galway, Glasgow) so Luckars to St. Andrew's was not bad. This is the small city where Prince William went to school very nice coast line and a really non existint castle and cathedral. but the cathedral is supposedly haunted. oooooohh. the castle has a mine and counter mine, basically someone tried to dig under the castle with a surprise attack. it worked in the end but you can see where they stopped and started, it was great, you like confined spaces go to St. Andrews castle. Later on that evening I had dinner with my friend Garvin. So good times had by all. Oh as well, i have a new flatmate, Martina, from Slovenia, and someone who has verbal diarrhea, it is very difficult to get a word in edgewise-but oh well things will probably improve, she might want to know something about me at some point. I also talked to fra fra on the phone-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! so it was great to hear from her.

hope you are all well.

xoxo,
christie

Its morroccan food festival day?

2007-01-28T07:56:00.000-08:00

or is it? well i thought today was the day of the Morroccan food festival at the local library, but i was mistaken, by 2 weeks! so after doing all this PR for the Morroccan thing i got there and was like where's the music and the animal roasting smells? and then i reread the sign, it's on 11th of February, but i will be in Isle of Skye. Wah wah wah... oh well i'm sure isle of skye will be fab.

So this weekend my friend Garvin and i discovered the Edinburgh City Art Centre and Peter Howson's work was showing. His work can be really grotesque and difficult to look at, and extermly religious but still great to look at the expressive line quality and color palette. He was commissioned by the city to create a piece that expressed the martyrdom of St. Andrew, as that's where the Scottish flag comes from! so it was great free fun. Later that evening i went to Dunfermond. Or something like that and saw the Ben Stiller flick about being in the Natural History Museum, it was predictable but still quite funny. Garvin and i had a movie picnic in the theater, bagles with cheese and pretzels. I also saw Rambo 3 for the first time ever, there seem to be a lot of flaws in the story line about how John Rambo gets the Russians. Like how by the end is he still standing? the man probably would have needed a blood transfusion for all his cuts and bullet wounds!

so that was the weekend, sunny here so i did some hiking around. I am on my way home from the library to do some africa research. it looks like i will be coming home in june (against my wishes, financially) but perhaps i can find a job and save to go to africa with my uncle robert. I am so hoping that will pan out.

so lots of love from this "looper" that's what Eileen calls me.

xoxo,
christie

have yourself a ceiledh

2007-01-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

yeah sorry about the spelling folks, i've got a short time on the computer and not enough time to do things. so here's the word. i went to the royal yacht britannia on saturday, oooohh-ahhhh! yes the queens boat, somewhat interesting, but i couldn't tell you anything factual except that she had like 280 crew on her ship. and that they used to fly the royal mail to the ship no matter where it was every day. talk about ozone depletion! so just blame the queen the next time something comes up about greenhouse emissions! no our own govt is to blame as well just a joke peeps, but still so wasteful.

on sunday was the sushi party! yes we made vegetarian sushi with seaweed, it was fab, and chantel made homemade tofu. so everything was great including the wasabi paste we had to dip our stuff in. and the company was great there was about 5 of us there. which by the way, sushi, very difficult to roll, so don't think it was easy. but the raw fish was no where to be seen. after dinner we watched the corpse bride, oh tim burton:)

on tuesday evening i went to a ceiledh, that's not how you spell it but said k-lee. chantel invited me, and we did some traditional scottish dancing, lots of spinning and folk dancing moves, i definately need to work on my waltz and try not to lead! It can be tough though so after 3 hours of dancing i smelled my hands with all my dance partners and they smelled like bowling shoes:( gross. but it was so fun, and i found out i can do this dancing every tuesday night if i want. so good craic.

the new office building has been a bit stressful, well the project has been stressful because there is some feuding within the team and there is a part of the project that has gone terribly wrong. so hopefully it will be remedied tomorrow. oh well, i don't think about it when i go home, it just can be yucky to be there.

well that's about all for now, i am planning a trip to the highlands for myself and my friend Derrick who is coming for a visit in the next couple of weeks.

so Ta for now.

xoxo,
christie

happy jamtastic january did you have a jamboree?

2007-01-17T09:36:00.000-08:00

hello everyone.

well as you can tell by the title i have created a holiday in order to get all of my friends and colleagues through the rough month of january. so i created a holiday dedicated to us reaching the "hump" of january and everything being "easy peasy" as jean says for the rest of the month.

so the party involved potato latkes (check out the amy sedaris column "ask amy" in last february 06 about the israel vs. palestine situation and potato latkes) so potato latkes (not too dry :) and then a vegan chocolate cake with jam layers. so i had about 4 of my frields and a coworker over for this special holiday and i made a great sign out of old file folders from work to hang on the door. it was a great night where "downer dave" aka steve hung out in the flat but was not invited to the party. hopefully he gets the message that he is not such a happy person, or not to refuse the offer to do something so many times. so we had a great time everyone caught the last buses home and there was good food, good conversation and lots and lots of laughing:)

then on wednesday i brough the left over 2/3 of cake (aka 4 layers of jamtastic vegan chocolate cake)to work where it was demolished by the 15 people who are working on my floor. i even brought the sign in. because when we move to the new building next week there will be no cake parties:(

the new building is looking pretty depressing from the tour i had on tuesday so i am not looking forward to it, but who know i might be surprised. oh well, it's not like it's my life job:) so i keep going and doing stuff and getting my pat pat pat on the head and then go home and don't think about it, to return the next day and do my little projects.

so tonight i am going to the french film "i saw ben barka get killed" i'm hoping it to be good some historical fact some drama some conspiracy theory...hmmmmmmm, or was it miss scarlet with the revolver in the conservatory with the rope?

and that's about it for now, sounds like there will be a veg sushi party on sunday at chantel's, we will see what's in the cards...speaking of cards i played poker for the first time in ages on saturday, good stuff i had a nice time and caught the last bus home at 11:30 pm, i didn't win but i did very well, i had to forfeit my chips as i had to go catch my bus:( oh well, hope you are all healthy wealthy and wise. LOL.

xoxo,
christie

common sense people:)

2007-01-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

well hello there,

this weekend i worked my last shift at the old debeheman's, all the people i liked were working there last days as well so it was okay to be done, i won't get paid until the third thursday of january for all of my work there. because in this country you get paid one a month! so sucks to be you if you get your job the third week of the month you just have to wait the 5 weeks to get paid! so anywho that was fine to be done and the sunny sun was outside on saturday so i went on the walking trail for some sun.

on sunday bethany and i went to glasgow, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! we went to the kelvin something or other museum, it's kind of the catch all museum with art and history taxidermed animals decorative arts contemporary exhibitions and some mackintosh stuff so it was great craic. and we got to ride the mini underground, basically the scariest subway i have been on yet i wasn't sure if we were even on the tracks. so i found out why i wouldn't want to live in glasgow, it is less pretty then edinburgh and it also is laid out like crap-ola you can't walk to very many places, and it has the highest stabbing rate per capita in all of europe, hey at least they are great at something. but i had no idea that there were so many cool scots besides mackintosh and william wallace. did you know that kelvin the guy who discovered absolute zero was scottish? or that freakin adam smith TINSTOFEL/Common Sense (economics) was scottish? super cool i saw stautes and busts of these guys on sunday so good stuff. also made some vegetable curry also good stuff! so that's it folks going out 2morrow night and going to a movie on thursday so those are the cards right now.

no new flatmate yet but steve thinks he will find a veg flatmate so good luck to him! we had a cutie come and look at the flat on friday but i'm pretty sure that (no job + never lived outside of mum and dad's house or off campus) = no go at our place with downer dan
:( so oh well, i'm not footing the bill for the lack of roommate. so bye bye:)

xoxo,
christie

xmas new year update

2007-01-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

well everyone i know it has been ages since an update, but not too much exciting going on around edinburgh. first of all i celebrated xmas eve with my friend from MN Bethany, and Chantel. it was great we made pizza drank wine and had traditional mince pies with cream, great craic! then xmas day was spent with my coworker Fiona. it was just lovely for her and her family to invite me to their xmas. i brought a lentil loaf for my veg entree, and apparently fi was afraid there would not be enough food for me to eat so she got a whole bunch of veg things, really making the effort, super sweet. we had a 3 course dinner with starters, soup, then main meal and then dessert. we also had these cool things called crackers, cardboard tubes that make a really loud crack when you pull them apart with the person next to you like a wishbone and then there is a paper crown, a prize (a nail clipper or something like this) and a really dry joke. it was really fun. boxing day i spent doing a little bit of shopping at ocean terminal, where i work. so i got a few things i really needed. then it was 3 days of work and then the weekend again. not too much happened on new years around here, gale winds and freezing wind pretty much canceled the good time, and a migrane for me so i just went to bed, i know not exciting. then the 1st and 2nd i went to a few galleries, my gallery hop of sorts, it was great lots of fun stuff, including a room with over 286 cardboard churches of the churches of Edinburgh, super amazing and super cool when you see replicas of all 286 places of worship here in edinburgh. well guys my time on the free computer is up but i just wanted to say, i am alive and well, the library was closed and during the time between xmas and new years you never know what might be open! so i made due with what i had available to me.

xoxo,
christie

staff party update-i'm still here!

2006-12-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

Well Hello Hello!

i have typed a christmas letter, hastily so you can all read it and tell me what i have missed, as you might remember better then i do about what happened this year. also, i wanted to update on the christmas party: so we had a pool for our drink money in which everyone put in 10 pounds. i had far more alcohol then i wish to comment on but it was over the course of 5 hours, at one pub, yeah i know derrick, sound familiar? only there were no snack involved. yep, i'm sorry to say mom but i had alcohol for dinner, i had water when i got home but no food, not so much in the food mood! so i managed 2 pints of guinness and 2 vodka mystery drinks? no sickness thought, so thank got, i don't know how those people can drink so much Elise and i, the 2 smallest people were a little worse for wear when we walked to the sidewalk at 10 past 10, but we had to be to work the next morning. but it was great to feel like being part of a team, and it was interesting to talk to all these scottish people. so i have to say i took a raincheck on the debeham's xmas party as i really didn't want to do this much drinking bit in 3 days so yep.

also random question, Derrick, you know in office space when Jennifer Aniston's character is talking to her boss at TGI Friday's what are all the badge and buttons called, is it flare? i couldn't remember i was trying to tell the scottish people about it.

so on to the letter:

Christie here just spreading some superficial Xmas cheer, i'll try to lay off the sarcasim but as you all should know by now, it can be tricky!!! so here's the DL about life this past year:

1)I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design, and 2 minors one in Photography and one in Art. Thank God!!! I didn't think i would ever get off that train. LOL. i was ready to move on but i knew i needed to follow through with the career choice/path and i did, so this degree verifies that i can operate a computer to do graphic design, a useful, skill, i also learned all sorts of valuable life skills like: time management, IT skills, reading and temporary retention of information for test skills. So done and dusted.

2) I left the country using university work permits and i went to Dublin Ireland to work and live. I think i learend more life skills in that 4 months then i did in my whole 4 years of not living with my parents and going to college. So amazing, it really felt like a home, the people were great and interesting.

3) I moved to scotland, Ediburgh to be exact, to use a 6 month work permit. Yeah, don't dig it as much but i'm making an effort. I haven't found my crowd yet and my flatmate Steve turned out to be a little bit of, oh i would say a control freak. So i am really thinking about moving but we will see what happens. I currently work 2 jobs, I work at the city council where if you have ever seen office space, it's a little like that, pretty disfunctional and i am just waiting for someone to blow up the building, at least i have Jean, the temp i started with who likes to have a laugh about the situation we are in! my other job is at Debeham's a department store, where i wait on people, put stock in size order and stand in the dressing room and assist customers. so i don't love it either but its only through Jan 6, the people are pretty fun and they range in different ages, but as my mother would say "they probably don't know what to think of you." this is true, as when i say something to someone they get all excited and say Canadian? American? so good times.

4) this holiday season: on christmas eve i will be having dinner with Bethany, my fellow Minnesotan and on christmas day i have been invited to a coworkers house for dinner, i will bring a lentil loaf and some vegetarian gravy but it will be great Craic, as the irish would say! For New Years, i will be going to an event called Hogmony, which means New Year in scottish, interesting but useless!:P So it is basically a huge street party with lots of people and music and the german christmas market etc etc etc. so good times again.

so that's the current DL here in EB, so hope you all enjoy your holiday, and don't get too carried away, remember to enjoy the day and each others company:)

xoxo,
christie

lots of love from a different parallel

it's been a week and i'm still on the island!!!

2006-12-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

Hiya everyone!

so here's the update on my life. so on friday i went to a job interview for Debenham's, a department store as kind of a half assed attempt to get a seasonal job, i was called on saturday and went to work on sunday. so i will be working a little bit through the holiday season, to get the discount at the store, new work duds and such, as well as meet a few more people and since i only work 30 hours a week at the council get a few more bucks in the old pocket!

sunday was also the day of the amanda going away party! we had a great time at her friend Chantel's house, Chantel works at Debenham's as well, which is why i applied! so we were at her house till 2am on monday morning but had a great time talking to everyone! great craic!

monday was pretty uneventful at work, we got handed over to the job evaluation team (which is the team i worked with last week, and requested to be on instead of the lame-o job i was doing before) so we are at our same pay grades we are just on a different team so we have been figured into the schedule. also these are the people who invited us to their christmas lunch and drinks afterwards, so that is thursday, tomorrow!!!

i also went and saw the film "who killed the electric car?" and discussion afterwards, great stuff lots of interesting information and quiet sad, boo california and your backing down about zero emissions, i blame you for the ozone depletion! well, not really. but good stuff, i highly recommend it for everyone to watch, super crazy what the oil industry, georgie-porgie, and the auto industry can do. do you know that reagan removed the solar panels from the white house that jimmy carter put up? boo raegan, i don't care if he does have alzheimers and died of it, shame on him!

tuesday same old at work day, but i made falafel and talked to fra fra on the telephone, cheerful cheers! she left for india today:( so i hope she has a great time and it was good to talk to her today.

wednesday, not much going on today but here's a query for you Poll: do you think i should just move out of my flat and move in somewhere else without telling steve if we don't find a flatmate? i don't really have over 400 pounds for rent in jan, and that's how much it is going to be, but i suppose it would be the same if i moved somewhere else for deposit and rent. well i'm kind of sick of steve and his controlling nature so i don't know what to do.

so hope everyone is doing well, i will blog about the company work party in the coming future, i know you are all on the edge of your seats!:) i also need to pass on that i have been telling everyone about the film office space and how it is required viewing if you work in the office, i've got fiona saying "sounds like someone's got a case of the mondays." in a scottish accent: hilarious. so Ta!

xoxo,
christie

i have purpose at the city council!

2006-12-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

well hello there handsome:)

hi everyone, hope you are all doing well so here's the word saturday i went and saw the film Pan's Labyrinth, by Guillermo Del Torro, it was fabu! beautifully done spanish film, the fantasy part of the film was just awesome a little gruesome at times but a great story and a great film and paralleled the innocense of childhood and the perils of war. great craic! then on sunday i went and saw a double feature at the cameo, little miss sunshine again (i can't get enough it is too funny) and a double feature with the film sideways, same director, nothing to write home about there. on monday i went to the forest and showed them how to make popcorn and stayed for the spanish fim tie me up tie me down, this one was pretty funny as it was about an exporn star who is kidnapped by a man and is told that he will be her husband. pretty funny story line. did i mention she is addicted to crack and heroin, so he always has to go out and get her some drugs while she is being held hostage? oh yes. on tuesday i showed amanda how to make a sweet potato pie and after that i got a call from Francesca! UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!! i was really excited to hear from her. i also called my friend ruth in dublin on sunday, great to hear from her after she had her baby, Joey!

on to the work aspect. so the last few days Jean and I have been working with another team on the same floor doing the job evaluation part, data entry! it's not extremly interesting but at least i'm doing something besides nothing:) i feel like i am a valuable part of the team, and after a few days of working with fiona she invited myself and Jean to their christmas party on december 14th 4 days before the one i am not invited to with the team i am working with. so not everyone is insanely neurotic about the temps! today i even got to type up directions on how to transfer info from microsoft word into microsoft excel, i know sounds boring once again, but i learned myself how to do it that's why i am so proud! so that's the word from this islad. enjoy the snow!!! Ta.

xoxo,
christie

Parcel City

2006-12-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

helloooooooo!

well guys i volunteered at the forest today, it's this cool nonprofit cafe venue that makes really inexpensive food and all proceeds go to pay a few people on staff and rent of the building. i talking a huge plate of food for under 3 pounds. amazing all vegetarian as well!!! so i did a 5 hour volunteer shift and met a bunch of people more like me so it was great. i even helped make a salad with alex, one of the kitchen managers and he said what should we call it and i said TLC salad since we both put our love and effort into making it and so that's what we called it, i know pretty corny. but alex is great, do any of you remember the SNL skit with Asriel Abyss and whoever Molly Shannon was? ...and they had like this cable show about how gothic they were and gothic events. so alex is so much like this character it is scary, only he is scotish! so it was great craic i met a few people stayed and listened to a guy talk about afganistan and what his little group of unique individuals is doing to rectify the problem over there...blah blah blah. i roll my eyes at this point as you don't need to educate us on this, as we should already know about all this stuff, we just choose to be silent and not do anything. so there is my 2 cents. so not too much else happened it has been a really slow week at work and i look forward to there being work again soon, i hope. also flatmate amanda moved out:(sadface)! so it is really quiet in the flat and hopefully we will find another flatmate soon! so i got my parcel from earleen and charlie on thursday, 2 envelopes from my mom, and an envelope from my aunt lois, so thank you thank you.

that's it guys

xoxo,
christie

happy thanksgiving!?

2006-11-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

whoa! sorry guys, long time no write. i have been enjoying a week of fun activities so lets start from the beginning. so on thursday i was walking towards the bus stop stopped and waited for the bus when i realized the other guy waiting for the bus, totally puking at the bus stop, and yes he had drunk too much of a good thing, i could smell it, so i kept walking found the next bus stop and went to the cameo to see if i could score tickets to pan's labyrinth as well as get a guinness and listen to some sufjan stevens (there was a dj playing the music) so good times after the whole bus stop incident. i also got some thanksgiving calls...tlc's as francesca says! on friday i went to the bank (imagine that) i'm still waiting for my pin number so allister (we're on a first name basis now, and i found out he was going to glasgow this weekend so now i can ask him next week "so how was glasgow?" when i pay him a visit on friday of this week!!!) on saturday i got up and made pancakes and then steve showed me where the sea was, don't ask me which one i don't know! and that was cool because we live about a 10 minute walk, if that from the sea, cool beans! on sunday i went to a thanksgiving extravaganza and i made not one, not 2 but 4 freakin' sweet potato pies! so 2 for the house and 2 for the party! good times had by all, i met a fellow minnesotan, totally a minnesotan to a T! so it was great craic, i'm so glad Amanada invited me! monday pretty boring. tuesday, my friend Yavuz (he's from Turkey, and was one of the potential flats i looked at but in the end i couldn't stay in a hostel through december, and have had a few drinks with) invited me to a dinner party, so i made banana creme pie, yum, i'm so sick of making pies now! and there were 7 of us total and everyone was of middle eastern or mediterranean descent so i was like the most exotic person there!!!LOL. i never thought that would happen, so it was a bit intimidating but it was great because they know more country history then i do, even though they were all british and i was not! and on wednesday, i am sad to say that the strides forward we were making at work were knocked back a few steps today. i was just ecstatic that people were saying hello to me and have a nice weekend, and how was your thanksgiving but crabby pants kevin had to ruin it. there is a staff christmas lunch provided by the council on december 18th and he made a fowl comment about how we shouldn't invite the temps because it's a waste of money etc. excuse me? sorry i didn't know i was sub human, and that's the awful truth, that's how the people of the Edinburgh city council see as, as leeches who don't do anything, so they don't have to say hello to you. but i'm pretty much over it, i was just a bit disappointed in humanity. so i will go home, have a piece of pie and go to bed early as the dinner parties have me tired out, and i just can't wait until friday when i can go bother allister, oh how cruel life can be! LOL. so take care everyone, i don't think any of you are sub human i'm hoping to receive some post at some point this week, UUUUUUU! i love mail, but who doesn't?

xoxo,
christie

post-birthday depression?

2006-11-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

Thank you, thank you...for all the birthday wishes via mail, email, telephone, telepathy. I totally appreciate it. the birthday was a great success, i woke up on saturday morning, made myself vegan pancakes then went for a walk on the cycling trails by my house. After that i came home ate some pancakes then i went with my flatmate Amamanda to meet her friends for lunch. came home talked on the telephone with some people wishing me a happy birthday then i went over to Marie's friends house, who lives just down from me. Marie is the German girl who took over my bed in Dublin. So thank you thank you Marie. Then on sunday i was feeling a little bit crummy as i started getting a cold. but i managed to make a vegetable tart for my flatmates to share with me!!! also we watched a film called Code Unknown by Michael Haneke, a german film director who directs in french. i don't get it either. so it was a pretty interesting art film that makes you go what???? and pretty much shoots at the same distance from everyone so not a lot of difference in the film, but the subject of classism, racism, sexism, etcism is tackled in the film. so that's what has happened so far in my life over the weekend. so birthday a success, thanks again everyone, i will be celebrating thanksgiving this weekend with my roommate and a few of her friends. bye bye.
xoxo,
christie

a very merry un-birthday to me?

2006-11-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

hi everyone-

just wanted to blog as i have no intention of doing it this weekend. so i finished up my week of work today. pretty uneventful but on thursday on the bus ride back to the main office the other temp started talking to me. so in the end now we are friends, or coworkers that talk to each other, since no one else will talk to us! so we were taking the bus back and we got off a little bit early to walk down princes street to waste some time and we passed a shop called debenham's and jean (that's her name) was telling me how much she liked the shop and i told her about how my flatmate had just gone there the other day and gotten all sorts of great deals, so she said "oh we have to go in then!" so we totally killed like an hour of company time shopping and she bought a sweater so i made up the alibi that she purchased it the previous day after work and was going to return it today after work as she didn't like it that much. so that was part one of the exciting day. part 2 happened after i got home from work i got on the bus to go to this great supermarket that my flatmates had been raving about so i got home put a load of laundry in and then got on the bus, as soon as i got on the bus i was putting my bus pass in my purse when someone through a bleeped bleep bleep rock through the window of the bus...right where i was sitting! no worries guys i was looking the opposite direction so no glass in the eyes, i got a cut on my nose and one on my hand but i am a okay, just annoyed and even more apprehensive about public transportation (read the blog about getting out of london!) so friday is kind of different in this city, as when you work for the city friday ends at 3:40pm not 5pm, interesting...i'm not sure if that makes sense but oh well. so tomorrow is my birthday, thank you, thank you, you can hold your applause, and i turn 24 years old. marie is coming from dublin, she's the flatmate that took over my bed at the beginning of october. so i will probably go out with her at some point. also my friend ruth, in dublin, had her baby Joey Irwin, she went into the hospital at 10:30am on wednesday and by 3:30pm Joey was born, everyone is healthy! i was hoping for the baby to be born on saturday so she would feel obligated to name the baby after me but you know! so that's about it for now guys, i'm making myself a vegan chocolate cake for my birthday cake and possibly some pizza, so ciao for now.

xoxo,
christie

hump day??

2006-11-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

today was better guys. i even got paid to ride on the bus for an hour! uuuuuu! still not much work though, i will report more in a few days. i want my dinner now!!!

xoxo,
christie

the 14 or the 23?

2006-11-13T10:19:00.000-08:00

hello all!

now i can get into to asking myself questions like this, bus number 14 or 23? which one should i take to work. if i take the 14 i have to get up earlier, if i take the 23 i can get up later and it is quicker into town but it drops me way the heck over in a not so convenient place so i have to walk for 15 minutes. oh what will our hero do??? so that's about the excitment of my day. it's monday and i just finished my first complete day of being a paper pusher. that's right guys what are you doin'? "makin' copies..." that's what i did the whole morning besides fall asleep at my desk reading about the city council's big move! as they didn't have any work for us this morning, good god i'm glad i took the ginseng this morning, i don't know how i would have functioned, oh wait i didn't!

so i made photo copies and then i did some data entry, not so challenging, i liked it better at the translation and interpretation center, at least i felt i had a cause. so hopefully things will improve, also there was another temp. there for this big project that we are supposed to be working on, but she's kind of, oh i don't want to say it but like an office nazi and wants to be in charge so i'm just like, that's cool man i'm just here for the ride, and the higher wage than minimum. so hopefully things will improve.

my flat's good. the roommates are fine. not too much to cheer about there. hopefully my stuff will be there when i return tonight. my roommate amanda is like this crazy christian/mormon/jewish religion, i'm not sure what to think, but she's only there for a few more weeks so if she turns crazed it won't be too bad because she'll be out of there. but i think we are going to make gnocchi for thanksgiving dinner, but i'm not positive. since both of us work we're not so sure. steve, well steve is quiet but hey that's cool, so it could be a lonely winter, we will see.

so sorry guys the positive attitude is not so much here, sorry i really wanted to burn the new tenacious d cd onto my pod but the internet cafe wants 2pounds, i think i will go to grassmarket street where it will be free. so ciao for now guys, oh yeah i have my "national insurance number meeting" on november 28th. so that's about all for now.

xoxo,
christie

CAUTION: hot babes dancing

2006-11-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

So this is what the caution wet floor sign says in the hostel i am staying at, i thought it was quite funny so i took a photo to tack up on my wall at home. oh i love people with a sense of humor! so not too much going on today i got up at about 11am so i just squeaked into the kitchen at the hostel for lunch and then i went in search of some buttons as i bought a sweater for work at a charity shop and it has like the ugliest buttons i have ever seen in my life. i am also pretty bored so i am trying to keep myself occupied. i also went to the museum of scotland today, wow rick steves was right, it's a great museum. i also went to the loathian and highlands police museum. wow sounds exciting doesn't it. well it was because there was a business card holder made out of a body snatcher's skin. after the guy was convicted of killing vagrants they hung him and then donated his body to the school of medicine where his skin was removed and then sold on the street for a schilling a square inch. and some guy got a really large piece and had it tanned and turned into his business card holder. oh the greatness of the scots! look at all the things you guys are missing out on by living in other parts of the world. no skin business card cases for you, you have things like maritime museums with ships and stuff, or art museums. so now that i am done rambling i had to report those 2 things before i forgot them. oh yeah and i went to a film yesterday at the film house Kekexili: Mountain Patrol. i want you all to try and say Kekexili out loud. as i had to try and order a ticket to it yesterday. a great documentary about the tibetian antelope being hunted to the brink of extinction for it's wool. gross lots of bloody pelts in this film but an interesting film alright. i also forgot about in the royal museum there was all this cool interactive stuff for children but they had this one on cloning and GM stuff and gave quizzes and took surveys like do you think we should genetically modify bananas to contain vaccinations for people in third world countries, talk about introducing super germs into this world!!! so it opened debate and ideas with in myself about whether or not i believe in cloning or genetically modifying things, so some things to ponder...what do you think? to clone or gm or not? how do you feel about dolly and GM corn? when and where should we stop? craziness. so alls good at saturday afternoon in edinburgh:)

xoxo,
christie

so what is there to do around here?

2006-11-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

Hello once again people. so the election results are in. and hopefully that cracked pendulum that was swinging way too far to the right is now making it's way in some other direction:) i read in the paper that hillary clinton is in again, that over 30 seats were one in the house and senate to the democrats and that we elected a communist representative? also new Hampshire, maybe vermont, i get them confused sometimes, elected their first ever (second nation wide) african american govenor. as well there is the first ever muslim senator as well as a buddhist senator, solid progression out of the stone age. maybe we'll think about renewable energy like air or sea water. LOL.

that aside if you haven't heard i have a home to move into on sunday the 12th, if you are important i sent you my address, if not well email me and i will send it to you:P i start work at the Edinburgh City Council as an administrator on monday the 13th, i know it sounds really cool but basically should be office space style, and because my customer service skills are so great i got the job because of that. so this job is supposed to be for 4-5 months so fingers crossed it all works out, but if not i'm sure i can go and work at bean scene. a coffee shop i applied at but turned down because it was minimum wage and i wanted to make a little more then squeaking by.

in other news i am getting really antsy to get out of the hostel. i don't know what to do with myself and there is only so much fascade i can put on when i am around all the peeps. also i was asking my roommate Kat what there was to do at night, to see if she had any ideas, and she was like well...there's drinking, and oh yeah drinking, and you can play a drinking game, or perhaps drinking and a book and on the weekend you can go to a pub and drink.

so not a lot going on at night and just trying to keep it real with like reading and knitting and trying to eat dinner late and cook for a really long time, but again only so much aussie interaction i like in the kitchen. so yep. surprise surprise but i'm not going to drink tonight, too late i met steve my roommate and gave him the deposit and got my keys. uuuuuuu! so i will probably watch my split peas boil tonight and make some soup. stellar. so that's about all for right now. haven't tried a deep fried mars bar but will pass the word along when i do. cheers.

oh yeah i set up a meeting to meet and get myself a NHS number. National Health Service Number. Stellar you are number 6,003,657,047,207,470 to register which means you will have a meeting with someone who decides if you can stay in the country for the rest of your work permit on this date and time and we don't care if you work or where you live this is where you will have to go and tough cookies if you don't have a car and the bus doesn't go there. so wooo...more to come on that exciting saga as the NHS number getting goes on, good news though once i have one that means if an employer wants to send me to the UK to work, it's easy-peasy as i will already have the number. so now i'm done .02 in done and dusted. sine.

xoxo,
christie

i don't think there are elections going on in the US?...

2006-11-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

hello everyone-

hope everyone performed there civic duty so that jan, dick, rosemary, and marge's efforts weren't in vain! (LOL-those are the moldy oldys i worked with when i was an election judge). so guys i know you're all interested as to what i decided to do about a jorb here in scotland. after much deliberation and speaking to fam and friends i have decided to stay in the city and not take the veg cook job. so that's about all. oh yeah, and i worked today with the temp agency. i took a one day job working for the edinburgh interpretation and translation services. so basically filing, phoning institutions to confirm a interpreter for things like doctors appts. and housing issues. so that was an interesting time. the day flew lots to do. what a cool service to provide for people. so got to here some interesting accents and had to spell things the UK way like instead of the z sound we make they make the z sound zed. interesting. so it was a good time but it was just one day. so i won't be at it tomorrow. so hopefully there will be a long term gig coming up here. so that's the words birds. enjoy the election i'll check back in tomorrow to see who controls the senate and see if a certain he should not be named is a lame duck!LOL did you get the harry potter joke in there? sorry guys i live in a bubble.

xoxo,
christie

did u see anything?

2006-11-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

i forgot to tell you guys about some fun stuff that's been happening here in the city.

1) wednesday was pub night at the jekyl and hyde but (where the bathrooms are behind book cases and you have to find them!) this was a bunac meeting. so a bunch of canadians and americans meeting and doing the same sort of thing i am doing. including 2 minnesotans, one of which graduated from st. scholastica in may 2006. when i told them i had started this in june. the girl said, it was just too long to go both places ( and i thought what else do you have to do!!!!?) so that was sort of interesting but also kind of weird because the conversation was very forced and was basically about traveling only or job searching. but the cool thing that happened is we started seeing smoke outside the pub and went out, and there was a car on fire. the guy who was driving it suddenly smelled smoke so he pulled over, and wasn't hurt but it his car was gone, completely. hope he had insurance.

also good news, right now. i don't have lice as of yet and i treated my scalp one night with olive oil and tea tree oil (hippy treatment for lice) and it really moisturized my scalp so i am hoping that is the only problem.

i also saw holyrood palace, where the queen mother was when earleen charlie and myself were in london. i didn't go in but i walked by. they also have a brand new parliment building right near it that is pretty cool looking, super post modern! one day i will hike arthur's seat which is right next to the palace.

i think that's all maybe some more exciting news tomorrow.

to Fife or not to Fife that is the questions.

2006-11-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

hello hello? so here's the q for you hope you all have some a's or an a or an idea. so the job hunt/home hunt has been going well so here's the word i have 2 options but i'm not sure what to do so i need some input.

option a) stay in edinburgh, move in on the 12th to flat on chancelot street (10 min) outside the city work for the city council with 3 surveyors helping them file things at 6pounds an hour+ holiday monday-friday 9-5, job ends in april

option b) move to fife work for the pillars of hercules organic farm cafe. live 1.5 hours from edinburgh, in a small village(20 minute walk from the farm). Help them develop there all organic all vegetarian menu for 5.80 pounds and hour + holiday, 35 hours a week.

so pros and cons for a: live with some cool people, live in the city meet more people my own age have kind of a crap job but i can supplement by being able to go to hogmony (new years eve, day). 2 art house theaters i can go to. must by a monthly bus pass and commute, a little, if you can call it a commute. and i can volunteer at the forest, this ultra alternative cafe where i would get a free meal and meet more arts fartsy people.

pros and cons of b: live in a village, the owner of the farm said he could find me accomadations (not so sure what they would be). help develop the menu and work in the kitchen but also have to do the things i did at down to earth and the coop like stock shelves, use the register, wash dishes, serve customers in the coffee shop. but i get to work in a kitchen and make food, that's organic with cool people who believe in similar things as i do. but probably not talk to too many people besides my coworkers. but i can slip out in march and go to italy for a month. uuuuu!

so i'm going to call farmer bruce, and see if i can work for 2 days and see how i like it. and perhaps see my accomidations. so that's the plan i guess. write me with what you think either blog or email. thanks guys for listening to me. hope to hear back soon.

xoxo,
christie

p.s. by the way the forest (coffee shop from a) has a dark room so i could potentially develop some film and photos there.

lice it's everywhere!

2006-11-02T03:12:00.000-08:00

hi everyone. hope the title caught your eye. yes in my hostel the girl who sleeps above me found she had lice last night. so i am just hoping a praying i don't have it. so we will see.

so what did fra and i do while she was here. well first we went to the botanical garden. great little stroll around town. the second day we went to the roslynn chapel. the da vinci code and the apprentice column. i no be amazed and wowed. we also went to the sir walter scott monument where we climbed the 287 spiral stair case steps to the top of the monument. we also found the forest. an ultra hip ultra cheap vegetarian place where all the cool kids hang out. other things include going to the national portrait gallery for the the famous photographer something possibly harry benson, can't remember. so that's about all sorry guys i'm super busy with the job and place to live search so that's the shortened version. hope to hear from you all soon via the email or the blog.

xoxo,
christie

test test test

2006-10-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

hello everyone. this is my second try at blogging today so lets hope this one works. i went to 2 different great art things today. i moved into the city center for the weekend with francesca and then i will find a different hostel that is within city centere but maybe not so loud. so the 2 things i made it to today include the camera obscura building on the royal mile. this was a cool thing, and one of the first of its kind when it was originally built in 1893. so a camera obscura works is a mirror is tilted at a 45 degree angle and then what it captures is reflected into 3 different lens on to a concave piece of wood. so you could see the whole city. pretty cool. and then the rest of the time was spent running through the 5 floors of fun house magic with holograms pin hole camera photos and one of those cool electrical balls when you put your hand on it and it lights up.

the other great thing i went to the scottish museum of modern art...dun dun dun and a maplethorpe retrospective. lots of great famous photos by him of patti smith, self portraits, some of plants, and of course the gay s+m scene in new york during the 80s. so that was great and then i also saw some more cindy sherman's from a more recent body of work as well as some other modern art like modrion paintings etc etc. not a lot of photography exhibitions around here. so it is daylight savings night todya in europe so we will see what the extended evening holds. so perhaps i will talk to you all in a while. ciao for now.

xoxo,
christie

different hostel day

2006-10-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

ccTravelAbroad

well guys i was just too excited so i had to write about the 2 really fun things i did today. first i switched hostels to one in the city while francesca is here, she comes tonight woohoo! i also made it to the camera obscura museum, where there is one of the largest camera obscura/illusion places in the world. so you climb to the top of this tower, sorry no lift and they have a mirror tilted at a 45degree angle with 3 lenses below and it is then reflected onto a white concave board below. it was pretty cool. then you could go outside and see the whole city. this is one of the highest points in the city. then it was 4 floors of illusions holograms and 3D things. they also had one of those electricity balls so when you put your hand on it and touched a flourescent lightbulb it lite up pretty cool. they also had a bunch of pinhole camera photos of the city, equally as neat, seeing those always makes me want to do pinhole cameras!

later on i went to the scotland museum of modern art. and all you photography fans out there are going to be jealous because i saw a retrospective of robert maplethorpe's work. so gloria be sure to tell everyone in your classes that there is an exhibition in edinburgh of maplethorpe's work until november 5th, i almost missed it. great stuff. there were a bunch of the famous photos like the ones of patty smith, andy warhol, and the some from the flower/plant series. as well as the ones dealing with the gay S+M underground scene in New York during the 80s. so altogether great work he just made silver gelatin prints(which are what i developed in the photography lab is school). i also saw a bunch of damien hirst stuff (known for sawing open animals and displaying them in a glass case) and some more cindy sherman, this time more recent work. great stuff super exciting for me not so exciting for other people. also i got a new phone number so i will be emailing to those people who should have it namely my mother! so until later, tah darlings!

xoxo,
christie

edinbra...lassie

2006-10-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

howdy do-well everyone i made it to scotland. so far it has been shite weather. and cold too! so here's a lowdown of what happened so far...tuesday evening in dublin was francesca's birthday so i stayed and celebrated with her we went to yamamori with paul and friends and the replacement christe, marie came as well not that i could ever be replaced! so we had dinner, paul ordered some sake, which basically tasted like turpintine, as my mother said about the glass of ouzo i had in greece! and then i started getting overly zealous about the tate modern in london, great museum by the way. i was telling pc about it and then on the other side of the table was francesca talking about something else and us both talking loudly and moving our hands a lot and paul pointing out that it is like watching a mirror when we both talk. so great dinner, afterwards patrick made an apple crumble for us, great job!

wed. my flight left at 3:25pm to edinburgh. i would have taken a more envirometally sound mode of transpartation like a bus or a train but it would be like 24hours by different modes of transportation so no thanks. so i got into town and it was pouring, actually it was pouring in dublin so it was shite weather where i was and shite weather where i was going. christie grumpy by the weather. so i caught the hostel bus to the hostel and found out it was in the middle of nowhere. you need to catch the bus to get into town so what i will be doing on saturday when francesca visits me is staying at a different hostel in city center and then finding one with a weekly rate. so that's the plan.

thursday i found the BUNAC office and made an appt. for orientation for friday. and yet again i think it is up to christie to find her own job and not let the man get her down because these people don't seem so competent. so we will see. i also went to the elephant house for lunch as well as the national gallery lots of old paintings again. as well as an exhibiton by a bunch of art students here in edinburgh entitled the new athenians. i watched a video for like an hour it was pretty interesting stuff. and some other imaginative stuff being done by the scots.

friday. i went to get my phone unlocked so that i could get a new sim card and that was a nightmare because meteor, my irish network locked my phone to only take their network card and their is no meteor in the UK so i found another one and hopefully i can set that up tonight. i am going to send emails to temp agencies tomorrow as well as go to the camera obscura museum. it is supposed to have the best view in town as well a 150 year old camera obscura contraption. oooohh...i hope no one is jealous. so that's it for now lads.
xoxo,
christie

i will try not be so crabby about the cold and rain and broken umbrella and being soaked to the bone and my shoes never drying out. but hey at least i haven't seen any junkies yet, or been asked directions anywhere. i was told by someone that i look like a tourist, and i said "that's the point!" so no Q&As for me!

Cork, Dublin, Paris, London, Dublin, Edinburgh

2006-10-24T04:18:00.000-07:00

Well readers when last your hero left you she had just arrived back to dublin with stories galore.

so friday was cork day, i wanted to take the 2pm bus to Cork out of Dublin, it is a 4.5 hour drive so if i left too late it would be dark and i wouldn't get to see or do too much in the city. unfortunately i missed the 2pm bus so i was going to take the 2:30pm bus but i couldn't because there was no end to the line for the bus! so it was the 4pm bus for me and then because there was a blockage around Kilkenny which made the bus ride 5.25 hours long. so i found my hostel and then wondered around Cork but i didn't see much as it was dark out. but saturday was a really busy day. i started out by signing up for a film to go and see as there was a film festival in cork that weekend. I saw the Shutka Book of Records, an area in the Balkan region, and one of the poorest areas in the Europe but wealth is not determined by typical riches but by a man's ability to reinvent himself. The best quote of the film was "Don't look for Shutka on a geographical map. Shutka is a state of Mind." I later went to 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep, in which the director was there to do a QA after the film. This film was about the Pamir Kirghiz, a tribe native to the Pamir region of Central Asia, They speak a form of Turkish but the film was all about the Kirghiz nomadic way of life being in jeapordy due to other countries power struggles during the late 19th century through till now. The last film i saw was a double feature in which the first film "King for a Day" was a film by an irish director that was a dream like state in which a zealot mother locks her daughter in her room after she finds her reading the book 120 days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade. the second film was "A Curious Incident In The Life of Uri Geller". Uri Geller is known for being able to bend a spoon with his mind and he was asked to make a film about a Plaza in Venice in which some really freaky things were happening to the group. i was freaked out enough by the film that i started grabbing the arm of the person next to me. the poor thing having to deal with me. so aside from the films i also wandered around the city and made it too the blarney stone. so i don't recommend going to the castle unless you have good knees and balance. it is quite difficult to walk to the top of the castle as the stones were worn smooth in the spiral staircase, with no handrail! but it was a great 14th century castle and i did not kiss the stone. so sunday morning i got up at about 7:30am to catch the bus back to dublin and got back about 12:30 in the afternoon.

Monday: so i got a ride from patrick to the airport on monday morning to fly to france. i was trapped between two french people on the airplane, who would not give up an arm rest to me, bastards! but i fell asleep anyway, when i landed i had to take an hour bus ride into paris and then find a metro, as i had no map. so once at the hostel i unpacked some things and then out on the street i went to the Arc de Tromphe Etoile and then the Palais de Challot where i turned around to see the Eiffel Tower. The next day was louvre day when i went to get in line, i was saddened to find out that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. so I had to settle for the Orsay museum with all french art, not bad but not exactly what i wanted. After i went to Notre Dame, Palace and Garden of Luxemborg Opera House, Palace du la Madeline, St. Augustine Caterdral another Church and the Pantheon. On my way back to my hostel i decide to go to the Sacre Coeur so i got off the metro at a station which once above ground realized i was in the ghetto so i walked really quickly to the next station and gave up hope of finding the church. in the morning i was looking at a guide book about paris and it said pretty much whatever you do don't go to this area-metro.

wednesday i took the metro then the train to the airport to London. i arrived in london about 10am as the plane was late getting into the airport. then i took a bus into town and then the underground to the hotel. but i found that the line i needed to take was closed as there was a fire. so i didn't get to the hotel until close to noon. but after that my aunt earleen my uncle charlie, myself and our tour guide Sue drove around London and then on to the Westminster Abbey. and at night the National Gallery, lots of 16th century to 19th century painting.

Thursday we did some touring around London, we went to the Tate Modern and passed by the globe theater. I was able to see Cindy Sherman photographs as well as a film by her. I also saw text art by Jenny Holzer two of my favorite artists and i purchased a guerrila girls tshirt. I also made it into the SoHo area of London where i saw lots of little shops and markets. This was also the day that my corduroy pants died and i was down to one pair of pants but i was able to find a pair in a shop in Leister square.

Friday was Oxford day. Sue, our guide, took us to the college where we wondered the streets and learned some interesting facts about the university. for instance the University of Oxford actually contains several schools within the University and these are the people that you live with but not necessarily go to classes with you, so they're not all lawyers or whatever. it was a beautiful city and we had a great day. and i also got to peek into the hall where some of harry potter was filmed ooooohh...

Saturday my family and i parted ways and i went to do some things i wanted to do and they went and got checked in for the eurostar they were taking on thursday. So while they were doing that and going to the theater to see Chicago, starring ashley simpson. so i went to the Portabella Market, where over 2000 stalls are in place for your shopping needs. Then i went to the Victoria and Albert museum where i saw some Dave Chihuly glass works (check out the UMD library rotunda and look up). Then i also went to the Natural History Museum but i couldn't find the Dodo bird. I got back on the metro and went to the Tate Britain where i saw lots of british art and then some great contemporary art as well as a huge exhibition of Turner's work the sublime landscape, brilliant. Then i went back to the hotel to organize my things for my flight back to dublin. So once in the metro i took the metro to the train station, where i took the train to the airport. On the way to the airport on the train all trains were stopped in all directions because there was a fatality on the tracks. so we were all speculating that someone committed suicide on the train tracks during rush hour. so people were getting off the train to take buses and taxis to the airport so the traffic was insane everywhere. the poor person only got attention for 40 minutes and then we were back on track to the airport. so i made the check in time by 20 minutes and i was through security and waiting for the gate to be announced for my flight so this flight was also 40 minutes late in leaving. so i was a bit worried if i was going to be able to take the last bus from dublin airport towards my house. but i was able to take the last bus at the airport at 11:25pm so i got home at around midnight. a long day finally done. so that was the shortened version of all the stuff i have done this past week. and on wednesday i will leave for edinburgh scotland! travel travel. so that's all sorry to keep you on the edge of your seat.

xoxo,
christie

Napflio

2006-10-13T04:11:00.000-07:00

So now that i finally have the name right of where i was staying in greece i can finally tell you more about what i did and saw i have probably forgot a lot of the details so i may have to blog again after consulting my journal. so here it goes...

Friday we visited Myceane (i studied the myceanean culture in college, history of world art 1) and i saw the lions gate which they are very famous for as well as the Agemenmon death mask which was the ruler during the peak of the culture as well as pythos and dun dun dun my favorite greek vase, i forgot what style it was but it has an octupus on it, wow wow wow, it's so cool when you study something and then finally see it in real life! then we went to another ruin and saw them reconstructing some doric columns from a temple of zeus, not so great. by this time i am really sick of greek salad and tomatoes in general!

Saturday A.M. we went to the market in town bought some vegetables and local wine (aka the year on it was September 2006 and it came in a 1.5Liter water bottle!) then after that we went to the beach and with a map not to any sort of scale tried to find some art galleries. later in the afternoon we went to Tolo, basically the "sandy" beach area where there is about oh 5 feet wide! this was also the night of the rain storm in which it started raining as we were driving back from the beach and we waited in the car to prevent absolute soaking and when it did let up and we got up to walk to our apartment the streets were flooded and the water was about 2.5 inches high!

Sunday: we tried to go to a gorge, but we had bad driving instructions so we didn't make it:(sadface). but we did make it to the castle in our own town of Napflio and it was absolutely cool the foretress built in the 18th century by the venetians. lots of climing and the windows were angled so that arrows could go out but not much could come in, it was also devised so that if it was infilatrated there was a way to defend the part that hadn't been infilatrated.

Monday: I made the family Crepes and then we went somewhere i think but i can't remember to be continued...

Tuesday: My family put me on a bus from Nafplio to Athens. Well guys i can't believe it but Athens is more dirty then Dublin! i didn't think it was possible what with all the drunks but with the sand and the dogs and cats and the people on the tiny antique streets and the ugly european modern buildings not a place i would recommend spending a lot of time in, i would go to Nafplio, just gorgeous, or an island or something. so once at the bus station i took another bus to the city center, for 50 cents! and i had a combined ticket because then i had to take the metro from where the bus dropped me to Montastaraki square where my hostel was. well on both these bus rides i noticed a girl traveling by herself which after we got off the bus i took the opportunity to ask her if she was looking for her hostel and where it was, we were at different hostels but within a 7 minute walk of each other so we got on the metro and went to our prospective hostels but then we met at the Acropolis at 4pm! yeah instant companion Chiara from Milano, another italian! so she was 19 and just starting at the University this year and she loved greek culture, and alexander the great! so we had things to tell each other about the Parthanon and and the theater etc. but i was so impressed 19, only knowing a bit of greek navigating greece on buses by herself! wow. so then we had dinner together looked around the city a bit and then out for an ouzo to finish the night. this is a traditional greek alcohol in which it is clear but you put ice in it and it turns foggy. it is made from aniseed and tastes nice if you get a good one. i had a bad one on saturday, it didn't turn foggy when you add ice.

Wednesday: i got on the bus at 2:30am to get my flight out of athens at 5am i didn't do much research for flights and only paid attention to the first flight out of dublin, oops! the bus ride with no traffic takes about 45minutes to the airport! and on the way to the airport i saw that someone had gotten hit by a car on the highway, yikes not the last image i wanted in my head of athens but...so i made it to the airpot and checked in for my flight. once again i fell asleep b4 the plane even lifted off the ground but i woke up in time for my greek vegetarian meal, this one was a lot tastier then the irish one with a little spanikopita as well as a sesame seed vegetable thing and some yogurt with honey. once in prague, i had 3 hours in the airport, ugh! so i slept for about 2 and then went to find out where my flight was leaving from. once on the plane i was thinking to myself, just once on a flight i want to sit next to an attractive young guy! yeah! and bingo i did, but unfortunately he didn't speak much english at all only Czech bummer! so since they didn't have a vegetarian meal for me on this flight i just had a beer at 10am in the morning! i know terrible. and the 2 Czech guys were saying just beer! and i was like well i'm going back to dublin so i thought i would get an early start. but they didn't get the joke. but then toward the end of the flight they were a little drunk so they started trying to talk to me and teach me some Czech words they were flying to dublin in order to watch the Czech republic play Ireland in football. by the end of the flight i was excited to get off the plane and get on a bus to a familiar place. so i got home and ate some lunch at about 1:30pm then i hopped back on another bus to the Botanical Gardens, which was absolutely beautiful i learned all sorts of useles facts like the banana is not a tree but the largest herbaceous plant in the world. i have no idea what that means google it! so then i got home and went out for a tea with francesca went to our house for dinner and then out for a hot whiskey.

Thursday: i got up and went to an art exhibition about the deforistation in the US, but looking at it critically it just looked like some photos of trees to me! then i went to the book of kells! finally, and i have to say i was not so impressed, i was rather disappointed, i studied it in school so i was really excited but in the end they did a poor job of the little pre book of kells, history of the world at that time, tools used, pigments etc. it wasn't it irish which every museum i have been to has it in irish and english which is a nice feature and they took images from the book and blew them up on the walls so they were kind of pixilated once you looked at them closely. and then the book, well they have taken the book apart and have 2 books made, one with the images and one with the text, not so cool. but i did see the very first page of the book of kells, so in latin it says in the beginning there was the word of god and the word said...so on and so forth kind of cool to see the first page. not really worth the 7euro but i think it is a requirement when you are in dublin that you see it. later on in the evening i made a yummy vegetable lentil pie with goat cheese, very nice. then we also had some chocolate salami! fran made it while i was away with the special italian biscuits that you can't get here in dublin, but you can in greece so i brought some back with me for her. so good day.

Friday: Cork today, i accidentally deleted my info for my flight on monday to paris, oops so i had to call ryan air and get my flight info, thanks for nothing ryan air, they are not helpful at all and they hang up on you as quickly as they can! but i got the info and i am ready for monday and paris, with my european language book! so ciao for now i will write more about greece later.

xoxo,
christie

greece or bust!

2006-10-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

hey babes! well i made it to greece with little to no hastle. prague from above looks like a great place to visit, so i am thinking about it. but i would at this point rather go to Oulu, Finland where the world championchips of air guitar are held. for some reason i am having trouble formulating correct english sentences! well better luck next time. so anyway there is a 2 hour time difference between greece and dublin so i was a little confused by the time i flew into athens, but my mother was there to greet me when i walked through the customs gate. and i got padded down twice while in the dublin airport and the prague airport! but i didn't need to take off my shoes so i'm not too sure what to think of that. but in greece today my first official day here thursday, it was slightly humid with a high of 86F or about 30 degrees! beautiful i'm so glad to get out of dublin for a while! and we are staying in a smaller city called Napfoli i may have spelled that wrong but hey you get the point, it's nice and even the sidewalks are made of marble! so that's what i have to report right now not too much more. so ciao ciao. i don't know how to say goodbye in greek, oh well it's all greek to me!

xoxo,
christie

check my pulse!

2006-09-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

yo peeps sorry to leave you hanging for so long, it has been an exceptionally busy week. marco made it on sunday to dublin. when fran and i caught the bus, 15minutes after his flight landed, to pick him up from the airport we discovered that low and behold it was the final hurling match of the season which means there were a few thousand people on the streets, i have never seen so many people in one place it was absolutely an awe struck event! so we made it to the airport, usually taking about 30minutes in an hour and a half! but he had only been waiting outside the airport for about 10 minutes! so we were told the wrong time in which he was landing, so good thing we were late! then we came home to have some dun dun dun pancakes. after that we went to the prison love concert inside a pub, but i don't remember which one, and i bought the CD but it's not as good as them live. and after the show, since we were the only ones in the pub not related to the band they sat down and chatted with us for about 20 minutes, how nice. later on we had pasta for dinner, let's have a contest to see if i can remember how many times i had pasta during this past week.

i forgot to mention i went and saw the film little miss sunshine with the guy from the american the office. it was cry because you're laughing so hard funny, fran and i had a great time. then afterward italian food at the taverna risotto with blue cheese and an auburgine smoke cheese with tomatos on top thing!

on monday we headed to bray, we picked blackberries and filled a container to bring home. we did the 8km hike from bray to graystones, and i am happy to report i feel in a hole! i was not watching where i was going and feel straight into a 1.5foot deep hole. no injury just feel over laughing. dinner that night was at the porter house where i had a portabella mushroom burger, it was nice then we listened to a blues band do covers of a bunch of songs and i split a brain blaster beer with francesca, which the porter house brews themselves.

tuesday: marco made his special pasta sauce and we had linguini with it. marco also bought himself his first pair of converse with flames...ooh,ahh!

wednesday: Corrine who, i met through couchsurfing.com, came over for pizza, we made a green olive pizza and a brocolli and mushroom pizza, paul even joined us for dinner! then we all headed to the palace bar for some piping music. unfortunately eoin dillion was not there, kila is touring right now! so it was kind of funny because there was a gaggle of musicians and far less audience. so it was wonderful to have corrine over for dinner she was here taking an english class, and she leaves this week to go back to switzerland!

thursday: this was the day of the hurricane passing, we thought our building might blow away! not such and eventful day but we had tortellini for lunch.

friday: francesca worked so, i had to entertain marco, i took him to the Irish museum of modern art, since it was culture night here in dublin, but fran got off early so instead of going to more museums we just met her at the taverna for dinner. then we walked around the city and looked at all the white collar people here for the ryder cup!

saturday: i made bean burgers for dinner and fracesca went and picked up some fries from a pub in temple bar! then we tried to get into the rock candy carnival, but alas it was sold out so we watched some drummers and then we took the walk home and went to bed at about 2am as march had to get up at 3:30am to get a taxi to the airport. and that was the last of our marco!

i learned to say a few things in italian like how to call some one a nerd, how to say someone is handsome, filthy, as well as some random words like greasy and snail i also learned a swear word and how to greet marco when i go to italy!

so that is all that happened this past week so in addition to working i had many to entertain! so hope this clues you all in on what has been happening.

xoxo,
christie

marco...polo!

2006-09-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

ccTravelAbroad

Whew. sorry guys had to take a break from the old technology for a bit but here's what happened this past week in no particular order but i will try to keep it numeric.

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday (nothing really happened during this time frame except for my friend Abra had a baby, a girl at 7:20 (not sure if am or pm) 8lbs. 1oz. healthy baby girl, way to go abra and ben!!!)
Saturday: Paul, my flatmate invited me to go to the Docklands for the opening of the Fringe Festival, which was a great fire display by the water and the IFSC (Irish Finacial Serivce Center). it was similar to what takes place in the New England area called WaterFire. so i hung out with Paul, the other Paul and Patrick for most of the evening, nice...i told paul i hope that i behaved myself enough to be invitied back! then i went to bed about quarter to 3 and woke up at 6am to take a bus to Galway!!!

So the bus ride to Galway takes about 3 and a half hours, i slept for most of the bus ride, so did the person sitting next to me on the bus, laying their head upon my shoulder until they woke up and realized they were sleeping on me! LOL So i arrived in Galway about 10:30am i found my hostel and checked in for the evening and then left, after i got my complimentary map! i then wondered the shopping area and found a pub where i got a meal i would never in my entire life think of putting together: aka the vegetarian equivalent to the irish breakfast, beans in tomato sauce, sauteed mushrooms, fried potatoes, 2 fried eggs, a tomato, three slices of toast, a cup of orange juice and a person pot of tea all for 6 euro! so i probably had the calcium leeched from my bones this day by all the protein i had! then i took a bus to the cliffs of Moher(correction i missed the bus and it had to circle back to pick me up), beautiful i have photos (no rain yet)! then after driving through the country side (imagine the mountianous roads of the Andalusia area) I got back to Galway about 6pm where i wondered the city along the coast through the spanish arch i checked out the swans even though i don't really like birds, at all! then i hopped on the ocean walk and looked around until i discovered dun dun dah: purple oyster shells, i was so excited i brought some home with me, what i am going to do with them, i haven't a clue! then it was time for dinner considering it was sunday i decided to keep with the pancake vs. crepes tradition on sundays and had a savory crepe for dinner, it was great sun dried tomatoes with spinach and feta! then i went to my hostel to wash my face and find out where the pub playing traditional music was in town. at the hostel i met my workmate, Eileen's friend from Australia, Jared, he just so happened to work at the hostel i was staying at! so i chatted with him for about an hour, he told me some great walks along the rivers that go through Galway and then i made myself a tea and did some knitting until i got sleepy where i then went to bed.

monday a.m. i got up at 8am to catch the bus and then a ferry to the Aran Island known as Inis Mor, this is the largest of the 3 islands. and just as the ferry was pulling up to the dock the sun came out, like as in another summer day, i wish i had a different pair of pants for this hike kind of day, like my tan is renewed and my nose is sunburnt summer day! so it really made the day fabulous, i hiked to the south east side of the island where i discovered some loose cows which i walked up to and pet on the side of the road, they were really friendly, it was just the bull that was stuck inside the gate that wasn't to happy! so i found a nice rock sat down and had some scones and some trail mix. then i hiked up to the dun dubhchathair (the block fort) this was an amazing cliff that i hung my head off of it and looked down on to the water below that looks like the cover of the 365 days or degrees earth it's a short book but lots of pages, not earth from above it's the other one! then i walked back toward the village for a piece of apple pie at a local cafe, the pie was not so impressive but there was a pregnant cat that i made friend's after the pie at the outdoor cafe, i did pop my head into the aran sweater market but nothing great so i didn't get anything. then i hopped on the ferry to go back to galway, i then took the 7:30pm bus back to dublin. so in total i did about 8+ hours in vehicles on monday, after not riding in anything for more then 40 minutes this was a little intense, luckily i have this defense mechanism built into my body where i just fall asleep! so i got back to dublin about 11:30pm where i gave both my flat mates a hug (even if they didn't really want one):)

tuesday was preview day where i went and saw the new al gore movie "an inconvenient truth" where there was a free yes free 3 scoops of ben and jerry's ice cream provided by the company that planned the event (thank you fran and cultivate for these tickets) great time. scary sad and so on and so forth, i have been really watching my water consumption since this!

wed...not much fran made me dinner i cleaned up my dirty socks and hiking shoes and such that i left around the house.

thurday gallery of photography opening exhibition about dublin's central bank, the social interaction of the bank within the culture, and like in the US, every one hates the bank here in dublin! PC was nice enough to tell me about this so fran and i met him there. great to talk shop (photography with someone). which brings us to friday i'm tired and want to go to bed so that's the life i led this past week or so. did lots saw lots experienced lots once again and fran's brother comes in 2 days Marco...uuuuuuuuu! we're really excited he's coming, maybe even more excited then him! so we will see. lots of love.

xoxo,
christie

the roof is on fire (literally)

2006-09-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, christie here to let you in on some more info about dublin. so on saturday night the spanish peeps that live below us decided to have a techno dance party at 4am, woohoo, more rude that my american neighbors. so fran went down and said something to them and she was treated very rudely and told by one of the party guests that she could go to her house and sleep there. which fran responded with, look i like my house! so not so fun with the neighbors, this is the second time in 2 weeks that this has happened, so three strikes and you get the garda and land lord called! also on sunday it was another pancake sunday, even paul stayed for brunch! i also made a sugar free apple/banana bread, it was great. fran took about half of it to sligo with her and paul, brother owen, and brother's friend Kiernan had some before i even got to it, so thumbs up from the surrogate fam! i also went for a walk around the city and then to Merrion Square, where they finally figured out that the lawn mower was too low (ding ding ding) and finally raised it so the grass was nice and long and a lot softer then Minnesota grass. so i spent about 3 hours just laying in the park in the grass reading my book. after that i went home to talk to Paul and friends. Before fran left on her trip she washed her duvet cover and sheets and asked me to bring them in the room before paul and friends were smoking in the kitchen, unfortunately i got home too late to save them from the smoke but they weren't in too bad of shape, so i asked Paul about the finer points of putting a duvet cover on the actual duvet, paul explained it to me how you should do it, and then said, "it's a lot of fine, you'll like it!" who knew house work could be described as fun, so if you ever need assistants with putting your duvet cover on your duvet i have done it once but it is rather fun.

at about 11pm i was laying in bed reading my book when i starte hearing a popping noise, like a fire cracker (fire crackers are banned here, along with guns) so i opened my window to see where it was coming from and low and behold there was a building on fire not more then 200feet away, like really on fire, but luckily the fire department came quickly and the fire was contained, no spreading to my homey home. some excitment you'll find only here in dublin.

on monday i was going to get up early and do some fun stuff but i got up late and decided to read my book instead, so i wound up at the Cheaster Beatty Library, lots of korans, bibles and chinese calligraphy it was great to see some of this stuff, like ancient gospels written by mark in papyrus from the 400A.D.s pretty crazy! i also so some actual prints from Goya, the Caprices, a series of prints depicting the horrors of the catholic church and what the monarchy was doing to people, here i never thought i would see one of these prints in my life and i saw 3 in the series, i also saw some turner prints, and turner was known for his paintings of the sublime, beautiful with some mysticisim. nice find for me, i also got a free chinese calligraphy poster out of the deal, so i will be mailing it home for myself! so that's about all for now, i am going to make myself a tofu dish, since all i have had today is bread products!

xoxo,
christie

i am going to plan a trip to galway this coming weekend woo hoo.

saturday night fever

2006-09-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

ccTravelAbroad

wow it's saturday already and not too much new stuff has happened.

thursday: i went to the film "any way the wind blows" a comedy by tom barman (he's from the flemish part of belgium) he was at the film showing, he introduced the film and then left shortly there after.

friday: i took fran out for a beer after she got done with work she worked her last day for piggy Pordgy as we call him Pordrig is his name is reality which is the irish spelling of Patrick but he is quite rude and has come pretty close to sexually harrassing fran so we are both glad she is out of there. i also had my first croquette and i'm not talking about kroquet. a croquette is a little piece of mashed potatoes that has been breaded and fried for your eating enjoyment, i had organic frozen ones and i was not so impressed...at all so i will make them myself at some point.

saturday: i went to work tired and we had one of the busiest days i have ever seen, and i yelled at a gypsy on the street. i am starting to crack i need to get out of the city and away from the people. i also went to an art exhibition of art using those little road sign type figures going through life. it was making a comment like we are all the same and yet we don't interact with one another...not so sure what i think or feel about the exhibition. i did not have my allergy test done, but perhaps a later date...i want the tarot card read before i leave.

so that's all about my life for now.
xoxo,
christie

flat-line-ing

2006-08-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

hello people-

glad to see that my mom and derrick are having IM converstations over the blog, even if they have nothing to do with me! (jkjk)

so not much has been happening this week i went and saw the new Richard Linklater film, A Scanner Darkly with Keanu Reeves, it was quite beautiful it was loosely based on a Philip K. Dick book as well as the current drug culture in the US (meth and marijuana and the like). i made some vegan puffed spelt bars (like rice kripie bars) and thumbs up from flatmates and coworkers.

tonight is another film, but i can't remember what it's a special film that we bought tickets in advance.

saturday, i plan to have an allergy test with the crazy allergy doctor, i hope it's like getting my tarot cards read!

i had a chai latte today ( i haven't had one in like 4 or 5 months so to find a chai latte with soymilk for under 3 euro is exciting, i can't imagine what it must be at starbucks in dublin).

and that's about it for now i have nothing new to report except those things.

xoxo,
christie

oh yes the festival of WORLD cultures.

2006-08-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

well hello out there in virtual world. christie here to let you know about the festival of world cultures. first of all i have to say i am already becoming an old granny as my knees hurt so much from all the dancing. so here's the website for those who want to consider going next year to the festival:

http://www.festivalofworldcultures.com/

Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Mr. Whippy Soundsystem
Children of Soweto Gospel Choir
The North Strand Klezmer Band
Trans-Global Underground & Trio Bulgarka
Eoin Dillon
Prison Love

This is a list of all the groups i could find that i saw there were a few more that were not listed on the website. All of them were great. Enzo Avitabile & Bottari is a group from southern Italy, around Naples and Francesca just loved them and she said, "i just lover there Napalnese accent!" you can check them out on the website if you like. So basically every Wed. night from now on i will be at the Palace bar listening to Eoin Dillon and every Sunday after the Crepes or Pancakes i will be at the Cobblestone listening to Prison Love (the irish call it bluegrass, i call it cajun, i'm sure i will be purchasing a CD so we can all discuss the CD in the future) who wouldn't love a group with an accordian and a washboard!

i didn't see a lot of the markets because i was too busy at the concerts. since francesca and i didn't waste our money at the festival we feel we need to waste our money on something else in town so we will see, i have been slowly gathering things from shops to send to folks back home.

it was hard at this festival as there was so much to do and not necessarily enough time to do everything or see everything i wanted to see and seeing as it would be beautiful then downpouring every other minute it was hard to want to go and be outside for extedned periods of time seeing as you could be sweating or you could be soaked do to rain!

did i mention i am going to be on TV? to finish out the festival fran and i went to a taping of the Children of Soweto Gospel Choir we were disappointed at how little music we got to hear at the taping but the women of south africa were beautiful and they sang and danced a tradtional song, it was gorgeous.

on sunday we had a crepe day! and one of francesca's friends who works with her at the wine bar (she calls him a cooker which just sounds funny) and he made crepes for us. francesca was really excited because she was saying to me, "hey babe, i invited 2 men over for breakfast for us". but by the end of the day francesca no longer cares for italian men! they are just like a bunch of old men and sit in their circle and bull shit each other all day! a pretty face but that's it! i find it funny that they came to dublin to work on their english but they wouldn't speak english to me so how are you practicing english? thanks for playing. i tried to talk to one of them when francesca was putting stuff in her bag but he knew so little english and i had to rephrase things as simple as possible and speak in broken english, which i am willing to do but they just get frustrated and prefer to speak to each other and francesca in italian.

after the festival and the crepes on our way home we stopped for a slice of pizza and a beer at a place in Temple Bar, I bought the pizza Fran bought the beers and when she found out it was 4 euros for a glass (1/2 of a pint) she was mad so she said "we take the glasses with us for 8 euros!" sometimes she can be so cheeky!

so all and all a successful festival with no one getting hurt or something bummerish happening. i will leave it up to you to look at the website as it is a great website and layed out well. so peace out peeps, i'm going to make a tofurkey today for dinner!

xoxo,
christie

don't ask her...she doesn't know anything!

2006-08-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

well my dears...christie here and after a long uneventful couple of days i have a few silly incidents to report. sunday...banana pancakes with maple syrup...in fact that's the only thing i really had all day pancakes...for brunch and dinner. i also went to Howth and walked around the whole summit, by myself and down to the light house and then out to the other lighthouse where you catch the boat to the Eye of Ireland, looks neat but i don't know if i care enough to go there, maybe somewhere else instead. then home again home again jiggedy jog for some reading.

monday i did not have off as i told my boss a lie and managed to get saturday off dun dun dun...so i worked monday and have known what day it is this entire week. I made cream of wild rice soup, and i know your jaws are all dropping becames i made wild rice soup in august, oh yes folks it is definately cool enough here for the cheezy creamy delectible soup.

tuesday movie night. francesca picked me up from work and we walked to the IFI for INNOCENT VOICES it was a pretty spectacular film about the gurreilla warfare in El Salvador and the US involvement and how the 11year old boys got shipped off to join the military or were forced to join the gurrillas out of desperation or opposition to the Salvadorian government. i felt like craptastic to be an american after watching it and was a bit poutty after that film. but francesca made dinner and she got Paul to eat with us as well! we're breaking down the irish berlin wall in our house!

the most exciting news is that Marco, Francesca's brother is coming to Dublin the 16 of September and staying for a week before starting at the University! hooray for Marco leaving the nest by himself for a week, hopefully he will have a good time in the good old Eire Isle, but no promises.

Wednesday was filled with not much besides not much. I went to work blah bli blah blah and went to a pub this evening to listen to a piper by the name of Eoin Dilion play, but alas someone in his family was in the hospital so he sent an F+ team to take his place, so we were a bit upset with the lack of their skills, but it was nice to go to a pub that wasn't super loud so i could actually talk to Fran.

Thursday was just where the title of this blog came from, this was just such a ridiculous story and i am so glad to be done in 6 weeks at my job because this is a typical story of my coworkers. So today someone came into the shop looking for something that Eileen was going to check on. The woman came in and asked Jane "Did you get this (i can't remember what it was called something)"?
Jane: "No you'll have to go and ask Eileen".
The woman turns to me as I am towards the back of the shop where Eileen is and the woman starts asking me for whatever it was she had wanted last week and before the woman finishes Jane is shouting from the front of the shop..."Don't ask her...she doesn't know anything."crickets...at the pure shock of being said to know nothing. I didn't say anything to Jane but i went home for lunch and when i came back i asked Eileen if i should have said something. not only is it not very nice to say about someone but then doesn't your shop look kind of bad that only one person knows anything...Eileen? so that was basically the only thing kind of funny/mean that happened today, i made a lovely vegetable stir fry and some grilled corgettes for dinner tomorrow after the gallery exhibition opening i am going to.

Saturday and Sunday should be more eventful as there is the Festival of World Cultures so hopefully i will have some more fun stories then what i got.

xoxo,
christie

six weeks left?

2006-08-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

i can't believe it myself but my 4 months in ireland are almost done and i will be moving on to the UK shortly. i don't know where i will be but somewhere, the winds of change are shaking the trees literally and i am getting a bit anxious. i will have to leave my stable enviroment with Paul and Fran and move to another location with a bunch of strangers once again. it's amazing how change can be so sad and scary and i am a sad to think about leaving but also quite glad, as i am tired of dublin and how everyone is like an ant just marching on and on and not knowing doing saying changing morphing thinking outwardly. the superficiality of pub life really doesn't suit me so i am glad to be moving on.

i am especially sad to be leaving a sister soul i could cry about it right now just thinking about it. i find it so amazing and spectacular that i gained someone in my life so important to me that i love so much pretty much immediately following my grandmother's death. life works in mysterious ways. ramble ramble ramble...and no i have not been drinking. so a little too halmarky?

so the work week finished with a bang, i was catty and was talking back to my boss and questioning him about the irish culture and their lack of care for the beautiful island they live on. the times need to be a changin' but the irish can't quite do it. but next weekend is the festival of world cultures and i got saturday and sunday off so that i could go (woo hoo) so i wil be enjoying some things that i might never experience in the United States.

and tomorrow we are having pancakes, yipee with authentic maple syrup from cananda that i paid dearly for, but in the grand scheme of things what are pancakes without authentic maple syrup? i am hoping for no rain tomorrow so i can take the train somewhere to hike, but after last night and today i wouldn't be surprised if i needed an arc! usually it drizzles in dublin but this was a downpour, i told fran it was raining cats and dogs and she didn't get it.

sandwhich walks into a bar, asks the barman for a guinness.
the barman said, "sorry we don't serve food."

so like that, on and on i'm sure there is some sort of event tomorrow but i can't gurantee anything but after going to the pub last night and only getting 4 hours of sleep and a full days work...do you hear that? do you hear that? it's my bed calling me.

xoxo,
christie

what is in puh'er tea?

2006-08-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

what is puh'er tea? well i don't know i just work here. just like in books, the latest diet crazes hit the health food store as well. Puh'er tea is a tea that is a natural weight loss tea; it was feature in the tabloids that david beckham's wife drinks it and know people are mad for the puh'er tea, we just got it in it's pure form, we only had it as a combination Yogi tea(we have this brand in the US).

i picked up the book Scar Tissue today from the old library where there was a talk/art exhibition about the Palestinian's in Lebanon. It's sad because we should by now all know the horrors of this but for some reason, no some of us still don't and some were amazed to hear about the bombs with little steel pellets inside that when shot into something release on impact. and no there isn't peace in the middle east and i have no idea about how to change it and i don't think that anyone else in the world knows either. we all have ideas but there aren't many feasible ones out there.

next item on the agenda Apartment 2 got a new electric kettle. ding ding ding. finally i don't have to worry about an electrical fire with the kettle and the toaster. it was a little touch and go but for 3 euro a piece i'm pretty sure this will be a great for the next tennants of this apartment. so the great thing about buying new electronics in good old Eire, is you can bring your old one back to the place where you bought it. so we bought the kettle on tuesday and today thursday i brought it back the old one to Tesco, and they recycle it for you, well they give it to the city and the city probably sends it to a 3rd world country to dismantle. but who knows.

not much else going on, we are waiting for the new Richard Linklater film to come out with Keanu Reeves, it comes out on the 18th of Aug. so we will see when or if it comes here. if you've seen Waking Life you will probably love the new one, The Scanning Darkness. by the way i can't wait to quit my job i'm just sick of it and my umpteen bosses.

xoxo,
christie

welcome to the crepe party!!!

2006-08-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hiya. So here's whats been happening so far, the highlight of the weekend was the Crepe party. I made signs on saturday after work. I can tell that i really need to work on an art project, i have been kind of floating at this point and know that my energies need to go towards something specific becuase the crepe party signage just isn't going to cut it. so i made up two great games for the party which included pin the topping on the crepe using tape and a piece of glass between the poster and the toppings. the other game was guess how many crepes the batter makes. fran and i both guessed in the 20s and Anka, a friend of Fran's, guessed 15, the actual number: 9 crepes, i don't know if that is enough crepes to count as a crepe party. i also crated a sign that said VIC very important crepes this way, which Fran proceeded to hang on our door. i also made a sign that you could flip over that said welcome crepes on one side and on the other it said "sorry no crepes allowed, full house". as well there was a sign "Crepes vs. Pancakes" with origin, number eaten in one sitting, number burned, fun facts about each and favorite toppings. and as always there were disclaimers on every poster (may not be actual size, artist rendition, may contain:eggs, dairy, gluten, nuts, suitable for vegetarian). and you ask what is the obsession with crepes well for one, when fran says the word it sounds like craps. for another we were sick of having pancakes every sunday. and why all the signs? well, i need to start some sort of art project and channel the creative tendencies towards something a little more challenging and artistic, so we will see.

i also went and saw the film Atomized, wow. this is a great german film with the two actors from Run Lola Run, challenging the ideas of sexual attratiction and reproduction and whether you need the first in order from reproduction, essentially heading towards a society in aldous huxley's "brave new world". i have been feeling kind of non relatable to humans the last few days so this was an important film to see, and then when i got home from the film what was waiting for me on the cable, non other than the Bollywood Film, "Monsoon Wedding" so an evening of films, the colors of the bollywood film were just gorgeous, and made me want to visit india vs. ireland. so we will see where the life leads us.

as for monday, not much happening today, i bought a sweater at a second hand shop and then i will make bbq seitan and beans for dinner and some apple scones, a quiet day, perhaps next weekend will be more interesting, but it is nice to rest, i hope to finish my scarf soon or more book, but we will see. talk to you all later.

xoxo,
christie

i assume you work here...

2006-08-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

Hello readers so not too much going on this side of the Atlantic. wed. was old lady day, Fra-Fra and myself made soup ate some apple crisp with apples from Alex's shop that we saved from impending dumpster doom. Alex owns an italian grocery store and he sells fruit from italy, the fruit that has bruises he gives to fran or myself, who ever stops by first, so we are assured free apples every friday for scones, cakes, crisps, salads, etc. we read our books and went to bed at about 11:30pm, which is early for us. Today was a full moon so i we tried to stay away from the crazies and not be one of the crazies, unfortunately we couldn't even see the moon it was cloudy (sADFACE)

thursday was slightly more eventful i went to an asian resturant with Ruth and Eileen and had some great tofu and had some great homemade black sesame seed ice cream and the first great dessert i have had yet in ireland, turtle cheesecake, it was delicious and little did i know neither Eileen or Ruth knew why it was called turtle cheesecake, they had never seen or heard of a turtle in the chocolate deliciousness. the irish don't eat sweets over here they use butter as a flavorant in everything. i was disappointed to find out that the cream that came with the cheesecake was not sweetened, typical american nothing is sweet or sugary enough! afterwards i went with Eileen to the pub she was going to, to hear her friend Mark play in a band. She said it was at the VooDoo lounge which i was sure was east of my house, but we started walking west of my house and Eileen got to the pub she thought the gig was at but alas that pub was called the Viper Room. so she called her brother and sure enough the VooDoo lounge was in the direction i thought it was. traveling travel 1: life long resident of dublin 0! so once we found the place and found out that the band was supposed to play at 9pm and still hadn't i abondoned Eileen with some of the groupies that she knew and headed to call my mom. everyone will be happy to know my mom is fine!:) I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT CRAZY SOCK LADY: so there was this woman on thursday that came in looking for a pair of white socks in a size 6. She had a Boots Pharmacy bag full of folded up paper towels and emerged moments later after digging through the bag with one of her socks. she held it up to the size 7 and asked "is this a size 6?" and i said "no it's a size 7, we don't have a size 6 in this color".
"so you'll be getting it in a size 6 shortly?"
"no we don't carry that size in that color."
"don't you have a chair or something for me to sit down in?"
christie proceeds to go and get the woman a chair. woman places bag on chair and then proceeds to try and sit down so christie attempts to move the bag so the woman can sit down in the chair. woman proceeds to get really angry and snatch the bag back from christie. at this point christie just wants to walk away and the woman continues holding the size 7 sock up to her sock "so when will this color be in stock again?" christie expains one more time we will put it on the next order, Eileen concurs the old woman starts asking me what the colored corn pasta is colored with, christie slowly wanders to the other side of the store.
cuck-coo...i found out at thursday evening dinner that this woman comes in about once or twice a month asking for the socks which we have ordered for her and she never comes and picks them up so we just tell her whatever she wants to hear and then don't order them or hold them for here. absolutely mad.

the other funny thing that i tried to get francesca to say was for her to ask Paul if he had been "rollin' with his hommies". i had mistakenly also said to her in the same conversation that we never see paul anymore because he is out joy riding in his new(temporary) car. so instead she asked him while i was out if he was "joy ridin' with his hommies" does this remind you of a certain line from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation "Let's burn my shorts and eat Rubber". oh clark grizzwald.

friday: well today i moved some shelves around put up some new flax seed, washed some dishes, swept the floor, brought out some garbage and cardboard. some things i have noticed about my coworkers, and flatmate paul: for one at work when the garbage is full rather then ask me to empty it, empty it themselves or throw garbage in a different wastebasket they continue to throw garbage in the general vacinity of the garbage can, hello someone has to pick that up...the other thing i have noticed is the not caring about piling dishes or crumbs all over the table or counter, how can you make yourself food, or have the desire to eat, it's like eating on a piece of toast! One thing i have learned about myself is that i am not very good at tiding up, or keeping the shop clean, i constantly get told to clean this or dust that because frankly i just overlook the gunk on the floor or the flour dust over here or whatever so i guess that is an important thing to know about myself if i ever sign up for a dating service "well i like to have things clean but i would get an F+ in cleaning if i was getting graded." i also got a card from Leta, thank you so much Leta, i love the greetings from MN on the front, i am going to hang it up in my room:) well folks that's what is exciting here i am going to check the cultural paper tonight and see what is on tap for the weekend, and look in my guide book for somewhere to go one weekend. i started the "confederacy of dunces" so far pretty satirical.

xoxo,
christie

is there an elevator to the big lake this way?

2006-08-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

Ah Glendalough, we finally made it to the Wicklow Mountains. And not a moment too soon. Fran has been trying to get to Glendalough for the past 5 months, and myself for the last month. and it was meant to be because when we left Dublin, it was gray and had rained the previous day so we were afraid it was going to be crap weather and that it would be miserable but as we drove away from the city and toward the mountains we came into sunshine and had too many clothes! we hiked for about 4.5 hours then stopped for lunch and a nap then back to the bus. we were supposed to leave on sunday but it was raining and miserable so we scrapped that idea. instead i went and saw the african art, it was art from Nigeria and it was gorgeous, wood carvings, paintings and weavings of the Queen Mother, a very important figure in the tribes. Brightly colored and abstract, and all i could think of what skilled sculptors there were in Nigeria.

then i went to the Photography institute where someone had done a personal project documenting how dublin and ireland had changed since he left back in the early 80s. Apparently there were no jobs here in the country so people were going to london to work and outside of the country to work and always had plans of returning, some did and some didn't but this gentleman went to school for photography in London and then ended up staying in London as a freelance photographer for several years and then came back about 15 years later and did not see the same ireland he knew. There are many irish people who feel this way and can't relate totally to the changing cultural diversions within the city and the country. And right outside in Meeting House Squre was tada an African Market with tribal clothing, dancing singing, again beautiful very similar to some of the things i experienced in elementary school growing up with the Native American culture. Then it started to rain. So Fran went and picked up a Mihizaki movie "Kiki's Delivery Service" not so impressive like Spirited Away but still a nice cartoon to watch on a rainy. Then we decided to go to The Celt for some traditional Irish music sung by 2 woman, who hypothesize are mother and daughter. The Celt was packed and sweaty and smelled horrible but the music was great, and i am so glad there is no smoking allowed inside the pub. So after 2.5 hours of music listening and singing Fran walked me half way home and she went to find her friend Selana who went back to Italy on Monday.

So after going to bed at 2am I found that Fran came home with a friend of her's but did not go to bed until 5am. and we got up the next moring at 10am to go to Glendalough. We still hiked up the mountainside, we saw both of the lakes, including a lake that was in a photograph from the photo series i had seen on Sunday. We also saw a waterfall, and did some tresspassing to an early christian ruin, it was gorgeous and you could see some of the celtic knot chisilings on the stones. This is where i insert a funny story about the title. so we rain into several sets of people who said to us, is this the way to the lake? and it was like did you see the sign that said Lower Lake not this direction? then there was an irish gentleman who asked if the elevator to the Upper Lake was this way, and i told him he's just walking up the mountain at this point and he should turn around if he wants to go to the lake. "Did you not find purchase your 50 cent hiking map?" The mountain side, is what you imagine when you think of ireland. so green and lush with valleys and lakes in the valleys, goats, sheep and my cousins the cows!
The funny thing is we almost missed the bus to leave dublin and we almost missed the bus to get back to dublin, i told fran she is not in charge of time keeping once i get a watch! so we had a contest to see who would fall asleep first on the bus and i won! so we napped the entire time into town, but as we were leaving Glendalough we saw an antique shop that had this strange manequin with a flag wrapped around it holding a pole and we looked at each other like what the hell is that? Once we made it to Dublin we got off the bus and were practically carrying each other down Grafton St. and Wicklow St. where we decided to stop in to Cornicopia for an oat bar! We got a mixed berry oat bar with soy yougurt and a Gluten Free piece of Cake with cream. Both were great and we just managed to get in before they closed. oh just what we needed after a day of hiking. We then headed to the DVD shop where we promptly decided to rent another Mihizaki movie "My Friend Totoro" when we went to exchange the DVDs we found that we had not put "Kiki's Delivery Service" back in the case, so we carried an empty case with us all day (no this is where i introduce Fran's word for her air headedness that i will use from now on it is Spindadta which is what we say when we do something silly) so we walked home and then i volunteered to go back to exchange the DVDs. We defrosted our freezer this day as well, and found a hamburger frozen in the ice (big chuckles here) it was like uncovering a mammoth in the arctic circle, only it was a hamburger in aluminum foil! so she dealt with that and disinfected the hell out of the freezer, perhaps Grandma's cleansing bar recipe would have been helpful at this point! So we both took our showers and sat down at 10pm for our movie and by 11pm i was like i can't keep my eyes open anymore so we turned it off and had to go to bed.

Tuesday Day 3 of being off from work: woohoo! so i did some lame thing around the house like trasfer our food from Paul's fridge to our own and then i went to the library where i picked up a book called Vive le Vegan! what a great cook book. i also found a design competition that i think i am going to work on and enter to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Union, looks fun and i checked the rules, it just said i had to be living in one of the EU states, i didn't have to be a citizen of the EU, woo hoo loop holes! i also dropped more stuff off at the homeless shelter, shampoos, deoderant, face soaps etc. Then i headed to the National Gallery for the Caravaggio. Finally a Caravaggio, the taking of christ in which Caravaggion inserted himself as a bystanndered in the back right corner holding a lantern, oh it was great finally a Caravaggio in real life, not a slide a printed image the real oil pained thing. it's amazing that something pained over 400 years ago can still be in such great shape today, i'm sure it has been touched up but what a master of oil paint the man was. absolutely have to appreciate an artist like that. so that was the weekend here in dublin, i'm christie culliton, good night.

xoxo,
christie

sloop or sailboat? not a Paul.

2006-08-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hello all my blog readers, it's been some time since i have last written, busy week and not much energy left for the old blogger.

Tuesday: i don't remember. there was lots of post this day, a packing peanut fight, free food from work and some exhaustion. i got a tube mailer from derrick, i love the i have no eyeballs button or as the irish call it a badge. and the charms are on the bracelet. i also got a letter from my claire bear. oh claire i love the drawing of the big fork on my letter!

Wed: fran came and picked me up from work and we went to a french film at the IFI called "cockles and muscles". absolutely fabulous. i highly recommend you pick it up from your local video store. we laughed the whole time and the song and dance number at the end is great. then after that we went to as fran said, the best pizza place in dublin for real italian pizza, i had a wonderful vegetable pizza with peppers, mushrooms and corgettes as well as an in date Tiger beer! we both had our own pizzas and beers and then walked home. where i made a vegan chocolate for our dinner party thursday at Fran's friend Erik's house.

Thursday: the dinner party, while after not knowing which bus to take we finally caught the LUAS out to Rathmines, a suburb of Dublin. Erik is one of the cofounders of Cultivate, the sustainable living program/building that Fran used to work at. he has a great garden with all sorts of orchids and lillies, gladiolas, air plants, lettuce, basil, etc etc etc. gorgeous and ruralesque right in the city. we had a delicious vegetable stir fry and the vegan chocolate cake (which after i made it i found out that Erik is diabetic!) so oops on the cake. so he could only have a small piece and we left the rest for his roommates and hopefully i will get together with him later on in the coming months to volunteer for the conference of sustainable industrial design, and could lead to a job in the UK woo hoo! then we walked home from Rathmines, an hour long trek through the southern part of the city. and we had another house guest(P2 has come and gone from the living room) another one of Paul's friends from Cork, but not a Paul, an Allen.

Friday: worked...and no Ruth or Eileen just my 2 bosses and me (sadface) but i made it through with lots of phone messages for the ladies. made some pasta, am getting psyched for the hour long bus ride to Glandoulough on Sunday. this sunday and monday is bank holiday weekend so everyone has the days off and i was bummed because man i don't get bank holiday weekend because i already have those days off! then i found out oh but i do have tuesday off as well, so 3 day weekend woo! and there's a new exhibit at the photography institute, so more art for me and i also saw there was an exhibit of African art at a hotel on my block so i will stop by after work tomorrow yipee!

so that's all i have to report to you for the week i was invited to a party tonight but i just can't do it, too tired. tonight we have another new house guest, matt from cork, and possibly a P2. so that's the word on the street here in Dublin. I am making scones to take with on our trek to Glandalough so hopefully new good news from that adventure.

xoxo,
christie

sorry i have sucked at the email, i have been so lazy this week. hopefully i will get to bed early tonight.

Toucan Brew

2006-07-31T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hello blog readers not too much to report today.

Sunday: Fransesca and i woke up about 11am and made pancakes and woke our house guest who was roasting in the sun up(it was quite a funny sight to see Paul's friend P2 (check previous blogs for info) roasting in the morning, why he didn't close the curtains i am not too sure, he learned for sunday evening). and the pancakes...not as good as the first time i made them for Paul and myself, so better luck next time. then at about 1:30pm Fransesca and i hopped the DART to Bray to hike the 6 miles hike from Bray to Greystones. it was just gorgeous to hike along the cliff not too many people and we decided we needed to come back in late August to pick blackberries that grow along the cliffs. we also came upon a wheat field and hopped the fence here to go and be in the wheat field, it was so short, only about knee high i thought wheat was supposed to be taller? then we stopped at a little mom and pop resturant (kind of like sue's sweet shop in Cotton MN or Betty's Pies, b4 it became such a tourist attraction) the shop was called Poppies it was cute but the Irish woman running the shop was not so friendly. i had a rubarb crumble and Fran had apple pie, and as a typical irish dessert too much butter not enough sugar, luckily i found a sugar packet on the table for coffee so i sprinkled that on top of my crisp. i just don't get it...the famines over hello? then we hopped the DART from Greystones to Dublin and we missed getting rained on by 10 minutes. and after the rain there was not only a full rainbow connecting the North and South sides of the Liffey but a double Rainbow! i have never seen one b4 so it was amazing. when we told the 2 Paul's about the rainnbows P1 said "I wonder which side has the pot of gold?" of course we all know it would be the south side! so then it was off to see the new Michel Gondry movie "the science of sleep" when we got there the woman told us that the producer had pushed the release date back. damn and i was so looking forward to seeing this film i just love michel gondry! so then off to Laser the local dvd shop where we picked up a french film about a little boy who wants to be a girl, ahh the restrictions of society. children can be so cruel, as can adults but beautifully done for sure. and for once it was a french film that didn't have a racey sex scene, although it had to do with sexuality, leave it to the french! after the film, off to the SinE for a pint of the new Toucan Guinness, Fransesca wanted to try it b4 they stopped making it. just a limited edition. This Guinness was lighter and not so bitter as the regular, and when we got back, P2 said it was aimmed at woman so i could see that. it's kind of nice having a pub a block and half from your flat.

monday, well i woke up to eat the last of my pancakes to discover my mom had mailed me a card with newspaper clippings woo hoo thanks mom. so i had some morning reading material with my pancakes. then i went and laid in bed and read my book for a while until fransesca came home and i ate lunch, it's amazing how much food i ate in the course of 3 hours. then off to do some shopping for some gifts and to the the Graphics Studio in Temple Bar, nothing mind blowing but i startd thinking about how differently everyone sees the world and that we can all enjoy the differences in how everyone views things, even if it isn't your way. i also went into a second hand shop called Eager Beaver, it sells mostly mens second hand clothing but they were playing Neil Young so i hung around for a while for a listen. so that's the word as of this moment and it's drizzling in Dublin today so i think i will go home and take a lie down until Fran texts me for our supermarket experience. if you have any recommendations of places i should go feel free to blog them to me. and perhaps i will expreience them for you. omnivores dilema is getting really old but i am on the last section, foraging and hunting.

xoxo,
christie

so what is that in US dollars?

2006-07-29T11:51:00.000-07:00

Hi people not much has happened in the last few days. I made curried cashews, yum. i have read some more of my book "omnivores dilema" which i am trying desperately to finish. just working and making some yummy food over here, i found this great irish vegetarian cookbook, i was surprised considering how much of the irish food is, shite. so i really want to get a copy b4 i leave. i also purchased myself a plastic basin so i can give myself a pedicure and it was wonderful, some sea salt and pumice stone action. so my feet feel good and it has finally rained.

i don't think i have ever discussed the pendulum with you guys, while my boss Eamon purchased a pendulum(phonetic spelling) and you ask it yes or no questions hold it over food or your hand to see if you should eat it or what not. so i find this to be a bit on the poppy cock side so i tease him a little bit about it, he is alway s on a diet so this is the new diet scheme along with weight watchers. so dairy doesn't agree with him so he asked with a milk chocolate bar and a dairy free chocolate bar if he could eat it and it swung counterclockwise which means no for the milk choc. bar and clockwise for the non dairy bar. so i made him ask it if it was going to rain because it has been so wark here. and it said it was going to rain on thursday and it didn't! huh touche! so it finally did rain on saturday and then got beautiful for the afternoon, and it has cooled down so nice.

as far as the US dollars statement goes, a woman from the US came in asking for a face cream called Heather and she wasn't sure if it was the herb or if the face cream was called Heater, not helpful, so Eillen showed her the face cream by Dr. Haushka, which is very popular, and after the woman saw that it was 15 euro she said what is that in US dollars, isn't the euro like 2 times more then the euro? so i chimed in and said no it isn't that much for every euro you get about .70 cents from your US dollar. "so what is that in US dollars?" so i said you will drive yourself mad if you constantly try to figure money from dollars to euros. so the woman asked me about where i was from and that sort of jazz and then i sent her to a different health food store to bug someone else. i also had some sugar free chocolate today, it contained a plant sugar that actually good for your teeth, the chocolate was not so great, i will stick to my sugar chocolate thank you very much. also i tried some goji berrys, tasted like crap, the worst berry i have ever tasted in my life and they smell like a cross between the yellow hunza raisins we used at the coop to make raisin pine nut quiche and urine. so i will not be eating goji berries, no matter what their redeeming qualitites may be.

so i can't think of much else right now, another translations:
eggplant: aubergine, pretty isn't it?

i am going to go to the michel gondry film the science of sleep tomorrow, yipee! it should be weird and great.

xoxo,
christie

i am not a (bleep) eater.

2006-07-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

***parental advisory***
Hello all, i have a funny story conversation to tell you about but if you don't like the swears you shouldn't read this blog. so today my flatmate and i were eating lunch and we started talking about how our flatmate Paul eats stuff from boxes and just all around not so good. and fransesca was having her friend Frederico over for dinner and sarcastically i said to her perhaps you would like to prepare your pasta with some traditional irish meats like bangers or rashers or blood pudding, or one of those other shitty meats the irish prepare. and fransesca said "but why? i am not a shit eater." and we both started laughing histarically about neither of us being a shit eater and that to say you are a shit eater is to say you are not irish in our slang world...which brings up irish slang for you all so here it goes irish slang:

so we all learned, "sorry about that". yesterday

another one is to say "i am going to get change and some" now this is a direct quote from one of my multiple bosses at the health food shop. when you say ...and some you mean to say i am going to do this one thing and then go and get lunch or a tea.

your man or your lady...this refers to a mutiual person that you feel the other person will remember you talking about or knowing the situation. this was one Eileen i work with taught me so the example i have of its use is "that's right i remember i saw your man" (she was refering to a delivery driver and where the boxes on the counter came from because we were both standing there when he delivered but she forgot he delivered.)

now on to the swears and durrogatory terms woo hoo...so we all remember the terminology knackers. another fun one that i have heard multiple irish say is bollucks or bollux which is essentially a testical but you say it when someone says something you feel is outlandish, we would say bull shit in the states but here they say bollucks.

a funny one that Eillen has used instead of swearing and saying fuck off she says fick off, it's really quite cute when she says it.

so some random words as well...
cart (like in the supermarket)-trolley
i will phone you later-i will ring you later
aluminum-aluminium pronounce the extra i
omega(i say o mega)- omeega
vitamin- vitamen
diaper-nappie
stroller-pram or buggy
corgettes-zucchini

my flat mate paul likes to say "top of the mornin' to you" whenever i see him in the morning.

so i will try to write more of these down but here are a few to throw into your vocabulary, perhaps you have a dinner party that is going down hill, throw out an irish word, i'm sure jarggle should be in there as well but that is Ormond Quay speak.

so this evening i met frederico and had fransesca's experimental dinner with pasta, mozzorella, corgettes, onions and apples. quite good, i made stuffed peppers with apples 3 nights ago. and frederico brought some tiramisou from the italian wine bar he works at. wonderful. so we were talking about how to make the tiramisou and i told them my bastardized american version which frederico thought was very funny to say. and i didn't help with dinner, nor did i do any dishes i just left to go to an outdoor film, which was kind of a bust but here is what i got. the film was called AWOL filmography and soundtrack composition by daniel figgis and was the third in i have no idea how many installments of an opera shot of a dancer under water and using hypnosis. so the film was a whole 5 minutes long, i watched it twice through but i have no idea why this even made the section of the newspaper about events around town, i asked Eillen from work if she would like to come and see it and i am glad she was tired, because i would have felt awful if she would have stuck around city centre for that long for a pretty lame lenght film. to sum it up it was weak. but the colors and the hypnotic effect of the small ripples was definately beautiful and i think i give the film more credit then deserved because of how tired i am. so now i will go home and continue to read the book i have been reading for close to 2 months now. so goodbye.

xoxo,
christie

sorry about that...

2006-07-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

So this is what the irish say when they aren't really sorry, but because of the situation are required to say something. For instance you are walking down the street someone walking the opposite direction bumps into our arm and they see you drop the phone you were carrying, if they are irish, and they don't care that they made you drop the phone they would say "sorry about that". and keep on walking. this did not happen, i was just making up an analogy, Fransesca first pointed it out to me.

so hello my blog readers, sorry i have been away for many days. it has been jam packed with social activity. we have started referring to last week and the last few days as the week of first, even though it has been longer when we notice something in our household that is a first for one or the other we say "congratulations on your first...blank(insert thing here)." so my flatmate paul got his first real job ever, that doesn't involve manual labor, within his degree, congratulations, so i had a beer with him, an expired beer. i'm sure you are all laughing seeing as i never drank anything well in the states, let alone an expired beer, so it was also my first beer with paul. saturday not much here, i made a macrame necklace, but it's too hot to wear.

sunday was carnival day woo hooo. so fransesca and i didn't wake up until about 1:30pm and we wanted to have pancakes b4 we went out so we didn't leave the house until like 3pm, so we missed both the 1pm show as well as the 3pm shows. but we made it to, two halves of the 5:30pm shows. good for us. so we saw some tanzanian tumblers, which they were quite good, and paul came with us to this one! he went earlier with his lady friend carmen, but she had to go to work. so these 3 Tanzanian men had like black spandex shorts on and then like this horrible snow lepoard print material like a tarzan wardrobe over the shorts. i kind of laughed at this but they were very good at tumbling. and after about 25minutes of dancing and tumbling etc. the limbo poll came out. at which time paul said, "i hate the fucking limbo". so we left and fransesca and i went to a different part of the carnival where the Queens of the Something, which is a whole slapstick comedy routine, with volunteers from the audience are asked to be part of the tricks, and you guessed it, it is all put together with music by Queen, and we finished with a banana spitting contest and singing of We are the Champions. nice. so there were 3 locations that this carnival took place, all were from different countries. there were even some creepy huge puppets that could be equivilated to clowns at a circus, this was the first thing fransesca and i saw from a distance and decided not to get any closer, too creepy. so after this we met Paul's friend, Paul at the carnival events. so with the 2 Paul's fransesca and i went to a very nice art nouveau bar, that as P1(roommate paul) said is full of suits on a weekday evening or on a late evening, but it was like 7pm so not too many people in the bar. but it was a beautiful bar with columns and skylights, plants and like a 1920s parlour feel, it was gorgeous, and here it was the first beer we had with P1 out in a public place. i told P1 he was going to corrupt me by the end of my trip here in dublin, so he asked if fransesca and i wanted to go to a sporting arena (a casino!) we said no and went back to the flat instead, and watched the film city of god, i said i hadn't seen it but after the first 2 minutes with the chicken killing scene, i remembered indeed i had seen it. but i forgot to mention the pancakes, so i made these wonderful pancakes the previous sunday (i am so sick of museli) that i tried for a second time on this sunday, but i forgot to add the egg, pretty much the whole reason i wanted to make them was to use up my eggs i had bought for the previous weeks pancakes! so they were not as good and fransesca and i saved a pancake for carmen and one for paul but then we got hungry and ate the 2 left over pancakes. so even without the egg they were still great, and when we were at the bar with P1 and P2(friend paul) P1 was telling P2 how good the pancakes were and P2 was joking about how he was coming over next sunday for pancakes and i said don't expect to eat b4 2pm!

well monday had ups and downs. first of all when i was on my way to the bank i caught Fransesca on her way up the stairs crying, she had just found out her granny had died. sadface:( although she knew it was coming it is still hard news to take. so i sat and chated with her and she said she didn't want to use up my whole day so i then scooted over to the bank. i set up my online account as well as made a deposit so here's some interesting banking info about ireland, apparently identity theft isn't a big worry here in ireland. i asked a banker so where do i sign the check?
he replied with anywhere on the back, but it isn't necessary. excuse me i need to take the carrot out of my ear, did you say it's not necessary to sign my pay check from my boss from his account to my account? that's right folks you don't have to sign your checks, good god. then i tried to make an atm deposit, so i stuck my card in and the same guy was like no you don't use that machine, you use this one over here...
so i walk up to this other kind of machine and try to stick my card into the machine and again he's like no you don't need you card...so this is getting more bizarre to me every second. so you just type in the amount in the envelope, and drop it into a machine, no electronic things linking your transaction to you and you get a little recipet which i have no idea how that is any proof that it was you or your money or anything, on your unsigned checks. so no idea about this kind of banking hoo ha apparently everyone else is still hiding their money in their matress because this banking system is ridiculous.

afterwards i purchased some flowers for fransesca and went back to the flat. after that i took the DART out to Bray, and it wasn't raining, excellent. so i was going to walk to Graystones (about 7mi) but since i needed to be back in town in 4 hours i decided to just walk up the Bray head, which is pretty much an intense hike up a really talk rocky piece of land with no where to stop and rest, so it was hard work especially in the heat but it was so beautiful on top of the hill, there was a big stone cross on the top and you could look on one side and there was the city of Bray (and there was a real carnival with carny's and rides) and to the left the irish sea and rolling hills with a small foot path, absolutely gorgeous, i got some nice photos that are on film. i also took the photo of a nun and her brother, they had hiked to the top, the they insissted that they take a photo of me with my camera, so i will have at least one photo of myself! then back dosn the hill to the DART station. so on my way back i was just sitting enjoying the ride, people watching, when the 4 seat compartment i was sitting in was inundated with knacker children, dammit, they always have to ruin my journeys. i tried to not make eye contact and pretend they weren't there, at least i had my ipod so i could drown them out. it's the lack of respect i just can't stand, it drives me insance how much they disrespect, even the dart, the one sitting across from me had his feet up in a diagonal line sohis feet were on the seat right next to me, now 5:30PM is a busy time so move your feet so someone can sit down, people are getting off of work etc. not to mention i need to get out into the aisle to get off the train! so that's my 2 cents for that confrontation. once back fransesca and i went and saw the film "tale of the yellow dog" it was about a mongolian nomad family, which i had watched a documentary with julia roberts a few years back on how these people live, so i knew some of the history and culture of the people and it was beautiful, it was kind of shot in a documentary style, as well as a film style, and it was amazing to see this film as one of the questions a child was asking in the film was "will a human soul(they were buddhist) always come back as a human?" and the older woman said "take this needle and dump this rice over the top, and when you balance a grain of rice on the tip of the needle you will see how possible it is to know the answer to this question." so the child did this and concluded that it was not possible so the old woman said "you need to realize how precious a human soul is here in any lifetime." wow and fransesca's grandmother had just died that morning at 4am, my good emotions! but it was a great film, afterwards i went home and she went to a call shop to call her brother and mother back in verona and i went home to prepare a meal of mushrooms and peppers stuffed with wild rice, nuts, apples, carrrots, corrogettes(zucchini), onions and garlic for dinner and that was absolutely gorgeous, we even got paul to sit down and have dinner with us, for the first time.

so tuesday, the day i write, i am back to work and it is warm warm warm. so it was hard to work, but the work day went by quickly: i had my heartrate taken by a watch, ruth said she's considering naming her child Christie because she really likes the name, and carmen(paul's girlfriend) makes us all uncomfortable and crabby in our house for dinner (congratulations carmen) she is a spanish woman so she is really posessive of paul so fransesca and i just avoid talking to either one of them when she is over, it is just easier. so that's the scoop here in dublin for the last few days, i'm sure i am forgetting something, and perhaps i will ramble another day about the previous days, right now i am sleepy and my tea is calling me.

xoxo,
christie

what do you call those?!?

2006-07-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

Hello my blog readers Christie here with some several day updates. So today is Friday which means that tomorrow is Friday in working measures. The big circus is this weekend, and i am off on sunday so when i wake up at the crack of noon i will be going to Temple bar for some genuine circus/acrobatics action. so Here's the craic here in dublin...first of all it's said crack, like the drug which is slang that means what's going on and it has another meaning but i can't remember what it is. so on Tuesday i went to work and i think my ATM card came, woo hoo. Wednesday, it was hotter then a cat's flannel pajamas. And since we didn't have AC in the shop you can bet the health food store had had better smells then that day. I met someone from Chicago so we chatted about the MN hip hop scene and Del the Funky Homosapien, so that was the excitment aside from Fransesca coming home from Italy in the evening, she was glad to be bed but her Grandmother is sick so she felt really horrible leaving. She is waiting for the call from her mother telling her, her grandmother has passed. I know how she feels with all my fun family stuff so I could totally understand how she felt, and she said "i am so lucky to have you as a roommate for being able to understand the torn feeling i am feeling." what a sweetie. we also practiced our irish, none of which i remember but perhaps i will put the effort in saturday after work. Thursday was movie day. I went with my two coWorkers to Ruth's house, one of my coworkers, for dinner (chickpea potato curry, Ruth made it Yum) and then we went to Superman. It was a pretty good movie considering the farcity of it, why can't they figure out that Superman is Clark Kent, is it that hard? but it was good to hang out with other people, and surprisingly we didn't talk about work at all, i think everyone had, had enough, it is so miserable and hot we just don't want to think about it! oh yeah, on thursday the store reached an all time high of 85F, inside the store, it was cooler outside, nice. so not so much work got done and there were lots of giggle fits by the three of us. i got to see another suburb in the north of the city where Ruth lives. She lives in like a 2 story/3 bedroom condo type thing, with her husband Ruth, as the irish say "it was just lovely". And Friday, well we worked and it was pretty uneventful in the store, just Ruth, myself, and Eamon. So here's a funny story for you I was instructed to go and pick up my boss's perscription at the chemist's (pharmacy) i love the strange adventures of the Down to Earth, my boss was also singing the Teddy Bears picnic song written by Jerry Garcia, and i told him this and he said oh it's just a children's song, and i said i know it's a Jerry Garcia song and the book with CD was just released last August, i had no idea that i had that stored in my memory, isn't it strange how things are triggered even though it was over a year ago that i thought and read about that. strange. then i went home and a beer with my flat mate paul, he just got a job in his profession, woo hoo for him. he will be working with at-risk teens at a sort of retreat camp, so he's pretty excited but raises a whole bunch of things like, getting 4 wheels instead of 2, 1 hour commuting each way, what to do about the drug volunteering at the methadone clinic across the way. so that's the word here in dublin, tomorrows friday (saturday) then it's circus day.

xoxo,
christie

another weekend wasted?

2006-07-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

ccTravelAbroad

well people christie here once again, sorry to disappoint you with boring old star sightings and drug begging so here's some other news. on saturday i worked, hardly, i'm not sure why i was so tired, i'm hoping next week will be better after my 11/12 hour sleep cycles on the weekend. so on sunday the plan was to get up at around 10 am make some banana pancackes and then go to a whereabouts event/play thing. so i didn't get up until quarter to 12 which kind of squashed the pancake idea since the whereabouts started at 12:30pm, so i showed up and other people did not so they asked if it would be alright to start at 1pm instead of 12:30pm, it was really warm, not US warm, but about 79F so i thought i would go home a change into something that wasn't as warm tshirt and kahkis too much! so this whereabouts thing was pretty great. it was like an play/happening (do some art history research if you don't know what a happening is)/comment on modern irish society/moment of glory for new irish playwriters and it was free! i even got a medal(but i had to give it back at the end, it was only to identify me if i got lost) it was also very cool because we went to like 5/6 locations around the temple bar. there was one on affluent society in Ireland, since Ireland is realitively "new money" and with the most millionaries per capita in the world...sorry don't know where i was going with that, anywho there was one on the knacker/drug culture, one on the conspiracy theory/truth about the Irish govt. letting the CIA come in and just snatch people off the street, one on suicide/drug culture, and some less memerable ones (it also included swears and nudity no PG13 shows here, hubba hubba).

i also went to the National Photogarphy Archive to find out about darkroom facilities, and if i become a member at £40 then i can use the dark room every sunday if i want, otherwise it is available every morning i work except the monday i have off, how convenient, but there was also a new photo exhibit called "American Ruins" by Camilo Jose Vergara who has been photographing in NY for the last 30 years the two works i really enjoyed were "On the Way Out: Fern Street, North Camden" and "Neither Time Nor a Harlem Store Front stands Still" these two photograph collectives were taken by Vegara from about 1976 through 2006, it is amazing how the store fronts can change over time, and the degradation that society can over look the poorer classes when not having to deal with it first hand, or at all. i was also thinking about this area in NY when they just keep building taller and taller buildings instead of taking over buildings that are abandoned and how we have this option in the US but not here in Ireland, it would have been great to get a Europeans ideas/feelings about it fromt that perspective. i almost asked someone i saw in the gallery, mostly because he looked like someone i knew in MN but i decided not to.

i had pancakes for dinner instead, hooray for me. they were delicious, my flat mate paul concurred! i purchased some organic vegetables today and i went into a huge asian market close to where i work i bought some stuff to make curry, i also took a trip to the library to get some different vegetarian cookbooks, so i am ready for the week. i am so glad i didn't work today it is very hot here today. hopefully tomorrow will be cooler. i am trying really hard to finsih omnivore's dilema but it is hard to care when you aren't faced with corn fed cows over here, everything is grazed and no growth hormones, so the meat is minorly safer then the meat in the us. so that's the word on the block here. hope everyone is doing well, take of yourselves, notice something strage, funny, interesting to your, unique about your fellow humans today:) i saw topless tanners in a city park today and a man tanning in his brief underware, how's that for unique, who knew people would do that in a city park, but they also drink beers on the boardwalk illeagally.

oh i got things to fix my betty rubble necklace (heather will laugh at this) and the woman at the bead shop gave me directions and explained to me what i had to do and got all the supplies for me in a bag, i must of looked dazed and confused, so that is what i will do tonight, fix my betty rubble necklace so i can wear it to work and tell them the story. for those of you who don't know it, my roommate Heather (back in duluth) wore it to work at Old Chicago and one of her coworkers said to her "Hey Heather, Betty Rubble called, she want's her necklace back." but both of us still continued to wear the necklace. but it broke in my backpack so i will fix it and wear soon hopefully:)

xoxo,
christie

observation-station

2006-07-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

well another not so interesting couple of days at work, my work is done, i was accepted by AIB bank to open an account if i wish, but they have a transaction fee, for every transaction you do with them, so i think i will save up my checks until i desperately need money then deposit. kind of a crap deal, and they charge me everytime i use my checkcard or write a check. what the hell? i talked to my flat mate paul to see what he had to say, and he said he just has student accounts at banks, then you don't need to pay any fees, so i am going to see since i am here on a student work visa if this would count for me. monday i will check.

in other news, Beck came into the store on Friday, i didn't help him with anything, he was just there...shopping...like the rest of us. i also have been trying lots of expired candy bars at the store (insert chuckle here). so far i haven't seen any big white rabbits, i just feel kind of ill from all the sugar, it may be organic sugar but it still makes me sick. i tried some choc. with hazelnuts today, about 7 days overdate, and it was lovely. i also picked up a bottle of detox stuff you mix into your water to help me not feel so yucky from all the chocolate:( i tried some free soy cheese from the shop yesterday, and it does not taste a thing like cheddar cheese, it really has no flavor whatsoever. i have never purchased soy cheese because i had a suspicion that is what it would taste like. i'm going to make banana pancakes tomorrow morning on my day off hooray! i'm doing some in town things on sunday and hopefully sleeping, i am so tired this week, i'm not so sure why (chocolate) i've been really lathargic (chocolate) and really sluggish at work (low motivation when others aren't working). so that's what's going on here in this area. hope you all enjoyed the world cup we watched the last half hour of regular play, overtime and the kick off i can't remember what they are called (chocolate) and i will find out about the dark room chemical action, but after i found out from Paul's friend, Paul, that no where on the country of irealnd is there a silver hallide recycling center so it all goes into the water (ick) hopefully i won't grow a third arm or something. i think this info is faulty but i will check any way.

xoxo,
christie

what the jarggle are you talking about?

2006-07-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

So this brings up an interesting story...my flat mate, Fransesca is going to Verona on Friday for 4 days, i know sad face you won't here about the exciting adventures of the bobbsie twins. so she was trying to say to paul and myself at lunch on wed. "I hope that my mother makes some chocolate cake while i am in verona, so that i don't have to go cold turkey". What came out is a totally different story. she couldn't think of the word for cold turkey so she said to Paul, "Paul what is the medical term for when someone is on the drugs, and they haven't had it so there body is physically wanting the heroin?" and we both said what?..."you know what is the medical jarggle for not having the drugs in the body?" what the hell does jarggle mean?
christie: do you mean jargon?
fransesca: what does this mean?
paul: it means site specific/work specific language.
fransesca: then what does jarggle mean?
paul: unless you are trying to say jargon, i don't know what jarggle means.
christie: i think you combined the words jargon and google, to get the word jarggle.
fransesca: after lunch, i will google it!
so these are the kind of happenings in our house all the time. as fransesca put this evening, when the three of us talk, it is for certain that one will say something and the other 2 will not understand.

so this week has been pretty boring, i've been very tired at work and at home so besides some yummy food being made and a measuring cup being purchased not too much has been going on. but on tuesday evening fransesca made us dinner, italian pasta with brocolli and breadsticks and afterwards we went for a walk. we got some italian icecream in a shop in temple bar and then watched some fire dancers/jugglers. then fransesca said "let's go to grafton street, which is the street lots of street performers, and see if anything is going on". we were then acosted, while fransesca was by a young man with a brooklyn accent, so we talked to him for about a half hour, guided him to his hotel and then he asked fransesca for her phone number, i explained that she was leaving town for a few days and that she was very busy so she wouldn't have time to talk to him, when he would try to find another reason she should give it to him i said well she has this, i don't trust the peeps from the E.Coast so much, except for Derrick, so we were kind enough to direct this gentleman to his hotel and then went home, only to talk to Paul and his friend Paul for the next 4 hours making bed time after 2am when the 2 of us had to get up early.

so that is some happenings in this area, i found out from Paul's friend Paul where i could go to ask about possibly developing my black and white film, which i kind of guessed was the case but they weren't open on monday so i could find out, hopefully i will find out on friday whether or not they will give me a bank account or not in this country. they have this strange process that even if you come in with a work pay check, doesn't guarntee you an account, i have no idea who they were calling or what they do for the 5 days, we'll see what kind of background check they have done on me.

so yep...hope all is well in the old US and it is not too hot for the peeps in the states. it's not so hot here in Ireland, it was last week, i was working in the shop with no AC and the air temp. being about 84degrees F and a tiny 10inch fan to cool the entire shop down. wonderful, but i survived, it could also be the reason i am so sleepy this week, not enough water. so ciao ciao, i feel my bed calling me.

xoxo,
christie

sunnyMunnyDay

2006-07-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone- so here are some things to mark down on your maps at home about where i went this weekend. so sunday was pretty gray day, saturday evening ended with high gusts and rains hooray:) let's hope for a tsunami the winds were really strong. so sunday was a toss up day, i was either going to go to phoenix park/botanical garden or merrion square and some cooking. so i decided to go to merrion square, which is kind of like a smaller park within the city very close to st. stephen's green that had a really cool art project in it. there was the wish project that was in the square on top of the air raid shelter, no kidding. but it was a need idea it had these sticks with slots in them and vellum paper that had wishes written on them and then folded into flower shapes and stuck in the slotted sticks. i found it pretty creative but it was a little lame because of the wishes, " i wish to be happy" "i wish my friend's and family to be safe and happy". not that i don't want these people to be happy but what about things like, i want to understand the free radicals, plastic, and a microwave phenomenon? they might have been written by kids, i'm not sure. i also had a very nice savory scone at AVOCA, cheddar tomato. i also found some organic vegetables in a market (that were overpackaged:( but i bought them anyway. i then went home and made spicy chickpea nuts with ginger and cayenne, i marinated the vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, red and yellow peppers, purple onions) in balsamic vinegar and oil with rice and for dessert vegan chocolate cake (i also applied for the vegetarian chef job at Cornucopia because i realized how much i love to make vegetarian food) so i will probably call them during a lunch break this week. then as flat mates the 3 of us watched the end of the italy france soccer match and then a french movie by the directors of amilee (it was about meat eaters eating vegetarians, i feel this way a lot of times around the meat eatin' peeps). so at 1am it was time for bed.

so monday, well...fransesca's alarm startled me up and i shot up in bed and then laid back down. i tried to fall back asleep but then just got up at 9am. today was a busy errand day. i went to the post to mail some analog email, i went to the bank to open up a checking account, which i will find out about in 5 business days. i applied at AIB, which fransesca had recommended, but another option would have been IBS (hehe) not kidding about that one. i also went to Cultivate, where fransesca used to work, and will there again in the fall to find some volunteer opportunities within the organic community. there is a cool event that is going on in the fall about design and the ecology of the enviroment, i am going to see if eric, the guy in charge (aka fransesca's friend) needs any help. so more to come on that.

the art today: so i went to the hyde gallery, which is located within the trinity college grounds i saw the work of Laura Owens and Mark Garry. Both pretty intersting Mark had a single work where he took rainbow colored thread and had it across two parallel walls, i so wanted to pull my fingers down all the threads, like a harp, even though i know it would probably ruin the exhibit, but it was so tempting. Laura had some nice work the bio said she was one of the most brilliant upcoming american painters of the post modern era...crickets. i'm not sure about that, i'm pretty sure Ginny and Maria at UMD has created much more interesting and with more depth pieces then Laura, but i could be biased. i also went to a gallery inside a mall...not so inspiring. so i don't have anything to say about that.

i did go to the photography archive today as well, the place that had the 4 MFA photography shows taxidermy women in uniform...jogging any memeories? so the photo archive had old photos from county Waterford from the early 1900s, horse racing tracks, boats, bridges, not so happy looking weddings but the cool thing was the upstairs photos were created recently from the metal plates that held the negatives. the plates are the same size as the photo and set directly on top of a fiber paper and exposed to a light source and developed in a very similar way as i have developed my photos in the dark room...crickets again? so kind of boring subject matter but cool process info.

i also got some tickets to an afternoon play called whereabouts, as part of a vestival that happened in may this is a video experience that i will experience on sunday afternoon, free tickets woohoo i love you temple bar. i also found an eletrical adapter so i can charge my pod at home, excellent. as well i had gotten some soap from down to earth that was going to go into the garbage (we got some with new packaging) so took the 10 bars and brought them to a shetler that is up by christ church, just across the liffey. the staff at the shelter were so happy to take them (warm fuzzies inside) so 1 for mother earth and 1 for the homeless community in dublin, the geranium rose smelling bums. nice. so there may be more to come today but currently i am kind of all typed out. so...
xoxo,
christie

i'm just workin' for the weekend

2006-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hi ya folks-

Just another pretty face is done with work for this week again. Hopefully i can open a checking account on monday, i don't know what i need but hopefully i can convince them that i need the account and that i have money to put in the account.

i had a lovely goatcheese hummus sandwich on a ciabatta bun today for lunch. i also took some photos around the town again at funny signs i saw, i went back to shoot one this afternoon that said "absolutely no world cup jerseys". it only takes one bad potato to spoil the soup. now no one can wear a jersey! oh crumbs.

so i am going to google and see what there is to do around town on sunday it started raining today so tomorrow, with my luck will be rainy as well and i will be going to a museum, and making a vegan chocolate cake. we will see though. so nothing new to report. i found out that basically everyone who works in the shop, aside from Eillean is married to or is one of Jack, my boss's kids. nice lets hope he has another one to set me up with. i kid i kid. Eillean went through the list, and like a traditional irish family there are about 8 kids.

So hopefully i can get some things done as well as some places seen, if anything maybe i will go to dun Eagile or however you spell it to see some nice trees.

so xoxo,
christie

christie, not just a pretty face.

2006-07-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

so here's the update folks, i blogged yesterday but something happened where it didn't save so here's a condensed/different version of yesterdays email:

tuesday: it started out the same as most work days, wake up, eat breakfast, run late for work but still manage to get to work on time, so as i got out the door, about a block down from my apartment i saw a guy stop on the sidewalk and proceed to as the kids say "shoot up" his drug of choice, probably heroin right on the Quay, a busy street, now i know the alley behind my house is known to have addicts, so i just don't go back there but i had no idea someone would do it right on the street in front of everyone, but hey we're in dublin, throw all social standards out the window. work was uneventful, i made a bean vegetable soup and a rice dish with apricots and currants i also watched a movie with Fransesca that was about the political revolution that happened in Chile during the 70s, where a school tried to integrate the rich and poor communities to teach children of accepting others, it was really sad but mainly to know that this sort of thing happened, and still happens in many countries.

wed.: today was the day i was ready to kill my boss. so the first week i was there i was taking everything off the shelves to dust and pull the out of date stuff off the shelf, about half way during teh first week he told me not to do all that just straighten the shelves, i was like okay no problem, but on wed. he said no you can't just straighten the shelves in the shop you need to create a system and (basically do exactly what you were doing during the first half of the first week). so far i have received only negative critisism from this guy and have no idea where i stand with him. so i am comletely flustered and feel to stupid to do my job, when in reality i know he has no idea what he wants me to be doing. so not a good time. after lunch, jack left so i talked to Eillean about it (she works in the shop full time) she told me what to do when Jack is in the store which is just pretend to do work so i will implement this method whenever he is in the shop, which isn't so often. and Fransesca felt bad for me being so frustrated so she made me a fruit smoothie from our lovely strawberries and pitted fruit we each bought.

thursday: today hooray!! i went to work, and jack wasn't in, yipee, that means stress free day with loads of little jobs for me to do, so i can actually be helpful, we'll see how he feels about me on friday. it was really hot on both wed. and thursday (about 83F inside the shop) we don't have AC so it's hard to do any work. but i did get lots of stuff out on the shelves and i feel like i am being helpful. i also went to the supermarket to get things for a greek salad (tomorrows lunch) with the bean soup i made, i also made some hummus from a box (not so good, just sort of tastes like soy flour) but add some black olives, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese and you've got yourself a pretty good wrap. i dropped one by the wine bar for fransesca as she was feeling a little grumpy today:( hey, but no one was shooting up right on the street, and i met my really nice french neighbor boy). i also got to try some diabetic organic ice cream today, summer berry ripple. it tasted great in the 900million degree shop. i almost forgot about some phone calls i got and made. first off all during lunch, a starbucks i dropped my CV off at gave me a call to possibly have me take over a floor supervisior position, it would mean more responsibility, but i would be properly trained, and it would mean i would have more managing experience which could get me a job easier in the UK as well as back in the states "would you like fries with that?" i was completely honest with the guy on the phone and said listen...i am currently working at a job but am not loving it, i am very limited on when i can come in for an interview but i would still like to interview if you are still interested. so we'll see what happens after he talks to his supervisor, i am not getting my hopes up, seeing as it would mean i would have to commute, for like 40 minutes, each way, i also want to hand in a CV at a vegetarian resturant called Cornicopia but we will see what happens.

in the grand scheme of things i am enjoying every minute, even when my blog from yesterday accidently erases, and i need to rewrite everything i wrote b4 but whatever, operator error. so dublin is fine, the days are hot working in the shop, so hopefully it will cool off soon.

i bought some funny socks today with a lion on them that looks like it is holding your shoe with it's front paws, so corny. my mom called me on my cellular phone, while i was in the basement of a mall, doing some shopping at a supermarket, so now she can call me if she needs to! but i think i will continue calling her because land lines here from call shops are so much easier to hear people on. i also got to talk to derrick on the telephone, hooray another person who speaks english fluently!

we have some friends of fransesca's @ our flat the last couple of days who are here in ireland for the european national juggling convention, in county cork. then they will be back in dublin the 17-19 for juggling shows, i am hopping to go to a few events next sunday on my day off, i need to check the event guide.

so that's the scoop, if it rains this weekend i will go to the chester Beatty library, it has art and books and lots of bibles, korans, and other holy scriptures, it seems a museum i missed, if it is beautiful, i will check my book and possibly do another day trip, maybe to the mountains, but perhaps some place else in ireland. i might even take a bus on saturday afternoon somewhere and come back on monday. i can do that here, most people do things like this, more spontaneous:) well have a good night folks.

xoxo,
christie

i have been shooting more photos of interesting things i notice and see. lots to be seen, but i often times forget the old camera.

comfrey tea and bowel movements

2006-07-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

hello peeps of the states-

yep. just like in the states, customers tell you more then you wanted to know about their lives. including a customer who told me she needed to go on a special diet for her bowels, no need to explain, just give me the list! i also got to encounter the eastern european woman who won't come into the shop but shouts her order from the sidewalk, "can i have my vegan ice cream!?" don't worry illean was back so she could help this woman, did i mention she won't let men wait on her? so like that, there were no new encounters with the allergian doctor, he didn't have many patients on tuesday. i have however gotten to encounter my boss, who hired...what a d-bag. so last week i was cleaning the shelves one way, and he told me no you don't need to do that, just straighten the shelves (i was taking everything off, dusting, checking dates, and putting things back on the shelf using first in, first out) today however (when i was going around straightening) i was chastised for this and told i needed to create a system and do one area of the store everyday (so essentially back to what i was doing my first week), i also find it frustrating because i have only gotten negative critisism from this boss.

so i left for lunch just so frustrated (it was also 82 F inside the store-no AC). i proceeded to tell my roommate at lunch how i didn't know what i was supposed to do, and she suggested i have a meeting with him. so maybe in a few days. when i came back from lunch and jack left for the afternoon, i talked to illean, she told me to take jack with a grain of salt, whenever he is in the store (which isn't very often, just do what he wants you to do) so one amon comes back from the world cup it might be better. illean told me i was doing really well, and i was picking things up quick and i understood what i needed to do, so at least i know that i am doing the job that one person wants me to do. after work i went for a walk through st. stephen's green, and i walked back home through wicklow street, i saw a sign up for a cook position at Cornicopia, a vegetarian resturant, so the plan is to update my CV tonight and drop it off there possibly during my lunch break and see if i can find myself a job i would love even more, i told fransesca and she said "oh babe, you would like this job even more!" so we will see, i won't quit the job i have unless i get a different job.

other then that, i might go to the temple pub tonight, i can only assume it is in temple bar, or i might just do some reading, it has been really hot (by dublin's standards) here in the city, not many places have AC.

i completely forgot about yesterday AM...as i was walking down the Quay on my way to work tuesday AM i walked by a young man who was proceeding to as they say "shoot up" his drug of choice right on the sidewalk on a busy street, i had no idea what to do but the next time i am phoning the garda and describing his clothing, this is disgusting to be doing right on the street, not to mention if there were children. it was also really sad, and really shows you how difficult having an addiction can be. my coworker illean said "perhaps he as diabetic..." in my head i was like "what are you crazy?", the alley behind my street has lots of heroin addicts, not to mention the same 2 young men sit down the block every morning trying to get money to get high. it is just a way of life here, and one more thing to accept and realize. my roommate paul is working in a fransiscan homeless shelter a couple of blocks away dealing first hand with these people so we will see what becomes of him.

there are many beautiful experiences as well as many eye opening experiences, i would not trade it for the world, even with my outrage, without this trip i would not have seen the things i have seen, experienced the irish culture ( which reminds me of a little joke from work, on tuesday i had to mop the floor, so i had to pick up the one rug we have, and i said where should i put this while i mop, and jack said "just leave it outside" and i said to him, "won't someone steal it?" and he responded, "the irish wouldn't steal the rug, it would look to much like work." and there my friends seems to be the irish work ethic, of some, not all). so until the next time, hopefully something more exciting will happen.

xoxo,
christie

who's on first, what's on second...

2006-07-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

so the plans to go to the mountains today was foiled by the weather, as usual. we even set the alarm to get up on time to go so at 10 am we got up and it was pouring...so we ate some breakfast and sat around the house a bit and then at about 2pm it started clearing up so we walked to the DART station on tara street and took a train to Howth (rhymes with Both) there was a beautiful food market when we got off the train, so we got 2 heaping pints of strawberries for 4 euro which wasn't too badly priced then we sampled some other fruit, vegetables, as well as some breads just to kind of fill ourselves up for our little hike. fransesca and i notice kind of similar things, and one thing we noticed while on the sidewalk was all the people scowling, the irish don't seem to be happy unless they're in the pub, so we kept on smiling through this half a block of crabby pantses and i said afterward "is it just me or did those people seem a little unhappy?" she just laughed and shook her head. so then on our trek up hill up hill up hill, we saw donkeys, right inside the city limits, we nabbed some wild rosemary from someones front yard, i mean it was a rosemary tree, not a little plant, so they won't miss it. then we saw a woman pull her horse up to a little stone wall to get on his back, he was just an enormous horse. once we reached the top we finally got to the cliffs of howth, from the cliffs you look across and you can take a ferry or speed boat to the eye of ireland, or an island called something like that, it was just beautiful, the cliffs/hillside were covered in little purple flowers and prickley bushes. we only saw a few people and we could hear the planes leaving the airport but it was just very nice, more of the emerald isle, that you usually read about and see pictures of.

on our way back down the hill we happened upon a group of "knackers" which are, the really poor people of ireland. these were teenage boys, and as fransesca said you never know what they are going to do, so these boys had gone fishing in the bay, not that i would eat these fish but we thought that's what they were going to do with them, but know someone dropped one and they procceded to mutlilate the 2 fish by picking them up and throwing them at each other and just disgusting immature behavior. so we were trying to either pass them or just hang back so that we didn't have to walk near them and create a situation. this is the part of the irish that i have found i don't like, they make you uncomfortable and you saw what they did with the fish what else are they going to do...this is one of the class issues that i think ireland is working on but it is still so prevelent it is hard to know where to start and what to do about it. but it's not like our day was ruined, we both just couldn't get over the destruction and lack of respect for the fish's life.

monday, well i went to do some shopping for work clothes, i got some pants and a couple of funky shirts from the charity shop so i am good to go on that, i found that one only article of clothing i need to purchase before i leave ireland are a pair of fisherman pants, they are so cool, the are like a one size fits all pair of pants but they are funky and come in lots of fun colors, just solid colors and at 25 euro it's not to expensive. so that's about it, i'm making a spinach garlic pizza tonight as well as some fruit smoothies, so i am going to go to the supermarket and well as the fruit market so that's the word on the street. i have taken some shots of interesting graffiti since i have been here, some of it is lame but some of it is really making an interesting social statement.

so that's the word on the street here in the old stinky city, dublin is hot and humid today, as it wasn't yesterday when fran and i both were wearing scarves and 2 long sleeve shirts a piece, so you never know what it's going to do here in dublin, just like the people (sorry bad joke). but that's the word. work tomorrow so not to much else interesting planned for the next couple of days, i may go and rent dogma, seeing as fransesca has never seen it and has wanted to see it.

xoxo,
christie

2 scoops for you?

2006-07-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

so last time we met i was talking about a scarf, tv tax and my new job.

so i have gotten a number of free organic products as well as international goody products. ruth was very nice and gave me a pack of burts bees lotion set, so i have shared those with my roommate fransesca, there is no reason to horde, i would just have to give them to her when i left in a few months anyway. so the final day of the work week came with a paycheck, and getting to leave a half hour early. it was really slow on saturday in the shop. i must have straightened every shelf like 3 times and then some. i restocked what i had, dropped a bag of soya beans, as they call them not in the US, on the floor and had to try and sweep them up.

and i'm sure you want to all hear about the allergy doctor, he comes in every saturday and tuesday to do allergy tests, i saw the little machine, i don't know what it does and i really don't want to spend the 40 euros to find out, but perhaps my discount applies to this as well. so whenever i talk to him or say hello or something like that, it's like talking to the southpark character with the snowsuit pulled over his head. i can barley understand him from his irish accent and he mumbles. he was eating a piece of candy off the counter and he offered me one and i said "you be the taste tester and just let me know how they are" there was a laugh and then some candy wrapper noise, then pretty soon he was handing me a piece of candy, so to make him happy i just took it and ate it, i decided it would be easier he then threw the candy wrapper in the flammable material can...i don't know...i just work here. but he's a nice guy, no incidents with the toaster today, i think he went out for lunch.

i was also sent to the resturant juice, to get Amon, Ruth and myself a juice we all got: apple, carrot, beetroot, ginger, sparaiglina. it was not bad i must say, and i am getting used to these lame little errands around the town.

during my lunch break, fransesca met me in temple bar meeting squre (started by the quakers but now used for cultural events) there was an organic market that takes place every saturday as well as a book fair. i bought us each a feta cheese, black olive, pesto, sun dried tomato, table greens crepe, absolutely fabulous. and the crepe was fresh, and from a van (ask kevin erickson for detail on the lefse van). we also each purchased a dessert but both decided like most irish desserts had too much butter. i had a piece of banana cake, not very bananaie, and fransesca had a lemon bar, not very lemonoy. but beautiful fruits and vegetables, all sorts of foods you could choose from, there was an olive bar, a fruit and nut stand so cheese stands etc. no live animals though. there was also someone playing bob dylan songs, but not bob dylan. i also found out a rumor about who my boss is at Down to Earth, apparently according to some irish people who work at Cultivate(our competition, kind of) the owner of Down to Earth is none other then...Colin Farrell's father, wether or not this is true i don't know, i'm not going to ask unless, someone else in the shop brings it up.

so my day will end with me making some pizza from a pizza crust i bought at the shop, and some sauce i made yesterday for my free organic spelt noodles, with pinach, garlic and fresh mozzorella from the food hall, it's kind of like a mom and pop grocery shop only with a wine seller, ready to eat foods and some other gourmet stuff.

tomorrow morning, fransesca and i hope to go to the mountains, by bus and hike for the day, then i will go shopping on monday for another pair of pants to wear in the shop, since i currently am wearing the same thing on a daily basis, as i would do as experiments, and out of sheer lazyness at barnes and noble, old habits die hard.

so funny saying of the day "football free zone" written on a sign outside a coffee shop on abbey street. it is starting to get out of control with the people misbehaving, i heard someone kicking the side of a garda vehicle as it drove by this afternoon, but this could have also been the israel peaceful protest outside of the post(office, the people who dole out the TV tax).

xoxo,
christie

i don't know, i just work here.

2006-06-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

hello my adoring public-

well, not really but we can pretend. so here's the scoop for my research and such. so in ireland, your boss is not required to pay you for any breaks, a lot of jobs do, but mine doesn't, so even though i get an hour for lunch i don't get paid for it. i'm thinking about finding a different job because i'm really tired after 3, 9 hour days essentially is what it boils down to but, on the other hand, are 5 other fingers including, free organic food, i got some spelt pasta today. so not so sure what to do. but we'll see, i just pretend i am a little slow at work and just don't work very hard. i know this doesn't sound very ethical, but i don't get paid for my brains there.

so the next interesting detail from yesterday includes, i still have not finished my scarf yet. so maybe tonight, but i saw a commercial with some puppets, but my roommate paul was talking to me so all i heard was "no no it's a fishtank" and then a television came. so i asked paul what this commercial was for, he explained to me that it was for television tax...i said what is television tax...it is a 154 euro a year per television tax you pay to the irish government to own a television...excuse me, can you repeat the question...yes you are supposed to pay a tax every year to own your television set and how would you police this? so you can't really if someone calls your home and asks you, do you own a tv? you answer no, or as paul said, if anyone you don't know knocks on the door just pretend you're not home, because it could be the television police. so that was my excitment for yesterday.

i got asked yet again for directions today, this time while i had headphones on. apparently i look a lot nicer then other people out on the street.

so here are the names of the people i have met so far that i work with: Jack, he's the owner, Amon he's part owner...and makes no executive decisions and is on a horrible diet which i will divluge later in this segment, then there is Ruth, she is from Dublin and has worked at Down to Earth for 3 years, she's super helpful and nice, there's Jane, could definately be a "knacker" which is an irish slang term/derogatory term meaning a working class/lower class person. she has a hardened exterior, never smiles, looks at me like i am slow, but i just get out of her way or do what she asks of me. i think we'll be just fine in that sense. i also met, Gene, she worked for about an hour and then left, so not sure what that means. then there is another woman who does a lot of the ordering who is on vacation until monday, so i'll meet her on tuesday. so that's the word in the store. so there is no music except for the cd selling music thing that plays motzart for 30 seconds and beethoveen for 30 seconds, with nature sounds and whistles and such. so it is kind of boring and find myself doing my multiplication tables in my head to pass the time. i am finding where things go so i can tell me where to find things, it's kind of nice to just say "go ask blah blah blah" i really have no sense of responsibility when i can do that. i got to mop up a broken bottle today. interestingly enough, most things over here are made out of glass instead of plastic, i think it is less expensive or there is some sort of anti-plastic thing in ireland. maybe, i will ask paul, by the way it's paul's birthday today, hooray for paul he turns 29 today. fransesca and i both forgot like 3 times this week that it was paul's birthday this week. he said he was going to cork on friday, which i thought was weird because his brother was here on monday for a depeche mode concert they went to together so i asked him why he was going to cork, and he said "to collect my presents of course". and i looked at him funny and then the light bulb slowly started to glow above my head, as well as fransesca's, and we were both like "oh yeah, it's your birthday tomorrow".

this raises an important question "how many scorpios does it take to screw in a light?"

now on to amon's diet: on day one you eat: an egg, a piece of toast, 2 tsp. of peanut butter, for lunch: a 6oz can of tuna, 5 tuc(ritz) crackers, a slice of cheese, and for dinner 2 pieces of sliced meat, a slice of bread 6oz. of beetroot, 4oz. of icecream. for like 3 days you go on like this and you are supposed to loose 10 lbs. i don't know what the motivation is behind it, i don't want to know, but i think it has something to do with him going to the world cup semi finals, and finals the next 2 weeks. i think he said he and his "mates" each paid something like 600euro per person for the semi finals and 1000euro per ticket for the finals but he's really excited so i'm not going to knock him for that, just the horrible diet.

so a typical day for work: go in straighten the candybars and granola bars, then go and dust some shelves until lunch, go eat lunch, then i come back to the shop put away some product out of a trolley (grocery cart) and then sweep the floor and leave. wow...i found out today if i want to sit down and have a cup of tea whlie at work i can do that, just not when it's busy. so that's kind of nice, i asked ruth if there is a dress code and she said no, we're pretty loose here, so i asked can i wear jeans, and she said of course you can you're down on the floor and such so i got the green light to be grubby, wow sounds like a certain couple fo jobs i had in the u.s.

so i was going to look for pants after work today but instead i tried to call my grandma, the phone number i have doesn't work, so i will email my mo about that tonight. well peeps i am going to get home so i can have some spelt pasta tonight.

xoxo,
christie

i'm sorry the life has gotten kind of dull, maybe sunday and monday will be more interesting.

sadface:(

2006-06-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

sorry people i wrote a big old blog spot and the computer crapped out on me and i'm too tired to write another one so you will have to use your imagination and hope for a better email tomorrow.

xoxo,
christie

good jorbe!

2006-06-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

so for those of you who don't get the title you will have to go to homestarrunner.com and read a sbEmail.

anywho, my job. well i would have written on tuesday when i got done but i had laundry and a shower to do so the whole hygine thing occupied most of my evening. so my job consists of basically doing everyjob in the coop. i am in: store opps., bulk, health and body care, and dairy. no cash register training yet. i don't think they trust me with the money. so i start tuesday through saturday @ 9:30 am. so not too early, it's not like i have other plans. i figure i will work this job for a while and then quit early to travel. there are also possibilities of going home early:) so the place i work is called down to earth. (and are you people serious that no one cares that i saw bob dylan at a pub, and i smiled at him and i got a smile back? what's wrong with you minnesotans). so the morning consisted of restocking the granola and candy bars, followed by removing bulk items from the shelf and dusting the shelf, as well as getting rid of the expired merchendise. wow, but there was some excitment during the lulls, for instance i get an hour long lunch break, so i walk home, it takes about 10 minutes. so this is a nice benefit.

when i left for lunch there was a strange older gentleman in a suit reading the newspaper just sitting in the breakroom. okay...so when i returned Ruth, one of the people i work with told me there was an allergy consultation going on, the strange man in the suit tests people for allergies. now, for some reason this form of un-licsenced kind of doctor is really prevalent in Ireland, in fact my flatmate Paul had this kind of allergy test done at a different health food store. i dunno.

so during the allergy doctor's lunch he was out by the cash register area with a screwdriver and a toaster...yeah i just walked away because i didn't want to know what kind of electrical disaster was going to take place. so whatever he was doing to the toaster, he finished to toast his bread for his...only be described as mystery meat/meatloaf...i started to smell burning plastic and when i looked over low and behold he had set the toaster down on a bunch of paper bags wrapped in plastic. i told him to shut the toaster off because something was burning. the owner of the shop and the allergy doctor both looked at me and said huh? then a customer realized it as well and said the same thing to them. so they finally understood and moved the toaster. i thought to myself, oh great my first day and the allergy doctor is going to burn the place down. so i'm sure there will be other fun antics like this.

wed. was far less eventful just kind of stressful the last half of the shift because we had gotten our shipment late...and they check in everything by hand so it was a lot of old man owner sitting at a folding table saying to christie "what's that by your left foot?" or "do you see sanji miso soup gluten free mix?" sorry go fish. so that's was interesting. then i found out we get tofu from a local asian grocery store that makes it on site so it is really fresh. just what you want fresh tofu.

i forgot to tell you all that i had a piece of tiramosu from the wine bar my roommate fransesca works at. on my first day of work she was starting waitressing for the first time at this job. she started as a porter (bus boy) and then was a bartender and is now a server. it was pretty delicious, it is made on sight by a spanish woman and an italian woman.

so like that, when i got home from work my flatmate paul had just started working at the fransiscan monk homeless shelter. so i asked him if he dealt with any addicts today and he said "only the usual ones on the street." now this is a joke but it is kind of the truth because that's just kind of a big city thing. paul also knowledged me about the TV tax in ireland. apparently the country of ireland has the stupidest tax in the world, for every television you own you are supposed to pay a 154 euro a year tax on every television you own, but the tax for a black and white television is cheaper. now the only reason this came up was because there was a commercial with puppets on that had one of the puppets saying "oh it's just a fishtank." yeah not so sure about that, but i was pretty much dumb founded when i found that out.

so those are todays topstories. i am going to walk home from the internet cafe and finish knitting my scarf. 50 degrees is not exactly warm. and that is the average temperature these last few days, and is the normal high for this area. we got sun today though, so i'm not complaining.

the emails will probably not be very exciting for the next couple days seeing as i work, but you never know i might have a half day now and again.

xoxo,
christie

thanks, i made it.

2006-06-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

So it is monday again, i made it an entire day without being on the internet, or with the TV and cable. wow, what an accomplishment. so here's the scoop, i will probably finish my scarf that i am making tonight and not a moment too soon, as i will be starting a job tomorrow at Down To Earth, a natural foods store as dunh duh...a shelf straightner. not the most glamourous job, but with something i believe in and love. so i will have some income. and depending on how things i may find a second part time job. but i start tuesday a.m. at 9:30am. so i will work an 8 hour shift and then be back to email in the afternoon. so that's the most recent news.

in other news shamus heany. so on sunday i didn't wake up until about noon, apparently a rough night. saturday evening Fransesca and i went to the irish independent film theater, where we saw the film, "thank you for smoking" about an american lobbyist who lobbys for the tobacco industry. kind of a satire of sorts, but pretty interesting and mildly funny. but if you don't know anything about american government, then you wouldn't laugh. let's just say christie and a couple of people were laughing while everyone else watched on, in probably a little non-understanding if you will.

sunday, well not too much, wandered out of the house at about 3pm and walked around by steven's green, more art out on the fences of the green. i got home about 7pm, when some ice cream, which plays a role later in this adventure. and Fransesca and i left for Shaums Haney, Liam O'Flynn, a famous piper, "piper and the poet" concert. So Shamus would read a few poems, give a little commentary, then Liam would play a song that he wrote on his uillian bagpipes or his tin whistle. shamus looked a lot older and crazier then i had imagined he would. he sparadic white hair and squinty eyes so it was a bit commical even when the poems were not commical. i feel that he is probably someone that irish citizens should admire, perhaps over joyce, just because he is more accessible as far as content of writing goes, and it was very cool because shamus wrote a poem written in response to 9/11 and the Robert Browning poem about upturning a mouse's home which i remember from a certain high school english teacher's class. so like that, no book signings though sorry:(

After that we went to a pub called the Mezz. it had a great band playing blues music. and mirion and fransesca were telling me about how they come here when they want to hear good good blues music, but only on certain nights of the week. this was also the place, where i had a bob dylan sighting. as we were walking out there was a man that looked absolutely exactly like bob dylan, and no i hadn't been drinking. i didn't ask though but i am pretty sure, if bob dylan was going to go to a pub in dublin, this would probably be the one he would go to. this pub is very music oriented, even the sloppy decor is music related.

Then at about 10:30pm we said goodbye to mirion and went home, where we had dun dunh...ice cream and as fransesca "ah yes...i will take a tea". it was pretty good ice cream, the first box a bought was crap but not this, it was great. so we had ice cream with strawberries, with a chamomile tea and then off to bed at a decent time, 12:30am is a decent time!

then it was job searching in the morning, and a library visit where i got the book "valoptuous vegan" and a book on england so i can figure out where i want to go that isn't london. so that's the scoop as of right now.

i got my pps number as well, which means i can submit my paperwork to the tax office and get paid next friday. which is fabulous to not need to wonder aimlessly everyday, looking for work. so hopefully this will be a good fit, i have found more galleries to go to as well, so this should be good. fransesca and i are having a cook off tonight with soups, and our roommate paul is going to a depeche mode concert with his brother so we can listen to whatever hippie music we want to listen too.

also at the end of the month, i am planning to go to the Irish film Center again to see the new film by Michel Gondry, the guy who directed eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, what an amazing artist. i absolutely love him and his style. so that's the word here in dublin, it is rainy and yucky so i am going to go home and perhaps make my brownies, we'll see i'd rather finish my scarf. so goodnight and see what you have written tomorrow.

xoxo,
christie

i will respond to your personal emails tomorrow afternoon when the cheaper internet cafe is available, and also the one with less irish rug rats.

glo sticks now back in stock!!!

2006-06-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

the kids love there glow sticks here and there. so howdy my faithful readers...so today was organic food cook day or whatever it was called and Fransesca's friend who works for it gave me poor directions so i looked around for about an hour in a rough patch of dublin @ like 11:30am but it was no where to be found. so i hopped on the DART and went to Bray. Bray is on the east coast of Dublin and borders the irish sea and i believe is at the head of the wicklow mountians. Bray in irish interesting enough, means hill. geography lesson. so it was drizzly and overcast in the morning in dublin, but i was like i need to get out of the city for a little while.

if i would have been thinking i could have booked a ticket to killkeny on the bus and gone to see bob dylan play, but no i didn't see it in the paper until this a.m. where it read SOLD OUT. that as well could have been extremly kick ass. but Bray was nice too.

the "foot path" as Fransesca puts it is 8km long so you could walk from Bray to Graystone for all of you who can't do the math...carry the one...flip the denomenator...the square root of pi...it's about 5 miles each way. so i did not walk to graystone, perhaps a day when there aren't gigantic snails on the trail. yeah, one's as big as my finger, i have pictures just you wait, i thought it was a dead vole at first so i bent down to take a picture of it, don't ask it's one of those "art projects". and it was slimey and moving and then i found the antannea things. gross...XL gross.

so i walked on the path for a while but then wanted to go to the yarn shop, b4 it closed. so i was walking back and the sun came out on this drizzly day. followed by it raining, not drizziling for the next 2.5 hours that i was in Bray. i am cold and my throat hurts, so it may be bed rest for me tomorrow until the poetry reading. so that's the word birds. but it was very beautiful on the nature walk, and i didn't hear any cars, you have no idea what a sweet sound that is. the little walk was very much like being in the munger park, minus the slugs, but then when i would look down, you could tell it was the irish sea and not a lake or stream etc. there is just a different color about it.

so all in all a very nice walk. so while i was trying to find the info station, without a map mind you, i ran into the mermaid center, which is another art and dance, music, etc. city owned support the arts center. i also wanted to go here on my excursion so to find it without trying was great dumb luck. there was a small exhibition, including a pretty powerful 15 minute video about the reality of being homeless in this area the film was about a gentleman who, i'm not sure why can't get out of the homeless rut, but it is very real and prevalent in this area, but then again so is the heroin use. on a lighter side, there was an excellent sculpture made out of dryer lint, in the form of a stacked washer and dryer. and the title and artist i have written down but am too lazy to look at right now but something about what you put in is what you get out. so funny and quite ironic.

so the yarn shop, all you knitters should be jealous because i got a skein of chunky, irish yarn from Cork for 5 euro, which i will myself a scarf out of, it will help keep the chill off in the wind. that's really what makes it cold.

i also got a great baked flaky pastry thing with chesse and mushrooms and onions in it to snack on in my train ride home. so good.

fransesca and i might go to a movie tonight, but if not that is fine as well, i am pretty tired from my day, and the rainy sticky weather tends to just make you sleepy. i don't think it rained in dublin today, the streets were dry when i got back, which i just kind of laughed at but anywho. i will let you know about the poetry reading on sunday, probably not until monday though.

so goodnight and hope you all are enjoying your saturday.

xoxo,
christie

Guinness Brownies

2006-06-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

or as i will make them in the near future

Murphy's Brownies: you can use a dark beer, a Stout might be better then a Draft, but i will know more when i try it.

4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
4 oz. white chocolate
6 T. butter
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/4 cup Guinness

so you melt the butter in a pan on the stove along with the chocolate bars. then you mix in the sugar, while or after melting, you can take it off the burner, then the four eggs,
followed by, if you want to sift, if you have the time and a sifter, the flour and the cocoa, then right before you dump it in the greased baking dish, you mix in the beer. i usually pour the beer in a measuring cup before i do all this because guinness foams alot. then you put it in the oven at 375 F for 20-25 minutes, wait for the toothpick to come out clean.

i have proportioned this recipe to use a whole beer, but i don't have that with me so you will have to do it yourself, if you like. i have also done half cream cheese half butter, and that was super good. also i want to try raspberries, but there are none here in dublin so maybe in a year. so good luck to all you bakers out there. i usually just put a little powdered sugar on top. but the last week of classes in may 2006, i was eating a guinness brownie with walnuts, chocolate sauce, and vanilla ice cream for breakfast. :)

fryDay

2006-06-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hello my fellow americans-

not too much new but lots of art news. so i have decided to go to bray tomorrow a.m. after i go to the organic food thing, which i found out on wed. was not hiring. Bray is on the east coast, and is about a 40 minute train ride using the DART. i want to go 1st because it is out of the city and supposed to like the ireland we all see in pictures, and second there is supposed to be a wonderful yarn shop there. i want to make myself an actually warm scarf. i just have one of my think wimpy ones, and it really does keep you a lot warmer in the wind here. why don't you just buy one christie? because i have been looking and the ones you buy are so cheap feeling, i am hopping to find some nice yarn for under 20 euro but we will see. so i went to the tourist office today to find out more about bray, and the person at the desk was pretty useless for that. i said do you have a guide about anything going on or perhaps a map or a website i can consult. no you just ride the dart there and you will see everything. good to know, not helpful. you can ask the irish for directions but don't ask them about any activities.

also the poetry reading i am going to on sunday with Fransesca is SHAMUS HEANEY. only one of the most famous contemporary writers. she did not tell me that and now that i know i am super stoked. for you book nerds you should be jealous, he rewrote Bewoulf a few years ago, it is one of the most popular versions. his other book is called finders keepers. he is fantastic. yipee.

so i bought i ticket for the LUAS and illeagully rode a different one. oops. i didn't know that the train starts and ends in like 3 different places. so i thought i was catching a connecting train but once i got to the station, the woman told me i needed to catch it up by st. stephen's green, basically if i would have gotten caught they prosecute you and i would have been deported. thanks for playing...better luck next time.

once i got on the right LUAS i made it to one of the 'burbs and applied in a mall for some jobs. there are many vacancies at this mall so i am hoping. i also applied at some random shops around the city centre, including a Haagen Dazs on Wicklow Street! that ice cream scooping experience could come in handy:) i applied at few hotels, and got a call from a temp. agency to come in for an interview, so things i am hoping are fine. i am watching this guy sitting next to me type with one finger and know that i have some commmputer skills, sorry the keyboard is sticky.

so the art afternoon-by the way, when in ireland, do not buy dessert in ireland. they have no skills with the dairy! i bought a piece of cheese cake a few weeks ago, texture of crap, like skim milk whipped, not thick and creamy. i really wanted some ice cream with my strawberries, so i got some neopolitan from the grocery store, that said made from irish milk, aka skim milk texture again, not cream. so fyi: when in ireland do NOT get a dairy delight, it will be a dairy downer:(

art sorry, lots to say but on the other hand, remember the candy bar tour i was doing? well that has been officially stopped due to the BBC reporting that Turkish Delight ( i almost bought one on tuesday) is pulling its product from shelves due to Salmonella contamination from its product. gross. i am done with that experiment, i started laughing to myself when i heard this, surprisingly i was in a mall.
"Sesame seeds are contaminated with Salmonella based on the California Department ... a) Cadbury DAIRY MILK TURKISH *** Milk Chocolate with Turkish Delight ..." this is what i could find when i googled it.

but the art really this time. so i went to the gallery that is about 2 blocks from my house and found this wonderful northern ireland photography. i am going to do some research about her, because they didn't have much at the gallery, but her name is Janet Preston and she creates these beautiful photographs, i think using a liquid emulsion and on some multiple negs, but they could be digital, i couldn't tell, they were way gorgeous and were of decriped buildings in dublin and remains, and look like some were hand colored, but not sure. i will find out more...again if i had 500 euro just laying around i would buy a piece of her work as well.
@ this same gallery there was a large, 17 ft x 12ft painting of a flower and placed inside the flower which i think was supposed to be part of it, totally a fallic symbol, i laughed and thought, this must be painted by a man! the flower was so beautiful except for that random fallic symbol.

another artist i really liked was Piia Rossi, she painted on little blocks of wood (4 in x 5.5 in) in blue and white paint the front of a house like it appears in home building plan magazines and then the inside floor plan. she was making a comment about how small the housing is in ireland, but the fact that people still pay for it. it was so cute as well because at the bottom of each one she wrote "truthfully drawn and measured by Piia Rossi." LoL.

I also went to st. stephen's green for a nap. i handed out CVs along the way. when i got up and walked outside the park there were all these painters who had their work up on the outside gate, all around the 188 acers. there were sailboats, and landscapes, and flowers, fairys, the liffey some quays etc. one in particular that stood out was an artist who made these black red and orange paintings of places in dublin. there is a lot of construction going on all around town, to make the city more industrial, so there are cranes etc. all around the city and he made these paintings showing that. but you could see all the violence and greed and etc. that the artist was showing. it was very discomforting, and i am sure he didn't sell any paintings but even all those "bad vibes" i was feeling from them were important, it made me remember i was alive. it's like if we never got sick we would never know how wondeful it felt to be well...kind of things.

so now that i have posted way too long again. i will try next time to be shorter. so have a great weekend, i hope i will, i'm sure i will, there is lots more to do here then in duluth, unfortuately not much at night besides pubs. so goodnight.

xoxo,
christie

forgot to ADd

2006-06-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

so i forgot to mention, my roommates have a baking dish so i will be making Guinness brownies, or rather Murphy's brownies, Paul made the request that i make it from the beer from his hometown of Cork. since it is his birthday next week i thought i could muster that. interestingly enough, you can buy beer by the can over here. and like in america where everything is large, in Ireland the beer can is twice the size of an American beer can. so yep...random observation. forgot to mention these things and since i would probably forget, i thought i would mention it now.

Thursday or in Irish Tursday

2006-06-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

TirtyTree and a Tird. yep just letting you know about the accent.

so here's the update for today. no job or calls, i called a couple of places today, no openings! i turned in my app. at 3 different recruitment agencies so hopefully soon...i also went to the FAS office, which perhaps i will try again tomorrow afternoon. they have telephones you can use for free, so perhaps i will use these landlines, seeing as they are more reliable then the cellular phones. and they are free as oppossed to the cellular phones.

i'm sure you all want to know about the concert...the afro-irish concert. it was very good. so this genre of music is pretty much a parallel to a jam band. for those of you who do not know what a jam band is please do some research and get with the program. but this jam band was exceptional...i do not like jam bands but this one was great. they had all the regular band instruments: drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar, keyboards. but what made them great is they also had: electric fiddle, acoustic violin, bongos, some sort of metal flute, tin whistle, uilliean (ilen) bagpipes (my roommate paul correctd me on how to say it, thank god another strange irish word.) and one of those cool traditional irish drums that you under one arm and tap on with like a whisk type thing. Somone was also playing the spoons! and to make it even more rastafarian etc. the bands name was KiLA. and the lead singer was wearing a KiLA shirt. my flatmate Francesca was buying a CD and i asked the lady selling CDs what the name meant, was it Gaelic or something. No it's a made up word, typical jam band style. Anywho, pretty fun stuff. If you have a myspace account you might be able to check them out online. i did not buy a CD as i did not enjoy it enough to purchase a CD, i liked it in the moment but i couldn't say it would be my favorite band ever. so that occupied most of the night, we wanted to go for a tea afterward, it was an outdoor concert but only the pubs were open, so we went home for some tea.

it was such a great concert to be at on the summer solstice, it really made me feel like i was in contemporary ireland celebrating the longest day of the year. and it didn't sprinkle until the end of the concert, there was even some blue sky during the outdoor concert which was probably meant to be in celebration of the day. nice all around. i also met some of Francesca's friends, the ones who work at Cultivate, hippies from the four corners of the earth.

then once we arrived home we sat down and had some tea with paul as he ate dinner @11:30 at night! Paul also showed me some of the websites he has put together, he loves doing the flash stuff. i have to say i was pretty impressed, he obviously has skills with the program, he just needs to work on some design principles, and learn something about typography and i really do think he could apply at any design firm, without a degree if he can get his foot in the door. one of his friend's contacted him about possibly doing an irish independent music label website. lots of work, and he wasn't sure he wanted to spend the whole summer inside working on it, so he was thinking of pricing it really high and if they want to hire him at that price great, but if not then oh well. he has started rethinking the whole working with the addicts thing, might be more violent than he really wants to deal with. i told him a few good band websites to check out for inspiration and a few bad websites of what not to do. we started talking about .gif builders and it was at that point Francesca said, "alright guys, i must go to bed." she is such a funny girl.

my roommates have been so kind and helpful since i have moved in. francesca realizes i have skills and has tried to steer me in directions for me to work. i found a bead shop with traditional celtic beads so for 3 euro i am going to make her a bracelet.

open air market...food market. so i went and purchased some fruits and vegetables today. For 5 euro i got 10 pink lady apples, 3 leeks, 2pints of strawberries, and a head of broccoli. broccoli is really expensive here so were the leeks. the strawberries are grown right here in dublin and they smell divine. i can't wait to have them tomorrow morning. the cherries i got last week were wonderful as well. The women selling the fruit have such hard and leathered faces, and sound as if they smoke more then a pack a day, but they are polite and rush the food into your bag which is fine. so i will be making a vegetable-tempeh stir fry tonight. i am looking forward to less protein, more vegetables.

and tomorrow i take the LUAS to the 'burbs to apply for a job in the Dundrum mall-hopefully there could be some employment opportunities there, but again 20 minute train ride outside the city, could get expensive. but one day won't kill me. the USIT office gave me a list of the stores hiring, so hopefully something will turn up. i called the Down to Earth health food store, and unfortunately he wanted someone who was going to be here permanently:( i would if i could-damn eurpoean union.

i have been watching some news programs in the mournings here in Dublin...you thought duluth news was bad, in duluth we can't text or email in to the show about how we feel about parking tickets of Alexander Court Street or how we feel about the new Nike ad in the Irish Times. Bizarre. and poor camera shooting as well. often times the tops of the news anchor's head is cut off. what makes this even funnier, is the fact that one on of the morning shows is on the BBC and has these same sorts of goofy things.

i have purchased some envelopes so will be sending some analog notes to those of you who don't do the email. i have gathered lots of thoughts and i have the time so i will be doing this in the next couple of weeks.

tomorrow a.m. 'burbs. friday p.m. grocery stores/convenience stores around the dublin city-centre area.

sunday evening, poetry reading/tin whistle playing concert with Francesca and Mirion(she is from Spain, Fran's friend). so that's the word here in dublin, tut tut it looks like rain.

xoxo,
christie

wed. P.M.

2006-06-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

So it was an uneventful day. Remember the saying for MN, "if you don't like the weather just wait 5 minutes." pretty much that has been how it is here. it gets gray and windy then rains for about 200 feet and then bright skys and sun. so it can be hard to be outside. you never know if you are going to need a jacket.

so here's the scoop as of right now. no job. i have sent my CV to 3 other recruitment agencies. I dropped off CVs @6 retail locations. I am now going to go and gather the phone numbers online. I also went to Origins Gallery today, the work of Mark Redden was on disply. Nothing stellar but it was worth a look. I love bogwood. Have I talked about bogwood? if ever you are in ireland and you have like 2 grand to blow on a piece of art, get a piece of bogwood art. This wood is really only readily available in Ireland. It is essentially fallen trees that are harvested from a bog, dried for 2 years and then carved into something. they are an amazing color and texture. beautiful and i have seen some nice things and some not so great things. Mark Redden, not so nice things, kind of a waste of a 4000 year old piece of wood, but what do i know, i couldn't make the crap he makes. the paintings were pretty abstract but pretty standard irish subject matter. the liffey, a quay or 2, horses, and the 9th gate of hell opening up...i don't know why that is such a popular subject but it is. there are ooddles of paintings about this subject, at all the art museums as well!

i have gathered almost all the things needed to make guinness brownies excluding guinness, paul wants me to use murphy's because it is from Cork, where he is from, and eggs. so i will make those eventually, i want to see if i can find some raspberries there might be some at the market, i will check tomorrow.

here's a crazy book thing, remember the book "the curious incident of the dog at nighttime"? well i saw a copy of it at a Waterstones called, "the curious incident of the dog in the NightDress". What?...humph?...yeah not so much.

also the ipod nation hasn't hit over here yet, not many people have the pod or mp3s for that matter. i love when i see people pull out big old discmans it makes me smile:) so that's the news from my neck of the woods peace out peeps. hopefully the concert will be good. Francesca is a fun girl so i am sure it will be great.

xoxo,
christie

p.s. digestive biscuits? does anyone know what they are? yeah they are an unlevened cookie with minimal sugar. how does this help you digest? no se.

wedAM

2006-06-21T03:23:00.000-07:00

well people-

i have been traveling around this morning handing out more CVs. i got two emails from hotels, telling me i wasn't qualified to work at them. which i know i was but whatever. i am doing some more job searching as well as calling on a couple of CVs. i will stop by the health food store today. but i am pretty sure since the guy hasn't called me again he has filled the position but oh well. i know i will find a job eventually it just sucks being in limbo all the time. besides you can only hand out so many CVs and occupy your time by not sitting in front of the television. i think i will ask the usit program if they have any more suggestions on how to find a job and possibly call another temp. agency to see if i can get in on their book of possible employees.

not too much happened last night, nice and quiet for a change. i listened to some music on and read as well as write in my journal. i will look online for other places to stop buy. i handed out 5 CVs this morning, and i may have already handed CVs out to the businesses but i am not sure because they all start to look the same when there are 5 of the same store within a 2 mile radius of eachother! so doing that stuff today and perhaps call a couple of location this afternoon around 3pm.

so that's the word here. less exciting from previous posts because i went and saw lots of stuff. my flat mate Francesca invited me to a concert tonight, she had free tickets. so i will go with her later on this evening to that. it is a local group playing afro-irish music, whatever that means.

i am convinced this is like every city where you need to know someone in order to get a job. so that's the word on the Quay. talk to you alls later.

xoxo,
christie

PPS number

2006-06-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

well, my friends and family-

i took the bus this morning to the office of social welfare to apply for a PPS number, no problems what so ever. my application is being processed and hopefully within 5-10 days i will have my number which means i won't be charged emergency tax of 42% of all my earnings. hooray. i also got myself a library card. so that means i can go to the library whenever i want and to whichever one i want to go to. so this is kind of fun and now more plastic to carry around.

i also got a call from the temp. agency to ask if i would mind having my CV sent into a job, that could be a week could be the entire time i am here. it is to be a junior administrative assistant at the National Lottery. so they are doing a background check on me shortly. so it would be kind of neat to work at thsi location, i will have to see. i dropped off the paperwork at the temp. agency because they needed my original signature as oppossed to a photocopy through the fax machine. on my way to the usit office, or as i refer to it as the useLess office, i was stopped by someone who wanted directions to the national gallery. i was happy to oblige i showed the young asian woman on the map, she thought she was in a different place so i was glad to let her know she was looking the wrong way, and showed her how to get there. she was so happy and of course i was like sure...no problem so as i was waiting for the stop light she took something out of her companions backpack and gave it to me, it is this little piece of paper that has like this beautiful paper chinese woman on it and it says "may peace prevail on earth". how cool. what a sweet and kind gesture for directions. wonderful. so even though it is windy and sprinkling out this happiness warms my heart.

so my time is almost up. everyone have a peaceful, wonderful day.

xoxo,
christie

Well...it's monday again...

2006-06-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

So here's the scoop as of today...

I have a flat i told everyone the wrong address so i will need to re-email you with the write zip. oops. so i had my "skills" test at la creme office people agency. so here's my skills turn out:

i got a 65 on basic Microsoft Word skills...not so great in teh advanced I got a 78 kind of impressive. kind of funny that i am better at the advanced skills then the basic.

i got in the upper 80s for Powerpoint. Not really surprising considering how many powerpoints i have had to do.

and as for the typing tests, i got 55 words per minute, when i asked how this compared to other people i was told that administrative assistants type an average of 50 words per minute, which admin. assistants are the tops of the tops of assistants, again we all knew i had skills and not super surprised by the results so i am now in the lottery for clerical work. i can also mention this crap when i apply for hotel reception work. so over the weekend and today, i have applied at footlocker (lol) and an internet cafe, 2 hotels: one as a resturant assistant, the other as a receptionist and i will be checking irishjobs.ie and jobs.ie after this to see where i will plan attack tomorrow, i will also be making some calls on some applications tomorrow. so i have faith it just sucks kind wandering around aimlessly looking for places i would be williing to work, i really hope it doesn't come to Mc Donalds, i think i would rather come back to the US then work there, that's how unethical it is for me.

so i ate at a resturant for lunch today they had a 2 course lunch special of 9 euro, which is a lot but i needed something besides what i had at home. so the resturant was called juice! and it was all vegetarian. so had a house salad with those little skinny mushrooms i have gotten at the coop that are really good and then for my main course i had pitas with hummus and the other with a kalamata/cashew patte. both really good, and complete source of protein with everything. so i had a nice meal then off to the USIT office to print off more CVs. You don't have to pay for them, so i take full advantage of it, considering they don't really help you find a job!

i also stopped by the museum gallery today, i didn't make it all the way through the first time, and i asked at info when the Caravaggio would be back and they told me in July, so i will see it before i leave...hooray. I also saw a few poussin's and a monet. i didn't recognize poussin's style off hand so i was kind of disappointed.

then out in the rain walking to more places to drop off CVs. I think i have dropped off so many i might start reapplying at the same places soon. not so good. but i know which stores i want to call tomorrow so i will get the numbers tonight.

so funny thing happened today, while i am out and about looking for work, i got a job offer from someone at the UMD for a design job. granted it was only one book cover, but i was just laughing at the irony that here i am in dublin trying to get myself a job paying minimum wage, and i got a job offer in the US for doing no work, because a professor recommended me. slap in the face...yeah a little bit.

so the plan tonight is go to bed early and then go to the post office at 9am tomorrow and get myself a PPS number. it's like a social security number, only in Ireland. i think i have just about everything for it. then job hunt commence.

so i suppose you are all wondering about my roommates. So there is Paul, he is from Cork, he has a degree in Psychology with a masters in addictive studies, so basically useless until he gets a master's in psychology. he is currently just doing odd jobs, and is going to volunteer at the state government to work with the addiction that is occuring in Dublin. Apparently the big drugs are heroin or opium, and to a lesser extent crack...i don't know. I said what about methAmphetamines and he said, "well, fortunately we're a little bit behind the US on drugs of choice." and laughed. so he's a nice guy i don't know what his interests are besides that but he does do some desktop publishing using Flash and Dreamweaver, so an ammature I am competing with in the field of GD. i find it also funny because he has more stuff in the bathroom then Francesca and myself combined, definately metro sexual. I had know idea there were so many man products for your hair and face!

And Francesca, she is my roommate. She is so friendly and outgoing i love talking to her. she holds three jobs! she is from italy and speaks great english, she told me last night she loves the american accent so she likes to listen to me talk! we were talking about dublin and nature and the lack of that in this city, as well as being vegetarians (she used to be for 7 years but became anemic). she answers the phone at an auction house, she also works on the weekends as a waitress, and she also had an internship for a company called Cultivate. This company applies for city grants and puts on organic events. including one last saturday that Francesca planned, i heard it was wonderful. so we had lots to talk about and i asked them some qs they asked me some qs.

i asked Paul if they had any irish drinks...like ones we have in the states. i asked him if he ever had a Black and Tan which is Bass ale or Guinness Harp and Guinness, it all depends on who you ask. i also asked him if he ever had an Irish Car Bomb which is where you take two shots of Jameson irish whiskey and/or bailey's irish creme and dump it into a Guinness. He had never heard of either of these, but was intrigued. (thank you to my roommates for clarifying these drinks to me b4 i came over) and as stated by Paul, you should probably not ask for them in a pub or Temple Bar.

I also talked to Francesca about the bar scene over here and she said she had never witnessed such violence and loss of self control as she had scene when in Temple Bar sometimes. She was leaving her waitressing job one night and she saw some drunk girl sitting in front of a building just pull her underwear down and start peeing. Unreal. She also couldn't believe the people she had seen in collared shirts with blood stains all over the front, from like fist fights or whatever.

Which brings me to my next point that it is against the law to even own a gun, let alone be in posession of one, you can not own a pocket knife either! i am so glad i didn't bring my leatherman. which is when i brought up the point that i had taken firearm safety and paul and francesca said that neither of them had ever shot a gun, and Paul has never held a gun. Crazy dudes. MN has a licsense so you can conceal and carry. Paul also said that the general Garda, or police do not carry guns! no way, i know it is less prevelant in the US as well due to an increase in tasers or what have you. we covered lots more stuff but i realize how long this blog is. lots of new things behind ever corner, like bums, begging at ATM machines...

Well people, i have talked your ear off and so now i will go back to my flat and make myself some quinoa with the blue cheese and walnuts i have at home, it will be delicious, and nutrious. i also bought some tempeh for another night.

last night i had a frozen pizza and a coke...it was sooo good. the coke here is only 500ml and it is like 1 euro .40 so it is really expensive. but i ate the whole 10 inch pizza with a salad and my coke and i felt really full but i didn't eat lunch so i didn't feel too bad about it. it was so good...product of germany.

so if no one is home tonight i will probably stake out my plan for tomorrow as well as watch some world up action that starte 2 minutes ago. so goodbye.

xoxo,
christie

Random Twitterings in a 24/7 world

2006-06-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

So here's the scoop as of sunday afternoon-

Saturday was spent trying to find the hostel which I blogged about yesterday and then off for some more walking. I wanted to go to the open air market, but didn't make it, as you should go earlier rather then later. so i didn't go to that. Instead I went to the fabulous Museum of decorative arts and history! ta da! yeah i know doesn't sound super interesting but it was lots of antique crap, including but not limited to, clothing, furniture, things for the home, an irish designer, jewelry, and my favorite of all currency. it went through the entire currency of ireland starting with the coinage the vikings brought over through the Euro. Did you know that the euros for each country are slightly different with an emblem representing the country? ireland has the harp. i also learned about the irish bag pipes called uilliean bagpipes. if this is boring you, you should stop reading. acutally sounds a lot better then the scottish bagpipes.

the other exhibits not so influencial on my "irish studies". other intersting things i learned: for those of you who art historians and such the figure that reperesents the allegorical Ireland is called Hibernia and she has some attributes that I didn't right down so, you will need to research her if you feel so inclined. I also saw tons and tons of crucifixies crosses and everything catholic including a St. Brigid's Cross, which resembles a "gods eye" that i remember making as a child. these were made by people to celebrate the saints feast day of feb. 1 it was hung on the front of teh door to protect the family from illness and other misfortunes. and also at this museum, there was a special exhibition of the Sunday Killings of 1916. A really important time in the Republic of Ireland's history. This had lots of interesting information and a revisit of the neo-celtic traditions of art. So all on all a day of learning for sure.

I also took the LUAS, twice, by myself, without any help from anyone, I also saw some tourists struggling with how to operate the machine. They didn't speak english so I couldn't really help them.

I also looked at 2 flats, neither on i liked, one was like 425 euro plus utilities, bi monthly, the other was 325 euro per month with a deposit of 700 euros! a little to rich for my blood. After that i went back to the hostel, did some laundry, watched some futball, which by the way is my new favorite sport. I watched the USA vs. Italy game which started at 8pm my time 2pm your time and it was fantastic a real nail bitter. Unfortunately it was a draw, but the US should have one. They got a goal towards the end that didn't count because someone on the Italian team was injuried. Bummer. Is any one watching any of the games? i get to watch them close to real time, does anyone else get to. They are on everyday @ 1pm 5pm and 8pm, some days only 2 games someday 3. It all depends on the day. It is definately a great sport to watch. you don't need to know a whole lot to watch.

Random things i have noticed: now that I have my notebook I can write these down and then blog about them.

So last week I went to the National Gallery of Art and I was so excited because I would get to see a Caravaggio painting up close and personal, it is actually the painting on the brochure for the galery, but it was out on loan to a different exhibition. Talk about diappointment. All the Caravaggio works I learned about during Tom Hedin's class and I would finally get to see one but alas it was not there. I also interperted a painting that was a bible or greek story that had the whole story in the painting. Usually the beginning of the action in the left foreground, the rise of action being in the middle of the painting, and the possible conclusion being at the right hand side. I impressed a fellow hostel member with my knowledge of telling the story. I also started talking about vanitose and identitfying it in certain still lives, and sure enough later on in an exhibit there was a discription of vanitose. Christie 2 points.

I have noticed that the people of this area like to put buiscuits, or cereal in their candy bars. I had a double decker candy bar with nougatine and crispy cereal in it. I am getting really sick of the candy bars so I am sure this brush with industrail foods is short lived, and i will be back to whole foods only soon! so that's what's happening in my neck of the woods, I also finished one of my fingerless gloves today, rainy day, let Maureen know if anyone sees her:) I also gave the Yarn Harbor web addess to two women from Scandanavia who were so excited to see such small circular needles that I was knitting with, by the way I now know how to knit on circular needles, I struggled at first but know I've got it. Everyone let Meg know!

So keep up the comments or email me, because the telepathy isn't working.

xoxo,
christie

Friday Show

2006-06-17T04:15:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone-

So here's the word about Friday. Pretty uneventful I applied at a few more jobs, called on a few jobs as well as looked at a flat and went to the Irish museum of Modern Art, as well as the Photography Archive in Temple Bar where there were 4 MFA photography shows going on. The Irish Museum, I'm not sure that this museum gets much in the way of funding because it was really waining compared to the other museums. But I saw lots of great modern blocks of painted squres etc. And there was a great exhibit about Louis leBrocquy, he was a painter in Ireland for a long time and this gallery had a retrospect of his show, there was some beautiful modern paintings! I also saw a Joao Penalva show. His art includes mixed media, digital video, and plain old photography and painting. He did this great show in London entitled "Mr. Ruskin's Hair" in which he had a real lock of John Ruskin's hair in a frame, and then he created 6 fakes and hung them up all together. In London someone stole one of them off the wall. Fortunately they just stole a fake so only Penalva knows which one is the real one. This was exhibited in the gallery. Interesting and funny idea. He also had a table with 3 thimbles set up, one with a pea under it as part of this exhibit.

Another set of great work by Penalva was "David's Mother's White Bowl" This was a project where he asked his students to each bring in something to photograph, a man named David brought in a white bowl. The story behind it was creepy. David's mother had her friend over, along with a friend of that friend who was visiting from out of town who was blind. The mother seved some strawberries in the bowl. After the strawberries were gone the blind woman picked up the bowl. And said, "this is a lovely bowl, I can tell just by feeling it." "It is slightly irregularaly shaped." and David's mother said oh it isn't anything special I got it second hand somewhere. And the blind woman said, "Well, it's a lovely bowl, how I wish I could see so that I could see the white bowl, and the one black speck in the surface." yeah I know ESP for sure. So there were a few little stories and photographed objects so pretty interesting weird stuff.

The MFA shows were good to. There was one photographing illeagally in the Berlin Airport in several places. There was a photo exhibit focusing on the Natural History museum with all the taxidermied animals and our interaction with them. There was a third one on the suburuban sprawl of Dublin and human interaction with nature and our now "natural surroundings" out in the burbs. The fourt exhibit was about the sexual identity being lost when one works in a job not usually associated with one's sex, for instance police force or military. So not too many opinions yet on this one. It just opened so I think I might go back in a few weeks.

And I also got asked for a 3rd time how to find a street. I didn't know so I let the gentleman look at my map. Apparently I don't look as lost as I feel sometimes. Or I look irish.

I was talking with someone at the hostel last night, and he was telling me about this antique store in the city centere that I could go to and find out where in Ireland the last name Culliton originates from. So I might check it out, who knows.

So the museum of Decorative Crafts and a headband, those are my goals of today. As well as look at 2 more flats. I also have another candy bar in my Irish candy bar tour, made by cadbury called a Double Decker: milk chocolate with nougatine, and crisp crucnchy cereal filling. They like their biscuits and cereal filling over here! I need to try some digestive crackers as well, one of these days!

I found a mini notebook as well! I have been looking for one casually since I got here, I have gone into drug stores, grocery marts, dollar stores or (2 euro stores) as they are called over here, but to know avail finally at a Spar, which is a small convenience grocery store I found one. I was so excited I told the young woman at the counter, and I'm pretty sure she thought I was crazy, no more loose pieces of paper yippee. Now I can make lists like mad!

xoxo,
christie

you guys should post more or email me more.

where's my job?

2006-06-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

Hey estuados unidos-

Christie here to give you the heads up about what's up. I haven't gotten a call back yet from anyone but the GoodFood place, one of the natural food stores. The guy said he would call me back next week but I have my doubts. On monday i go into the temp. agency and find out if i have any skills to be a secratary. Not my first choice, but it would pay better then other locations. I am going to stop by eason's today because they said they would call me today. also i am applying as a receptionist at a few hotels around the area. And i will call on a few more apartments today. I know it's only been like a week but i feel a little pathetic for being a native english speaker and not being offered a job like right now. so that's what's up right now, i am switching hostels today, so i will drop my stuff off and then go and apply at some of the hotels. so that's what's up. and not much else i think i might go to a museum this afternoon.

I walked from one side of city centere to the other yesterday, about an hour total. saw all the developments but they can only build a buildings so high here. They don't want it to look to metropolitian, interesting. Also I have been asked on 2 seperate occasions by 2 seperate people directions to somewhere. And surprisingly i knew where they wanted to go and gave them directions.

I met some people in my hostel last night from south korea and they were impressed i could say their names on the first try! Also after talking to them they said, "wow your english is really good where are you from?" and i laughed at them and told them i was from the US and my english better be good because that's all i've got! so onward and upward and that's about all that is going on with me.

I've had some of the best nectarines ever this week, from spain. So I think that i have had 2 everyday this week. They get better everyday! That's the word here in Ireland. I just want to find some stability so that i can travel from there. I hate living out of a suitcase and not being able to buy any nice office attire for job interviews because i have no where to put it. Also, they have really soft water here so i need to find some styling crap to put in my hair. It just won't stay curled at all. I end up with a headband on everyday. Well that's the word from across the salty pond.

xoxo,
christie
i miss green grass!

Day2: no news is good news eh?

2006-06-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

So hello-

I haven't heard anything from the places i applied to. I also made some online applications to apple.com, as well as posted my resume to a coffee shop. they advertised online but did not give the address so all you could do was apply online. I will be calling the temp. agency tomorrow but as for today i will look at a few flats. I have 5 lined up.

I also found some more organic shops and put my application in at these locations. i also put in my application at a place called The Bakery which duh makes baked goods. it didn't sound like they were hiring but i talked to the head baker. I also applied at Penny's and Dunnes Stores. Penny's is like a Target or something of that sort, and Dunnes is like a department store. Not my favorites but i need something. i am thinking about applying at some movie theaters, as that would be none too stressful. there are many bar/pub jobs available but i don't want to be walking home by myself at night and they only want experienced staff.

In the temple bar area i found a couple of art exhibitions and a concert. inside the center square there was this horrible reggae band playing but it was entertaining to hear a reggae band up here in Dublin, Ireland. I also went to two art exhibitions. So the first one was pretty lame but the art was based on this artist that i can't think of right now that put polyeurathane all over her art, and it ended up giving her cancer or something from all the fumes. And before i knew it was based on this i walked by the shalacked rope thinking, i hope this person is aware of the dangers and that there was an artist who died doing this. There was also a bunch of info about the 4 students who died in the 60s during a peaceful protest at a campus i can't think of right this second but you should remember. so overall kind of a lame exhibition but it was free so whatever. The other exhibiton was called Borderlines. it was about the border towns on the Republic or Ireland, Northern Ireland border. there was some poorly edited video, but some great photos as well as audio interviews. i almost cried when i heard this story an older gentleman was telling about how when he was a child he split a sausage with an officer on a dare and then when he went back to where is friends were they said stuff like "why the fuck did you do that?" that's the enemy. And he said it was not the person you should hate because he knew the soldier did not believe in what he was doing. Wow, no grudges no nothing. Needless to say there were some other stories that were not as touching including stories about parents being in Sinn Fein (said shin faen). So hey there might be hope for me learning irish after all!

i don't know if i have mentioned that i have been trying different candy bars from this country, i had a "yorkie" yesterday which is a milk chocolate bar with raisins, buiscuits and chocolate. not bad. and today i had a "crunchie", crispy honeycomb covered in milk chocolate. i don't recommend the second one, just tasted like burnt sugar on the inside. so off to see apartments. talk to you peeps later.

xoxo,
christie

Day 1: the hunt is on

2006-06-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

ccTravelAbroad: June 2006

well people back in the states, wholly overwhelming for this that and the other thing, not to mention i was in a hostel room last night with 23 other peeps-a few too many if you ask me. i can handle 9 other peeps but not 23. mixed dormitory too-talk about future sight of an adult film career. no i kid i kid. although i was the first person to use the clean shower and i'm glad, can you say gross germys everywhere yuck. i got them to change my dorm to a 10 person suite for the next 2 nights but i will be back there again on thursday night. but i made it through the first one so i will probably make through the second one. someone yelled at some french guys last night for whispering way too loud. kind of funny when you're awoken to that.

so job search day. they told me at USIT to show up about 10am to 12pm because after that it is way to busy and lunch is at 1pm. so good luck getting someone during that time. so i dropped my CV and letter of recommendation off at all 4 major bookstores in Dublin. i also stopped by a temp. agency but couldn't get in to see someone so i emailed my resume or CV as they call it here and then i searched for sharing a flat or an apartments at daft.ie. i have lots of locations close to town so i could get a job anywhere in town and pretty much walk from every location. i also found out which neighborhoods NOT to live in as they are full of drugs and gangs from the USIT office, but lots of the locations i have already walked to on my many journeys. 2 of the biggest bookstores said they were hiring so i will stop by in a few days to find out what is up.

i also stopped by the museum of natural history while on my walks about the jobs findings. The giant elk was kind of disappointing in a sense. They didn't give it some color like they thought it should have, in fact there wasn't even a drawing of it. Just a wooden model of its bones and antlers-lame. but i saw lots of other taxidermied things like bugs, birds, monkeys, and bunches of other animals from different countries. i still love the halibut, and they had several of those 2 eyes one side of the head who knew. also i was trying to find a stuffed bird of the one i see all over stephen's green, i think it's a magpie but i could be wrong. Oh well i'll just keep telling other people it is a magpie and hope someone corrects me. But the giant irish deer was about 20 feet tall with an antler width of about 10 feet. so that's pretty big. the museum also had a lot of weird little stories about things like this fish that was caught in 1873 that they thought was the biggest something but then was later in 1911 proven to be a salmon and it was only half the size of the largest one caught in 1858. who cares? well obviously i do otherwise i wouldn't have rememberd. The taxidermed elephant was a little sad, it had some of his ear missing...sadface:(

well peeps i guess i am going to call on some of these apartments, what i found out is that people want me to live with them so that they can practice their english, i can't tell you how many ads said no polish or italian or spanish, we want to practice english. so away we go, i also found an ad with some irish people so we'll see what i can find. once i have an apartment i can apply for the irish equivalent of a socail security number a PPS number. hooray. so all the apartments are fully furnished, something way different from the states so we will see. so that's all for right now still trying to get in contact with my mom. if anyone can help her with a calling card and the international area code for ireland, which i will look up shortly, please help her.

xoxo,
christie
it looks like the weather is not so sunny anymore sadface:(

Testing 1, 2, 3

2006-06-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

hey my dudes back in corn country-

it was suggested to me by sarah phonenix that i try to set up a blog, so that i can communicate with all of you and you can see what all of you say. you can still contact me via email but i thought i would give this a shot and see how this technology works.

i couldn't understand it in 2d digital studio but hey i'll try round 2.

so here's the scoop today i went to my job and tax class for 2 hours. lots of info to process i am going to update my CV apply for a job at Easons tomorrow, book store, and also sign up at an agencies maybe getting secritarial work and then i will try to find a flat. it is the beginning of the toursit season so my hopes are high to find a job somewhere, as well as a flat, college students are just starting to leave.

and then off to the museum of natural history, i need to see the giant elk of ireland that lived 7000 years b4 any human was on this land.

so that's it peeps,
maybe something exciting will happen, like i will try to pick up coins that were glued to the ground, that didn't happen to me but someone i met. haha.

xoxo,
christie