2 txt a :)

on thursday matty and i fly to amsterdam with the two kiwi's with whom we visited blarney castle. this trip has sort of been planned since we arrived in dublin nearly four months ago. The Kiwi's are flying out of dublin, and matty and i out of Cork and the foursome are set to meet up at some airport in amsterdam ... or so i am told because it was matty who set the whole thing up.

[the key to successful travelling, or so i've discerned thus far, is to be as prepared as possible with places to stay, transportation means arranged and packed lunches; however, if that is not something you're capable of find someone who is and stick close with them.]

matty and i exchanged several text's the day of the booking making sure of important specifics like my name on my passport, the price of the ticket and not to mention the right days i was to take off work. matty was planning unemployment so it wasn't as big a deal for him.

With all that done, the tickets booked and paid for, matty was on his way home. i got this text from him:

$20 cheaper she didnt chrg me tx feel bad tho.

i sent back:

karma police might get ya

later he sent me:

i went back she wz cute it wz worth it 2 c her smile

what a softie.

a cup of tea

i've poured myself a cup of tea, found a wonderful function on thehip.com and settled down on the table that matty and i spent yesterday creating.

hmm, that's a story worth telling.

we have a coffee table thinks it's a kitchen table. really, we have no one to blame but ourselves for this poor object and it's potentially harmful and obviously unhealthy identity crisis because that is exactly what we use it for. and, again, we have no one to blame but ourselves when 1/2 the legs found better things to do than to stay attached to the base.

needless to say dinner was an awkward acrobatic act, especially when more that no people attempted to eat around the dinner table. two months of dealing with this was all it took for matt and i to take matters into our own hands.

so we did what two ex-students can only do: made one out of what we had lying around.

our new table wasn't as welcomed as we would have liked.

"i don't think the landlord will like it" was the aussie's two cents.
"that's weird thing to think, seing as he doesn't live here and you're not him".
"are you guys going to buy a new one?"
"a new what?"
"table"
[at this point matty paused in an attempt to determine the point at which they had lost each other and why he was having as much trouble, or any trouble at all explaining this to the aussie. he was also curious why he had to explain anything at all. i mean, just look at this thing matty said to himself what isn't awesome about it. when himself and matty came to the conclusion that neither had anything short of brilliant they continued the conversation with the aussie. this process took three seconds.]
"why? we made this one."
"it's just not my cup of tea, that's all."

in the end matty and i had fun making a table that looks totally awesome. and, in the end, isn't that all that matters?

hopefully soon our three legged table will become four, but that was all we had lying around the house.

I'll be at my local too

matty and the girls where out doing their thing. the girls, having skipped work, were at the brog (shoe) because it wasn't the shel because the shel was too close to work. matty was too close to work because he didn't want to miss some of his training. langer.

i had met up with brian at the shel and we left from there in a car of steven's because he was heading to a different part of town, but mostly because that's just the sort of thing you do for friends on paddy's day, which is to say everyday of the year. upon getting to the KLM we met terry and the regulars and the pool table named john. we made a point of making plans to go back to a pub near the shel because that's just the sort of thing that happens when you make plans three weeks prior; things change. this also meant that when the girls and matty took a notion to walk our way we'd likely pass them on the road.

a few phone calls, text's and several hours later we still hadn't left the KLM for the pub near the shel at which the girls and matty had been waiting for ... well, several hours. the phone call came in and i answered it and gave it to brian.
'i'm not talking to her'
'wat d'you mean?' asked a bewildered brian 'who's this?' he asked the phone. his face changed from one of a person in control and having a good time to that of a young child who had just been picked up by his father aftering pooping his pants. with eye's wider than most people would have thought possible he passed the phone to the only person who could protect him at all: his mother. who, need i remind you, has been in the pub since noon, which it is now several hours plus a few after.

mama brian delt with the situation the only way she new how which meant not dealing with the situation at all but pretending that she was speaking to a friend of hers whom she could hardly hear through the cell phone's reception which, ironically, was exactly what she thought was happening. brian turned the phone rightside up for her and moments later terry took the phone and gave directions.

the girls and matty turned up some time later and stayed for a bit, but my time has run out and i'll have to complete this again some other time.


[i hope you had a wonderful paddy's day! i posted some pictures on my flicker page, feel free to check them out.]

kiwi and other fruit

matty and i meant to get to the guinness brewery today, but we slept to late and as it turns out they don't let people through the doors past 5 pm. we had our orientation in the morning (wihch we did make it to, but only b/c our american friend woke us up). i lost matty last night, but as luck would have it he found some locals irish and they took care of him. he turned the wrong way coming out of the bar and walked the distance to the hostel we were staying at, ... just in the wrong way. luckily at the spot he expected the hostel to be there was a mcdonalds, and where his bed was to be there was a bathroom. all ended up well!

tonight we're going for a few pints with a couple of girls from seattle, matty is packing a map to ensure he gets home.

matty made dinner tonight, and it was grand. our first home cooked meal since we got here - that is, the closest we can get. we cooked beside a Kiwi who was really full of energy and gave me hell for giving her cooking secretes away to a bunch of other girls. (you may have noticed by now that there are very few boys in my stories .. but that's just cause there are very few boys here!) The Kiwi's buddy, Tresa (TREES-ARE-GREEN ... but leave off the RE-GREEN) offered us some of the cheese because, and i quote, "we have a f*** load of it".

oh, and i lost my voice last night singing at the pub. it's back just in time to be lost again.

cheers,

--b

brother bear

it was a week or two ago. we were all on a patio. it was the day i reached a check point. the clay oven was burning rather quickly through the supply of wood on hand and it soon became apparent that more wood be needed if we wear to bee kept warm.

later i would have a dream about tearing down the shel, scavenging the place for bits of wood the owner, gilivan, wouldn't miss. roy was there, and a regular named a-min-d and a few of the other staff as well. soon the whole floor was ripped up the the bar was floating on the few remaining joist. with that job done i went back to the fire, which meant waking in a room full of smoky clothes.

roy's appartment is having work done, shelves removed and toilets added, and it was producing a great deal of, what turned out to be, unburnable bits of wood that, also, turned out to be too big for the clay fire. matty and i went to investigate the situtation and learned a long time after the facts described above. we had been gone a while and finn et al had some bits of stone to get rid of. they climbed on her brothers roof, just off the patio, and tossed pebbles. finn's brother had a few pebbles too, and tossed them her way. [get off d x'ng ruf] came the txt. the three of us, roy, matty and myself, returned bearing gifts of gold trim, wayne scotting and vanities, which needed to be made smaller.

luckly matty and i are ninja's.

my turn came after matt's and just before the arrival of a big angry brother ^[1]. i propped my bit of wood against the wall and would have split it in two, honest, had i not have been distracted.

before me was a bear wearing people clothes standing in the landing in front of me, guarding the only exit. it was speaking but i couldn't hear it over the sound of me pooping my pants for the second time ^[poop]. the bear, brother o'finn, inquired into the delivery of his text earlier.

Brother O'Finn told us he had to work in the morning, which was now an hour ago, and that he would appreciate if we would keep our noise to a non-existance in a tone that suggested his patience for shenanigans ^[2] had expired sometime around the mid 90's.

matty decided to leave when roy convinced himself that since Brother was up already we might as well continue on the same route to destruction we were on. i agreed because my smell was starting to discust myself.

but i don't mind because it gives me character.

paragraph four, section 3

the interview would have gone well had i have gone and i would have gone except i didn't want to. the reason i didn't want to is because my BC friend informed me that the job was to be a door to door .. or person to person .. sales associate. which wouldn't have been so bad except for the traveling, unpaid, from city to city and never knowing where you'd be. which would have been so bad except for the product i was pushing and the product i was pushing was make up. my BC friend had a good little laugh as we all speculated on what the response from home would have been had i have taken this particular placement. matty was especially excited to know how dad would have reacted, and the rumors that would have started about how i went over sea's to find myself and eventually come out of the closet.

regardless to say i have not taken the job, but i will be bar tending in a few hours and that should be great. i'll send out a few more CV's and try for something else ... perhaps a coffee shop or internet cafe. i'll keep you posted.

the place i visited today reminded me of grandma connelly's old place except bigger and containing people who mostly spoke a version of english that wasn't as much english as it was french or german. the whole place has carpeting (which puts me in mortal peril considering dust has a personal vendetta for me and causes my asthma to fly off the handle) so i don't know if we'll take it. it's cheaper to stay in the hostle, and the hostel is closer to the city centre ... but it would be nice to learn a little french from the new flat mates. count them .. 4 (+ matt and i). but it's not like we're strangers to a situation like that.

because, you see, matty and i went to school together for four years and for three of them we were roommates. in first year we lived in residence together in an apartment room with 4 other guys, one of whom, dan, went on to live with matty the year after while i was still in residence. the year following that i moved into a house with matt, dan, and three other guys (total of six) and that remained relatively the same for the year after that, save for a complicated moving about of people that is best explained by not explaining it at all.

in fact, if you're still reading i commend you because you have absolutely no reason to have made it this far, and i imagine you would have only been reading every other or every tenth word. i invite you to re-read the above statement because you are likely to laugh rather hard. if this is your second time through please continue on to what is below which shouldn't be much more, but i haven't decided yet.

or rather i've completely forgotten. although i would like to thank dan for pointing out that my first post had matt's birthday wrong, and being a good friend he cleared it up politely. thank you dan. what is important is the members of the house i lived in while at brantford. the team included, in addition to matt, dan and i: josh, steve, tommy, brandon and adam.

i know that equals eight, please refer to paragraph four for a complete explanation.

this is post number two of today. please read post number one by clicking here or reading it below.

he knows best

have you ever watched Harper on television, especially when he is addressing the camera? i haven't seen him in person, there's always been a sizable buffer between us, but i am sure he is quite similar. it almost seems like he's not quite comfortable in his own skin. a wiser man than i once said that he looks like he knows he's supposed to smile but doesn't now when smiling is supposed to happen. i think dad he is onto something there.

our tour guide yesterday had a similar style. matty turned to me part way through and asked if i could see any strings controlling her. i laughed and then stopped because that smile was directed at me. not in a please serve me a drink canadian bartender kind of way, more of a i've been waiting a while for a drink and i might eat your soul ... not give you a tip ... stare at you and make you feel uncomfortable if you don't come over here now kind of way. she did earn points though when she battled an american over the definition of filtered. in the end she was wrong, but it was the way she told the american that if he wanted to guide the tour he was more than welcome step into her shoes and go visit the jack daniels distillery and sip on inferior whiskey. in the end, like i said, filtered does not mean the same as diluted but as that wise man also once said to me

it does little good to prove yourself smarter because in the end you'll look quite stupid.

matty got to ring the old bell that tolled when lunch was to be eaten and bosses where avoided. having done this he was awarded the honor of tasting the difference between american whiskey (distilled once), scotch whiskey (distilled twice) and the wonderful magical irish whiskey (distilled thrice). there was a local guy about our age (on his fourth tour of Jameson) who faced off against matty for the challenge. he was there as part of his warm up exercises for work that evening. lucky for him his buddy was driving, which meant that he would get to his destination safely as well as enjoy the shot of whiskey that the driver would have consumed. that wise man would have had a few words for Irish Taster as well.

we ended the day with a pub crawl down main st. Midleton and caught a bus home. matt got food poisoning and has taken the day off work. lucky guy had a four day weekend; unlucky guy didn't sleep last night.

slainte!

the wonderful

so as much as buying un-gum made for a bad day, the rest of sweden had nothing to do with the negative. that particular day cannot be reprsented by the post i left on it, in fact that story is the only bad thing that happened and in all seriousness (oh my goodness, you know i am being serious now since i've made a point of saying it) it really wasn't all that negative anyways.

i imagine i intended it to be a humorous anticdote, which you likely understood and didn't need me to spell it out for you.

hmmm. I do believe that that is the case and next time I will give you, the reader, more credit and not have to walk you through my thoughts.

with that thought cleared up, lets move on to another one: the graduation.

i don't know about you, but i've been to a graduation or two. Four actually, and that's just the one's for myself where I somehow managed to convince the powers that be that I deserved credit from them for having attended.

The first was preschool where I majored in finger painting in all prime colours. I never used this degree in elementary school, but it did give me a chance to explore my creative side. I don't remember much of the ceremony and i think it was because my buddy ryan had slipped something into my bottle.

The second was from grade eight. I was awarded the "Most Christian-Like Student" award, or rather would have had someone remembered that it was an award and given it to me. I was given a nice envelope though, and in it was a nice certificate which looked nice on my wall.

The third was high school and the forth was university. Both big, welcome surprises.

The point is that the four ceremonies were very similar and traditional and exactly what you'd expect, or at least exactly what I would have expected a graduation to be because what happens at them is pretty much what happens at all grads everywhere. Parents come, teachers talk, awards are given, ties are worn, hats are tossed and photos are taken.

Standard, right?

So Victoria, our Swedish friend, has this little brother. His name is Christian and he is in a heavy metal band (which we went to see and who were rather good). The reason myself, matty, nolan, sara and chris packed up our bags and flew to Sweden for 5 days was because we were invited to the graduation.

Wow, I thought. "A graduation, how cool. I love those things", I said out loud to Matty, "all those people wearing nice clothes and giving speeches and throwing hats. But I don't have a tie to wear or an award to give. I suppose I could bring my award from elementary school and give it to her brother, but I don't think i'd have enough room in my carry-on for it."

"You're pretty dumb, and I don't think he'd get the joke" replied Matty "and I don't think you have to worry about the tie-to-wear bit because i asked Vic the very same thing and she told me not to worry about it because it's not that sort of ceremony."

He was right. Instead of square topped hats they had sailor caps and instead of speeches they had a parade. Instead of certificates they had a giant photo of themself as a baby and instead of parents taking photo's they had parents and family and friends and grandmothers and tourists taking photo's. On their sailor cap was written their name and year of graduation.

The parade wound it's way through the city centre and ended up in a park. As the graduates walked on by they were singing and jumping and bombarded by well wishers with hugs and kisses and gifts of roses and stuffed bears and tiny champagne bottles that hung round their necks on blue and yellow lanyards.

When the parade had disappeared round the corner momma and papa brodenson, victoria's parents, took off down the street parallel to the route, and not alone either. every other parent that had been near us was bustling along to get to the best spot to see their graduate again.

the parade gathered at it's end in a park where bustling parents and family and friends and tourists searched through the sea of Swedes for the big baby picture that their graduate was carrying. Christian was with the rest of his band sharing a laugh with his friends Sir Eric, second guitar in the band, and Spider Pig, a fellow Swedish graduate. I knew these where their names because this is what was stitched into their Sailor Cap along with 2008, the year of their graduation.

We went back to the Brodenson household afterward and ate sandwhich cake and juggled for the little cousins.

Christian enjoyed his "most Christian like student" award I gave him or rather he would have had I have given it to him not to mention had thought of it when I was in Sweden and not just now seated at my computer.

locked in

st valentines day i spent at work. which is fine because my mother/valentine is a world away. matty had a night on the town with our two new travel buddies, sarah and nolan. they went out to dinner someplace and and drinks at other places and came to visit me at the end of it all.

roy and i had an entertaining night. i wished all the regulars (men, mind you) a happy valintines day which, for the most part, they shrugged away any concern they might have had which was minimal to begin with. earlier that day at lunch i had wished the same to steve who said he'd give me a kiss later.

he didn't.

as the trio waited around for me to clean up slash decided between cards (matty has learned how to play euchre which really means he tries to play poker with every hand) and going out to a late bar. i suggested we stay at this late bar, not this in the sense that i was about to suggest a particular one but this as in immediately located under out feet. fifteen minutes later, when i had explained the concept of a lock-in* to the girls, i had finished cleaning and we sat down for a good three hours of deep conversation and eighties music. roy, myself, the trio and a new character, kevin (whom i have yet to talk about but might at some other occasion) liberated several pints from the taps and spent a wonderful valentines with the closest thing to a family i have this side of the atlantic because, as well all know, this day is all about family.

unfortunately, i had missed two calls from my valentine because the eighties were too loud and my phone was vibrating in a jacket too far away from me to be warn. she left some nice message though.

nolan spent most of the next day in a coma.

*lock-in: the bartenders kick everyone out save for their friends and the best regulars and the small party of people say "locked in" the pub until the large or at least medium sized morning hours.

serendipitous

last night we went on a musical pub crawl, which was awesome, and we found out a bout it from two girls from ten minutes outside paris, which is also awesome because not only will we have a place to stay in paris when we go we might also have some visitors to ontario too. they are pretty excited to speak to my four sisters who are fluent(ish) in french!

but enough about the girls, back to the story of the pub crawl. the group, about 40 tourists, gathered at a pub called oliver st johns something something, met our guides, a fiddler and guitar/drum/singer player, and set out around the city stopping at traditional irish pubs. well, we learned that the second pub we stopped at, and the pubs that followed, were traditional and the first one, olivanders (or whatever), was not at all. it is the kind of pub we (the tourist group) would find in our home countries. it seems that "traditional" irish pubs do not have fiddles on the walls, guinness posters on the walls or sells shirts that say the leprechauns made me do it.

at oliver's we got to chatting with a few of the folks with us, a couple from texas who wanted their picture taken and i was happy to oblige. another girl, who i was happy to realize soon into our conversation that she was from Mississauga and we had a common acquaintance from laurier brantford, a couple from a little town outside new mexico called Los Alamos of which he said, and i kid you not, "you might know us from when we bombed japan".

matt and i laughed for a good fifteen minutes about that. "who says that?" was all matty could say.

the crawl came to a close around 10:30 and then headed to another pub where some real trad music session was happening. it was great fun, grand as they say here.

today we had lunch with matt's dads bishop connection who paid for it all too. it was nice to speak with irish natives, and what's more he gave us some connections in Cork to call when we get there (which is set for monday). and of course, being as this is dublin, pop. 1.5 million, who shows up at the same second story restaurant at the same time as us?... but the texan couple from the night before! i went to their table, they hadn't seen us yet, and started speaking ... she looked up with the expression of a woman who was getting prepared to speak to a waiter ... i told her i'd be happy to take their picture again if they'd like.

we had a good chuckle over the whole situation, and then i wished them a happy lunch.

matt's party for tomorrow night is growing in numbers. the two kiwi's i met a day ago are coming, norm from edmonton, and jaka from italy ... the two french girls can't make it cause they travel tomorrow morning which is especially disappointing seeing as the one has the exact same birthday as matty - day and year!.

that's all for now, cheers!

--b

leaf tossing championships

last night matty and i had dinner at our BC friends house. her and another girl made us chicken and other vegetable stuff and we polished off two bottles of wine. we then toured out to a pub and found more canadians: a couple from Ottawa who are licensed chiropractors looking for work in that field, and another girl from Toronto who also is a chiropractor but not looking for work in that field. We all shared a pint or four and laughed over the pop culture game that was going on around us. Had we have known what the server had said when she came up to us offering the game for us to play we might have joined in, but as it turned out we hadn't a clue that what she had said was english so we politely declined and proceed to regret that decision soon after. it didn't seem as though the game was about answering the questions but rather who could have the funniest team name. we decided to go back again next week with a name prepared and a proper answer prepared for the server: yeathad be grand. the name we're toying with is "George Bush is our neighbour, not our leader; the kind of neighbour you'd though your leaves over the fence to".

it's a work in progress, and the other names shouldn't be recorded in any kind of blog.

before it got too late i had to get matty back to bed so he'd be up for work this morning. he got up, i didn't.

bearded

i carefully planned my shaving schedule to be at the threshold of "brad you should shave soon for work" and "hey, you look like a hip backpacker who leaves his troubles and shaving equipment at home". matty has a few pictures, i hope i was successful. unfortunately i had to go back to work, despite my desperate attempts to find away to survive without actually going to work or doing any actual calculations failed and my personal hygiene was called into question.

the beard had to go.

it was just getting to the nice comfortable bushy stage where the red was peaking through and the itch hadn't settled in. my reflection and i, after a long stare off which, after several tie breakers, had to be called a draw, ceremoniously shaved our beards together.

the week played through my mind as the beard was pulled off my face. i had to return to the pub, a reality with which i am avoiding another reality. a very funny feeling it is to return to a holiday from holiday, even though that holiday has lunches and mean ladies.

i remembered the little shops that populated every street. where the people sit at foggy tables with other people they may or may not know. the people and other people do is sit, not talking staring with blank faces at the television, coffee cups or walls, which ever is closer or clearer.

i remember the security guard at the airport who called me by name. however it wasn't until i was through the magic beeping doors that i realized he hadn't called me by a name of mine at all but mr gordon downie. i turned back to shout thank you at him but he was already enveloped in being cute with the next tourist in line. i felt honoured that he thought i resembled the lead singer of my favourite band, however i suppose it helped that i was wearing my only favourite sweater.

i remember other things too, but the time has run out.

(matty left for spain just now and he'll be back on the 23rd)

and introducing ...

... brad.

Hi Mom and Dad! and thank you mandy for letting me share this space with you. i don't know if i'll be able to be as witty with my writing as you are ... you're one heck of an act to follow: like hearing John Lennon sing Imagine followed by a live performance from Art Alexikas of Everclear.

perhaps that is a little esoteric. so, onward and upward.

Irlenad is quickly approaching, nearing the one week count down. Matt and I depart on Sept 17th to arrive in Dublin the morning of the 18th. I beleive our first act of buisness will be to find where in the world it is five o'clock and toast a Guinness to them.

Matt is the brains behind this opperation, has been a friend of mine for over four years and a roommate for three. I jokingly made a remark about my wanting to go to ireland after school back in Dec of '06, and when we came back from Christmas Holidays in January he asked how serious I was. Matty has been the one to get the ball rolling with the trip with his constant badgering (that I beleive has been fueled by his mother's constant badgering) and unrelenting drive to get to ireland to celebrate his birthday (on sept 21st). Thank you Matty, we'd still be in the planning stage if you didn't step up.

The realization hasn't completely set in that we are going to be in Dublin, Ireland within a fortnight, and I am told that it won't until the plane is in the air, but what has set in is excitment and fear, occasionally knocking me over for the dog to pee on me.

Unregardless, thanks for tuning in.

cheers,

--b

last night

my italian roommate, who had a party last night for his graduation, has photoshop on his computer and he's been nice enough to let me mop the floor and use his computer all afternoon. i am sure that if he was consious he would be apreciative of the floor having been mopped and my usage of the computer, however until he is revived i'll have to assume he would.

i'll bet he's dreaming of a way to get into our french roommates room without using the key that was lost last night at the party she wasn't at. here's hoping the landlord that doesn't know the italian graduate is living here doesn't mind giving us a new key for the room. although i'm sure he's dreaming of the pink dress he wore last night.

matty and i met our first neighbour last night, although the meeting would have been more enjoyable had it not been five in the morning, he not had his phone in his hand threatening to call the garda or had he have been sober.

there's an older man at the door, says an italian boy. he wants to know who's in charge. matt and i exchange looks and decide that it would be better for allan to deal with this one.

go wake up allan, says i. he'd know what to do. the italian boy stares blankly back with the expression of someone with enough apathy to leave out the back door, regardless of the dificulties that he might face, yet with enough empathy to continue staring at me until i decided that waking allan up, after him having been passed out for several hours, would not make for a well recieved conversation with the man at the door. fine, says i. i'll go talk with him.

i rounded the corner seperating the kitchen from the entrance and found several other italians speaking with the irish man whom at this time was holding his sober quite well. or prehaps, in hindsight, appeared more sober in his present company. somehow i convinced him not to call the guards and instead to tell me that he had a 14 year old daughter asleep inside and he had lived there for six years and some other things that i missed because i was holding back a question about him being as drunk as he was at five in the morning when he had a 14 year old daughter asleep inside. i was in the wrong, and so was the rest of the party i had with me, so we parted ways, him and i, likely never to ever speak again.

not a good first impression, perhaps i'll run into him again and have a better experience to tell about.

i did end with an appology to him and the house emptied quickly after he left. they all left for another house party a little ways away that didn't have daughters asleep next door. matty and i put the house back together and settled down to watch some march madness while we reminised about life at 141 and the craic we had. somethings never change.

Chinese Food

The thing about the thing is that recently I haven't been writing very much, about anything. And the thing about that is that I am really sorry.

Really.

I don't think i can apologize enough to make up for not having written anything in the past very long time. In fact, I am sure that if i was to apologize another time I would look a bit pathetic and desperate for your forgiveness; lord knows I don't want that.

So, I am sorry for looking pathetic and desperate.

So this one time, last night, we ordered Chinese. Matty picked it up on our walk back from the car which we had rented to drive around West Cork in yesterday. I know what you might be thinking and I assure you that the story that needs to be told involves the Chinese food and not the road trip and i'll do my best to make you understand that.

So on our road trip yesterday we sort of just drove around. Chris had a valid license so was the only one who could drive and therefore drove us all around all day. All of us included Matty, Jordan (new roommate from Brantford, Ontario) and myself. The four of us just drove around.

In saying that we had rented a car and just drove around I mean exactly that. You may think that

hey, you went to the trouble of taking a taxi out to the airport, filling out all the paper work with the lady at the desk only to find out that your license expired two months ago and you could no longer rent vehicles, let along drive them (only to know that the whole time you were hoping with all your heart to yourself the whole time the lady is filling out the paper work that she doesn't turn over the card and in the 100% chance that she will to look for the expiry date she will, somehow, have forgetton how to read dates written in numbers) and then have Chis step forward and put his license down and hope that she not realize that he wasn't over 25 and having gone through all that trouble perhaps you might have had a plan laid out for the day, a map with you or, at least, a lunch packed.

of course if you thought that you would be of perfectly sound mind and without the comprehension of the conversation that took place the night before.

IT went something like this:

chris: do you want another pint?
Bird: you know what, i'd like to rent a car tomorrow
Chris: me too.
Jordan: I'll have another pint
Matt: .... (he wasn't out because he was in bed because he was resting up to call in sick to work for his 11:30 shift at 10:30 because I was going to ask him to come along at 10:25. It was because he wasn't out that he had nothing to say.)

Now that you have a little idea of what our plans where you might have an idea how the day went; and if you picked "perfect" you would be absolutely right. With no plans made there were no plans to screw up. We saw more than what we set out to see (as we had set out to see nothing) and we had a better day than we would have watching the crap American television that Ireland gets for day time viewing (may I also note that we all get crap American television no matter where we are watching during the day, thus it is better to get out of the house and rent a car no matter where you are).

That night we got Chinese food from the place across the road from our house which I had never eaten at before. They give their food out in plastic reusable tubberware and not in those earth-hating styro-foam containers.

Now that, my friends, is news worthy material.

723 evergreen street

we have a house. five beds, €1500/ mth. we move in next friday.

not a moment too soon. hostel life is exhausting.

the really good news is i have two french roommates. they are cute [yeah] but with partners [boo]. the good news out of that is that they know french and are willing to share that knowledge in exchange four hour noledge ov inglesh. this should be grand.

matt the ozzy is our fifth. his name is matt. matt is an ozzy. he is our fifth roommate.

we think we will rechristen matty as Elliott. he is excited about that because he's called that at home. i made the obvious reference from Berg's E.T and it was the first time anyone had done that ... ever. and that is no joke. that's just how we role.

...

in other news i made a mail bag. i couldn't find one i liked aka didn't want to pay €65 for so i went to a sally anne and paid six euro for an old pair of pants, one euro for an old belt and another 4 euro for some sewing supplies. 15 man hours later and i have my self a mail bag. matty elliott thinks it lacks several things that make it a male bag - namely that everything about it lacks anything male. i said he was spelling it wrong. he said how could that be, we're having a conversation.

i like it and i think i am the most talent me there is. deal with it.

and the world spins madly on

nolan arrived a week ago and has a job and a house and a group of pubs we can all call home. she met a friend in dublin (sarah maloney) who turned out to be a friend of a girl matty and know from school. it also turned out she was in the same residence building as mandy when she was a first year don "are-eh".

small world.

last night we had our staff christmas party and everyone took the opportunity to wish to everyone many more times than was necessary a happy christmas. we had dinner at captian america's and they all commented how "american" it was which got me thinking how flashy everyone must think america is. i also noticed how the restaurant resembled a kelsie's or boston pizza's on steriods. then i realised that it really was a kelsie's or boston pizza's except that it had captian ameria comic books on all the walls, not sports parifanalia or old wooden cart wheels.

small world.

i finished jPod the other day. i'm going to read on the road now. jPod is written by a west coast canadian and it was great to read a story that used names of cities i new of and associated with home even though i have never been to any of them. on the road is written by an american who was born in montreal and is his story of traveling across america. at least i think it is. is it ironic that i travel to another continent and read authors from home?


and the small world spins madly on.

miss you all.

--(bb)b

sacred steps

we didn't actually have tea at the Frank's house, because it is a museum and they don't serve tea at museums.

finding it was a challenge. the kiwi's, as it turned out, don't do "getting lost" as well as matty and i. none of the streets were written in english and therefore were unpronounceable, meaning nothing to the lot of us. as tourist we were forever looking for that street that has a Vij in it or started with an L ... having evolved from the realization that following our favourite street, the one that ended straat, did us as much good as following Rue Street in Montreal.

then the house found us the day started looking good.

we spent several minutes in the antiroom reading an outline of the family, familiarizing ourselves a bit with the history and waiting for the tour guide to round the group up. fifteen minutes later we realized there was no tour guide, just a group of people who can't read the sign that says: please proceed on your self-guided tour.

What i was impressed with most was how sacred the place was to everyone there. Quotes from the diary of anne frank guided me through the house. Through them she stressed the danger her family was in, how trapped she felt within the walls and how important it was for all of them to remain absolutely silent during the day; the workers in the warehouse below were not aware of the family hiding and may have given them up to the Germans. No toliets or steps, no laughing or crying, no talking or chewing moving at all.

The house had three floors to be toured, a fourth, the attic, was sealed off. Save for a few whispers between tourists, the place was silent. As groups moved about it was clear just how difficult it must have been for this family. Above me i heard the every floorboard creak under every heel that passed. Everyone moved with such care, with a common understanding that something out of our grasp had happened here. Occasionally a blasphemous flash would disrupt the out focus and furrowed brows would assault the perpetrator. Very people took more than one photo, it just didn't feel right.

It was incredible to have walked through the place that once served as a safehouse for so many people.

Canada Day

a big old happy canada day everybody! i've been at work quite a bit lately, not mention getting ready for the arrival of my second guest. of course, few of you know that i, rather matty and i have had a first guest so perhaps i should explain that.

bid dan came to visit. there are more stories, that will be told in a day or so (and for salutmaman time that means perhaps a week, but likely longer) and you will enjoy them very much. he was with us for about five days i think.

moving onwards today is the day that mandy will be arriving in cork. Currently she is en route from Dublin where she landed earlier this morning and is likely to get in around half four. She msg'd me and said perhaps two-thirty but, if she's anything like the common sparro-

african or european?
shut up you. what does it even matter?
well, i'm not sure really. but i feel you should be specific about references you leave. do you think anyone really got that one from 1993 you left in the last post?

right so. if she's anything like the common sparrow she'd never be able to carry her luggage that far and in the time needed to make the ten o'clock bus to Cork. The one at noon would work much better with her schedule.

you mean to tell me she's going to carry her luggage with her talons all the way fr-
don't you have a "best of monty python" to be filming?
was that today?

happy canada day everyone!

point and check

today my sweater the sweater smells of camp fires and longs nights on porches with memebers of staff and their roommates and matty and big angry brothers of staff who are unimpressed with the levels of noises at four in the morning when they have to work at six. but i don't mind, because it and me gives it character.

wednesday i was a bit bummed and i had nothing to do other than walk to work. my walk to work is a quiet twelve and a half or thirteen minute walk, depending on lights and determination, from my house. i bob my head from side to side, counting the steps and looking at the series of clocks along the way providing check points for my journy. none of them say the correct time, nor do they keep the same time, nor am i sure that all of them are clocks; most importantly, though, is that very rarely are any of them people with which i can chat. thus, a quiet walk.

i was bummed because i was bummed and i was quiet because the clocks weren't talking. but today the ones that weren't clocks were people and they did talk. i ran into milo, whom you haven't met but may hear about him again; and i ran into my bc friend who gave me a hug and a promise of a story that gave here licence to be loud in the plaza we were standing in involving rips and embearassment and hours and halfs that elapsed before strangers told her of it;
and i ran into mitch and his partner (a girl) who were on their way back from the grocery store. i spoke at length with each of them and never once said i had to walk away and get to work, except to ang who invited me along with her roommate to salsa lessons, and to milo who was out with fifteen of his closest friends, and to mitch who had walked across the road with me but not his partner because traffic was being traffic and we were paying less attention.

my clocks that where people checked my points and adjusted my direction and while i didn't know the time i now knew where i was going. at work i was no longer bummed and felt less like a slug and more like a feather.

[you haven't met mitch either but you might hear more of him later too. he started as the new ahmed last week because the old ahmed left for dublin. mitch and his partner are kiwi's.]