Keeping Busy

Don’t feel like blogging right now but let’s see what comes out of it anyways πŸ˜‰
Just a small recap about the weekend and other things interesting enough to be worth writing down.
Friday after work I picked up my friend Anke from the airport and we spent a nice night chatting. Felt like a girly sleep-over. πŸ™‚ Of course Saturday we did touristy things. I made her look at the Book of Kells with me but it was much better than I had anticipated. Well made presentation of how they created the book and then of course the old library of Trinity College was really impressive. Reminded me of Harry Potter.
Afterwards we grabbed some lunch and coffee from Starbucks. Well, we had wanted to go to the park and eat it on a bench but it started raining (this is Ireland afterall) so we settled for standing in front of a pub with a smoking awning. Later we continued our tourist tour and walked along the regular places like the castle, Ha’Penny Bridge, Christ Church Cathedral… until we had dinner at Shan Indian Restaurant. The Chicken Tikka Masala and especially the Channa Masala (chickpeas) was gorgeous and of course we had to have a Mango Lassi, too. Yum! I much prefer this Britainized food to most authentic Indian. Or was that authentic, too and just from a different region?! Who knows!
Sunday we went shopping at Dundrum Town Centre, one of Europe’s best malls aparently. The tram ride there was fun and my was that mall nice! Great stores and both Anke and I got some tops and a belt. Clothes are the only thing that’s not super expensive here really. We actually spent about 3 or 4 hours there and after sitting down at Starbucks (again!) we headed back to the city centre, got some souvenirs and then went home.
Had a lovely dinner of penne with tomatoes and bell pepper after I had nearly gotten a heart attack because I thought we had loads of food for dinner but didn’t. Well thankfully Anke was fine with just pasta and veggies without sauce. We then just hung out on the sofa, watched Pride and Prejudiceand drank our cider/shandy. Great weekend!

The week has been fine so far. I got a new project at work that I was working on late today. Was sitting around much of the afternoon but then of course had to do that around 4:30 then and wound up staying there with my boss until 6:30. Ah not too bad but I don’t like working over-time when you were free all afternoon really.

Tomorrow is only half a day for me (hopefully) and then I’ll pack my suitcase and Thursday at the crack of dawn I’ll fly home for 4 days. Yay! Not looking forward to riding the train up to my home town from Frankfurt as I’m sure it’ll be packed. I couldn’t even get a reservation when I booked my ticket for it. :-/

One of my professors finally emailed me about grading my thesis. Yay! I think I might have the other one’s email about that somewhere in my outlook from last year so hopefully they’ll accept that, too, and don’t want a recent one…. I set back the counter to August 15th because of that whole email issue but either way I want to hand it in end June/beginning July depending on when I’m allowed to (you have to be signed up for it for at least 6 weeks).

Ah well, for not feeling like blogging I don’t think it turned out too bad now, did it? My nail polish on my toenails is dry now so I’ll hop into my bed and read The Devil Wears Prada.for a bit. Really enjoying that book.
Smoochie my dears! :-*

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St. Patty’s in Ireland

Thank you St. Patrick for doing whatever you did (I think bring Christianity to the Irish?) because we had a fabulous celebration in your honor on Saturday and the day off today!
After a some beer at the pub here on Friday, Rich and I got up early (uargh) and went to the city centre to secure a halfway decent spot for watching the parade. We found a really good one because we were able to look at a really hot guarda (police man) the entire time. Rrrrr! πŸ˜€ The costumes in the parade were really spectacular and the weather stayed dry for the most parts (of course not the entire parade but this is Ireland afterall).
After all that standing around we were kind of hungry and wanted to sit for a while so we searched for some not ΓΌber-crowded restaurant and landed at this Italian place. Food was good and we had a good time even though the waitress kept pushing me in the back to get through the chairs. Hmpf! When we were about to leave, I ran into my co-worker Andreina, which was totally funny. A quick chat with her and her husband and then we were off to the pub.
The atmosphere was awesome, as Ireland had just won a rugby match against Italy and the blokes were fun and I got loads of kisses from Irish guys as it’s supposed to be on St. Patty’s. Only on the cheeks of course! πŸ™‚ Met some weird American guys and since they gave me such a weird gut feeling we soon left and went to the pub next door where we met up with my other co-worker Anna. She was there with a crowd of people and we hung out there for a while, while enjoying some more Irish beer.
From there we walked arond the city for a while – in the rain of course. Then had some McDonalds (I’ve eaten sooo much McDonald’s these past two weeks, it’s not even funny anymore). Walked to yet another pub for yet another glass of Guinness and then took the bus home. Long day! But oh so much fun!
I have to say, Dublin really grew on me this past weekend. The pub culture is so nice and people are super approachable and easy going – sooo totally not German.

In other news…
some funny coincidences from this week:
– I was emailing with someone at another affiliate and she passed my email on to someone called Charlotte Mecklenburgh. Are you kidding me?! #1
– I was flipping through the program of the Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade and something cought my eye. On second glance it turned out that the marching band of Charlotte Catholic High (from Charlotte, NC) played in the parade here in Dublin. Are you kidding me?! #2
– I received an email from my ex in Charlotte this weekend, which in itself is super rare. Later that same day, we enter a restaurant and the first waiter we see is called – you guessed it – Massimo. Are you kidding me?! #3

That phone interview the other day aparently wasn’t as bad as I had thought it was and they wanted me to fly out to Germany for a real interview next week. Well, thankfully after they realized how much the flights are ~700€ since it’s such short notice they’re just gonna invite me to the assessment center next month. Very happy about that as it would have been super stressful with flying out at 6am and getting back at 11pm and having my family over the next day. So yay lucky me! Though it would have been 4000 frequent flyer miles and a chance to stock up on cheap groceries ;-).

Your favorite travel bug has also booked some cheap tickets to fly to London, England in May. I’m so excited! Gotta love Ryan Air’s deals. I’m paying 25€ for the tickets plus 5€ for paying with credit card and then 12€ for checking in a bag. And that’s to Gatwick and not some far away airport! Weheeee! Now I just have to book a hostel bed (oh yeah I’m still young for another 3 months so I might as well behave like it!). Have never been in the city, just at its airports so I’m really excited to see it! Woohooo! πŸ™‚

My friend Rich left this morning and I did today was relaxing, reading, watching Sex and the City and more relaxing and just enjoying some privacy and space. Had meant to get going on these loads of laundry and cleaning everything up here but oh well. Tomorrow’s another day. Plus I was too gready to pay the 3€ for washing and then 3€ for drying. Eh! This country is so ridiculously expensive!

Oh yeah, yesterday we had meant to go to the shore but it started to snow storm and so we didn’t really feel like doing that anymore. Went to town instead and wanted to walk around some museum (cause it’s what you do when you’re a tourist and it’s raining) but after seaking refuge from the snow storm at Burger King (I refused to go to McDonalds again) and a book store it was too late. Instead we found a great Asian store and I was able to pick up some cool things that can go into my lunch box. Ha! Yay! Good dinner at home then and then just some chatting and Rich packed his suitcase.

Hope you all have a great week!

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Sneaky

Had a dream about one of the exes last night. He was really sweaty for some reason (hmm might come from watching that Sex and the City episode where Harry’s sweat drops onto Charlotte’s divorce contract). Funny how they sneak into your dreams every once in a while. I guess they just leave footprints and become part of who you are at present.

In other news, am super busy at work at the moment so all Rich and I did last night was drink some wine at home while eating super hot red thai curry. Not buying that sauce again. πŸ˜€

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