Family, Friends, Germany, Professional Life

The Party

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Last night was Jenny’s birthday party and it was lots of fun. I don’t know why I woke up this early today… Nice food, nice people, nice music (Dirty Dancing soundtrack ;-)), and we got to one of her guests to pull his shirt up and show us his nipple piercing. Looked painful to me and can you imagine having something rip at it like a sweater when you pull it off. Au!
I got some gifts from my friends, too, an IQ training book seeing that I’m getting old (though thankfully I answered their sample questions correctly *phhhhh* and a book on how to get a job in the US (let’s see if that’s useful), a sunflower, a mug, and body lotion. Nice. 🙂

Oh I also had lunch with my dad and that was alright, too. Nothing exciting. We were at his pub and I don’t really like meeting him there as I always kind of feel in the spotlight with his girlfriend working there and not many guests around. But of course it was nice to see them again and he’s funded my health insurance for this month and the next so yay!

Oh and my birthday itself! 4 of my grandparents (one grandma couldn’t make it) came over for coffee and cake and it was same old same old. The cakes were super yummy but the stories as boring as ever but at least we managed to go without war memories for 1.5 hours. That might a new record! 🙂 Later we had dinner and that was nicer with real conversation. Haha. 🙂 But overall it was a nice day and it was good to see my mom’s parents again after all these months.

Well, the plan for today is to get my German resume up to date and improved (I’m thinking of doing it anti-chronical now seeing that my last company is much more known than my first company). I got my letters of reference scanned at an old friend’s house yesterday and I guess the German job-hunt can begin. Gotta see what’s out there. Later my friends want to go out again to some bar/club here so I might just have to take a nap before that. I’m getting old! 😉

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Friends, Ireland, student

Final Countdown

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Well, one more day until I leave Ireland! Precisely 27 hours if my plane takes of as scheduled. I’m busy packing and cleaning. Trying to eat all my food but with still 3 glasses of Indian and Thai curry sauces in my press (there’s another Irish word for ya, “press”=”cupboard”) it’s not gonna happen. I hope my roomies’ll like them ;-).
On Tuesday I actually cooked one of them for Daniela, a German girl I had met via xing and we’d been out to the pub once with her boyfriend who had to work late on Tuesday though. She brought along choclate pudding and wine and we had a lovely night eating chicken rhogan josh at my apartment.
One suitcase is packed, the other is half full. I’m still debating what to do with my carry-on. I had three pieces when I got here: laptop, purse, backpack. Aparently you can only bring one and strictly only one aboard now. They were giving me a pretty bad time in London when I had a connection there in April and made me stick my purse in my backpack (and there was no lappy with me then). Not sure how strickt they are in Copenhagen – I know I’d be fine in Dublin but not sure if I want to risk it. I might just only bring lappy and a purse along or maybe lappy and the backpack?! I have another Guinness glass, mug and a vase that I don’t want to possibly break in my suitcase but hmmm maybe if I just wrap them up really well?! Well, I still have 27 hours to decide ;-).
My last day at the office starts in 45 minutes. I don’t think we’ll do anything special. 5 or 6 of our 10 people are out of the office anyways. I got them 3 huge Milka chocolate bars at Fraport last week so hopefully they’ll appreciate that and we can have a chocolate feast. Muahaha! 😀

Oh PS: My Mom just called to tell me I’ve got mail – from my university – and I finally got signed up for my thesis. Took them about a month to make it happen. So now I have until August 31st and the ealiest I can hand it in is July 15th. Yay, finally, I can see the end.

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Boys, Culture, Friends, Germany, Travel

I Love Germany

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Being back in Germany was so exciting! Everything was in this luscious spring green and the temperatures were much higher than in Ireland. Ok so when I landed in Frankfurt the clouds were hanging so low they were touching the trees in little cloudstrings and people don’t say sorry when they bump into you but they do try not to run you over unlike people on sidewalks here in Ireland. 😉 Having made it to the central station in Frankfurt, my mouth almost dropped because lunch rolls/bagels etc. cost about half of what they are here. I hadn’t been able to get a reservation for the train seeing that it was a holiday and probably booked out months earlier but I was lucky enough to get a tiny seat even though coach 7 (the one without reservations) wasn’t there. I had a group of fathers on their way to Berlin for father’s day sitting around me and they happily offered to share their beer and sausages with me and we chatted all the way to my town. And they were German! Nice! That was actually the second time I got free beer on the train – seems like Germans aren’t as unfriendly as I always always make us out to be.
So I got home fine and on time(!) and I relaxed a bit at my parents’ house and then my step-dad and I visited my Grand-Ma who was in hospital (she’s fine and back home now). We came back and cooked a delicious dinner of porkroast, asparagus and potatoes. Yum!
Friday I took the train to Hanover for the wood working trade show Ligna. I met up with my friend and we walked around for a bit until he had to take care of some customers. So I explored a bit more myself, looked at some artsy things made from wood, had some lunch and watched timber sports. I definitely need to remember the Ligna fair as a great place to find guys, there were maybe 20 women in total that I saw (other than the hostesses of course). 😉 Anyways, met up with my friend again and talked to a couple of his bosses and then we headed to Bad Nenndorf where their hotel was. Hung out for a bit and then went out to eat some weird Italian food for dinner. It was supposed to be Spaghetti Carbonara but was more like Spaghetti with half-raw eggs. The pizza was yummy though.
Saturday I slept in and then we headed to Hannover, checked my friend in his new hotel and then started looking for some breakfast/lunch at 2pm. Luckily there was an Alex right outside the hotel. We were too late for breakfast (wahh) but lunch was fine, too. We walked around the city for a bit but the stores were so hot and I was feeling kind of weak from the weatherchange and lack of sleep so we headed back quite soon. Hung out a bit more and then Massimo drove me home where we had a quick dinner and I gave him a tiny tour of my city. Had a cup of wine with my parents and then I just fell asleep like a stone. So tired!
Sunday I slept in a bit and then packed my bags and tried to sort through some of my things. I don’t know why, but every time I come back from a trip, my closet is still full. A pile of mail is also awaiting me and I don’t even know where I’m supposed to put all my things. Arg! I go through my clothes every time I come back from somewhere and still no space! I’m at a point where I don’t want to give away any more of my things because I’m only left with the ones I like. Ebay…. big bag full of Beany Babies, books, CDs,…
My Mom made a rhubarb cake for me (yay!) and we sat on the porch in 26C sunshine and ate it with whipped cream. Oh so nice! I just caught my train in time (they closed the Autobahn and the cars were blocking the city) and this time coach 7 was there and I got a seat all the way to Frankfurt. Got into the S-Bahn (commuter train) and some British guy sitting opposite of me asked me if it was the one to the airport. I said yeah and we chatted for a bit. So we get to the airport and he asks me to show him Terminal 2 and bla. Then he’s like can I give you my card and nice girl that I am I of course say yeah. Well, he doesn’t hand it over, he sticks it into the backpocket of my jeans. Yikes! Weirdo. Also very nice that it’s one of those free to print out cards and looks really weird. Well, ego boost nonetheless. 😉
Made it back to Dublin and now I’m working working working. Seems like my to-do list is getting longer by the minute.
So overall, I had a lovely weekend and had a great time with my friend. We still get along super great even though he’s not the nice, good guy he used to be anymore. Talk about Americanization!

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Boys, Friends, Ireland, Professional Life, Travel

Keeping Busy

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Don’t feel like blogging right now but let’s see what comes out of it anyways 😉
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. 🙂 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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