From Galway to a college celebration - what craic;)

Am happy to say have just gotten back from a musical society choir that I think I can keep a permanent position in - hooray! We're going to be competing in a choir show-down thing in New Ross (a few counties south)in a few weeks, hopefully taking one big bus down and dominating the highway with song. =) There's a big map of the world on the rehearsal room wall and someone's stuck a sort of penpal profile on Australia. It looks so brave and independent a country if I ever did see one.


Last weekend I caught a pretty snazzy but packed train over to Galway to stay with my friend Aisling; who of all things lives next to a castle ruin. We went trekking through the paddocks around it and for my exploration I was rewarded a lovely deep cow pat underfoot, having been distracted by a manic swan having a fit on the lake. +( My poor cons are certainly on their way to heaven by now..
I was treated to an extreme weekend of 'the irish like to turn in late then get up and have lunch at 3pm', getting ample opportunity to sample Gaelic nightlife, and even getting an aussie song (Men at Work's 'land down under') played for my honour by Aisling's boyfriend's pub band. !
In the time we weren't up and out about, I found myself scrapping about on a spare guitar they had, and ended up being able to take one back with me *awesome* -so now my new project is teaching self to play it! Felt like a real indie musician carting it back on the train, with me, then waiting alongside it for the bus in the city. Hoping not too many people would notice the fact it only had 1 string ;)


Up to more current events; who says uni balls are not for au pairs? Thanks to host aunt working at the uni and generously deciding to do some ticket scouring, I scored tix to the '09 University College Dublin ball/ rock concert on friday!! Went and helped the student council guys set up in the morning, doing odd things like arranging fruit bowls in the artists' rooms (including S Club 7) and trying to make triangle formations out of coronas. Come the night and the grey clouds loom threateningly overhead. The whole venue is an open carpark, so when it starts to rain, typically irishly, the party rebells on, and my au pair friend Bianca and I give our best scoffs at the people seeking comfort in their hoodies as we let drenched-wet hair propel around us and threaten to take out any irish youth in our dance jam. Bring on the rainstorm!!

A rock'n roll Easter

Happy Easter guys!! I've got some aussie chocolate! It's comfortingly good to taste aussie chocolate again. My mum brought over a few little things of chocolatey goodness with her when she came last week and I'm doing a pretty good effort with pacing their consumption. It's not that Irish chocolate's any worse, it's just a lot creamier; like their cows are not self-conscious about their fat percentage or something.

So, Mum and I have been up north for a week, doing the whole road trip in a rent-a-car thing, this time with no snow and an aussie flag fluttering on top of the car instead to announce our arrival. I learnt my lesson big time last trip when I tried to blog it, so am sticking with a simple album for this one.



http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&id=848515383#/album.php?aid=244125&id=848515383&ref=mf

Can't view it? Get facebook! :P

The host family had been away at grandad's farm across the country so I've been house-sitting with the cousins' dog. She's a beautiful black fluffy something like a border collie and great with the kids. I decided to take her and me for a jog on the weekend. Seeing as Irish suburban backyards are so massive and all.. Once we're off on the streets runnig I start to notice all those 'You must clean up after your dog' signs that have become regular background viewing here. Of course I didnt have a dog up til now.. and now I have no pooper scooper, no bag, and definitely no will to actually do the scooping. So whenever poor cooped-up dog crouched on any patch of lawn, I would cringingly turn a blind eye and keep sprinting. Sorry dog, but I can't wait for you! I have no idea how many trails we left behind, but apparently the fines are something like 500 euros (a grand in dollars) if you're super unlucky - yikes!

Yesterday I was at an easter brunch (in Ireland, an organised brunch is regularly scheduled after midday) with the extended family, all pleasantly chatting away and being entertained by the toddlers' antics, when some lolling un-self-conscious singing starts up at irregular intervals. Everyone's exchanging baffled looks when a head pokes up over the ivy-laced wall, looking like a red-headed Bono and sounding like Bill Nighy. "Scuse me, scuse me," he says, "could i ask a question". He wants to 'borrow' a bottle of gin. "Scuse me, could i talk to the owner 'ere?" he says when the bottle has disappeared. "D'you mind if i join you all 'ere for a bit?" Well we all raise our eyebrows but this is all part of good craic it seems! "This is soo rock'n'roll!" One of the guests whispers. Over he comes unstably over the back fence, holding hostess's gin bottle in hand. My gawd he does remind me of Bill Nighy. The rock'n'roll swagger, the gawdy rings, the rolling accent. Someone explains to me that a member of the Irish band The Pogues lives next door, but no-one knows who the hell this guy is. Some random guest. He gets us to put on his Pogues cd he's carrying and casually sings along to the thumping old folk music now heaving from the living room inside. He keeps mentioning his Pogues buddy, who I gathered was still sleeping next door. This is so awesomely random. The kids and the dog didn't really think so though.

Hunt for the Musical Society..and the ones that didn't get in

Is it really so much to ask for a musical society that is 1. Not 1.5 hours away via public transport, 2. Not just about to perform a production, and 3. Providing its contact details ANYWHERE on the internet?? Evidently so. But I've just emailed another 5 in the last evening, after combing the regional list yet again, so if nothing comes of that, then I deem the luck of the Irish a myth.

This week after one au pairing afternoon of getting my hair brushed (or technically yanked) profusely and dressed up to be the bride Sophie off Mamma Mia, I trekked out to one of these societies that IS 1.5 hours away. What was I thinking... Was I thinking?! The call for chorus members of their just-starting-rehearsals Pirates of Penzance production was too magnetising. Just imagine! I would have got there earlier if for starters I had checked the map an turned down the right street.. then there was the DART train to way up the coast, then waiting to change DART trains, then DARTing a bit more, then walking to music hall, then going around and trying other entrance; all in all 1.5 hours. Oyoyoy!
Such a grand adventure though, and arriving at a warm jovial musical society who seemed quite overwhelmed that this girl had not only come from across the globe to the rehearsal, but an extra 1.5 hours north. Talk about deserved brownie points.


On a completely different note (now that was a very stubborn pun), when I left the house after lunch my ears were immediately bombarded with a very flat, very loud, rendition of Amazing Grace hollering out from what I could only guess was the next few doors down. It was clear, it was confident, and it was certainly sung with oomph. And suspicions of alcoholic consumption. I passed door after door and still it was up ahead. When I got to the corner I was amazed to find how far away the origin actually was. The large old man with even larger lungs was sitting at the bus stop, at the very end of the street and across the road, lolling placidly on his seat, belting out this anthem to the whole neighbourhood. The bus stop was right in front of a retirement home and he seemed suspiciously like a celebrating escapee of the place.
Maybe he's considering founding an Elderly Peoples Musical Society, and believes in active advertising.

Brendan Gleeson and the Black Smudge Wednesday

Lent has now started in the household, following a domestic banquet of pancakes the night before. And I have already managed to forget about both the no-meat-today and my no-chocolate-for-Lent attempt. The cafe serving the chicken fajita and the hot chocolate made no attempts at reminding me, so I happened to carry on as usual. Trialling this Lent business and giving up chocolate for it may be looking defeat in the face, but I'm interested as to how far this chocoholic can go. Or how far she is driven without her weapon of choice. .
(O gawd I am reduced to non-mocha coffees for the next month)
Now not being a Catholic myself I wasn't really prepared for any of the rituals around it. So when the elderly lady at the girls' montessouri school came into the classroom this morning with a large black smudge all over her forehead I honestly and naturally thought she had had an early-morning battle with the car tyre, and was sympathetically drawn to telling her she had a little somthing right there on her face. Oh so glad I didn't..! Then when the middle-aged man I walked past on my way to the DART station had one too, for some reason it didn't yet click that maaybe car tyres weren't the culprits here. . It wasn't til a lady running past me at the same time as a dog-walker walking and they both were bedecked with the smudge, that a penny dropped. It was Ash Wednesday and I was in a bloomin Catholic nation!
So well done on the intellect there.
Then I added my own black smudge this evening. No, not to the forehead, but to the cooking pan. Somwwhere in the midst of cooking kids dinner and my own, I forgot to check the water steaming my vegies. It signalled its death by a slight burning smell and I found a stubborn little black bath ring around the pan. Meh. Kind of like last week when I stepped in my own Marmite drippings and successfully trod it throughout the house. Not the easiest thing to get off your con sole.

Now for some celebrity bites. Host mum and dad and I got tickets to the closing gala of the Dublin International Film Festival (lesson learnt: enter newspaper comps!), which was to show the compelling animation The Secret of Kells, with Brendan Gleeson as one of the main voices. A tad too many people in the foyer to get a decent clear photo, but there's him side-on on the red carpet! Was an awesome atmosphere to the place and wouldn't mind another one.

Just so happens the day before I had signed up at a movie extras registration/ photoshoot which may be carting the lucky of us all over Dublin county to be yelled at by some old artisty breed with pipe and tweed cap. Whatever happens. I have 11 months left here and am still pushing to opportunitise it all ;)

Let the journey BEGIN! Part 6

Last entry for severe week-hopping, I swear! Right now I am a little nervous thinking about tomorrow, as I did something either very brave or just extremely foolhardy and signed myself up for joining the Irish movie extras and they're coming through town tomorrow to do photoshoots..! I walked through the city for the good part of the afternoon looking for a clothes brush - brought souvenirs of my cats with me it seems - which I probably could have done without, but you know once you start a mission..

Yesterday was a bit of a drizzle so I ventured off and matched the weather by visiting the Kilmainham Jail. Very good absorbing tour that takes you through the old sections that once celled all the leaders of the 1916 Irish rebellion down the streets of Dublin. 90% of them were executed there too. There were some parts of the museum I found myself wandering that were absolutely deserted, which really helped with the eerieness. Probably my favourite touristry stop so far. Though getting a bus back to the city centre proved interesting. At least I can say the trekking of western Dublin is done. What is with 'set down only' stops positioned exactly when you need a pick up one!

Luckily I got back in time, cos.. we going out tonight! Host aunt took me to the Uni's musical of Guys and Dolls, :D v. fun, and we did some mingling with some of her colleagues and the young students. One of them I was talking to at interval said he was really enjoying it but please excuse him, he's off to the bar now..

Sunday, 25th January: Cootehill - Dublin

Even before the sun had woken up, the day was keen to show us what it could do, and when we looked out the window.. snow! The car had been covered in a full on layer of it too and I was teetering round it questioning the grip of my shoes.

This forboding-looking beaut of a stonework we came across in the morning wasn't going to let us in that easily.

The big historical site of today was Monasterboise, which is a monastic centre; or as Grandma misheard, a spastic centre. Yes, this is where they sent all the 'special' monks. To read and quill at their own pace.

Later on, one of the castles on the Grandad's Tour list (Slane Castle, I believe) had some kind of 'castle not open today' sign on the archway. But seeing as there was no physical obstruction barring our way we figured why not just drive down the very long foresty lane and have a look. On the other side of the forest there were lots of car at the front of the castle, and it was when I noticed the ribbons running down a few of the classy old ones that I thought 'oh crap, we're gonna end up interrupting a wedding here'.. But no, all was good and the wedding continued on peacefully inside while we scouted the area taking photos.

After a final afternoon of countryside vehicular gallivanting, we hit the urbans of Dublin in the evening and went out for a final dinner all together before I officially started being an au pair. This particular restaurant has awesome beef and guinness pie, and the three little scoops there disguising as ice-cream are the tayties!

Let the journey BEGIN! Part 5

Ok! Let's wrap up this Around-Ireland travel week and reach the present day! Today host mum, host grandma, the girls and I took a trip to the zoo, unlike most people on an irish february day. Hint taken: I must try doing all the tourist stuff while it's still cold! Most of the animals were quite unwilling to go outside of their shelters so I hate to think how they handled the snow. But I did discover that a bongo is an antelope-looking creature, not just an exotic percussion instrument. Over the weekend it was finally happy enough weather to do my bus tour around Dublin. It came with an entertaining commentator who made neverending jokes about his mother-in-law, and if you sat uptop in the open air, a complimentary new hairstyle.

Saturday, 24th January: Galway - Cootehill

Fresh out of our B&B in Galway, with another chat-up incident I won't divulge in, we warmed up the cameras with a castle site and frosted-over playground in town. Today the rent-a-car and its aussies were heading north-east back over the midlands.

A few pics along a quay of the river through Galway: I was paying careful attention not to fall in and icicle-ize!

Late morning we reached county Offaly and its monastery of Clonmacnoise. Across the road from the visitors' centre Clonmacnoise Castle sat teetering on the edge of its hill, and I really wished the property wasn't prohibited. :( Or maybe I should've gone for it anyway..

Mm, gallivanting through a wonky castle

Clonmacnoise, historic monastery of St Cieran (actually pronounced Ki-rOn), was being infiltrated with young schoolgirls on a school excursion today, so it was a very busy place, though I'm not sure all of them wanted to be there. Nevertheless, Grandma decided to make the most of the herded tour and join on the end of the school group to hear all about St Cieran.

Grandad comforts the distraught pilgrim.

Buff celtic women. The female toilet door sign:!

Let the journey BEGIN! Part 4

Today Jen reccommends everyone go see He's Just Not That Into You, either for a great viewing or to actually learn something. Who knows, you may even be inspired as Jen was to do something a little out of the box and publicly attempt those dance machines where you jump on the arrows to get points. By yourself. But a word to the wise, don't over-pay the machine in euros then have to go ask for a hopeful refund. I think I got one better though. I made the ice-cream man laugh at me and the general manager said I could have a free ice cream as a refund for the dance machine. (Then the ice-cream man tells me he's gonna go use my machine credit to do the dance machine..!) So there I am, walking down the winter streets of Dublin, wearing coat, hat and scarf, and eating ice-cream. Crazy foreigners indeed. But it wasn't just any ice-cream. It was a full-on sundae, with a chocolate flavour called Phish Food that had little chocolate fishies throughout it.
I was missing Brisbane a little yesterday, and the ease of familiar young company. It takes effort to be a full-time random!
With regards to recent au pairing, we had great success this week, with me having first experience of showering/ washing hair of the little girls. Shampoo + little girls usually = lots of screaming and tears. Somehow I convinved them that the shampoo was 'magic dust' though, and as long as they were covering the whole shower glass with the stuff, they seemed content to let me lather them up as well. Woohoo - Mary Poppins point!
Man, I'm looking forward to when the antics of 1st travel week are all blogged up and I don't have to keep confusing everyone with extreme date-skipping.

Friday, 23rd January: Limerick - Galway

Our early morn drive through Limerick with Grandad's courageous and go-for-it driving attitude. We missed our turnoff at the roundabout so were just starting to do a bit of a National Lampoon and go around it again, maybe not completely in the lines though.. . Then there come the 2 policeppl. 'Are yew aware of the traffic offairnses you're committin?' we got. Then comes the gush about being Australian and an innocent naivety about the roads. The policelady exclaims, and calls over her collegue. 'They're Australian!' Colleague happens to be an Irishman obsessed with Australia and has applied to work in the perth policeforce. Score!

After leaving Limerick in all its morning glory, we first stopped off at Bunratty Castle, with a theatrical murder of crows to greet us. Quick visit to the Blarney Wool Mills to end up picking some fragments of the Blarney Stone (well we can only believe). A little further on, more castles abound, including a particular stubborn snob of a horse who refused to respond to my equine paparrazzi attentions. Fine, filly.

One of the big sites of the day, albeit the whole trip, was a visit to the beautiful wild and raw Cliffs of Moher. This is real raw western Eire here, on the very brink of lashing Atlantic sea spirit. O MAN the WIND! Scarlett O'Hara would certainly be gone here. Check out the spray leaping up from the cliff base.

At the tourist office each little window of a room poked out from its seat wedged deep in the hillside. Pretty cool. And of course there was gaelic on all the signs to try pronouncing.

Voila couple of random arty shots of another castle location. Heeh, had enough yet?!

Too bad!, cos here we are at a castle I can't remember the name of, but with outstanding regal presence. I keep taking way too many photos, so if you think this is photographic overkill already, bear in mind this has been culled like 90%..

And besides, how can you have too many castles?

Continuation of graveyards, historical homesteads and road signs in awesome natural light.

Arriving at the Cathair Chonaill stone fort (which was closed for the winter) we found this little bit of Irish optimism.

Pretty much just across the road though was Poulnabrone, the Tomb of the Burren, dated back to the new stone age. Not only was there a mini version of Stonehenge here, there was also a precariously sitting rock, and a nifty run of stone wall that cast dappled light through its gaps.

Too many signs!

Searching for our next historical sighting, Glenlo Abbey, we completely missed it, as it was a very un-historically-ruined currently running hotel. I was quite taken with the old black wrought-iron gate and its close knit neighbours of ivy. Wouldn't anyone??

In Galway city! Wandering through the cobble-stoned mall feeling very cultured by influence. For dinner we went to Monroe's Tavern, where my Irish friend Aisling worked before the good old Brisbane Irish Club days. Great beef and guinness pie!

On return to the church carpark where our little rent-a-car sat, we discovered, as the lady who was approaching us had moments ago, that the carpark closes at 7pm and we were trapped. And it cost 20 euros to get out!! All 4 of us had to wait for the clamping police to come. We watched as he seemingly made her pay the fine to get out. When he gets to us, we gush once more about being Australian, being told to park here, (which we were) and having no idea about the curfew. He gives us an exascerbated Aaagh, and a flick of the hand and we take that for a let-off. Woohoo!