Friday night at the races

Well folks, that’s one weekend down, another five to go. Actually its six, but that sixth weekend I’ll be in the plane making my way home, so really, its only five more weekends left here in Ireland. 

Friday night I went to the dog races. It was an event that was organised by work, all paid for by the company, for all departments. I wasn’t too keen at first, because I told Paddy it was mean, and I am one person that is ALL for the dogs. Everyone assured me that it is fine, that the dogs really enjoy running and it is a lot of fun. After all, its free drinks all paid for by work! I said “But if any of the dogs get injured while racing, I’m sure they get put to sleep” Paddy said “Aww Jules, it’s the same thing, I mean, you could be walking a dog down the road and the dog could still break a leg” I replied “I bet they get locked up in cages as well” They were like “Nahhh they get treated really well” Okay okay count me in.

Irish greyhound racing is really popular here, and its like a family event really. The mum’s and dad’s bring their kids here for a gamble and everyone enjoys watching the dogs chase an artificial hare. 

I forgot to bring my camera along with me (bummer), but here is a picture I got from Google. This was the greyhound stadium I went to. They have special packages and you can even enjoy a nice dinner and a glass of wine while watching the dogs.

Before we went to the races, we made a pitstop at a pub. Which is mandatory for Irish standards. And while we were all at the pub, I think the boys had at least 4 pints each. It was mad, I am convinced that they started drinking from a young age… before they even started crawling. 

At the races, I placed two bets, I didn’t win anything, but some of the others did. Greyhound racing is different to the horses, the dogs are so fast but their tracks are shorter and it all happens so quickly. There were 11 races in total. 

By the end of the last race, after a few drinks, (considering the lousy drunk I was) I was a happy camper. Everyone else I knew drank like a fish, and all the goss from work was coming out from every direction. Little Miss Frenchie (a French girl I sat next to for the first few months when I started work here) was rather drunk, and she is the type that gets Emo-drunk. Hahaha it was quite funny, she started talking about the shitburgers she’s had at work, and she was sobbing away. I was like “Whats a shitburger?” Paddy was like “You know Jules, when everything is going wrong at work, and you just had a bite of that shitburger? That’s a shitburger" Hahaha didn’t make any sense, but by that time, I’m sure he was sipping he’s 12^th pint. 

You would think the night would end there, but it didn’t. They wouldn’t let me go home. We all made our way to a club. I was like “A club?! You have clubbing in Ireland?!” Of course WE have clubs in Ireland. Well, sorry, I thought it was only pubs in Ireland. 

It was a lot of fun at the club, called DTwo. These Irish lads were dancing like there was no tomorrow. My entire working life, I’ve never seen my workmates dance like that before, it was absolutely hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

When I finally called it a night, I hopped on a cab and headed home. I don’t know what it was, I reckon all that alcohol in me, I couldn’t remember exactly my conversation with the old Irish cab driver, but when we arrived at my apartment, I was about to pay the cab fare, which was something like 13.50 euros, he said to me “Because you are such a lovely young lady, I’ll only charge you 11 euros”. I have never had a discount on my cab fare before, ever! I said to him “Because you are such a lovely man, I’ll give you 12 euros!” That was a deal, and he gave me his phone number and he said “You give me a call the next time you need a cab!” I said “Okay you can take me to the airport when I head home to Australia!” Only in Ireland, you’ll meet lovely people from all walks of life! 

A typical day at work

Part of living and working here in Ireland, is that I meet the local people and I learn a lot.. I learn about their culture, their language, their history, their country and their lives. You don't really get that when you're just traveling on a holiday, I mean, the hotel concierge doesn't really count. 

And over here in Ireland, I have met people that either love Australia, or absolutely hate Australia. The 'love' Australia part, is normal, I mean I have met so many Irish people while working in the Melbourne office. But the people that absolutely hate Australia, of course you won't meet them in Australia, are absolutely hilarious. The guy that sits right in front of me, Paddy (okay, he's real name is not Paddy) is your typical Irish guy that does not like anything about Australia.

"There are only convicts in Australia, Jules" 

I reply "You can criticise Australia as much as you want Paddy, I don't care because I am not Australian"

"Yes you are Jules, YOU live there, YOU are Australian"

Me "No Paddy, I am Malaysian, I live in Australia but I am Malaysian"

"No you're not, you live in Australia, YOU are Australian"

Then he goes "Streuth Jules, Streuuuuthh"

I say to him "Paddy, I have lived in Australia for 6 years now, I have never heard of the word Streuth before" 

"Streuuuuuuth Jules"

A word he probably picked up from Home and Away. 

"Seriously Paddy, we never use that word in Melbourne"

Paddy replies "What a shocker Jules....!!" hahaha again, a word that is very commonly used in Australia.

"Yes Streuuuuthhh Paddy, streeuuuth"

"What a shocker, Jules... You've had an absolute shocker Jules"

Oh shut up Paddy. Streuth Jules.

Everyday we have the same conversation, over and over again. All good craic. (Craic is an Irish slang, for... fun). I know my boss is sitting next to us, muttering under her breath "don't these two have any work to do?"

Feck It

I have been counting down the days as to when I return home to Melbourne…. I’ve had my fair share of fun.. 7 more weeks to go! No more visitors, so its just me myself and I now. No more travelling as well. I am so broke! I could squeeze one last trip because Ireland has a bank holiday at end of the month, but really, its no fun traveling to a different country alone. I am keen on going to Spain, but I will probably give it a miss.

It wasn’t a good day today. I mean work was grand and stuff, but I had to give confirmation to my Melbourne boss that I would return to the office soon, and resume my normal role… sad sad sad… but then again, it would be too good to be true if I had everything MY way, would it? Not only that, the two major projects I am involved in, has been delayed… which might probably mean I will leave before it finishes. That sucks. Oh well. Someone from the London office asked if I were interested in a role there after Dublin? No no no no… I mean it would be great, but no… I have a personal life and commitments! I dare not even explore that option to London because it just messes up my head.

Times like these I look at my photo album to cheer myself up, apart from throwing all my frustrations at Grumpy.

Grumpy at the Ha’penny bridge in Dublin. Its short for ‘half a penny’, the story is… back then, to cross to the other side of the bridge, you need to pay half a penny.

 

Grumpy and his love for a good pint of Guinness.

 

This was when we went to this tapas bar. Tapas in Australia would mean small portions of food, but look at the serve of this! Yummm.. we were meant to go for a tour outside of Dublin, but decided to just stay back in the city and relax and stuff ourselves with food and beer.

 This would have to be my favourite picture of them all. Hahaha he looks hilarious! Classic.

Grumpy loved the music on the streets of Dublin. You can listen to traditional Irish folk music in pubs, and its absolutely amazing, the ambience, the crowd, the music, it was lots of fun.

 

This is a hotel and pub. Called the Schoolhouse Hotel. It used to be a school. Lovely place.

We’d kick start our session with a Baby Guinness each. Tastes really nice for a shot, because it has Baileys in it.

And then it goes straight to my head…

And we go home drunk... and took a picture of me with heaps of Chanel bags, which Grumpy bought from Dublin’s high-end department store. He bought that many Chanel bags, the sales assistant in Chanel said to me “you are one lucky lady” like… hello…. They are not all for me!!!!! The other bag on the right is a Bottega Veneta bag which was purchased from Harvey Nichols in London. Not mine again..but for his mum. It was quite crazy, Europe is so expensive yet his family thought these bags were cheap compared to KL. Grumpy was clearly the bag lady here in Europe.

All good fun. But of course, all good things must come to an end… Like how an Irish would say.. ahhh feck it, Jules, feck it!

miserable cow

I updated my Facebook status just before that I was a miserable cow.

Its true. There was a lot of tears today.

I said goodbye to Mum at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport this morning. We both went to the airport together. I took the 9.40am flight back to Dublin. Mum took the 12 noon flight back to Kuala Lumpur. It was hard.

Today I came home to an empty apartment. I cooked myself miserable noodles, smoked some miserable cigarettes and kept to my miserable self again.

Only last week I had a small fight with Grumpy. The Dublin office asked if I wanted to extend my stay here in Dublin. Because I was my happy self at that time.. enjoying Mum's company, I thought life in Dublin was really quite nice. So for a minute there, yes, I was considering staying back in Dublin. Grumpy asked me why? I said well, because I enjoyed my work here in Dublin and don't really want to go back working in the circus. He was very quick to say that it meant I picked my work over him and my family back home. I wanted to prove him wrong, so I went back to my colleagues in Dublin and said No, I will go home to Melbourne as agreed initially.

At this point, I really do miss home and I'm glad I didn't commit to a longer work assignment here in Dublin. 

Ah well.. 2 more months! 2 moreeeee months!

This is a picture of me in Amsterdam. Lovely city. Gorgeous weather over the weekend. Netherlands is a beautiful country. Again, something to remind me that if it wasn't for work, I wouldn't have the opportunity to visit these amazing places so soon! I'll write more about my trip to Amsterdam later. Going to bed now. Goodnight.

London town

My weekend in London was good. This was my 4th trip to London. It was slightly different compared to my previous trips to London, only because this time I was with Mum, 2 of my aunts and another lady who was a friend of my aunt. Yes, as you can imagine, by the end of my London trip, I was Auntie-fied. All that Auntie talk... the only thing they would talk about is pickpockets in London.. Therefore throughout the entire trip, the only thing that was going on in my head was "I am going to be robbed, I am going to be robbed, I am going to be robbed"

But despite all that, it was nice to meet up with some family I haven't seen in a long time. Was telling Litte Miss Juicy Pops (who sits next to me at work), that this 67 year old aunt of mine, lived in London nearly all her life, still works mad hours (6am til 11.45pm) as a nurse, and is the type of person who lives to work, so that she can send money back to Malaysia. Yes, she belongs to that generation that lives overseas and will ALWAYS make it a point to send money back to her family at home. On the contrary, I also work and live overseas, but yeah.. I just spend ALL my money on myself. She puts me to shame, seriously. 

Hmm... at least I bought Mum tickets to go watch Wicked on a Saturday night. It was absolutely brilliant. If you happen to be in London, you HAVE to go watch Wicked, The Musical. Yes, you can see it in Melbourne, but HEL-LO, this is London's WEST END! Was a little worried Mum would not have liked it, she is quite hard to please sometimes.. but I was pleasantly surprised when she said she loved it and was happy I bought those tickets. Very expensive, but definitely worth it. We're going to another musical on Thursday here in Dublin, the Elvis Presley story...!  

Work was good today. Its actually Little Miss Juicy Pop's last week in the company. I will miss her!! She's got another job with one of our competitors. We're good friends.. she spoke about her going away drinks just now, so I offered to send an email out to the entire department for her... to invite everyone for drinks.

Hi everyone,

 

As you all know, Friday is *Little Miss Juicy Pops* last day here, it would be great if you could join her for a drink at *Irish Pub* after work on Friday (around 5.45pm).

 

Hope to see you there.

 

Thanks.

After I hit the send button, she said to me "Jules, you sound like I'm dying and you're inviting people to my funeral or something.. " hahaha we couldn't stop laughing... Does it?  

cbf mode

This has been quite a busy week. 

I was in London last weekend. Met up with some colleagues from our other offices. It was good fun, but I was exhausted. The weather wasn't all that fantastic too, it rained all weekend in London. 

But I swear, I've been at my laziest... cbf mode. 

I took an early flight home from London on Sunday arvo. Hoping to clean the house. That didn't happen. 

Work has been crap this week as well. Been caught up in other things that have sort of taken my time away from my main project. My boss told me my project, like every other major project, will probably be delayed.... bad news, because if that gets delayed... I don't know... I still hope to go home to Melbourne by December. Good thing is I've been learning about hedge funds... there has been so many problems, my colleagues absolutely hate it, haha but I love a challenge! Hedge funds? Bring it on!!!

Anyways, enough about work. Mum arrives Dublin tomorrow morning. I am so excited! Mum's excited herself. We go to London together next weekend, and the following weekend, we'll be in Amsterdam. We'll both get high together in Amsterdam. 

I have the best mother in the world, seriously. When Grumpy left, she was sad as well, sad because I was sad. Sometimes looking back at everything, I am standing here in Dublin today... it is all because of her and Dad. My parents were the two people that has made everything possible. The opportunities I've had, the challenges I face, the many people I've met, my time in Australia, Dublin, Europe, my studies, work, house, everything... ultimately everything was made possible by my mum and dad. I'm so blessed to have such loving and supportive parents. Grumpy's family has been equally supportive as well. Which we are both extremely grateful and thankful of. 

Mum's time in Europe will be interesting. She will be multiplying everything by 5. 

True Love

True love is when Grumpy flew around the world – rushing like crazy in the many different airports in between transit to make it for the each flight… to come see me here in Dublin!

True love is Grumpy buying me a kimono, 10 different types of Japanese cup noodles, 6 different flavoured Japanese lip balms, Japanese cakes, rice crackers, biscuits, chocolates and lollies while he was in transit in Tokyo. Bearing in mind, all I got him while I was in Germany earlier in July was a packet of Knoppers. Hehehe it is a delicious chocolate wafer, and only cost me 40 cents.

True love is us not having a worry in the world, even though his luggage didn’t arrive Dublin that night when he got here, because we were happy as long as we had each other.

True love is us unable to sleep that night he got here because we were so excited after being apart for 7 weeks, despite the fact that we knew we had to be up early as I’d booked for a taxi to pick us up at 4.30am the next morning to bring us to the airport to catch our flight to Rome.

True love is us, still unable to sleep during our 4 hour flight to Rome, because we had so much catching up to do. We couldn’t stop talking!

True love is when Grumpy went down on one knee, pulled out a beautiful diamond ring in a lovely romantic restaurant in Venice and asked me to marry him.

True love is us having the ability to share unforgettable experiences in Rome, Venice, Prague, Berlin, Paris, London and Dublin. We will never forget our time together here in Europe.

True love is me returning to Dublin at midnight each Sunday, going to work the next Monday.  Then come Friday afternoon, we are off again to another country. This was really hard work!

True love is when Grumpy bought me a cake, lit candles, sang Happy Birthday at 12 midnight on the eve of my birthday.

True love is when Grumpy bought me a Louis Vuitton bangle as a gift for my birthday, and when I said I loved it (which was a bit of a white lie)… I didn’t sound convincing enough, so he took it back and exchanged it for a Chanel bag instead, which ended up costing a lot more… hehe I am so spoilt.

True love is me, begging Grumpy to stay… every 5 seconds.. during the final week of his time here in Dublin.

True love is Grumpy cooking me scrumptious meals, and freezing them up, making sure I had yummy food to eat when he is no longer in Dublin with me.

True love is me crying my heart out in the airport, because Grumpy was leaving Dublin to make his way home.

True love is me taking up smoking again, to curb with us being apart again.. it will be another 4 more months before we get to see each other again! Too long!

True love is cruel love.

True love is beautiful love.