My Dublin Life

Well, I've kind of come to terms with the whole Italian invasion thing. What the hey. It's just a week.

The weather is really sucky but I have decided to come to terms with that, too, because, really, what's the point?

The good news is, however, that August is actually a fabulous month to be in Dublin. I totally can't wait for the Festival of World Cultures which will be on in Dun Laoighire at the end of the month. Also, following the great success of my hiking trip I'm planning to embrace the great outdoors again, or at least take a couple of daytrips to Meath. Can't believe I haven't seen Newgrange yet. Saoirse has just passed her driving test so we will go together.

Oooh ooh oh! And of course. What we have all been waiting for for weeks. Tonight is THE night. Tonight is the night that I am going to dinner at the house of Saoirse's first-cousin-once-removed, the FAMOUS IRISH ROCK STAR. I am so excited. So excited that I can't decided what to wear so that I look totally cool but also like I didn't think at all about what to wear. I'm thinking jeans but then a very fancy top. Or vice verse. Damn. So hard. And then I will be blowing my cool by presenting my lovely gift of Mom's Bottled Moose and her note proclaiming herself Number One Fan. Is that spooky.

I so wish I could say who it was but I guess that's inappropriate, right? Right?

Wel, more soon. I've got to go investigate the wardrobe.

So I had The Awkward Conversation with Bepe last night and boy do I feel bad.

"I've got to talk to you about your family staying," I said.

"Oh yes?" he said.

"There's just too many of them to fit here. I'm sorry. It's not fair on me."

He looked all hurt and then told me the following:

His parents' small bakery business has been doing really badly lately. They live in a smallish town and now there's a big new supermarket. The supermarket is cheaper and the recession is bad in Italy too so the family's income has been dwindling and so they had decided not to come to Ireland but he said that he would come. He bought them tickets with Ryanair. Now I know that Bepe's not on a huge income. Just minimum wage plus tips. He says that he just can't afford to pay another red cent. He said that he's sorry that he didn't talk with me. He said that he sees that this was wrong. But his parents dream of seeing where he works.

To top it all off, this will be their first trip overseas and their first trip in a plane so it's supposed to be the experience of a life time.

I am a shit. I feel awful. I basically fell in a grovelling heap and apologised. Dublin Tourism Marketing people, if you are reading this, I could really do with some tickets to entertain a family of two middle aged and two teenaged Italians from a small town somewhere south of Rome. They are arriving on August 2nd and I have no resolved to do all I can to make their trip a fantastic one.

Wow!



I got back from a week of camping and hiking last night. I'm tired. I'm scratched. I'm three kilos lighter (yippee!) and most of all I am really glad I went. The weather was.... well, it was. It rained quite a bit. But it wasn't cold. Although I had been planning to spend the week in Lofty Solitude between books and hiking I kind of ended up hanging out with a gang of crazy Australians and had the best time. I liked the camping site which managed to make me feel that I was really in the wilds while also offering showers and stuff so it didn't all get too smelly.



As I had gone down with out a car, of course, not having either an international license or the funds to either buy or rent a car, it was just as well I met some people to hang with. The Ozzies ("Randy", "Chaz", and Peter) were fun and equally important had a car. I think we must have done about half the Wicklow Way and visted about half of the pubs in Wicklow, too!



One of the great things about hiking is that afterwards you can eat as much as you want. Continuing my love affair with Lidl, me and the Ozzie actually bought a cheap, but real "Barbie" and barbecued basically everything we could find. That's to say, I did it. They might have been Australians, but they were godawful cooks. So I did the cooking, which was fine, as they drove me everywhere.



I doubt I'll ever see Randy or Chaz or Peter again, although we're friends on Facebook. But it doesn't really matter. I'm so happy I spent a week in Wicklow, which is totally f*****g gorgeous!



I've hardly seen Bepe since I came back and I'm not looking forward to having The Conversation about his plan to have his whole freakin' family staying in our teeny apartment. Groan.

So I'm about to leave for the bus down to Wicklow but I have to vent. Bepe just told me that, on August 2nd, his mom, dad and sisters are coming to stay for ten days.

No problem, right? But he has told them that they can stay HERE in our teeny-tiny two-bed apartment. He's already bought a couple of those inflatable mattresses. Isn't that a bit much? I mean, my family came but they stayed in a hotel. He didn't even ASK me.

I don't even have time to deal with this right now. We'll just have to talk about it when I get back

Lidl is fantastic! Even better than Costco, which is the version we've got back home.


I'm getting pretty psyched about my upcoming solo camping trip. I was prevaricating between Meath and Wicklow and for now I'm going to Wicklow. I bought a tent in Lidl for less than you've probably paid for pizza. I'm glad I brought my hiking boots. I've found a campground to stay in.
I've bought a detailed map. It's from the Ordance Survey and I'm pretty excited about it as it's so fricking detailed. I didn't know there was so much archaeology in Wicklow!!

Bepe says, "You'll last a night camping on your own." But I am actually looking forward to some me-time, in the country. I have packed a bunch of books to read and anyway it'll probably be reasonably easy to hook up with people in the campground if I too get lonely. I can't wait!! I like being in the city but sometimes the best thing about the city is leaving it for a a few days.

So you'll hear from me when I'm back. I expect to be totally relaxed and a couple of kilos lighter :-p

So last night I wasn't going to go anywhere. I popped out to pick up some instant noodles at Spar (cue Bepe's vocal disapproval: "You will die young and fat if you keep eating that American rubbish) when I bumped into this girl I slightly know from TCD library. As in, I didn't know her name until last night but I had met her in the shelves poring over a Bram Stoker bio and we had had a few words.

"I was just going for a drink," she said (we'll call her "Belle" for the purposes of this blog. "Wanna come?"

I told her I didn't have any money but she said she'd stand me a drink and I could catch her the next time. She told me she was going to The Dragon.

"Isn't that a gay bar?" I asked, to which she said, "Well, kinda, but everyone goes because the music is rocking and the decor is really cool."

The decor is really cool, I'll give it that. But I don't usually like gay bars and the reason why is this: Way too many gay men are really, really good-looking and it's just not fair and it is not nice being around all those gorgeous hunks of man-flesh and knowing that all their eyes are for each other and not for me. It's demoralising and it's like being in an ice-cream parlour and being told to ignore all those FABULOUS flavous and here, just gnaw on this hank of withering broccoli.

Anyway. So we went. And it was fun. I had a mojito. (Not bad although I think they are better in the Gypsy Tea Room back home). The music, while not the mildly depressing stuff I generally prefer, was great. So much so that after knocking back a mojito, I got up to dance. So did Belle. And we were having a great time, until I noticed several people looking at us with "what a cute little couple" expressions. So I went up to the bar and got a glass of water. Belle wanted to know why I had stopped dancing and suddenly doubt filled my mind. Was I on a date? How could I tell? At what point does a drink in a gay bar with a pretty girl stop being just a drink and become a date you hadn't really counted on? Well, I went home shortly after that although we arranged to go to Cafe Bar Deli for pizza when I get back from my camping trip next week as I didn't want her to think that I thought that she thought...well you get the picture.

So now I am planning my camping trip. I still need a tent, but I've already spent my entire budget for July and am eating into August's money. I need to get a part-time job, seriously. I will address this issue in August when hopefully some of the other 450,000 job seekers will have collapsed into apathy.

Well, I did two days in Oxegen -- day passes so I had to stay (expensively) in a B&B but it was worth it. It rained, it poured, but it was great. I've never been in a such a big crowd before and I've never been so muddy before either. Fabulous. Peter Doherty was AMAZING and while I'm not usually a huge fan of Lady Gaga she was great. Most of all, the energy was fabulous, just the fact of having so many people having a cool time together.

Right now, I'm in TCD Library with a huge pile of books trying to do some more background reading but I'm just too tired to really care. I've brought my swimsuit and I'm planning to go for a swim at the Countess Markevicz (sp.?) pool. I looked her up and she's a strange choice for someone to name a pool after but whatever. I need to do something good n health as a certain amount of beer was consumed at the weekend.

Ooh. Bepe just sent me a text! A package has arrived from Mom. It must be her bottled moose. I'm off to Dinner with Saoirse's First Cousin Once Removed the FAMOUS IRISH ROCK STAR in two weeks and Mom couldn't be dissuaded. At least I'll be prepared.

To cancel out the ill-effects of last weekend, I've decided to go camping for a week. I don't have a lot of money so suggestions please! I'm gonna take a week off but not go too far from the city in case the weather is awful. I'm thinking Wicklow, maybe Meath? Not sure if I'll go alone for Blissful Solitute or invite someone.