Thursday, May 21, 2009

FRIENDS

"

DEDICATED TO ALL MY FRIENDS ...

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."- Anais Nin

"My friends are my estate."- Emily Dickinson

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."


"A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else." - Len Wein

"Every person is a new door to a different world."- from movie "Six Degrees of Seperation"

"It takes a long time to grow an old friend." - by John Leonard

"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you." - Elbert Hubard

"I get by with a little help from my friends." - John Lennon

"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships." - Abraham Lincoln

"To be depressed is to be lonely; to have a friend is to be happy..." - Guido

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own." -Benjamin Disraeli

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being." -Goethe

"Friends are God's way of taking care of us."

"It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter." - Marlene Dietrick

"A friend is a gift you give yourself." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success." - Oscar Wilde

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Teresa

"I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody." - Benjamin Franklin

"Misfortune shows those who are not really friends." - Aristotle

"Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with." - Mark Twain

"The friendship that can cease has never been real." - Saint Jerome

"What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable."

"The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away." - Wilson Mizner

"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends." - Walt Whitman

"The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man's success in life." - Edward Everett Hale

"Friendship without self interest is one of the rare and beautiful things in life." - James Francis Byrnes

"Do not save your loving speechesFor your friends till they are dead;Do not write them on their tombstones,Speak them rather now instead.- Anna Cummins

"Best friends are like diamonds, precious and rareFalse friends are like leaves, found everywhere."- Anonymous

"If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I'd be at the bottom to catch them"

"A good friend is hard to find, hard to lose, and impossible to forget..."

"Friendship is a special kind of love."
"The secret to friendship is being a good listener."
"A true friend is someone you can trust with all your secrets."
"Gems may be presious, but friends are priceless."

"They say 'you only regret the things you never do.' Then why do I regret every bad thing I did to you?"

Quote of the day ...

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere...

Sunday, May 17, 2009

E-Bottle from Facebook ...

I changed my language on facebook from English (UK) to English (Pirates) and it is so funny. This is how I get my mail form facebook now:

From: "Ye olde Facebook"
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 6:06 PM
To: "Rose"
Subject: Lisa scrawled on a yarn on ye olde Facebook...

Lisa shouted an ahoy back. arrRE: English Pirate "this is really cool, just tried it.......... : )"
T' send a bottle back, stab the link below: http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox/readmessage.php&t=1048673865769&mid=7a4153G252ebbb5G1b38e13G0

T'is scrawl be intended fer rose. If ye want to sanction which e-bottles ye get from ye olde Facebook, stab:> http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications&md=bXNnO2Zyb209MTA2Nzc4MDg0Mjt0PTEwNDg2NzM4NjU3Njk7dG89NjIzODE5NzAx&mid=7a4153G252ebbb5G1b38e13G0> Ye olde Facebook's caverns are t' be discovered at 156 University Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301.

Vis-'a-vis a visa and the Green Mamba

The nightmare on Visa's continues ... When we decided to do our RTW trip in the summer of 2009, we were under the impression that by then we would have the same passport as Emily and it would be a breeze to travel. Well as it turns out, we are 6 weeks away from our trip and still aliens, and have to travel on a "green" passport, I have been told by my friend Mars that it is also called the "Green Mamba" it always comes up and bites you.

So chatting to the travel agent last week, she said to me to email our passports through and she will organise our Aussie Visas for us, but then came back to me the next day to say because we had a Green Mamba she couldn't do it and we had to go direct to the Aussie Embassy. However, it turns out that the Aussie Embassy in Oireland don't deal with Visa's and we have to go to London (well not physically thank the Lord, because we we need another visa to do that).

To try and phone a REAL LIVE person is an absolute NO NO when it comes to dealing with the Australian Embassy, unless of course you are prepared to pay 1 Pound a minute (from a BT Telephone line) so who knows what that equates to from an Eircom line. So we send them an email, and I must say that they were rather efficient in getting back to me the next day. Now Em is on an EU passport but even so because she is under age we need to apply for her Visa the same way as we apply for ours.

In order to apply for an Australian holiday Visa for the 15 days we will be in Australia, we need to send copies of:
  • Bank Account Statements for the last 3 months
  • Travel Insurance
  • Copies of Hotel Bookings
  • Copy of Air Tickets
  • A letter of invitation from an Australian Resident
  • A copy of our marriage certificate
  • Copies of Payslips for the last 3 months
  • A letter from the company you are employed with to say you are taking leave
  • Complete and sign an 8 page document, giving your life history
  • 100 Dollars per Visa
  • A self addressed envelope so they can return the passports.
  • A passport photograph
I can't even remember what else there was. So duly done, signed, sealed and sent registered mail on Friday, we can only hope that it gets back in time to apply for the other visa's. As soon as they come back we then have to go down to the French Embassy and apply for a French Polynesian Visa and take with us the following information:
  • 2 passport photographs
  • Only a 2 page document to be completed and signed
  • Bank Accounts statements for the Last 3 months
  • Credit Card statement
  • Travel Insurance
  • Fully paid for Travel Tickets
  • Fully paid for Hotel Bookings
  • Means of transportation while abroad i.e. copies of bookings of rental car
  • Copies of payslips for previous 3 months
  • A letter from your employer to state you are taking leave
  • 60 Euro each per visa
  • You have to appear in Person
The French Embassy are only open on Mon - Thurs from 2:00 pm till 4:00 pm to apply for Visas and on Friday between 2 and 3. To collect your passport with Visa they are open in the morning between 10 and 12.

THEN I find out ...

That as from the 1st of March if we travel to the UK on a Green Mamba we need a visa as well, and not only to visit but even if you are in transit. So in order to get to wherever we are going via London we need a British Visa, and the story starts again ... there is a 10 page document that needs to be completed, photographs, more money, more bank account statements, more more more ... after this little episode we will be broke!

Murphy's law as soon as we have a passport that we CAN travel on without having to get Visa's we probably won't go anywhere!

ONE GREEN MAMBA FOR SALE ... ACTUALLY YOU CAN TAKE IT FOR FREE!!!!

Fingers crossed that we get everything in time, else we ain't going no where!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Studying and the week-end

What is it about studying, unfortunately I am not a very good studier, as soon as I sit down my mind runs away with me and unless I am actually under pressure to cram, things tend to just go in and out and don't stick.

Hence this past bank holiday week-end as soon as I sat down to do some studying I thought of something else that needed to be done. On Saturday and Sunday the weather was just too nice to do too much studying and luckily we had a wonderful lunch invitation on Sunday to deviate me from the books.

After lunch, we picked up Lisa and went off to the fun fair in Leopardstown, I must say it was loads of fun, although I chose not to get wet, I did go on the Ferris wheel and boy what a beautiful view from up there.
Lisa was quite horrified that Em decided to go on a bus instead of taking the racing car!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Knock Knock

Knock, Knock I knocked at heaven's door this morning.
God asked me...'My child, what can I do for you?'
And I said, 'Father, please protect and bless the person reading this message.
' God smiled and answered...'Request granted'.
'Be kinder than necessary,
for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.'
I guess sometimes I forget ...