Stand by me ....

Awesome 

Countdown ....

I can't believe it's so close only 15 days before we fly home to Africa for 3 weeks in the sun!  This is where I will be on St. Patrick's day instead of watching the parade in Dublin!!!

Art

Art washes away from the soul, the dust of everyday life....Pablo Picasso

 

Big Brother

I meant to blog about this over the week-end and forgot.  When D's nephew arrived at Dublin Airport last week for his 4 nights, he had to go through the Non-EU passport control, due to his SA passport and of course they asked him all kinds of Questions.

Passport Control:    "Who you coming to visit?"
Bran:                      "My Aunt and Uncle"
Passport Control:    "What are their names?"
Bran:                      "D & R Surname"
Passport Control (Turning the computer screen towards Bran):  "Is this your Uncle?"  (shows photograph of D) then pulls up another and says "Is this your Aunt?" (shows photograph of moi)
Passport Control:    "What is their address?"
Bran:                       " I don't know, somewhere in Dublin, they are picking me up"
Passport Control:    "Well this is their address and rattles off our exact address"

Kind of Freaky, I bet they don't do that to people who were born and bred in the country .... 

Time

When a bird is alive..it eats Ants, When the bird is dead.. Ants eat the bird!
So....Time & Circumstances can change at any time..
Don’t devalue or hurt anyone in life. You may be powerful today..But Remember..
... Time is more powerful than You!!! One tree makes a million match sticks..
But when the time comes.. Only one match stick is needed to burn a million trees..
So be good and do good for the sake of your soul!!!

I love my Job, I do, I do, I do ...

Did I tell you I love my job, for the first time in the 12 years I have lived and worked in Ireland I finally found a company where I feel I belong.  Now that's not to say that I did not like any of my previous jobs or companies, because I did.  However I now work for an American company, and the reason for being employed in the company is for your knowledge and ability.

For the first time in 12 years, I am not the "foreigner", no I am one of many foreigners even though I am now Irish, and there is not a majority of Catholic Irish people, there are Irish people but I would say majority are of other religious beliefs.  In our Dublin team alone there are only 4 Irish, 1 South African, 1 New Zealander,  1 British and 1 Tanzanian which makes it a 50 / 50 split.  In the company in Dublin well that is a whole different story, we are now up at 5 Italians, a lot of French, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Kenyan, Australian and the list goes on.

Having come from South Africa where I was brought up in a country of people from every corner of the globe, where we respected everyone's religions, beliefs and customs I now feel at home.  No longer am I the only one who doesn't do Ash Wednesday, Shrove Tuesday or any other customary event that the Irish celebrate.

Life in Ireland has been tough and especially between 2008 and 2011, where I felt like the outcast and the person who was stealing an Irish persons job, because people made you feel like that.  However that is a whole different story which I won't get into tonight, we'll keep that for another day.

The Merry Ploughboy

The Merry Ploughboy pub

D's nephew is over visiting Dublin for three days and tonight is his last night, so thought we would take him to a traditional Irish pub.  If ever you want the best pub food in Dublin this has to be the place, the Seafood Chowder is to die for, it's really a meal all of it's own.

This pub is literally five minutes away from where we live but we hardly ever go there, I often see the Trafalgar tours and Contiki tours taking bus loads of tourist up the road, although that is normally in summer. I thought they might have something on tonight, but alas no, however he still loved the place.

Absolutely far better than Johnny Foxes and price wise so reasonable compared to JF's, so if ever you are looking for a traditional Irish pub, this is the place and it too is in the Dublin mountains. 

Baby Shower

I was asked volunteered by our Gay German-American Boss to do do a "Baby Shower" for a male co-worker.  Now in Ireland people are really superstitious about accepting gifts before the baby is born, however, this guy is not Irish although his wife is, he is also agnostic, and that is besides being Lactose intolerant as well as glucose intolerant. :)

Oy Vay, so what to do?  Half the people at work say "I wouldn't do it", well most of the Irish bar the ones in our team lol who are all game for organizing this.  So I guess I should just go with the flow and organize.  I guess in writing down my thoughts I really do answer my own questions, so perhaps this blogging thing is good!

And I guess all the food just has to be wholesome organic - and have you ever heard of a man who can only drink Cider and nothing else! So challenging, but I guess this just has to put my organizational skills to the test.

Will post the photos from the shower!

Any nice ideas on what to do for a male co-worker?

Photo Fun