Year Under Review 2008 (Diane)

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Let’s face it – for me, the thrill of posting is far outweighed by reading all of Wikipedia (all!) and finding a half decent banana bread recipe. This is why I can never have a blog of my own. It would suffer the same fate as so many other projects that have fallen by the wayside. This year and every year… But hey! It’s only April.

The beginning of last year seems so far away. I spent a little time with my mom here and there and saw my favouritest show ever, the PreTenors. I signed up for a capoeira class, which turned out to be a ton of fun. I got to try out my Christmas skis twice: Morgan and I took in our last Jasper in January AND a super fun Sunshine/Lake Louise combo. (Note: Grizzly Paw >>> Smitty’s)

In those days I was still working and going to garden club meetings. We had some high school students into the lab, we harvested the greenhouse plants (always good teambuilding) and I even managed to make it to a safety session.

I took a trip out to Vancouver to visit my sister. She introduced me to her friends (and a great little place for hot chocolate). We dined in style on cupcakes, pea soup, MEAT, Vancouver sushi <3, and crab cakes. We brought our style to the beach, Granville Island, and an awesome improv club. Morgan probably got socks for his birthday. (I took him for granted even then.) My dear coworker gave me a tip about a great dressmaker in Chinatown, and I gave up pretending I was going to sew dresses for me let alone for my four lovely bridesmaids.

Then there was March. Last March that is. It was off to Rimbey, Alberta where Morgan’s grandparents celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary (!) and Morgan’s grandpa turned 80 years young! I believe Darse was back on campus for a surprise visit, and by that time I guess he’d poked us enough that Morgan applied over here. And I was invited out for interviews too! Yays! Morgan and I had a whirlwind weekend in Dublin in April, and I learned the secret of a shot of blackcurrant syrup to sweeten your Guinness. Xan showed me around while Morgan was in the office, and we braved the wind in Dalkey and Bray. While in Dublin I also scoffed at Christine and swore up and down that I would get a job as soon as I landed, and here I am – it will be a year off soon enough!

Also in April, I tried getting tickets to see Natalie MacMaster, but instead I discovered Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul, who rock the Queen’s socks by the way. Morgan and I went with our parents and everybody had a great time.

May was especially great because once we decided to come to Dublin, I did my best to use all the massages for the year’s work benefits. Even though it was high time to panic wedding-wise, there was somehow lots of fun to be had with the girls before moving away to enjoy married life across the pond. We saw Terri Clark play at the Rainmaker Rodeo in St. Albert, we had a wedding favour work bee, and the girls treated me to a very creative “hen party” as they say here, complete with fancy coffee, karaoke at a sketchy bar, a cookout, and certain calendar models on duty at Fire Hall 1! Don’t tell Morgan though ;-) There was a garage sale at my parents’ – it turns out you collect stuff after so many years of staying in the same place, and it was time to get rid of some of it (but still keep too much), move it to Morgan’s, sort out what to take and what to store, and then try to prune some more.

And then came the day when Morgan got stuck with me for good. I have to congratulate myself on my great taste, and for keeping him convinced that he’s a lucky guy. I won’t tell him if you won’t! Morgan’s grandpa married us at an old church of mine, which was awesome. I think my favourite moment of the day was when Morgan’s grandpa presented us and the music was queued but we hadn’t sealed the bargain with a kiss. Morgan would not go a step further until all boxes had been properly ticked, and our friends and family got a good chuckle out of it too. It also happens to have made my favourite photo of the day, even though everyone loves the waltz pic. Thanks, photographer Jason! And friends and families of course! It was great to catch fleeting glimpses of all of you!

June also held Megan’s grad, and my last day at work. Possibly forever. Just kidding. Kind of. We were able to squeeze in one last trip to Rimbey and a family dinner or two, and then it was high time for the good times to roll!

July was filled with fun, at home and away! While Morgan went on a photo walk, I hung out at the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market with my mom and sister and took in a pair of matinées at the theatre. Every time I see live theatre, I recall how much I enjoy it. I swear not to wait so long again, and inevitably I forget.

Off we went to Las Vegas for the second Man v. Machine match at the World Series of Poker Expo. I got to be the home movie crew and felt very important. I did my best to be the U of A’s booth babe too, but I think I may have lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. ;-) We saw Cirque du Soliel’s “O”, and a performance by Penn and Teller, and the good people of Vegas’ Fourth of July fireworks from a room in the Rio. Also, the thing I love best in Vegas is the Bellagio fountain display. I took way too much b-roll of that.

We hung around in Vegas for a few more days and headed off to San Diego. The zoo and wandering around the dock in the perfect weather are what I remember as making me the happiest on the trip. Then we went on our cruise – oh, 24h soft serve! I loved the food! Our dining room staff were excellent, and between the meals and the entertainment they nearly made you forget how queasy the motion of the boat made you feel. I heartily enjoyed the shore excursions - ocean kayaking and hiking/zip-lining in a canyon. I loved the towel animals and the wine tasting instruction, but I won’t be easily convinced to cause that much pollution again!

Well, we made it back to shore and back home to pack up, and our friends came over to give us a memorable send-off. Morgan’s mom and sister helped us with the storing and cleaning, and after one last dim sum, we were off to the Emerald Isle!

It was so easy setting up shop here! Darse and Xan were there when we arrived to make sure we made it into our apartment okay, and the experience has pretty much continued in the same tone. We found a lovely apartment by the tram, got our paperwork in order, opened a bank account – all that stuff. And so it was that I began to wonder how I was going to spend my time in between running errands and answering the door for repairs. Everyone has been very friendly and helpful (if occasionally unintelligible), and by this stage I’m even growing fond of the weather.

August arrived, and I met the other expat wives. I must confess that meeting up with the gals has given me that much-needed something to look forward to as the months fly by but the days occasionally feel long. My grandmother passed away in August, after a good long life. She was well-loved and cared for, particularly by my aunt, but it’s still a little sad. I still have her name though, and I’m not the only one.

My massage course at Holistic College Dublin started in September, and finishes this April. It’s a fun group, and the gal who gives the anatomy and physiology talks is excellent. This has been another highlight of the week, with classes every Wednesday and every second Saturday. And speaking of highlights, I got out to the Dublin Fringe Festival a few times with Morgan and the usual suspects, and I went sailing back and forth in Dun Laoghaire Harbour in a one-man dinghy in the fall, because it is so OMGWTFBBQin’ cool to live this close to the ocean!

Darse and Xan took us along to Kildare in October to see the Irish National Stud and the Japanese gardens there. We also travelled together to Kinsale during the Cork Jazz Festival. We stayed at a wonderful B&B, and saw pretty little towns by day, and enjoyed music and food by night. We also saw a stone circle, the Rock of Cashel, Cahir Castle and Blarney Castle together. I took the train back to Dublin to volunteer at the Dublin Marathon and let the others explore the coastal forts, and I have to say it’s pretty inspiring (well, alright, it’s infuriating) how quick some people can move. It was also Thankgiving (in October or November, depending on where you hail from in N. America) and we expats attempted our own celebrations. This was especially fruitful endeavour, as it gave rise to some very nummy turkey paddies and pumpkin pie.

JR was out for a surprise visit at the start of December, and we took pictures and toured the Guinness Storehouse and the Old Jameson Distillery together. I dragged Morgan to hear Handel’s Messiah (yes, the whole darn thing) at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and hunted down an elusive rental tux at the cutest little downtown shop. The company Christmas party in Kilkenny was opulent. I played a hand or two in the team free roll, watched the Cuban cigar rollers and enjoyed a bit of wine and whisky. We walked around Kilkenny town and the castle there, as well as a little church with lovely stained glass windows. Over the Christmas holidays, we visited Morgan’s cousins in Austria, and we treated to a lot of food(!!!) and sightseeing. We saw the oldest town and the fortress at Salzburg, spent two memorable days in Vienna and enjoyed some authentic wiener schnitzel.

I think that about takes us to the end of `08. Here’s a brief preview of `09…

January, there was no posting, in February, no posting either. We had a quick trip home, which was cool. We got a few errands done and saw our friends and families. In February, I started volunteering at Airfield Trust, which is a whole new post. March has been very spring-like, full of wonderful weather and baby lambs! It’s also time to be finishing up case studies for my massage class. Exams for that are in April. May holds a weekend vacation to Budapest, and Stratovarius is coming to town. In May/June/July, Morgan’s folks are here and touring Europe. In August I guess I should be looking around for some work(!) and/or perhaps another course in September. Actually, my family might visit in September, plus we’ve got some friends of ours getting hitched back home. The 30th anniversary of the Dublin Marathon is in October, and I’m tempted, even though it’s a bloody long way. But we’ll see. Can’t be as hard as writing the post in January 2010, right?

Diane

It's been awhile

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Wow, it's the middle of March already! Apologies for the lack of updates. February was an insanely busy month and it appears to have disappeared. So lets see if I can catch you up with what we've been up to. The snow in Dublin caused our trip home to be delayed. We attempted to get out of here on Thursday morning, and things looked like we'd manage to get out of Dublin as we got on the plane on time. But the snow and the below zero temperatures were causing havoc to an aiport that couldn't handle those conditions, and we missed our opportunity to take off by not having the de-icer truck come by in time. By 2:00 in the afternoon, the conditions in Dublin had worsened, and we began to know that we weren't going to get out of there in time. So after they finally decided to cancel our flight, we spent another hour or two standing in the airport waiting to rebook our flights.

This led us to a fun story. Standing in the queue for the airline agents, we passed by one of those Star Alliance signs that shows you all the member airlines. This sign had caused the lineup to squeeze by it, but after the sign there was some room on the left hand side. The next thing we know, there's this older couple working their way *past* the girls who were in line behind us, and strategically setting themselves up to pass us as well. One of the girls behind us saw this happen, but was talking on her cell phone (presumably telling someone that they weren't going to make it out of Dublin that day) so didn't get a chance to confront them. After she hung up though, that confrontation happened and the older couple first claimed innocence and when that didn't work, they said that the girls were not moving in the queue fast enough because of talking on the cell phone (which was clearly not the case). Thankfully, even though they were in a position in the line to get to the counter first, the customer service agent had seen what went on and refused to serve them before us. It's a bit funny what people think they can get away with. They could have asked us if they could jump the queue in front of us -- and if they had had a relatively good reason, I'm pretty sure we would've let them do it.

The next day we were back at the airport, and this time we would get out of Dublin after a 4-5 hour delay waiting for the aircraft to arrive. But this meant that we had missed our connecting flight in London. Thankfully, the customer service agents at BMI took good care of us both times we needed to rebook. This time they got us on an air canada flight to Edmonton direct the next day, plus a hotel room, and dinner and breakfast. Not bad!

Our week in Edmonton was a crazy time. We got the errands we needed to do done, and spent as much time as possible visiting people. At the time, we had only been gone for 6 months -- but it was still a bit strange coming back. Not much had changed really, and I guess that we didn't really expect them to. Still, 6 months is a fair amount of time! It was an exhausting trip though. There wasn't a lot of rest to be had, and my body refused to sleep in past about 8am every morning despite being out every night visiting people.

When we got back to Dublin, work started to get really busy for me and that basically dictated what we did for the next month. There was a lot of nights where I didn't do anything more than sit and watch tv programs and then go to bed. But we still managed to fit in quite a few social activities. On one memorable evening, we held a surprise birthday party for one of the other employees. His wife planned it flawlessly, and he was so surprised when they entered their apartment to find 15-odd people wearing party hats and yelling surprise, that he dropped into his martial arts training. I have some great photos of him with his keys clenched in his fist ready to defend himself.

On another night, one of the Polish guys at the company took us (for the second time) to a little Polish restaurant downtown. A group of 18 or so of us took up most of the back of the restaurant where we ate what I can only describe as gourmet perogies and other very tasty items. Mmm, perogies.

This past few days leading into this weekend have been insanely busy. Despite it being deadline time at work, we were still out Thursday night for farewell beers, and then again on Friday night for birthday beers. And to top it all off, yesterday we had people over for Pi Day. For the uninitiated, Pi day is March 14 at 1:59pm (3.14159...). It is a great excuse to have a gathering of people and eat pie. So that was great fun. I think the day's best pie was Xan's beef and bacon pie. In the early evening we caught the Ireland versus Scotland rugby match of the 6 nations cup. I kind of feel like I've got to learn something about at least one of the sports they play here. Of them, rugby seems the most exciting to watch -- and it's an exciting time right now since there's this international competition going on right now. Ireland seems to have a fairly strong team, and are one win away from sweeping the competition.

Diane and I have finally booked our next trip: a long weekend trek out to Budapest to visit a friend there. That should be fun!

Morgan

January

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Well, January looks like it has slipped away without much in the way of blog updates from us! The last couple of weeks haven't been particularly eventful in terms of fun stuff. But I haven't updated with what we've done since the turn of the new year. On New Years Eve we were over at Darse and Xan's for a rather fun evening of party games. In the first of several of these games, we all wrote down names of 4-5 famous people in a hat. The game proceeds by going through the hat three times. The first time, players try to get their team to guess the person using any words not on the paper. The second time through, you only get two words to get your team to guess, and the third time through you have to do charades to get your team to guess. The game is naturally comical, and this night was no less so than expected.

This game was broken up by the countdown to zero for the beginning of the 2009. We were out on the balcony and got to see fireworks going off all around us. I'm not entirely sure where everyone would've got them, but they seemed quite plentiful. It reminds me that this kind of behaviour was happening on Halloween night here in Dublin too.

We finished our game, and then moved on to play another one. In this one, each player writes down a famous person on a slip of paper, which is then taped on the next person's head. That person now has to ask yes/no questions about that person until they can guess who they are. Thankfully, Darse gave me someone I knew, so after a little while I managed to guess mine: Kurt Cobain. Diane had a little more trouble with "the artist formerly known as Prince", but she got it. The toughest one that was eventually given up on? Genghis Khan.

We had a bit of trouble getting a cab, so we settled into playing a game of dictionary pictionary until something like 5am at which point we finally got a cab to come pick us up and take us home.

On the 2nd of January, one of the server guys had got tickets to a Rugby match: Leinster vs Connacht. So a group of us server guys went to go see this clash of Irish rugby teams. Before going, I spent some time trying to read up on the rules, which helped me know a little bit of what was going on, but I found it extremely hard to follow exactly what was happening. The thing I had the most trouble seeing was some correlation to the penalties being called and what was done wrong by the offending player. The other thing that I expected was that the game would flow more than american football -- but that turned out to not be the case. There was many more stoppages than I had thought there would be. Still, it was a fun time, and it was a great atmosphere to watch the game!

The last few weeks have been relatively quiet for us. I've been working, and not getting to bed early enough on a nightly basis so by the weekend I'm ready to sleep and laze around. The weather also hasn't been all that cooperative for doing fun stuff on the weekends. On one particular Saturday afternoon, the clouds were dark, it was raining, and the wind was blowing harder than we've seen here.

The next day wasn't too pretty either, but we were invited out to go have dinner and see a movie called Slumdog Millionaire. Dinner was at a place called Indian Summer for some rather tasty Indian food, and then we wandered over to the movie. The movie was about a guy who gets on India's version of who wants to be a millionaire and makes it deep. They suspect him of cheating, and through interrogation (and flashbacks for the audience), they discover that he actually knew the answers through a series of unlikely events. It's a moving film, as it shows many harsh conditions which the man had to live through when he was a boy.

This week, Diane and I went in to take our driver's theory tests. We had spent some time studying for it over the week and both came out with 100%. So after we take an eye exam, we'll have the necessary paperwork to get ourselves a provisional Irish drivers license. When that happens, we'll have to wait 6 months before we can take our practical test. It's weird having to go through this process again, and a little awkward too! I'm not sure why there isn't a faster route for someone who already knows how to drive to get a full license here. Oh well.

There's another party that we're going to tonight, and it looks like our social schedule is starting to fill up again!

Morgan

Last Days in Austria

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Here is the last installment of our adventures in Austria. I hope you enjoyed themUnfortunately, we just had the one last day in Austria before our flight home the next day. The Austrian relatives had been wonderful hosts -- not only generously giving us a place to stay and feeding us, but refusing stubbornly to let us pay for anything (though we did manage to get a couple of the bills, it was a struggle!). There was one thing we had been requested to do by Sabine's mom, and that was go over to her place for dinner. Fortunately, we had one night left to do that so that is what we did.

On Monday morning, Sabine and her husband picked us up and we made a journey about half an hour out of Linz to a little town called Gmunden which is famous for the ceramics (or in German: keramik) they make there. Unfortunately, the guided tour of the facility was closed until early January (one reason to go back I guess!), so we took the chance to admire some of the wares. They were rather nice, I must say, and you could really get just about all of your kitchen dishes in one design or another if you liked. They even had napkins, candles, coasters, and placemats you could buy that matched particular patterns. I dunno if it would be worth buying a 3.50 euro coaster just to match your ceramics though...

After taking a look at the ceramics, we walked down to the nearby lake to walk along it and stopped for lunch at a cafe which sat right next to the water. It was well worth it just to enjoy the sun shining through the glass of the porch and watch the birds on the clear water. We didn't leave until much later and enjoying more traditional Austrian desserts (complete with a lot of whipped cream!). It was a nice lunch.

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We continued walking along the coast taking pictures. Our eventual destination was a castle built on a small island on the lake. It made a nice subject for pictures, particularly with the mist over the lake in front of it. On the way, we found some ice frozen on the side of the road and Diane and I were quick to walk around on it a bit. You know the kind of ice where it's not frozen solid yet, but you can walk around on it and watch and hear cracks in the ice and bubbles run in the shallow water underneath? I have great memories of playing on ice just like this in the spring back in Edmonton. Perhaps that's why I keep doing it now whenever I get the chance.

We reached the castle and walked around it quickly before making the return journey to the car. We needed to be back to Linz to setup Skype for Sabine's mom to talk to people back home. So we arrived at her place the smell of cooking. She must have spent all day cooking up a feast for that evening! So we ate, and ate, and ate... it was delicious, and I don't really want to think about how much work went into preparing everything!

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We returned back to Kien's place, and got packed up and ready to leave in the morning. The next morning, Kien's brother generously drove us back to the Salzburg airport where we caught our plane back home.

It was a good trip, and we're glad we got out to see this side of the family and where they live. It was Diane's first time in continental Europe, and just my 3rd time with one of those times happening when I was just 2 years old, and the other when I was in Italy for a computer games research conference. It was a good experience and we're looking forward to our next trip. I hear we've got an open invitation in Budapest...

Morgan