cultural differences

here are three things that have really stood out to me as being different between australia and ireland. don't get your hopes up for a massive insight into the differences - they are all pretty mundane

 

number 3: (notice that i'm going to go backwards to build suspense)...no smoking inside any public places, including public houses, known simply as pubs by most people. this rule is great for non smokers like myself. i love it - i can go out at night, wake up the next morning and be able to wear my clothes again. and that's a real lifesaver when you have as few clothes as i do and dislike washing them as much as i do. the only problem with this rule is that it leads to all the smokers gathering around the entry/exit to every building so whenever you walk into/out of a place (such as pub or supermarket etc) you have to hold your breath to avoid the nicotine clouds hovering there.

 

number 2: there is government surcharge on plastic bags. whenever you go to any shop, not just supermarkets, and you get a plastic bag you have to pay an extra 15 euro cents. that's about 23 australian cents. i reckon it's a great idea because it cuts down on the amount of plastic bags people use. although it can suck sometimes when you go to the supermarket and forget to bring any other bag and are too tight to spend 15 cents (like myself) so end up cramming as much as you can into your pockets and balancing the rest all the way home. luckily i only live a couple of minutes away from tescos (uk and irelands version of coles) so it's not too bad.

 

number 1: bread. and more specifically the packaging it comes in - over here the loaves of bread don't have the little plastic doo-dahs on the end of them. i don't know what they are called (maybe someone can help me out) but you all know what i mean, at least all aussies do - the little platic squares with a hole in the middle that keeps the plastic bag closed and the bread fresh. here they just come with a piece of sticky tape that you have to bend round on itself or they don't come with anything at all and you just have to fold the packing over to try and keep the bread fresh.

 

there you go, my three 'cultural' differences. in other news; i saw miami vice last night - what a crap movie, i fell asleep twice during it. i just checked my credit card balance and i owe visa $4,000. i thought it was about $1,500 so that was a nasty surprise. if only i'd known yesterday, i wouldn't have gone to the movies and i would have been spared 2 hours of miami vice.

Hooray for me

played cricket last saturday. scored 62* off about 15 or so overs. hit 8 4s and a 6. we smashed the opposition. it felt good.

on sunday i went to 'kilmainham gaol' (not for drunk & disorderly behaviour). it's an old gaol in dublin, not in use anymore. most significant thing about it is that it is where the 14 leaders of the 1916 easter uprising were executed.

the 1916 easter uprising ultimately led to the establishment of a separate (from britain) irish free state which led to the irish republic that exists today.

the thing about the uprising is that it wasn't very popular with the irish people when it happened (they were more concerned about WW1) and it most likely would have passed un-noticed except that the brits decided to execute the leaders of it. this pissed the people off good and proper and started the ultimately successful push for an irish free state.

this was far from the only uprising in ireland's history but it was the last (because it was a success) although there was a civil war in between the uprising and the establishment of the free state (in 1922) so it was a pretty topsy turvy time in ireland.

another interesting thing about the uprising is that there were actually 15 leaders, but only 14 were executed. the lucky one to escape the firing squad was eamonn de valera. the reason he escaped? he was born in and lived in america until the tender age of three before moving to ireland. in 1916 the brits weren't too keen on executing a yanky so he escaped with a gaol sentance. eamonn de valera went on to become both prime minister and president of ireland throughout his lifetime.

here endeth the history lesson. history is much more interesting when you are in the places that what it was in school.

General updating of stuff

I've been quite busy lately, which has been good. Working 40 hours a week (more than I had to at Sydney Water, no day off every fortnight either) and going out a fair bit too.

I went out on Wednesday night, was meeting a girl from Northern Island who's moved down to Dublin for work, was only going to go for a coffee but had a beer instead and then another and anther. Went to dinner and shared a bottle of wine and then went to 'The Woolshed' (which is the Australian pub in town). I introduced her to some Aussie beers...

My old favourite from home, Tooheys extra dry. The slightly more upmarket Coopers pale ale. And, of course, Fosters. Much to my disgust her favourite was Fosters. Also, becuase I have some time to kill I want to put a picture of Guiness up, here goes...

I'm not sure if I drank any of that on Wednesday but chances are... Anyway I had a crap nights sleep that night and then had to get up at early to go to work on Thursday. Struggled through work and then, for some unknown reason, went out for a couple of drinks after work. Managed to get to bed fairly early but got woken up by my flatmate shouting and banging on the door because he'd locked himself out.

Plans for this weekend: wanting to go to Malahide, which is a little north of Dublin, to check out the castle they have there. Probably going for a wee drink or two on Saturday with a Swedish bloke I met when I first came to Dublin in June who is living here now too.

Beer is expensive over here too. A pint costs somewhere between 4 & 5 euros (I can't get the euro sign to work on the keyboard) which is about $7 or 8 so quite pricey. For this reason I have decided to start a collection, very originally called (drum roll): pete's beer fund. Anyone wanting to make donations (fully tax deductible) may contact me for my bank account details.

I had a phone call from Benny this afternoon, he's just moved to Dubai for two or so months. It was good to hear a familiar voice chat to him and exchange stories.

That's all I've got for now, but I still have a little time so I'm going to put up a picture of hurling. This isn't the game I saw, I just found it on google.

It's time to clean up my...

...language. I've been informed by by friends at Sydney Water that they can't view my site because of the 'profanity' on it. So I, Peter A Harris, hereby resolve to express myself in ways which do not involve rude, crude or lewd words. We'll see how long I last...

 

...

 

...

 

f%$k, this is harder than i thought it would be...

...I've been at work for one week now. Yesterday was a public holiday (thank god too because I needed a break after my first week back at work) and even though I'm temping I got paid for it!! Hip hip hooray for Irish workplace laws. John Howard could learn a bit from Bertie Ahern*.

 

I work for a company called Standard Life. They do life insurance and also investments. When someone wants to cash in their investment they write in to the company and that letter ends up on my (or a similar lackeys) desk and I press some buttons, and lo and behold a cheque comes out for their money. Unfortunately there is a middle man somewhere along the process who approves the cheques so I can't just make them out to myself :(

 

It's not that exciting but it pays ok and I'm fairly busy so time doesn't drag on too much.

 

On the weekend I went to Croke park, which is the biggest sporting ground in Ireland, to watch some hurling. Hurling and gaelic football are the main sports of the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) and along with soccer are the three biggest sports in Ireland. Hurling is pretty cool. It's like a pumped up version of hockey only there's much more body contact and you can use your hands and feet on the ball as well as your stick (called a hurley). It's a very fast sport to watch and the Irish croud really gets behind their teams, the atmosphere in the stadium was awesome!)

 

Cork beat Waterford by one point in the last minute of the main game. I was going for Cork because they wear red and white (go the dragons!). Anyway, I'm out of time so I've got to go.

 

Pete

 

* Irelands Taoiseach**

 

** Irelands equivalent of prime minister, pronounced tao-seck