Thursday, August 28, 2008

I didn't fall in love with England

But, I'm moving there anyway. I did like it, a lot. And actually, it was refreshing to know that I don't fall in love with EVERY place I go, just most places. I think London will be a place that grows on me. And yes, despite my fascination with the countryside, I just can't do it right now. Not after New York City. I love the green and rolling hills, but I can't do the lack of culture. Which means I will probably end up in some place like Denver (yay Kirstin) or Seattle or Portland or San Francisco or one of a million places I've never been but hear are a delightful combination of green and independent movie theaters :)

Another excuse to move to London, for starters, (and islington to be specific), is because I know two and a half people. The two being Alex and Xan (who will be looking for a new apartment around the time I plan on moving here!! How convenient if I can convince her to live with me!) and the half being the Irish-London guy who I may or may not have ended up spending too many hours with while I was in England, despite the fact that yes, it was a bad idea.

SO, London. I stayed at Alex's in Acton with Tiana. He has SUCH an amazing house with a wonderful garden which made me realize that my standard of living includes a window in my bedroom, and a back garden. Am I asking for too much? (The back garden!)

While Tiana was here we ate fabulous food, went to Hempstead Heath park (near where I want to live because it is the prettiest park everrrrr with un-mowed grass that gives it that non-urban feel), and went to the Notting Hill Carnival. It is London's answer to the West Indian parade only about a thousand times better. Lots of good food and good music and people dressed up in costume...and lots of drinking in the streets. What is a good parade, exactly, without lots of legal drinking in the streets? It makes for some seriously entertaining people-watching. Here I am doing cartwheels in the grass at Hempstead Heath. Yay!

After Tiana left I ended up staying with Alex for the rest of the time, which was fun. Alex had to work though, so I spent a lot of time sight-seeing on my own and doing typical London things. I spent most of Monday and part of Tuesday with Eamonn, and we had a total blast, which is a shame considering he sucks, remember? ha. But anyway, we went to the British Museum (Cleopatra is there, and so is the Rosetta Stone...so cool, though really it's just a museum of stolen stuff that doesn't actually belong to the British) and to the Tate Modern. We also walked around pretty much the whole city, which has it's redeeming qualities (cobble stone streets, picturesque architecture) to be sure. I also got my dance on that night, and I can tell you that London definitely knows how to party, in a way that Dublin certainly does not.
(Look. Big Ben!)

Tuesday I went to a meeting/interview (they can't OFFICIALLY interview me because I don't have a visa yet) with a teacher recruitment agency and they answered all of my 1 billion questions about teaching in England. It made me feel much more secure and actually excited about the prospect of being in England for a while. I hadn't actually slept before the meeting, so I completely missed a day of sight-seeing because I was too tired. Alex and I did watch "When Harry Met Sally" because I was the only American on Earth who had never seen it before. It's one of those always quoted movies that I just had to smile and nod about and pretend I knew what everyone was talking about.

Yesterday was my final day of sightseeing and I went to the London Eye and got great (cloudy!) views of the city. (London Eye)

I also went into Westminster Abbey. I love cathedrals and churches and stained glass and history. Lots of awesome people are buried there, too. (Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth!!)

Anyway, I'm back in Malahide now ready to begin my last month as a jobless foreigner. I've got to head up the apples and pears because I'm feeling a bit pony after my lack of sleep holiday.

Love, Sarah

PS: I just had to throw that last line in there. I learned some cockney rhyming slang when I was in London and it is the best secret/not so secret language I have ever encountered. (Apples and Pears=Stairs, Pony and Trap=Crap, Trouble and Strife=Wife, and so on.)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Why I love Shannon Flanagan

Hey Sarah!

Thanks again for letting me babysit your bike. I actually rode it all the way to work today and I'm at a Site down on Wall St. Don't worry I have a Kryptonite lock, and I am chaining both tires and the bike. I also got a chain for the seat. Hope you are loving life!

Enjoy London!!

-shan

Irish Dinner Party

Get excited...This blog is ACTUALLY going to be short :) I'm heading to London tomorrow and haven't even thought about laundry or packing or running, so I have a bunch of things to do before then.

I threw a dinner party last night, my first since 788 Amsterdam, and a blast, though I missed many of you! We had 13 people over, I made vegetarian lasagna (and artichoke dip and really garlicky guacamole and brownies!) and at first, the meat-loving Irish were skeptical, but dinner got rave reviews and everyone went home stuffed. The lovely thing about throwing a dinner party here, is that we have a dining room table! Imagine it, my NYC friendlies, a dinner party with a real live TABLE to sit around. Fancy! We had the perfect weather, so people sat around the dining room table, and the garden table outside in back. I was outside last night, with a short-sleeve shirt on...which NEVER happens in Ireland. Lucky us!Ooooh, check this out, I get to go to England now...I have new passport pages and now can travel legally! A security guard at the embassy offered to marry me for citizenship. Tempting.

And now, for the part of the blog I know you all look forward to ;), things I've learned this week, and stuff like that:
1) Whoever said there was no crying in sports, clearly never watched the olympics. It's so emotional!
2) Boxing is the new sexiest sport ever. (Have you all SEEN Kenny Egan? O. M. G.)
3) I've been watching too much olympics.
4) People in Ireland do not know what an artichoke is, Irish people don't use ricotta cheese in their lasagna, and even Mexican restaurants don't have black beans.
5) Crunchie Bite Dairy Milk and Smarties are the most amazing Cadbury Candies on earth!
6) I do not get heat rash or chafe when I run in Irish weather. Thank God!
7) I'm reading my fifth book of the summer right now (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), and I think it's my favorite so far. I've been quite disappointed about the modern Irish authors I've read, and I think I may stop reading them all together!
8) I've been feeling kind of non-productive, so I am going to be volunteering for the Dublin Fringe Festival in the upcoming weeks, and hopefully I'll get some free tickets. To help me decide what I should check out, go here: http://www.fringefest.com/
9) I have finished writing my UK visa application, and now I will wait until I visit there to actually send it in.
10) Sept. 25th is the date I am returning to the United States.

See you all soon. Comment Comment Comment! :)

Love Sarah

Sunday, August 17, 2008

There are no secrets in the Balkans

Look Look! Tiana and Sarah are Tan!

Well the subject line was our motto, and I'm sticking to it. Sorry (especially to mom) it's been so long, but I've been in Croatia/Montenegro with Tiana and company, and haven't had a free moment to write. After the month straight of rain we've had here in Ireland, the beach was much more tempting than the front of a computer screen :) I've written this blog in the airport in Zadar, Croatia out of pure boredom for my delayed Dublin flight. It seems there are two loopholes in having a blog instead of a journal: 1) no paper to write on, ever and 2) I don't actually get to write down the "full truth", because this is public. However, I've decided to write slightly more of the "full truth" because I know that only people who really love me actually get to the bottom of these epic blogs :) So read on; this might be juicy.

My holiday from my holiday started out rocky. I couldn't money out of the ATM in Croatia (This is a very familiar pattern. Screw you Chase bank.) and I got there too late to exchange money. Hence, I was left at the airport with no money for a bus into town to meet Tiana and her brother Stefan. Luckily, a very kind soul, his name is Niall, paid my way for me. I think he is an angel. We are actually sitting next to each other getting ready to board the plane right now because, as it turns out, we are also on the same flight back home. I finally met up with Tiana and Stefan in Zadar, Croatia. Most people pass through without stopping, but we were here for 2 days and it really is spectacular. We did a lot of beaching and walking around old architecture. We took a day boat trip (complete with all you can eat, all you can drink!) through a thousand islands in a National Park off the coast of Zadar. Amazing!
This is Tiana and Stefan and the amazingly clear green of the Adriatic Sea in Zadar.

I was surprised, however, about how much blatant racism towards Serbians goes on in Croatia. I guess the war only ended ten years ago, but, people could tell that Tiana and Stefan were Serbs as soon as they spoke, and people, at times were very mean to us. (Wrong directions, Yelling, Threats!) We did, of course, also meet some wonderful Croats. Also, the Balkans have a surprising number of Nazi skinheads. I actually walked into a jewelry store that had a swastika necklace! I wanted to take a photo for the blog...but I decided that would have been unwise.

While in Zadar we sat outside a Kultur Shock concert. (They are from Seattle...and sitting outside concerts loud enough to hear is all the rage, apparently.) It was pretty wild. I met this guy Anton, who has matching pencil wounds with me! How people find these things out about each other, especially with a language-barrier, is always a shocker.

Then, Tiana and I took an 8 hour bus ride to Dubrovnik. I definitely will go back there when I have a chance because it is gorgeous and I needed more time there than just one day.
This is us crossing the Croatia/Montenegro border on foot. I will just say that how we crossed was not exactly legal, but the crazy Montenegran bus man left us no other choice. To make matters even better, Montenegro stamped directly over my Irish visa because, gasp, I have no more pages left in my passport. (Yes, you worry-warts, I am going to the embassy tomorrow to see what they can do for me. Ireland didn't bother to stamp my passport upon return. I think they just thought I was crazy to keep coming back in the rain and gray, and they took pity on me.)

We spent the rest of our trip in Herceg Novi, Montenegro where we stayed with Tiana's cousin Mila and her boyfriend Ivan.
This is Alex, Ivan, Mila, Tiana and Myself. Pretty much the Montenegro crew, plus or minus some people every day. Alex is Tiana's London friend, who many of you have met at various "Dress Like You Mean It" parties over the years. I am staying with him next week in London.

Montenegro was a BLAST because Ivan's family owns a house there and 1/2 of Belgrade was vacationing so "we" knew many, many people and it was a giant beach party every day and every night. I actually saw the majority of Montenegro b/c it is so small and one day we rented cars and drove through many seaside/mountain towns and went out to Ivan's friend's bar in Budvar. I think the Adriatic is quickly becoming my favorite body of water. It miraculously remains perfectly cool when it is a blazing 102 degrees every single day. I wish I could remember all of the teeny towns' names, but, because everyone else spoke some sort of Croatian/Serbian/Montenegran, I never really had to know where we were going. It was great to just be led around and not have to do any thinking. Knowing people is the best way to travel, by far.
This is a view of Herceg Novi from a boat, complete with Fortress, Mountains, and Adriatic.

Now for the realizations/confessions part of the blog. The things I've decided this holiday are as follows:
1) I'm not doing the TEFL class in Galway. (Because, damnit!, I already HAVE my Masters in Education, and, as Marisa so eloquently put it: "It's like going back to paralegal school when you've already passed the bar!")
2) I'm going to hang out in Dublin/Malahide until late September and try to dome some volunteering since I can't get a job. I will then be coming back to the states for an unspecified amount of time. There will be a NYC birthday party. Details to come soon :)
3) I am applying for my UK Visa so I can teach there. I have devised a mostly legal way to begin my paperwork before I get back to the states. I probably shouldn't write down details about that on the interweb ;)
4) I'm going to England on Saturday for a week and hanging out with Tiana and Alex. I will not be seeing Eamonn because he totally sucks! (Here's the juicy part...) Eamonn, in case you hadn't gathered, is an Irish guy who may have forced me into having a crush on him even though I have been really trying NOT to because it is highly impractical. He may or may not have invited me to stay with him in London. He may or may not have planned for us to go to Oxford together. And, he may or may not have a girlfriend/exgirlfriend (who really knows?) or something in between. So, needless to say, someone please remind me that next time I decide to think someone is too good to be true, they are. Thanks :)

See, if you made it to the end, you got the good stuff! (Thanks for the comments and for the lovely response emails. Keep em coming!)

Love you all,
Sarah

Monday, August 4, 2008

Fitting In

Hey everyone,

I hope life is treating everyone as well as it seems to be treating me here. Thanks to everyone who sent me advice about what I should do about a job. Just kidding! Thanks to Hanne, because, apparently she is the only one that loves me. hehe. sorry. Did I mention you all should leave me comments? Shameless plug. Oooookaaaay.

I'll be quick. I swear. (Do my epic blogs ALWAYS start like this?)

This last half week of life in Dublin has been amazing. I would go so far as to say that I am becoming comfortable here, and, I actually had an "I love Dublin" moment when I was walking down the street earlier in the week. The moment scared me, because I'm not ready to leave, and, thank you United States Government, I have to. Also special thanks to whoever at the hospital in Puerto Rico decided to make my mother's birth certificate, real age, and real birthday cease to exist sometime around the time she was born. It makes for a very difficult visa request process.

I went salsa dancing on Thursday night with my friend Katie and her flatmate Kristin. It was SUCH a blast. It is amazing how unpretentious the salsa dancers in this city are. (And they are SO good!) I actually ended up staying long after my friends were gone, just to dance...which is something I never had the confidence to do in NY. The downside is that I wore heels and now I can't walk properly because my feet are so cut up. Why in the WORLD did some man invent these awful things women wear on their feet to make them look tall, slim, and sexy? I am sure this is an age, old question dating back to some Medieval torture device. I came home after dancing and fell into the couch, and then spent three hours talking with Markus about life into the wee hours. It was really nice to have some roomie bonding time, but I will admit that he doesn't make ice cream or brownies appear the way James does. And he doesn't cook. Ever.

On Friday I went to the gym with Markus and rediscovered swimming. How awesome a sport is that? Why didn't anyone make me do it when I had a broken foot last year? (Oh wait, many people tried and I was too stubborn to listen. right-o.) Friday night I finally got to experience what the towney bar is like. Oh yea, it's towny. All the moms, dads, grams, gramps, teens, tweens, and twenty-somethings congregate there. And you know what? It's SUPER fun.
This is Finney and David taking the piss. Or something. Finney is the first Irish person I've met that doesn't have blue eyes. Turns out he's actually half British. (Did you know that Ireland is one of the most inbred countries in the world? Hmmm...)

Saturday I learned what Irish weather is really all about. I got all my running gear on, and then it pissed rain for about an hour. Sheets and sheets of it the way that you can't even see your hands if you hold them out in front of you. And then, lo and behold, it got bright and sunny and HOT. What? So, I went for an 8 mile run and I discovered SWANS. Yes, there are swans on the other side of the estuary I've been running at. It is astonishingly beautiful. There were dads fishing with their kids, grandparents going for walks, and it felt like home. I swear I'm going to take a picture of it eventually. It's just so far to WALK to take a photo.

I went into Dublin for a quick, early hang-out with Mariel (my super cool new music loving friend from Boston cum Rochester!) and got on the bus to come home at a reasonable hour because I had to wake up this morning at 7am. I accidentally met up with David and company at Gibneys (towny pub), we accidentally went back to Rory's house to listen to people play guitar, and I accidentally got home this morning in time to change into sneakers to go hiking. I was wrecked all day, but it was worth it.
This is Rory's dog and Fin. We are taking the dog for a run tomorrow morning! (Didn't I always say my dream was to come to Ireland and get a dog? Well this is a start.) Anyway, tomorrow is a "bank holiday" so after my run I plan on crawling back into bed and sleeping for a long, long time. And then maybe figuring out what I'm doing with my life. And then I'm going to Montenegro.

So, on Regina's suggestion, I went to Glendalough today, with Mariel. It is in the Wicklow mountains ("Ireland's Garden" is what it is fondly called by the Irish) and it was spectacular. So peaceful and green and quiet. Wicklow is where Braveheart was filmed, and now I need to go from being the one American who hasn't seen that movie, to being someone who finally has. I am inspired. We also went to Kilkenny, which is a quaint little New England-town in County Clare. It was a great day, though now I am so tired I could die.
This is my obligatory jumping in elysian fields photo. :)

I love you all and miss you dearly. Leave me comments because I feel like no one actually reads this.

Cheers :)
Sarah