Life in Dublin

WORK:
So after close to three months of travelling and living each day according to our every whim and desire, Meg and I find ourselves with full time jobs. It's been a little difficult to adjust. Two weeks ago we couldn't even commit to an activity two days away because it was too stressful and we changed our minds every hour, and now we are responsible for showing up at a specific time and place five days a week. However, I really shouldn't be complaining. We don't have to get to work until 10am every morning, we live a 15 minute walk away, and we have the most easy going bosses who seem more concerned with getting us drunk and ensuring we tour every pub in the city as opposed to the amount of work we actually do.

The company is called LeCayla Technologies, and it's a start up that, long story short, offers a billing and subscription management solution for software as a service (and up until last week I could not have begun to tell you what that meant). Basically we are responsible for going through a huge database and emailing and calling companies in the US offering this service, trying to generate leads. We sit upstairs in our own little room with our phones and computers and we are thrilled with the unlimited amount of internet time from which we have been deprived during our travels to email, gchat, facebook, and read stuff online.......oh yea, and work. I'm all caught up on my pop culture and Meg is caught up on world news, so we are both happy.

Conor, the CEO of the company and the owner of the house that was so generously lent to us while he was on vacation with his family, has since returned and is proving to be a unique boss. He has offered countless tips on what to see while in Ireland, the best places to drink, etc, and last night Meghan and I went to his house for dinner. We had a great time with Conor, his wife, and his two young kids, eating a great homecooked meal and sitting outside on the ONLY night it's been clear and warm enough to do so since arriving in Dublin. Conor is a big fan of wine and he brought out a really nice bottle of pinot noir for us to try. Well, one bottle led to two bottles.....which then led to three bottles. I would be halfway done with my glass, turn away for a split second, and turn back to see it had been refilled to the top. This happened over and over and after dessert as Meghan and I helped clear the dishes I whispered to her, "Um, is it just me, or are you kind of drunk?" The fit of giggles in response let me know that I was definitely not the only nonsober member of the party. We had Conor drop us off at a pub near our house after dinner, and he handed me a bag as I got out of the car with a couple of beers we had left in the fridge while staying at his house. I thought it seemed overly heavy, but didnt bother to look in the bag until I had hauled it around for about an hour. When I finally did, I saw that not only had Conor sent us on our way with our few beers, but he had included another few from his own stash AND a full handle of tequila. I love Irish bosses.

LIFE:
using the good old internet, we managed to find a small apartment in Dublin to rent for the time we are here. We saw the apartment only once before we "moved in" (aka unpacked our 5 shirts, 2 pants, underwear and books) and we were excited because it was such a great location- smack dab in the center of the city, walking distance to work and of course, just a block from starbucks. The apartment has one bedroom (where we share a cute marital bed), a small living room and kitchen area and the best part is that it has two small balconies that are amazing for wine drinking and people watching. however, we have quickly discovered not only is the apartment in the center of the city, it literally is right in the middle of the famous "temple bar" area: the main pedestrian walkway full of bars and people at ALL TIMES OF DAY/NIGHT. We cant really think of a comparison in the states as to what its like to live in this area but it has been really crazy. At first, we were thinking we would go to bed at a decent time so that we wouldn't die at work the next day, but people are yelling and singing (the irish have a "theme" song for just about every team/event/holiday known to man...plus, they love to drink in honor of just about every team/event/holiday known to man) throughout the entire night. so basically, if you can't beat them-then join them. so we have become regulars at all the pubs around our apartment (especially the one that we live above). plus, we have our own personal alarm clock. its the honking of the truck at 7am as it hauls in about 200 kegs of beer to deliver to a few pubs.

a few highlights from around town :
-In the pub, Laura attempts to order a Sierra Nevada only to be told by a disgusted bartender that he refuses to serve her that "rubbish" and that instead he would give her Irish beer.
-Every other store is a Pub. and usually it is called Doyles or Finnigans. and even though there are so many pubs, they are all always full. these people can drink.
-Irish are big on sandwiches except, apparently, don't ask for mustard. we did and got a dumbfounded look and the response of "um, we only have mayo and butter"
-The grocery store had out samples of sushi so we, of course, tried it but before we were allowed to, the lady asked us "this has tofu in it. do you know what tofu is? you can try a beef sushi instead if you would like".


and the tooth saga continues: so, i see a candy stand and obviously cant pass it up so i proceed to fill up a bag with lots of candy. then, since it looks so good in the bag and i cant wait until i get home to eat it, i indulge myself. so now im walking down the street, eating my bag of candy, happy as a lark when i bite into something hard. disgusted that the candy has random stuff in it, i spit out the candy and the hard thing i bit into. being bummed, i sadly walk home candy-less and mad at the candy shop when i realize oh no, my crown on the tooth i had worked on in romania is gone! then it all clicked: the hard thing i bit into while eating the candy was my crown...and it must now be laying discarded somewhere in a puddle on the street in dublin. deciding that i needed it back, i proceeded to wander the streets, stepping on every white thing i saw. sure enough, after my shoe was covered in a lot of gum and who knows what else, i found the crown of my tooth sitting in a puddle. i picked it up and happily put it in my pocket...havent quite figured out how to proceed from there though. damn the romanian dentist.


we will try and blog more soon. plus we are working on the picture situation. but for now, we have to get back to work!

Prague to Poland- the closing of a chapter

Prague-

We had high expectations of Prague and somehow, it lived up to every one of them and more. It really was the magical, medievil city everyone claims it to be- the winding, labyrinth like streets, castles, gorgeous buildings with lots of little shops...it was all very cool. Nothing exciting to report besides lots of walking, site seeing and just enjoying our time travelling.

In sticking with our eastern Europe journey, we decided to take a train to Poland because word on the street was that some city named Krakow was cool and had the biggest square/plaza in Europe. So off to Poland we went.

Poland is ghetto. Really really ghetto. There isn't much to say about it other than it is probably one of the randomest places we have gone and dont have much desire to go back. We are really happy we went but wow...its ghetto.

Some Poland highlights:
1. The bathroom doors aren't marked by the usual pictures of a man and a woman. Oh no, they are marked with pictures of tigers and hippos. After several "mishaps", we came to realize that as much as we wanted to be tigers...we are definitely hippos. Tiger=men Hippo=woman. lame.

2. Krakow was cool...until my wallet was stolen. We were chillin in the market with all the polish people, thinking we were all cool and blending in like locals when I went to buy something and realized my wallet was gone. bummer...but i guess it was bound to happen to us eventually and hey, at least i have my passport. things could be worse.

3. Krakow was only an hour from the infamous Aushwitz death camp of WWII so we took a little day trip there. Having spent the entire bus ride spacing out, this guy sitting in front of us who looked like he knew what he was doing, got off the bus with his family. I, all of a sudden deciding that this was where we should be getting off, hopped right off the bus with Laura confusedly following. It turned out it was the wrong spot which we quickly realized as the bus drove off with all the other tourists laughing at us out of the window. luckily, the concentration camp was only like a mile away so we rolled up to Aushwitz on foot. kind of awkward. But the experience of seeing something you read about constantly in history books was really moving. and too hard to describe.

4. From Krakow, we went to Warsaw and Warsaw was ghetto-est. It was all destroyed in the war and then they frantically rebuilt it...which is quite obvious by how ugly everything is. Laura and I ended up going to the movie theater twice in the day we were waiting to go to the airport because sighteseeing failed miserably.

From Warsaw we flew to Dublin where we find ourselves now. We are putting our travel plans on hold for a while as we are settling down in Dublin with some jobs, working for a startup and hanging out. Its a nice change of pace...more to come on this later.

So its the close of our easter European adventure and in honor of it, we've tried to sum it up a bit. Here is what we have come up with:

Best city: we cant decide (istanbul, athens, budapest)
Worst city: Bucharest, Romania

Best Monuments: 1. the Acropolis 2. Aya Sofya (Istanbul) 3. monastaries in Meteora (Greece)

Best beach: Mylopotas on the island of Ios, Greece

Best people: hungarians, slovakians
Worst people: bucharest, romania people

Memorable adventure: Hungarian baths

Best drunk night: our first night out in Athens

Best plaza: Prague

Ghetto-est place we stayed: Hostel Aphrodite (Athens, Greece) and the Casino we stayed at in Burgas, Bulgaria

Most memorable moment: eating greek salad, on top of a hotel, during a thunderstorm, looking out at the acropolis