"Suit up, because tonight is going to be....

...legendary."

Shows like How I Met Your Mother are great because they make fairly insignificant life moments into stories that are to be passed on from generation to generation. The right mindset can make all the difference, transforming the mundane into the magnificent.


Irregardless (eat it, extra syllable haters), this entry commemorates the beginning of my excursion to Dublin.

It begins with..... AN ALARM! My cell phone alarm is set to "most annoying sound ever." It sounds like an English police siren run through a high-speed filter. I should really change it, but then I would never wake up. Ever.

"Fast forward to a more recent memory." Instead of packing intelligently, I packed a few hours before departure, got a grab to eat with the guys one last time prior to departure, then gave up on packing and shoved all my belongings in either my luggage or my car trunk. Should my car explode while I'm away, I will be less one pair of sneakers, and one "suspicious box." My pool sticks are resting at Joe's, although I wish I had brought them now that I've found several pool halls.

Upon arriving at Logan International Airport (Boston, MA), I had already been sleep deprived (in order to resynchronise [British English spellings take precedence here] my circadian cycle to the 5 hour time difference) and fairly tired. It was expected that once I boarded my plane, I fell asleep promptly. I was awake to see northeastern Massachusetts zip by underneath. The next time I woke up, I was passing over the Irish countryside near Shannon (apparently, the neutral Irish gov't allows US military aircraft to land and refuel there, potentially compromising neutrality - a big deal). I fell asleep again and woke up docked at Dublin Airport, somehow ignoring the entire landing in the process. The ravioli tasted stale, the cheesecake tasted runny. The water was delicious.

Met randomly at the bleary hour of 8am with Yumi, Meagan, and Jessica by the luggage carousel (in that order from left to right - I can only remember useless details). They apparently knew I was coming. Taxis are expensive. I somehow remembered something useful and got our keys and checked in. Our internet was non-functional for several days, because the instructions provided at check-in were horribly outdated. Manual TCP/IP configuration is now being used, over the automatic detection of old.

The first thing I did upon arriving in my room is burn out my power strip. It kind of blew up in my hand. I'm more or less completely settled in now, sans a few electrical accessories.

Our €73 bus passes give us free rides everywhere. And by everywhere, I actually mean everywhere but where I work. The first afternoon (it gets dark at 10pm here, true story), we went grocery shopping in the Omni Shopping Complex and the Tesco grocery store. I got all of the stuff that my room lacked at that time.

Afterwards, apartmentmates and I went to the Comet, a local pub-style pub (which stands for Public House, as in a casual gathering space). It was comfortable, the Guinness drafts were rich, frothy, and delicious, and the food was fairly decent. Lots of locals were there just to sit, chat, watch tv, and pass time. It truly is the equivalent of an American coffeehouse.

On my way back, bumped into Monica, Meagan, Yumi; went to O'Neills (bar and pub-style) for more Guinness, and live music.












I got my first encounter with slagging (making fun of people with good-will) from one of the guys in the band. He was ragging on us for being obviously American, and I apparently am now from San Francisco. It was pretty hilarious to be a part of, highly recommend it.


We also ventured to a more bar-style pub afterwards in the Temple Bar area. It was packed, lively, with great live music, and was 21+. Some places are 23+ just to restrict the clientèle to a particular crowd.

Next morning was orientation at the National College of Ireland. Tom Kelley (who's quickly rising to notoriety amongst the students) presented a bunch of random stuff and gave us our internship placements/interview schedules. It was followed by visiting the Charles Beatty museum in Dublin Castle. The museum had all these like ancient relics of various religions, such as age old deteriorating papyrus leaves printed with bible passages and other such things. No Pic. Quite a powerful place. There was also a carving done by a microprint artist. He became so talented over the course of his life that I couldn't read his microprint even with the magnifying glass that they provided. We also scouted out some workplaces, ate at a delicious sit-down cafe, and went to Comet. Kopparberg ciders are delicious. Returned early for interview sleep. Also that was when I got my internet to work. About damn time. They gave us the instructions from years ago.

Present Day.
Tom's directions were very vague. I have to take the city bus into the city centre, and then take a private coach to Parkwest Business Centre. The AMC bus only takes print out tickets. I have no printer access. I had to fudge the ticket and call in to the office to confirm that it was ok to not bring it with me. I woke up at 7, 710, 715, 728, and finally at 730. After getting ready, I followed googleMaps directions to the bus stop for the 19A DublinBus to city centre. googleMaps failed. (insert shock) I got directions from a local, missed my bus, didn't take the next one because it was the 19C instead of the 19A for some reason, and then got on the bus. Got off at Aston Quay (pronounced 'key') and waited at a random place to fudge my entrance to the AMC bus. Got off that bus one stop too soon in an industrial park. Wandered a bit, got some coffee/breakfast fruit tray, then found the "large squiggly sculpture" that was described in the directions.
The interview was very specific, to the point, and happened very quickly, post consumption of breakfast and coffee in the glass building to the right.
At Curam Software, all the people were walking around in t shirts and jeans. The hours that we need to be in for are from 10 - 4, but we need to show up for 8 hours per day, we just choose when those extra 2 hours are covered. There's a pool table, a foosball table, and Friday luncheon out with the crew. Sounds like a good deal. Should I get the position, I'll be working on the testing team with one other person, testing all the products/updates prior to release. Hopefully I'll be trained on design theories and whatnot as well. I'm quite excited about this place. It's exactly my cup of tea.

Parkwest is this business park that has new offices, residences, and shopping centers. An enclosed community if you will. Quite neat if you ask me. The place is about 20 minutes west of city centre, which is about 30 minutes south of Santry (where I live). Met with people, journeyed up the coast to the shore. Got delicious fresh seafood from right off the shore... best fish and chips that I will probably ever have. Local place, but delicious despite its relative lack of fame. The weather has been nice for the past few days, but this day, it started to rain. Last year, it was the same exact way, except that it rained for about 60 consecutive days. Good thing history never repeats itself. It's about the same temperature as at home, but rainy-er on average.

My doctor says I shouldn't drink anymore. Then I went to Dublin. I'll go buy a second opinion sometime this week.