Ze new office

In May it will be workplacement time. And if you have to do it, you'd better make sure you do it right. Therefore, I found myself a nice internship in probably the nicest (and poshestest) part of Dublin: Merrion Square.
I will be working at the National Museum for Natural History. HA!
This will be my new office:


It's one of those 18th Century museums Victorian-style, with a Fin Whale skeleton hanging from the sealing and every possible animal under the sun stuffed up and carefully collected throughout the centuries by the Royal Dublin Society. Just as these places are supposed to be.
As you can see, the interior is basically untouched:


I think the animals come alive at night....

The Dáil (Parliament) is connected to the building, because before they took over the premises, the Royal Dublin Society had its headquarters there and they owned the museum.

Oh and Bertie will be my neighbour, since the equally nice but of course much bigger building next door is 'Roinn na taoisigh' aka the Department of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister).

Anyway, I'll spend May there. Just so you know...

Paddy's Weekend

Since St Patrick's Day was on a Friday, there's no way around it: it had to last the whole weekend.
Zillions of years ago St Patrick brought Christianity to the Irish and chased all the snakes out of the country at the same time. (Since he was there anyway....) And he did such a good job that there still are no snakes that choose Ireland as their favourite habitat. Fair play to Paddy so.

Anyway, St Patrick is the national Saint and the 17th of March is the National holiday. People dress up in green, pin some shamrocks on their coat and go out and about for the day.

Kirstyanne, Sofia, Eros and me set out to watch the parade. By the time it was half way through we had frozen our toes off and decided to go for coffee in a nearby hotel and watch the rest of it on tv.

After the parade we went to Croke Park stadium to watch the All-Ireland Club finals. Two matches: Hurling and Gaelic Football. Although I don't know the rules of either exactly, Hurling can best be described as a sort of rough 3D fieldhockey (helmets can be worn and you may lift the hurler (stick) above your hip, in fact you have to swing it above your head ever so often) and Gaelic Football is a mixture of Football, Handball and Rugby. People like their contact sports over here.... But before I get into trouble, they are both very skillful games.
The Hurling final:

After that first match, the people from the lower tiers all ran onto the pitch to congratulate their team.

Voice over the speakers: We kindly ask all patrons to remain in their seats during the ceremony and not make their way into the field.

Kirstyanne: I don't think it's working
Mariekschen: you don't say...
Voice over the speakers: We kindly ask all patrons to return to their seats as soon as possible after the ceremony. We have a Gaelic Football match to play after this.

After we'd frozen our toes off again, Kirstyanne and I walked back to town and paid a visit to some pubs and a chipper on the way. That evening we convinced people that I was Scottish and Kirstyanne (who is actually Scottish) had won the Female Highland games. Good times good times.

Next year: parade on tv and more socks during the Club finals...

The last three six nations games were played on saturday. People had to go to the pub for 'a cure' anyway, so it was nice and full of people everywhere during the matches. Ireland beat England and considering that it was in England too, made the win even sweeter. Although France won the tournament, Ireland walked away with the Triple Crown trophy. So the whole city was celebrating this great victory that day after Paddy's day and the Rugby team were the new national heroes.

Rugby, Scots and their kilts

When Maartje came to visit me, it was also the weekend the Scottish had to play the boys in green in the 6 nations championship. Kilts and banter all over town, so Maartje definitely chose the right weekend to come here. Unfortunately we didn't have tickets to the match this time, so it was off to the pub for us to watch it on the big screen.

Saturday night
Maartje: I want a photo with a scot wearing a kilt
Kirstyanne: no prob. hey you! my dutch friends would like a photo with you
Scot in kilt: ok, sure
Random punter: I'll take it. All of yis get in there.
Bouncer: Ok people time to leave, we're closing
Random punter: Ah just one photo. You can be in it.
Bouncer: well ok. (grabs a few more people to get in to the photo)

Result:

the bouncer is the guy in black, right in front of me.

Fake tans and first communions

Lecturer: When you think about it, it's kind of rediculous that little 7 year old girls have to dress up as brides to receive the body of Christ for the first time. Let alone the whole circus that surrounds it these days. People lending money to pay for an exorbitant party complete with a stretched limo to bring their daughter to church that one time a year they actually go there. In my day there was only one kind of veil and the nuns picked that out for us. It's insane what they wear these days, they really are brides in miniature.
Danielle: And then there's also the fake tans, hair extensions and manicures they have to have ofcourse.
mariekschen: What?! the little girls or their mothers?
Danielle: No, the girls themselves.
Brian: When I have kids, I'll move to West-Cork, so my daughter won't have any other choice but to wear Wellies.*
Carmel (from West Cork): Hey!
Brian: No offence, but that really is my plan though.
Carmel: Well, I actually do own two pairs of Wellies...

Lecturer: Ok, we drifted off here, back to the influence of the sociology of knowledge on science.

* Wellies (Wellingtons) are rainboots

Local elections

For the first time since I was allowed to, I have not voted. Shame on me, I know. Although I don't consider myself to be continually up to date with all that is happening in the political arena (and especially not the one in my home town where I'm registered now), I do have the opinion that if you don't bother to vote you shouldn't complain either.
The reason I did not vote is that my parents didn't come to visit me and bring my ballot for me to sign to give them authority to vote for me. This was all due to my brother's appendicitis (poor boy) and an Phost who should have delivered my ballot to me instead. It was sent to me a week ago and still I haven't received it. So much for trusting the Irish postal services. A combination of things I have had no control over, so I can't really blame myself for being lazy.
Fortunately the party I would have voted for won in my town, so I don't feel guilty for not fulfilling my civic duty this time.
Four years ago Ellen, Rob, David and myself went to the election night at Maastricht city hall. We watched the results unfold and celebrate Ellen's non-election with the free drink they served all evening. I was just wondering whether I have missed a good party at the Dutch embassy, but then again they probably won't really bother for local elections. Maybe next year for the national ones. Who knows...

Addendum

Unique selling point of my new place however is the videobox of Pride and Prejudice!
Yes, the BBC one with Colin Firth!!!

The 'experience' called: 'my new place'

After our landlord chucked us out, Karen and I had been looking for a place we could live in together. Fortunately, two single rooms in one house were advertised and when I went over to take a look, they turned out to be double rooms. This basically means that not only do you have a double bed, but you're also able to open the door and walk into the room without having to stand on your bed in order to be able to close the door. A single room is often called a box room for a reason you see....
Anyway, the house we moved in to is quite oldfashioned. I think my grandparents had the exact same couch that is sitting in our living room, the floors have wine-coloured carpet and the windows are dressed up with very flowery curtains. One could call it tacky, I prefer cozy since I actually have to live there.
The bathroom has a bathtub and the kitchen has all the equipment you'd need so that's all good.
My room, however is green. I know that green is my favourite colour, but that does not quite go for this shade of green. The walls have that light, minty, surgical green tint. It's basically the colour of the scrubs of Dr. Greene in ER. And the carpet on the floor has more of a moss-type shade. Very nauseating to wake up to, I can tell you. But I'm sure I'll get used to it after a week or two and it's big enough and cheap enough anyway.
I'll live....

Livin for the weekend

Between all the packing and moving and despite missing out on Carneval, I managed to have a good weekend.
On Friday, the Saw Doctors did what they do best: play really well and make sure the crowd has a really good time and a smile from ear to ear when they go home. Although they played at the university, the crowd was a curious mix of drunk Gaelic Football players from Mayo (there was a GAA tournament on campus that day) and men in their sixties (Guess old geezers need excitement too...). Afterwards I met up with my flatmate and some friends to go on a pubcrawl around phibsborough. All in all we ended up in a place called McGowan's and I can 'proudly' state that I have finally found a place that utterly and completely outdoes the 'Alla'. Pure and utter cheese, with a dance version of the fields of Athenry as the cheesy icing on the cheesecake. I watched it all in awe....

On saturday the orange order was going to march through the centre, so I decided not to leave my neighbourhood. An afternoon of rioting, petrol bombs and brickthrowing at the police by every scumbag in the city was the consequence and fortunately I was far away from it all.

In the evening Julie and I went to see the violent femmes. I have been a fan for about 10 years and since they never (or hardly ever) play in the Netherlands, this was an opportunity not to be missed. It was a really great gig and I'm happy I went. My photos turned out a bit dodge, so I won't bore you with them.

On our way to the concert, Rachel rang to say that she had two last minute tickets to the rugby match the next day. Horray! Ireland-Wales! And Ireland won big time! And I managed to take a photo of Ronan O'Gara's bum!