Everyone in Europe loves Obama!

Last day in Frankfurt.. I don't think I will be staying at that Courtyard again.. First - they charge for internet which is pretty common, especially in Europe.. Second - they don't a gold/platinum member lounge.. Third - Breakfast is not included and is VERY expensive.. Fourth - They make you pay for parking.. Fifth - The Bed is crazy hard.. Sixth - The checkout process sucks, they don't do the normal Marriott quick checkout.. seventh - Although they are only 10km away from work you have to take 4 major highways.. Not to mention the fact that the main Marriott is in Frankfurt center and has an underground station attached to it and EMC has an underground station about 2 blocks away.. Next time (and yes, there is a next time) that's the way to go.. Maybe I'll remember this by the time I book that trip.. :)

Crazy weekend ahead... Fly Frankfurt to London on British Air, fly from London to NJ on Virgin, go to Laire and try to stay awake.. I hope I can either borrow somebody's shaver or that I can plug mine in when I get to Laire, I have way too much of a beard to play Mr Jax..

Speaking of Laire.. Amber's car died, she is going to get a ride to NYC and John Molina is driving her to the event. Good news - I have someone to ride home with on Monday.. Bad news - I have to drive her to her school in NH, anybody want to go with me for that ride so you can keep me awake on the ride back?

I am sitting at the Frankfurt airport. This airport has two terminals.. Terminal 1 is the main terminal and has all kinds of awesome stores, bars and restaurants. Terminal 2 is the terminal I am in, we have McDonalds and a duty free store.. I just went into the gate area and there is a restaurant called Laxx. I'm sitting here trying to get wireless connection and the signal does not appear to be strong enough so.. I will try to post this once I get to London-town... I got to the airport real early, I drove a guy from class over with me and we went our seperate ways to check in and try to get earlier flights. Neither of us ended up getting earlier flights so we hung out together over in Terminal 1 for a few hours.. Good conversation and good beer.. Now a burger then a flight... Talk to you in London..

Now sitting in the London airport waiting for my flight to NJ... Amber called, her grandmother will not allow her to get a train to NY! So, Amber is not going to Laire, she is actually on her way to NH now to unpack for school... I guess Daimone will have to steal someone's weapons.. Maybe I can use the sword of the house of the sun...

I met a cool girl on the plane, she was born in Germany and lived in London for four years before moving back to Germany. She was on her way to London to her friends wedding.. We talked for awhile about how it was to live in London and how Obama was going to change the economy of the world.. It was a fun flight.. :)

---- Comic of the day
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2008-07-08/index.html

---- Thought of the day
The most hopeless situations can sometimes workout if you never give up.. Like any good Mets fan will tell you.. "Ya Gotta Believe!"

Comfort Food - aka - Eating my beer - Part II

Jessie left this morning and of course today is the first day class got out early.. I got back to the hotel to find ILY written out in socks on my bed... CUTE!! Did my pushups and chatted online with my sis...

After that I went into the city and wondered around.. I ended up walking all over the main city.. I walked down one street and found some guy selling crack, the best part about it was that all the people around him were not only buying it but they were smoking it right on the street!! I gotta imagine that's illegal everywhere... Speaking of illegal, I walked past two different red light districts tonight and they have these places called Eros Clubs. Eros Clubs are legal whore houses, I didn't go in but I did get accosted by one of the girls hanging out a window... A good portion of the night was spent sitting in an alley on the phone helping my girlfriend out with some problems.. I love you, hang in there... I swear there's some pavement up ahead, there's got to be right??

After I got off the phone it took a few hours of walking around to be able to eat.. Thanks for letting me rant and vent sis.. Now, when most people want comfort food they go to McDonalds or get some Ice Cream, if there real fat they get both.. Think of it, a nice Big Mac with Vanilla Ice Cream in between the burgers and bun.. EWWWW!! OK, so what does an average American get for comfort food in Germany? I have no idea, you'll have to ask the average American.. I got Fish and Chips from the Irish Pub and you guessed it, a Guiness.. If you didn't guess a Guiness then you obviously didn't read "Eating my Beer"..

I'm doing a bit better after reading my email.. Lynz wrote me and said things are "not great but getting better".. I guess I'll have to hold onto that for now...

Oh, speaking of beer... German beer is not all it's cracked up to be... German wine however is banging...

Love and peace to everyone tonight... I wish you all wonderful dreams...

---- Comic of the day
http://xkcd.com/308/

---- Thought of the day
Sometimes your friends are your family... It's amazing how so many amazing people can all come into your life in such a short space of time.. The trick to realizing that is being open to knowing them once they show up.. If you close your eyes and heart to them you're only hurting yourself..

White wine please...

Tonight I went out to meet Jessie in the city, I got off the train and walked down some streets, it was fun walking. I passed a few cool stores and some crazy adult stores, the doors to the adult stores were open and you could see in them as you walked by. Gotta love how Europe does not have the sex hang ups that America has..

We ended up eating at a German restaurant (surprise) and I had the traditional sausage plate with mashed potatoes and Sauerkraut. Instead of beer I had a glass of riesling which was very good.

Back at the hotel about to have some chocolate and wine before bed..

Snoogins!

Beer at work is nice, but wine at lunch is better... <3

Last night I attempted Week 6 day 1 of the 100 Pushup challenge. My body was too tired and beat to complete day 1 of week 6. I decided I would do week 5 again to build up more strength for week 6. Week 5 was tough last week, maybe it will be better this week..

On my way to work today the car told me that there was traffic ahead so it had me get off the highway early and drive down a bunch of side roads, it was a nice trip down roads that were only wide enough for one car. When a car came the other way both of you had to drive onto the sidewalk or hit each other.. Gotta love European streets..

Can this office get any better?? Today at 4:30 they have happy hour, I am not kidding when I say this but... They have free beer at work? Wow!! I am torn, part of me wants to stay and have at a free beer at work because how many times in your life does that happen, but I also want to get out and enjoy the nice weather since class will probably get out early today.. I can't actually post this blog till I get back to the hotel so the answer to what I choose will probably be in the next few paragraphs.. :)

Here is an article I saw on CNN (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAwOC9DUklNRS8wOC8yNS9jb3VwbGUuY2hhcmdlZC5hcC9pbmRleC5odG1s).. Part of me wants to treat it as a joke, but I guess I know better... I guess you can laugh at it because she got caught, but holy crap!

Onto Vacation hours and what I need to use... Because I dropped so many of my vacations this year to help out with classes that needed to be run I am going to take next week as Vacation, that will still give me my December vacation and 4 more days I will have to use by the end of the year.

http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8veGtjZC5jb20vMjY3Lw== - words to live by?

So, my decision was made for me.. It's 4:45pm, my students are still working and I'm drinking a beer and eating a pretzel.. Yes, I took a picture!

I just came back to the hotel to drop some stuff off before heading into the city. I figured since I typed this at work today I would post it real quick while I'm able to access Myspace. I will probably post another update tonight..

---- Random email of the day
I found 3 sombreros last night under my car in the middle parking garage at 176. They are now at the main lobby security desk.

---- Thought of the day
It's amazing how the simplest things (like sitting on a log) can change so many people's lives.. I love the way the universe comes together sometimes..

Germans don’t do humor.. They do beer!

I really like this training facility. I had a banana and coffee for breakfast, salmon with rice and salad for lunch and an ice cream bar for mid day snack. All of it very good and all of it FREE!!

Booked my trip to Chicago today, AE Travel's website would not let me book Continental flights because United had flights as well and they are now really pushing United flights so I had to call on the phone to book everything. I fly out on Sunday afternoon and arrive home on Friday afternoon, the Thursday evening flight was closed to EMC from Continental, there are still seats available but not at whatever price EMC pays for them.. Other plus side of calling vs. online is that calling I was able to book a compact/economy car whereas if I had booked it online I would only been able to book a mid to full size car. So, think about this for a second.. When you book a car online EMC won't let me book a smaller/cheaper car... When you come up with a reason for that please let me know.

I found out today that my Quantas miles never got credited to my Continental one pass. I called Continental and they said I need my original boarding pass?! I am going to call Quantas and ask them if they can send me proof of me boarding the plane so that Continental can give me the credit. I also found out that I can mail Continental my Marriott reciepts and get miles based on 1 mile per $1 spent! I guess I'm going to get a bunch of miles all at once, apparently I can mail in receipts up to one year old!

I really hate time zones... I'm sitting here watching the students do labs and everyone (except Jessie) is asleep and she is out wandering Frankfurt so it's not like I can sit and chat with her...

Got a con-call at noon eastern time (6pm here)..

Con-call was exciting as always... After that I drove to a S-Bahn station and heading into the city to meet Jessie for dinner. We went to a medieval german restaurant and had steak and sausages, it was ok. They did have really good mead and on the way out we saw that the waitress was playing Catan with a guy!

After dinner we went to a heavy metal club called Speak Easy, there was only 3 people there (the bartender, a guy playing pinball and another guy who was really cool). We ended up spending a long ass-time there chatting with the bartender and the other guy. We heard lots of good music and had a few beers.

Just got back to the hotel, posting this blog and heading to bed...

On to tomorrow and new and exciting things.. :)

Just a quick hi to everyone back home.. I miss you all and will see you when I get back...

37. In a row?

This morning started out with getting gas, now you may not think that's a process but it is.. I could not find the stupid gas cover release for a while. I searched in the car and then in the book (which was all in german) before finally getting it.. Gas was 73 Euro!!

Got to the facility and was shocked by what they offer the students/instructor. Free coffee, free water, free soda, free breakfast, free lunch, free ice cream, free fruit, pool table, dart board, and a fusball table. The break room has couches you could lay down on! I could really get spoiled here...

Class has students from England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany. The books that we had this morning were the wrong ones but that was fixed quickly and we were on our way.

Class went well but long.. I ended up leaving around 5:30, went back to the hotel and did my pushup test. I only did 53 pushups which puts my into the 2nd rank for week 6, this is the first week I am not in the top rank.

After the pushups I went to met Jessie in the city for dinner, we had Italian and pizza which was very good. You go in and get a card, when you order food you swipe the card and when you leave you pay.

Oh, so I did laundry here - or rather had the hotel do it. They charged 50 Euros to do some underwear, a few shirts and a pair of jeans! Speaking of expensive I paid 74 Euros to fill up the car with gas!

Going to head to the pool to relax a bit before bed..

Talk to ya all on the morrow...

Generic Blog Title...

The only difference, on Sunday, between Ireland and Germany is that in Germany the coffee houses stay open. Me and Jessie went into Frankfurt center today to look around, do some shopping and do some tours.. Look around - check.. Tour - check.. Shopping - no so much...

We arrived in the city and ate at the train station, I had a BLT with cheese on a bagel and a Pretzel. Jessie had a tuna sandwich and a cheese danish. We went to the tour company and found the next tour to be in 2 hours. Killing 2 hours in a major city should be no problem right? Well, on any day but Sunday... The only thing open were pubs, restaurants and coffee houses.. We walked around some closed shops for a while before heading down to the river and walking along it for a while. We saw this really cool type of tree that grows pretty much straight before growing out (the only branches were way up), they had a line of them on either side of a walkway so it created a really awesome canopy. I think if you were stand under the canopy while it was raining you wouldn't get wet..

The tour was good, we saw a bunch of stuff and learned some neat things like the Euro was invented/started in Frankfurt, there is a big Euro symbol outside the building where it started. We also learned (realized) that none of the building in Frankfurt are older then World War II, the entire city was leveled by the Ally forces.. :( Even the "old/historical" buildings are recreations, some built as late as 1980!

We had some apple wine which I thought was really sweet and some Bockwurst which tasted like a bad stadium hot dog when the tour stopped in "Roman Square" which was the historical center of town.

As on each city tour I took a ton of pictures so I have something to bore you with when I get back..

Came back to the hotel via the train and a wooded path. For dinner we went to a traditional German restaurant and I had Hunter style Pork (Hunter's style = mushroom gravy) which was excellent. Jessie had Gypsy style pork (Gypsy style = spicy red sauce) which was also really good. Mine came with little potato puffs that I got to dip in the gravy - yum!

Heading to bed...

Oh, I forgot to tell you - Yesterday I saw an audiobook based on Settlers of Catan! I want to see if it's translated into English.

From Pay Toilets to Lilly...

Aside from waking up too early today was a good day. As you know from yesterday's blog I had no clothes when I woke up today, we ended up looking through Jessie's clothes and I wore a pair of her pants and one of her shirts.. We stopped at a rest area on the highway and ate brunch, I had a steak with onions, cheese smashed potatoes and brocilli with cheese. German rest areas all have pay toilets, you pay .50 Euro to get in and you get a voucher for .50 Euro that you can spend at the rest area which is not to bad of an idea, actually spend money at the rest area so they can stay in business.

They sell all kinds of cool things at this rest area including art work and fucking Yankees hats! (I shit you not, I took pictures) There was actually a wall hanging that me and Jessie both liked, but it went for 350 Euro. I would love to show up one day with a crapload of bathroom vouchers and buy it.. I would just love to see the look on their face 'I want that artwork' 'ok, how you will be paying today' 'with this vouchers from your shitter'. That seems like something JD would come up with on Scrubs..

Back in the car and driving, and driving and driving.. We ended up in real bad traffic jam which sucks and you are retraining yourself to drive stick. After the traffic we stopped at another rest area and I had some Movenpick ice cream! If the rest of the day had been shit that alone would have made the day worth it!

We got to the concert at 2:30 and the doors opened at 3:00 so we ended making it even with the really bad traffic. The first band started at 4:00 so we looked at the vendors, they had some good medieval clothes and some CDs you can't get elsewhere. We bought some new Folk & Metal CDs (Faun, Saltatio Mortis and the Sandsacks). The stage was set up against a cliff face which made the acoustics sounds great, on top of the cliff there was a little cottage. The first band Rabenschrey was kinda crappy, but Jessie apparently liked them so we got one of their CDs.. The second band was Schelmish which was FUCKING great, at one point they had 5 (yes I said 5) bagpipes on stage all dueling. Bagpipes + Heavy Metal = AWESOME MUSIC!! I got 2 of thier CDs. The third band was Fiddler's Green, they were the only band that song in English, which is a Folk/Punk band. I really liked them and ended up buying one of their CDs. The fourth and final band was Subway to Sally which I was sort of dreading. Maybe because I was expecting them to be crappy I actually enjoyed them. Jessie said Eric Fish's voice was off today which may be why I liked it.. :D

Food... I had a flat bread pizza was out of the world, it had Quark Cheese, Creme Fraiche, onions and Ham. It only rained for a bit while we were there but it rained hard for that little bit..
Got back to the hotel and my luggage was here!! YAY!! Unpacked and drinking a beer while typing this up.. Off to bed for us, tomorrow's another big day..

No, I assure you I'm not forgetting something... Huh, something in the title that still doesn't make sense.. Oh, you're thinking of Lilly.. She was a girl we talked with at the concert, she was pretty cool and translated some of Eric was saying while he was talking to the crowd.

Beware of misleading titles.. :D

London ate my bag again?!

Finally got a bunch of sleep last night, well I guess thats a relative term.. :)

Today was travel day.. On the flight from Cork to London I met a 19 year girl who is going to study in New Zealand to be a Horse Dentist. She was very cool, we had a very good conversation. As Tyler Durdin would say she was a great single serving friend.

The flight left Cork late and therefore arrived in London an hour late. I got off the plane with 45 minutes to get on the next flight which was in a different terminal, if you've ever been to Heathrow you know it's a big ass-airport. I had to run (literally) all the way from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. Made it to the plane just in time. The flight from London to Frankfurt was good, I listened to Storm Large (see yesterday's post) and read a book.

I got to Frankfurt for the real fun... My luggage is in London, apparently the people at Aer Lingus made a typo when booking my bag so it was not put on the plane. They have the bag and are sending it to me, I should have it tomorrow. Went to Avis and they only standard cars which is not the biggest deal since I can drive it but it takes some getting used to. The problem is that Jessie can't drive it..

Had McDonalds tonight (I guess I have to eat fast food on the first night in a new country) because I got here too late for anything to be open.

Tomorrow is German Heavy Metal!!! Oh, and maybe clothes shopping so I have something to wear?!

Last night in Cork - tomorrow Frankfurt!

Before I get to the last day in Cork let me just reflect on the last year a bit... I have been to Mexico City, Sao Paulo Brazil, Singapore, London, Cork, Chicago, DC, I am going to Frankfurt next week and in October I will be in Tokyo. I may bitch about this job, but holy shit!

Anyway, on to today...

Today was a quick day at work.. After class I came back to the hotel and took a nap so that I could go out tonight. I found two pubs that do Traditional music tonight (Spailpin Fanac and Phoenix). After my nap I headed over to get food and check things out. When I got to Spailpin Fanac I found that the music goes on at 9:30 - 9:45 so I left there with the intent on going back later. I walked to what was supposed to be a traditional Irish restaurant and found that it was not indeed a traditional restaurant, boo to bad information. Walked from there along the other side of the north channel towards Phoenix which was supposed to be right by my hotel. On the way I went into the vegetarian co-op and ate dinner. When I got to Phoenix I found out they were closed (for good), maybe they will rise up again but not before tonight... :)

Anyway, I am back at the hotel now and about to head back to Spailpin Fanac. I might not post this till tomorrow depending on what time I get back, but I wanted to at least write up what I had so far..

btw - Jessie is on her plane headed to Germany.. This week in Ireland has been grand but I do miss my mates back home.. Even and in some cases especially the little ones.. :)

---

So, I just got back from the pub.. It was a great time.. The band that played was much smaller than the other night. It was 2 fiddles, 1 accordian and 1 guitar/banjo (it was a bigger banjo, but not quite a guitar). They were very good but took brakes in between each song which was a bit frustrating. There was an ESL group there celebrating their last day. There was a girl from France who looked like Storm Large, I was trying very hard to hook up with her, then she sang opera in Italian and Russian during the bands brakes and I sorta doubled my efforts. I was standing outside with her after the band finished while she was smoking and asked her if she wanted to come back to my hotel, she said yes but her friend stopped her because they had one car between then and she was the designated driver for the night... She asked what I was doing tomorrow and I said flying to Germany.. Well doesn't that suck for me, yes it does as a matter of fact.. Instead of hanging out with a French girl who looks just like Storm I am sitting in my room typing this blog.. There was a girl from Italy who was catching my eye from time to time as well, she was an odd cross between Amy Faranda and Mariah Adin. The French girl could sing in Latin, French, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.. She sang a bit more for me while we were standing outside before I left..

Oh well, I'm heading to bed now..

2

Last I left you, my loyal readers, I was on my way out to meet Junior for dinner. We met in the lobby and went over to a Japanese place called Wagamama, now I watched a lot of Iron Chef in my day so I have a pretty good idea of what "real" Japanese food is and I understand that 98% of American Japanese is altered for the American palate but it still resembles Japanese food. This place was my first experience with Japanese food that was altered for the Irish and WOW was it altered. This stuff was not even in the ballpark of Japanese food. What I had was very good, but the only thing that could have made it remotely Japanese was the teriyaki sauce.

After dinner I went to the pub with Junior and had a few pints before heading back to the hotel. Nothing else exciting yesterday.. Well, nothing but meeting a German girl who lives in Cork. She had the coolest German/cork accent, blue eyes and black hair.. Asked her out for drinks today and she said she would but her boyfriend would probably not like it... Boo...

Right so, where was I, 2.... What an odd name for a blog, this isn't the 2nd blog... Wait...

Today class went pretty well and students were done early.. I jumped in a cab with a nice old pikey guy, no cool pikey guy story here. He was an old coot, he was complaining about credit card companies and drove up on the side walk to bring me to my hotel door!

I got back to the hotel early enough to go to those stores finally.. I went over to Silver Wood (the store, not my house) and ended up getting Jessie a nice "thing". While I was walking I was thinking how nice it would be to have a bath bomb from Lush and then I remembered there was a Lush down the street so in I go. I realize I have now been in Lush in three different countries which I think is pretty cool.. They call bath bombs ballistics here. Here is a really cool quote from the Lush bag which I intend to steal for myself "We believe in long candlelit baths, sharing showers, massage, filling the world with perfume and the right to make mistakes".

After Silver Wood and Lush I went over to that cool lingerie store to look for the "item" they had in the window. I was so disappointed to learn that everything in their store was generically sized, nothing had cup sizes it was all just S, M, L. Anyway, I totally would have gotten this one really hot thing but I don't trust non cupped sized lingerie.

Now to that sci-fi store (walked right by Insomnia, and yes they were open). The sci-fi store was a glorified comic store, I looked around for a few minutes and left. On the way in I went into a cool little store that had an awesome arm band thing I really wanted to get Lynz but it was 98 Euro! On the way out I went into a natural food store to get a juice and ended up talking to the lady there about vegetarian/vegan restaurants. She sent me to the Cafe Paradiso which was over by the university.

On the way to Cafe Paradiso I so some VERY interesting things. The first was - as I was walking over the foot bridge across the channel I heard a guy yell "I'm so pissed right now I won't remember anything tomorrow, but what the fuck". Now, when you hear something like this (or at least when I do) you look over, what do I see but a guy in his 20s holding a can of beer standing on the rail of the bridge, he proceeds to pull his penis out and piss into the channel, while he is doing this he is yelling "eat my piss you fucking channel"! so... The other thing I saw on my way to the restaurant was a wonderful park with a path through a wooded area by the channel which of course I had to walk down.

So, finally to the restaurant.. I ended up having an Elderberry Wine with my salad, the salad had a Vanilla Citrus dressing which was awesome, and it had caper berries that were the size of olives! My main course was a risotto which was also really good. The salad was one of those courses where you want to stand up and applaud the chef after you take your first bite.
Now I'm back at the hotel typing this up. After I finish this I am planning on doing my pushups and taking a nice bath. There is Traditional music again tonight, I may make it over depending on how I feel after the bath.

Oh, so why is this blog called 2? Well, I learned two cool things today... 1 - there are NO Walmarts in this country, that's right none! 2 - Cafe Paradiso was voted the 2 vegetarian restaurant in all of Europe for the last four years! (1 is in Northern England)

Whats in a name??

I gotta think when you're thinking up a name for a business, character, a child or even what to call yourself a lot of thought goes into that choice. So why do you see so many mis-matched names?

Here are two ironic names I saw today.. The first one was just extra special because of my frustration with shopping in Cork.. (watch out , here comes a tangent)

I got out of work today a little before 5 and called a cab, my thought was that I wanted to get back to the hotel, drop my stuff off and get over to a store to do some shopping. Well as you can probably tell by the statement of "my thought" that didn't happen. I got back to the hotel, dropped my stuff off and got to the store at 5:45 - oh right, they close at 5:30 which I knew but then doubted because really, why would a retail store close at 5:30 when everyone has to work during the day. Anyway, there is strike one - now onto another store which I KNOW closes at 6:30.. Funny thing actually, today they closed early to train new employees!?! They really can't train people while they are open? /sigh and strike two! Ah-ha, there is one shinning hope.. There is a medieval fantasy store I saw last night while looking for food that is in a mall that's OPEN! Bet I got you excited, but no because you see although the mall was open the store sadly closed at 6:00, what time is it now - let me check my phone - wait for the buzzer ladies and gentleman, it's 6:03! So, I guess Strike Three - I'm out and heading back to the hotel with nothing but a pocket full of change, I really need to get a pouch of some sort to carry change in.

On another side note (I know this blog is a side note of a side note, but wait I am getting to my point which incase you forgot was "what's in a name") I am meeting John Ryan at 8:00 for dinner and then we are going out to a bar afterwards. Yes, that's right I'm going out again tonight after only getting an hour or so of sleep last night and no, I'm not going into why I didn't get any sleep - lets just say the bed in this hotel is way to hard and I had a bunch of un-happy things on my mind which are all gone and buried now (the thoughts, not the bed unfortunately). Where was I? Right, a name.. Or was it that I was meeting John for dinner? No, no, I remember now - heading back to the hotel...

On the way back to the hotel I decided I would stop for some coffee and I saw a girl standing outside a coffee house drinking what smelled like a great cup of coffee so in I go.. What do you think I found? That they had just closed!! WTF - I mean seriously, do retail stores not understand that if you stay open when people are actually NOT working you'll make some real fucking money!? Ok, sorry for that outburst... I turn away slightly upset and as I'm walking out I see the name (yes, here it is, the whole point of this blog).. The name of the closing coffee store, is called INSOMNIA COFFEE!! Are you kidding me, you're going to call your place Insomnia coffee and close at 6pm! That's not insomnia that's not even slightly tired! I mean come on, how can I be wired and tired when a place called insomnia closes at 6pm!?!? Side note should be mentioned - I am actually tired and grinning like a fool which is why I'm so upset I'm not also wired!

Ok, so now what? Well, I decide to walk back a new way because I'm still holding out hope that I can find an open store to either get a coffee or a change pouch (the kind that snaps open but that is not too big so it still fits in my pocket). On the way back I see a really cool looking African sign for a restaurant called Zanzibar, I have had South African food a few times and I have really liked it. So over I walk to Zanzibar to check out their menu. The menu is orange and red with a watermark of Africa and has items on it such as lasagna, burgers, pizza, Irish steak, and fish & chips! Could you even pretend to have one African item on the menu?

So, I guess that bring me to my point.. What's in a name? If you're going to open a coffee shop and kicking around the idea of naming it insomnia can you please take a moment to consider the hours you want to be open, if that answer is 8am - 6pm you may want to go with something more like Sunshine Coffee. If you want to open a restaurant that serves British pub style food you may want to call it something like, honestly I don't know what to name that one, but I can tell you it would NOT be Zanzibar!

---

See that line? It means this is a totally new topic, I didn't really want to post a second blog for this so here goes... Blog Part II

So, on the way home today I rode with an awesome guy, he was an old Irish pikey with the thick accent and all. Luckily I have training on understand that accent (thanks Jerry). Anyway, I got in the car and was about to hit play on the book I'm listening too, which btw is God's Delusion (I need to update that section), and he just looked over and smiled and said what kind of a name is Linkens? I said it was a German name and that my family has lived in the states for a few years. He asked how long I was over and when he heard only till Friday he got so upset because I was not going to be able to see Kerry Ireland. He went off on a rant about the land around Kerry, his descriptions of the castles and of the ocean crashing against the side of the rock roads really made me wish I could just drive there right now. It's apparently an hour or two from Cork Center and it sounds truly amazing. He was talking about the people there and all of the great times he has spent there. He said he was not a man who believed in god, but being in Kerry makes him think there is some kind of higher power at work when creating some locations. That somehow got him talking about how the land is mis-treated here in Ireland and we started talking about how man kind is destroying the earth with building cities and motorways and the such which of course brought him to the British and how everyone blames them for Ireland's problems. What he sees is, without the British coming into Ireland the Irish people would still be speaking Gaelic and would have no trade with the rest of the world so although he does not like some of what they did he said them coming over was the best thing that could have happened. He was just a very awesome guy who really just sees the best in his fellow people, he does not like the politics of countries and wars but who does.. He made a comment about how Bush started the conversation with Saddam with insults and accusations and how if he had started the conversation in a civil way maybe we could have spared all those lives. It is so true, how you can start a diplomatic conversation with someone with insulting them? For that matter how can you start any conversation that way?

Toothpicks on the table?

So, when I was in Sao Paulo Brazil I noticed that all the restaurants had toothpicks on the table instead of pepper. I never noticed how much I wanted toothpicks on the table since I was in Brazil..

Well, if you're keeping up to date tonight was Traditional music.. First of all I forgot to mention that the other day while on the City Tour I passed a guy on the street playing a bag pipe, that bag pipe was a scottish bag pipe.. There is apparently a difference between a scottish one and an irish one, the irish one has no mouth pieces, it sits under your arm and if you squeeze it one way it pulls air in and if you pull it the other way it blows air out. Anyway......

So, I walked over to Sin E and tried to eat, apparently they stopped serving foor at 6pm. So I walked around near the pub and ended up at an Italian place called Isaacs and had Crab Cakes with Guacamole Chive Mayo for my starter and had Penne Pasta with Mushroom Creme Sauce with Bacon. If your jealous yet please hold your thoughts for a moment...

I then went to Sin E and the "band" was already on, this "band" was basically a big jam of whoever wanted to play. At one point there was 5 violins, 2 banjos, 1 accordian, 1 guitar, 1 irish bag pipe, 1 guy playing spoons, 1 guy playing a drum and 1 guy singing. At one point the music stopped and the guy started singing a song in Gaelic, after the first verse most people in the bar joined in with him and started singing, he had an amazing voice and it was even better when everyone in the bar joined in. I was sitting next to the guy with the spoons and he showed me a bit of how to play them, on the other side of the table I sat at was one of the girls with a violin. The people on my right were a group of people who all taught at Cork University (one from Scottland, one from Italy and one from northern UK), these guys kept buying me drinks so I had a bunch to drink without spending too much!

I was sitting there wondering why I need to come home. I would love it if the people I cared about could just be transported here and live here with me for a few years. I know the temp might suck, but the people, the beer and the music make up for the weather!

The center of the world, maybe?? Until tomorrow, good night everyone!

A Christian Nation?

I got up this morning and decided it was pouring out so I promptly went back to bed.. :)

Got up again right before noon and the rain had slowed down a bit so I decided to venture out for some food and maybe some shopping. None of the stores are open on Sunday and the streets are empty, I ended up (for the 2nd day) having a bagel sandwich called "Stars & Stripes" which is a multi-seed bagel with bacon, cream cheese, guacamole and tomato. I walked to the four faced liar and took pictures of 3 of the 4 sides, I could not get around the other side of the building to get the 4th side. Walked down from there and ended up at the Murphy/Heineken brewery on the other side of town. I walked by the Comedy Club to see what was going on there and I found two bars right next to each other that both have Traditional Irish Music tonight, one of them is called SinE and Corner House. The Comedy Club had posters up for last night but nothing up for tonight or this week, I will check back with them when I go back to those two bars tonight.

By the way sports fans - I did 55 pushups today in one set..

On the way to the spa/hot tub/gym.. Be back later...

Eating my Beer...

Walked around trying to find a club playing live traditional music.. The first place I walked by had some heavy rock playing, I kept going.. I found a bunch of places with live music but apparently traditional music is not something for Saturday nights (I found a place that has it every Wednesday night - guess where I will be on Wednesday). Walking along tonight really reminded me of Montreal with the young alternative crowds. There were a bunch of ladies in slutty nun outfits which was nice to look at... As I got further down the main street I started to get discouraged, all I was finding was dance music, or lotsa' bass pop. So, after a long walk I ended up at the first place I walked by for the end of one song (the band was just going off stage). I decided to walk back to the hotel along the channel, I got to a block away from the hotel and heard classic rock across the channel so I went over. The club was SMALL and the band was stuffed in the corner, they played some Who some John Lennon some Bob Marley and a few other songs. They were billed as a "Blues Band" which I guess is what they call "classic rock" here, I spoke with the guitarist afterwards about that.

So, where was I.. Wright, eating my beer... This country has some amazing beer but I really can't wait till I get to Germany so I can "drink" a beer again... Don't get me wrong, Ireland has some great beer but it's not drinking beer.. Tonight I tried a micro brew called O'Hara's Celtic Stout (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNhcmxvd2JyZXdpbmcuY29tL2JlZXJtaWQuaHRtTydoYXJhcyUyMENlbHRpYyUyMFN0b3V0) which was like Guiness but believe it or not better!! They had that on tap at the pub I went to with Johnny.. I didn't have a beer at the first place tonight (the band that was ending) but I did have a Guiness while listening to the Blues Band and now I'm having another one while typing this blog. Irish/UK Guiness is SOOOO much better than American Guiness.. I guess it helps when it's brewed locally. Speaking of locally, I need to get over to the Murphy's Brewery..

btw - Don't get spoiled with all these blogs... They can end without notice! :)

Cork Ireland - The center of the world??

For those of you who don't know, I drove to Newark NJ late Thursday night/early Friday morning and flew to Cork Ireland via London. I am here for a week teaching and then I go to Frankfurt Germany to teach for a week before heading back to NJ for the Laire 4-day. What have I done to prepare for this trip?? Nothing... I almost tried to learn some German but never found the time, I was going to look up cool things to do here in Cork and also never had the time. So, here I am flying by the seat of my pants..

My flight from NJ to London was nice, the plane was mostly empty so I got to lay out in a row of 4 seats (I actually fit laying flat without my feet even hanging off the end of the seats). I slept a little bit on that flight but didn't want to overdo the sleeping because I need to be in this timezone.. Anyway, I hung out in Heathrow airport for a few hours and decided I didn't want to eat there because it's always a hassle to expense stuff in London because of the GBP and VAT. If you've never flown from London to Ireland it should be noted that Aer Lingus has their own little section of Heathrow, there is a bar about half way between the main terminal and the Aer Lingus section and another bar at the gates.. I went through 5 security check points in Heathrow (1 - passport control of plane, 2 - they took a picture of me and gave me a bar code at the 2nd one [didn't know why], 3 - checked bag and had to go through metal detector, 4 - customs with bags, 5 - took my barcode and loaded picture (from 2) on the database to see if it was me)

The flight to Cork was full, the girl next to me made a comment about Ireland being the Center of the World because you can fly from Ireland to almost anywhere in the world in under 10 hours.

When we landed it Cork my first surprise was that the plane lets you on the runway and you have walk to the terminal (it was about 40 degrees and raining HARD), funny side note to that was that my coat was in my checked luggage.. Got to the hotel around midnight, checked in and went to get food.. Well, my decision to not eat in Heathrow ended up being the wrong one, apparently you can't get food in Cork after 10pm unless you consider McDonalds and Burger King food.. Well, after my Buger King bacon double cheeseburger I ended up at a "lap dancing club" for a Guiness before heading back to the hotel for my pushups. (4 hours sleep + long flights + burger king + guiness = really tough pushups)

So, on to today...
I woke up around the crack of noon and went out to check out Cork in the daytime. I decided to walk to the Beamish brewery to do a tour, on the way I stopped at a bagel place and had a multi-seed bagel with bacon, cream cheese, guacamole and tomato and a latte. Got to the brewery to find out they only run tours on Tuesday and Thursdays from 10:30am - noon?! So, where to now? The clouds decided to part so I decided today would be a good day for a double decker tour of Cork, I found a tour that did a run of Cork City and then went to Blarney Castle for a few hours. The tour of Cork was pretty lame really, the only cool things were they have a cathedral with 4 clocks (one on each side of the tower), they it the four faced liar, apparently all 4 clocks have different times and not one of them ever has the correct time!? The other cool thing is that apparently Cork is a shortened Gaelic word that means Marsh. Then the bus went onto a highway and went over to Blarney village, I was on the top of an open air bus, great idea till you hit highway speeds!

Blarney village was a pretty nice little town and the castle was really nice but was really great was the land around the castle. First of all, I did NOT kiss the Blarney stone, I did walk up to it and take a picture, but I did NOT kiss it. I walked around in the castle looking at all the rooms, it was pretty neat to see. When I left the castle I walked around the grounds and came to an ancient tree, the tree felt like one of the warmest places in the world, I went up and sat under the tree and could feel my energies hit overcharge levels. When I walked away I felt all tingley, as I continued my walk around the grounds I found a cave system that went under the castle, they had some small lights in the cave. I went in there and my energy levels and connection to the earth continued to grow, I ended up walking all the way into the cave till I hit a cave in. Went back out and started to leave the castle grounds. I got almost out when I decided to go back to the tree one last time. sat under the tree again for a few minutes and took some rocks from the base of the tree.

I felt like I was floating as I walked back to the mill shops and the bus. Walked around the shops for a bit before the bus left and got some really cool stuff. What I didn't get was a really nice wool cape sorta like this one (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJsYXJuZXkuY29tL2NhdGFsb2cvZGlzcGxheS9wcm9kdWN0X2RldGFpbHMucGhwP2lkPTYxMDY=), it was a light purple color and would look amazing on my lady folk but the price and size uncertainity scared me away. I did end up spending too much money on other stuff including a really nice greenman necklace (bought that before going to castle) for me.

Back to hotel...
A friend of mine who I used to work with in Hopkinton came and met me for dinner. We went to an Indian place and I got Tandori Quail and some Nan, afterwards we went to a pub for a pint and now I'm back in the hotel typing this up. I think I am going to head back out and see if I can find any live music at one of the local pubs.

I will try to blog more often, I know I said this before but I feel like there are so many people I want to update on my daily occurances and if I did that the phone bills would be out of control..