Days fly by...

A few days without hot water or heating in the house has passed, and we can once again remain indoors without wearing jackets. It was very frustrating. Especially at night.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape at Tesco (but the french say it's a bad year). The beggars on the bridges (some change, please). Bureaucracy (bureaucrazy). Money. Rain.

Two birds passed over my head the other day. A crane, I think, and a crow.

I dream a lot but I don't remember anything.

Actually working

Kind of. I'm on the line, at least. Not much calls though. I've answered two mails and five calls. Feels alright. Not to tricky. Not to boring.

Well, the weekend seems more interesting. Friday was a bit crazy. Shelbourne after work, after that a spontaneous party at our house. Loads of people just kept showing up somehow. Pizza, beer and intrigues. Eventually I went to bed, very happy to live on the third floor, far away from the festivities.

Saturday was great, starting with a loooong bath. Oh, did I mention, jacuzzi? Absolutely wonderful. Because good things come in plural, I was then given a cover and a pillow for my bed by a particularly sweet co-worker, followed by subway eating, shoe shopping and coffee drinking. A very good day. Then I went home to groom myself for the big night.

On the way to the bus one of the buttons fell out of my dress. This could have ruined the whole night, but fortunately Louis found a shop that actually sold small sewing kits, and he bought me one. That really made him the hero of the day. (Or the second hero maybe. Giving me a cover wins the competition.) We arrived by bus to the hotel and were welcomed with something called "mulled wine", wich was heated red wine with orange, lemon, spices and salt. Completely discusting. Dinner was better, the red wine was very good. The first course was tomato soup, wich was quite boring. The mail course was in my case a sirloin steak, supposedly cooked "medium", wich turned out to be very well done. (Well done as in very dry.) Dessert was christmas pudding, of course, wich was awful. All in all I enjoyed the meal very much.

Well, music, dancing and beer followed. And a certain amount of get-a-roomyness. it was all very amusing and nice. The party was, of course, followed by a afterparty, but I retired quite early.

Sunday was spent in very good company, watching Dead Man, the Jarmusch film from '95 starring Johnny Depp. It was very good. I really liked the photo, and the Neil Young soundtrack was great.

So after an early night I was more than prepared for my first day on the line. And here I am. Working. Kind of.

At the dark end of the week

The weeks are bridges between weekends. The last weekend was crazy, but it is now far away. It is very soon weekend again. A lady in the scandinavian team quits today, and she's brought lots of candy and stuff, wich is nice. Tonight there will be some going away-beer at Shelbournes. (I think I mentioned it, but Shelbournes is the pub where Siemens staff gets a discount on fridays.) After that; kareoke.

And tomorrow! Everyone is talking about what to wear. "So what are you wearing tomorrow?" asks my friend. "A dress" says I. Her boyfriend comes along. "So what are you wearing tomorrow?" he asks. Please.

Well, the house. It's great, everything has worked out good, we're having fun. From my room I see the Murphy's and Heineken brewery, we have nice kiwi neighbours, the french like to cook... And clean. I'm liking it.

And the job is nice. Friendly atmosphere. I got my place today, my computer. Later this afternoon I will have IP telephone training.

Montage

Training montage: a group of young, confused foreigners, scattered in a room filled with combuters. As the days pass they learn about techsupport. About telephones. Cordlesss telephones. They become good friends.

Okay, its a boring montage, but training is finally finished. Tomorrow we start working for real. I think. (Or we might be sitting by another agent, listening in to calls.)

The talk of the town (okay, the company) is the big christmas party saturday. I'm looking forward to it. So is eveyone else.

Today we move - I hope. The people, the company or whatever they are, are driving us mad. They have given number ten to someone else. The builders did it obviously for some reason. So we could have number nine or number eleven, wich one did we prefer? And could we please send in more info? (Phone numbers, pps numbers and such.) Well, number eleven then. And we will send it later this afternoon. Ok?
No. Number eleven is not available. Will number nine be okay? And can we come into the office by four?
No, its not, but we don't have much choise, do we? And no, we cant, we work untill five.
So now I'm waiting for her reply. And I'm irritated. But we really have to move today, so what can I do?

Good news anyhow; I don't have to unlock my phone for Irish sim cards. It works anyways. Joy! So today I'm getting an Irish number.

Thanks Dad for your support. (& Mom for informing me that I actually have been to San Fransisco.)

brainfry

Today is not my best day. I'm extremely tired and confused and forgetful. My eyes and throat hurt, I hope it's the bad airconditioning and not a sneaky cold.

But a good thing is that I got my passcard, so that I can get in through doors around here instead of standing around in the hallway waiting for someone to pass through the door I want to get through. I also got my pps number, wich means I don't have to pay as much tax.

Bad news is I can't get my relocationmoney untill the next paycheck, wich is due to the twentieth. I need to pay my rent tomorrow. So I'm starting to feel worried.

Tonight I will make Swedish gingersnaps with the Swedish girls. (But I want to call them peppercookies. It sounds more right.)

San Fransisco?

No. Not at all. But I think of it, walking up and down the steep hills of Cork. Iv'e never been to San Fransisco though. But Cork is a city sinking down into a march, and you're constantly climbing stairs and slopes. In the beginning my legs hurt, I was starting to use muscles that were not used to being used.



Swedish word of the week: Inredningstidningsbadrum.

Home is where the house is

Sunday evening. The weekend has been very strange. Friday was crazy. We went to the office of the people who we are renting the house from to give them papers and stuff, and to tell them we wanted house number ten. The guy told us to meet him in fifteen minutes to look at number nine, and we all walked over there. After half an hour in the rain we called him and asked where he was, and he apologized and told us that he was on his way but we could go over to the pub and have a beer for a while and he would hurry, ok? Sure. One beer later we went back and found some builders who let us in to the yard. We waited outside the door for a while, and our future neighbours came out to greet us. They gave us some beer. It started raining so we went into their livingroom to wait for the guy, who actually showed up a while later, only about one and a half hour late. He made up for it by offering us house number ten. That (and maybe the two beers) made us happy.

So to celebrate; more beer at one of our favourite pubs, Sin-e. There we met Axelle, who took us to the next place, Fred Zepelin. Then An Brog. Then hamburgers I think. It's a bit unclear.

Saturday I spent sleeping, mostly, and not feeling to well. We went out again but I went home early. Sunday I have been chilling and soon I am going to grab a bite to eat, and tonight I am thinking about watching I Robot an tv.

We are going to have a white chistmas tree! With pink and blue ornaments.

Next weekend will probably even more crazy, on friday kareoke at the place where Siemen's staff gets a discount on fridays... So yeah, that might be fun, and on saturday is the big christmas party! Big dinner and two free drinks! Highly anticipated. And the weekend after that we are planning on having a housewarming party for all our friends... All four of them. No, honestly, I have made friends here quicker than I could imagine. The atmosphere is great. People are kind and happy.

And we are all looking forward to christmas! None of us will be going home, so it could be great.

Photos from London are up on Facebook.