Dublin Christmas, London New Years - sounds like 2 years ago, but with a lot less embarassment!

Well I guess it’s been a while. I kept telling myself I’d wait until next week after a certain event happened. Then more things kept happening. So hopefully I will cover it all, but be somewhat brief. Currently I’m sitting in my living room with my flat mate, Paul, and he is making fun of how detailed I make these things. I’ll show him!

I had Carla, a good family friend from home, come visit for 5 days towards the end of her backpacking trip through Europe. We had a pretty good time. I took a sick day and we went and saw some places in Co. Wicklow "The Garden of Ireland" - you know, show her more than the city. Went to the Dun Laoghaire pier, shopped and did lots of pubbing. I think she got the idea of Dublin life. This is us at the waterfalls by Powerscourt.



The Christmas party was a GAS. I brought my camera, and it became the star of the night. Everyone borrowed it and we came out with about 380 photos… 360 when you deleted the REALLY bad ones and one of the FLOOR. (there was more than one, yes.) We started with an all staff meeting at work, then mulled wine (gross!) at 2pm at this hotel in town (NB. The hotel was cheap, it is the one frequented by stripers and whomever they pick up that night!) We then got a late lunch – which all I could do was criticize because they weren’t as good as the four seasons – but it was ok. Then we had ‘activities’ for a couple house! Yup, its an all day and night affair, with drinking never ending, from 2pm to 2am! Anyways, it was a casino, which was brilliant. Loved it… and made LOADS of fake money. Sadly for the champions round, which I still believe I should have been in, I went to break the seal and missed being the champ. Oh well. We danced all night long. It was great. I have secret love for a guy at the company, but he’s like 40 with some kids, so it’s a pretty fake love. For whatever reason though, he’s my DILF. (but not actually F.)


Me and my poker chips... were stashed in my top, but I guess it wasnt a fail safe plan, they fell down through my dress.


This is the kind of good times we had. No the DILF isnt in the photo. I share that!

Had a second Christmas party with my job at the four seasons, didn’t pay to go to the dinner portion of the evening (LAME!) but did go to the three bars afterwards with them. My first real night out in Dublin clubbing, and I was in jeans and a friggin cowboy shirt. I thought they said we were going to a pub. I guess joke’s on me. I spent most of that my night with my other secret love. Dylan the South African. He’s the sweetest guy, a genuine gentleman, but he knows we’re friends because I just want to listen to him talk and say “Yaw” and “Howzit” South African accents are sexy.

The last day of work was the Friday before Christmas. If we showed up from at least 10am to noon we didn’t have to take a half-day from our holidays. If you showed up, you got to eat Christmas junk food, have ‘Irish’ coffees and play with little kids, as it was bring your children to work day! What a waste of time. But I got paid for it. So from that afternoon onwards I had until Jan. 2nd for break, and only had to take one day out of my holidays… speaking of holidays, first two weeks of August, I’ll be back in Canada. Write that down! And don’t go away!

One of my cousins, Kate, had a baby just before Christmas. I’ve never held a child that small before, but she was an average size, and I held her when she was only 3 days old. It was really cool. Everyone in Ireland is having babies. You cant walk anywhere without being hit by a buggie, or harassed by a small child. That’s how it is here, some say it’s in the water. (Especially at my company where there have been like 10 mat leaves in the last 2 years!!) Anyways, mum and baby Jessica are fine, and it’s really cool to hold a person that weighs less than the dumbbells I would use for bicep curls!


Me and Baby Jessica, 10 days old!

I spent Christmas in Ireland, and it was great. To be superficial for a moment, I swear I got more presents this year than I ever have. On the 23rd I went to lunch with Paul and his family, met a good few of them (there’s 6 kids, so not all were present!) They seemed nice, and really nice to me, which is grand. Then, my big plan of the weekend was the Squires’ (my family) and all the in-laws went for a nice big lunch in town on the 24th. Pretty much everyone came by. It was a great meal, and nice because I saw all my cousins, their wives/ common-law husband and kids, and then the extended family from there. The kids were definitely entertaining. Then we went to the pub, how typical. Stumbled home pretty buzzed and had a nice evening with Paul.

I had a busy Christmas Day, was invited to a few places. Walked from my place at about 9am to one of my cousin’s houses’ who lives near by. His kids had chicken pox and weren’t out the day before, so I saw them. Then my uncle picked me up about an hour later, and we went to his house. Saw my grandmother, aunt, aunt’s parents, and the other two cousins stopped by with their children… Then around 2 or 3 I was picked up by Keith, the guy I lived with for the first month here. I have my big Christmas dinner with the Edge family, really close family friends, all of whom have been to Canada and stayed in my house at least twice each I think. In the evening, we went to Keith’s family’s house for presents, and having never met his family, I still got a little something under the tree! (sweet!) Next day, still with the same family, did a nice walk up one of the “mountains” (read, small rolling hill) to work off the dinner, and went home and had leftovers. Watched this stand up comedy routine that someone got on DVD for xmas, so if you are into Seinfeld type humour, and know a bit about the Irish and British, look for Dara O’Briain, he was HILARIOUS.

Next holiday… Went to London for New Years and my week off work. I managed to spend about 170 POUNDS on clothes in top shop and H&M alone. But I got good stuff, and despite the pain of the crowds and crazy British teens, I made it, it was worth it. I went and saw the Tate Modern Museum with my cousin, which was a first, and it was pretty cool. We didn’t catch onto the you need to book a timeslot for the big slides bit… so stood in line for 20 minutes to ride the little one. Still worth it, but next time I’ll know. Go early, book slide on 5th floor. Can’t wait!!! I also saw the Museum of Natural History with my South African friend Dylan, who was in town visiting his cousin. Yes for dinosaurs, and going to see them early, cuz when we left the line up to get in to that part was like, over half hour long. It would REALLY suck to be those parents in the line up with their kids. OMG, how could my parents never have taken me to this museum, in all the times I’ve been to London. It was so good. I think every aspect of my university degree, except the business and language classes, was covered in an exhibit. It was the best field trip I never got to have. SO GOOD. It’s all simple stuff, but so interesting, even if you aren’t 10.

My two friends from Bristol came up to London for a day before New Years Eve and we went for drinks, made dinner at my place, had 3 bottles of wine at my place and went to the G-A-Y bar in Soho at 11:30. I think I was one of just 5 girls in the bar. Seriously. But it was the best night. We had so much fun, just the three of us. We said we would leave on the next ‘bad’ song… we had to wait like half an hour it was so good. Needless to say, I was hung-over all day on the 31st, and not in a big mood for another big night. I almost stayed in! We went to Spitalfields Market that afternoon and wandered around a typical London flea market type area, which was really cool. Had a nap, dinner at my uncles, and then went to meet Dylan in town to watch the fireworks. We had a great viewing place, given that instead of meeting me at 10:30 like we planned he was 45 mins late and we didn’t actually get into the crowd area until about 11:30pm. But we were in the front of our ‘section’ so no one’s heads blocked the sky. They were pretty good… for not being the Symphony of Fire, Celebration of Light. (OMG. Just realised I’m going to be in town for some fireworks. Lucky me!) Afterwards, we gave ourselves a walking tour of London, ran into Buckingham Palace (the queen was ‘in’), and found that every single pub was CLOSED? WTF. There were some bars open and the clubs were open, but pubs were shut down! What a bad idea. Even the KINGS HEAD! We didn’t get drunk, but it was nice to just wander and talk and laugh at the drunken strangers. Good times. (Did I mention my love for his voice?) I think he’ll be back next year again, and then maybe I’ll arrange a nice holiday to South Africa?


Dylan and I outside the fountain at Buck Palace, which we stumbled upon around 1am

Best part of the trip, having my other uncles Hampstead apartment all to myself for 5 days. I saw him for one day, for only about an hour, but he was between trips, and basically I house sat. Having a double bed was glorious, lots of fluffy down pillows, not worrying about energy consumption (aka bills) and being able to do whatever I liked, whenever I liked. I did a lot in London, but it was never rushed, I had lots of down time, which was sweet. A good recharge from the Christmas season!

Since then, I’ve come home… barely made it when the fire alarm went off in Gatwick half an hour before I was supposed to board my plane. It even smelt like smoke in the emergency exit hallways! But I made it. And I don’t think there was a fire. Or bomb scare that I know about. I’ve done some good work at work… which has tangible proof that everyone can look at in awe. I sent out an invitation to 1031 people for our awards show launch, of which about 170 came back as return to sender but I’ve already got people saying they want to come! AND I got to clean out our storage space, and phase one is complete…. A total reorganization of the corner under the stairs of all our publications. Lots of box lifting, but now they are no boxes in anyone’s way! Why am I sharing this ultimately boring information? Because it made me feel THAT good. I think I need to find a place like Organizers Anonymous; I take too much enjoyment from alphabetizing, colour coding and perfectly stacking things in line. Gross. It makes me sick to think about it.

That’s all for now, it was pretty long, and about 2 hours have gone by since I started this…not that I wrote the whole time… but anyways, I hope you all had great Christmas’, New Years’, Chanukah’s, and general holiday times. Please email me, or send me mail. I like mail. And Paul is jealous that I get more mail than he does so please contribute to my enjoyment. Miss you and Love you, Gail.