Back to Work

We are back to the working world. Well, only for two weeks. We started looking for temporary jobs after we got back to Ireland from Turkey because we are only here until Christmas Eve. After a week of handing out resumes and searching for a job we got a call back. I started working at The Response Group last Saturday. They handle all the customer service calls for a multitude of different companies. I answer the phone for people inquiring about the Value Club Card at a store similar to Target. I have the joy of talking to rude people all day who are mad that they don't have more points on their card than they thought. Now, the Irish accent is not always the easiest thing to understand. Especially the Irish accent from the country. I also register new cards so I take people's address over the phone. Irish addresses are hard to understand. Some are in gaelic so I have to have just about every call spell out their address. But remember the Irish accent is sometimes hard to understand, so you can just imagine me asking someone to spell their address for me but not being able to understand what letter they are saying. It keeps the job interesting. I only work until the 13th so I think I can handle it until then.
Michael also got a job with The Response Group but he is in a different office doing outbound calls. He is one of those annoying people who calls you to see if you want to do a survey. It is great that we work at the same place because it is about an hour long commute using three different buses. Its nice to be able to do the commute together. The place we work is actually only 7 miles from Tadhg's house but there is no direct way to get there except for a taxi and those are too expensive. So we use three different buses. Hilarious.
We work about another week and a half at these jobs then we are off to Venice and Barcelona for a few days, then we are in Ireland for a few more days and then we will be in Atlanta Christmas Eve. Home for Christmas!!!

Our Travels

We haven't written in here in a while. We have been doing some traveling since we quit our restaurant jobs. Tadhg's friend, Nuala, graciously offered her cottage in Dunmore East to us. Dunmore East is on the Southern coast of Ireland near Waterford. We spent a few days there relaxing by the fire and reading. We then went to Waterford to spend some time with the Kilgallens. Michael Kilgallen has been friends with Michael's dad since their school days. Michael and his wife, Mary, showed us a great time in Waterford. Here is a link to some of our pictures from that week.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2444548&l=09711&id=4901999

We spent a little time in Dublin after this trip and then were off to Turkey for two weeks. Tadhg has a condo in a fishing village in Yalikavak, Turkey that we stayed in. We had an awesome time in Turkey. The weather was beautiful. It was a nice change from the cold and wet days in Ireland. Here is a link to pictures from that trip.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2457311&l=b7bca&id=4901999

We got home from Turkey on a Monday and left for Paris early Wednesday morning and returned to Dublin late the next day. Ryanair had a great deal going to Paris so we couldn't pass it up. Paris was absolutely gorgeous. We were there on the night they had the ceremony where they light the city for Christmas. It was absolutely beautful. Here is a link to pictures from Paris.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2458115&l=79d71&id=4901999

We got home from Paris late Thursday night and went to Helena's the next day to prepare for the big Thanksgiving/Helena's birthday dinner Michael and I were cooking the next day. Here is a link to some pictures from Helena's birthday/ Thanksgiving dinner and other happenings in Ireland.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=45396094&l=2b513&id=4901999


Our plan now is to find another job for our last remaining weeks. We have an interview with a recruitment agency this week so hopefully they have something for us. We will try to be a little better at updating this. I just squished about a month and a half worth of stuff into one update:)
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!

Our Political Rant

So, we are almost a week away from the election and things are looking tight. There are many, many, many reasons as to why Obama should not be the next president of the United States of America, but the one we are going to rant about is that he is a socialist. He is a member of socialist parties (just google it if you don't believe me). It is public knowledge that his stance on issues are socialist. Socialism doesn't work. We are living in a socialist country. We are watching socialism at work first hand and it is not good.

Let's start off with universal health care. They have it here and it is awful. Everyone here says it is a joke and totally corrupt. There are incredibly long lines for treatment. There was an article in the paper about a lady who had a lump in her breast and was going to have to wait eight months to get a mammogram. They have 21.5% sales tax on everything and outrageous income tax. You would think being taxed like this would secure a good, cheap healthcare system. Think again. They still have to pay for healthcare if they ever get an appointment. If universal healthcare can't work in a small country with 4 million people, what makes you think it will work with a country of over 300 million people. The more a government gives you, the more they control you.

Many people are believing the lie that the rest of the world loves Obama so that is why he should be president. They think he will bring peace to the world. Not true again. The world is not in love with Obama, they are in love with a candidate that doesn't exist. The news here is worse than it is back home. We can't even watch it anymore. It makes us sick. The portrayal of Obama here is completely false. They don't talk about the issues. They just show a nice man who looks good on camera and can hold an audience's attention. They don't talk about all the sketchy stuff Obama has surrounding him. The people over here have no idea about his corruption. Just about every article and news story about McCain is in a negative tone. So much for objective journalism. If you go into the book stores here, the only books in the political section are about Obama, Clinton and other democrats. No wonder these people like Obama. They are brainwashed.

It is sad that this election has turned away from the issues. People are more concerned with who has the most hype around them or who is the most interesting. Instead of watching CNN or NBC to get your information about the candidates, find out for yourself. Look at the candidates voting records and see where they really stand on the issues. Its all out there as public records. Here is a great link to see if you line up with Obama on the issues. www.barackobamatest.com
Here are some other links that are very interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozFhWTfO8YQ -Who really is behind the economic crisis?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCz6dPpP9v8

So, we haven't blogged in a while...

A lot has happened since Laura & I ate dinner at McDonalds... We worked and worked and worked some more, but Friday was our last official day working at Chapati Grill as full time managers. We decided to leave the hussle & bussle of the M-F, 7-6pm life and start seeing what this country looks like during the week! We are going to return & work here and there in between trips. We are also going to work other random temporary jobs along the way.

Today we celebrated by having a nice brunch with Helena & Richard at The Gresham Hotel in Dublin. Lucky for me it was a buffet style Irish Breakfast! Needless to say, I ate a weird amount of food. That was almost 12 hours ago now, and I still feel a little uncomfortable... but good. Anyway, later in the afternoon Tadhg took us to the K Club for a luxurious exhibit which consisted of a lot of looking but no buying. The K Club is a very nice golf club & apparently hosted the Ryder cup in 2006 I think.

Click here to see some new pictures

Newsflash: LAURA ATE AT McDONALDS ... by choice! We went there after work one day last week because we wanted some good fountain coke & lots of it. We figured that McDonalds would actually have free refills on their drinks since it's an American restaurant. After I downed my value meal coke in 2 seconds, I went up to the counter to request a refill. The Irish guy behind the counter gave me a look before I even asked him. He said "McDonalds in Ireland don't do refills." When I asked him why not, he said that they just don't. I told him that I like the way they do things in America better. I don't know why Europeans are so stingy with coke, napkins & other condiments. It seems like everywhere we go we have to pry an extra pack of ketchup out of the employee's hands... Y'all don't even want to hear about me trying to get a little extra malt vinegar for my fish & chips in Howth. I thought I was going to be knifed.

Anyway, after working 50 something hours last week at the restaurant, we were ready for a fun weekend. We went to Howth & Dun Laoghaire. Howth is North of Dublin & Dun Laoghaire is South. Both towns are on the sea & offered great pier walks, scenic views & good food. Click here to check out the pictures. Many locals said that it was one of the nicest days they have seen all year. That night when we got back to Dublin city center, we decided to stop by the arm pit of the city, "Temple Bar" to get some dessert & people watch. Temple Bar is not one bar, but a historic area in the city which is a number of pubs, restaurants & shops lining a cobblestone street. It gets very wild at night. The streets are crowded with drunks of all shapes, sizes, colors, etc... It is also a popular place for stag & hen (bachelor/bachelorette) parties (see pictures).

Chapati Grill

We have finished the first week of work at Chapati Grill. It has been a long, overwhelming and stressful week and we are so glad it is the weekend. Next week shouldn't be so bad now that we are trained. Our duties as managers include doing the banking every morning, making sure the restaurant is set out right every morning, order products, run the registers, make sure all the employees are doing their job and basically make sure the restaurant is running smoothly. By the beginning of November they will open their tapas bar and we will be managing that one too. Things might get crazy:) We think we are going to enjoy our job. We will definitely never be bored.

It is 9:45pm here right now. We are listening to the bulldogs right now on our computer. We were downtown today looking all over for a place to watch it but we couldn't find anywhere that had the channel it was on. We went to the TGIFridays here and they didn't even have it on. We thought surely an American restaurant would have American channels on their T.V's. We were sadly disappointed.

Michael and I woke up this morning craving some kind of American food. Wings, burgers anything. Which is unusual because I don't usually eat many burgers. We went to a restaurant today with Aunt Helena and her son Richard (pronounce Rishard) that supposedly has the best wings. Michael's cousin Cian goes to this place once a week to get wings. We thought we would try it out. It was called the Elephant & Castle. It was delicious and hit the spot. Tomorrow we are going to Pizza Hut for lunch. It is funny how you crave these things.

Well, I guess that is about it. Hopefully Michael will start writing these blogs for your entertainment. He is a funnier blogger than me. Go Dawgs!!