Meet JEDWARD

Hiya!  I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post!  Time flies when you're having fun.  It's been a crazy month - Obama released his birth certificate, US forces killed bin-Laden, and William & Cate got married!!  On a less worldly scale I haven't gone on any major trips or anything lately, but that's not to say things haven't been busy.  Ryan came to visit over Easter, and it was nice to get a few days off - the Irish get TWO holidays off for Easter, as well as a monday bank holiday the following weekend.  Had I been working in a UK office I'd also have gotten the day of the Royal Wedding off.  But, alas, I had to take a day of PTO instead to watch the wedding...

One tidbit I noticed on Easter Sunday was that the churches were empty (at least St. Patrick's Cathedral where we went for a service), but the pubs were still raging!  Only in Dublin...  Another interesting fact is that it is not possible to purchase alcohol on Good Friday - not in bars, not in liquor stores, not anywhere...

Except the airport!  So, I learned from my fellow co-workers that the airport is actually quite a popular place for young lads on Good Friday.  Groups of guys actually purchase cheap ryanair flights to a random spot, with no intention of ever even boarding the plane, just to get through security and have a massive piss-party in the airport!  I'm seriously impressed.

My brother came to visit this past weekend (he's currently living in Berlin), and he helped me to discover that there's actually a train station about a block away from my apartment!  We took the train to Howth to do some hiking along the cliffs on the coastline, and the views were absolutely gorgeous.  One thing we forgot to do was bring any water, or real food, so after the 4-5 hour hike (with the last hour ALL uphill!) we were pretty ravenous.  Found a restaurant and pretty much devoured our meals like animals, followed by a generous portion of ice cream at a shop next door.  I'm definitely planning to go there again next time I have a visitor - had no idea a place that beautiful was practically right in my backyard!

On another note, there's a really popular boy-band duo of two brothers.  I think their names are John and Edward, and they call themselves JEDWARD.  How creative.  Anyway, teen girls and younger are absolutely crazy about these guys.  I guess they were on the X-Factor or something (UK's American Idol).  When Ryan was over we had to walk through a massive crowd of these crazy teenie-boppers on our way through town.  Most were completely decked out in "I love JEDWARD" t-shirts, with their mothers or fathers taking them to the show.  More often than not the fathers looked like they were about to kill themselves.  Reminds me of when my father took my friends and I in 6th grade to a dave matthews concert...although DMB is actually a talented band.  So, as a result, I've decided to start collecting pictures of Jedward that appear in the morning newspaper EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!  Here's  a couple; there will be more to come.

This past week was also a very intriguing week for news in the morning paper.  Here are some of my favorite articles...

 some girl didn't appreciate her boyfriend complimenting Pippa's bum in the dress she wore for the royal wedding.  this girl's clearly got some issues.  a day in september a week after Pippa's birthday has now been designated as "Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation Day.

chubby kid claiming to have magnetic powers.  of course it couldn't possibly be the extra snickers bars...

A favorite this week.  There's a mysterious granny in some tiny town in ireland that's been spotted leaving a convenience store in a, wait for it,... BUGATTI  VEYRON!!!  Despite the car's ability to reach 400km/hour, the granny left the store at "a snail's pace", barely able to see over the steering wheel.  One onlooker said, "well she didn't exactly burn off like a bat out of hell...you could have probably jogged faster than she was driving, but to each his own."  I also really liked the caption under the picture of the witnesses: "Shocked onlookers: Shocked."  

 this was apparently an advertisement, though i'm not really sure what for.

scientists have apparently linked human evolution to...BEARS???  If this was still part of the advertisement I honestly have no idea what is being marketed.  Bears?

Well those were my favorites this week.  I've also picked up some more lessons on language over the past few weeks:

Boot = trunk (of a car)

Creche = day-care

Pitch = playing field

Deadly = "cool" "awesome" (i.e. the hike in Howth was deadly)  

I love the last one - it sounds so bad-ass!! 

We had our first tag-rugby match too last night.  The Hartford sTAGs got killed, however, at least we looked good in our BRIGHT ORANGE jerseys!!!  The game was great fun though, and we actually played much better than in the practice we had on Tuesday.  My favorite rule is that guys' touchdowns ("trys") are worth 1 point, while if a girl scores it's worth 3.  Helps encourage the guys to not be ball-hogs and actually pass to the girls.  It was really a tiring match, but loads of fun and the teammates are great.  Hopefully we can pull off a victory next week.

That's all for now!  Happy Friday!! :) :)