This is for mum

Random things i see in dublin...this one is on the window of a bookmakers.

Guess who got flowers?

There is a partial eclipse of the sun going on right now outside!
I haven't seen that before...it's pretty cool.

Lucky it's a cloudy day so we can catch fleeting glimpses of it. I am so going to get cataracts because of this when I'm old. Shit.

what's lisha been up to?

Garden parties!



Being a nature girl





Wearing sunglasses at night at stupid Q Bar



Hanging out with friends at the Woolshed bar after Australia decimated the All Blacks in the rugby:



Getting away from the hostel and having fun with friends



Unfortunately this sort of social behaviour is a strain on the wallet! I can either be a hermit who saves her money or go out with my friends and then spend money. It's a fine line...but I saved like, 90% of my pay last week so it evens out...

Have a good one, chaps! The clock I posted two pages ago is the current time where I am incase anybody is interested...

Helichopper!

Testing out the blogging capabilities of my new phone...

Awesome....so that works then :-)

I was at the docks today picking up the Red Baron so I could drive it around delivering brochures and there was TWO helicopters there. Wanted to ask for the keys for this one so I could do the brochure drop in it!!!

Now that I have a phone again that I can blog from, I can take photos of anything I come across. If you want photos of anything special let me know.

My day off was good-had a good 72 hours actually, with friends and all that. Because the docks were locked up on Sunday I got the rest of the day off-MIRACLE-which is why I had to do it today.

Other than that nothing much interesting has been happening...
What's been happening in your neck of the woods?

TGIF!

I HAVE TOMORROW OFF!! Wooooooohooooooo!
I've worked every day since last saturday so I am well looking forward to my day off. It's only one, mind you, but I suppose 6 days a week is better paid than 5 days. The beauty of Fridays are also that they are pay day :-) I think I only spent about €70 last week-if I keep saving like this then I will have enough to keep me going until November for sure. But I don't want to jinx it.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Orangemen marching day!

These guys took it to literally...the marches happen in belfast on the 12th july each year. Celebrating something to do with william of Orange back in the day. It's basically the protestant answer to st patricks day...

Happy 101st post

-If I get this Irish work visa...

Virgin Atlantic -£537.00
incl. est. taxes and fees

Outbound: 08-Jan-2009 available
Depart: 21:30 London Heathrow (LHR) 1 Stop
Arrive: 07:10 +2 days Sydney (SYD) Duration: 22hr 40min

-If I don't...
British Airways -£448.00
incl. est. taxes and fees

Outbound: 27-Nov-2008 available
Depart: 21:30 London Heathrow (LHR) 1 Stop
Arrive: 06:10 +2 days Sydney (SYD) Duration: 21hr 40min

I think I could hang around travelling and what not until then. Also it means I would most probably be able to get the same flight home as one of the girls I've become friends with here through work etc.

If I leave in January, then I get to have another Christmas and New Year over here and be back in time for Australia Day (BIG DAY OUT) and it will only be 3 months until Darren comes over in April and after April another 3 months until I've finished uni and can come back. I think I will only get a one way for now though-if I'm going to be staying longer then I will need the extra money either for this visa or to fund my travels.

I DON'T KNOW!!! So indecisive. What do YOU think?

PIKEYS

I suppose all you can do is laugh. I've had the WORST two days ever (after a very nice two and a half days) and I suppose things happen in threes because after having to say goodbye to Darren in Penrith, Northern England (not for good though!!!!) then finding out the hostel was massively overbooked for this weekend, to top it all off some KNACKER/gypsy/pikey/scumbag came into the hostel and took my cute little pink phone from the counter right in front of our faces and walked off with it.

I'm upset on principle. All the people who I need numbers for are around me and I have Darren's number in my Aussie phone-which is still being as temperamental as ever-so it's not like I've lost anything more than my SMS gadget and alarm clock.
I'll get a new one tomorrow probably, and then switch the number over.

Stupidly, the idiots who stole it proved their idiocy by picking up the phone when we rang it. They even picked up when the Garda (policeman) rang it....TWICE

So yeah, it's not coming back so I hope they have similar fortune as I was having when I had it lost. I shouldn't be so vindictive though. I did swear at them down the phone though after they told me 'You're not getting your phone back whore'. Wanted to know the PIN code for it 'in case it turns off' HAHAHAHAHA as if I'd give them that. I just wish I did have a pin code on it. But that's not much of a deterrant, because on every corner and in every little newsagent or shop there are phone unlocking services advertised.

Anyway, onto more pleasant things...

It was great to see Darren up in Penrith. I flew into Glasgow then got the train (a Richard Branson Virgin train-very nice!) down about an hour and a half into Cumbria (a county in N. England just above Yorkshire) to a little village called Penrith. It's comparable in size to Riverstone back home, I reckon...except it has like a million pubs and they are all very old. The one Darren is working in used to have King Richard or someone staying over in it back in the day. I don't want to sound like a dag but it was a lovely little town, and it is in the Lakes district so we saw some of the lakes about and they were very pretty. As usual it was horrible to have to leave and come back to DUBLIN and to come back to what's been happening???? Well that's just cruel.

I also have a conundrum...or a crisis, if you will. I want to stay over with Darren for a bit because we have been shuttling and commuting so much just to see each other over the past few months and while I will fight for this, it would be nice to be settled just for a little bit. Thing is, I won't be able to work over there because I don't have a UK visa (and can't get one unless I go home and apply from there). Working illegally hasn't fazed me before but I am told it is much more strict over there so I probably wouldn't get anything. The pub owners said themselves they are looking for extra hands in the kitchen over the busy summer months-I don't care if I'm peeling potatoes and washing dishes I would honestly take anything if it meant I could stay there for a little while.
My 90 day visa waiver for Ireland is running out FAST so I need to lay low for the next 90 days and maybe go do some travelling or something then try and get back into Ireland with another stamp. I could always apply for an Irish visa, even though I know I wouldn't use it to it's entirety. Thing is, I NEED to come home between Christmas and March for my brothers wedding, and if I am there by March then I would be stupid to not stay and go finish off my last 3 subjects at uni from March to May/June. Even with Darren coming back for his birthday in April, that means a 5 month gap between when Darren and I would see each other.
People will say it's stupid to try and keep this going but dammit how often do you meet people like this? Chances to be happy don't come along very often so if you have it then you should fight for it!!! The worst thing I can imagine happening is me being back at home, in a crappy job or something, and sitting on the train or at work or at home wondering if this whole thing was a dream...did it really happen...did we really have something good and I gave it up?
I DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANY REGRETS!!!

Is there a way that I can stay until January or February?

The other thing is, should I buy a return ticket or a one way ticket?
Pros for return are:
don't have to save money to get back
it gives me something to look forward to
i'll most likely see Darren when I go back
can get a working visa and have everything sorted

Cons:
costs more money, money that I could be using to travel about places
what if I don't use it? or situations change?

What would you do, my dear friends and family that *sometimes* read this (when I can be bothered updating)???

I have the money for the ticket ready, all I need to do is to decide which one. Cheap flights home are in November, and stopover in Hong Kong (can get a cheap laptop and camera accessories while I'm there...bonus). I could be leaving in September (when my visa waivers run out) or....who knows when.

I'm so confused and I don't think I'm thinking straight about this because there is so much emotion involved. I get proper upset every time I think about it...
Just wish there was a simple solution to all this that doesn't end in me being devestated.
Do you know any? Short of a hard knock to the head to make me forget the past 5 or 6 months...

Some of the girls are going to Octoberfest so I could go to that in September...and another of the girls here said she'd travel around eastern europe with me (like from Estonia down to Macedonia and everything in between) so it would be nice to travel a bit. Being in Europe is fine because it's not far to England. I just wish I didn't have obligations back at home to go to otherwise I could get a french visa or this irish visa and then stay for a year. Darren has two years before he gets citizenship and in those two years he can only be out of the country (ie go back to Australia) for three months in total. However going home is the only option if I want to get this UK visa. CAN YOU SEE THE BIND I AM IN?!?!?!

I'm going to stop whinging now. Hopefully I made at least a little bit of sense.

The Garda said they will drop round tomorrow so I hope they don't enquire about my employment status. I'll say I'm just looking after the desk because one of the girls was off sick or something...

IF ANYBODY ASKS, I DON'T WORK HERE!!!

Home

This won't be a long one, nor a particularly relevant one, as I have had a few Guinness' tonight.

I have been thinking for the past few weeks about the concept of home and what it means to me.

When it comes to the concept of 'home', what comes to mind? To me, it's feeling like you belong in a place and you are comfortable waking up ten thousand kilometers from your family and the house you grew up in, and forgetting that you are somewhere else instead of in your bed back in the country you were born and the city you have spent all your life in.

Lately I have been forgetting that I am in fact in a room with 18 other people and in a strange bed where hundreds of others have slept before (unlike my mattress back home, where all I had to do to be sure of it's 'purity' was to turn it over before I started sleeping on it) and feeling as if I am in 'my own' bed and not being mindful of my surroundings.
Now that may sound very irresponsible and stupid but it's not in the way that I leave my wallet out on my bed or anything, it's more like I identify my little space as 'my space' and have decorated it as such and am as possessive of it as I would be my own room back home. Meanwhile my room back home doesn't have the same feeling of 'my space' as it normally would because someone else is inhabiting it. So without my secure refuge back in Sydney, I feel like the little space I have here is so precious.

I have always been one of those people who would never call a sleeping-place 'home' unless it was literally the place that I grew up in. This is a bit of a narrow-minded view though because think of all the people who have moved house extensively over their years...how can they pick one place to call home?
Home is where you make it, not necessarily 'where the heart is' as the saying goes-although I am open to that possibility as I am realising where closest friends I have are and where I have ties to...

Some of the others call the hostel 'home' or even places where they are staying one night...maybe home is just a place to rest your head and have some privacy. Maybe it's deeper than that and you need to have emotional ties to it and some sort of personal history behind it.

See, to me, Riverstone will always be my home. But on the odd occasion I might let it slip that I am going 'home' when I am really going back to the hostel. I suppose in a way the hostel is home to me (at least while I am living here) because my closest friends (here) are and where I am tied to at the moment...

But enough of that. I'm not good at being philosophical or profound. It was just something that has been on my mind lately.
I hate Dublin and would never want to live here for good-so that's probably why it's been on the top of my head lately...

Take care everyone and HAPPY BLOOMSDAY! (google it if you don't know what it is)