Well, first day in the new job. A long one. 7:30a -7pm. But am in decent shape for the project management workshop tomorrow. Susan took us out for a lovely welcome lunch at Hugo’s. It was a supreme pleasure to be able to walk into the office this am and even nicer to be able to stroll home. I am about 20 minutes from the office at a nice pace. I walk through a nice shop area and then along a lovely tree lined residentail boulevard. As it was I popped into Donnybrook Fair and picked up a few little treats and a dinner to warm for €5.95. Quite reasonable and very tasty. Generous slice of stuffed pork loin, apple sauce and champ. Just right. Also picked up a roll of black pudding. I have to admit a developing taste for the stuff. It’s a long day of DHO stuff and I am not sure I’ll be able to do much on the T-REX front, but am hoping. Its a wonderful feeling to finally be able to walk home to my own apartment and cook something up, do a laundry and appreciate life.
My landlord Mary is an absolute sweetheart and she made my move in here so welcoming. She even went and got some lovely bed stuff and let me tell you the sleep last night was deep and peaceful. Tomorrow we have the first day of the DHO Summer School, so we are pretty keyed up for that. Our first big ‘Ting, and much effort has been expended by Roísín and Susan. Flapjacks tomorrow!

It was a day of mixed weather here today. Brilliant sunshine one minute…driving rain the next. Intending to make a quick trip to the National Museum, I popped to the website to see what the hours were today and discovered that the Sea Stallion, the largest replica viking longhsip in the world, was leaving Ireland today on a sea voyage back to Denmark. Cost cool. So I texted Matt and we headed for the Customs House Quay. Magnificent party going on as we got there, sunny and didn’t the sky just cloud and open up within minute or two. A small drop or two and then a little more moisture and then driving winds and torrential downpour. I tried to snap what I could and hold onto my umbrella. Matt dashed for cover and I saw that they decided that this was a good time for the Sea Stallion to make its escape. So down came the oars and it pulled away from the pier. Irish music blaring, rain screaming down and the wind a howling. Quite a scene. I didn’t even try to get the camera out, relying just on the cameraphone. So I include the video for all its worth. Note the tree when its in frame. It was really blowing and raining. Neat occassion though and glad we caught it for the few moments.

The Sea Stallion Party

Click on the image to play movie.

Ah…the naive North American. I got another advert pushed onto my mobil yesterday. I still find this most amusing, although suspect that it will soon become annoying. This was a full on video/commercial offering me a great lifestyle change by adding broadband and phone to my cable package from NTL. I was actually walking past the RTE when I got this, but it wasn’t from them. Up popped a message asking if I’d accept ….3gp. I thought cool, video. So clicked ok and lo and behold a couple seconds later, an NTL commercial is plays on my handset. It clear that there is a very different appraoch to the use of mobile communications here than back in Canada.

Read rest of story…

So…it ends well. I’ll mention that up front.
I decided, before heading off early this morning, that I’d make arrangement for my accomodation today. I compiled a definitive list of places of opportunity based on what I had seen and where I wanted to live. The south coast is hugely attracting, and i decided that a couple flyers in Dun Laoghaire were as far as I’d go, but a short DART down the coast would be fine. I set my upper limt at 1600 euro…a huge chunk of salary, but exchangable for a cool lifestyle. I attempted to arrange for showings of three place in DL, but all were putting off until Friday. Too long. I arranged for showing of a couple places between Sandymount and Booterstown. I hoped that the bid I made for a ravishingly skylit place in Booterstown might return my calls. In the end I hoped in vein. After spending the morning arranging visits…agents are recalcitrant in Ireland to simply say I’ll meet you there in an hour or two. More often its a day or two if you are lucky.
Wanting to accomplish something I decided to go to the Gardai and register my work permit. You may remember that I spent an extended period of time last week begging to be let into the country without having a work permit. I was admitted for two weeks to get my affairs in order and instructed to come to said office with proper permit. It should have been smooth. As it was, it was deemed I was illegally in country as the system claimed I had been refused entry. Questions of how I found myself in country. Confinement to a white room. Confiscation of passport. Deliberation between officials behgind closed doors. It appeared as though I would be deported. More begging and I was told that there were two options. Leave the country and attempt to re-enter with proper paperwork or appeal to the department of justice to have status changed. More begging and I finally was fortunate enough to have an authoruity figure grant an extenuating cirumstance and change of status. 100 euro later I have an immigration card and am in better shape.
Regaining composure I dashed out for afternoon showings in Merrion Village. Great place. Wandered neighbourhood and then jumped the DART back to Ballsbridge for a further showing. I spent a couple hours wandering in Ballsbridge and love the area. Made the decision to take a lovely smaller apartment on 5th storey of a very nice development offered by a friend of a friend. Awesome opportunity and Shawn has now shaken hands on a lovely place to plant my feet in Dublin. If plans come off will move in Sunday and pictures will follow. Yay.

It comes as no surpise that Dublin has a rolicking social scene. We haven’t had much of a chance yet to get out to appreciate it, but a few forays have confimred hopes. Truisms:

• Centre spots are busy, busy, busy. We are stationed across the street from ‘the Pale’. A fine two storey pub. When there’s live music, the place is packed and spills out onto the road.
• The food around town is expensive. But, its also delicious. I haven’t had a single bit of food that hasn’t struck the chord of gastonomic note.
• It’s a mixed scene. All ages and ethnicities seem to be in and around.
• Treating is a right dangerous thing. In my research on liquor legislation in the late nineteenth century, there was an apparent attempt to tackle this threat to national sobriety. Not that its not customary back in Canada, but its certainly de rigeur here and this leads to significant consumption, all in the name of honour and ettiquite.
• There are places to socialize everywhere. Right now, as we search for a place to live and trundle about to different locales, the presence of pubs (and cafes, and eating establishments of all kinds) far surpasses anything that I am used to.
• Zaytoon’s remains a prenial favourite. The kebabs from this Persian place are far too yummy. At 8 euro a piece they aren’t cheap, but they are far and away the finest I have ever tasted. I partook of them a couple times when I was over for the interview and last night before the game they hit the spot with amazing percision.

All of this speaks to why I find myself in a bit of a geospatial quandary. If I were to locate out in the Cubes at Sandyford, I’d be pretty far removed from this sort of social life, but that isn’t to say you can’t go elsewhere and hop on the LUAS to come home. The decision awaits.

So I got my first push coupon yesterday! I was walking through Ranaleagh past a Spar and I happened to check the time on my phone. When I glanced at the screen, it asked whether I would accept a file from Spar-9-Ranaleagh. Quite prepared to have my phone attacked by mobile terrorist/hackers, I of course clicked ok. I found this all very cool and a small jar was downloaded offering me a spaecial deal on milk if I crossed the street. Cool!I have never experienced this in Canada, but susect I have just lived a sheltered life.

We all know I love my gadgets. As I blogged earlier in the week one of the first things I picked up on arrival was a new disposable cell phone. I chose a little Sony Ericsson 530i from 3.ie because it allowed unlimited Skype usage. I have been blown away by how well the Skype functionlity is implemented on this phone and the mobile itself has demonstrated a few other neat features. My original plan was to get the cheapest thing I could for the interim and purely utilitarian considerations. Then come July 11th ponder the 3G iPhone. However, I have to admit that I am rather pleasantly surprised by the little 530i. Its a solid little phone and pure candy bar form factor. I am glad to be back to candybars and from experience will not use a slider or a flip in the future. I put a crystal case on the 530i to protect the screen (experience with my last SE).
The camera on the 530i is a common 2Mb. I love having a camera with me at all times and the resulting photos are quite fine. Being able to bluetooth these back and forth with my MacBook Pro is brilliantly convenient. And then I noticed that the photo menu offered an option to Blog This…
When I pressed the blog this button it was clearly linked to blogger and I figured (intriguing) I’ll attach this to my existing blogger account at some point and try this. As it turns out its much easier than this and I am very impressed.
To blog one’s life on a Sony Ericsson 530i with 3, you snap a pic, choose blog this and leave the rest to the phone. 3.ie creates a brand new blog on blogger for you, uploads the picture and then emails to your phone a special token. The phone is now linked to this blog. You claim your token via a browser and are then given the option of personalising the blog that was autocreated or simply linking the incomming posts to an existing blog. I happened to have an old one sitting around (NapoleonicTourist…unused since 2006). I pointed to this one and lo and behold there was the pic (not too exciting as I grabbed an image of the wood floor in the apartment). However, this is a very slick and smooth process. It would be very cool if I could send it to my own wp blog, but haven’t figured this one out yet…maybe. But as it stands…very cool and I am going to play with this, see what happens and make 3.ie a little richer for every post