Mum & Bee in Dublin: Days 2-4

Day 2: SHOPPING!

Not much happened, since this was shopping day 🙂 We just (or mainly I just) spent lots of money. Got new shoes, jeans, tops and I do not know what else. But that is OK, cos my wardrobe needed some updating especially summer stuff, since I did not have many summer clothes considering I arrived here in October (PS: contrary to what you might think Irish summer clothes consist of when you walk through Dublin during the ‘warmer’ days of April, no short shorts, crop tops or sleeveless tops made it to my wardrobe). That evening we went for a walk at the park near my residence, had dinner at Eddie Rockets (with an Oreo Milkshake for Bernard) and went to sleep.

Day 3: HOWTH!

On Sunday we visited Howth. We caught the bus to the city centre and then another to Howth. Howth is a peninsula jutting out of the Irish coast onto the Irish sea:

Howth

The bus took us to the summit, and off walking we went along the cliffs. Unfortunately, instead of going left we turned right, and therefore we got the longer route. And most of it was not scenic. However the scenic part we saw was really beautiful, with cliffs all around and beautiful scenery. Bernard and myself also spotted a couple of houses we will be willing to buy 🙂 Of course they are out of our price range, but you can always hope 🙂 We then walked (and walked) until we reached Howth Harbour and visited a tiny market there, where I bought some sundried tomato pesto and Pesto Genovese, some sweet pastries and then bought lunch from a Lebanese stand, which was quite good. After that we took a walk round the harbour, and saw what I had been looking for. THE SEALS 🙂

One of the Seals (photo not taken by me)

We got to see 2 seals, who kept coming up and down, and were fat, splodgy and cute 🙂 You just want to go and swim with them 🙂 After that we got the bus back home, went to mass and then cooked dinner of pasta with the tomato pesto, followed by apple crumble and custard for dessert 🙂

Day 4: A MISH MASH

On Monday, I went to Uni for a bit, and then joined mum and Bernard where we walked to the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. We went through them and found out we were there for more than an hour and a half. There is so much to see, and the place is so nice. I would suggest that they do some cleaning of the river bed though, as the presence of shoes, bottles, kegs and bicycle wheels in the middle of the river passing through the Botanic Gardens jars with the remainder of the peaceful environment. The tulips, which were in bloom, were beautiful however, and I hope to be back to see the rose garden in bloom :). After that we walked (Yes walked…cos HRH BB wanted to walk) to the city centre, where we had lunch, did some more shopping and then went home. By this time it was after 7:30pm, so we cooked some dinner. Out choice fell on Cecilia’s pie. It was delicious. A base of bread drizzled with olive oil, covered by a thin layer of tomato pesto and tomato sauce paste, covered by a layer of minced beef, onion and mushrooms, covered by another thin layer of tomato pesto and tomato sauce paste and topped with full fibre mashed potatoes and some cheese. MMMMM. It was really good, but no place remained for dessert, so we will eat it today 🙂

Today is Day 5. We are taking it easy, cos today Ann, Michael, Michele and Stephen are joining us to start our Easter trip. We need to wash clothes, I need to pack etc etc. Kerry beware 🙂 The Fenechs are on their way.

My First Visitor…Day 2

Sunday came about and today the plan was to go to the city centre to walk a bit around and do some shopping. We made our way to the centre of town and walked a bit around. Shops do not open until 11am or 12 noon on Sundays, so we had some time to see some places. However at 11am we started making our way to our designated shopping area…Mary Street. We went round the shops and shopped and shopped and shopped. I have never done that much shopping in my whole life I think. We bought a webcam for Bernard, a coat each, a bath mat, clothes for me, some presents, a cute giraffe pyjama for me and Hippo bed slippers, gloves, ear muffs and I do not know what else. At around 3pm we were quite hungry so made our way to get some food…Bernard loves Subway sandwiches so that is what we got. Then went back to keep on shopping. This street is full of enormous shops…there is everything…Penneys, Dunnes, Debenhams, Zara, H&M…the list goes on and on. These are all shops taking up 3 or 4 storeys. It is positively exhausting.

We then made our way to my residence to put down our stuff, and then left to go to the OLV Gospel Mass. After mass, the others said they were going to a pub for a drink. We obviously tagged along. Unfortunately the pub had no food (it stopped serving food at 6pm), so after a drink and some chatting we made our way home where I cooked some pasta Bolognese and went to sleep soon after.

My First Visitor…Day 1

Sorry for not posting much lately, but I have been kept quite busy over the weekend. The first visitor to my humble abode came on Saturday afternoon and left early this morning (too early might I say but anyways). And this was no ordinary visitor…weeee I got a visit from my dear bf Bernard. Luckily Monday (yesterday) was a bank holiday here in Ireland. Therefore I got the whole day to spend with him :). We had figured that out after he had already bought the ticket, so it was a pleasant surprise.

After picking him up at the airport, we immediately made our way to my residence. Luckily I do not live far away from the airport (10minute bus ride), and so we were soon there. We dropped everything off and we left to go to the Omni Park nearby, here I generally do all my shopping. We went round for a bit since it was soon closing time (yes shops in Ireland have quite short opening times, especially at weekends and public holidays) and then went to search for someplace to eat. I do not get round much, and the area I live in is quite residential. So restaurants are not that plentiful. However at the omni park we found Eddie Rockets store and we decided on that (we also had McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut and a Chinese restaurant to choose from…it is surprising that in such a small place you would get all the main fast food restaurants within less than a minute’s walk from each other…generally these are joined by Subway as well…but this is a recurring theme in Dublin).

I had a Grilled Pineapple Hamburger whilst Bernard had a Smokestack. After dinner we opted for an apple pie with ice cream and a milkshake. The food was really delicious  and the portions quite big MMMMMMM. We have nothing to complain about that. Any complaints are regarding the service, if there was any. After around 10minutes of having sat down we had to ask for a menu to be brought to us. Then we had to flag down a waiter to get our order taken (although she did excuse herself). However once we were successful at ordering, the food did not take too long to arrive and it was mouth-watering. Another complaint I would make would be that we ordered a combo. However on the receipt they place on the table, the price of the separate items is shown. Then when we ordered dessert, we got another receipt showing just the deserts we had ordered, however we got a price of around 30Eur. We ate everything and went to pay. We were told that the receipts always come out like that. Then they will discount the combo meal and the total price would show on each additional receipt even though nothing shows this.

At this point we were full and tired. We went back to the residence, I watched some Grey’s Anatomy whilst Bernard set up my Irish mobile. Then we had a good night’s sleep 🙂

Visit to Town

This week, I went again to the New and Not so New in Dublin Coffee and Cake meetup at Milk and Coffee in Dublin. This means that I get an excuse to get into town (it is quite expensive here to use buses…Eur1.60 to get to town, which is around 15mins away (and another Eur1.6o to come back) is a minimum, and the service is not that great.  But anyways. Since I was going to town, I decided to go in a bit earlier and do some shopping. Ross from Uni had suggested a good shopping area, and that is where I went. It is just off the main road me and my mum had trawled all over last time we were here. But we are not that adventurous. So this area was uncharted before in my internal Dublin map.

What did I find?…more and more and more…larger and larger and larger shops than I had seen elsewhere in Dublin. I did not buy much, but I bought some much needed stuff. Most importantly? I am the proud owner of a new mouse…for my laptop that is:

My new mouse

 I actually wanted one of the colourful ones such as this:

The colourful sister to my mouse

But the guys at Logitech have forgotten to include Malta in the list of billing addresses pffff. So a plain one it is.

After some shopping I made my way to the Meetup. It was nice to meet up with some of the people from last time. However most people were new. It was like out of around 40people there, 30 must have been completely different to last time. But that is great. Cos you get to meet up with new people. I am really enjoying these coffee and cake activities. I get to meet different people and have a really pleasant time discussing anything and everything. Today we discussed anything from French strikes to the Irish recession to Oktoberfest to Costume parties. It is also great cos I get to network…I got some ideas from my dissertation…so that is always good. And the hot chocolate I had was also mmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmm.

I won’t be able to make it next week, cos I have special plans for then. However I will certainly be back.



Strasbourg Day 3: Course Day 2

So…today I woke up to Strasbourg Day 3…As is normal with me I woke up a few minutes before the alarm was to ring (at 8am haha)…got up slowly, prepared for the day, had breakfast at the hotel and off I went. Since I was a bit early and the weather is being so nice I decided to go on foot. I took my camera with me (photos later…not in the mood to upload them), and made my way to the other side of Strasbourg whilst taking photos.

One thing that we have all been saying about Strasbourg is that it is such a manageable city. You can go nearly anywhere on foot within around 30mins. Since I am staying in quite a central part of the city I can get most places quite quickly. However even the other participants (most of whom are staying farther away) are able to walk around.

At the course today we had a MUCH more interesting day. Today we were discussing water aspects of climate change. First up was Caroline Gregoire from ENGEES. She explained about Continental hydrology, climate and water circulations, characterisation of extreme events and the ecology of humid areas. This was followed by Pascale Joannot from the Museum of Natural History of France. She explained about coral reefs and how they are affected about climate change…we could all see her enthusiasm for the subject and her vast knowledge and it was really enjoyable.

Then LUNCH WEEE…the other Maltese guy and myself went to lunch with 3 French students, Marlene, Marie and Alexandre (I think). They took us to what they described as relatively cheap place but very good food…surprise surprise it is where I chose yesterday…so I do have good instincts hihi…I had Chicken with fries and salad mmmm.

Session 3 followed by A. Sadowski, again from ENGEES, who spoke about Water cleaning networks. The French students said he is one of the best in the field in Europe, and we could see he knows his subject. One problem…he does not know English :(…however he said his slides are in English and told us to ask questions…hmmmm…slide 1 and problem 1…the slide had just pictures and he talked and talked. After a couple of slides, the Armenian guy looked at me and we started giggling. Then our dear translator from yesterday offered to translate…so it was much better.

Last session of the day: Jean Baptiste Bardiaud again from ENGEES, who spoke about drinking water. After working in this sector for the past 1.5years, it was really good to get to know more about this area.

At 5pm we were ready and I went walking around. I met up with the other Maltese guy and we went to La Petite France. This is and old picturesque part of the city.

La Petite France

We then parted ways (he wanted to buy presents for his wife and son) and I went around some shops and some other parts of Strasbourg, went to eat (Salad with bacon, eggs, tomatoes and Goat’s cheese on toast mmmm…I went to the same restaurant as yesterday cos I saw the salads and they looked really good), and I am now here updating you all.