Madrid Dos

So, Sevilla it is, via Cordoba.
We wanted to go to Lisbon, but they only has 1st class tickets which, even with our Eurorail passes, were very expensive.
In any case, I am pleased with our plan.
So, Madrid has been very enjoyable. Mostly, we saw lots of art, and sat in parks or plazas in the shade.
This is the best thing, I think, about Madrid. There seems always to be a nice place to sit down every few steps.

From Madrid

So, Madrid is very lovely and not as hot as I expected. I have to say, though, that it feels more ´big city´than ´foreign country.´ Except of course, for the people making out on benches in parks, which feels a bit ´junior high´except that actually I am jealous because I had no boyfriends in junior high and well, Bill and I are a bit too American for massive public displays of affection, unfortunately.
In any case, for the additional info, please see Bill´s blog, as I don´t feel like rehashing the day´s events.
So, we will be in Madrid until Sunday probably, at which point we will either go to Portugal, or the sister city of Kansas City, Sevilla. Any thoughts?

Aloha from Paris

Dear all, Paris is lovely although humid and grey out so that sucks.
We arrived Friday and met up with our friend Ryan who is living here with his lovely Austrian girlfriend, Natalie.
Spent Saturday wandering about as we were exhausted from our 6 am flight. At the Arc de Triumph, bizarrely enough, we ran into a girl we went to high school with but moved our sophomore year. so we went kept her with us and then went to drink wine on the steps of Sacre Coeur, which was exciting. Then bar crawled near Bastille where Ryan lives which was very exciting.
In any case, spent Saturday on the Champs Elysee watching Lance Armstrong defeat the world, which was exciting though we couldnt see much. There were about a million Texans there, most of whom were in cowboy hats. I think I may have even got a picture of him, though its hard to say as they all looked about the same. Also did the Eiffel Tower which is always nicer than expected.
Monday and today we spent doing museums and other historic sites. I think my fave was St. Chappelle church and the Musee DOrsay. I cant get enough of that Manet, no sir.
So tomorrow, we head to Bordeaux where we will stay one night and drink lots of wine... then off to Spain on the night train, very exciting.
So, we are enjoying Paris very much, I had forgotten how much more attractive it is than most cities.

Tomorrow

begins the great european adventure!
wheee!

Grrr man.

It would be cool if this post was going to be about Germans and how crappy they are. Unfortunately, I've not really met any crappy Germans, although Monday some dickhead came into my work and was telling me about how much the Germans will hate me when I go there because I'm American. This may well be true, but at least they will have some decent food and reasonably priced cigarettes... I hope. Please tell me Germany is still sensibly allowing people to make bad health decisions at low cost.
In any case, I digress. Today some other dickhead came into my work and started talking to me about my typing speed, which is quite fast. But not, I'd imagine, significantly faster than most of my American peers.
Fine, compliment my typing, it doesn't mean much, but I'm pleased with it. But then he starts comparing it to playing the piano, which is weird. I mean, my piano teacher was always telling me to slow down when I played. So not the same at all. But then, even weirder, this dick starts telling me that you know, it's great I've found something so good at, and can have a happy career at, blah blah. And I'm like, what, as a typist? It's like, yes, I have traveled my way across the sea to make a career as a typist.
I definitely did some glowering at this. I suppose, though, when sitting at a computer hooked up to a dictaphone typing, one looks like a typist.

Some Bullet Points for Funness

• Saturday Bill and I went to a club with flatmates, friends, and lots of strangers oddly tanned considering the weather. This club was very hip, and they made this evident by projecting images on a screen of starving children in Africa while we got down to Billie Jean. As far as I could tell, the 9 EURO cover was not for an Oxfam benefit or something. Maybe it's to go with the African prints that are all the rage this season.
• Sunday Bill and I saw the Wedding Crashers, which made me laugh. I was happy to see an insanely stupid comedy which was not too revolting for my tastes. Also, I find Vince Vaughn very appealling.
• Yesterday Bill and I got to eat Laotian cuisine and cake at my friend Alana's, which was tremendous. In addition, she totally spoiled our little pants off by letting us watch Law and Order (SVU). I hadn't seen this one before. Where was Olivia (even if I hate her effing eyebrows, I missed her)? Maybe if you all are lucky, Alana will spoil you same when she visits the US in October!
• Today I hope to get my hair cut. Nothing fancy, just trying to keep myself well-groomed, which is increasingly difficult.
• Also today, my calendar notes that today in 1631, the English mathematician William Oughtred introduced the symbol for multiplication. I am shocked that this tidbit of information has surviced nearly 400 years, and that indeed, the x was ever such a big deal. Also I am curious as to what they used before.
• Yesterday, some dickhead came into my office and hassled me about travelling in Europe before seeing all of Ireland and told me about how everyone over there hates Americans. I bit my tongue and pretended like I thought he was funny. I hate having subservient jobs and the way middle-aged men talk to me.
• We leave for France in 4 days and oddly, all I want to do is buy stuff. I feel my shirts are woefully inadequate, and I don't know what I was thinking not packing any denim skirts.
• Fin.

A shocking view

So this is what I saw when walking home from work Tuesday. I would, obviously, have uploaded these Friday but stupid blogger was down. To set the scene, you should be listening to the Genius of Komeda... which you should own if you don't, as it's one of my top 10s of all time, or rather would be, were I male and prone to making such lists. In any case, I am walking down the street, at about 5:30, when, at a major intersection, behind a chest-high wall of the sort people like to put in front of parking lots here, I see this middle-aged man strangely close to the wall moving his arm in a suspcious fashion. When I cross the street, I can see behind the wall and what do I see but this:

Scandalous! He's totally yanking it at a busy intersection in Dublin's poshest area behind the wall of a funeral parlour!
For the third time in my life, I see some random old guy diddling himself in public. The two times, incidentally, occured at or near the shopping centre across the street from my middle school, when I was 14. Those times were more gratifying as I was with friends thus we could have a giggle about it. This time I had to just send a text and wait.
Now that I've told the story all weekend, it's not nearly as fun to post my pictures.

Perfect Mix CD Tracklisting

• Lali Puna- Faking the Books
• Dresden Dolls- Girl Anachronism
• M83- Run into flowers
• Les Georges Leningrad- Sponsorships
• - Soopa Doopa
• Interpol- Obstacle 1
• Radiohead- A Woolf at the Door
• Belle and Sebastian- I love my car
• Frou Frou- Let Go
• Azure Ray- Across the Ocean
• Camera Obscura- Let me go home
• Elliot Smith- Pretty (ugly before)
• Goldfrapp- Bedlam to Brooklyn f/ Turin Brakes
• Sondre Lerche- Sleep on Needles
• Lali Puna- Micronomic
• T-Rex- Cosmic Dancer
• Scissor Sisters- Laura
• - Filthy/Gorgeous

3.2 miles and the mix cd

So, as of yesterday, I have a new job at a law firm on the other side of town from where I live. I live 30 minutes by foot southwest of the city, this job is 40 minutes southeast of the city. The job is fine (although they use dial-up, what?!?), but public transport leaves much to be desired, as the buses only go into the city and out of the city--never through the city or, as I would prefer in this case, under the city. In any case, I refuse to pay E2.60 to ride two buses, one in and one out, so I am now, as of yesterday after work, officially walking to work, as although my house is exactly 3.2 miles from my job, it still takes less time to walk here than it would to wait for two buses and ride on them in city traffic. Instead, I get to walk alongside a fairly disgusting but still pleasant canal, listen to my Discman, and hopefully look better in my new bikini when I hit the Eurobeaches during my upcoming travels. I feel very proud of myself for making this decision.
In any case, this morning I selected for my Discman a CD my dear friend Michael made me for my birthday last year. He also mailed it to me in England which makes him a lot better than most of you. And this CD was perfect--the absolute best thing for a morning walk. And even better, most of the music is new to me, and I realized that all the CDs Michael makes for me are like this. In fact, for the past 10 years now Michael has been making me mixes of genius. As I walked to work this morning, I thought to myself, Man, could this mix be any more me? I thought not. Then I thought, hell, I'll even write about it in my blog today! And then maybe more people will send me mix cds. But then I had the sad (in this case) realization that I will only be in Ireland for another 11 days, not enough time for such CDs to arrive to me. Which is too damn bad, really, because I have very few here with me and as I'll be spending much of the next two months on trains and buses, really too damn bad. So it turns out I can't even use this opportunity to hit you all up for music.
Of course, my next birthday is only 2 months and 2 weeks away... and I will be restored to my home state by then.

Sad, sick, and worried.

London, you are in my thoughts.

End of an era

Man, I can't believe they just pulled my knox email out from under me like that. Lucky I spent yesterday reliving the good times and deleting everything before Sean Reidel could get his grubby paws on them. I will have to retrain myself entirely.
In any case, my new primary email is ruth.evans.mylastname@gmail.com
isn't it grand?

Square, part 2.

So yesterday after work I did a bit of shopping for Bill's birthday (still in my suit). I stumbled into a record shop I had never been to in Dublin, Tower Records. Now, my father, being way more hip than I, has always insisted Tower is above and beyond the average high street multimedia emporium (I have never been able to tell the difference, not coming from the land of Tower Records). And indeed, I thought Virgin or someone similar took over Tower recently.
In any case, this Tower was obviously different, and far different from the HMVs and Virgins that dominate here, which make it pretty much impossible to acquire an album off the top 40.
So, Tower Records was all hip, with poorly groomed men too old for such appalling hygiene, listening to the Beach Boys and the Ramones. Also their John Mayer sidewall-thing had Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley albums lining the side, obviously assuming that one whiny guy is the same as any other (so not!). Although I certainly have tried same with my brothers, even going so far as to mold them to like music that I myself have never much cared for, but thought might make them a bit better if they listened to (i.e. oh you are listening to Blink 182, well, let's give the Sex Pistols a try).
In any case, I felt like such a freaking dork there, but also wondered at what point I started assuming that the record store clerks were probably not that cool after all. Probably when people I knew from high school started working in record shops and I realized that their haircuts were more important than their tastes in landing such a prestigious job.
Nevertheless, I felt like a massive tool, and that I had to buy something to restore my credibility. Thus, I wavered between looking for something very old, to show that I've got cred, and buying something brand new, to show that I'm hip to the scene. All this despite the fact that they didn't have the album I was looking for to begin with (this MIA album I keep hearing so much about--although I just read a review that totally lambasted it. Still, I would have liked to listen).
In any case, every time I remembered something else that I had vaguely wanted to buy, they didn't have it. At this point, I'd spent like 30 minutes there, aimlessly browsing and debating whether or not this was a cd that I would want to join my 30 or so trip CDs for the next 3 months, of which a few were major mistakes (Black Box Recorder, Momus, Princess Superstar), and I can hardly bear to listen to with the frequency having only a few albums in your possession demands.
Ultimately, I ended up leaving, walking 5 feet, coming up with a nice present for Bill, and decisively returning to the store and making my selection(something old, can't say until I give it to him, obviously). Then I saw something new that I wanted for myself--the new Smog album. Gave them both a little listen, made my purchase, and continued home.

Dress-up

Today, I started yet another new temp job (this time for a law firm--busy and easy, with internet, my fave, everyone's nice, in the city centre, blah blah, sadly just for 3 days). As one does when one starts a new temp job (for the uninitiated and thus, unsuffered), one wears a suit. Thus, I am wearing my suit (my fairly cute suit that I bought in the after Christmas sales in London--it's a bit wintry, but it's not the least bit summery today anyhow so who gives a fuck?). In any case, whenever I wear a suit, I just feel like such an impostor. I feel like a dorky penguin girl. And it's like I feel suits are for squares, I see girls my age wearing suits, and I'm like, show'em sister. I want to be a cool suit girl, and not feel like I'm dressed up like my mother.
This brings me to my second point. My advanced age. As you may know, my sugarplum is turning two dozen tomorrow. Ancient. I will follow in September. I'm not entirely comfortable (or really, at all comfortable) with my age transformation.
For example, Sunday, we had a barbeque. My flatmates invited their friends, etc, Bill and I invited our two friends, respectively, mine couldn't come, but Bill's brought extras so, fine. In any case, my flatmate Niaomh (rhymes with Eve), who is doing her Ph.D. introduces me to her 'friend,' a sociology professor. So I talk to him for a bit, waiting for him to do something professorly, like, I don't know, ask about my classes or something, until I realized that, in this new post-college world, we are peers. And indeed, I even have the option of looking down on him for living in the posh world of acedemia whereas I have a real job and actually work for a living.
I mean, can you imagine? Looking down on professors? I have this option now, and not even in the collegiate way of oh, poor professor thinks it's ok to wear socks with sandals...
Like going out to dinner as friends with a 40 year old. Maybe this is all very redundant, and maybe I should have figured this out years ago, but I literally just can't handle it.
I need to go back to school as to narrow my place in the world.

As it turns out, I am a better person than my employer.

When I started my job, and entered data from HR, I noticed that despite the fact that this is a distribution centre, nearly all of the employees have Irish/English names. I thought that was a bit odd, as the labour is certainly low-prestige and relatively unskilled, and in the US, I'd imagine similar jobs are staffed by non-native speakers to be sure. Certainly, all the stockworkers at my old Nordstrom are of Latin American descent, though the cleaning staff seemed generally Eastern European.
However, early this week I noticed that, in fact, there are loads of Eastern European men working the stock, as they would show up in reception from time to time and well, definitely not speak English. But it turns out they are from a temp agency. Multiple agencies, actually. And indeed, every day I sat up in reception, a few more showed up to work.
Then I thought, well, jeez, why don't they actually just hire these guys? Then I thought they must be bigoted dickbrains. And then I thought, well, I'm a temp and I'm not temping because I'm discriminated against, I'm a temp because I wanted short-term, low-commitment work. Then I didn't think anything of it.
Until yesterday, when I began writing about 1 million letters to former residents of the former Soviet Union and its neighbors, as well as a few dozen Africans. Also a handful of Irish women. To be fair, in these million letters were also a few rejections for Mr. Brian O'Brien and Ronald McDonald, but most of those were either 16 or 61 years of age.
In reading their CVs and cover letters, I was literally heartbroken several times, as nothing is more poignant than bad English. I mean, when I write a cover letter, I do my best to sound like I don't desperately want this job, but in fact, have come to the realization that the company desperately needs me. But lacking proper English skills, these wanna-be lads write "I am good worker I very work hard" while their CV lists a master's in engineering back in Nigeria or Lithuania. And there is nothing more devastating than the truth. My cover letters never resonate like this:
I wish I could be given the opportunity to work in the warehouse. I promise to work to the best of my capacity and to display my talent in picking and loading area of the warehouse. I really believe I have the experience in those area.
says an accountant from Nigeria who also has an Irish certificate in forklift driving.
I would totally give him a job.
Then I realized that I am excited to go home and start looking for a job where I don't get to feel so self-righteous all the time.

Funny that

One Polish Bachelor from Nowa Ruda writes on his CV that he speaks German at "a need intercourse level."
My bit of work funniness.

Me and the lads

As it turns out, I am not free. I (luckily?) get to keep this job until Friday.
This job is at a distribution center in the middle of nowhere. As primarily there are truckers, loaders, pickers, etc, I am one of the few girls here.
Incidentally, the workers here are described as such:
Lads (the manual laborers)
Girls (the female office workers)
Guys (the male office workers.
There are probably around 250 people that work here. 90% are lads. 5% girls, and 5% guys.
In any case, twice today a 'lad' has introduced himself to me and mentioned that he's 'heard' of me. And on Tuesday, a 'guy' asked me where I was from and said that he and the lads were talking about me and couldn't decide on my accent (apparently, the consensus was not American). This isn't too surprising, though, as most Irish seem to travel to New York, Boston, and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard quite frequently to visit their kinfolk. Thus, my steadfast insistence on the pronunciation of Rs is probably quite confusing (though I acquired this skill in years of speech therapy to punish me for being taught to speak in New Jersey) to Irish ears polluted by our countrymates in the Northeast.
On one hand, I realize that as probably the only female under the age of 30, I am quite a novelty at work. It is understandable that they wish to converse about me. On the other hand, I am disturbed and slightly intimidated by myself as an object of conversation. Yet, on still another hand, I find myself wanting to wear short skirts and display copious amounts of cleavage, in hopes that someone will give me a candy bar. Perhaps I should do this tomorrow. I feel quite sure Bill would not notice my wardrobe change (even though I am writing about it), and it's not like I'm after anything more than a couple Kit-Kats.

Freedom

Today is the last day of data-entry/soul-depletion. Good, except tomorrow brings yet another day of Irish unemployment. Puke.
Maybe I will run around being clever and then write about it and my public will love me.
Without books, a charming boyfriend, and frequent trips to Lidl, life would not be worth living.
Today is the hottest day so far, according to my coworker. I'd estimate it at 75 degrees. The airconditioning in my work is set at probably 60. And Europeans are better than Americans? Fuck that, Jimmy Carter moved the White House thermostat up to 69 ages ago.
Also one of my flatmates (Irish) leaves the lights on all over the place.
mm hmm. European arrogance be damned, we will all go to hell in the same handbasket.

Such Indiginity...

I have to ask some lady for the key to the bathroom here! And not just one lady, like, any lady because my wardens all have keys and I do not! And the bathroom's crap, not like some awesome posh bathroom. Where is Amnesty International when you really need them?

Solitary Confinement

Have job, am locked away in the middle of nowhere in a small room by myself with nothing but a computer, an overactive air conditioner, and a shitload of data to enter. The firewall won't let me read my email or do anything nice except read and update my blog. I have nothing to say, except that I hate working and look forward to lunchtime freedom. Data entry makes me want to die and I go all brer rabbit on them. "Have you ever done data entry before?" they ask... bastards. One finger at a time, I'll do it. In between changing every "the" in every document on the shared drive to "bananaramadingdong," I'll enter how many sick days poor Bobby McGee took in 2004.

Bullet Points

• Saturday Bill and I came home(slightly tipsy) to find the window panes in our lovely wooden kitchen in our lovely wooden house covered with termites. Bill, armed with whiskey, all the junk mail in the house and a spray bottle of all-purpose household cleaner/poison, took on the invaders while I laid in the room wanting to die and/or vomit. He seems to have defeated them, though a few ugly bastards present themselves for slaughter from time to time. Of course, our Irish housemates/landlords are out of town at a wedding, so we've been left to fend for ourselves.
• I have not found a replacement temp job. This is bad for a number of reasons. I need the money for my travels which begin in just over a month. I also cannot register with another agency as I have done during previous dry spells as no one wants me for such a short time. Argh. I am positive I will have something for Monday, but I am not thrilled about being out all week if that's what it comes to. Though I am being very productive.
• Speaking of productive, yesterday I bought my first piece of totally impractical clothing since beginning this madness 9 months ago. A pair of sea foam green peekaboo toe heels. They are adorable and have a gigantic bow at the front. They were on sale for €8, so no major harm done. Of course, I can't even really walk in them as my foot is not entirely healed from rolling my ankle a few weeks back. But that's cool, they are a lot more fun and exciting than the practical clothes and shoes I have been wearing for ages.
• This morning, however, I shed a tear about how much I miss my lady friends as I was thinking who would borrow them and who would make fun of them only to want to borrow them a few months later... This made me really sad as I don't know when my friends will have access to my closet again and vice versa, as there is no city in the world that has any majority of them. Or even a sizable minority.
• Speaking of cities, it is time for Bill and I to begin the official European Extravaganza plans. So, if you are someone I know and will be in Europe from July 23 to roughly September 23, please contact me and we can make plans to kick it Euro-style (i.e. smellier and hopefully thinner!)