Bing Bang Blog

I wouldn’t be doing it justice to just call it St. Patrick’s Day, considering all the activities surrounding this fantastic Irish holiday.  After my trip to Cambridge & London with Mom, we came home Friday night to meet some of my fav Bax coworkers.  RAT (Ryan, Andy & Tyler) flew in from Brussels and Kara & Ben flew in from Zurich (even pre-volcanic ash issues, Ben’s flight was canceled and he wasn’t able to get in until Saturday morning).  The one and only Amanda Brady made it to Dublin Saturday morning after approximately 24 hours of traveling.  And my mom was still in town until flying home on Sunday.  The Bax friends started the day off on the hop on hop off tour (although there wasn’t much “hopping” considering their two stops were Guinness and Jameson.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all…)  Brady, my mom and I met the crew at the Jameson Distillery.  The tour itself isn’t anything special but the best part is being the taste-tester at the end.  On this particular trip Kara & Amanda were both chosen.  So was a very old lady from Boston, who after tasting the American whiskey exclaimed in her cute old lady voice “This Jack Daniel’s is BAD!”

Saturday turned into a lovely marathon, with obnoxious tourists swarming the streets of Temple Bar (as they well should be) and wearing loads of green (shirts, pants, hats, sunglasses, men in dresses…)  My mom was the most impressive, staying out most of the night with us even though she was flying home the next morning (love annie j)  She was also creeped on by a Irish creeper at a bar that on an unrelated note had had a large bronze horse, which held our coats and also held Brady and myself at some point in the night.  Ryan & Andy purchased gigantic hats, which we all enjoyed at some time or another.  It was a great start to St. Patrick’s week and another great weekend with Bax’s finest European FDPs (+honorary member Amanda).

Ryan, Andy, Tyler, Ben, Kara & my mom all left on Sunday (Ryan & Andy only after discovering the glory that is sitting on my roof—Healey Gardens senior year anyone?)  Amanda was here for the week so there were plenty more adventures to come.

St. Patrick’s Day was on Wednesday, and thanks to the lovely Irish holiday schedule, I had the day off.  Brady and I woke up and slowly and hungoverly made it out to the city centre for the parade.  The atmosphere was amazing…people everywhere all over the streets.  People were literally carrying ladders and setting them up so they could stand and see the parade (really?).  Other highlights included children with beer hats on, many lepruchans, and a parade definitely designed by someone on acid.  No, but really, it was the strangest parade I have ever seen.  Virtually nothing that I would consider “Irish”.  But it was still a cool experience.

Thursday was ridiculous for a number of reasons:

1. Karaoke Night at the Wicked Wolf—this is where it all started.  Brady and I decided to go for a few drinks since we had to wait up for Katie (more visitors) to get into town
2. Let’s do a shot & sing Bohemian Rhapsody—okay.
3. We meet the “star” of X Factor—Ireland’s version of American Idol (also got his autograph after the bartender told him “those 2 girls really want to meet you”  We didn’t.  See picture below.)
4. Katie & her 3 friends from studying abroad in Rome arrive—one arrives with a fifth of Jameson, Brady & I are already easily convinced to go out
5. Copper’s—sleazy late night bar
6. Home at 3:45am—Brady’s taxi to take her to the airport arrives 3:47am
7. Success

BREAKING NEWS!!!  I officially have an apartment in Chicago!  I know, I know, you are probably thinking “how can you have an apartment in Chicago when you live in Ireland?”  Well ladies and gentlemen, my fantastic soon-to-be roommates have been on the hunt for the last couple weeks and finally found our home sweet home.

Renee & Noelle will be moving in to the place in June and I’ll make my glorious return to Chicago at the end of July.

It’s all going so fast, and I can’t say I’m ready to leave Ireland yet…but this makes me SO SO SO excited for my homecoming!

See you soon, Chicago!

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/ncf/news/story?id=5125564

I’m predicting the following conversation on the morning of Saturday, November 20.

“Guess who’s going to the Illini game with me today?” (Lahey)

“Ummm who?” (me)

“YOU ARE” (Lahey)

It wouldn’t be the first time it happened….

Either way—let’s be there.

After being back home in Chicago in February, it was easy to come back to Dublin, especially knowing my parents would be there in a few short weeks.  Mom & Dad got here on a Friday morning (along with our good family friends, Tim & Karen Mills).  The four of them explored until I finished work and then we grabbed a nice dinner downtown.  This was my mom’s first experience with the service industry when waiters & waitresses aren’t working for tips.  If you think I’m impatient (ok, sometimes), the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree :)  After our waiter asked if we wanted dessert, tea or anything else to drink and we replied with no thanks, we’re good…it was a good 30-40 minutes before we could get someone to bring the bill over.  All just part of the cultural experience.  Saturday we spent site-seeing Dublin.  I had been saving most of the “touristy” things for when visitors came, so it was my first time seeing most of the sites.  We did the Guinness tour, Book of Kells at Trinity College, Christs Church, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin Castle and more (we took the hop on hop off bus tour, which was actually definitely worth it…especially considering I didn’t know what half this stuff was let alone where.  These days I’m getting to pro status Dublin tour guide)

Karen & Tim took off Sunday for London, while my parentcs and I started on our daytrip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway.  Driving to the Cliffs was one of the craziest drives I’ve ever had.  Not only was I driving in another country, on the other side of the road, the roads up to the Cliffs can barely fit one standard sized car, so when someone was coming the other direction it was a bit nerve-racking.  We made it relatively unscathed (until we realized when returning the car that there was a missing hubcap…hmmm I think it was missing when we got it).

Wednesday night my mom and I flew to London to spend a few days with Ryan (childhood friend currently stationed in Cambridge for the US Air Force)  Mom and I spent all day Thursday around London. One of the coolest things was going into the Tower of London and seeing the crown jewels.  We are talking major stones here.  They were amazing, but unfortunately guarded heavily and no pictures allowed. On Friday Ryan showed us around the base and around Cambridge.  Hey HP fans…this place looks like it’s straight out of Harry Potter.  Everyone walks or bikes around with their different colored scarves based on what college at Cambridge they go to.  (so many Gryffindors).  Ryan didn’t appreciate when his mom and I whispered “Harry Potter!” every time someone strolled by.

Overall Cambridge & London was a great trip.  Now onto Friday night, when some Baxter visitors would join the fun back in Dublin…

Remember the 2010 Winter Olympics?  I was lucky enough to be back home in Chicago for the first week, because once I was back in Ireland, events worth watching were hard to come by.  We realized that BBC really only cared about British curling and the occasional slalom event.  And Ireland didn’t care about anything at all.  On a plus (or minus) side, the announcers were extremely comical (pretty sure they knew nothing about 80% of the events they were covering… I particularly enjoyed the commentary comparing a certain skier’s outfit to a superhero costume).  Anyway, for us Americans & Canadians over here, the accumulation of the Olympics came down to the Gold medal USA vs. Canada hockey game.  Lucky for us, the game was in the afternoon, which meant it was at about 8pm here so we headed to a bar in the city centre that we knew was showing the game.  Now, I have the admit, I had no idea there were so many Canadians in Dublin.  Literally, this bar was about 70% Canadian, 25% American and 5% Irish/other who cheered for whoever scored.  (The group I went with had about a 60/40 Canadian to America ratio which made for some fun, friendly rivalry)  Despite the overwhelming number of Canadians and eventual outcome, the atmosphere was awesome.  (P.S.  we also wore “Blame Canada” stickers, thank you South Park)

And here’s how we felt at the end of the game :(

So after an anonymous reader (cough cough glasstron) told me that the bing bang was getting stale, I knew it was time to saddle up and give some updates.  Here’s my explanation, I’ve been running a hotel for the past 2 weeks.  It’s been fantastic having so many visitors, but extremely busy!  Hence no time for bing bang blogging.  Anyway, more to come on the visitors next, first some random thoughts:

• Taxi receipts are slightly hard to come by in Europe.  Evidence of this is the receipt a coworker showed me from his business trip to Rome.  Piece of computer paper with a stamp of the outline of a naked woman and said “Nightclub”  Above the 30 euro fare, it said “lapdance”  Expense Report = Approved.
• I recently went to the 30 Seconds to Mars concert at the O2 in Dublin.  Pretty much loads of emo Irish kids…interesting crowd.  The opening band consisted of a drummer using a keg & a baseball bat.  Jared Leto was ridiculous, I should’ve kept tally of the number of F bombs.  Including when he abruptly stopped in the middle of the song and said “The fucking security guy in the middle of the fucking mosh pit. What the fuck are you doing let them have fucking fun.  I’m serious either you get the fuck out of there or we’re stopping this show.”  Extreme?
• Why do so many men drink Smirnoff Ice in Ireland?
• I might start boycotting calling my dryer a dryer because the name implies it would actually dry things.
• Meanwhile, back in the states, my friends were busy meeting Samwell at a bar in Chicago (and by meeting, I mean getting hit on by Samwell…Dan….)  You have to imagine the conversation can get pretty intense when you’re talking to the creator of what what in the butt.

Enough of my random thoughts, let’s tell some stories.

xoxo, Kbone