Monday, July 25, 2005

Blue Rodeo in Dublin

Went to see Blue Rodeo at Whelan's on Friday night with a Canadian friend of mine. Whelan's is a small bar that hosts a lot of live acts. It was a great show. The place was packed with Canadians. I knew a couple of other people there, and hung out with them for a bit. A band from Nova Scotia called El Torpedo opened and they were really good. They were on when I got there, and I thought at first that Blue Rodeo had started already. I soon realized that it wasn't them, but knew right away that I was listening to a Canadian band. They're quite Tragically Hip-influenced.

Blue Rodeo was, of course, great. Funny, it's the kind of band where you know so many of their songs, but you wouldn't necessarily buy an album or make the effort to see them live – unless you're away from home, then you go for some Canadian good times. Everyone there was belting out all the words, it was so much fun. They played for a really long time too and they included all the favourites like "Lost Together","I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here", "Rose-coloured Glasses", and "Hasn't Hit Me Yet", though they didn't play "Try". It sucked that I was on crutches, but I got a stool, which was lucky, as they usually empty the place of furniture during concerts.

As my friend kept going up to the bar to talk to her boyfriend who was standing up there, I actually felt a bit alone for much of the concert. The other guys that I knew there were with their girlfriends and you could tell they were sharing a part of where they came from with them. I felt like I had no one with whom to share the evening. If this were a night back home, I would have been there with a bunch of friends. It was that kind of show. It would have been better if I wasn't stuck sitting all night, and also if my friend hadn't brought along her boyfriend, who was quite honestly, not into it. As it was, I felt alone among my countrymen, which was weird. For a few hours on Friday night, I was home. But yet, I wasn't.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

It wouldn't be a sports season unless I am carried off the field

I sprained my ankle a few nights ago playing tag rugby. I was trying to tag this girl, and she was trying to deek around me. She stopped suddenly and moved in the other direction, so I did too, but my left ankle didn't go in the same direction as the rest of my body. I heard a pop and was down on the ground. It turned out to be not that bad of a sprain though you wouldn't have known by the size of my ankle and the pain on Tuesday night. I had to be carried off the field and then later carried to the car. The swelling has gone down quite a bit already and I can walk a short distance without limping. If I go to the store, I still need one of my crutches and ramps and stairs are a bit of an issue, but I think that I'll be walking somewhat normally at least by next week. So it's not nearly as bad as some of my previous injuries.

It was hard work getting used to being a temporary cripple here in Dublin. I had to catch a taxi to the hospital but I ran out of credit on my phone the night before. I had to ask my flatmate to call me a taxi, and the taxi company didn't want to come pick me up because I live too close to the hospital (it's about a five minute walk). First however, I needed to add some credit onto my phone because I needed to call work to say I wouldn't be in. The taxi driver pulled up to the store and I asked him if he wouldn't mind going in and he said no. I had to hop on one leg into the store, top up my mobile and hop out. Good thing I took dance classes as a kid, they really came in handy. At the hospital, they didn't put me in a wheelchair. A nurse led me to radiology and halfway down the hallway, which I was hopping down, she turned and asked me if I wanted crutches. Uh, well, how much further is radiology? Oh no that's ok, I'll keep hopping. It's a great workout. My good leg was hurting more than the sprained ankle by this time.

Irish hospitals are grim by the way. I was wondering why everyone at tag was saying that I should go home, put ice on it, and not go to the hospital until tomorrow if I could help it. I think the hospital waiting room would be seriously dodgy in the evenings. Oh, and something that some of you might find surprising. If you go into a hospital for anything, they charge you EURO55. I have private insurance, which I just got through work the day before my injury, fortuitously enough, but it's not very good here in Ireland. It doesn't cover the EURO55 admittance fee for one. Private insurance covers you for things like cancer treatment and private beds in a hospital, which you would definitely want here, as well as maternity care, cardiac care (necessary for those who grew up on Irish breakfasts) and MRI scans. Outpatient treatment including all proactive tests, GP visits and specialist consultations (dermatology, orthopaedic, physiotherapy) are discounted rate subject to a EURO220 or EURO350 yearly deductible - depending on what plan you go for. You can pay extra for a complete plan, but it's very, very expensive. I guess I feel slightly easier knowing that if I get something chronic, and I spend more than EURO220 in a year, that my subsequent outpatient visits will be discounted, though you have to pay the full amount and get the money back at the end of the year. I went with the plan with the lower deductible for routine care, because let's face it, if I get cancer, I'm going home to Canada. Besides, my plan also has partial cover for emergency dental in case of an accident, and the other plan had no coverage for dental at all. Teeth don't matter here apparently. Meanwhile, if I get in an accident and my teeth get knocked out, I consider that to be a serious medical issue. Getting teeth fixed properly (and to a certain cosmetic standard) is very expensive here. I much prefer the Canadian system – it's just so much easier. I got a skin rash a couple of months ago, and thought I might have to go to a dermatologist (EURO150 just for him to look at you once). Luckily, my GP could treat it, and she only costs EURO50. Overall that's not a lot of money, but if you had to make a few follow-up visits and see a specialist a few times, that really makes a difference in one's budget.

Dublin isn't very disabled-friendly. The disabled access ramp at the train station where I go to catch the train to work is under repair, so that area is boarded up. To get on the train, I have to go over a pedestrian overpass, which has lots of stairs and is slippery in the rain. When I get off the train at my destination, the disabled exit leads to the street, so I would need to exit, cross the tracks and walk back to the station on the other side to catch the bus. It's a bit of a circuitous route. Alternatively, there is an overpass that I could climb. I don't really fancy climbing the stairs to the overpass on my knees and then going down on the other side on my butt in the presence of my fellow commuter coworkers. Besides, the shuttle bus leaves five minutes after the train arrives, and it would probably take me so long to do either option, I would miss the bus anyways. I've been taking the city bus to work, which takes longer, is less comfortable, but hey, no stairs and someone gives me their seat. It's times like this that you realise how crappy disabled people have it. I wish I had my work laptop set up and had Internet access - then I could work from home.

I have to say, thought, that people in Dublin are definitely nice to people with crutches, which is funny because normally I find most Dubliners to be pushy and inconsiderate. On my way home from the hospital, I was getting tired because the crutches are unbelievably crappy. My whole upper body has been killing me from the way I have to hold them, and I think I now have carpal tunnel in my left wrist as a result. I got to the shopping centre, which is between the hospital and my place, and there is a patch of grass there. Since I was really tired, I thought I would sit there for a bit. Intelligent move, because I couldn't get back up again. I was trying to get up, but my right leg was pretty weak from all the hopping earlier in the day, and I couldn't roll myself up just on that leg. At one point was on all fours to try to get up, when I noticed that this guy was staring at me from his car. I sat back down to wait until he drove off because I'm not here to put on a show for anyone's amusement, when he pulled over, got out of his car, and asked me if I needed help up. Everyone at work has been getting me tea, and in fact, I find it hard to just go to the cafeteria without being fussed over. After work one day, I was trying to get on the bus, but the stairs were kind of high up, so some guy came by and helped me up the stairs and then asked someone to get out of their seat so I could sit there. Funny, because most people push their way on and off the bus to make sure they're first.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Hitting the Wall

Something happens to me that I refer to as hitting the wall. If drinking beer for example, which I don't do well, I'll often hit a drinking wall, where I cannot possibly put another drop down my throat because I feel full. The wall sneaks up on me very quickly. I can have three pints of beer and feel fine, but three sips into my fourth and the wall just hits. People, Irish people in particular, comment on leaving a perfectly good beer to waste, but I just can't finish it. I also have a "I'm tired and need to go to bed" wall. It's like the drinking wall except that when it hits, I need to go home and go to bed, and I need that to happen right away. If I'm left waiting before I can head home, I get very, very crabby.

Irish people aren't generally known for being particularly speedy. This is especially true when they're out socialising/drinking. It also gets worse as the night progresses, which creates a conflict with my wall and my subsequent need for a quick escape at the end of the night. Usually, I try to prevent such problems by not going to an event with someone, and also by having my own way home (usually taxi), so I don't have to rely on anyone else. I actually do my best not to agree to getting a ride home with someone. I also don't wait around for others to be ready at the end of the night. I make sure that the other girls are set up with rides or they come with me for a taxi, but everyone else is on their own. When I'm out with my Canadian friends, I can leave quickly and easily. Someone will say, are you ready to go, and we go. It's all very simple. That doesn't work with Irish people.

Case in point. This past weekend, I was in Letterkenny at a party with a friend. I decide that I want to leave and my friend says that we'll call a cab to get back to the B&B, but first we have to find Deirdre because she might want to share a cab. 10 minutes later, we find Deirdre and she's just opened a new beer. So w''re going to wait for Deirdre to finish her beer. By this point, it's 2.30am and I'm estimating our ETA to the B&B at 4.00am. It's a 25 minute walk to the B&B. I suggest that we call the cab now anyway because it took 45 minutes for one to come get us to take us to the party - in Letterkenny, which isn't that big. There was some hesitation here on my friend's part. Finally my friend calls a cab, and it's going to be 20 minutes, so he's worried that the taxi will be here too soon. hahahahahahahaha. First of all, this is Letterkenny. Things do happen at a certain pace in Dublin, but they happen twice as slowly outside of Dublin. Since I have hit the wall, my censor is also disabled and I tell him not to worry because that's an Irish 20 minutes. They won't be here before half an hour, but probably closer to the 45 minutes it took for us to get a taxi on the way here. So, now I'm not too popular and I'm sitting on a porch step. People are looking at me because I look like I'm wasted and ready to drop at any second while we wait for Deirdre to finish her beer. While the second half of that is right, I didn't actually have very much to drink - only a couple of glasses of wine. I. Just. Want. To. Go. Home. NOW. Any act on my part to be sociable could inadvertantly prolong the goodbye process.

The Irish have a way of saying goodbye that seems to last forever. Really, they're going to see each other again. At the end of a party though, when they say that they're leaving, what they really mean is 'I'm going to have one last drink, make one last round of conversation with everyone, and then I'll call a taxi and start to prepare to leave, but will do a final goodbye and someone will say "do you really have to go now" and I may change my mind and have one more for the road'. If they do go, the approximate time between stated intention to leave with actually physically leaving is anywhere between 1-3 hours. This is something I can't comprehend. Even if the wall hasn't hit yet, once I say I'm leaving, I am really leaving and I prepare to actually do so. As a kid, it drove me nuts when we would get our coats on to leave someplace and my parents would continue the conversation at the door with the host for half an hour while my brother and I were standing there roasting.

So back to Letterkenny. As it didn't look like Deirdre or my friend were actually ready to go anytime soon and I didn't want to be the party pooper, I told my friend that it's only a 25 minute walk to the B&B, but it will be 45 minutes before the taxi arrives, and probably closer to an hour by the time we actually get out of there, so I have no problem walking back. And I meant it. I don't want to drag people away, but I was so close to losing it because they weren't leaving any time soon. I know it's just the Irish demeanour but I do think it's kind of rude. I said I wanted to go, and my friend said we would go, but then we're not really going. He knows I'm tired, but I'm expected to wait for an hour and a half for him. I'm supposed to wait because he'll feel bad that he let me walk home alone in the middle of the night, but I'm supposed to wait until 4am so he doesn't feel bad? We left as soon as the taxi came whether the others were ready to go or not (they weren't).

I think others think that I'm just being crabby, and well I am being crabby, but it's more than that. It's actually almost painful for me to sit there and wait for the others to be ready when I'm dead tired. I can't describe it, but it's a real physical exertion to keep my eyes open, let alone be charming. I don't think people understand how annoying and hard it is to wait for people to walk down the street, people who are walking so slow because they have the complete inability to walk in a straight line. They stop at a side street (is is this one?). Then they stop because they think they left their jacket behind, but no they're wearing it. They then stop again and turn around because they think they lost me, but meanwhile, I'm taking baby steps and pausing during each one and I'm still half a block ahead of them. The only way I could be behind them is if I was walking backwards. They also stop whenever someone speaks because they can't walk and talk at the same time. And finally, finally, a 1/2 hour later, they make it to the end of the street. But look Abrakebabra (dodgy kebab chain). Food. Let's stop. ARGGHHHH!

I know it would be easier if I could catch early-warnings signs of the wall. That way, I can proactively say that I need to go and maybe successfully leave before the wall hits. But I can't predict it. I can be on the dance floor one minute and look like I'm ready to boogie all night, and the next minute it will hit. Then I need to go. Now.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

sum-sum-summertime

It's a heatwave over here in Ireland. I'm not being sarcastic either. It's not a heatwave in terms of what I'm used to back in Toronto, but it's been close to record-breaking temperatures over here for the past few days. It was over 27C on Monday and yesterday. Today is in the early 20s and it's expected to be that way for the rest of the week. We've had much less rain so far this summer than last summer (knock wood), when it rained nearly every day in July. In fact, we have had quite a few sunny days and nearly every weekend has been pleasant since the end of May.

I went to play tag rugby last night and running around outside in the warm sunshine was really fun. Ireland would be a much more enjoyable place if the sun shined more often.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Cold showers and broken-down busses

As you know, I just came back from a trip to Slovenia. So you're thinking that the title of this entry is in reference to Slovenia, right? Nope. It's in reference to Ireland.

Slovenia is a beautiful, easy-going country. Everyone seemed to be sporty and into outdoor activities, and I didn't see a single person wearing a suit. Everyone was easy-going and no one seemed to be in a hurry. Yet, public transport still managed to run on time. The busses, though they didn't travel frequently in all parts of the country, did run according to schedule. The trains were fabulous. They were so clean and nice, they reminded me of Swiss trains, and the bathrooms were about three times the size of a conventional train bathroom.

At one point in my trip, I took a bus from Kobarid, in the north-west of the country near the Italian and Austrian border, over to Bled via the Vršič Pass (alt 1600m) in the Julian Alps. There were a bunch of women on the bus when I boarded. Shortly after the trip started, they got off and I was the only person on the bus for nearly the entire trip to Bled. The driver, who I will call Tobey Maguire because that's who he looked like, chatted with me, made sure that I liked the music he was playing, and then when there was a 20-minute stopover in one town, let me get out and go to the store and come back. It was cool. In Ireland, he would have stopped en route, waited for another bus to come along and then would have told me to get on that one because he's going "out of service." This has happened to me so often in Ireland. I'm sure that if the number of passengers falls below a certain amount, Dublin bus drivers are instructed to dump all remaining passengers and abandon the route. On any given weekend, a bus is supposed to come along my street once every 7-8 minutes, or three within any given 1/2 hour. Often I've been left waiting for 30-45 minutes for a bus to come along, and then when it does, it often just drives past me because it's full. This has happened consistently enough for me to believe that only a 1/3 of scheduled busses actually make it out on to the roads in Dublin.

When busses do run in Dublin, it doesn't mean that they are running well. The bus I was on yesterday suffered from a distinct lack of shocks. It lurched so bad, and those of us sitting up top had to actually hold on to the rails. If anyone was drunk, they would have been hurling for sure. I've also been on several busses that have just broken down. On one occasion, a bus I was on stalled every time it came to a stop. Eventually it just didn't start up again and we were dumped out literally in the middle of nowhere. Most of the Dublin busses are Volvo's, which is supposed to be a good brand. Maybe they got the factory seconds for a cheaper rate.

The shower in my apartment is a bit dodgy. The water pressure isn't that great, and we often don't have hot water. This past weekend, we had to turn on the heat in our apartment just to get some hot water, as what was starting to happen was that the hot water tank would automatically shut itself off unless the heat was on. It was a warm, sunny day in Ireland yesterday and since my window is south-facing, my bedroom was a complete heatsink. I also can't open my bedroom window when I'm not around due to evil stray cats (see previous post titled Stray Cat Strut). I know several people in the UK and Ireland in which hot water is a real issue. Part of the reason why I changed gyms to one closer to my apartment is so that I have a back-up shower in case of real problems - and I've had to put the back-up plan into use (see previous post titled I'll Get to It... Mañana).

Meanwhile, when in Slovenia, I stayed in two different youth hostels and one B&B. In all three places, the showers were quite good, with great water pressure and hot water - no matter what time of day it was. In the B&B, the shower was probably the best one I've had in Western Europe. The water pressure was almost too great.

So you would think that Slovenia, even though they were the go-getters of the Yugoslav union, might have suffered in terms of water, roads and transport during the Communist reign, but not so. They've managed to surpass most of Western Europe and leave Ireland in the dust.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Further thoughts on the London bombings

These people were just going about their daily lives, and it could be anyone, anywhere, at any time. Though London was presumably targetted for its foreign policy, it still seems so horribly random.

Living away from my family and friends, it also makes me feel really isolated, and I miss them horribly. I wish I was going home to someone to talk to, instead of my shitty flatmates, or to "talk" at the Internet café like I am doing now.

Life is too short, so you might as well be doing something you like.

I still want to move to London, these bombings haven't changed that.

Close to home

You're soon reminded how precarious the world situation is right now. I guess being from Canada, we enjoy some kind of insulation from the more violent world events and we always think that this kind of thing only happens so far from home.

I was stunned when my boss called me this morning to let me know about the explosions in London. She was calling me to warn me of airport chaos since I'm flying through Heathrow this afternoon on my way to Munich. I immediately thought of friends that I have in London, as well as many people that I work with - most of whom take the tube to work everyday.

I was looking at the tube map of affected stations. I had a job interview just outside one of the stations and I stayed at a hotel around the corner from another one of the stations just two months ago.

It's so close to home.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4659093.stm

United Nations

An American, Canadian, Irish woman, Brit, and Frenchman are on a conference call. The American says to the Irish woman (my boss), "hey congratulations to you guys for winning the Olympic games." Needless to say, it did not go over well. She starts going off, and then you hear giggling on the other end of the phone, which was the Brit. The funniest part was that the American made this comment right after the Frenchman came on to the call and announced himself.

I had to put the phone on mute, I was laughing so hard. 10 points to the American for that brilliant double play.