A few more "firsts"

It is Sunday evening and Reeves and I are sitting with our respective laptops in front of the TV-PC watching Sex and the City dvds.  Since we still don’t have internet access or cable, I am a bit starved for access and entertainment.  I can’t believe how much I depend on having access to organize and live my life.  It seems everything I want to “research” to do needs the internet – wow, I am a geek and didn’t even know it! 

We just got back from walking to dinner in Ranelagh (again J ), this time it was at a different Italian place which was very yummy.  We sat outside and did a little people watching since it was such a lovely evening again.  An interesting practice which I have noticed at restaurants is Dubliners have a tendency to just sit at any open table, without checking with the host to see if there is a wait. I have now seen at least three couples sit down only to be shooed away by the hostess.  I am curious to know if the practice was the acceptable norm until the population expanded to the point where the seats became prime real estate, much like the houses around here.

The weather is perfect here for outdoor dining right now.  We really have very little humidity (about like San Jose) and the evenings are pleasant.  Compared to what I have been reading about the bay area and the tremendous heat wave, we are blessed!

It has also been a weekend of Dublin firsts for us.  On Friday I took the LUAS in the city center to do a little shopping all by myself.  It is so fun to realize we finally live close to a major metropolitan area which is interesting, exciting and close enough to use public transportation to reach!  I had a lovely afternoon at Brown Thomas shopping for some new linens for our soon-to-be house guest, Amy.  En route home I stopped by Mark & Spencer’s café for an “organic egg and watercress sandwich” and a lovely glass of white wine.  You gotta love a country where the ‘cafeterias’ serve nibbles like this!! 

For the next ‘first’ we met up with Lawrence (who also works at MS and will soon be moving into the office next to Reeves) and his girlfriend, Fiona, at a local pub/restaurant to enjoy our first Friday night at the pubs! We enjoyed a couple bottles of wine here before we went to another more ‘traditional’ pub and happen to run into a couple more MS people and one of their friends.  We had some fun conversation and more wine and Bulmers cider (sp?) which Reeves actually had almost a whole bottle.  The cider is a malt beverage which is sweeter and it a ‘lighter’ fair than the average beer.  We closed down the place and didn’t get home till 1:30am – pretty late for us old folks.    

Saturday, I nursed a pretty good hangover, one the likes I haven’t had in a very long time.  I learned my lesson in trying to keep up with the locals and drinking!  That day we had brunch with Susan (a MS employee) and her Fiancé, Olivier, for a late brunch at noon.  We met them at the Dundrum Shopping Town from which they live walking distance.  They are a fun couple and we are glad to have them to help us become acclimated to the community.   Olivier works for Dell, so we all have lots in common with the technology industry as our focus. 

Bunch unfortunately was not serving breakfast when we arrived so I was still craving my greasy hangover food when we walked by McDonalds en route home later in the day.  I really didn’t want to give in as there is so much wonderful food out there we want to try, but this was an emergency situation.  I have to say, however, that was the best damn McDonalds I have had in years! J 

Back to Sunday the 23^rd  - it was another first for me, driving on the other side of the road.  I wanted to practice with Reeves in the car so he could help look out for things and help me with judging distances.  I have to say that driving on the left is pretty easy to master compared with judging the distance to the curb on the other side of the car.  What makes it even more disconcerting judging distances is the lack of space here and the very narrow roads. In some cases there will be cars parked on both sides of the road and a very large double-decker bus coming at you with what seems like one room for one of us to pass through.  At this point both Reeves and I come to almost a complete stop and let the bus pass because it is better than taking a side mirror off the rental car! (especially since Reeves has already managed to blow out a tire from hitting a curb on the left side of the car, which just as easily could have been me doing it!)