Deja vu

I have reached the end of my week off work. Which is a good thing as I quite honestly miss it too much to be away for much longer than this. Sadly, I am the kind of geek who not only chats to her students online the whole week that she is off but also popped in to see them after three long studentless days.

What a loser!

Anyway, I went to Dublin to visit some friends last week. I meet Nerissa and Barry in Mokpo back in December 2001- long long time ago. I had left Dublin a few days before and was kinda missing it so was happy when I discovered a large Irish population in Mokpo- well, two but it got bigger. And Ner just seemd kinda interesting. Only one thing could make them a better couple and that is their daughter, Roisin.



To say that I am in love would be understating it. The three of them together are just such great company and I love going over to Dublin just to spend some time hanging out with them. I always have grand ambitions of meeting up with all the other friends I have over there or even going to somewhere that I didn't manage to visit in the year and a half that I lived in Dublin but no. Invariably I end up spending a couple of days taking photos of Roisin before heading back to Blighty.



If anyone is going to give me the warm and fuzzys about kids it is Roisin. I managed to drag myself away for solo afternoon in the city though- where I did my usual walk around old haunts. This time I even made it to my old hostel, where I was a resident forever and a manager for the summer.



The yellow building is the hostel. The rotten looking places to each side of it are the shitholes that the hostel owners used to rent out to us backpackers. I had a boyfriend that lived in two of them to the right, I lived in one there and my mates lived on the other side. It may look rubbish- and indeed I poked my nose into the hostel living room and it is rubbish- but I had a some great times there.

Do I miss it? I miss some of the days there. I miss loads of stuff about working there but I wouldn't change anything in my life right now.

Despite all the wonderful homecooked meals that I was getting at Baz and Ner's, no trip to Dublin for me is complete without some garlic chips from Ireland's own answer to MacDonalds, Supermacs



When I was doing my TEFL course back in October 2001 I used to finish too late to cook anything as the kitchen in the hostel closed really early (a different hostel, you understand, not my one as I had the key to that kitchen- oh the feeling of unrelenting power!) so I pretty much lived on chips I know it was bad but it was also soooo good!

I went to see that spike on O'Connell Street



Has anyone else noticed that it is a bit bent at the top?

It was even sunny enough to sit in Stephen's Green at the top of Grafton Street for a while. And a quick trip through Temple Bar proved the perfect time to test out my new camera again



Nice!

Then it was back to London on Wednesday. Thursday I had to go into town to start my new Spanish class. I was disappointed not to keep my old teacher but I think that the new teacher will be good too- and we have plans to meet up with the old one next week sometime.

I also rang Sarah when she finished work and asked her to come with me to the travel agents. She said no immediately, afraid that jealousy might get the better of her. She said that she would come after I had done the deed but in the end she sat by my side as I bought my ticket to Colombia!

Friday was a beauitfully nothing day when I caught up with errands, waited in for the new bathroom suite to be delivered and watched a couple of films in Spanish- with subtitles, I am nowhere near good enought o do without yet.

Saturday was a bloody early start- up at four AM O'CLOCK in the MORNING! Penny had invited me on a work trip to Belgium. To say that organisation was not the strong point of the day would be a vast understatement. The trip into Belgium ended up being just a couple of hour detour to buy cigarettes then back to France. The boat was fun



And me and Pen opted to spend the day in Calais rather than the shopping centre. Calais may not be the biggest or best city in France but it is very pretty. As we walked through the town we could hear some music by the hotel de ville. 'That's doesn't sound very French,' said my sister. Then we turned the corner



What the...??

Could it be..?



Yes, it was our old friend, The Sultan's Elephant, well that was good enough for me. I had loved it so much when it was in London and was so sad when it left. Who knew that we would end up just bumping into the whole show again on a day trip to France!

Perfect! And it was a beautifully sunny day. We had some food, I had some wine

Man, it was a long old day though

We left home at 4.25am and returned after two. Poor old Pen did really well- she can't sleep on buses, I can so I wasn't too bad.

Finally we got into our beds for a good night's sleep which was only ended with that bloody cat shouting for some attention and the kids next door throwing a(nother) tantrum.

Back to work on Monday!