It Shouldn't be this Challenging!

I tried to reschedule the Ireland posts so they would start again last Thursday... except I scheduled the next one for this Thursday. Calendars are hard!

One of my job duties these past three months was to schedule over 600 people from 8 separate organisations into non-sequential, multi-day training sessions and webinars. I'm like an MIT mathematician who can't balance her own cheque book.

I have a week off coming up and I'm hoping that some couch time will set my calendar abilities back to right. Who am I kidding? I have three months of not-just-wiping-the-counter cleaning to do. Still, I can clean my apartment wearing my pyjamas and that's all I care about.

Let's be honest, if I had a French maid outfit...

I attended a work celebration on Friday night for our project. I really enjoy these types of events because it gives us a chance to socialize with people in other departments that we only know from meetings. We had so much fun that I may have implied that I would host an outside-of-work social event at my apartment in January. Did I mention the free drink tokens from my company? I probably should have mentioned the free drinks.

Also, party at my place sometime in January. Everyone's invited! Apparently.

After using up my drink tokens a reasonable amount of work socializing, I left for the Quote-Along Anchorman event in support of Movember. I never knew that wearing a fake moustache, drinking a beer, and yelling" I LOVE LAMP!" with a bunch of like-minded people in a movie theatre was on my bucket list but it is definitely retroactively on my bucket list. If you ever get a chance to attend a Quote-Along, DO IT!

I think I  just decided on a theme for the January party.

I woke up Saturday morning to a light dusting of snow. My dad phoned me and told me not to come out because of the weather. We were planning on going out for lunch and he didn't want to drive in the not-even-an-inch-of-snow. Snow is Victoria's kryptonite. I'd laugh at how ridiculously unprepared this city is for any sort of real snow but then we also do our flower count in February so suck it, rest of Canada.

Free of all daughterly duties, I went back to bed. Save for venturing out to see a friend on Saturday night for board games, that was pretty much the rest of my weekend. Honestly? Best weekend I've had in a long time.

If there isn't an Ireland post on here tomorrow evening, feel free to laugh at me on all the social media. Goodness knows, I will be!

Ireland 2014: Donegal Town

If you were to tell me that I could only visit one county in Ireland for the rest of my life, no questions asked, I would pick Donegal. I don't have any family that lives there, there's no 'big' tourist destination to recommend, it's just a beautiful county and worth the effort to visit. My original love for Donegal started with family trips in the 80s and 90s to the Bunbeg/Gweedore area, but a trip to Donegal Town on my own in 2011 renewed my love for the area. And it was in no way influenced by finding a great restaurant and a fun pub.

After settling into the hostel, we headed back into town to visit the Friary ruins before supper. The ruins sit just at the edge of town on Donegal Bay and the grounds now house a cemetery. (Note: this is often referred to as the Abbey, however, historical records call it a friary, the sign posted outside of it calls it a friary, and the Franciscan order that once occupied it calls it a friary. It's a friary!)

The friary was founded in 1473. In 1588, the site was taken over by English forces and turned into a fort. When it was taken back by English forces a few years later, it once again functioned as a friary until 1601 when the powder kegs in the basement blew up during a siege by English forces.

Efforts to rebuild the friary were abandoned in 1607 after the Flight of Earls. The friars, then moved to various other friaries in the surrounding counties, most notably in Co. Sligo.

We played a quick game of Hide-and-take-a-picture to work up our appetites for the lamb shank dinner I had been talking about for three years and then walked up to the Olde Castle Bar only to learn that they were out of the lamb shank.

*sigh*

We order an appy to split, fresh Donegal Bay mussels in a white wine sauce. I'm not someone who takes pictures of food I've ordered in a restaurant because I'm usually too busy stuffing it in my mouth, but these mussels were so good. I may have groaned after I ate the first one.

Heaven in a bowl right there!

These were some of the best mussels I have ever had in my life. Thank goodness they give a slice of bread with the meal to sop up the broth because otherwise I would have licked that bowl. I can't remember what I order for dinner that night (I think it was the chicken with colcannon) but those mussels... I'm drooling just thinking about them!

After dinner and a stroll, we wandered over to the Reel Inn for some live music and a few drinks. That night, the music was Frankie on vocals and guitar with John (the owner) on the accordion. I remembered them from last time I was there and at the end of the night, Katie and I got to talking with Frankie. He wasn't playing the next night but he would be playing our last night in town, and yes, he would play the song that I requested.

Frankie (guitar and vocals) and John (accordion)

I awoke the next morning to find Katie barely able to breathe she was coughing so much. When she did stop coughing, she had to whisper as she had no voice. Linda's husband, Andy, kindly drove Katie to the clinic so she could get checked out while I lazed about writing postcards. I wandered into town to meet Katie at our appointed time and after a bite to eat, we set out trying to organise a tour for the next day. I don't think I have ever found friendlier or more helpful staff than we did at the Donegal Tourist Office. We did some shopping for souvenirs, stocked up on snacks, tried to find a internet cafe that apparently doesn't exist anymore, then walked back to the hostel for a nap. What can I say? Our late nights were starting to catch up with us.

As we were heading back into town for dinner, Linda (hostel owner) asked if we knew about the path along the water so we didn't have to walk along the road. Um, no. We didn't. She gave us directions and what should have been a 10 min stroll along the roadside, ended up taking close to 30 mins because we had to keep stopping to take pictures. We were almost too late to order dinner at the restaurant because of our picture taking!

Walking along the path it quickly became very apparent why we never saw locals walking along the road.

The next day was our tour out to Slieve League and Glencolmcille - I'm saving that part of the day for its own post - before we found ourselves back to the Old Castle Bar for that lamb shank I had been craving for the last three years. So, indulge me, Katie took a picture for me to remember it by.

We also played with our drinks.

I love you Guinness!

We rounded out the night with another stop at the Reel Inn and ended the night seated at a table with Frankie and a few other tourists singing songs and exchanging stories before Frankie gave us a lift to the hostel.

The next morning was breakfast at the Blueberry Cafe where I used very inappropriate language in front of children and we thought we were hilarious by staging it to appear as if our bags were eating breakfast.

Honestly! Can't take me anywhere!

After breakfast, we caught the bus to Galway to continue our adventure.

Trivia Tuesday: Oktoberfest

If you have the (dis)pleasure of being my friend IRL or on Facebook, you know that I have a love for trivia. I once joked that I'm a horrible dinner guest because I can't stop passing on random trivia that no one cares about. Welcome to Trivia Tuesday, my weekly internet dinner party.

It's the end of September and Oktoberfest officially kicked off on Saturday with a parade from Munich to the fairgrounds (which once upon a time were on the outskirts of Munich... not so much anymore). But if it's September, why isn't it called Septemberfest? Because it used to be held in October.

Celebrating Oktoberfest in 1999. Can you find me?
Hint: I'm wearing a dirndl... just like all the other girls.

In honour of his marriage to Therese of Sax-Hildburghausen on October 12, 1810, Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) invited the people of Munich to celebrate the occasion with a huge festival in a field outside the city gates. It was decided to make the celebration an annual event which would included a harvest festival and horse racing (although those two items have long been done away with).

How I celebrated the 2013 Oktoberfest!

The problem is that the later you get in the year, the higher your chances of rainfall. A decision was made to move the celebration to the end of September when higher temperatures, longer days, and less rainfall prevailed. As a result, while Oktoberfest concludes the first Sunday of October*, the majority of the event usually takes place in September.

*German Reunification occurred on October 3rd, 1990. In the years that October 3rd does not fall within Oktoberfest dates, the event is extended until the 3rd. To get the most bang for your Oktoberfestbuck, you should go in 2017.

Mid-June Catch Up

I had originally planned to take a trip to Ireland in the Fall instead of in the Spring. The only reason that didn't happen was because I have a work project that launches in the Fall and I knew that asking for time off would be like asking for furlough from prison.

Why, yes. I did binge watch Season 2 of Orange is the New Black this week.
I did that instead of writing blog posts.

It also means that returning home pretty much meant I had to hit the ground running with work. Time off between now and when this project finishes is going to be a precious, precious commodity. It also meant that after 7 hours staring at a computer screen writing, I've found it really hard to come home and write for fun. It's like being in university again, when you didn't read any 'fun' books because there were so many bloody textbooks you had to read. Also, the World Cup started so there goes a huge chunk of my weekends until July 13th.

New favourite goal keeper: Guillermo Ochoa from Mexico.
That man is the only reason Mexico tied with Brazil instead of losing.

But it hasn't all been work, eat, sleep since I got home. I spent a day volunteering for the UrbaCity Challenge with my friend. We ran the challenge station at the beach volleyball courts on the roof of the Sticky Wicket pub. Six hours spent running around in the sand, laughing with the challenge participants, and raising funds for the Prostate Centre in the lead up to Father's Day and all I got was a lousy shirt, a farmer's tan, and this awesome picture from our set up.

We're ready to rock this station!

I will definitely be volunteering next year, I'm just sad that my partner-in-crime will be off on mat leave. If you're in the Victoria area next June, I strongly encourage you to get a buddy and compete next year. (And say 'hi' if you make it to my station. I gladly hand out free high-fives to participants.)

I tried Crossfit for the first time... and the second time... in the same day... in fact, in the same hour... because my trainer is evil. I did not care for it. (Luckily, my trainer doesn't either.) This pretty much sums up my opinion:

I spent an awesome Thursday night with friends drinking beer for charity (no, really) before taking a dry erase to a certain store front in the name of the World Cup. I was at that same store the next day watching Switzerland lose to France... badly. The upside to watching this happen with them? I got a consolation macaron with every goal France scored. It made up for losing the bet to them on the game.

Like the rest of the known Geek Realm, I watched the season finale of Game of Thrones. I understand why a certain character wasn't shown in the season finale (especially given how much is going on) but said character better still be included in season five. I also did that quiz and ended up with my Game of Thrones name.

I'll take it!

The highlight of the past few weeks, however, was eavesdropping on the conspiracy-fuelled coffee shop conversation of a Putin-supporting, capitalist-loving but corporation-hating, Chavez-defending, anti-media spouting, global-warming-denying, devout Catholic. Seriously. I half expected someone to jump out and shout "Surprise. You're on Candid Camera!" Sadly, it did not happen.

All-in-all, not a bad June.

And I have a few posts actually scheduled for this week so you won't have to wait so long to hear from me again!

Question: Anyone else following the World Cup? Who are you supporting? Favourite moment so far?

If She Mentions "Ironman" I'm Out!

Those of you who know me IRL or follow me on any sort of social media (and even on this blog) are probably aware that I have a very good friend named Katie.

I recently joked on Twitter (because she's not on there) that I have to stop drinking with Katie because every time we have a girl's night, I end up agreeing to another ridiculous idea.

"You should totally come with me next time I go to Ireland!"

"Kickboxing sounds like a fantastic idea. I will totally start going with you!"

"Help you train for the TC10K with lunch time runs? Run it with you? Why not!?! Let's do it!"

Out of the blue after kickboxing this week, Katie said "I need to get you drunk so you agree to train for a marathon with me."

Shit! She's on to me!