It is done.

My application has been submitted to the Australian council.

Now there are still a million things to do, jobs to look for, forms to be sent, visas to finish but I've started. And now I can't stop looking at a map of Australia wondering where I'll end up and I'm thinking of all the amazing things I'll be doing over the next year.

Officially very excited.

A Brief Summary

I'm home. I'm wrecked. I'm 5 hours behind everyone else but I'm also very happy.

I had a fantastic week in New York, from ice skating in Bryant Park to laughing at that guy in the restaurant who loudly exclaimed "I'm only the fucking sperm donor man"; we did it all. Squashing five friends into two beds proved tricky at times but the fantastic spoonage was totes worth it. In reality our enthusiasm and gusto were quite contagious. Apparently people don't dance in New York (I mean WTF?!) but with the help of some vino we started some jazz/swing dancing and got most of the bar up on their feet. It was kind of amazing. J and LJ dancing together also sparked a lesbian movement we hadn't quite anticipated, but enjoyed nonetheless.

I also have to mention this most amazing restaurant. As E put it "Parents should take their children here so that all children will love to eat their vegetables." It was so divine and most definitely one of the culinary highlights of my life. You should try the almond-coated trout. *salivates*

I would tell you all more, but there are simply too many stories. No doubt many of them will resurface in future posts. For now I'm just going to upload all of my photos onto Facebook. That way people can jealously leave comments on my page telling me how cool I already know I am. Thanks.

Quote of the Day/Happy Thanksgiving

"If you couldn't grow a beard and if you weren't myopic you wouldn't really fit in around here."

E's eloquent description of Williamsberg.

On another note, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I've been saying this to everyone I've met this week, it's not getting old. My trip to NYC has so far been absolutely amazing and the only reason I've got time to blog is because I got up earlier than the others. They're all fast asleep right now, four lovely bodies littered across the floor in front of me. We're all heading to Central Park in a bit before going to a giant Thanksgiving dinner with a friend. Cannot. Wait.

Furthermore, I've got loads of present shopping left to do. I popped by Sephora (a makeup shop I'll have you know) yesterday and the guy in there was thoroughly unimpressed with me as I told him when I told him I wanted to buy "brown makeup" for my sister. I think he lost all hope in me when I asked him for a "good quality eyeliner," a description I thought would suffice. Apparently not knowing whether she wore pencil or liquid is a huge fashion faux pas. Sigh. Either way I bought all the products he gave me so I was an easy customer. Are you happy now?

And on that pleasant note, I'd better run. My incessant typing is waking the others up (Plan = Success) and I want breakfast.

Laters!

Motto of the Day

"Drive like you've never driven before"

It only struck me halfway through my driving test that this was perhaps not the best motto to have. Somehow, despite all the pessimism of my family (who think I'll eternally be a learner driver) I passed my test! Woo!

And now I'm going to celebrate by going on a big holiday to New York in the morning, spending loads of money in the Thanksgiving sales and drinking excessively for the next week. if I'm alive by the end of that (I'm not the least bit worried about an alcohol-induced coma*, but the sales can be quite vicious) I'll update you when I'm home! :-)

*Been there, done that.

3.5 days

Yes please.

*Gasps for breath*

I'm getting palpitations.

Physiological flutters of my normal sinus arrythmia. And now I'm becoming tachypnoeic in this intense sympathetic overdrive. My face is becoming flushed with excitement. I'm developing a slight tremor.

I think I need to pee.

New York. T-13 days.

A Motivational Comparison

I must say that I have a pretty cool groups of friends. They're talented, intelligent, work hard and party harder. There is however one big downside. They're all leaving the country. And I'm not. Yet.

I've lost so many friends to England, Scotland, the US and New Zealand this year for work, travel, study and my sister is moving off to Kenya on a "gender equality" mission for 2 years in a few weeks. One of my music friends even got accepted into "The Lord of the Dance" European tour as a violin player. She has to strut her Irish stuff on stage and go wild with the fiddle. Kind of amazing really. And here I am in Cork, doing my thang. On the plus side, I have free accommodation in multiple cities but well, I'm still in Cork. I only write this as I'm seriously contemplating doing some pretty big exams that will require a lot of study if I want to move to New York/Chicago (I haven't decided yet..) after next year's Australia trip. I'm hoping that by putting this in writing I'll motivate myself to do more study and cough up the €600 for the first of 5 (8 hour long...) exams.

So here's a comparison to give me a kick up the arse. People kissing the rather grubby (and completely unhygienic) Blarney stone Vs New York.

Ridiculously obvious really.

My List

Passport - check.

Flight ticket - check.

Sziget ticket - check.

Mini pharmacy - check.

Neon face paint & glitter - check.

I'm all set. Budapest here I come! Plans for tomorrow night are centered around a most unusual club, it's a supermarket by day and a hopping bar by night. Excellent. Then it's off to Sziget camping for the week. I know I'll be absolutely wrecked by the end of it all but the good company, the banter and the music are worth it. See you in 9 days folks!

Last year's favourite acts

A quick (and slightly edited) summary of London times

I'm only back a day and I'm already missing London; the food, the clothes, the nightlife and most importantly the people. Myself and Turner had the time and had some particularly memorable moments chez Fayoona, Cáitín and Sonyo in fair old Brick Lane. I think this picture sums it up nicely. Drinking on the cheap from an old jar of Nutella whilst reading hilarious passages from some "female literature" the girls got at some open day for free.

It all started on a drizzly Friday morning. I woke up bright and early for me 8am flight only to realise at the last minute that despite all the lovely pounds I had in my pocket, I had no euro! I ran up the stairs two at a time and raided the house for some moolah but to no avail. In a moment of desperation I tore open my two coin boxes and using a combination of 50c and 20c managed to scrape together €20. Putting all the coins in a neat little box I approached Mr Taxi man cautiously and explained my story, waving my arms all over the place and gesticulating wildly in the process to demonstrate just how sorry I was. Luckily for me,he was quite a nice guy and said he needed the coins and didn't mind at all. His good nature was again verified when he didn't even count the change in the box. Then again, that would have taken quite some time.

So anyway, once I had arrived in London (the whole trip took 3.5 hours door to door, amazing!) and I had introduced everyone to Turner (who had flown in from Dublin), off we went shopping. I've been known to have my fair share of shopping sprees but Turner really took the biscuit and went wild. I on the other hand spent an entire €7 in the Primark sale for festival going clothes.

That evening we all went to this rather crap Irish bar with loads of old men smoking pipes and asking us if they could eat our cupcakes. It was quite an odd place but the company was good so who cares, right? We all got quite hammered on a few pints and started munching into some beautiful kebabs afterwards. This was probably the wrong idea as the food was pretty sedating and we all started to feel sleepy and sat on the pavement. This was probably not the best of ideas in retrospect considering a car nearly knocked us down trying to park. After a few more pubs, we crawled home to catch up on some much needed zzzs.

The next day is when the real party began. Drinking sesh began at 12pm (ok so maybe a few minutes before that but I'd hate to write AM and sound like an alco) and we all went off to the Fair Day music festival. Top acts included Phoenix, Caribou and Moderat, although Cáitin got a tad upset when the latter kept up building up the dance music for ages and screamed "Would you ever just drop the beat man." This is why she's my friend.

After 11 hours of dancing we got the (wrong) bus into (the far side of) town (where we didn't want to go). Myself and Cáitín continued the party at some random bar where Sting was having a party with his daughter. Unfortunately we didn't quite get to see him as he was in the VIP section *sigh* The partying continued until the early hours of the morning and included many other stories I won't bore you with. I swear none of them are the least bit embarrassing.

Sunday was a good hangover day with some bed band practise and eating thrown in for good measure. I got home to Ireland by 11ish that night and I was out for the count in minutes.

Now to recuperate for next week's holiday. :-)

"There's help available"

Says the lovely bank lady.

I'm not sure whether she was referring to the bills I've been racking up or a potential addiction to buying flights but I told her I was fine either way. My first pay cheque is due in at the end of the month and then I'll sort it all out. I can start paying back that lovely loan and treat myself to a weekend away with Turner because it's going to magically stretch that far. Anyway, it was only after I left the bank that I realised just how many flights I've booked this year

1. Dublin - Copenhagen
2. Copenhagen - Bangkok
3. Bangkok- Phuket
4. Bangkok - Bali
5. Bali - Jakarta
6. Jakarta - Ho Chi Minh
7. Ho Chi Minh - Hanoi
8. Hanoi - Bangkok
9. Bangkok - Copenhagen
10. Copenhagen - Dublin
11. Cork - London
12. London - Cork
13. Cork - London
14. London - Cork
15. Dublin - Budapest
16. Budapest - Dublin

And this week I'm adding Shannon - New York return to the list for a Thanksgiving treat (let's ignore the fact that Irish people don't celebrate Thanksgiving). This is all in the space of the last 2 months so I admit, I may have a problem.

But my problem makes me really happy so I'm cool with that. Thanks visa! :-)

Thailand no more..

I was pretty adamant that I was going to go to Thailand with my class tomorrow for quite a while. I figured we'd work things out while we were over there and surely the situation would not escalate any further. Last night we called an emergency meeting and decided to give it a miss on the basis that;

• 34 people have been killed in the last 2 days.
• Health insurance won't cover us there.
• TV stations in Phuket (the area we're going to) have been hijacked by the rioters.
• Civil war may break out any day now.
• Our contingency plan to get out of the country in case of civil war wasn't exactly top notch and involved a lot of "Sure we'll get a taxi out/find a boat somewhere/it's not like the borders will be closed" phrases.
• And most importantly, I look great in red and yellow and I can't wear them over there. Apparently the Red Shirts have dibs on that.

And so although we're still flying into Bangkok and staying overnight (in the airport only) we're going to fly over the Bali to meet some friends and mix it up with a few trips to Jakarta and Vietnam. No flights have been booked as of yet as we're not sure if the crappy volcanic ash will clear up in time. Talk about stress? Either way, 30 of my classmates will be partying on the beaches of Bali so we'll have a ball!

Getting old..

I know I'm only 23 years old but there are some times when you just start to feel the aging process kick in. And it's not a personal aging process I'm experiencing, it's a collective thing. What really brought this home is the fact that one of my close friends, O, has just moved to New Zealand for the next 2 years to work as a physio. It was pretty horrible saying goodbye to her last Friday when we all went out for dinner and drinks...eurgh.

Of my school friends, there are only 2 of us left in college as undergrads (both doing 5 year courses) and everyone else seems to be moving on. My friend F has just started his PhD, loads of friends have moved off to Dublin/London, out of home in Cork and everyone's starting to think of what they'll spend the rest of their lives doing. Pretty depressing really. I mean my friends have real jobs now.

The thing is, as my friend Tomato said at the farewell dinner, in a very unusually astute manner for him ;-), "Long distances don't affect long friendships" and I really hope that's true. Why couldn't I have said something like this when I was thrown forward to make the goodbye speech!! DISASTA!!!

So O have an amazing time over in NZ and although there's a good chance I'll be moving to Australasia for work just when you are about to come home, let's do lunch yeah?

Thank GOD for skype!

Project London

OK so as everyone knows by now (or at least everyone who's in my phonebook or on Facebook) Ryanair were giving away free flights all day. Well practically free anyway. I managed to book a flight over to London for €10.01 ...........and I'm thrilled with myself! It'll be just after I present my final year project, the culmination of much rushed research I expect to do over the next few weeks and quite possibly, the night before I present it.

Between the friends I've got living over there and the friends that are coming over with me, I just can't wait. It'll be....epic. Now to figure out that project thingy...

I <3 London

London = AMAAAAZING

I arrived at LJ's around 11.30 on Fri morning from whence we ran to the shops for approx 7 hours of glorious shopping! I got 3 new cardies, 2 shirts, 2 skinny ties, a jumper, a blazer, a vintage vest, a scarf and a t-shirt with a picture of a lollipop and the words "This lollipop isn't going to lick itself" emblazoned across it. In fact I bought so many clothes that my friend J had to bring them home with her as Ryanair wouldn't let me carry them on board the plane!! (Thanks J!) All of this glorious shopping was courtesy of fashionista LJ who advised me on EVERY purchase! I think the highlight of the day for me was when I was trying on some blazers in Topman and none of them would fit me:

Me: This one won't fit either. It's because I'm FAT isn't it??
LJ: Don't you FUCKING dare use the "F" word!!!

Classic.

Other highlights included meeting Jude Law twice (such a lovely guy!) and Jerry Springer (only once alas) as we stalked them from the back of the London theaters, seeing "Chicago", eating the yummiest sushi ever in Yosushi, clubbing for 7 hours on Sat night/Sun morning, randomly meeting a lovely guy from the States who came clubbing with us, pole dancing, wandering the streets of London in the cold light of Sunday morning after the aforementioned 7 hours of dancing and huddling together trying to find our way home, meeting the taxi driver who entertained us all the way home when we grew tired of being lost, money-conscious students, eating cupcakes galore and of course.............. spotting the talent.

I must say a big thanks to LJ and Gek who showed me around like there was no tomorrow and went to bars and clubs that weren't really their..."style", ye're just great!

Best weekend EVER!!!!

London, I WILL be back!

For shame

I'm off to London this Friday to visit some friends and we're planning to go see a musical. It's kind of been unofficially decided that we'll go to "Chicago", which is great with me as....and please don't judge me for this, I've never seen the movie! This is not to say that I'm not familiar with the music and all that, but it's still pretty embarrassing! One of my friends even knows some of the cast so I might get some autographs. I'll put up a review of it next week when I'm back so watch this space. Can't wait for it either way but here's me hoping that no one notices when I don't turn up to work placement on Friday...



Oh yeah, and I've never seen "The Sound of Music" either....