Decisions, decisions...

What am I going to do? I can't exactly call my blog "Living-Irish" anymore, now can I? As Ang said, I have to update my profile. But I won't be able to change the name, will I? Hmm. I'll have to think about this....

Will write more later.....

Last roadtrip in Ireland

A few days before I left, M and I took a roadtrip down the east coast of Ireland and around to a place called Tramore. We took a few photos, mostly for M's dad since he's from there, and I had a few moments to get them uploaded to yah00! So here it is... Some of them look the same but I am just too lazy to pick and choose.

Been home a couple days now. I'm finally starting to feel normal again. I've had some Santitas white corn chips, which I have to say I was dying for, served with some nice guacamole, which is always fitting down here in Southern Calif0rnia. It's good to be back.

Back in the U.S.S.R...

Well, in the USA anyhow. I had a great flight out yesterday after a not-too-sad farewell. I am too excited about our future to be sad, really. We have so much happening to us.

Do I miss Dublin? Well, there are people to be missed mostly but the city itself, is just another city. Once it becomes familiar, you see the ugly as well as the beautiful. Still, we went into town on Saturday, just wandered around taking it all in. We walked through Temple Bar, watching the buskers. We had lunch in the Elephant & Castle (actually the best burger I've had in Ireland), wandered down by the Liffey and looked around in amazement at all the people. There was a parade/march/protest on, supporting the release of IRA prisoners and honoring those that died. I have my own opinions about that but I enjoyed watching the bagpipe band, the sound of those are so haunting to make you cry...
After that, we went out to Rathgar and stopped for my last lovely pint of Guinness. Only it wasn't that lovely, truth be told. It wasn't as creamy as I liked and I was a bit disappointed. Since I only can have one, I felt cheated. But such is life, sometimes. I'll miss that, even though I don't have it much. There's nothing like it in the world.

So new life starts now, a few busy days with the parents, then up to Seattle I go, Miata packed to the roof and CD player blaring. I love a good road trip.

Small hiatus...

Probably a week or two. I need to get packed and say my goodbyes to everyone here before I leave on Monday. I won't write much until I get back on US soil.

Looking forward to our future. I never thought I'd say this but I'm looking forward to getting back to work. lol

Til later...

It just keeps getting better

I know I told you that we'd decided to put our house on the market, which we did, selling it ourselves. We decided we'd do two weeks on our own, then if nothing panned out, we'd get in a realtor.

We had quite a number of people looking at it, which was a good sign, but in the end, only three couples bid on it. One dropped out quite early so there will still two and we wanted to make a decision by this weekend. Well.... M now knows why people use agents.... He liked both couples who were bidding, although he liked one couple better than the other, and he had to keep making calls back and forth when each one raised their bid. It was nervewracking because we were flabbergasted at the price at which our house was getting bid, we kept thinking that eventually someone was going to say, no, that's just too much. But they didn't. M was stressed. One couple were first time home buyers, the other had an apartment they were selling and they needed til Friday to make a decision. It kept going back and forth. Finally, one couple said that they couldnt go higher.

The couple M liked got it although when he called to tell her, she said nothing and had to go because she was driving in the car. Of course, he thought she was going to change her mind and not want it. But it turns out she was just shocked and had no words to say!! The couple ended up coming over yesterday afternoon, they were a nice couple and you could see how thrilled they were to get the place - kept saying how much they love it and are so glad they'll be near all her family and friends. I was happy for them! The other couple told M that it was the TWELFTH house they were outbid on. Gosh I feel for them! How awful!! I told M we should've given it to them, but I'm a sucker for things like that. Ugh, I feel awful that they have to go through the process again, I know how that gets. You get so excited and then your hopes are dashed. Sigh...

I'm still shocked at the price they paid for this house. It's like the Bay Area prices all over again. It IS the Bay Area prices all over again. Still, it's good for us. She wants to have the paperwork signed before their trip to Spain on the first! It can't get any better than that! Keep your fingers crossed.. it means M will come to America in early November instead of January! Yay!

The day after....

So yesterday we woke up to pissing rain outside. It has been sunny recently and warm, yet on the one day we had something important to do, it had to be raining. We ended up laughing about it, remembering our realtor in Seattle's comment that in some cultures, rain is actually good luck! It was when we bought our house. We stuck with that thought throughout the day.

I had to get some paperwork notarized so we went to the embassy around 10am. Our interview was at 1pm. I went in on my own, while M scoped out parking near the embassy for later. I went in thinking it would be quick but ended up waiting about 30 minutes before someone called my name. Then I handed in the paperwork and waited another 15 minutes to be called. My stomach was in knots. They had taken my cell phone from me at the check-in, so I couldn't even tell M how long it was taking. Finally, at 11:45, I got back in the car and we tore home at breakneck speeds.

M still had to shower and iron his shirt (come on, you don't think I'd do it, do ya? Ironing is definitely his forte.lol) and jeans. I heated up our lunch - leftover fajitas - and since it was taking a while, I decided to put his back in the microwave and proceeded to lose control of the plate and drop the whole thing on the floor!! lol What a f$%^ing mess! So, while I had a lovely warm fajita, he had a cold cheese sandwich. Poor pet!

Anyhow, we were out of the house in a flash and back on the road by 12:15. We got back to the embassy at 12:45 and there was a small line outside. Fortunately, this time we brought an umbrella and we needed it. We had to wait outside until the security opened (after lunch, I'm guessing) and they shuttled in one group at a time. We finally got in, got our security badges, handed over our cell phones and went into the interview office. We sat down in a row of chairs (reminded me of the DMV at home) and waited for our name to be called. There were about 6 other groups of people - a family, a few girls on their own, a guy on his own, ourselves...

Finally our name was called. We went up with our paperwork. We had a middle aged woman. We couldn't decide if she was friendly or not. She asked for the first form called the DS-230 - she said we didn't have it and proceeded to give us a DS-156 to fill out - I think she was confused but whatever. The first thing we had to do was fill out 2 copies of the same form! Talk about nerve wracking!! Eep! Our hands were shaking as we wrote out the information, thinking how unorganized this felt. Finally, we got the two forms filled out and we continued handing over our stuff. The woman seemed really frazzled (or maybe that was just us!). She asked us some questions but nothing too exciting. How did we meet. That sort of thing. Then she asked us to sit down and wait for the consul who would question him some more.

So we sat and waited. It was funny. It was kind of like a bank, with 4 windows, and you had to go up to the window to hand over the paperwork. Everyone could hear your story, there wasn't a lick of privacy. We heard another guy who was also trying to get the k-1, talking about how he met his fiance online, how 'lovely' she is, here's some photos, etc, etc. He was so nervous, he was talking excessively.. It was cute. It passed the time anyhow. lol

Finally M got called back up. He went up on his own this time. The minute he left, the girl in front of me started talking to me. I couldn't listen to them both, so I didn't get to hear what the guy was asking M. I did hear him ask about how we met, what I did for a living, what he did for a living. The girl I was talking to was sweet. She also was going for the k-1 visa. We ended up getting her email address, even though she's moving to Ohio. We had a nice chat with her.

So after he finished (about 10 minutes), he had to sit back down and wait for the visa. That was it. All 3 of us k-1's got the visa that day. It took, in total, about 3 hours and the visa is in our grubby little hands! As R said..... WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!

V1SA Interview today

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Ah, feel much better now. I had a tough time getting to sleep last night, thinking of all the questions we could get asked but now I just have to let it go. Of course, it's pissing rain outside just to make us feel more doomed! lol (Does that mean the sun will come out later when we are successful? :))

Anyhow, I will check in on Friday and let everyone know how it went. We will be drinking tonight whether successful or not!!

Something funny.

Last week we were watching the World Cup qualifier between Ire1and and #France. M's sister was here and there was a lot of shouting and cheering. Ire1and lost, I think it was 1-0 (can't remember at this point). But neither of them were bothered because, on the other channel, Northern Ire1and beat Eng1and!! Apparently, this is like a Litt1e #League team winning the W0rld Series against the NYYankee$ or something. The loss was forgotten and there was some serious excitement about the NI team.

I guess as long as Eng1and doesn't win, the Ir1sh are happy. lol

Seriously girlie post

Sorry Joe, I can't imagine you want to see photos of my engagement ring. lol



I just realized how old my hand looks in this photo!!



This is showing the setting but I don't think you can really see it that well.

Other than that, all is well over here. We've had an offer on the house and have a number of people interested! Someone actually ripped down our For Sale sign which is pretty sad but the number of young ones walking around on a night of drinking, it's probably no surprise. Ah well!

We watched the All_Ireland Hurling Championships today. Ireland is the only country that plays hurling - it looks similar to field hockey but at the same time doesn't. It's an incredibly fast moving game - none of those sissy commercial breaks like the States - and it was a good one. We cheered on the underdogs - Galway - but unfortunately they weren't able to pull it out in the end! But it was a good fight!

GOT THE RING!!! Holy crap!

Last night M and I went to dinner... We'd gotten a gift cert from some friends for our engagement to a place not too far from home. We hadn't been able to get in contact with the place for a few weeks but finally made reservations for last night. In between our scrumptious dinner (he had steak, I had monkfish - gorgeous!) and our dessert, he put the little box on the table. I put the ring on - it looks as cool as I remember it... It was weird taking my thick silver band off my middle left finger (it wouldn't look good next to the shiny new platinum) because I've worn it there for 15 years... But it isn't taking me too long to get used to it. When I can find what we did with the digital camera (cleaning too much because we've been showing the house), I will take a photo and post it.

Oh, and we've had 5 or 6 people look at the house and a few more coming today! Just waiting for someone to make a darn offer!!! They've all loved it (so they say)...

Our trip to the sunny coast of northern ireland

Or not.



I made the photo bigger so you could see the formations, as well as how drenched I am!

We drove up to G1ants Causeway last Wednesday. We had a lovely drive up the Antr1m Coast. It's a beautiful drive. Not too long either. The whole day was only 350 miles. But we puttered our way along the coast and we arrived to Carr1ck-a-mede rope bridge (one of the places I wanted to go) and it started raining... Of course it did! We decided to stop and have lunch and see if it would pass. When we emerged from the pub, it was still raining steadily. We weren't sure what to do, hiking to a rope bridge and walking across it is precarious in the best of times, so we decided to drive on.

We continued along the northern coast to G1ants Causeway, a natural rock formation formed from a volcanic eruption. It was still raining so we continued to the next town. While we were there, the rain died down so we hurried back to G1ants Causeway. We paid to get in and almost immediately, it started raining in buckets. Worse than before!! We stopped for tea and waited... Silly me..blushing.. had forgotten to bring a rainjacket so we were 'sharing' one (re: I was wearing it and M was suffering.. what a gentleman!). It wasn't the best planning on my part, I have to say. Finally, we just decided to go for it. They had a shuttle that drove you the one kilometer (we had hoped to do a nice walk), so we paid for that and went down, took 10 photos and got back on the bus as drowned rats. We ended up driving home last night. It was an awful drive, torrential rains and road closures but once we crossed the border to the republic, the weather was fine!

P.S. Did I mention it's been gorgeous and 75 degrees since that day! lol

P.P.S. Here's the legend behind the G1ants Causeway...