13th October 2012 - It takes a non-Student to tell a Student ...

Learnt an important lecture yesterday: you better listen to a non-student than a student: the non-student was my friend Tina and the student, well, that was me.

I took a half-day yesterday after I drove out to Finglas in the morning to join our team which I decided to call "The Archiving Force" to have a look at boxes without a destruction date on them. We got a good bit done and finished at 12:00pm. My manager lost his patience when we started to note changes we would then do on the online archiving system. It was taking too long and the place was very cold, especially when you were just standing around, taking notes and I was already wearing mittens - okay, fingerless, but as long as the pulse line is covered, your hands stay warm. Had to revert my statement after this exercise. In short, he suggested to take pictures, so I took out my mobile phone and started photographing them. An exercise that would have taken us at least an hour to do on paper, was done 15 minutes. There you go,  1 : 0 for our ever improving technogoly and smart phones.

Afterwards, I got the next train from Skerries to town. I brought the car back to the train station when the train just had arrived. Parking was already paid by phone (BIG thanks to parkbytext.ie, makes everything so much easier and you don't get clamped) so I ran and got into town before 1:30pm. Went straight to college to get my passwords sorted out. I was about to pull my hair out the last week when I couldn't log in from home, despite the fact I knew my passwords. They did a reset for me and since then it's smooth sailing getting into all the systems and downloading material lecturers leave for us on Blackboard, which is our online classroom forum/sharing point.

I went for a nice stroll around Dublin city centre, got lunch at the student rate which saved me €0.50 (not a lot but better than nothing and the Thai Noodle portion was big, if not huge). I had a look in a few book shops, bought a nice pair of tights which I will wear at our Christmas party and a lace hand fand - which I was looking for last year. I went into 20 shops last year and nobody could sort me out. So finally, a new shop in the George's Arcade had them and I can call myself lucky: apparently they sell them very quickly and they have problems getting stock in. Will post a picture at some stage.

Later on, I met Tina and we went for food in Nandos:

Nando's, around Wicklow Street/South William Street and they are obsessed with Chicken dishes.

Was very yummy and we got the drinks for free (student card works here as well).

Now, I am coming back to the non-student part. I wanted to watch the match: Germany vs. Ireland that took place in the Aviva Stadium in Landsdown Road. When I mentioned it to her, she convinced me to go to "The Pav" which is the student bar in Trinity College. At first, I wanted to go into any pub, have a small beer and watch the match, but she was very persuasive to go to the student bar. So I went, which was good in the end, because ...

I got some free eye candy. LOL!

This is how the museum looks at night, where they have the "Book of Celts" exhibition.

Well, what can I say: I left the game early. It was around 70 minutes into the game when I decided to go. It was so bad and I didn't want to be on the same train as all the disappointed Irish fans and supporters. And they were defeated 6 : 0, I would call that collateral damage, they were destroyed. Felt so sorry for them.

One thing I have to admit: I was cheering for the Irish, as I found out that I am German on my passport, but I am Irish in my heart. I think these things happen when you are living abroad for such a long time ...