Tip #9 - Technology. Use it.

Merry Christmas! Nolaig Shona! (Gaelic)
Apologies for the delay in my weekly posts, but as you likely all can understand, December is always a very busy time of year for anyone. The pub I work at has lost a couple of full-time servers - ironically, they both are traveling to Canada to work and do the same thing as myself - love life. That being said, I've been working pretty much 6 days per week and it's pretty exhausting. The weekly paycheque has been nice for Christmas presents for those back home and also to start saving up some funds for some upcoming tours/trips.
I'm trying to think what has all happened since my last post, other than working. We had our staff Christmas party and it was fun to hang out with my coworkers outside of our busy pub and get to know people a bit more. I also managed to injure myself slipping on the icy streets here and sprained my ankle and knee so after a week or so now, my legs and knees are a nice black/blue/yellow collage. They are slowly but surely healing and I had to take a few days off of work because I would have been pretty much useless to them seeing I could barely walk and definitely could not do stairs - which are quite common at our pub.
Other than that, I just did some xmas shopping for the fam back home, spent some time with the girls/Jonny and getting prepared for Christmas. We hosted the Cdn girls and Rachelle's cousin that's visiting for Christmas yesterday. Made my first ever turkey and it turned out great. (pic of before and after below).

I also made butternut squash, stuffing, gravy, cauliflower/cheese sauce all from scratch and, well,  attempted mashed potatoes. Now, I have made mashed potatoes with no fail at least 20 times in my life (I have many witnesses) but when I went to check on them as they were boiling, they literally had evaporated into potato BROTH. We concluded that we got a bad bag of potatoes even though they looked completely normal. When I told my family about this later - the average comment was, "Isn't Ireland known for their tasty potatoes?" and yes - this is true but I guess not in my case on Christmas day. Either way - we didn't really miss them because we had so much food as the girls brought CHEESE (lots of it), salads, and desserts. We also did a fun little Secret Santa exchange and listened to lots of Christmas music. Even though we were all deep down somewhat sad that we weren't with our families back home, being together seemed to bring our spirits up and we made the most of the day.

 Some of the feast - lots of leftovers. :)

 Our Canadian-Galwegian guests

So my tip for the day is, if possible when traveling...try to take advantage of what the great world of technology has to offer. In that I mean - the world wide web, Skype, Facebook, email, etc. If it wasn't for Skype, email and my great international phone plan that I have now with my new iPhone 4 (product placement inserted here...haha), keeping in touch with my family and friends would be so difficult, especially yesterday when I wished that teleporting was a REAL thing. I skyped with my aunt/uncle/cousin and of course my family and even my precious pup - Chelsea. Maybe she can't talk but just seeing her with her reindeer antlers and covered in her traditional xmas ribbons made my heart smile. Yes, technology can be frustrating and some do misuse it more than less it seems these days but I definitely would have a hard time living without it. I'm also thankful that my mom is 'in the know' with all the gadgets and such. For example, with her new laptop, she was able to bring me along to the Landreth Christmas so I could even skype with my Grandma - a first for her and she loved it...and so did I!
I do agree that sometimes receiving cards and letters in the mail is still a great feeling (thank you everyone that sent me some and I'm sorry that I'm so slow with sending mine out) but on an everyday basis, it's great to see emails from my Mom (everyday - thanks momma!!), my family, my friends and such in my inbox or messages on Facebook or comments on my photos because I feel like I can share my experiences with you all back home. It's hard to think how life was before the web and the digital world.
Anyway - that's my tip for the day and my update. I hope to have another update next week but if I don't have the chance, I wish you all a happy and safe New Years! Here's a few more pics from the last month.

Snowing in Galway

 Xmas Eve at our flat

 Merry Christmas :)

 Sunny Xmas day looking out our Balcony

 Deformed kneecap (right) and colourful legs - one week post incident.

Miss you all so much....xo

Tip #8 - Travel with layers...

Hi All,
I'm trying to stay true to my weekly posts and I may be a few days late here and there due to my work schedule so please forgive me. I'm trying to remember what has happened since I last posted but I think the newest thing is that I now have a roommate and friendly face from back home - Jonny Boy. :)
Yes, he arrived last Tuesday afternoon so I took Tuesday till Friday off of work to go and meet him at Dublin airport and then show him around Galway and meet the other girls I've made good friends with here. I took the bus in the morning to meet him and it was a pretty good drive considering my stomach doesn't do well with public transit. It was quite a foggy day (see below) but it was a nice quiet ride and I enjoyed the peace and quiet as I had been working for 10 days straight.

Being the Landreth that I am, I made sure to be early because you never know when flight times can change. Sure enough, when I arrived it stated that his flight would be in a half hour early which was fine as then I wasn't waiting for an hour and a half. I felt like I was in one of the credit card commercials where you were eagerly awaiting the arrival of a loved one at the arrival gates...haha. Of course we had the long embrace and then I had to quickly run to the 'toilet' as, again having the small bladder of a typical Landreth, I had to go pretty much the second his flight landed and I didn't want to risk not being there when he walked through the gates. I knew that he was likely sick of flying and didn't want to jump back on a 2.75 hr bus ride so we lounged in the foodcourt for a bit to catch up. 
I was pretty tired as I was up late unpacking (yes, I finally unpacked) and tidying up for the new 'roomie' so I fell asleep on the way back to Galway. I knew that Jonny would want a shower after his full day of traveling and warned him about the size of the shower stall. Afterwards, I took him out for his first dinner and he had his first official Guiness (pic below).

Then we met up with Rachelle, Ashlie and Carlee as they were eagerly waiting to meet the new 'Canadian' to add to our posse. :) We had a few pints and called it a night as it was a long day for both of us...more so him of course.
He seems to slowly be settling in. Much like I was when I got here, he is eager to get a job and into a routine and make some money so after my days off work, he started going around all the shops and pubs to hand out CV's. I'm sure he'll find something in no time because he's got tons of experience. I also took him out for a nice birthday dinner as his birthday was last Friday and then met up with the girls again for pints.

He then had his first Supermacs experience and it was the craziest we have ever seen it. What a great night for him to experience it for the first time! It was so packed that we had to wait 5 min to get OUT of the place and the security (yes, they have security there every night) was literally pushing intoxicated boys away from the entrance. Talk about mayhem in Galway but it was also entertaining.

Now - my tip for the day...when traveling to destinations where the weather can be 'unexpected'...my tip is to travel with layers. In which I mean, bring clothes that can be easily layered for cool and hot and VERY cool temperatures. For example - Galway. Apparently we have hit record-low temperatures in Ireland and it's been on average between -4 and -15 in the last week or so. We even got a couple centimetres of snow last week. To prove it - see the miniature snowman that Jonny built on our balcony below.

The locals don't know how to deal with it all exactly and apparently Dublin shut down their buses for a few days and even the airport yesterday due to icy roads and runway. They were literally putting TABLE SALT on the roads as they aren't equipped with the salt and sand that we have back home for icy conditions. Unfortunately as well, due to the frigid temperatures, the pipes going from our kitchen froze. So for the last few days we haven't been able to use our sink or laundry machine. We tried everything - a drain snake (which they don't really understand here), several different types of Drain-O, litres and litres of hot water and even heating up the pipe outside with a heater. We FINALLY had progress today and as we speak, our laundry machine is doing a cycle to clean out all the backlogged water that was sitting in our machine for a few days. Oh the things you learn from living in a country that's hundreds of years older than your home country.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I have to go to work tonight for just a few hours but then I'm back on full days tomorrow and Saturday. It was a pretty good week with work and I even got to put in some admin hours helping out the girl that does all the marketing for the pub. It was tedious inputting but I'll be helping her out more with some other marketing tasks and it will be a nice change of pace from climbing those flights of stairs at work all the time. :)

I guess that's it for now....have to get all my Christmas shopping done so the package HOPEFULLY arrives on time in Canada. Missing you all and hoping you're staying warm like me. Remember - layers!!!

Until then...Shannon xo