June news

June has been an eventful month...

Work
So, an update on work…it's great...

I spent the first two weeks in classroom training, which was a total blast purely because of the goofball guys I sat w/ in the back row (the back row always has the most fun:) Beside me there was David, who was just in town for a month of training from the states. He was constantly drumming, humming, tapping, beatboxing, etc. which normally I would have found extremely irritating, but he's so musical it was actually nice to listen to. Beside him there was Jamil, who often joined in, as he's equally musical, so I was constantly entertained:) Next to Jamil was Paul, who kept me in stitches with his subtle, witty one-liners.

I feel lucky to have landed in that group because we bonded so quickly even our trainer commented on how comfortable we were with each other by the end of day two… David has gone back to the states, but I have lunch with Paul and Jamil almost every day, along with a couple other folks from the group, and Jamil is going to help me move – yes! (More on the moving thing later…)

The tech writing team is also great. The team consists of four women, including me, and two men. My manager Vanessa is great – friendly, approachable, supportive – and she checks in with me all the time, and when I tell her I don't have anything to do, she gives me work – what a concept! The two other women, Karen and Aoife (pronounced ee-fa), are lovely to work with, as are the two men, Dara and Sean.

This is the first time I've ever worked for a company that has processes in place – everything from training, to an HR induction, to employee surveys, etc. It's probably the only place I've ever worked where everyone seems to actually *like* working there. They have excellent communication practices in place, and they seem to care if their employees are happy. So, it's a good place to be...

Travel
June has been a great month for traveling, and for seeing friends from home…

Scotland
I spent the June bank holiday weekend on a four-day hillwalking trip to Scotland. I was unbelievably excited to go to Scotland – it has a powerful pull for me, and I was delighted that I got to spend the weekend in the mountains rather than the city. I went with a hillwalking group that I had found online. I hadn't met any of them prior to the trip, and as I said to the training gang, it had the potential to be a total disaster! I didn't really think it would be, but you never know…

Fortunately, it was a total blast. The people in the group were super friendly and there were so many people around I always had someone to talk to. Over half of the group was non-Irish, so we all compared notes on why we'd left our respective countries to come to Ireland, which was interesting.

We went to a small town called Oban – a solid day of travel from Dublin – drive to northern Ireland, ferry to Scotland, and drive up the west coast to Oban. There were 12 of us staying in two cabins and if I had to sum up the weekend in two words it would be "organized chaos." Getting that many people out the door, fed and with lunches in hand, was an impressive feat, but it happened every morning:)

The first day we did a very light coastal stroll…really, we could've done it without hiking boots. But the second day we climbed Ben More (Big Mountain) on the Isle of Mull, and it ended up being fairly extreme – there were times when we were scrambling, and at one point the trail simply disappeared, so we had to climb straight up the side of the ridge we were attempting to scale. It was tons of fun though… I was pretty sore for the next few days, but it was great!

Belfast
My good friend Theresa, a writer who I met on the submarine project that I'm sure you all remember me complaining about, and her partner Chris came to Ireland in early June. I traveled to Belfast with them as they were on their way to Scotland to hike the West Highland Way. We just spent one night in Belfast, and had neither time nor energy to do much while we were there…just wandered the main drag, took photos of city hall, went for dinner, and had some drinks at a pub near our hostel. It was still light out when we went back to bed, which was a bit sad, but we were all too exhausted to stay out any later. And really, for me it was all about visiting with them, which we had lots of time to do.

My brief impression of Belfast is that there's not much there to see or do, and it has a very working class feel to it. I would like to go back though, and explore it a bit more, and do some day trips to some areas in the north from there.

London
I went to London the weekend of the 21st to visit with my good friend Luke, who I used to work with during my Faronics days. We were car pool buddies back when the company was in Coquitlam, and our commutes were filled with lively conversations about company gossip, our differing tastes in music and media, the general philisophical differences between men and women, and our mutual love of chai lattes from Starbucks. The only reason I was sad when we moved downtown was because I didn't get to hang out with Luke for an hour everyday anymore.

Luke was on his way to France for a wedding and was just in London just for the weekend. I spent Saturday morning having a lovely brunch with my friend Burcak and her son Sarp, and then met Luke and his girlfriend Grace later that afternoon. We had a great night -- drank tons of red wine and had drunken discussions about everything from movies to travel to more company politics. I spent Sunday afternoon with them as well, and then headed for Heathrow where I spent a half hour stalking Johnathan Rhys Meyers (for those of you who might not know him, he's an Irish actor who I first noticed in "Bend it Like Beckham"). Was a good weekend!

My new home
I haven't been very happy in the apartment I've been living in, so I used my new job as an excuse to move, and was lucky enough to find a place in Ballsbridge – the equivalent neighborhood in Vancouver would probably be something like Kitsilano, but not *quite* as trendy. It's a very desirable area to live, and I'll be able to walk to work in the city centre, which was kind of the whole goal of moving – that and to get away from my unsociable, strange flatmate… I'm moving this weekend, and can't wait. It's a four-bedroom house in a quiet gated community, but close to shops, restaurants, bus routes, and the river. Did I mention I can't wait??

Pictures from Scotland are here as usual.

I think that's all my news...till next time!