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Published: August 7th 2007
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Apartment #1
Picture of my living room in my apartment has been a while since I have updated my blog. This is for 2 reasons 1) I haven't traveled anywhere exciting and 2) I don't have internet in my apartment so I have to do this from work.
I am leaving today to go to Venice for the weekend, so I will have plenty of pictures for my next blog entry. I flew back to Ireland on July 1st. It was an uneventful trip, but it was the day after the Scotland airport car bomb so everyone was on high alert. I moved into my apartment, which is very nice. No internet though so that sucks. I have gone grocery shopping and have attempted to wash clothes in my washer/dryer unit that is the size of a small dishwasher. The normal cycle takes about 3 hours and I can only fit about 1/2 load of laundry in there. That is going to be a challenge.
The first week of work was nice then the weekend came. One of the worst weekends I have had in a while…..
I started the weekend working till 7:00 pm on Friday evening. This should have been a sign from the Gods
that
Apartment #2
Picture of my kitchen the weekend was going to suck. I got to the apartment too late and there were no more parking spots. I had to park on the street. It is free street parking until Saturday morning at 9:00 am in which it is a 40 Euro parking ticket (about $65). I was meeting Carol (the American I meet a few weeks back who now lives in Waterford). We met at the bar around 8:30 and had a great time. I met a few more people who knew people from work so after texting back and forth I met a few work people out later. That was fun and I had a great time Friday night. That was about the end of the fun part!
Saturday I woke up with a splitting headache - mainly because I cannot keep up drinking with the Irish and I didn’t eat dinner Friday night. I needed to move my car before I got a ticket however I was in no mood to get moving that early. I put on some decent shorts and a shirt and went a moved my car in the garage. No problems there - went up and went back
bed.
Car
Damage to my car :( I woke up an hour later to get ready to go take my final. Remember I don’t have internet in my apartment so I was going to go into work to take my final (which was at 2:30 local time).
My head was still pounding so I decided it was good idea to grab lunch at McDonalds. I got in my car and successfully made it McDonalds for lunch - DELICIOUS!! Afterwards I stopped by the gas station to get aspirin, a diet coke and some Gatorade (still hung-over). I made it back to my apartment just fine. I went up stairs to my apartment, grabbed my text book, laptop, notebook and was heading to work to go take my final. It was 1:00 at this time and I was going to work early to write my travel blog, book a flight, etc.
I went to back up from my parking spot and before I could turn around I rammed the concrete post. I hit it at an angle and since I have a hatchback it blew out the back windshield. I got out to look and I damaged the bumper, the door and of course
the window. So I pulled it forward, got all my stuff out and went to the lobby to call the car rental place (National car rental in Shannon). When I rented the car I declined all of the insurance since the AMEX card provides full insurance coverage. When I told this to National they said that I need to get the car fixed and work it out with my insurance and just bring it in when it’s fixed. So I needed to call AMEX. Of course I cannot dial internationally from the lobby, so I had to boot up my computer in the lobby of the hotel in order to call from Skype. Now picture this, it is check in time at the hotel so the lobby is a madhouse. I call AMEX and I’m on hold forever. They told me to just find any garage and get it fixed. Send in all of the paper work and they will pay up to $50,000. I also had to fill out a claim form over the phone which took 30 minutes. (It is now about 2:00 pm). So I hung up with them and asked the front desk if they suggest any auto repair people. They gave me a number and I called them. Of course they aren’t open until Monday. It is raining (of course it is) so I couldn’t drive to work since I have no wind shield (which is called a wind screen here - no one knows what a wind shield is, you think they can make the mental leap from wind screen to wind shield). So I got the hotel to call me a cab, they picked me up and I went to work (at 2:15 - just in the knick of time). Took the exam -> went really well.
After the exam I booked my final flight to/from Ireland. I then made some phone calls and got my entire internet surfing out of the way since I was going to be internetless the rest of the weekend. I called the cab again to get back to the hotel. I was out of cash, so I made him drive me to an ATM to get cash. So I made it back safely to my apartment. There is sat the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday. I did walk around town a little, went for a jog, had dinner, took a nap. I was bored out of my mind and even worse without a damn car. (Guess what - it was raining).
I woke up early Monday morning in order to bring in my car. I took a long hot shower in order to distress before the long work week. I set off the fire alarm in the apartment due to the steam. So as soon as the damn thing goes off I get a phone call from the hotel. So I’m running through the hotel dripping wet in a towel to answer the phone. They ask if everything is OK and the hotel fire alarm is going off and it is coming from my room. Figures!!! They called off the fire department and I continued to get ready for work.
I drove my ghetto car without a back window through downtown to the auto dealership. For the first time this month it wasn’t raining- my luck must be turning. The garage guy said I had some “substantial damage” to my car. I suspected that since they will have to replace the bumper, door and glass. I asked for a ball park and he said under 5,000 Euroes (which is like $7,000). I could buy the damn car for that. He called me back on Wednesday with an estimate of 3000 Euroes ($5000) and it will be ready next Tuesday.
This week I have been cabbing it to/from work which has gotten a little expensive. Today I’m renting car #2 while car #1 is in the shop so I can drive to the Shannon airport today to fly to Venice. Hopefully I will not wreck this one.
That is all for now. I will update the blog next week with pictures of Venice and hopefully I will have my car #1 back!
Jason
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