And the Similarities keep on Rolling

OK so I start my new job on Monday, with has meant my boredom has reached new heights this week as 5 weeks without working & the unexpected expense of the petrol filter and emergency accommodation has made moneys a little tight. Still I had expected this & planned accordingly.
I’ve decided to ration the museums & galleries of Cork as there are only 4 of them and I plan to stay here at least 10 months. So yesterday to relieve the boredom I decided to drive out to where my new job is based, Mallow 26km out of Cork.
I’ll be based in Cork but imagine I’ll have to pop out to head office every now and then. On the way out it struck me that I really am living in the other New Zealand & more precisely Hamilton NZ. The road to Mallow is almost identical to the road between Hamilton & the quaint wee town of Cambridge, and guess what? Yip Mallow is about the same size as Cambridge, complete with river running through the middle of it & a big ass church (To be honest that’s about all I remember of Cambridge…No offence meant to family & friends from there)
The driving in Ireland is definitely more Kiwi than English as well, with the rule being to use the right hand lane as much as possible as opposed to only for overtaking. Also the ‘Zipper’ procedure for merging traffic is again something to be laughed at & ridiculed. Although one difference in driving styles happened on the way back to Cork, I was the seventh of seven cars following a lorry travelling at 80km. We came up to a short passing lane where I assumed maybe four or five cars may get past the lorry so hadn’t even bothered changing down a gear (It’s not like I had anywhere in particular to be) what shocked me was at the end of the passing lane I was still 7 of 7! They all seemed quite content trundling along at 80km…This was rectified at the next available passing lane.
OK, Chris arrives tomorrow so I’ll finally try out Cork’s night life…Game on!

Cork – City of contradictions

Firstly the title is complete BS, it was a working title as I must have spotted a contradiction when I first got here but have now forgotten what said contradiction was but still like the sound of the title.   

On my last day in Pembroke I went to have a look around Pembroke Castle (Birth place of the Tudor dynasty) very cool then off to Ireland….FINALLY! 

I’m loving Cork, as I may have mentioned before it’s a little smaller than Hamilton, so after running away from the gray city of fog for over 15 years I end up in it’s little brother on the other side of the world…I’m sure there’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

It’s a sweet wee city where you actually bump into people you know on the street…kinda like Thames…scary!

  Some wicked bombings…and some that’s not so good,  but with a nice message.

There are heaps of old churches everywhere and a few museums and galleries that I’m holding off on until I’m settled.

 

It has an amazing food market area that I will be pillaging once the euros start flowing in.

So I finally rolled into town about 9:30 Tuesday night to find the hostel I was planning on staying in fully booked until the following Wednesday (Lucky, as I have since learned that the place is a dive) so other accommodation was required STAT, just down the road was the Winston Hotel which worked out fine for 1 night. After a wee chat to the owner the next morning I worked out a deal of €120 a week. Over the cause of the week I got to know the chicks that worked there & 1 of them invited me to a party at her place that Friday. (Before moving forward, I should explain that I have given myself the rule that I’m not going out until I get a job…but a house party is allowed for reasons only known by a small part of my brain) It was a great party filled with Czech, Polish & Spanish, everyone was really friendly, some more so than others. The next week when a grumpy German moved out they offered the room to me. I am now living in a flat of 9 people (6 Spanish, a Czech, a German & me) I don’t know how long I’ll stay as it’s fairly noisy & crazy but as ex girlfriends & family members will know I can sleep through pretty much anything including car crashers outside my window. The average age is about 24-26 so I’m looking at it as a very casual early mid life crisis that’s A LOT cheaper than a Porsche. We had a party this Friday just been, it was a combined 21^st for an ex flatmate, 25^th for a current flatmate & my 30^th….HA! Again an excellent excellent night meeting people from all over Europe… even an Irishman. Get this Holly, I meet a pair of Canadian chicks last week….From Ontario…One of them even whet to University in London…Just can’t stay away from the Candaidan girls if I try! 

With the 6 nations on I’ve been teaching a few of the Spanish lads Rugby & they’ve been teaching me Spanish football (Hate the dives through) and am now a Barcelona supporter – Someone (Maybe me) should have warned them about my jinx, because as soon as I started supporting them they conceded a goal, luckily they managed to claw back to a drew by games end. They are currently second in the Spanish league here’s hoping I don’t do to them what I have done to McLaren, Williams and Millwall.

Work wise I heard back today. I've got a job as a field server technician (includes van, laptop & oww oww a blackberry) so I guess I'll be selling the Golf...ow well.

OK then that’s about all for now, Chris is popping over for the weekend so can’t wait for that.

Chat soon