tonskudaigle.info

And then comes everything else

So as I promised on Monday, I'd update my blog again this week. And this is happening right now. I've had a "hectic" week and I haven't been able to write anything that would have made sense. But after a 3 hours nap after work, I feel a lot better and my thoughts actually work on their own.

So it's weekend and that obviously means that the liquor stores are more popular than ever during the week. Instead of what we have in Finland (Alko) with all the vodkas and other liquors, here we have Off Licence. It's sort of a same thing, but the difference in general compared to Finland is that in Finland you can get alcohol from any convenience store up to like 4,7% and if you want anything stronger, you need to go to a liquor store. And you can't get alcohol after 9pm from anywhere (officially). Here you can actually get for example wine (red and white) from SuperValu with alcohol up to 13% or so. I don't know for sure what the limit is, but for example the SuperValu store just across the parking lot from my place doesn't have any beer for sale which I think is quite amazing. They do have a whole corner dedicated to wines, but nothing else with alcohol. Of course excluding deodorants :D And here for example the Off Licence store next to SuperValu is open until like 10-11pm.
For example Slovakia and many other countries back there have hard liquor even at gas stations and you can actually get them 24/7.

So anyway, I've been settling (am kind of bored of using that word so often) in and it's looking a lot better now. I do need to make a phone call to ESB which is the main electricity provider here in Ireland to resolve the issue of not to charge me like 300 euros for something I'm not agreeing to. It's a policy of them that if you don't want to use direct debit for billing, then you need to pay a 300 euros deposit. Idiotic, but oh well... I did sign up for the direct debit instead earlier this week, but still their online billing site says I'm due 300 euros by the 4 of October. So I need to call them and sort this out.
As for the apartment, and the payday getting closer and closer, I'm eager to get my hands on some new stuff here. Sure I'm not able to get all right after my first pay, but at some point for sure since I'm hoping to have my computer etc shipped over here and then get some furniture. My initial plan is to get at least a new couch (or just a 2nd one), a computer desk, a TV stand and something else that I haven't really figured out yet. For some reason I'm not really a fan of the carpet floor here as it tends to accelerate my allergic reactions at times. I do vacuum my place every now and then, but I'd need to do a thorough cleanup for the whole place at some point. I just don't have the tools or the mentality to do that :D I did do some vacuuming the other night and it does feel a bit better. But I'm not dying here or anything if I don't do it for lets say 3 weeks or a month :D
Another thing I don't like about the place is the hot water system. I mean you actually have to heat it up first before you can use it. And having an electrical system with bills and all that, it eats energy to heat up the water which then shows up in the bills too. I'm no expert on these, but if there's something I hope for, it's an electric shower and preferably the whole water system. I don't know if it's complicated to install or if it costs shitloads of money, but at times getting up around 4:40am just start heating up the water for your shower can make you swear a little bit. And since I don't have a dishwasher, I also need to heat up the water to do the dishes. Plus the worst thing is that I don't even know how to use the stupid timer for the heater nor do my two neighbors. Even the landlord was a bit like what the heck...
I need more clothes, that's what I need money for! Being here over a month with no paycheck from work yet has really put my financing plans in new light when you need to use 4-5 different shirts until you need to wash them. I've two jerseys here (Liverpool and TB Bucs) but those are not allowed at work due to company policies :(

So I've been giving a lot of thought to what I'm going to do with my remaining days off from work. We're supposed to use them by the end of this year so I've basically 3 months to use all 7,5 days. Naturally Christmas is something to always think about, but the fact is that the flight tickets are damn expensive. With 400 euros return price it's a no go so naturally I'm considering just to stay here and save the money for a TV or something. And the reason is not just the price, but the fact that I'm planning to head over to Rovaniemi in late March for this exchange student+tutor reunion. That ought to be a one big party! Then on the same trip, I will stop by at my parents and friends in Tornio as well. A week off minimum is my plan. Had a look at the plane tickets too and they're somewhere around 200 euros which is not that bad. Depends on how you want to go there really. Surely playing around with Ryanair and waiting at the airports can reduce the price significantly, but I've always been the kind of guy that wants things done properly without the need of being bored at some airports. Efficient I think is the right word in this situation. But we'll see about this whole Finland vacation thing later on :)

One big topic here and with everyone coming here from abroad is smoking. Ireland was I think the first country anywhere to ban smoking indoors in public places such as bars, pubs, restaurants... At the time it felt a bit stupid, but now after having it in Finland as well for years I think it's a tremendous. After a night out your clothes don't smell like shit and the air at bars and pubs is much cleaner. Plus it's refreshing to go outside for a smoke. The Irish are big smokers and the prices of smokes here are really high. I mean whereas a pack of Marlboro in Finland is about 5 euros, here it's more like 8 or 9 euros and I think in Slovakia is was around 3 euros. I don't know for sure as I don't smoke that brand :) But in a long run, that will make you consider quit smoking due to financial reasons. I personally don't smoke too much and in the summer, I only smoked maybe 5 packs over a 3 month period which is little. Here I've been smoking more or less 2 packs a week and even 3 but I also know it's mostly the work and the new place. As soon as I feel more comfortable, I will at least reduce it.

In other news: Ireland got Google Street View recently! When I got here, it hadn't been made available even though the cars had been going around in mid 2009 already. So it took Google around 1,5 years to do the whole thing and get it live. But it's fantastic and helps a lot with knowing where everything is and how it looks! I even found my own home from it :P

Finally, due to my website backend (WordPress) version being rather old, I'm planning to get the new one and while I'm at it, revamp the looks of my website. I did some work on WP layouts in my thesis and then in another course during my thesis and I've a pretty good idea how it works. I'm not sure what the WP3 version did to all this so I might need to figure out how it works first if I'm going to customize anything. But we'll see... I'm in no hurry and I don't mind using some other themes taken from the internet. I just don't have the time to start studying the whole thing and it takes time to design a layout as well. With working from 6am to 3pm and going to bed around 9-10pm, you don't really have much time or the energy to do any of that:)

Anyway, that's it for now o/