Bakker Bugle Blog Say it three times fast. In Luxembourgish.

23 September 2007

Walking around…

Filed under: dublin,expat,mental state — Anita @ 20:48

As Sharon mentioned in the comments, we are walking a lot more since we moved to Dublin. Will is walking many kilometers every day because it is his major form of transportation. I have the car, so during the work week I walk little, drive much. But on the weekends….

Living in an apartment has changed the way I get out of the “house.” Back at Shadowrock, I could slip out the back door and sit in yard, enjoying nature at my doorstep. While our back garden is a pleasant spot, only gets direct sun for a limited time each day. In order to escape the apartment and enjoy the day, walking has replaced sitting. Sometimes we walk as the main activity, other times we walk to get to a park to sit and enjoy the sun. Either way, I am definitely walking more.

It is easier to walk in the city, because you can go a short distance (or farther afield) and constantly find things that draw your attention or interest. Plus, with parking at such a premium, I would rather walk for 15 minutes than drive for 5 and struggle to find parking for 10. Will this continue when we are again living at Shadowrock? While I want to say yes, I’m afraid that I will fall back into the convenience of a car in the garage and plentiful free parking at every turn.

But until then, each Saturday morning that I wake up and see beautiful blue skies (like we saw again this weekend) I will prod Will out of bed and out into the street, for a walk around our city. Plus, maybe the walking will help counteract the excellent Irish butter that I seem to spread on everything. Man, it’s really good butter.

19 September 2007

Buckeye Morning

Filed under: dublin,entertainment — Anita @ 19:46

After traveling the first part of September, Will and I were eager to reconnect with Dublin this past weekend. While Will really wanted to reconnect via a nap, I thought a long walk around the neighborhood would be a better bet. And, since I’m “Annita P” I won the battle and we went for a walk.

Saturday morning was beautiful in Dublin. Cool, but with a warm sun that beat down from the sky. buckeyes.jpgWe walked towards the river Liffy, through the new south Docklands development. Strolling back home along the Grand Canal, we passed a small park a few blocks from our house. As we passed under the trees, Will pointed out the buckeyes on the ground.

For no particular reason, I love buckeyes. I think they are the neatest things. Once you get through the tough outer shell, the are smooth and interesting. Plus, there are the various medicinal purposes that buckeyes can be used for, if you suffer from certain afflictions. A remarkable little item.

We enjoyed our time back in the States tremendously. Still, I thought it was very nice of Dublin to give us a lovely welcome home, with sunny days and buckeyes on the ground.

25 August 2007

Do You Hate the British Too?

Filed under: culture,ireland,travel — Anita @ 12:55

I’ve had the following conversation on three separate occasions with three different Irish co-workers:

Man: Hiya, Anita. What did you do on your holiday?

Me: We spent the weekend in Dublin, and spent some time at museums and especially at Kilmainham jail. We heard a lot about the Easter Rising in 1916. During the week, we traveled to the West, around Galway and Connemara.

Man: And you liked it?

Me: We did, it was beautiful. But we joke that it could have been depressing because it was like a “Famine Tour.” We saw famine monuments, and we even finished the trip with a visit to the Famine Museum in Strokestown.

Man: So now you hate the British too!

11 August 2007

Commenter of the Second Week

Filed under: administrative,award — Anita @ 22:05

Faster than you can say “it’s time already?” the B.B. Blog is recognizing the latest commenter of the week. This week’s winner is Sharon (not to be confused with sharon),sharon11aug2007.jpg who wins the prize for her excellent response when realizing she placed second in the prior week’s contest. It’s that kind of positive attitude the B.B. Blog likes to recognize.

As winner, Sharon will be expected to talk up the B.B. Blog, encourage others to post comments, use canvas bags when she gets groceries and generally be a positive influence in the world. We are confident she is up to the task.

Congratulations Sharon!

9 August 2007

B.B. B&B open for business

Filed under: dublin,ireland,travel — Anita @ 13:16

The Bakker Bugle Bed and Breakfast is officially open for business! We checked in our first guest today: Cindy Smith, my wonderful mother. She braved her first international flight with no issues or concerns. She flew out of O’Hare on Aer Lingus (motto: you’ve never seen green quite like our uniforms) and landed here in Dublin at 5:40 this morning, with two large suitcases full of love (and products) from the States.

Cindy is going to be here with us for two weeks, until 22 August. You can look forward to more stories about the American tourist in Dublin and the adventures the three of us have.

30 July 2007

Let’s Go to the Mall!!

Filed under: dublin,expat — Anita @ 8:24

On Saturday, we ventured out of the city and headed south into the suburbs. Will wanted to go to a specific bike shop and we needed to get some groceries. Will did some searching and found a spot with several stores that we wanted to go to. Turns out – it was a Mall!

Let’s Go to the Mall: #1 in Canada, 1993 This was the first time we had been to a more “American” shopping center, unlike back home when we went to the shopping center every Saturday morning. It started to rain when we arrived, so we spent a couple of hours wandering around, looking at the stores and seeing what was available. One major difference is most malls also have a large grocery store as one of the anchors. So we were able to get a storage container for the guest bedroom, a curtain for the living room and our groceries all in one stop.

While we love our city living, it was enjoyable on a rainy afternoon to wander around, killing time at the mall.

Video still courtesy Robin Sparkles.

18 July 2007

Our first visitors

Filed under: dublin,entertainment,expat — Anita @ 21:03

Settling into our lives in Dublin has been a long (but fun) process since Will arrived. One of the fantastic parts about living in Dublin is how often colleagues from work have a reason to be in our city. Our first visitor was my former co-worker and friend, Jenny. Jenny had a conference the last week of June and she made sure to let us know that she was in town. We arranged for me to pick her up on my way home from work and bring her to the city centre. It was awesome to see her – she got to see our messy apartment and go to some of our favorite pubs with us. Since it was a Wednesday night, we were all very well behaved.

Which leads me to our next visitor, my friend Merle. Merle happened to be in Dublin over a weekend, so she joined our traditional Friday happy hour. Every Friday, Will, my co-worker Kathryn and I stop at a pub to call an end to the week and signal the start of the weekend. Merle was a welcome addition to our crew. We explored several establishments in the city that were new to us, which allowed us to extend our normal happy hour into an evening of … celebration! Kathryn’s boyfriend met up with us, so we were a happy group of five, enjoying some of the best sites Dublin has to offer.

I may be getting a bit too old to enjoy all the best sites Dublin has to offer. At least all in the same night.

Here’s a special thanks, to Jenny and Merle, for taking the time out of their busy trip schedules to spend some time with us. We enjoyed seeing you and we can’t wait for you to come back!

2 July 2007

Dublin Trash

Filed under: dublin — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Anita @ 9:04

In the comments of my “Two Tugs” post, someone asked if we were saving all this packing material for another move, versus taking it out to the dumpster. I thought a short post on how trash works in Dublin might explain some of our perceived craziness.

We live in an apartment in a building. We are the only people living in the building – the four floors above our home are offices. Since we’re not in an apartment building, we have to pay for our trash removal. Unlike in Gurnee, where we paid a monthly amount for a 65 gallon waste cart, here we have to pay by the bag. Each 80 liter bag of trash requires a prepaid sticker before the City will pick it up.

Recycling is another matter. I’ve been told that if we put our paper in a green trash bag, the City will pick it up free of charge. However, Will and I can’t find that confirmation on any web page. For glass, aluminum and plastic, we have to take the materials to a “bring bank” and sort the recycling appropriately (unlike our recycling in Gurnee, which was a co-mingled container). We’ve been taking our paper along with the other recycling.

Lucky for us, the movers will come back and pick up all the boxes and packing papers we don’t want. Since we had so much packing paper, the only recourse we had was to smooth it out, otherwise, we would have been run out of house and home. It would take over 20 trips with the Micra to get all this cardboard and paper to a recycling center, so we’re thrilled that the moving company will come back and take it away.

26 June 2007

Two tugs, Tina. Only two tugs.

Filed under: expat — Tags: , , , , — Anita @ 22:29

As Will said yesterday, we are really excited to get the sea shipment. There were so many little things that we were missing here in Dublin – little things that would make our lives more comfortable and more like home. We never stopped to consider, or at least I never stopped to consider, that every little thing in our life would be individually wrapped in 1.85 sheets of paper.

The cardboard boxes and paper have quickly taken over our apartment. Will decided to follow the same method I used with the air shipment. Each sheet of packing paper is spread as flat as possible and stacked. Leaving it crumpled would have quickly run us out of the apartment. However, my perfectionist tendencies to get each sheet as flat as possible and stacked orderly don’t correspond with the several million pieces of packing paper currently sharing our living space. Will watched me for about thirty seconds before he declared that I only got “two tugs” per sheet. While I would happy to smooth and straighten for several moments, that approach would mean that we would still be dealing with packing paper come St. Patrick’s day.

Will has found that the last two days have made him an expert on the guys that wrapped and packed our goods back in Gurnee. Each one of them has a style and Will can guess with surprising accuracy which member of the team packed a particular box. I’m not sure precisely how this skill will help him in the future, but he often applies his knowledge in new and unusual ways.

We’re making progress. Another few days of backbreaking labor for Will and the apartment should be in good shape. It’s worth all the effort to have the things that make a house a home back with us.

15 June 2007

We hit the 21st Century — Watch Out!

Filed under: entertainment,mental state — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Anita @ 20:28

One surprising aspect about moving to Dublin is how it has forced Will and me into the 21st Century. In Gurnee, we had basic cable and one old mobile phone that we shared. I believe we may have been the last two people in Gurnee to share one mobile phone. Now, living in Dublin, we have been forced into the high tech world (the high tech world of 2003, that is). We each have a mobile phone – Will’s even takes pictures! We send each other text messages and actually use the features of our phones. It’s crazy.

The other high tech addition to our lives is the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) that came with our satellite. While most of our friends had DVRs or TiVo for years, we resisted. We like video tapes, we would reply when asked about what we had. They are more flexible and we like recording things on the VCR. Oh, how wrong we were. The DVR is wonderful. We can pause live TV. We can set up to record a series (say, the Sopranos) and we can know that we’ll never miss a show.

The other thing that the DVR has allowed us to do is to explore certain historical television programs, like Dallas. One of our stations is showing the series Dallas, in order, from the beginning. We’re learning all about 1978 hairstyles and fashions while we watch the Ewings and the Barnes battle it out over the OLM (that’s the Office of Land Management, in case you were wondering).

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