January

Well, January looks like it has slipped away without much in the way of blog updates from us! The last couple of weeks haven't been particularly eventful in terms of fun stuff. But I haven't updated with what we've done since the turn of the new year. On New Years Eve we were over at Darse and Xan's for a rather fun evening of party games. In the first of several of these games, we all wrote down names of 4-5 famous people in a hat. The game proceeds by going through the hat three times. The first time, players try to get their team to guess the person using any words not on the paper. The second time through, you only get two words to get your team to guess, and the third time through you have to do charades to get your team to guess. The game is naturally comical, and this night was no less so than expected.

This game was broken up by the countdown to zero for the beginning of the 2009. We were out on the balcony and got to see fireworks going off all around us. I'm not entirely sure where everyone would've got them, but they seemed quite plentiful. It reminds me that this kind of behaviour was happening on Halloween night here in Dublin too.

We finished our game, and then moved on to play another one. In this one, each player writes down a famous person on a slip of paper, which is then taped on the next person's head. That person now has to ask yes/no questions about that person until they can guess who they are. Thankfully, Darse gave me someone I knew, so after a little while I managed to guess mine: Kurt Cobain. Diane had a little more trouble with "the artist formerly known as Prince", but she got it. The toughest one that was eventually given up on? Genghis Khan.

We had a bit of trouble getting a cab, so we settled into playing a game of dictionary pictionary until something like 5am at which point we finally got a cab to come pick us up and take us home.

On the 2nd of January, one of the server guys had got tickets to a Rugby match: Leinster vs Connacht. So a group of us server guys went to go see this clash of Irish rugby teams. Before going, I spent some time trying to read up on the rules, which helped me know a little bit of what was going on, but I found it extremely hard to follow exactly what was happening. The thing I had the most trouble seeing was some correlation to the penalties being called and what was done wrong by the offending player. The other thing that I expected was that the game would flow more than american football -- but that turned out to not be the case. There was many more stoppages than I had thought there would be. Still, it was a fun time, and it was a great atmosphere to watch the game!

The last few weeks have been relatively quiet for us. I've been working, and not getting to bed early enough on a nightly basis so by the weekend I'm ready to sleep and laze around. The weather also hasn't been all that cooperative for doing fun stuff on the weekends. On one particular Saturday afternoon, the clouds were dark, it was raining, and the wind was blowing harder than we've seen here.

The next day wasn't too pretty either, but we were invited out to go have dinner and see a movie called Slumdog Millionaire. Dinner was at a place called Indian Summer for some rather tasty Indian food, and then we wandered over to the movie. The movie was about a guy who gets on India's version of who wants to be a millionaire and makes it deep. They suspect him of cheating, and through interrogation (and flashbacks for the audience), they discover that he actually knew the answers through a series of unlikely events. It's a moving film, as it shows many harsh conditions which the man had to live through when he was a boy.

This week, Diane and I went in to take our driver's theory tests. We had spent some time studying for it over the week and both came out with 100%. So after we take an eye exam, we'll have the necessary paperwork to get ourselves a provisional Irish drivers license. When that happens, we'll have to wait 6 months before we can take our practical test. It's weird having to go through this process again, and a little awkward too! I'm not sure why there isn't a faster route for someone who already knows how to drive to get a full license here. Oh well.

There's another party that we're going to tonight, and it looks like our social schedule is starting to fill up again!

Morgan

New Games!

Those that know me, know that I like to play games. Unfortunately, there isn't a board game shop in Dublin that even comes close to the selection of Mission Hill Fun & Games back in St Albert. So when we heard word that there was a new really fun game that we were going to get a challenge from people at Google here in Dublin, we needed to find a place to get it.

Eventually, after some digging, we found a place called Board Game Club, which had a good selection and decent prices. So, we placed an order for several games which have now arrived. We picked up Race for the Galaxy, and the new expansion for it, Power Grid, and Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. Race for the Galaxy is the game we were anxiously waiting and it'll be interesting to see how it goes over with the board game crowd at the office. Diane and I gave it a try last night, and it's quite an interesting game. The game's main mechanism is like Puerto Rico, but with a couple of significant differences. Sadly, we'll have to wait until thursday to find out how it goes over with people (that's our weekly games night at the office).

It's been awhile since my last entry -- but there's not a lot to share. This last week has been crazy busy for me at the office so that's put a bit of a damper on the length of my evenings at home. I've been putting in some pretty long days trying to get a feature done for the next release, which meant that most days I was getting into the office at around 9:15 and not leaving until 7 or 8 at night. That kind of a day on a weekly basis makes it awfully tough to want to do much other than veg on the couch when I get home.

The weather here has been pretty decent, actually. There's been a few chillier days with some rather unpleasant wind, but not as many as I kind of expected to find this time of year. The last couple days have actually been quite warm: in the 13 degree range.

Morgan

Busy at Work, Election, Games

This past week was insanely busy. At work, I had a project that needed some help to get it all the way to completion, and it needed to be done by Friday. So I worked pretty hard this week trying to get it all done. As a result, there wasn't all that much free time to do much else than go home and laze around on the couch a bit before going to bed. But we did get out a little. On Tuesday night, a bunch of the American employees went out to a bar to watch the election results come in. It had been a stressful day at work, and I thought it'd be a good idea to get out of the house and de-stress a little over a beer or two. So Diane and I joined the party around 11:00pm and hung out with what turned out to be quite a few people! The group of us maxed out at about 25 people or so all with varying interest in the actual live results coming in. After awhile, a game of Chinese poker broke out -- a game that I've had a little bit of interest in lately. I joined in, and we ended up playing until 2am!

Thursday nights at the office are geeky board game nights, so I stayed late at the office to play some games. This week, one of the guys had just got back from the States with a pile of games eight or so boxes high -- many of which I had never seen before. We played Ticket to Ride Germany, the tutorial for Galaxy Trucker (a game I don't think I'll really like in full, but it's kinda neat), and Wizard (a game that looks like it has got some major interest). Dave also explained the rules of a couple of his new games.

It has been a busy week, and in some ways I'm glad it's done. Not that it'll get any less busy at work. I've got some bugs to fix and I gotta get back to working a project that won't be released until January, but needs a fair amount of work to get it finished. But even with how busy I've been, we're still making time to do some fun stuff!

Morgan

October Long Weekend

In Ireland, the last weekend in October is a long weekend. We hadn't made any plans for the weekend until early in the week Xan and Diane started plotting to get us away from town for the weekend. After a few days, they had us booked in a B&B just outside Kinsale -- a little Irish town south and a bit west of Cork. Getting accomodation in the area was a bit tricky, as the October long weekend plays host to the Cork and Kinsale Jazz festival. So it was lucky we got accomodation when we booked so late. So Darse and I took Friday off and we headed out early-ish on Friday morning towards Kinsale. On the way, we stopped at Cashel and Cahir to take in some sights. At both locations there are castles to go see, so we got to see our first real Irish castles. That was pretty cool, but I'll let the pictures do the talking for the most part. We liked Cahir castle a lot better than Cashel -- maybe because there was a little bit more to do there. You could climb up and down several narrow stairways that twist and turned through some of the walls. It could also be because Cahir was in much better shape. It could also be because the friendly people at the gate let us in for the family rate, even though we weren't of the typical 2 adults, 2 children family composition.

It's really quite amazing to see some of these structures which have been standing for so many years. It makes you realize just how much humans are capable of -- even without modern technology to help.

After exploring Cahir castle, we continued our journey through Cork and on to Kinsale. Both Cork and Kinsale were madly busy, although Kinsale quite a bit less so since it's a lot smaller than Cork. Kinsale was mostly nuts because they were undergoing heavy construction on several of the roads including the main road you'd normally go through town on. Driving in Ireland is a terrifying experience -- drivers don't give you much in the way of leeway, and they're on your tail a whole lot. Between that and the narrow roads and the terrifying speeds that other drivers tackle the road with, you can't help but tense up whenever you see another car. And I wasn't even driving!

We arrived safely at our B&B: Walyunga. A charming little place with an excellent host by the name of Mirtle. She was quite helpful making sure we got ourselves settled in and gave us directions in town to negotiate the construction filled streets as well as some recommendations on where to eat. Having spent most of the day on the road, it was more than time for a good meal, so we headed back into town and eventually ended up at a pub called Jim Edwards. The food was relatively cheap, and pretty tasty -- especially the smoked salmon starter that Diane and I shared.

After having dinner we still had some energy so we wandered around Kinsale a bit and took in the scene. Being there for the Jazz festival was a really cool experience. You can walk down the road and hear live music coming from several pubs all at the same time. The first place we stopped was a pub called Muddy Mahers where a blues band had just started playing. We stayed for a beverage and for a few songs. It was pretty fun. We wandered around the town a bit more after that and stopped in another place for some more music (the name of the establishment escapes me now). We didn't stay long though. It had been a bit of a long day and we returned to our B&B with the idea of getting some rest before hitting the road to explore the southern coast of Ireland.

Unluckily for us, the weather had different ideas. We woke up to Saturday morning only to discover that the sky had opened up and some seriously unpleasant rain with gusting winds took over. As a result, we ended up sticking around the B&B for most of the day, only getting out for the evening for a bit of dinner.

So we were well rested when we left our B&B on Sunday to try and cover as much ground as we could. So we hit the road and explored the southern coast of Ireland a bit. Our first target was the Drombeg Stone Circle, which was pretty neat. There's a set of stones arranged in a circle. At the winter Solistice the sun is supposed to shine through a pair of gateway stones at one end of the circle. There's also some remains of a couple of stone huts which were cool to see. One of the cool things about this was just being able to walk through the circle.

We hopped back into the car and drove towards Blarney which was our next stop. On the way, we stopped in a Irish town called Bandon and walked around a bit and had a coffee at a lovely little cafe. Irish towns are so colourful -- the buildings are often each painted a different colour which gives towns a wonderful feel. After our coffee and a quick snack we moved on to Blarney castle.

Blarney Castle is an impressive structure. The castle is quite tall, and is still in good enough shape to climb to the top of -- which is a good thing or kissing the Blarney stone would be pretty hard. On the climb up, there were quite a few rooms to explore, and the view from the top of the castle was pretty nice! Both Diane and I kissed the Blarney stone -- it was kind of one of those silly touristy things that you gotta do.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to walk around the Blarney castle grounds, so we'll have to return to do that. It looks like a beautiful area, but we had to get moving so that we could drop Diane off at the train station. Before we made our weekend plans, Diane had volunteered to help out at the Dublin marathon and she didn't want to cancel on them. So she hopped on a train from Cork on Sunday evening to take her to Dublin so she could help with the marathon on Monday.

We didn't spend too long in Cork, but we did walk around a little bit. We were there a bit early for the full in the evening before the Jazz festival really kicked off for the evening. We might have to go check out the jazz festival next year, but since we had to drive back to Kinsale that evening, we decided to head back and have dinner in Kinsale instead of staying late in Cork before having to drive back tired in the dark.

Darse, Xan and I ate dinner at a fancy little place in Kinsale called Jolas. We had tried to get into it the previous night but it was full. Jola's is the town favourite restaurant and it turned out to be quite a nice choice. The food was fantastic, but it wasn't the only cool thing about the place. You enter the building at street level, but the main floor of the building was cut out and the tables were arranged below ground level. So you go down a stairwell into a warm room with a very high ceiling (since it goes up for two floors). The walls are beautiful stone, but it didn't feel cold -- they had the fireplace going and it was a very comfy cozy atmosphere. It was a rather nice evening.

The next day, we had a limited amount of time to explore Kinsale before we had to head home. So we spent some time looking through both James and Charles forts, as well as walking through Kinsale by day. Charles fort in particular was really quite a neat place. There was so much space inside the fort to explore that it felt like it would take us forever to see it all. I'm pretty sure we didn't see it all, but we got through a fair amount of it. There was some nice views both inside and outside the fort and it was really quite a good experience!

The drive home was relatively uneventful, and it was good to get home to relax. Doing touristy stuff is tiring! It was a four day weekend, and even with the relaxing we did hiding from the weather on Saturday, we did a lot of walking and sightseeing!

Morgan

Settling In

It's a little crazy to think that we're fast approaching three months in Ireland! It's been a big move, and we totally miss seeing the people we're used to seeing all the time. Thankfully, with this being the internet age, we're able to video chat with people. If you'd like to hook up with us on the video chat, we're on skype and AIM. Give us a shout and we'll organize a time to meet up. It's been pretty nice to be able to chat with both Diane and my families back home. Anyways, back to point form updates (since I'm tired and it's time for bed):

• Last weekend Darse and Xan got us out of our house to go check out Kildare. The main attraction there is the Irish National Stud which is a thoroughbred horse breeding operation of apparently some fame. (I don't exactly know much about horse breeding, but I learned some). We did a guided tour of the grounds, and saw some of their stallions. The most expensive one's stud fee comands €75,000! The grounds there are actually quite lovely, and we got a chance to check out a couple of gardens -- a Japanese garden, and Saint Fiachra's Garden. I got quite a few photos that I'm actually quite happy with, and it was fun to get out of the city!
• Work has started to get busy. Lots of projects are under way now and I'm starting to get into the thick of things. There's still a few moments where I don't feel particularly useful, but on the whole it's starting to feel like I'm settling in okay. Lots of stuff to learn though, that's for sure! This week, we released a new version of the software which introduced matrix tournaments. They're a new format of poker sit and go tournaments, but you play 4 tables at once. Not only do you compete for individual prize pools on each table, but how you do at each table contributes to how you rank for the matrix tournament as a whole. I haven't had a chance to try playing one yet, but it's a pretty cool new feature.
• There's been quite a few nights spent late at the office playing games. In addition to playing poker with Chris Ferguson, he's stuck around a bit longer to play some geeky board games with us. So there's been a few late nights of Ticket to Ride, Blokus, Medici, Aquaretto, Carcassonne, and other fun board games. Chris really liked quite a few of them, so hopefully he'll be back soon to play more of them with us.
• Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here, so we were a bit envious of the food our families were going to be enjoying this past weekend. It's a bit weird not spending thanksgiving with the folks. It was nice to be able to chat with family over the weekend though!
• The desk that we ordered from Argos came this week, so our place is getting a little bit better organized. We also got blinds several weeks ago, so our home is starting to feel a lot more like home.
• The weather here has actually been quite good for the past couple weeks. There's been some rain, but not as much as we might've been led to believe. As a result, we've had a chance to take in some rather pretty sunsets, and some beautiful weather for walking around a bit.

That's all I can think about from this update. Be sure to check out the photos from our visit to the Irish National Stud!

Morgan