Good Evening Kilkenny!!!!! Nice to be here.....
We arrived on the train early yesterday afternoon. We booked into a really nice new place called Buttler Court. It has all the privacy and comforts of a major hotel chain with the personal attention and care of a B&B. Completed with an in room continental breakfast. Which translates as a basket of fresh fruits, a selection of cereals, coffee makings (nice in-room carafe) a jug of fresh milk, and assortment of juices in the mini-fridge, and butter and jam for the scones that are brought in daily from a local bakery. NICE.
Last night we saw Dom Irrera, Lewis Black, and a guy named Gunther Grun. German guy making fun of how they have won the world cup 3 times, and Ireland has only qualified 3 times….ever. He kept calling everyone Pixie-Heads....is taht inculting? Did I mention it's World Cup kick of time tomorrow...at 7am? Dom Irrera is a guy we used to watch as regular on a show called Dr. Katz. Lewis Black was our #1 reason to watch the Daily show on Comedy Central.
So the place we saw them (Kyteler’s Inn) in is the oldest inn in Kilkenny. Established 1324. That’s right 1324. But it was built in 1280-something. It was owned and run by a woman called Alice Kyteler, who got accused (and later acquitted) of being a witch because she was a wily widow and the other maids were jealous of her prowess, in a nut-shell. In the basement section of the building, the still run the same restaurant that was originally run as a tavern, by Dame Alice. When Matt and I had dinner (and the dinner was superb hearty Irish food) there before the show, I asked how much of it was original, and was told that almost the whole section we were dinning in was original. With the exception that they shaved a bit off the ceiling because it was so low before that customers constantly hit their heads it. The other half of the restaurant was added on later due to popularity, later being the 1500’s. The upper half that we saw the show in was the most recently added, being from the 1800’s. Of course the comedy/night club part was renovated to keep up with modern Irish tastes. I have yet to find a name for THAT décor….
After the show, Matt and I watched a live performance of “auld” Irish ditties, that we departed from when we realized their nature. As we walked out of the pub part of the Inn, I almost ran over Jeffery Ross (another comedian we knew from the Dr, Katz show, and who is most famous for his “break-up” poems). I yell “hey! We couldn’t get into your show, because it was sold out. Your just too popular”. He tells me that if we really really wanted to get into his show (which he had already performed for the night) to tell the box-office people that we need tickets, and they should help us out. Since we are only in town until Saturday afternoon, we have to try to see his bit tonight, or never. So Matt and I go to the box-office today, and they say its sold out and that’s that. So we have figured out that the venue itself can probably get us in if we try hard enough, because they always reserve a certain number of tickets. So, we’ll see. But tonight we are seeing Danny Bevins, who won 2000’s S.F. International Stand-up competition. So, he should be good. Actually we kinda met him last night too…
So there we are talking with Jeffery Ross like he’s one of the regulars from Tied House that, even though I don’t really know them, I’ll talk to if I run into. He’s being gracious enough to let us be touristy fans and take a picture with him. And out come Irrera and Black and all these other comedians, from the last show, and from a bunch of the other shows. We recognize most of the faces (and the ones we don’t are the girl-friends/wives of the posse). I’m dying to talk to them, and at the same time can’t because that would be rude to Mr. Ross, who we’ve just finished praising for his comedic genius. You can’t very well turn your back and say, “sorry I gotta go because I wanted to talk to these guys more than I wanted to talk to you. You were just a bonus” :)
So, as Dom Irrera lead off the pack, we disengaged from Ross, our opportunity to talk to the other big-wigs being lost to common courtesy. We sauntered after them for a few yards, until I got too self-conscious and stopped, pretending to window shop. Matt tied his shoe. We watched them glide off down the narrow cobbled street, promptly get lost, hear Irrera shout “follow me, I’m from Philadelphia”, and they were gone. Jeffery Ross looked back at us at one point, and I know if we had tried to invite ourselves along, he would have welcomed us. He seemed startled to have fans. But the longer Matt and I argued about the appropriateness of following them like the giggling fan-club we were bound to turn into, the farther the chance to do anything about it got. When we finally walked up the same slip-path (Kilkenny’s full of these little side paths between main streets that are covered over in rock and flowers) they had disappeared from sight. Into a pub, or a hotel or something…..we’ll see what happens tonight. :)
And the rest of today was spent admiring the other 12th century buildings around the city. I have to go for now, so I'll explain more about that later...
Just wanted to let you all know that we got our passport stampy extension today.
We are legally here until the 29th of August. Wheather we'll actually stay or not, is yet to be determined :)
joy oh joy
Turns out that the guy that the garage neighbor knew actually was someone who could help us out. Basically all he did was let us jump the que to get our stamp. But that was the difference between spending 5 to 10 minutes at the garda station and spending all afternoon there squished amid babies crying/laughing at the level of a scream, in the crush of 1000 foreign tongues in various degeres of fed-upedness, sandwiched with people who also would much rather be somewhere else. Since all Matt and I are trying to do was not leave the country just yet, and have enough money to keep us afloat for a bit longer, we really didn't NEED to go through that whole process. It's nice to know "someone" :)
I guess at this point I should be having a principalistic argument betweeen my "id" and my ego and/or superego (or some other Freudian part of my psyche) about jumping the line on all those poor distressed people with uncomfortable children who had to take a number. But..... at this point I think Ireland owes me one. Time to give the Allen's a break. So there. Its not like I'm on the dole (aka: wellfare).
Matt got one more call from another recruiter today. Mostly he's biding his time to see if the either of his most recent interviews pan out. In the meantime, both of us are just looking forward to Kilkenny!
We are legally here until the 29th of August. Wheather we'll actually stay or not, is yet to be determined :)
joy oh joy
Turns out that the guy that the garage neighbor knew actually was someone who could help us out. Basically all he did was let us jump the que to get our stamp. But that was the difference between spending 5 to 10 minutes at the garda station and spending all afternoon there squished amid babies crying/laughing at the level of a scream, in the crush of 1000 foreign tongues in various degeres of fed-upedness, sandwiched with people who also would much rather be somewhere else. Since all Matt and I are trying to do was not leave the country just yet, and have enough money to keep us afloat for a bit longer, we really didn't NEED to go through that whole process. It's nice to know "someone" :)
I guess at this point I should be having a principalistic argument betweeen my "id" and my ego and/or superego (or some other Freudian part of my psyche) about jumping the line on all those poor distressed people with uncomfortable children who had to take a number. But..... at this point I think Ireland owes me one. Time to give the Allen's a break. So there. Its not like I'm on the dole (aka: wellfare).
Matt got one more call from another recruiter today. Mostly he's biding his time to see if the either of his most recent interviews pan out. In the meantime, both of us are just looking forward to Kilkenny!
Well, we just found out that the job Matt and I went to Limerick to interview for (well he’s the one that interviewed…) was a no go. It seemed like they were very concerned that Matt would suddenly demand huge amounts of money for the job once he was hired because he’s from the Silicon Valley….oh well.
There are still leads out there :)
And we really didn't relish living in Limerick! Welcome to LImerick, here's your free stabbing :)
So Matt and I have made arrangements to go to Kilkenny this coming weekend under the excuse of going to a comedy festival. Mostly its so we can finally see some more of the country. The thing I want to see most in all of Ireland is about an hours drive away from us, and in three months time we haven’t managed to get there. Its Newgrange. And an adjacent spot, Kowth, and Dowth….ancient burial mound that is still being excavated….. I just really like old things….
So, back to Kilkenny :)
We went there on our honeymoon, but we didn’t see much besides the castle, because we weren’t there long enough. And it was still being renovated. There is so much more to see!!! We are going to arrive Thursday afternoon (and depart Saturday evening), stay next to the Butler house, which is a 1700’s manner house; that night go and see Lewis Black and Dom Irerra, perform. Next day, do sight seeing and that night, go to another show with people we have never seen…. Saturday afternoon is what I’m looking forward to the most….we are going to see Pete McCarthy do a book reading. I’d love to talk to that guy and get some travel tips. His book was such a classic for Ireland travellers.
The whole town is medieval, so there’s no shortage of fun stuff to check out. Some of the sights we missed last time include a tower built in 847(!) that you can still enter and climb the 167 steps to the top so you can see the sweep of Ireland in a 360º panorama. It’s connected to an ancient cathedral too (what isn’t, really?). Then there is a place called the Black Abbey that was founded in the10th century: more really old stuff to look at. I’m also looking forward to seeing the pub Matt and I went to last time around that announced themselves to us as Irelands answer to Cheers, and told the guy they affectionately called Norm to get out from the bar and do the Riverdance, or something Irish because they had visitors. Clearly we were encroaching on “locals” territory, but they welcomed us. I’m curious to see how much has changed, and if the same gang of trivia playing guys is in residence.
Anyhow, I’m sure I’ve misquoted most of the info about stuff we want to see in Kilkenny, because I don’t have the Fodor’s book handy to look at. I’ll let you know how bad I’ve botched it later.
We are off to the park to have our lunch in the park. Speaking of the park….we made the reservations for the shows over the phone yesterday, in the park, while feeding these two little sparrows that are always there. While I was waiting for the girl to see if the shows were available, she stopped and asked if we were sitting in a park, because she could hear the birds singing in the background. Until she mentioned it I hadn’t realized that they were so loud or so many. It was really beautiful. She said yesterday, she had heard on the radio a recording of live birdsong, and that it was the most relaxing wonderful thing to hear. She thought we might have been listening to the same recording. I told her we were getting the live performance. It really is a wonderful park, Iveagh Gardens.
Did I already tell you how funny it was when Matt and I ordered Chinese take-away the other night for dinner (Matt likes hot and sour soup when he has a soar throat), and he didn’t want his fortune cookie? Long enough question for you?
So, Cherry, the Chinese lady we live with, had never heard of a fortune cookie. I offered it to her since, Matt declined, and she bit into it, then asked me if mine had a piece of paper in it too…..
“Yeah….it’s supposed to be your fortune.”
“why?”
“I don’t know. Something to get you to buy cookies?”
“oh.”
It was then that I realized the difference between real Chinese food, and Americanised fast food Chinese. And that people like Cherry (upper-class, basically) wouldn’t be exposed to something as mundane as a little fortune cookie :)
It was refreshing.
There are still leads out there :)
And we really didn't relish living in Limerick! Welcome to LImerick, here's your free stabbing :)
So Matt and I have made arrangements to go to Kilkenny this coming weekend under the excuse of going to a comedy festival. Mostly its so we can finally see some more of the country. The thing I want to see most in all of Ireland is about an hours drive away from us, and in three months time we haven’t managed to get there. Its Newgrange. And an adjacent spot, Kowth, and Dowth….ancient burial mound that is still being excavated….. I just really like old things….
So, back to Kilkenny :)
We went there on our honeymoon, but we didn’t see much besides the castle, because we weren’t there long enough. And it was still being renovated. There is so much more to see!!! We are going to arrive Thursday afternoon (and depart Saturday evening), stay next to the Butler house, which is a 1700’s manner house; that night go and see Lewis Black and Dom Irerra, perform. Next day, do sight seeing and that night, go to another show with people we have never seen…. Saturday afternoon is what I’m looking forward to the most….we are going to see Pete McCarthy do a book reading. I’d love to talk to that guy and get some travel tips. His book was such a classic for Ireland travellers.
The whole town is medieval, so there’s no shortage of fun stuff to check out. Some of the sights we missed last time include a tower built in 847(!) that you can still enter and climb the 167 steps to the top so you can see the sweep of Ireland in a 360º panorama. It’s connected to an ancient cathedral too (what isn’t, really?). Then there is a place called the Black Abbey that was founded in the10th century: more really old stuff to look at. I’m also looking forward to seeing the pub Matt and I went to last time around that announced themselves to us as Irelands answer to Cheers, and told the guy they affectionately called Norm to get out from the bar and do the Riverdance, or something Irish because they had visitors. Clearly we were encroaching on “locals” territory, but they welcomed us. I’m curious to see how much has changed, and if the same gang of trivia playing guys is in residence.
Anyhow, I’m sure I’ve misquoted most of the info about stuff we want to see in Kilkenny, because I don’t have the Fodor’s book handy to look at. I’ll let you know how bad I’ve botched it later.
We are off to the park to have our lunch in the park. Speaking of the park….we made the reservations for the shows over the phone yesterday, in the park, while feeding these two little sparrows that are always there. While I was waiting for the girl to see if the shows were available, she stopped and asked if we were sitting in a park, because she could hear the birds singing in the background. Until she mentioned it I hadn’t realized that they were so loud or so many. It was really beautiful. She said yesterday, she had heard on the radio a recording of live birdsong, and that it was the most relaxing wonderful thing to hear. She thought we might have been listening to the same recording. I told her we were getting the live performance. It really is a wonderful park, Iveagh Gardens.
Did I already tell you how funny it was when Matt and I ordered Chinese take-away the other night for dinner (Matt likes hot and sour soup when he has a soar throat), and he didn’t want his fortune cookie? Long enough question for you?
So, Cherry, the Chinese lady we live with, had never heard of a fortune cookie. I offered it to her since, Matt declined, and she bit into it, then asked me if mine had a piece of paper in it too…..
“Yeah….it’s supposed to be your fortune.”
“why?”
“I don’t know. Something to get you to buy cookies?”
“oh.”
It was then that I realized the difference between real Chinese food, and Americanised fast food Chinese. And that people like Cherry (upper-class, basically) wouldn’t be exposed to something as mundane as a little fortune cookie :)
It was refreshing.
What are you playing at?
That is Matt’s new phrase gleaned from an angry taxi driver when being cut off in traffic...
Quite handy. That one and "Pants!!!!" Since what I think of as Pants are called Trousers here, and what people here think of as pants I call Panties...I guess that’s why it can be used semi-offensively as an exclamation....
Anyhow, we are doing okay….mostly sickies though. I guess the Irish weather finally got to Matt. He’s been sick for about a week now. I’m catching up to him with a soar throat. But we are both still alive. We just don’t wake up until we have to …. :)
Matt’s Airport interview went well.
He thinks :)
They guy flew back to Ennis to do the final cut of interview-ees and says he’ll let matt know about it by the end of this week. Which probably means Matt will have to call him on Tuesday (since calling on Monday is committing prospective-applicant-suicide here). The gent who’s garage we walk by everyday was there again today, and says he’s made a call for us, and is waiting to hear back from the owner of some company that may need computer guys. I love they way everyone you meet here sincerely wants to help. It’s so surprisingly refreshing.
And there goes Matt’s recruiter life-line (cell-phone) yet again….we’ll see who it was in a moment…..
We do need to go to the Garda sooooon and get our passport stampy extended. We have, like I’ve mentioned, until June 4th. I don’t think they are gonna kick us out if we’re tardy, but I’d rather not chance it. Our bookstudy conductor startled me into realizing what the date was at meeting last night by handing my June’s KM. I had no idea how late in the month it had gotten already. Time SERIOUSLY flies.
Sounds like that phone call is yet another recruiter asking for more specific details on what Matt did for the old company. I’m waiting to hear Matt’s veteran answer to the “Why did you move HERE from California?” (spoken in shock), and the almost condescending “you know the pay scale is much less here. You can’t expect to get what you were making before”, to which the answers to are:
1. You live with sun all your life, you take it for granted; or it never changing bores you. Besides, we don’t have castles :)
2. I know, and I’m not expecting to. I will gladly consider any reasonable offer. And I’m not going to tell you what I was making because you wouldn’t believe me.
Well, maybe he doesn’t say it exactly like that. Turns out the pone call was a workmate of one of the other recruiters Matt has already dealt through. He thinks Matt has such a strong resume that he has other people working to place him so they get the commission….
Here are some responses from two of the two biggest interviews Matt has had recently:
Reuters: has decided to interview 2 candidates initially and unfortunately you were not selected for this. The reason was sheer wait of numbers but I did my best to get you in there. I was told that they would be reviewing the 2nd round applicants this week so you could still be in with a chance.
Cork City College: says that short-listing for this post is being organised at the moment. We would hope to have results of that the week after next. You will have sufficient notice if you are short-listed.
So he’s not out of the running….
Now we are looking up places to stay for this upcoming comedy festival in Kilkenny. We need a break after all this job-hunting work :) I can’t believe how long we’ve been here and how little of the country we have seen. We do know Dublin REALLY well now, though. :)
Cheers
That is Matt’s new phrase gleaned from an angry taxi driver when being cut off in traffic...
Quite handy. That one and "Pants!!!!" Since what I think of as Pants are called Trousers here, and what people here think of as pants I call Panties...I guess that’s why it can be used semi-offensively as an exclamation....
Anyhow, we are doing okay….mostly sickies though. I guess the Irish weather finally got to Matt. He’s been sick for about a week now. I’m catching up to him with a soar throat. But we are both still alive. We just don’t wake up until we have to …. :)
Matt’s Airport interview went well.
He thinks :)
They guy flew back to Ennis to do the final cut of interview-ees and says he’ll let matt know about it by the end of this week. Which probably means Matt will have to call him on Tuesday (since calling on Monday is committing prospective-applicant-suicide here). The gent who’s garage we walk by everyday was there again today, and says he’s made a call for us, and is waiting to hear back from the owner of some company that may need computer guys. I love they way everyone you meet here sincerely wants to help. It’s so surprisingly refreshing.
And there goes Matt’s recruiter life-line (cell-phone) yet again….we’ll see who it was in a moment…..
We do need to go to the Garda sooooon and get our passport stampy extended. We have, like I’ve mentioned, until June 4th. I don’t think they are gonna kick us out if we’re tardy, but I’d rather not chance it. Our bookstudy conductor startled me into realizing what the date was at meeting last night by handing my June’s KM. I had no idea how late in the month it had gotten already. Time SERIOUSLY flies.
Sounds like that phone call is yet another recruiter asking for more specific details on what Matt did for the old company. I’m waiting to hear Matt’s veteran answer to the “Why did you move HERE from California?” (spoken in shock), and the almost condescending “you know the pay scale is much less here. You can’t expect to get what you were making before”, to which the answers to are:
1. You live with sun all your life, you take it for granted; or it never changing bores you. Besides, we don’t have castles :)
2. I know, and I’m not expecting to. I will gladly consider any reasonable offer. And I’m not going to tell you what I was making because you wouldn’t believe me.
Well, maybe he doesn’t say it exactly like that. Turns out the pone call was a workmate of one of the other recruiters Matt has already dealt through. He thinks Matt has such a strong resume that he has other people working to place him so they get the commission….
Here are some responses from two of the two biggest interviews Matt has had recently:
Reuters: has decided to interview 2 candidates initially and unfortunately you were not selected for this. The reason was sheer wait of numbers but I did my best to get you in there. I was told that they would be reviewing the 2nd round applicants this week so you could still be in with a chance.
Cork City College: says that short-listing for this post is being organised at the moment. We would hope to have results of that the week after next. You will have sufficient notice if you are short-listed.
So he’s not out of the running….
Now we are looking up places to stay for this upcoming comedy festival in Kilkenny. We need a break after all this job-hunting work :) I can’t believe how long we’ve been here and how little of the country we have seen. We do know Dublin REALLY well now, though. :)
Cheers
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