update

So, for all of you who thought i was in Canada - no, no, I am in Ireland. In a small city called Galway on the west coast. There are loads of pubs, loads of shops, loads of tourists and lots of rain. I finally found a job after an embarrassingly long amount of time and have been pretty happy in it. I am an accomodation assistant. Its not the most inspiring thing - except for my "I am laundry-girl" fantasies. Have secret plans brewing but we will have to wait and see.

I am friendly with an American, an Australian, a Kiwi, and two Canadians. I know two Irish people as friends who aren't family. My accent is thus somewhat unchanged, if somewhat confused.

Ireland has the highest minimum wage in Europe, thus has attracted a whole bunch of workers from the European Union, mainly Poland. The booming economy is called the "Celtic tiger" phenomenon. But Irish people are still quite traditional, they drink a lot and dance traditional dances in pubs - they still speak Gaellic, (well 20% of them are fluent) which I couldn't beleieve, and have Irish Football and a game called Hurling which is like a dangerous version of hockey and quite scarily ancient. They care about these games (and betting on horseraceing) more than rugby and english football.

Slan (that means goodbye)