Well folks, here we are, five months after having arrived back to Dublin and to be perfectly honest I’m starting to think about what will come next already. I’ve been keeping my head down and getting on with work basically from the moment I arrived back and although things are going as well as I could hope in that area of my life, I can’t help but imagine myself moving on before either A. I get lazy and sit on my laurels for several years for the sake of comfort (if this ever happens I’m sure I’ll wake up one morning and completely flip), or B. I develop a drinking habit that can only be maintained in Ireland because anywhere else it would be considered alcoholism and I’d be expected to seek help. So now, all that remains is to decide what the hell it is exactly that I’d like to do. Sure, no problem.

What you have here is a scene that I have the pleasure of passing every day on my way to work. Quite ugly I know, but that’s what we like to call the ‘charm’ of Dublin. There’s actually quite a lot of that around here, mainly in the form of overturned cars in rivers, bicycles being stolen, buildings going on fire and of course the mindless violence of the delinquent local kids. Now you might say that those things don’t seem too charming but don’t fret, where other countries see serious social issues we see what really counts in defining a cities image - attitude, and plenty of it. Welcome to Dublin.

…wait. And wait some more.

I’m delighted to be able to say that at last I’m back online from the comfort of my own home. Having considered the various options from the seemingly endless stream of cowboy Internet providers in Dublin, I decided to take the plunge with Eircom. Having established that the line may work but that it was impossible to tell for sure until it had been activated and paid for, I decided that it was worth a try and luckily enough it worked! I even had the strange coincidence of having an Eircom salesman come to my door the day after I had ordered the line to be activated, offering a special priced bundle with Internet. Of course I signed his papers and sent him off happy to have made his easiest sale ever and me happy that at last the web was coming.

But then something happened. Maybe he was beaten up by knackers who then tore up all his papers because they like to do that kind of thing or maybe he suddenly realized that his commission wasn’t worth the shit he had to put up with and packed it all in. Whatever it was, those papers never made it to Eircom HQ and two weeks later when my smug glow of expectation was wearing off, I found out that the bleeding order had never gone through. And to extra little kick in the nuts was that I received a bill in advance for the rental of the phone that I didn’t even want if it wasn’t for the fact that I needed it to get connected! Baaa humbug!!!

A couple of calls later, I had ordered it again and this time my expectations weren’t at all as high. In fact, I fully expected to get a bonus invoice for something ridiculous like placing the order so imagine my surprise when I received a slip of paper yesterday saying that a package had arrived that I could collect from the post office the following working day. I picked it up today and again I was amazed when I set it up and got it working all during my lunch break! And all this a full week before I had expected to see any results or to find out that I needed to order it again. Having reduced my expectations to practically zero, Eircom have proven that they can in fact get things right…all you have to do is wait.

Is there anyone that can explain to me why the state of broadband in Ireland is so abymsal? In recent weeks I moved in to a new place that’s a stone’s throw from Dublin city centre. One of the first things I wanted to do was to get a decent internet connection for a reasonable price. As complicated as that sounds, I had hoped and nearly expected that it wouldn’t be much hassle to organise. How wrong I was.

The first obvious choice is the national telecoms provider, Eircom, but since they are intent on ripping customers off with an exaggerated line-rental fee on top of the monthly broadband charge I’ve decided to avoid them on principal. Unfortunately, the majority of other providers piggy-back on their lines so if you want another service you’ll still end up forking over the monthly line rental. The alternative, I thought, was NTL with their connection through the TV cable. Being just about a kilometer from their offices I thought they’d be on the ball but after giving them a call I found out that not only can I not get a web connection, but they can’t even provide me with cable TV.

One alternative comes in the form of those wireless router things that pick up the signal from a transmitter at the end of your street, but apart from the fact that they tend to be a load of crap, the area I’m in doesn’t pick up a good signal, rendering that option a complete waste of money.

And so I’m in a pickle, how can I possibly set up a good quality internet connection at home without having to pay disgracefully inflated rates? Any suggestions? I’ll be in the pub.

Apologies to anybody that has come to the site in the last month expecting some new content. As some of you know, I’ve been going through a lot of changes of late and by that I mean that I’ve moved away from Barna closer to home in cold, windy Dublin, I’ve hunted, found and started a new job with Yahoo! here and my latest big change came last Sunday when I finally moved in to my new place beside the offices here in East Point. As yet I don’t have an internet connection at home, which has obviously crippled my ability to add content to the blog, but that is something that I hope to rectify early in the new year. What’s more I’ve a long list of new photos that I want to fire up on the site. They will give you a rough idea of what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks and months.

All that’s left to say is Happy Christmas to everyone. At this time that means such different things to different people we should all spare a thought for anyone less fortunate than ourselves. Where is this coming from? Well today I donated $100 to a charity helping disadvantaged children in Poland thanks to a thoughtful Christmas gift from the company. Much better than a lump of cash that would more than likely be squandered on needless drinking (although that works too!).

All good things must come to an end and for me that time has come. What I am now hoping is that one good thing can be followed up with another good thing, since that’s why I’ve made the decision to finish with my life in Barcelona. After saying farewell to my workmates almost two months ago (Hi guys!) I’ve had a bit of a rollercoaster ride in all senses of the word. Of course I enjoyed a brief visit home before returning to Barna to get my last glimpse of beach-life with good coffee, crisp beer, beautiful women in abundance and the ever-shining sun. I had a ball - not a care in the world and my finicito or final pay check that served as my pocket-money for the well overdue holiday from late evenings and early mornings. Staying in Cubelles, I was able to get familiar with Sitges, Vilanova, Cunit and (hombre!) PortAventura. Possibly the coolest place I’ve ever visited for going and having a laugh. It was also the first time I’d ridden on a rollercoaster and if I’d heard that Dragon Khan was the only one in the world with eight loops, I may not have made it. In a nutshell, FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

That period of living in paradise without responsibilities of a job has also since come to an end and I’m back in the world of binge-drinkers, players on the pull, bad driving and bloody cold air. On the up side, you can live on what you earn so it’s not all bad. As for earning, that’s something I’m in the process of starting again. With a few opportunites in the pipeline, and after having done interviews in Galway and Dublin, I reckon I won’t have time to run down my balance to zero before I’m on the ladder again. There has been some spectacular news of late but I’m afraid it deserves a post of its own. More on that later folks.

The last couple of weeks have been hectic. Who would have thought that not having a job would leave you with so little time to do the things that seemed routine before! And another thing, now that I don’t have a fixed connection where I’m staying, why in the hell is it so hard to find somewhere that you can use the web without having to deal with a sticky keyboard or a dodgy mouse?

Between Galway, Dublin, Sitges, Cubelles and Barcelona I may not have been able to add to the blog but I have been busy getting some wonderful snaps that will soon feature here. I’ve also managed to track down some of my college projects that will be suitable for the web and they’ll be up in the sandbox before you can say gillipitxi. Take it greasy!

A quick note to say that the trip to Pamplona was fantastic and that photos will be forthcoming just as soon as I get a chance to sit at my own computer. Right now I’m at a Cyber Cafe in Sants, after a great Shish Tawok in the Lebanese restaurant next door. To fill in some details, I got back from Navarra on Monday night around the stroke of midnight and spend all day yesterday in a complete panic trying to move stuff out of the old aparment and in to the new. To do so we rented a PepeCar and after a wrong turn in the north of Barcelona central, were under pressure to get back in time not to fall victim of the €80 fine that I’m sure they must make a killing on. After some hairy moments we got parked and paid in time to go shopping afterwards. So after a bloody manic day running around, Maika made my birthday a whole lot better by getting me my very own PSP, with of course, GTA!!

I’ve just about gotten the sand out of my ears after the trip to Roses and it’s time to pack the bags again for what’s sure to be an interesting trip to Pamplona. Pretty much everyone’s heard of the place or at the very least, the main fiesta of the Pamplona calander - San Fermin. Anyone still in the dark should know that I’m talking about the bull run that goes on every morning for eight days of July each year. As the popularity has grown among Italian, American and other tourists, so has the dread of the locals, to see what used to be a relatively enjoyable week turn in to a beer guzzling, pintxo munching, bull teasing infestation. In recent years, a usual sight would be drunken idiots sleeping in the locals’ gardens or on the very high murals where they could (and have) fall to their peril. To cheer themselves up, the owners of the houses like to get up at dawn and spray as many of these lost souls with cold water as they can to see if they’ll wake up and do something typically stupid!

However, as dreadful as this sounds, those who have grown to resent the main celebration of San Fermin have some comfort in the fact that there is a another date on the calendar that brings the spirit of San Fermin, but not the tourists (yet). This ikle version, otherwise known as San Fermin Chiquito goes on for the weekend and doesn’t feature the encierro (bull run), which believe it or not, is not the only thing to this fiesta! Scheduled for the 23rd and 24th, it just happens to be when I’ll be there, so I’ll get the photos up as soon I get a chance to take them. (d’uh)

As nice as Roses is, you can’t help but feel like a total tourist with nothing but hotels, “traditional” restaurants and souvenir shops around the place. Thankfully there is the Ciutadella, which has been preserved from the strangling grip of tourism in a box. Actually it’s just about the only defining characteristic of the town and ironically it was the place most devoid of people (tourists). See more pics here.