Some news from Ireland

It has been a long time since I wrote about our life in Ireland last time. Actually, it was more than 18! months ago. I will try to fix that now 😉 .

How are we here? always good 😀 . In the summer 2006, I went for my first big trip to Australia and New Zealand and, of course, I did not forget to write a diary about it. While I was in Australia I talked to Ondra or Palko sometimes and once Palko told me about his big plans. I asked him if he wanted to go traveling with me next time (that time he could not as he only started working in Tradesports). He told me, he would prefer going to another country, live there and travel around. It made me laugh because anytime I planned some trip, Palko always stayed at home as he was tired 🙂 . Nonetheless, it is getting better and sometimes Palko goes for some trip with me (after my several-days persuasion 😉 ).

Last summer, we had to move out of our lovely flat in Tandy Court to a house at Cameron Square. The house was not one of the best and the rent was quite high but we got used to it and in the end we liked living there. There was lots of big rooms in the house, so we did not have any problem accommodating a whole band Denudace, which was here on a concert tour. Only in the winter we suffered. The house was full of holes, probably for ventilation’s purposes and it was very hard to heat this house. There was always cold inside. It got slighly better when we filled all holes with pieces of plastic, but we always popped our eyes out when we saw our gas bill 🙂 . But I have to admit that the garden was really huge and we could do barbecue and park our bikes there (yep, even I have bought a bike).

Last July, we had to move again as our landlord wanted to go back to his house at Cameron Square. Ondra and Lida decided to try living on their own (probably because Palko was always at home with them 😉 – I am just kidding) and therefore Palko and I had to look for some place where to stay as well. My plan about camping in parks was not good enough to Palko so we found a very nice flat with two bedrooms. It is located near Tandy Court, where we used to live just ten months before. The rent is a bit high though the flat is super and big. The only thing we miss is a garden. Bikes have to be parked in a hall next to handrail but I do not mind that much as I started walking (and read while walking) to my work again 🙂 .

Also Ondra and Lida got their own flat in a house at Kilmainham. It is a bit far from the city centre but the flat is nice and two storey. They had and I think they still have a trouble with wasps, which took over their bathroom, and also with neighbours, who wake them up regularly every night. I would say they got used to it already though. Neither them have a garden so our barbecue’s time is over 🙁 . And we always stuffed ourselves with meat 🙂 .

Our moving was also interesting. We decided to have a party the night before moving and we invited lots of people. In the end there was about 15 of us and we celebrated not only our moving, but also my and Ondra’s bithdays (I got a cake from Lida and Ondra so we polished it off 🙂 ). It was also our leaving party. The day after we moved all our stuff to our new flats thanks to Vlastík (a friend of Libor) with a car. Although we do not live together anymore, we regularly meet up every weekend for a pint 😉 . For me it does not make any difference since I was never at home and if I came late in the night, everybody was sleeping already 🙂 .

I still train aikido and last July, exactly for my 27th bithday, I did my first dan grading and became a holder of a black belt. I did the grading in České Budějovice and my mum was not that happy about that. I came to the Czech Republic for 10 days and I spent 7 of them by training aikido 🙂 . Now I have been trying to order my hakama (a black trousers) from Japan. I would like to get my name in Japanese embroidered on it. At first I did not know how to translate my name to katakana (Japanese alphabet) and after Tetsu (a guy from our dojo) translated it for me, I did not know how to fill it in a webform. So I have to give a call to a company in Japan and ask about it which is not that easy as their business hous are when here is between midnight and 8am. I always sleep at this time. But I will order it once 😛 .

In addition to that I started training Taekwondo in January and I am a holder of a yellow belt at the moment. I am preparing myself for my next grading in October and also for a national competition a week later. Of course I have to go there. Everybody can compete in sparring, patterns and breaking techniques. I will not be able to do breaking techniques (probably because I could break my arm or leg instead of a board 😀 ), but I have tried that already and it is not that hard 8) . But I will definitely try sparring, just have to train a bit since my kicks are not that good.

We also started travelling, Ondra and Lida are in Canada right now. Lida started working in a customer service department in Lufthansa in February and she got some special deal for flight tickets. Therefore they decided to take two weeks off and go to see the world 🙂 . Last news from them were about their visit of Toronto and they were talking about hiring a car and travelling somewhere to a countryside and to Niagara falls. If they were not eaten by a bear (I hope they were not as Palko and I gave Ondra a lecture about dangerous world 🙂 ), we will hear about them soon.

We had a very bad summer here in Ireland, it was raining for nearly three months and we could not go for any trip at all. When it stopped in mid August, I started going camping with anybody who was willing to go. But I already wrote about it. Palko, I and Ken (a colleague from my work) decided to fly to Rome for four days in November. In addition to that I would like to go to South America for a month hopefully next March to see my old friend Ricardo, who is back to Chile over 1 year. Palko said he would go with me, so we will see.

In case anybody is interested in knowing about Letyn, one of the founding members of our fellowship of friends in Ireland, so he is at home in Pardubice. He has still been working for an Irish company and now he is going to establish a Czech branch of it. He has already found an office and an employee and he is looking for the second one. Moreover his bosses are coming this week for a visit so I hope he will show them also something better than Pardubice 😛 .

And what about our English? I have to say that after more than two years of living in Ireland, I am almost happy with my English. I can express nearly everything I want, I can understand pretty well and in addition to that I have lots of Irish (and non-Irish too) friends who teach me some slang and Dublin accent :-). Ondra’s and Palko’s English are probably the same.

And what next? We all decided to stay here for at least another year, until our leases expire. But I said to my boss that I would like to stay indefinetely and I will tell him when I change my mind.

Hello from Ireland say Pavlík, and also Palko, Ondra and Lída

PS: As usually I would like to apologise to anybody I managed to insult, and also to anybody I did not (maybe next time) 😀 .