Radio, St. Pats, Phone

A small victory was won last night on Irish radio, Phantom 105 (the awesome station I covered in last week's blog). The victors? Anyone who loves and respects their ears. Here's how it went:

DJ: Let's take some requests. Here's one from Eva and Amanda in Galway. They'd like to hear "Umbrella".....Sorry, girls, this is the one station in Ireland that you won't hear that song on. But I'll play you some nice Elvis Costello instead.

And he did! He played Elvis Costello instead. I had to laugh out loud at that. Irish DJ, cutting pop down a peg.

So how was your Tuesday? Did you make a pointless trip into city centre like me?

I have been making many trips into the city lately to view apartments, but yesterday my butt was kicked into particular high gear with this email from HR:

Kerry

I appreciate that you are putting your all into this!! Grainne has suggested an exit date of 30 September as we have committed the apartment from the start of October. I trust that you will be ok within this timeframe?
Let us know if we can be of any assistance……….
Regards,

Jeni

Ahem: Butt in Gear Time. So I went to view an apt near St. Patrick's Cathedral. This is THE church of Ireland--the place where St. Patrick baptised Irish Catholics. The bell tower was chiming when I got there, and the church gardens were full of flowers and had kids running all around. I've never actually made it to this corner of Dublin, so it was really nice to see. The apartment was down a little lane of houses that were burning peat (something you have to smell to believe--it is great!), and had little pots of flowers outside and all the doors were each painted different colors, red and yellow and blues and blacks. So cute!

But the very difficult subletter of the apartment had already rented the room when I got there. Unbelievable! But still, it was a nice trip into the city and I'm excited to come back on Sunday and go to St. Patrick's sung mass. Pretty cool, huh?

And lastly, I called my investment company in the States yesterday and told them I was calling from Ireland and it was costing me 50c/min. Man, did that put the fear of God in them! I didn't have to wait on hold ONCE, I got transferred to different departments without entering the queues, and I got more than one apology for taking so long to type my information! YES! So, if you ever want fast service, my advice: Call from Europe.