Misunderestimations...

Was in the office the other day and my work colleague was typing away, writing up something. He turned to the room and asked, "How do you spell Michael?" (The name Michael in Irish is pronounced: Mee-Hall.) Always wanting to be helpful, ;) I started spelling away: "Sure, it's M-E-A-T-B-A-L-L." After everyone in the room started laughing their asses off (except for one other colleague who also thought he was asking about how to spell meatball) I realized my mistake. Whoops. Mee-hall, meatball...same, same.

On the same mispronounciations and general word-mangling tip, I heard this story from a friend recently: She's a flight attendant on Aer Lingus and regularly works the Dublin to US destinations routes. She was standing in the airport in the states while the passengers filled out their flight boarding cards to board the plane to Ireland. An American woman approached her (Why are they always American?!) and pointed to a word on the boarding card. "I don't understand this," she said. "What don't you understand?" asked my friend. "This word," the passenger responded and pointed to the card, "Ser-nom-ie." After realizing that the woman was not talking about tidal waves in Southeast Asia, my friend realized that the word the passenger was pointing to was, "Surname." The correct pronounciation did nothing to help the clueless passenger who still didn't cop the fact that a surname is your last name.

In her travels, my flight attendant friend also ended up staying in the same hotel as a bunch of members of the SWAT team (who were at a SWAT team convention - who knew?). Apparently, their brawn is a whole lot bigger than their brains as a number of them thought that Belgium was in Ireland. Hello? Basic geography people. I told her that she should have asked them if Mexico was in the United States and see how they responded. ;)

Where do these people come from and why, why are they allowed to represent my homeland?!

Pushing up the Slieve

The Bank Holiday weekends always inspire me to do something beyond laundry and a walk round the city centre. That extra day off seems to motivate everyone to take advantage of it. And so, Tommy-boy myself and a few friends found ourselves up in the Mourne Mountains for a day-long hike. The Mourne Mountain range rises abrubtly out of the sea and to an elevation of about 2,700 feet. On the drive from Dublin to Belfast (a drive I know all too well) they come dramatically into view just across the border into Co. Down and I've always wanted to climb in them.

After sorting out all the major details, the group of us picked out a mountain in the range to climb called Slieve Binian. It looked like a reasonable hike of about 8 miles and isn't the highest peak in the range so we thought we could all do it no bother... But sometimes the best laid plans fail... We drove along the coast for miles looking for the beginning of the trail and finally found what we thought was the Slieve Binian carpark...

We jumped on to a half-assed trail and just started to climb. And then we lost the trail but continued to climb. Everyone kept looking round asking, "Is that the trail?" There were a few mirage trails: "That's the trail, I see it up ahead!" Fortunately, since there are few to no trees on these mountains it's near impossible to get lost in them. Yer either going up towards the summit or down towards the sea.

Finally we came upon some other hikers with a map who informed us that we were not climbing Slive Binian but were in fact climbing, Slieve Donard, the highest mountain in the range and in NI. The hikers pointed us back in the direction of the real and actual trail (saving our ankles from prickly gorse and mud slides) and away we went. It was a good climb, with the last peak being the steepest and hardest and if it wasn't for my pride, I might have given up but was so very glad I didn't when I saw the incredible views from the summit.

All in, we were up and down the mountain in six hours, slightly weatherbeaten, midge eaten and with sore feet but otherwise feeling aces. If anyone's up for a hike... I'm in.

Daisy is a Lady

From Jerry Springer to Fat-free Fro-Yo, there are many opportunities to shake my head and say, "Only in America," in that sad world-weary voice (also used for disappointing but slightly amusing children.) It's less often that I can say, "Only in Ireland," (unless we're talking about 43 straight days of rain). That is, untill now.

I came into work the other morning and my work-colleague was talking about a beauty pageant he'd been to the day before. Everyone was fussing over the contestants, dolling them up and getting them ready for show time. These little beauties were shiny-clean, and looking their very best, nails filed, lips painted, and perfectly groomed. You might be wondering what's so unusual about that, Beauty pageants happen every day all over the world, but the contestants in this affair, were not little Jon Benet Ramsays but were, in fact, Fresian Cows. It was an extravaganza of Bovine beauties... The cows were brushed and oiled (to show off their attractive black and white spots). They were placed in "decorative" pens complete with gingham drapes and milk jugs filled with wild flowers. They had their lips painted and their nose-hairs plucked and last but not least, these farmland hotties were fitted with special raised platforms to make them look taller. (No Joke!) After I stopped laughing and got back into my chair, I realised that I was actually disappointed to have missed it. Afterall, how often do you get the opportunity to go to a cow beauty pageant?! Seriously. Only in Ireland. ;)