PS I Love You

So I have some updating to do… a lot of exciting things have occurred. Let’s begin with the premiere of ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging’…It was adorable! I felt like I was fourteen again and throughout the movie I cried, sighed and laughed. After the film, we went to the after-party. The ‘stars’ of the film were all there. The boys were cute. Well…they looked cute on the big screen and the band was good looking from the stage but then when I saw them face to face I realized that makeup and airbrushing can sure do a lot and they all definitely looked to be not old enough to drink (and the drinking age is 18). So that was wayyy out of the question. Good movie though. I don’t believe it is coming out in the states but purchasing or renting the movie would be well worth it. I think Aunt Shell would like it a lot.

Work took us to the Horse Races on Thursday night. I have never bet on anything before, and I made two small bets on beautiful horses. Lost them both, so that was a bummer. The races were followed by a Girls Aloud concert. Everyone loves them here, and I don’t understand the fascination. I was not impressed. We left and went to a comfy pub/café with the co-workers for a little while before calling it a night.

At work I have been continuously working on the Retail Council and some random little projects. Lillian is eager to give me things to work on that I can use in my portfolio later, which is good. They treat me very well here and I feel like a princess being pampered with premieres and fancy lunches and parties and whatnot.

After work on Friday I wondered around looking for this vintage store for ages and never found it. I think it must have closed down since the address is non-existent. Sad for me.

Danna and I left super early on Saturday morning for what turned out to be a perfect weekend.

BACK UP… I forgot a very important story!! Thursday morning I got into work and was told to walk around the block to see Keanu Reeves. I left immediately. He was sipping on a cappuccino outside of the Covent Garden hotel (like 30 feet from the entrance to Bauer). After walking past him about 3 times, I ducked into an ally across the street from him and took a paparazzi shot. Then I came back to the office and recruited a girl to go with me so I could get a picture with him. She agreed and I then introduced myself to Mr. Reeves, got a picture, told him he looked good, and now we are going to get married and I’m going to be famous by association.

Okay, so we are not really going to get married but I did meet him. (For proof check my fb pic).

So the weekend:

We arrived in Dublin and decided to walk around and observe the city without a map for a while. We saw St. Patrick’s cathedral which is located on St. Kevin Street (Kevin was meant to be born on St. Patty’s day!). The Georgian doors were really good and the history behind them was interesting, especially how the one that is different than all of the others (it is a double door) was because the mayor was visiting and refused to walk through a single door so they had to change it and it is now very intricate and has a fancy white design on it. I thought the doors were fun.

We sat in a park and enjoyed the nice weather then made our way to a pub to try a traditional Irish coffee. As much as I hate whiskey, it was really good! We went to the Guinness storehouse, and I tried my first pint of Guinness. Not a fan. It was a weekend of a lot of firsts for me, actually.

After struggling to find a restaurant for dinner, Danna and I had to settle for this sketchy burger joint. No one warned us that the Irish don’t like to eat after 8 o’clock. Oh well... the burger was sketchy and good enough. We met some equally sketchy men at a pub in the Temple Bar area, and literally ran out of the place away from them.

My favourite part of Dublin was the live music throughout the streets in Temple Bar. They bands and individual musicians were great. I purchased a few cds actually, and made them all very happy I am sure.

We got to do some shopping on Sunday and found a great restaurant for traditional corned beef and cabbage boxty. Danna’s mom always made corned beef and cabbage for st. pat’s day and she was determined to try it somewhere in Ireland. We succeeded and it was good! As soon as we were seated at dinner, in the basement…this man stood up and started giving a toast to the entire room in a different language. Really weird. We then realized that everyone else in the room was together and there for a work function deal from Germany. I think they forgot to reserve a table for us and threw us into their banquet kind of. It was strange but we ended up meeting a few of the younger guys and going dancing with them after dinner.

When I say younger, they were 19 and acted as though they were about 15. Danna’s boy was loving her and we were just having a good time dancing and enjoying our wine. It ended up being a really late night followed by an early morning. We had to be up to catch a coach for our ‘Wild Wicklow Tour.’ It was beautiful! We stopped by the coast, then went to the Guinness Lake and toured the hills of Wicklow.

We stopped by St. Kevin’s monesory. GET THIS. As we were walking from the bus, I saw three girls and one was wearing a Hempfield sweatshirt. I didn’t think it was possible but yep! From Hempfield.. in Lancaster. We got to talking and I found out they knew Mark, and his ex-girlfriend was there. It was crazy.

So we kept walking toward the park and ran into more Hempfield people who I either knew or I knew their siblings (Greg Vardaro’s sister and Zach Murphy’s sister were there). I met Marky’s girl, and she was so sweet and so pretty! I was in shock and looking pretty dirty, which is embarrassing slightly. But that was a very ironic and small-world 30 minutes. Of all the places that I could have been, and all the people that could have been there…crazy! Danna and I were loving it.

Walking through the park was beautiful, and it really reminded me of PS I Love You. Maybe because we were in the town where they filmed the movie!! So cool. We tried some more traditional Irish food and took the scenic route back to Dublin on the coach. The tour guide was a great time, and he loved us for sure.

Overall.. the weekend was perfect. It was an amazing holiday weekend, and was more than we expected. The airport was a different story. We had issues finding food, and then once we found it we were not allowed to go into that area. It was difficult but we survived, and made it home to London safely...and tired from the 4 hours of sleep a night we were averaging.

Back at work today, and dreaming about the rolling hills of Ireland. It is prettier than the scenes from PS I love you. It was just breathtaking.

Currently, I am working on finding another vintage store because I am determined to find one like the one that I searched for forever on Friday. It will happen. No worries.