Archive for 'Theories'
fast-swing-10 is the new theme
Posted on July 22, 2007, under Living in Germany, Theories, daily life, irishblogs.
Finally I got sometime to fix up the blog and to make it that little bit nicer. It’s called fast-swing-10 and it I must say I like it.
So, back to more important things, myself and L are back in Munich after over almost 4 week long holiday. We hit Boston,NYC ,Athens & the Greek Islands. The flights with BA were much better than with LH the previous year. One the return flight from Boston they even had on demand (which got me hooked on Entourage TV show) !
Heaven knows how far we actually travelled, driving,flying,sailing & walking, we did drive almost 1k miles in the US. The 1 week cruise (with EasyCruise) around the Greek was just fantastic. It’s great to wake up every morning and to have a whole new island (and a few pages of Lonely Planet to read) to discover. Here is a list of the Islands we hit.
- Piraeus (Athens)
- Milos
- Ios
- Amorgos
- Naxos
FolegandrosParos- Serifos
I think that Ios would have to be the nicest place we visited, followed by Naxos. These are the two biggest islands on the trip. EasyCuise was nice for the price we paid, we ended up paying about €200 for the both of us for the week, which was pretty cheap. Or bar & drink (& coke) bill was closer to €350. There was a few situations where the staff didn’t really act so professionally, and didn’t have that polished appearance. Maybe this is due to their lack of training, or maybe it was just a big difference from coming the US to their. One of the strangest things, and most dangerous was on a planned trip organised by the boat staff. There was a mini bus that could hold 18 people. But 19 people had signed up. So these two people were forced to sit on extra chairs brought onto the bus. Once chair was positioned between the driver and the front passenger and the other one was in the gangway in the middle of the bus.
That being said we had a great time, and met some really nice people (hi to Matt & Paula, Chris & Holly, Glen & Lisa). The beaches in Greece were great, and the water was perfect for snorkelling. If you ever get the chance to go to Greece do ! It’s a great place and the people are super friendly. Once on the subway in Athens, L was lugging her baggage down a few steps and a young girl asked her did she need help ! So that’s a few words about the holiday (email me if you want to see the pics).
It’s good to be back in Mucich !
upgrade and crash !
For some reason the theme I had “Soleil” was causing problems when I upgraded earlier today to Wordpress 2.2, it wasn’t allowing me to login and post. So for the moment this place is looking rather plain with the default theme (even though I saw something on Digg yesterday, 100 top themes for wordpress so maybe I will check that out). I got some ideas on how to fix the problem [here]. Anyway I’ve about another 4 blogs to update !
EDIT : Here is the list on Digg !
What you should be watching …
Here is a quick run down on what I’ve been watching in the last 3 months
- The Sopranos - (season 1 -4 at the moment) great drama, and very entertaining.
- The Office US - great writing by Ricky Jervais and probably the funniest shows around.
- Greys Anatomy - One for L but still a interesting show. I hate the way they do superimpose the main characters problems with patients ones.
- Lost - Another addictive program. There was a bit of a lull in the middle of Season 3, but it’s back on track !
- Heroes - I’ve just started to watch this and it looks interesting. It’s supposed to be the hottest thing on TV this season.
So there you go ! These things (and Joost) make living in Germany much easier.
Happy Birthday Me !
Posted on March 29, 2007, under Theories, daily life.
Well seeing as I am the only person who can write a new post, I better put this up. Today I (Paul Richard James Savage) am 27 years old, in my late twenties so to say. I would like to thank my parents for making such a beautiful specimen of a fine son, my sister for moulding me and bashing me into shape and to L for putting up with me and getting me tickets to see the Boston Red Sox for my pressie.
And another thing to make me happy today, is that I got paid from work. What a nice pressie !
God I Love Food
Posted on March 25, 2007, under Living in Germany, Theories, daily life.
This weekend was quite the gastronomic weekend. Here is a pic of what I had on Friday night :
It was some fine ribs from Restaurant Rusticana (www.rusticana.de) is near Ostbahnhof and well worth a visit. I think they were the nicest ribs I’ve ever had in my life. Properly cooked with an excellent sauce on top. They went down a dream with some Starkbier (extra strong German Beer, served during Lent) If you visit do remind me to bring you here !
And then Saturday myself and A went on and all you can eat Sushi adventure, watching the nice fresh fish zoom around on the Sushi Train was good fun. It was the first time I’ve had all you can eat Sushi, and I think I must have polished off more than 20 plates of the stuff. At the end of it all I was so stuffed I thought I would need one of these
Apple iPod Shuffle, grrreat !
I got a present of the little apple iPod Shuffle (2G, 2nd Generation, not 2GB), and I must say that I am the happiest little boy in work today. It just clips on to the end of my jumper and away I go.
Now I can drown out the noises of the fecker to my right talking all baby talk on the phone 
Declaring a Republic of Connaught
Posted on December 24, 2006, under Theories, irishblogs.
Looking around the net today I came across this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Connaught. Apparently in 1798 the Republic of Connaught was declared with with French military support during the Irish Rebellion.
So just imagine if it had been successful and grew even larger, we could been speaking French instead. From Wikipedia “The republic was proclaimed following the victory of French and Irish forces at the Battle of Castlebar under the leadership of French General Humbert. The president of the Republic of Connaught was John Moore”.
But sadly “Ultimately defeated by Cornwallis at the Battle of Ballinamuck the republic ceased to exist and the Kingdom of Ireland was absorbed into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801″.
Other countries that could have been can been seen here, like poor Lajtabánság that existed for 32 days.
I’m back … with the help of Aerlingus & Ryanair
Posted on December 20, 2006, under Theories, irishblogs.
There’s been a few reports of fog in Ireland and the UK. I somehow made my way home through the fog yesterday. It involved the following events, in no particular order.
- eating 2 panninis (one in Germany, the other in Ireland), drinking 4 coffees (1/3)
- getting a flight from Dublin, at 11:30am, which was delayed 50 minutes due to weather problems (see pics below)
- landing in Dublin and waiting for 6 hours for a flight to Cork
- getting a fright seeing that Aer Arran had cancelled all their flights to Cork and to many other destinations.
- stealing some free WLAN at the airport as well as some electricity, near the check-in section I could get a good reception, but it was disrupted by people standing in front of me.
- seeing a young lady (21 or so) breast feed her kid opposite McDonalds and the look of disgust/intrigue from people eating their Big Macs.
- landing in Cork and surprised by the fact that there is a Starbucks and a Subway there !
The pics of fog, after landing in Dublin yesterday:
During out flight the captain of the Ryanair flight mentioned that conditions in Cork were just below the minimum to land the 737-800, and we might have to divert. Thankfully 15 minutes later were were safely braking on Cork Airports runway. The weather doesn’t seem to be getting better, today there is 160/400 flights cancelled by BA alone in the UK !
So the trip back took 12 hours, where as before when there were direct flights between Cork & Munich it took only 4.5 hours to go door to door. Maybe when aerlingus get to read my other blog post they will put the Cork/Munich route back into operation.
Angry Little Paul vs. Aerlingus
Today I get the following email today from AerLingus.com
You can now simply logon to www.aerlingus.com and click on “Manage Booking” from the home page to pay your baggage fee in advance.
You will need to know your Booking Reference as well as the Departure Airport, Arrival Airport and the email address of your booking.Baggage Policy
Short-haul Flights (UK/Europe):
If you are travelling on or after the 17th January 2007 and your original booking was made on or after the 9th August 2006 then new baggage fees and rules will apply to your journey.Details are as follows:
Checked-In Baggage:
Pay online prior to day of departure:
4 euro fee for every bag checked in for each flight.
(Facility to pay online available now.)Pay at the airport on day of departure:
8 euro fee for every bag checked in for each flight.Cabin Baggage Allowance (no change):
A maximum of 1 Bag per passenger weighing no more than 6 kgs.
Thank you for booking Aer Lingus.
to I sent my response which was
Dear Sir/Madam,
I find it disappointing that you would inform me of such extra charge 2 months after I have booked with you. It would have beem fine if you stated it at the time of booking. But I am more than annoyed that you would come along and tag on some extra nonsense charges like this.
Let me tell you that this will probably be the last time I fly with aerlingus due to your underhanded techniques for extorting money from customers. Do you want me to pay you the extra baggage fees that I have previously flown too ? I guess if there was a way you could, you would.
What happens when I get to Munich airport and refuse to pay this fee ? Will you refuse to accept any of my baggage ? As far as I see it, we have a contract and it is up to you to withhold it. Failing to honour your commitment, or holding me to a ransom, shows alot about how you treat your customers.
and the part of your email
“This email is generated by computer and does not accept replies.
Please do not send email to this address as they will not be responded to”fails to impress me, so hence I am sending this to your “Customer Service” in Munich, Germany who I have gotten a reply on a query in the past.
Please feel free to submit this email to someone who can at least explain WHY you are doing this. Rather than just saying
You can now simply logon to www.aerlingus.com and click on “Manage Booking” from the home page to pay your baggage fee in advance.
Which doesn’t really tell me anything now, does it ?
Regards,
P
Let’s see if they will respond. Frankly I think it’s poor out of them to do this. And I want to register my indignation.
In a bar…
I went to Tollwood Christmas Market yesterday with Lauren and I was at the bar ordering 2 beers to go along with dinner (which was lovely). So the guy gives me the beers and the following conversation goes (in german of course ;))
Me : eh, there is something on the glass
Male Waiter : oh, let me see. okay I’ll get you a new one
Female Waitress : it’s only a little lipstick
Male Waiter : and yes, because of that he wants a new one !
So I guess there was some in fighthing going on there. So I enjoyed my lipstick free beer and pasta. (funny my little conversation doesn’t really sound as funny now that I put pen to paper). And wandered around the nice market for a bit.
The update with me is that I’ll be back in Ireland in less than a week, 19th –> 28th. Which is the first time I am back all year. I did get to meet all facets of my family, just not at home. I’ve already planned another trip back to the Mutterland (Motherland) at the end of Jan, for my dad’s 60th. Which will mean I’ve come home 100% more times than last year.