Murphy's Weather Machine

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Trip Start Mar 23, 2007 Previous
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  Howth, Ireland
Monday, April 23, 2007

Well, the weather has been great this week, until the weekend rolled around that is...so much for my run of luck with Murphy and his weather machine. Anyway, work was the same as always and I have decided to start tallying up my daily consumption of Google food. This comes as a result of, much to Ryan's delight, the difficulty I am experiencing in shaving my newly acquired double-chin! Now to backtrack and try and justify why I consume at least three times the amount of anyone else on the floor, and like to submit the following: I was born and bred in Phalaborwa, home of Oranje's finest and general magnet for any sort of low-life mineworker and army troep in the Southern African region. I therefore learnt that if you don't abuse the system, someone else will - and this case it's free food. All Googlers are ever so nonchalant about the freebies they get everyday - which now include fresh pastries and fruit salad ever morning - and walk on by the smoothie fridge, cruise past the softdrink area and head straight for the bottled water. WTF? As my gran always says - water's only fit for washing in. I don't know. So to make up for their folly, I make sure I get their share of pulverized strawberry and blueberry pulp as well as mine, along with a Mars bar, packet of crisps and a cookie for good measure. You can take the boy out of Phallies, but you can't take the Phalagat out of the boy! Thank you Frans du Toit HS! Anyway, I digress...All the Kooglers hit TFI Friday at Google this week and continued on to Diceys for a farewell party for some KPMG people who were leaving the company. Phil and I went along for the craic (hey, when in Ireland) and if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times - the irish now how to party! It's a bit painful if you have to get Jager Bombs as they are a steep €10 each - so dodging rounds of drinks is a tactic learnt sooner rather than later! I'm still well impressed with my Irish big K counterparts and their team spirit - everyone gets on and enjoys themselves - cos after all, in Ireland, it's always about the good times! So after a Guinness fueled night of hedonism, Saturday was a good excuse to drag myself onto the couch and do sod all, much to my livers delight!
Sunday I decided to make something of the weekend and go check out Glendolough and  the ancient monastery and glacial lakes there. I learnt another lesson when I arrived at what Lonely Planet labeled as the bus departure point and noted that it had now been turned into a train stop. Thanks for the heads up Paddy. So instead I took the DART out of town to the outskirts of Dublin and a little fishing dorpie called Howth (rhymes with both).  It's a fancy suburb on the outskirts of the city really where all the rich have their beach houses. It's on the other side of Dublin bay and is the big blobby piece of land that sticks out. It's also close to where the Celts and the Vikings had a big moering session at the 'pivotal battle of Clontarf in 1014AD'. OK.   
In keeping up with a Hodierne tradition, I decided that in my 3 hrs I was there I was going to see EVERYTHING Howth had to offer - which isn't much granted, but what is there is kinda spread out - so I basically walked myself into the ground. There's a footpath that runs around the peninsula (called the Cliff Path) and as the name suggests, you walk along a cliff with the ocean some way below you. Very scenic walk to my surprise. It goes past Bailey Lighthouse and some bird sanctuaries and is an altogether cool excursion for a sunny Sunday - pity it pissed with rain for most of the time. Not to disgrace the family name and lose my brothers respect, I walked down every path that teetered on a sharp edge of jagged rocks and climb every hill and kopjie covered in thistles and nettles I saw just to find out what was on the other side. Don't ask - it's a Hodierne thing. I'm finding out tomorrow if I'm gonna be able to join Ruan in Barcelona next weekend or not - for the sake of injecting some colour into this travelogue I damn well hope so!

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Howth Countrside

The Bailey Lighthouse

The Kooglers

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