Kerry Trip

One Fine Week End , we all got up early in the morning ....Hurry Burry..Rushing ..Where ? Whats Going on ?
Rushing to Ring of Kerry, Yes We Planned for a two day trip to Dingle(for Dolphin Ride, Not on Dolphin to see Dolphin...) and Ring of Kerry.Its Planned trip ,our colleagues made it perfect from a private bus to stay it was on the mark.
First Day Evening we arrived dingle, Ferri Trip on Atlantic Ocean for Dolphins , Not Much but luckily we saw one dolphin which was jumping up and down in the sea water !!!

Next Day was Ring a Ring a Roses ....Started Revolving the Ring.After Revolving we reached Killernay an another tourist destination in Ireland , we had lunch there (dont expect sambar rice and poatato curry), Its only the Junk Foods Called Burgers and Pizzas.

Surprising Things,Myself and Athlone

1. First Thing , I Surprised was , This is a city of 14 thousand People.
2. No Traffice Constables , Most of the People here could be so kind or they respect the laws ,yes especially trraffice rules,I was quite surprised that there were no constables.Though People follow the traffic signals (cars wait for people who cross the road (zebra lines))
3. Weekends Starts from Thursday,People started flooding Pubs on thurday evenings.
4. Largely Women are employed on most of the Servicing sectors like banks,post office and pubilc relation offices or libraries.
5. I could see the sunshine till 10:00 Pm in the evening.
6. Proper Queues for the public transports.
7. Women Barbers and 10 Euros

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Yes , I felt how true the above statement.I discovered a cook , Its Me.
Started Cooking ...because....mmm Reasons could be ...No Indian Food Avaiable or Indian Foods are costly or No other Job After coming out from office.....
Well , truely Speaking Indian Foods are avaiable ,I can't afford them, Even If I afford them i have to come back india with empty hands hahaha...or not surprisingly with debt too.

Initially i found it difficult , Some time Salt goes more , Other times Chilly goes more....Learning the balance was tough...But after some weeks its cool , kaeswar become a cook,yet another time pass.
Me Happy that one more skill set i can add it to my resume :)

St Patricks Day

About St. Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated worldwide by Irish People, is feast day which annually celebrates Saint Patrick (385–461), one of the patron saints of Ireland, on March 17, the day on which Saint Patrick died. The day is the national holiday of the Irish people.
-Thanks WikiPedia :)
On this day we went to dublin to watch the St.Patrick's day parade,It was so Colorful,We really enjoyed watching the parade for almost 3 hours, without knowing that we haven't sat for hours.
That was the second visit to dublin, Yes First time I landed in Dublin from Paris,Yes Dublin is the Capital of Republic of Ireland(Because the Northern Ireland is Part of U.K).
Even though Paris was by first foreign city , Still i was not out of the airport , so i can't feel that i was there in London.
This was not in case of Dublin , because Dublin was the port of exit , from where i can reach Athlone , My New Work Place for some short while.

Time Passes in Athlone

Week Ends are Longer than Week Days Hahaha.....

Westmeath Library
So , we people thought of becoming a member in the local library, We joined.
The Fee for Membership is 7 Euros.We can borrow around 6 Books. They have descent collection of books , and a small number of CDs and DVDs , Not Flimys , Its all Research and Documentry related Dude!!!

....Apart from this ,,mmm Ya there is a Theater near by Golden Island, We Never Visited !!! Probably thinking to get atleast once.

Then Roaming around the Shannon River Side ....

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Inital Life in Athlone

I felt a lot of difference in the life style , Ofcourse it has to be ,Its Ireland and they are Irish....

Since i am bascially from 2nd tier city of tamil nadu (Trichy) , So the transistion to cities (Chennai,Hydrabad and Bangalore) in India was a quite exciting expernice , So why cant a Foreign land , Where a different new people with a different culture !!!!!.

About the Life Style in Athlone

Generally shops open at 10:00 Clock in the morning and closes at 6:00 in the evening , very few late and early shops are visible.

The Reason , may be because

less population

climate is not predicatable (most often cold , windy,rainy ., rarely sun shine)

Here in petrol bunks people themselves have to fill their vechile tanks, self service !!!!!

Week End starts here from Thursday ...People start Boozing Hahaha....

We can see the PUB Culture

We have a Athlone's Spenzer Plaza , Athlone's Forum what ever you call , people here call as Golden Island , it is a Shopping mall in Athlone , If i am right probably it may have not more than 20 shops inside.


TESCO has a branch in Athlone

Saravana Stores of Athlone not exactly but compartively it is cheap.You can get most of the things you require for surviving comfortably.Like Daily Vegtables , Breads, Chicken,Beef , Pork,Cigars,Flowers,Milk,Curd,Biscuits,Choclates,USB Drives,Cookers,Magazines,CDs DVDs..etc.,

Aldi too
This is another Shop like TESCO , but not as big as TESCO, near to out Apartment.

So the Initial Life , for one and half month went just like Exploring , Wondering , Comparing ,Pitying...

....

Some More Pics in Athlone

Note :
These Pics are taken with the mobile Sony Ericsson 75oi

Bought a Mobile

Atlast after one and half years , i bought a mobile phone because of the need to have in touch with my family.This was my second mobile phone , before one and half years i was using nokia 1100 a very basic model.Thats was serving my needs more than nothing.Now i bought a sony ericsson k750i model which is medium range phone for £159 s with £75 talk time so 159-75=84, total cost is £84(Rs.,4700) which was a good deal.

Accommodation Athlone

Since my colleagues were there in Athlone , i already booked for the double bed room apartment which costs a monthly rental of £700(around Rs.40,000).
It was a very good apartment with heaters , electric stoves, washing machine, Microwave ovens,bed,and bath tubs.Hmmm good balcony too have a very good view.
Still Costly when compared to my Home land (India).
All the Entrances in the apartment are digitally secured, to access the entraces we have to key in the access codes. that was quite amazing for me.

My Travel to Ireland

Flight was about 02:20 am at bangalore India, thats was a Air France Flight,i was accompanied by my family till aiport(Bangalore),my lovely son was also there , i checked in the airport around 11:00 clock on 2 nd Feb 2007,Since this was my first flight travel , a bit excited. The flight was from bangalore to Paris, and from i have a transit flight to dublin. Paris Airport was really good , it was very big , since i boared in bangalore i could feel the difference.i got the window seats in the flights , expected by the first time travels so as me ! I was roaming around in paris airport , since the transit flight was a bit delayed, so i got some 45 mins gap to roam around the paris airport.Then atlast the City Jet arrived , we boarded at 10:50 am on 3 rd Feb 2007, Here too the window seat !!! , it was a nice journey..... Got down at Dublin , Searching for my baggage , since there was a quite reasonable queue in the immigration office , i got my baggage at last...then searching for Money exchange stall, there i exchanged some traveller's chequeue to euros., With that i came out of Dublin Airport there i got a taxi to athlone it is around 125 kms , it took around around 2 hours , he charged me around 220 euros (Rs 12,500) , i paid and got down at Ardri Apartment , which is near KFC, ...... ---Venkateswaran Ponnusamy