Until Monday. Internet goes offline first thing in the morning and then we throw boxes in the truck and go to the new flat. Where the Internet is off until Monday.
So have a nice weekend everyone and I’ll ‘talk’ to you Monday.
FROM OUT NEW FLAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This week, the last week of the month, is pure hell at work.
You see our Board of Directors meets the first Thursday of the month. So our papers for the meeting go out the Friday before. That’s this Friday.
And these days, I write them. I proof them. I bind them. I post them. And next week? I minute them.
So, yeah, updating not so much happening when I get home from work. Pretty much when I get home from work, I pack and then fall into bed.
Move – 2 days. YIPPPEE!
So I’ve been in Belfast just over 4 years. And boy, has the city changed.
In some bad ways, i.e. traffic has gotten worse, but mostly in good ways. There are more stores opening all the time. The huge Victoria Square Shopping Centre, a real live actual mall (we have a mall, but it is tiny and boring) is opening this year (whoohoo House of Fraser! (no relation) They carry Donna Karan!). We just got an Ikea. We are turning into a real city.
We get more tourists now, also. It helps that Lonely Planet named Northern Ireland one of their top destinations, but I think we would get more regardless, as the troubles are over and we have neat things in this country like Giants Causeway.
And then there is the Ulster Fry. The national dish of Northern Ireland….fried egg, bacon, sausage, Irish soda bread, fried potato bread, baked beans (optional), black/white pudding (optional) and fried tomatoes and mushrooms.
Gotta love a country where the national dish hardens your arteries.
We’ve spent all day today packing. We move in 6 days.
The strangest thing is the refrigerator. We use it as a Rogues Gallery of pictures, mostly of our nieces and nephews, of which we have 12, in an ever changing display. I packed all of those pictures today. Now there is just a blank ‘fridge. Its kinda disconcerting, actually.
There are boxes everywhere, empty bookshelves, blank walls. I have no full length mirror to check my look over the next week. Although I keep glancing at that section of wall, expecting it to be there. All that meets me is wall.
I took my last bath in our current bathtub today. Its a great tub, very deep, I can soak up to my chin, fully covered all the way to my feet. I doubt the new one is as deep.
I told Simon I was feeling a bit sad. He looked at me like I’m nuts, since I have been bitching about this flat for over a year. But this flat has some great memories. A big group of my family eating Chinese in the lounge a few days before my wedding. The same group eating Fish and Chips in the same place a few days later. Simon and I curled up on the sofa watching movies. Good times.
I really can’t wait to move. But we’ve been here for 4 and half years. That’s all of our married life.
Bye flat. See you in the funny papers.
This is a re-post from my now pretty much defunct LJ (not the one under my maiden name, the *other* one under my maiden name that hasn’t been updated since…October 2005!). With some changes.
Its really very strange. I will go months and months without a single person asking me where I am from. And then 10 people will ask me in two days.
I don’t really have an answer to that question. I mean, obviously, I am from the United States. But then people ask me what part. The real true honest answer is:
I was born in Massachusetts. I grew up in Connecticut. I went to Boarding School and 1 year of University in NY. I finished University in Iowa. I lived in California for 7 years. I’ve spent several summers in Ohio. I’ve also spent several summers in Maine.
I usually just give the shorter answer: Connecticut, but I lived in California for 7 years before I moved here.
And then I get asked where ‘home’ is. If home has to be in the US, then home is California, hands down. San Francisco Bay Area, to be specific. Where my brother and his wife and my two nieces live.
So what I really want to say when I am asked where I am from? Belfast.
And what is home? Belfast.
And I really don’t see myself ever going back ‘home’ to the US.
So, as I am pushing this thing all over the internet, I thought I’d tell y’all a little bit more about me.
I was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Connecticut and have lived pretty much all over the US, with the exception of the deep south. I visit the deep south on occasion as my father lives on the Panhandle of Florida, or, as the locals call it, Lower Alabama. But I have never lived there full time.
I went to University at University of Iowa, graduated in either ’94 or ’95 (and you’d think I’d know, since I just uncovered my degree in the Great Flat Clear Out of 2008, but I can never remember. I suppose I could check my CV…) with a BA in Liberal Arts, Theatre Design emphasis. This is why I am now a Personal Assistant. And because when I got done with the damn thing I realized how much I actually hated working in the theatre. Well, I did then, I got over it a little later, but I really didn’t want to do it professionally.
I have gone through a long long process of medication and therapy to get to my current diagnosis of Anxiety Disorder and Borderline Agoraphobia (which is: an abnormal fear of being in crowds, public places, or open areas, sometimes accompanied by anxiety attacks. In case you weren’t sure which phobia that is! Thanks Dictionary.com). I can and do go out in public, but I would be perfectly content to never leave my flat again. Or ever talk on the phone again. If I could, I would live my whole life right here and use the ‘net for everything. I am not currently on any meds, and except for some insomnia, am feeling good!
I live in Belfast (well duh!) with my husband Simon. We’ve been married for 3 years. Our anniversary is 4th September 2004 (which I did not pick for the symmetry of the date (04-09-04) but I do like the symmetry of the date!). No kids. Yet.
Oh and in 12 days, I will be 39 years old. That’s 5th February, in case you want to send me a card or anything. 😉
Did you know that the HMS Titanic was built here? Yup, she sure was, at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards, which still exist today.
The Titanic’s final work was done at the Thompson Dock and Pump-House, which also still exist today, although not in great shape. The Thompson Dock and Pump-House are now ‘owned’ by Northern Ireland Science Park, for whom I work (and no, I am not afraid of being dooced, as I am the Web Mistress from the Park and the only one who knows how to check our referrer logs!!).
NISP is currently refurbishing the Thompson Dock and Pump-House. The first works were done over this past summer and more work is being done now as I write this. We are trying to make it a tourist attraction that will be self supporting. The only way we could get it fixed up was through grants from Environment and Heritage Service, Belfast City Council and Northern Ireland Tourist Board. Our remit is as a Science Park, so it took some convincing of our Board to let us do it at all!
So, there you go, a small fact about Belfast that you might now have known. Don’t worry, there are more coming!
So Simon and I spent the day packing. Its maybe 60% done at this point. Most of the books are in boxes, with the rest scheduled for tomorrow. Then I want to pack up the kitchen and use the stuff that came with our (furnished) flat so it will be done and dusted.
I predict it will all be packed by the end of next weekend.
I am totally shattered. I usual nap on Sunday afternoons but didn’t get to today.
Think it will be an early to bed night. So I’ll probably be up at 5:30. Yay!
Simon and I have a flat in City Centre of Belfast. Our new flat is only one street away from our current flat, so we will still be living in City Centre.
We don’t have a car, so living near the shops is very handy. It takes about a 5 minute walk to get to our local Tesco and all of the other High Street Shops that we like.
A lot of people ask if we live down here because we enjoy the pubs and other nightlife, and we do. But we don’t go out every week or even every month. We are very much stay at home people. When we do go out, we enjoy it, we just don’t go out very much!
What I like about City Centre is the atmosphere. The people wandering the streets. The shops. The diversity. From what I can tell its the most diverse area of Belfast.
But don’t quote me on that, as I don’t really go anywhere else other than City Centre very often!