The Sweet Sounds of Home...

It's 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning with CW and DCs still fast asleep. I have always preferred baseball on the radio and for $14.95 for the entire year I can listen to any game on my computer. So here I am in Cork listening to San Diego and San Francisco play in extra innings (Mariners were losing 10-0 so I went with the competetive game). This weekend is a "bank holiday" (Monday off) so Irish people can go away for the weekend and be rained on somewhere else. Things are looking up in the living arrangements. We have looked at about eight apartments/houses--one actually with a big backyard--but the place was twenty minutes out of city centre. We placed a deposit on an apartment within a five minute walk of St. Maries of the Isle (ODC's school) Even so, I still had to get a lecture from four agents in the real estate office about raising the DCs in City Centre. Sorry about the lack of photos at the moment. I am afraid of breaking CW's sister's computer so I am waiting until my computer is up and running before I post photos--hopefully late next week. All in all, apart from the whole "anti-city Children" living, the only slight negative in our first few Irish days is a bit of sticker shock with the prices here. We knew the dollar-Euro rate was horrible, but the cost of everything here is bloody awful--six-pack of Coors Light is 10.99 Euro--you do the math, it's too early here. I have found a couple of pubs which I particularly like. One is owned by a fella whose brother owns a bar in Long Island, New York. Speaking of small world, CW has already run into several friends in the street. Not bad for a town of about 120,000. That's it for now. Again, sorry about no photos. I know my writing isn't quite painting vivid colorful pictures of Irish living-well, mostly my writing but also it is quite grey and drab here. Cheers.