Sep11

A Bulgarian Adventure

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A Bulgarian Adventure

Tuesday, 28-April-2026 through Saturday, 02-May-2026


Andrea’s friends got married! We hopped on a plane to go visit! It was an excellent adventure!

I’ve just been a little globe-hopper, now, haven’t I?



To be honest, that’s exactly what I’d hoped for when I first started imagining this move to Europe. Ryanair flights are cheap, security is efficient, and air-time is short… I’d had all these dreams of spending weekends away at various exciting locations throughout the continent.

It hasn’t happened that way, unfortunately, and that’s one of the many little things I’ve been frustrated by. Classwork took up weekends during the MBA, and job applications (and their attendant anxiety) took over the weekends afterward. Events and sales for Hurley Ceols took over after that, and now…

Well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now – there’s a wedding to go to!

To be fair, this wasn’t a traditional Bulgarian wedding – I don’t know know what they’ll look like, but this was a beautifully chic wedding for two amazingly chic friends. A penthouse restaurant, excellent food, amazing drinks, and beautiful views were to be had. A lovely ceremony, and an exciting afterparty!



So, while the wedding was our main reason for going out, we did get up to some other adventures throughout:

– We got to visit Andrea’s Grandma – whose home always brings back fond memories of my Maternal Grandparent’s home.

– We explored the city a bit, seeing more of the beautiful views that Sofia has to offer.

– We visited with a few friends, grabbing a lovely dinner and sharing exciting stories… and even seeing a whole host of new hot sauces that one of them is working on! (I don’t have pictures from this one, because we were too busy hanging out.


And then… Well, and then we flew home, had a delicious breakfast, and a lovely cheeseplate lunch.

Sep9

A day with Lyra

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Saturday, 25-April-2026

Lyra is a dog that lives in our building. She’s a Cocker Spaniel, she has long ears, and she loves seeing people. She loves seeing people so much that she runs around in circles while peeing. Frankly, I am not convinced that this is “happy to see you” pee, vs. “I am scared and can’t even” pee, but her owners are adamant that it’s happy pee.

Also, Andrea loves Cocker Spaniels. Like, so much.

A few days back, Andrea had a bad day. So I pulled some strings, got the phone number for Lyra’s owners, and arranged a playdate for the two of them. That quick opportunity to pet a fluffy puppy led to today – a day when Lyra’s parents were busy, and we got to watch her for the day.


What did we do with this pup, you may ask?

WELL!

We stayed home and did some work, first off. Then, we went for a WALK! It was fun, it was lovely, and it was a beautifully warm and sunny day. One of the earlier ones of the year, if I’m remembering right, and a perfect day to take a nice long walk around the park.

Sep7

I went archery shooting!

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Wednesday, 22-April-2026

Hot on the heels of throwing axes, I went back to my roots with a wee bit of archery.

I’ve shot bows for so long… even making my own (very rough) bows when I was young. Something about wanting to be Robin Hood, or one of the characters from the Redwall series maybe?

<Okay, I actually stopped writing this for like 30min while I researched Redwall, just to see what’s actually happened with it. I mean, I read ALL the books when I was younger, and it turns out that a few new ones have been released! I may have to track them down, now… especially since it turns out that the author hasn’t been accused of anything horrible! Which is kind of miraculous, these days. Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled blog post>

The core here is that I enjoy archery, and I’ve wanted to try it out here in Ireland for a while. The problem has been that it’s a circular requirements loop – “You can’t shoot at an archery range unless you have a permit”, followed by, “You have to shoot at an archery range to apply to get a permit”. I finally got sick of it, called them, said I knew what I was doing and that I “had a permit from a previous club in the United States”. Which is technically true, since I’ve shot at a ton of clubs in the USA after going through their quick safety briefing.

Well, it worked. A good reminder that trying to follow detailed rules is silly, and that just reaching out to the club is the right way to deal with things around here.

I went, I mentioned the person I’d spoken with, people had never heard from them, I said “that’s fine, I know what I’m doing just give me a bow”, they looked unconvinced, I stayed quiet until they gave me a bow, and then I safely shot arrows at targets. I mean, it’s not rocket science, and once I was able to start shooting everything went beautifully smoothly.

I chatted with people, got some interesting advice from a former Olympian, tried it out, decided that I preferred my own style of shooting (with no offence to those standards, I’m sure that technique was the best back when it was originally taught), and I had a grand old time.