What a week!

This has been quite an eventful week. On Sunday, my friend J called me to tell me that she had a falling out with her roommate and she asked J to move out by the 28th! That gave her a little over a week to move. We quickly looked up her rights to know that the landlord (who hadn't told her to move out until later that night) had to give her 6 weeks notice and have a very specific reason (like J being a safety hazard or negligent or not paying her rent: none of which were true). On Monday, she stayed home from work and looked at some places. I went with her to look at a place after work so we got home late Monday evening and went to the Local for dinner. However, she took that place and I think she will like it. It is far away from me,though, so we won't have as many nights at the local.


During the rest of the week, J packed her stuff and brought it over to my place. Since she is in Paris this weekend and won't be back until Tuesday, we thought it made sense to bring her stuff to my place so that her roommate couldn't mess with any of it (roommate had gone into her room when she wasn't there in the past). Friday, J finished bringing everything over. She has moved out of her old place and stayed with me last night. On this coming Wed. she is going to move into her new place with our friend M's help. More on her saga with her former roommate will follow in her own words.

Tuesday I work up congested because I was around someone who "sprayed" my face while we talked. He can't help it and I had to be close to him while interacting. He seemed healthy, probably wasn't. Thursday I got my oven and made a yummy dinner. Mmm, Chicago style pizza. Later this week, someone made an unrealistic request. I tried to offer a compromise to honor the request and not put too much stress on myself but the person requesting declined.

This morning, I woke up late. Actually, I did a few things, then went back to sleep. I woke up again at 1:00 PM when my friend M called me. Oh, I am still sick so the about 14 hours of sleep was needed and am feeling a bit better. I digress again, though. So, M called me from city centre asking me if I could see the riot from my apartment and if she could come over because the streets weren't very safe. That's right, I said a riot!!

I got off the phone quickly and took a shower before M came to my apartment. When she got to my place, I finished getting ready and we took John's camera (easier to hide if needed) to check out what was going on. We walked down to the area that we knew had rioting and watched a bit. I took loads of pictures. I had never seen a riot before.

After checking out the violence, we did some shopping and had lunch. Things had mostly calmed down by the time I got home at 5:30.

For those of you concerned that I was walking around a riot, it wasn't very violent. The news said it was the worst violence in Dublin for over 10 years but nobody died. Some people (I think about 40) were injured and some police were taken to the hospital. Mostly, loads of people were watching the few people throwing things at the police, breaking into stores, looting, and starting things on fire. Ok, that sounds bad but I was never really concerned for my safety. I would have been if M hadn't been with me because she has been caught in riots before so she knew to move to the side if people were running in mass away from the police. That kept us safer.

I will publish pictures and tell more about the riots, like what caused them.