Dublin Ink

A few weeks ago I realised that you can get pierced in Dublin for less than in Stockholm, actually less than half the price. Being a big fan of puncturing my body (haha) I decided to get new ones. Since it would be silly to just get one done when the price of two here is less than the price of one in Stockholm, I went for snakebites. I've been wanting to get them for a long time and couple of weeks ago I did.

Me and Holly (to the left) who wanted to pierce the side of her lip went to Dublin Ink to get it fixed. I figured the standards of the place wouldn't be as great as the piercing studios I've been to in Sweden, since the price was so low. And of course I was right, the standards in Sweden are much higher but it didn't really look as bad as it could.

The guys who work there are deadly, the studio looks really cool and they've done some really fierce tattoos. What I noticed though was that they didn't ask us any questions about our health, alcohol or smoking habits - which they always do in Stockholm. The piercer, a girl from an Irish TV-show, drew my snakebites on very uneven (you make small dots with a pen where you're gonna put the piercings) and didn't even see it until I pointed it out AND she told both me and Holly to take deep breaths after pushing the needle through our lips, haha. Other from that it seemed grand.

The day after both our piercings fell out though. The balls of tour studs were lost so we had to go back and get new ones - only to have to go back a few days later again to get more balls, since they fell out again. They guys there are really cool though, so it's hard to get mad at them. But if this would have happened in Sweden you'd probably be given some compensation the second time it happened and they would have cleaned it properly before putting new ones on. The third time they would have.. nah wait, it would never happen a third time if you got it done in Sweden. They are so careful, clean and precise. Although the price is twice as much.. Tough call.

So yesterday was the fifth time a ball fell off and I just heard Holly's was lost again as well. So now I guess we're going back again. They're lucky to be so good looking.

Right before getting pierced at Dublin ink. A little nervous!

This is Rakan. He's the one who always gets to put new balls on our studs... And he happens to be my future husband.

Galway Girl

Last weekend I went to Galway with some friends of mine. I'm not going to write about how amazing it was or how much fun we had though, but what I am going to do is upload some photos from the trip to speak for themselves. After all, this is not a traveling guide - it's a totally haphazard blog where I get my odd 'Stockholm vs Dublin' thoughts out... And since photography kind of is an obsession of mine (I never leave the house without some sort of camera: system camera, mobile camera or disposable camera. I just feel naked otherwise) so I might as well get some use of all the pictures I take. Here you go, GALWAY:





I recommend you to listen to this song while scrolling through:

Me and Holly went hungover but excited to Salthill.

Holly by the shore.

We went to Charlie Byrnes - an awesome bookshop in central Galway. I wanted to live in there, so cosy!

Josh - the guy we stayed at. He gave us a tour around town.

Holly having a smoke.

Me and Alex, a bit tired after the trip.

Holly on the bus, taking photos of the landscapes.

Josh being all dramatic - such a poser.

 

This is his room mate Jason, you can tell he studies drama, right?

Bernard, aka Bear, in the apartment after a few beers.

Me in Salthill, freezing my ass off.

Alex was in a hurry to get home, it was a cold night!

Went to eat at La Salsa, the best mexican place I've ever been to. It was so cheap and students got a discount, plus; the people who work there are savage! We even got to taste the food before ordering, to see what we wanted. Really awesome.

At Josh's place you could smoke inside, by the window though, but still. It always makes me feel like Im in some romantic 50's movie, gotta love it.

 

Holly and me chilling (and freezing) at Salthill shore.

Such beautiful landscapes. Was a pity though that we didn't have more time to see more of it...

Trash Talk

One thing I've been thinking about is these Euro stores here in Ireland. I don't know if they are common in other places as well, but Dublin seems to be full of them. I gotta tell you though; I love'm. In my own selfish way, I really love going into a store that sells everything imaginable for a price of maximum 1.5 euro. It is brilliant. I feel so great after buying a whole bag of shit I don't need for the price it would cost me to buy 1 item of something I actually need.

Although what you don't think about when you do the happy dance out of the store with a brown bag full of shit you'll never use is that this store, this chain of stores, is one of the biggest environmental fuck ups.

We don't have these in Sweden, so at first I was amazed and deadly excited. Me and my roomies went to all different types of them: The 2 euro store, the 1.50 store and we even found a 99c store. We pimped our rooms with cheap stuff and bought all our kitchen supplies from there, since it was practically free. But of course, as you can assume when you buy something for less than a euro, the quality of the items are shit. Some of them break while you unwrap them, that's how great they are.

So here we got a chain of stores that sell stuff that break in a minute, but the stuff is so cheap that you wouldn't have the energy to go back to the store and return it, so you just throw it away. You might even try to buy a new one at another euro store, maybe the 2 euro store has better quality, I mean it is 50 cent more, there's got to be some difference, right?

Of course it is not. Of course you have to throw away anything that comes from an euro store sooner or later. You would probably save money getting real knives and plates from proper stores. They would cost more at the moment but they wold hold for such a longer period of time, so you wouldn't have to get new ones every months and then you wouldn't make the mountains of garbage we humans so nicely burn or bury underneath the ground grow more than necessary.

What I've noticed here that is different from Sweden is the fact that people don't seem to separate their garbage. They just throw it all (food, cans, plastic stuff, glass and even electronics) in the same big bin and leave it for the garbage men. I don't even think I've seen a recycling station here, come to think about it. Maybe there are none?

This really bugs me. I am used to recycling my cans, to separating my garbage and turn in my used up batteries at the battery section. Before I came here I thought the people in Sweden were unaware bastards who didn't care enough about the environment, but now that I've lived here for 3 months, Sweden looks an environmental angel. In that sense I would pick Sweden over Ireland any day, oh my sweet green paradise.