There is nothing that a venti non-fat sugar free hazelnut extra hot no foam latte can't cure...

I'm thinking that this blog thing is going to have to be more weekly than daily. I'm just too busy now-a-days to keep up with it. However, I have been making a list of everything that I needed to discuss, or rant about, whatever way you take it. So here we go...

1. I love Starbucks. Like, I can't even tell you how much I love it. However, I love a very specific drink at starbucks. As you can see from the title of this blog it is a Venti Non-Fat Sugar Free Hazlenut Extra-hot no foam latte. Now, I didn't just wake up one morning and decide that this was the drink for me. Nope. It took a long hard process of trial and error to finally fall in love with the perfect coffee. Let's first begin with the non-fat- we all know that I've been attempting to lose weight over the past few months. A regular latte is made with whole milk. I have never liked whole milk. Jessi and I were raised on skim milk, thus, I have a strange aversion to anything made with cream-like whole milk. Although, when it's in coffee, you can't really tell how thick it is. But, what really is the point of having whole milk in your coffee. All you really taste is the coffee anyway, so skim milk serves the same purpose. Now, the weight thing also leads us into the sugar-free hazlenut. I started getting sugar free vanilla. I love vanilla, and the sugar free version for coffee is really good. Jessi always gets hazlenut. On a whim in D.C. with Nate I chose to get hazlenut instead of vanilla. THANK YOU JESSI!!!!!! Hazlenut is the BEST flavoring EVER for coffee. Seriously. The first time I drank it I thought I had died and gone to heaven. And every morning, after walking for thirty minutes in the rain and cold, the hazlenut makes it all better. The final two options are the last acquired. Ever since that incident a few years back when that fucking cunt spilled hot coffee on herself and then sued McDonalds, no one makes coffee hot anymore. When I take my first sip of coffee I want it to scald my tongue. Seriously. I want my coffee to be so hot that the first few sips are painful. I know it's made hot enough when I can still feel the burn well after the coffee is finished. I want the last sip to still be hot when I finish.The last few times I've gotten coffee at the Starbucks on the way to my job, the first sip has been luke warm. Not even slightly hot. Now when you get a Venti it's pretty big, which means if the first sip is luke warm, you know what the last sip is? ICE COLD!!!!!!! The only time i like ice cold coffee is when it's blended in a Frappacino, not when it's in a latte made to be hot. So I started asking for extra hot. Now, the extra hot is much better than the not-so extra hot, but they still don't make it nearly as hot as I'd like. I think I may ask for extra extra hot. I haven't had a nice tongue burn in a while. Finally, no foam. This came about when I was watching one of the girls at Starbucks making my venti non-fat sugar-free hazlenut extra hot latte. She poured in the milk and she left, I'm so serious when I say this, 3 inches from the top of the cup empty. I thought to myself "She must be out of milk". No. In those 3 extra inches where that precious milky goodness should be, she plopped in a HUGE spoonfull of foam. Foam. Not coffee mixed with milk. Foam. She put the top on it and passed it to me. Now, foam is not coffee. In order to get to the coffee you have to drink through the foam. When there is 3 inches of Foam on the top of the coffee you have to practically tip the cup upside down for the coffee to reach you, or you have to take 7,896 sips of straight foam before being able to comfortably drink the coffee. I now ask for no foam. Fill that bad boy up to the brim with extra hot coffee, skim milk and sugar-free hazlenut, and I am GOOD TO GO!!!!!!!

2. Darko and I are usually homeless on the weekends. Since Dublin is the only big city in Ireland, people tend to flock here to have a good time on the weekends. This does not bode well for us regulars when we can't get a bed in a fucking hostel anywhere. We were able to get some this weekend, but only by calling around. We have to move from our current home in order to have a bed to sleep in. I hate Dublin on the weekends. There are people EVERYWHERE!!!!! And don't even try to go shopping on a Saturday. It won't work. I tried going to Penney's last weekend and thought I was going to get an elbow to the head when I picked up the last strand of black beads. It was insane. Since it's coming into the spring and summer, things are just going to get worse. I hate it.

3. Jess, you'll love this: I was reading the newspaper the other week and there was the following in the editorial page. It was titled "The truth about cats and dogs" and it read as follows: " In response to the question: 'Has anyone ever see a dog catch a cat?' the answer is complicated but very interesting. Cats are unique in their abiliities; they have nine lives, they can squeeze through spaces that appear impossible, they can fall off huge heights in comparison to their size and survive, etc. I have heard that people describe koala bears as 'cuddly', foxes as 'clever or cute' and polar bears as 'gorgeous' but when was the last time you saw one of those animals lying across your sofa? Cats have totally fooled humans into believing they are just friendly household animals. They are sophisticated, intelligent and surprisingly ruthless predators. They lounge aroudn accepting praise from their owners about their ability to clean themselves as 'mans best friend' gets hosed in the back yard. They purr with delight at the sight of a poor dog being dragged out in the cold for a walk. They are far too intelligent for a normal dog to catch. With all their attributes I believe that, if they were humans, they would all make very good polticians".

I kind of thought this was a cool editorial. I wan't sure whether or not it was complimenting cats or what, but most cat lovers would agree with most of what is being said. I still prefer dogs.

4. Everyone knows that the American work ethic is really strong. We work long days, weeks, months, years, and are not actually given a lot of time off in the mean time. I was browsing through my company handbook today and was shocked to come across their leave policy. First of all, they are given four weeks of leave time a year. Even brand new employees. In the states you're lucky if you get a week off the first year you are employed. Second, there are nine bank holidays a year. Random days, for no reason, are defined as bank holidays and the entire country has them off. One of the bank "holidays" is the first Monday in May. Ask me why? Go ahead, ask me? I HAVE NO IDEA!!!! It's no one's birthday, it's not a religious holiday. It's like someone woke up the first Monday in May years back, didn't feel like going to work, and deemed it a bank holiday. So bizarre. So that's four weeks, plus nine bank holidays, and seriously, like two weeks of sick leave. How amazing is that? Why can't it be like that in the states. The only people who get more than a week off a year are teachers. AND, the maternity leave here is so great. They really treasure and help their pregnant women. In the states you are allowed to take up to 12 weeks off for having a baby, and only 6 weeks of that is paid, and only if you've accrued six weeks worth of leave. So if you haven't accrued 6 weeks of pay, you have to go back to work pretty quickly after having a baby. Get this. Here, you get a MINIMUM of 22 weeks off PAID!!!!! PAID!!!!! Here's how it works. When you have a baby social welfare will pay you like 250 Euro a week guaranteed. Then, with a lot of companies, like mine for example, the company will pay you the difference from what social welfare is paying you to make up what they would have been paying you on a weekly basis. So for 22 weeks you don't have to work, you get to raise your baby, and you get the same salary that you would have if you were working. And even if you don't work for a company that pays you the difference, regardless, social welfare will pay you that 250 Euro a week. AND, after that 22 weeks, you can take an additional 12 weeks of lower pay, and still have your job when you get back. So you can take up to like 8 months off, with an income, and still have your job when you decide to come back. It's amazing. I don't know how they do it, but I can see why so many young people are having babies here. You don't have to work forever to save up for a child. And welfare is not looked down on here like it is in the states. Everyone gets it regardless of your position or status. It's great.

5. Darko's been watching tennis on my computer, which is fine, especially since I like tennis as well, but in order to write this blog, I came to the internet shop across the street from the hostel. The computers suck. There's this big black box in the middle of the screen that's blocking some of my view of the screen. It's ok, as long as I don't need to select anything under that box. Also, I tried using the free call thing-a-ma-bob to call mom, and it was all screwy as well. It really pisses me off when computers don't work.

So, I think that's about it. Oh wait. A couple of things about Darko. First, next weekend his friend Urban is coming to town for about 4 days. This is a friend from Slovenia. I'm really nervous to meet him. This will be the first real Slovenian friend I've met of his, other than the stupid girl who I met, who's in love with Darko. But I'm pretty sure for that four days that Urban is here I won't see much of Darko. Which is absolutely fine. Don't get me wrong. He needs to spend some quality time with some Slovenian people. Just like I would love to spend some quality time with some Americans. But I'm still nervous about meeting Urban. I really hope he likes me. All I need is for him to go back to Slovenia and be like "Oh my god, you would not believe the girl Darko is dating". Also, Darko joined this thing called Hi-5, which is like myspace but it's run by google. Well I was looking at his profile today and in the relationship status part he has "Open relationship". I looked at him and was like "excuse me?" and he was like "What?". I said "Do you know what an open relationship is?"And he said "It's a relationship that's out in the open?". I said "No, honey, it's not. It's when people are technically together, but dating or having sex with other people". He said "OH, well that's not what I thought it was, so I'm going to leave it", and I was like "Please don't leave it, other people know what an open relationship is, and I don't want them thinking you're in one". He left it anyway... You all know what an open relationship is, right? Yeah, me too...