sNOw Fun

Ok, so as I said last week, snow is fun and beautiful for about a day, or until you have to actually go out into it. This week it has been quite difficult getting around because of the snow and ice. It snowed on and off for just under a week. The problem is that Ireland is not used to this weather and we aren't prepared to deal with it in the ways the other countries are. Having said all that it is starting to melt now and hasn't snowed in Dublin since Thursday night.

I mentioned some snow related difficulties I had on Thursday in yesterday's post so I thought I'd share the full story with you. It all started because my parents were attending the wedding of one of their friends today and my mam was looking for a dress to wear to it. Leaving things to the last minute as usual (hehe) my mam came into the shop I work in looking for something to wear to to the wedding on Monday and found a gorgeous 70's style maxi dress. Unfortunately our tills in work were offline which means staff sales can't be processed (which means my mam couldn't have gotten the 75% staff discount). So on Thursday I suggested taking the LUAS (Dublin city tram) out to Dundrum shopping centre to buy the dress in the shop there because I wasn't sure when the tills were going to be back online again.

So my mam met me after work on Thursday and we got the LUAS at 3. We were only 3 stops into our journey when the driver announced that we all had to get off the tram because the one in front of us had been derailed by a bunch of kids building a snowman filled with rocks on the tracks. So we got off and decided the best thing to do would be to walk the snow covered tracks up to Dundrum and then hopefully the Luas would be running later. However it had started to snow very heavily at this stage and as we were walking along the tracks they became covered with snow because they weren't being used and it seemed unlikely that the southbound line would be in use later. We walked for an hour and a half in up to a foot of snow sometimes more in places. I was so glad I brought my umbrella, it was a lifesaver!

We got there eventually and my mam bought her dress and we got coffee to warm up. While we were drinking our coffee the shopping centre announced that the luas would be back running from 5.30, so we headed back to the luas stop and alas there were very few people there and the controller told us that whoever said they were back running was lying and that he was being told by the control centre that they wouldn't be running for the foreseeable future and that his advice to us was to try and get a bus or a taxi. So we went to the nearest bus stop and waited. There was very little traffic passing us after a half hour and then a man passed by saying that the luas was running again.

Hesistantly we decided to go back and see if it was true, not thinking that it was because of the false information we had already received. My mam went up to a garda traffic car stopped at a traffic light on the way to the luas and the gardai (multiple policemen) pulled over and told us that there was no way it was running and they advised us to get into the next taxi we saw which is what we did. After almost 6 hours we got back to my apartment at 8.30 and Donnacha went out and got us pizza and beers and my mam stayed with us because it was too dangerous and she was too tired to walk into town and get the train to Skerries.

The very annoying thing was that the tills in work were finally fixed when I was leaving work on Friday. Also The National were playing on Thursday night and Donnacha found a guy selling 2 tickets for really good seats but I didn't get back in time to go, plus I was wrecked anyway after the ordeal so that was very annoying because I was so looking forward to seeing them. But we're hoping to get tickets to Arcade Fire either tomorrow or Monday night which would be a great consolation! All I can say is that it certainly was an experience and something I won't forget for a while. It will make me very grateful when the snow finally melts and things get back to normal!
Here are some photos from Thursday. I had to stop to take some even though it was freezing and snowy!

The last Luas that ran on Thursday












There were so many people walking along the tracks

A yummy caramel macchiato in Butler's to warm me up




The snow piled up in the patio outside the coffee shop

I thought I'd show you the reason for all the trouble, this is the dress my mam bought;

And the jewellery we picked out to go with it;

So that was my eventful week! I'm looking forward to being able to hopefully walk to work at a decent pace next week. I bought some things while we were out in the accessorize in Dundrum too which I'll show you tomorrow.

Hope you're having a good weekend!

Love Em xx