andcurve.weblog - The weblog of Kevin Teljeur. Somewhere within all the noise, there is a note you need to hear.

Right, a quick little post about some h0t chixx0rs! That’s right, hot women, and from abroad at that. Now, I know loads and loads of hot women, I’ve dated and had relationships with some of them, and I tell myself this a lot in order to stave off the relentless waves of insecurity and self-loathing. Anyway, as many of you are aware, I was in Romania in Summer of 2003, in Timisoara, and it was one of the more interesting episodes of the last couple of years. I made a few friends there and on Monday night I managed at some point to chat to all of them.

The main square in Timisoara. It’s somewhat Italian, with a hint of Dun Laoghaire

I got there enroute to Serbia (at that stage I still harboured some vague notions of hitting Albania, and maybe looting a few shops or starting a pyramid scheme or something) but I was determined to see where my friends Vlad and Diana were from. Let’s be honest here; in Ireland, until recently, Romania was seen as a very distant country, a grim, nuclear wasteland inhabited by ‘Big Issue’-wielding Gypsies and ruled by Communists. You weren’t likely to meet any ‘Romanians’ in Ireland other than those Gypsies. And then, one day, this guy starts working in the company. He’s dark, latin and somewhat brooding, in a conflicted way. He looks a little bit like Keanu Reeves after a hard night on the town and could do with a shave. He doesn’t say much. And then we find out he is Romanian! A real, live Romanian, who isn’t looking for small change for his poor baby, and in fact doesn’t look as if he’ll start stealing anything! He’s called – get this – Vlad! You know? Vlad the Impaler! From Transylvannia! Dracula! So, that was impressive, and instantly put paid to a lot of stereotypes caused by years of selling a lousy magazine by Roma Gypsies (whose roots are in India, originally). I didn’t know that Romanian was a latin language, or that the country is a very young one, while being a very old nation with it’s roots directly traceable to Roman times… It was every bit as eye-opening as when I first got to know Petr and then Pavel, and learnt about Czech history, lanuage and culture.

Vlad and Diana, Romanians at play. They play a lot, and then discuss it

So, I got there on the train from Budapest in Hungary, and immediately you could see that these were a different race of people altogether to the reserved and subdued Hungarians. They were like Italians, relaxed, animated at times… Latin. Now, I had a series of adventures there right from the outset but that’s not what I’m getting at here; it’s the connections between people. I had a set of numbers for contacts to call, a certain Ilca (I later discovered by trial and error that his first name is Marius and Ilca is his second name. That is Vlad for you.) and Roxana, a friend of Diana’s. Also, there was Horea, who knows both of them, more or less. Marius was off on holiday by the Black Sea, but organised a friend of his to go and meet me – a girl by the name of Oana – something which Horea, once I’d met him and explained the situation, found intriguing and mystifying (which made me wonder if she was a nutcase or something). Actually, I’d say that Marius was hedging his bets; on the off-chance I found Horea hard work, then I was very unlikely to find Oana hard work. I doubt anyone would. As it happened, Oana also brought her friend Michelle and I brought gaggle of Americans I’d met in the hotel I stayed in earlier that day. We all hit it off and I even got my head around Horea’s sharp sense of humour, and they all spoke fantastic Engleza. Something I noticed, in fact, was that by and large almost all younger people there spoke very good English; I don’t neccessarily see it as a good thing, or a cultural advantage, but it was very helpful. Romanians are generally good at language, possibly because Romanian has a Latin base but also has smatterings of Slavic, Germanic and Hungarian in it.

So, that is how I met Oana, who I was chatting to several nights this week. It seems she switched on Yahoo! Messenger for one reason or another last Monday, and lo and behold! I’m on all the time, myself, thanks to the miracle of broadband. We hadn’t talked in quite a while, but we’ll probably chat a lot more now, since we can waffle away online.
Oana (on the left) and Adina eating famous Tiramisu. They were the Popular Girls, and that was quite a night.

Anyway, I stayed in Horea’s (tiny) apartment that night, and caused all sorts of mayhem thanks to a devastating mix of alcohol and dehydration. He headed off on his holidays the next day, leaving me to fend for myself… I also had to catch up with Roxana who was just back from a Hungarian pop/rock festival, and Oana was going to put me in touch with someone who had a place to stay. Also, her friend was having a party that night, which I’d have to go to.

I met up with Roxana, and we hit it off and hung out, after I tried a MacDonalds. Athough I generally boycott the Mac, Vlad had assured me that they’re wayyyyy better in Timisoara. They’re not. They’re just as crap there as here, even though the service is marginally snappier. We went out on the town, rounded up Roxana’s friend Sorin, and went to Oana’s friend’s party…

Roxana at a recent concert, doing her thing. She does that a lot. Concerts, I mean.

As it turned out, Oana knew Sorin too! Whoa. Small world. She’d never met Roxana before though. Great night was had there, it was a lot of fun, Sorin jumped into the pool, some people drank a lot of tequila, and there was a lot of crazy dancing and great music. I used to chat to Roxana a lot online, since we were both at work at more or less the same time, and both somewhat bored. However, I have removed such things from my PC now, and Roxana roams Romania doing French-Romanian interpreting for some people studying factories or something.

Like I said, Oana put me in touch with a guy who had a place to stay. I really didn’t want to stay in the hotel again because although it wasn’t too expensive for me, it’s not what I wanted to experience as part of the travel, and Timisoara’s only hostel had been closed for the summer for some reason. That guy was Faust, who Oana knew somehow (I heard more about that from Faust later, but I’ll keep that to myself for now). Faust talked in a Chicago accent; I initially figured that he’d learnt his English and indeed his manner from watching too much MTV, but as I got to know him better, I realised that he was actually over for a holiday from Chicago, where he was hanging out with the locals. I’d go so far as to say that he was a black guy in a white body… He rented me his grandparent’s apartment for €10 a night (which didn’t go down very well with anyone else, but he needed the money for his holiday in the Black Sea so he could bang some chick his girlfriend didn’t know about) which was fine for me.

Anyway, after variously hanging out with Roxana or Oana, I went for drinks with Faust one afternoon, and while we were sitting in the cafe (Papillon, for anyone who’s been there) some girls were trying to get Faust’s attention. Fabulous, beautiful girls… Faust ignored them. Then, after about 20 minutes of us talking, Faust decided we’d go and sit with them for a bit, which is how I met Ramona.

Ramona, demonstrating the art of Romanian glamour. She has a small cat, too.

After a few minutes (where Ramona’s friend flirted with me; I have beautiful eyes!) Ramona decided I needed a tour of Timisoara, and to explain some of the local history and culture. This is, of course, how I got to know Ramona. We didn’t have too much contact until earlier this year, when she finished college (the same course that Vlad did, I believe) and got broadband at home, so we’ve been chatting a lot since then.

It goes to show the whole ’6 degrees of separation’ principle, and how close people are to each other without realising it… Neither Oana nor Ramona know Vlad or Diana, and Ramona’s connection to them is through Oana via Faust, even though Ramona doesn’t know Oana. So, when all three of them were online within an hour, well, it was a strange but good feeling which inspired me to relate the story about Kevin in Timisoara, and was a fantastic excuse to post photos of stunning h0t chixx0rs.

And thanks again to Oana, Roxana and Ramona for helping me out, showing me around and generally making sure I had a good time (and thanks also to Horea, Marius, Faust and last but definitely not least, Vlad and Diana). This is the short, five minute version, but it’ll do

(footnote: added 16.12.05)
Romania: in case I wasn’t clear about it, Romania is a fantastic place. Yes, it is poor, it needs work but it’s also changing rapidly. It’s like Ireland was only a few decades ago, but people really seem to be trying to move things forward. I know I wasn’t there long but it left a good impression on me.
Engleza: Yes, I’m labouring the point. But I haven’t gotten my head around that fact that Roxana (for example) speaks English better than I do. Oana looks like coming a close second, my jaw was flapping loosely at some of her constructions the other day. And Diana, well, you can tell that she’s not a native speaker because her English is far too good, it’s technically flawless, which always a give-away. Vlad and Ramona are good too, but Vlad is more interested in body language and words for peculiar and probably illegal sex acts; I’d say his collection of words is pretty good now. He speaks buna engleza when he needs to.
h0t chixx0rs: I came across this phrase while looking some article on the web. It’s cool. I made the Romanian adventure before I lost my cherry, so I wasn’t actively trying to chase women, I just (as I explained above) met lots of them. What a waste you may think, but I made good friends and that’s what matters at the end of the day.

Help yourself to questions and if anyone wants to add or correct any part of that, please do…

The first in a series of somewhat random older photos…

January ’03. The murals in Derry (known to the English as Londonderry); this is where the Catholic population live.

September ’02. David and Carolyn after a hard night on the town, Neil is nearby. David is still sore after trying to break into a car, and climbing a crane.

(Edited to include useful information like dates)

I started a series of posts recently, roughly every week or so, and then stuff came up and then something else happened, and then poo, the post was rendered essentially useless and I had to start again. The few remaining regular followers of my site, which include Tee and Tony, occasionally Kenny and Sean, and sometimes Fergal and a couple of Parallel customers (allegedly, but I hope so; more on this shortly) have no doubt been thinking that this is one of the less persuasive reasons to fire up a web browser, though my outburst of 11 November seems to have gone down very well as a piece of entertainment.

I was going to do my posts during my recent trip to England, but I didn’t have quite enough time (as you’ll see, that’s kind of surprising but that’s how it happened) and then after that I was all tied up until now, at the end of my week off…

Weeks of not posting, an absolute sin in terms of maintaining an audience which as I explained in a previous post is very important indeed, according to dogmatic self-appointed Danish web experts. Though as my previous post demonstrated, I have an audience which hovers in at around two so stuff like audience numbers is a moot point. Anyway, there’s been a lot on, and over the next day or two there will be many, many photos and all sorts of odds and ends. I’ll probably break them down into individual posts.

A bit of a recap: Two weeks ago Rik the Belgian came over, and although he spent a lot of that two weeks roaming around the country, we had a lot of fun in Dublin and it was great to see him again. During that time, I went to Tee’s brother’s wedding party,
The traditional pulling off of the garter with the teeth. I don’t think this was their first time…
That’s Tee’s (and Joseph and Derrick and Michelle’s) Oul’ Fella in the foreground
Michelle and Laura, Tee’s sister and best mate respectively. Dangerous women for sure.

Dmitry and Alex’s party,
Sarka, Tanya, Rik and Ciaran; aren’t we cosy?
Dmitry is concerned we’re not drinking enough, while Rik realises he is actually very drunk. Again.
Me, Ciaran and Sarka celebrating Sarka’s theft of Ciaran’s beer

I got myself a room in Los Blancheles (that’s Blanchardstown; I won’t say it again), hung out with Rik,
Rik tasting Guinness; this is his ‘appreciation’ face

went through childhood ephemera with my brother, more parties, a vast improvement in my footie skills, my mother bought a house (with cash! What a turnaround.), I visited the Jennifer,
Jen and Tristan having a wrestle; that kid is strong!

I had a big adventure in England, I walked to Maynooth,
Garret The Troll surveys the journey ahead. There is still far to go.

there was a great party to help poor Pakistanis,
Ibiza Uncovered. In Owen’s house. Notice the pride of Pakistan at the top…

and I painted my mother’s house.
Haarrrgh! The roller!

Friday morning two weeks ago I got to experience the Calcutta Express, which is the train from Maynooth to Pearse.
Waiting for the Calcutta Express at Castleknock station. Sitting on the roof will be harder when they electrify the line out here.
Not many people know or even believe that Los Blancheles has a train station although it is cunningly named ‘Castleknock’, and I’ve discovered that people in Dublin know surprisingly little about the greater Dublin rail network, or at least what’s left of it (it’s a fact that as soon as the English were out of Ireland, the Irish ripped up the bulk of the rail network and replaced it with shoddy roads and poor public transport. Fucking idiots.). The line through Los Blancheles is known as the Calcutta Express simply because it’s generally completely packed solid during rush hour, standing room only, and to make matters worse it has to wait for a random period of time just before Connolly station (and sometimes at other points on the line) because it plays second fiddle to the coastal line.

Potentially a great service, unfortunately run by an Irish state company (yeah, underfunded, I know, but money doesn’t organise timetables or explain to people why the train has stopped apparently at random. Diligence does that.).

We had a company lunch on Friday too, which is always an odd experience
Having an interesting lunch. That is Lyner on my right.
I mean, it was great that Tom took us out to the Indian, the food was good albeit minimal, but having a regimented lunch with most of the work crew in a semi-structured environment tends to feel like… work. It was reasonably good food though, and relaxed enough.

After a hard and fast game of footie I had a hard and fast game sprint to Kilkenny to visit Jennie and her remarkably fast growing kid. Originally the idea was to stay for most of the weekend but for various reasons (not least, having spent very little time in my new home so far and having to get a number of things done, as well as the ongoing crusade to weed out uneccessary old stuff from my childhood memories since my mother is moving and wishes things to be ‘sorted’) I ended up staying just Friday and heading back on Saturday evening which was probably better for everyone… Jesus, her young fella has grown! I hadn’t seen Jennie and her kid since well before I started going out with Tee (which comes close to putting exact dates on it all) so the last time he was exactly a year old. Now he’s 18 months, walking, talking, making lifestyle choices, negotiating his next mortgage and figuring out how to steal my job… Crazy stuff, and reminds me that time is passing; I’m not getting any younger. 33 next March!

So there’s Tristan:
Tristan sizes me up. He reckons he could take me.
And the Jennifer:
Poor Jennifer is all played out. She needs a rest.
And we can combine them:
Now they’re both all played out!
And then we can remove Jennifer, and add Mikey and Jane:
Mikey (Jen’s brother) and Jane, his wumon, with Tristan
For those who routinely make the same jokes (and you know who you are), I was in Australia at the time. So go fuck yourselves, it’s not funny anymore.

Kilkenny is great place even if it’s expanding like there’s no tomorrow. There’s a great clothes shop called ‘Praha’ which has a logo in the colours of the Czech flag. Actually, it just sells the same stuff as everywhere else, I guess the proprietors must be Czech.

I got my duvet on Sunday morning, after an overlong and tortuous trip to the Los Blancheles Shopping District, where you can buy just about anything that it is possible to buy, and get caught in 10 kilometre tailbacks with your SUV on the way home. Shopping, ‘they’ say, is the new religion here in Ireland and everyone was at worship that morning, flinging their cards and cash about with abandon. A lot of these people have high mortgages too, or other debts, it’s pretty frightening to shop for a pastime under those circumstances.

The entrance to Los Blancheles Retail Park. You park, and then you retail. Shop til you drop from sheer irritation.

Me? I just needed a good warm duvet with feathers pulled from a real duck.

Whoa. I have to say, that post was strong, contained harsh language and was a general all purpose apple-cart upsetting gesture of the first order. I was angry, I was impulsive and I can tell you it was cathartic in a big way. But enough! What’s done is done and let’s all move on, in our interesting ways.

Weekend was hectic and if it wasn’t for living out here in this great house then I’d have lost the plot, although hanging out with Rik was great and Neil’s party on Saturday was a bit of fun. Watching the Irish rugby team get turned into a stain by the New Zealand All Blacks team on Saturday was demoralising but it was sort of inevitable, like watching the Faroese football team put up a spirited fight against Brazil. I also managed to get more work done on my ongoing project of getting an image manager for WordPress (the current offerings, while all free are also not very good at all), which will allow Tee to put images on her site.Today I had to trawl through old toys and odds and ends from my brother’s and my childhood which was emotional and trying but necessary. So, I am happy enough.

What I’d like to know is, if you’re reading my web log, who are you and where are you? Comments below please and don’t be put off if your comment gets held for moderation, I’ll put it up sooner or later

Right, I just got an email from someone I haven’t heard from in a while so I better get on and actually do some personal communication…

A non-eventful weekend, really. I wasn’t even productive (other than managing to scan about 4 million photos and organise them and some others on cds for the girleens what travel).

Girleens trying to look innocent. But I know better now…

I was shaken after talking to Tee on Sunday. It was great to talk to her and I could ask for little more but reminded me of how much I miss her too, which is good and bad all at the same time. Like being wrestled by a huge angry chocolate bear.

So, not much happening otherwise. But I did buy an international call card with which to call Jane in England (that’s her on the left there; the other woman is Ute. They are way older than me but don’t look it). Hopefully I’ll visit her soon. I had booked the trip during the summer months but some pretty serious stuff happened to one of my nearest and dearest which meant I couldn’t go. Anyone who knows me well knows what I’m talking about.

Jane and Ute laugh at the comedy that is life, while encouraging me to make a meal of my travel plans

Since I had the card and I hadn’t been in touch with people, I called Erika in Japan, although I ended up having to call her on my mobile.

Erika with More Alcohol! No good!

And I called Sean, who I could always email but a chat is good, and besides he is very entertaining to talk to. And his mother Gael, as well.

Sean on the left, G—– organising shady business deals on the right

Sean and G—– discover that flight is powerful. And next to impossible.

Sean will hopefully be writing some articles for this site soon, including some stuff on AJAX and Content Deportation technologies, which we think are going to be really big soon.

And Rik called! Rik is coming over from Belgium to explore Ireland for a couple of weeks. Rather foolishly, he seems to feel that Ireland is a great way to spend his first extensive holiday in two years. Well, I better find stuff for him to do.

Rik in Ljubljana preparing to loudly call me a cunt from across the street

So, my weekend in pictures, more or less. I shaved my head again which is something I feel I need to do more often because, as you can see in the photo below, there really isn’t very much hair left at all so I’m trying to get a bit of consistency to the hair extinction situation.

The baldness.

And I was out on the town in a low key manner on Friday, where I saw the new bridge out past the IFSC over the Liffey, which looked great with all the lights and what have you.

Sean O’Casey Bridge by gaslight. Or halogen, probably

(edited 28.06.2007)
Obliterated the photo references to Garret, by request.