Petrol prices in Ireland?

Petrol prices keep going down, however the Irish pumps are not. If you go to one of the Irish petrol stations, prices are still the same or not going much down.


I'd recommend to have a look at http://www.pumps.ie/ and shop around.

It's an authentic ripp off. As a consumer, who is protecting us over here?? Even though it is true that EUR value has gone down to 1.10, the lowest point since 2003, but oil is at 60 USD compared to 100 some months ago...



What is the Irish government doing? As usual... not much.

UPC customer service

I have been a customer with UPC (previously NTL) for several years now. Once you have the service set up accordingly is pretty much grant, however, if you need to contact their customer service, it is a nightmare.

Since their latest (and constant) price increase, I ended up cancelling the TV package. After all, so many channels that we don't even watch and nothing really worth watching anyway. It also pisses me off the way they treat much better new customers with good offers and nothing to customer for so many years (customer retention seem that is not important to them).



After 6 calls, more than 30 tweets and emails with their customer service,I still don't know what type of package they put me and the monthly payment. It is unbelievable!

I have too much patience, next time I will cancel the whole service.

3 Mobile Ireland has lost another customer.

Yes, I no longer want to be a 3 mobile Ireland customer. I bought a Nokia E63 with 3 Ireland less than 6 months ago. Although it was expensive, I bought it mainly because I knew it had Skype if I topped up 10 Euros each month. So I moved from vodafone to 3 Ireland.

However, recently we have seen how 3 Ireland is trying to ripp off the Irish customers again, as they have just changed their Terms and Conditions and in order to have Skype you must top up at least 20 Euros in once instead of 10 Eur as agreed when I started as a customer, amount that I don't want to pay as my conditions were different ones.

So, just an advice to all the Irish customer who are thinking of changing to 3 Ireland: Be VERY aware as they will probably change the conditions of the option you choose and what is offered once you start with them, will no longer apply.


Check how they lie on the website:

http://www.three.ie/priceplans/3pay.htm

Every time you top-up you get all this free.

	Free minutes and texts when you top up.
Top up	Free Any Network Weekend Minutes	Free Anytime Any Network SMS
€20 or more	200	300
€10	20	30

• Free
  Skype
• Free
  WLM
• Free
  Google
• Free
  Bebo
  alerts

I am now writing a letter to the Irish Consumer Association and further measures will be taken against 3 mobile Ireland as I had bought the telephone with an specific a price plan and conditions and it has to be respected.

To compare and see more ripp off 3 Ireland: In Ireland Nokia E63 cost 189 Euros in the UK 89 GBP!

http://www.three.ie/handsets_new/nokia-e63-red-3pay.htm

In Obama We trust.

In Obama We Trust. Wasn't it, in God we trust though? Anyway, what else can we do?

The biggest bank robbery ever in Ireland - Sean Fitzpatrick to jail?

From Ireland I wonder, shouldn't Sean Fitzpatrick (the man who broke the bank - the biggest bank robbery ever in Ireland), go to prision?

If I was a Anglo Irish Bank shareholder I would defenitely bring him (and "his friends") to courts.

As a taxpayer in Ireland, I would not understand if this man walks free from this gambling and huge robbery. Unbelievable...

Petrol prices go down but in Ireland pumps don't do it

Petrol prices keep going down, Oil falls to below $60 a barrel (the lowest price in 20 months), however the Irish pumps are not. If you go to the Irish petrol stations, prices are still the same or not going much down.



I'd recommend to have a look at http://www.pumps.ie/ and shop around.

It's an authentic ripp off. As a consumer, who is protecting us over here??



What is the Irish government doing? As usual... not much.

Today Kosovo, tomorrow Catalonia.

Do you remember when Montenegro separated from Serbia? Now it is just as a normal state as all the others and as it is becoming Kosovo today.

Today is Kosovo and tomorrow will be Catalonia, Scotland, the Basque Country,..It is a great day for democracy. Each nation has the right to get their own independence.

New trips

I know last time I wrote was at the beginning of this year, but I haven't got enough time to write. I've got another blog and 3 websites... As today I decided to write something I'll summ up the last few months, which basically I´ve been travelling. As I normally say, I'm permanently on holidays and sometimes I work.

Well, I started the year going to Oslo but instead of landing there I landed in Sweden, Stocolm (the weather was too bad to land in Oslo). After there I went for over 10 days to the States (NYC and Washington), I also went to Croatia, Slovenia and Italy (driving and all at the same trip), over 10 days more to Finland, Rusia and Latvia (travelling mainly by train) , 4 days to Poland for a wedding and "Meet the parents" and the last Saturday I just came back from almost 15 days to Greece (Athens, Crete and Santorini).

As you can see I haven't stop this year...

Oslo

Tomorrow I'm going to Oslo for 3 days, if here in Dublin the weather is so cold, I don't wanna imagine how's gonna be there.
The forecast for the next few days says the maximum temperature will be around -5 C, yes I'm not kidding minus 5 degrees is gonna be the maximum temperature.

I'll explain after the trip.

More trips and Barça

I really wanted to continue explaining the 2nd part of my trip to Israel and Palestine, but I didn't have enough time, I'll try to do it soon, today some new news:


I have to say that I've travelled again, I've been to Portugal 3 weeks ago that was my last trip, I went to Lisbon, Sintra and Porto and I think it is a fantastic country, everything is pretty cheap, there are nice girls and fantastic food. Just 2 weeks before than Portugal I went for a week to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. We had good craic although we had prefered being there longer than a week. We started the trip in Kaunas where we spent a night and a day, next day we went to Vilnius , the next step was to Riga where we hired a car. In Riga there is big party and we didn't have any problem such as in Budapest (even though I was there with the same friend). We have heart that it is quite dangerous night life in Latvia's capital but we had great fun enjoying ourselves a lot, drinking as usual and dancing until 6am each day. We danced with really cool girls, night clubs there are a must go place... Meanwhile we also went to Tallin in Riga, the northest is the coutry the better it was as a coutry, however in Tallin we had some bad weather with snow and rain but as a city is a very beatiful one. Fortunately in the whole trip we didn't have the chance to meet 2 nice girls from Rumania inviting us to have few beers and everything was great.

I'd like to talk a little bit about football, as Barça is doing alright. I went to Stamford bridge for Barça's game. Although we lost, it was a nice experience and we finished going party in London all the whole night even though we had to be at the airport at 6 o'clock, we arrived there still drunk and very affraid of do not being able to take the flight. What I don't like is what Larsson have done to us, for me is unbeliveable what he has done, he left Barça being like God and saying that he was going to Sweden just to play his last football, and just few months later on he plays for united? Betrayal! Retaliation! I whish him the best even if what he did was not fair play. As you can see Barça is on the top of La Liga, the favorite for the Champions league and probably the one that's playing better football. I must admit that I'm surprised of seeing United still first on the Premier league, I hate Chelsea so Keep United on that position. If you want to watch good football just check out the videos I put:If you want to watch good football just check out the videos I send you:

2 for Ronaldhino

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1uXzUJi0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMJ0fxZaRD4

And the best of Barça:

My trip to Israel and Palestine (I).

With the following lines I’ll try to explain my last trip to Israel and Palestine. It was for 11 days during the end of August and beginning of September. The truth is that the trip as a whole was a fantastic experience, I just had a couple of troubles but everything finished alright. I traveled alone but anyway I had a great time.

I started the trip landing to Tel Aviv the economical capital of the Jewish state. Before going to Israel I was pretty scared, the main worries were my own security and also if I had any problem at the airport while I had to be asked for the typical questions: What’s your purpose ? Do you have family in Israel? Where are you gonna go? Almost anything else… I must admit that I was absolutely surprised because I thought I had to pass a long interview to enter into the country. Imagine if I was scared that I had different theories to explain to the Israeli police. My purpose is just for religion reasons, I’m a catholic and I’d love to see all the places where my lord Jesus lived. Don’t you believe me ? Look, here I have a bible and all these catholic cards… I wanted to fake as I was a religious person but then I realized that if they had asked me any religious question, probably it had been obvious that I am religious as an egg is circular. So I decided to say the truth, I was in Israel just on holidays, although it seemed a bit unbelievable as it was just few days after a war against Lebanon. I have to say that I had to go to Israel one month earlier, in fact, I already had the flight tickets, but I had to change them for one month later because of the war. I wanted to go there anyway as where I had to go was a quite area but my friends and family told me that if it was necessary they would call the police to don’t let my flight take off from the Dublin airport. Therefore I changed the flights for one month later, fortunately the war was already over and everyone was more calmed with my flight. The only problem at the airport wasn’t due to the police questions, it was one of my bags that was a little bit broken, I just filed a complain and they told me that if I went to an office they have or in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem they would or repair the bag or either pay me the value of the bag, but I was on holidays and I didn’t want to waste my time repairing a bag, so the bag is still broken…

After the few questions at the airport I just asked some tourist questions at the tourist office and in the very morning I was already in Tel Aviv. Well, in fact I had to go to Jaffa, where I had booked the first two nights in a hostel. Having some problems to be orientated I got Jaffa and my hostel after an hour landing, I left my luggage to the room, I had a shower and I wore a proper trousers, bathing costume in order to get over the high temperatures we had already at 8 o’clock in the morning. I have been living in Ireland for the last year and half and even if it’s summer time I’m not used to this sort of temperatures. After leaving the luggage I still had a mission, I had to call to my job and say that I was sick! Yes, I know I was on holidays but on that day, Monday, I was supposed to be working! The same for the day before, Sunday, that I had to call from the Dublin airport while I was going to departure direction to Paris. I had over 40 Euros of credit on my Irish mobile and also a Catalan mobile, just in case the Irish failed. Do you know what happened? The Irish, as it’s a very bad company (Meteor, the third of the country), had no coverage, no line to call at all… The problem with the Catalan was that I had no credit to call, it was a vodafone but with just few cents, not enough for an international call. I still had time as in Ireland had 2 hours less than in Israel. I needed a plan B. That was a public phone. If you are in Europe nowadays it’s not easy to get one of them but after walking for a while you eventually get one. I was in Jaffa, it is a kind of Muslim quarter outside of Tel Aviv, so it was pretty difficult to get a public phone. Finally I got one, but it didn’t work with coins, it worked just with prepaid cards. Then I had to find out where could I get one. I was near to a post office, I went in and I asked, a guy said, you can get one here but you’ll have to queue, the queue was quite long, at least there were 15 men. I was told it was the day they got paid and they were withdrawing the money. The same guy told that I could try just in front, crossing the street, where there was a boutique which might provide prepaid phone cards. Indeed it was true, I paid for the card and I went to the public phone. I tried at least 20 times dialing all the international codes, without them, the Irish , the American,… nothing I wasn’t able to use a phone! The day before leaving the country I understood how to use it. You must dial one of the Israeli telephone companies to get line and call the number you want. Then I saw I just had two solutions, or do not call and once back into my job I had said that the company’s line phone wasn’t working or send a text to a friend in Dublin 15 minutes before he started, explain him the situation, give him my personal code and password and allow him to call. He got my sms and could call just before when I was supposed to start. In order to don't confuse who read it I've to say that in my company (an American multinacional) employees don´t need to talk to anybody when calling sick, you just need to push few numbers and you are already oficially off.I can say I was saved by an sms. What a fantastic century the XXI!


After that I had already started my holidays. The first day I did nothing, basically I laid down into the fantastic sand of the beaches, I forgot to take the sun cream and I got burnt as I had been cooking myslef, Imagine if I got burnt that two girls had to come to me and they said: Aren´t you from here, are you? No, I´m not, I´m from Catalonia. We advise you to protect yourself against the sun as here it´s very dangerous and we have seen you are already very burnt. Fair enough, I went quickly to the nearest shop to get after sun cream, I bought one bottle and I put it to my body several times, however it was already too late, my skin had already been absolutely burnt. The next day I wasn't even able to walk.

Back again.

Firslty my apologies to write AGAIN so late after the last time, I've been away for a while. Well, the last time I wrote a post was 3 MONTHS AGO!!
First of all I went to Nice and Monaco (where I saw the tragedy match 3-0 that Barça played against Sevilla), after that I went to Israel and Palestine for eleven days and on my own, I worked one day in Dublin and I've also been for 5 days to Catalonia, which I could watch another football match 5-0 against a Bulgarian team playing the Champions league.

My experience in Palestine and Israel was fantastic. I went to several towns (Jerusalem, Bethlem, Jerico, Ramallah, Tel Aviv, lots of towns on the Mediterranean coast and to the border with Lebanon, a swimming by the death sea,...). The next time I'll explain lots of great experiencies I had overthere.

It is not an urban legend, it is real!!

Just a couple of weeks ago me and another friend had a fantastic trip. We flew to Salzburg (Austria) and we hired a car overthere. We, spent the first night in the Mozart's city and the next morning driving we arrived to Bratislava (Slovakia) where we spent two days visiting the city. On the third day we woke up and had breakfast in Bratislava, we drove direction to Vienna (Austria) where we had lunch and when we decided tp go back to Bratislava arount 4 o'clock, we changed our mind and we went straight ahead to Budapest (Hungary). As that was my second time in that beautiful city I showed the city as much as possible to my friend and then we said ourselves, let's go for the last beer in Budapest and we go back to Bratislava. Well, then the only problem we had during the trip started:

We were walking thorugh one of the most important shopping streets and two girls stopped us and they said: "Hey guys, do you know any Irish pub around here?"

Obviously we didn't know anyone but we were looking for a pub as well. We explained it to them and they told us if we wanted to go for a drink together with them. Of course we thought "Jesus, today has to be our lucky day". Mmmm, what a lucky day...if that's luck I don't even want to know what's bad luck... Well, so we arranged to go together all 4 to have a drink. We were chatting though their English pretty poor (I mean even poorest than mine!). The two girls, I have to say that they were pretty good looking, were from Rumania. After a couple of minutes walking through the same street they said that they had heart of a pub beside where we were that could be a good one. As we didn't know anyone we agreed to go to that one they just mentioned.

I must say that from the very beginning I saw there was something strange. But I thought, well they are only two girls, let's play the game to see what happens, they can't be dangerous. I realised there was something rare because when they were talking I saw they were lying, for instance, they said it was their first day ever in Budapest and after a while, when I was talking to one of them I saw she knew a lot about the city. Well it doesn't matter now, there is nothing to do to change what happened.

As I said we went in to the pub. To get there, in that building, it was in the second floor and the only way was through a lift (something not really usual as you can see). From the very beginning they knew where we were going, once we were in a waitress came and told us to get a big table and sit down. All the time I was talking to one of the girls, I don't even remember the name, and my friend with the other one. After a while to be there, the waitress came to know what we wanted. I ordered a beer as it is what I normally drink in Ireland. Then she asked the same question to the girls. Pay attention what they ordered the first time: Three cocktails (two for them and one for my friend) 4 shots of whiskey or whatever and 2 drinks such as red bull. We didn't pay too much attention, simply we thought they might really be thirsty...

After those drinks they continued ordering a lot of more. Maybe they came straight ahead from the desert... Anyway, as I saw that everything was very strange, I just drunk my beer and a bit of the shot. The beer mainly because I had seen how the waitress had opened up the bottle just in front of me. From the beginning I thought it was a trick to put some drugs to our drinks and get all the money they could. After the story, we realised that we were very lucky because we had to return to Bratislava, if not... I don't know what had happened.
The end of the story. We continued chatting with the two girls, but (meanwhile and before I was trying to say to my friend that there was something strange but he didn't realised!!) we decided to go out from that bloody place. We asked for the bill and we found out what was the surpirse . In Euros (it was in the currency of Hungary) it was 400 Euros! Even in the most expensive hotel in the world, we probably hadn't had to pay that fortune. Obviously we complained and we wanted to know why it was so expensive if we were in Hungary, where everything was suposed to be so cheap! They told us that from the very beginning the prices where up on the table. Therefore the only option was to pay what we owed.

The two rumanians stated that they only had a little bit of money, we didn't have all the amount either. My friend and me were wondering what shall we do?. They pressure us, shooting: "You must pay what you owe", "If you don't have enough cash, there is an ATM beside that door!". I told to my friend that we only would pay what we had drunk. We knew that even though we had called the police, there was nothing to do. Probably they were linked. I told to my friend to go to get money from his credit card, but I told him to get it out in the street not in the ATM they had, I didn't want more surprises.

I don't know how he managed but he could get into the street (later we realised that the door entrance was locked!). After a minute, the waitress came to me in a hurry shoting: "Your friend has ran away!" "You have to pay me all the money" and she repeated it twice. I don't know why but I wasn't nervous, I just told her that everything was under control, that she shouldn't be worried. I was in that empty pub, sitting down with the two girls (which we didn't told them a word anymore) and I was oweing 400 Euros! You had to see the waitress, the girls and the other staff faces, they didn't know what to do!!!

Fortunately, my friend finally came back, we agreed to pay "only" our part, 25% each, so it meant 100 Euros each for a couple of drinks!!! We got see the door locked, but a gut from the staff opened it up for us, we ran away direction to the street so angry and with 100 Euros less each in our pockets.

After that we realised that we had been lucky. If we didn't have to sleep in Bratislava, it meant drive back to there for two hours. Their trick is to meet foreign guys in the street, bring them at the pub, we thing it is our lucky day and we get robbed as much money as they can.We lost 100 Euros each, but I am absolutely sure some other people, once they are drunk, have been robbed for amounts such as 2.000 Euros.

My advice, always whatch out when you travel, I also thought it would be an urband legend until the day it happened to me.

The Catalan referendum for self-goverment

Talking about the referendum we are going to hold tomorrow, I have to say that it is a complicated subject, even hardest to understand for a person from other countries.

I think this link of an article of the newspaper The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,1792096,00.html might be a bit useful to understand more regarding this mater. I'll try to explain you a bit. The issue is that thanks to the Catalan citizens we got our politicians to fight for more self-government for our region, Catalonia. It was after 30 years since we got the actual level of self-goverment. As it was after Franco's death, we couldn't ask for lots of power, and we got only a bit of what we wanted. For a lots of people it was bullshit, and we had to wait over 30 years to improve that big mistake in terms of government.

The Catalan Parliament has 5 parties. Four of them (the 5th is PP a nearly fascist party and represents only less than 10% of our popullation), on the last September 30th agreed for a new semi-Constitution for Catalonia, even though we still would keep belonging to our neighbours: Spain. For me it wasn't enough but it was a big, a huge step forward. The Catalan people had illusion, it was one of the times you could be proud of your politicians, in fact, strangely they were doing what they must do: defending the rights of the people they represent. But that illusion disappeared as the smoke of a cigarrette in a windy day.
A country is also made of betrayers, and in our history, it is one of our worst problems. Two of the main parties decided to stop working for Catalonia and together, hand by hand, with the 90% of the Catalan Parliament that had said yes to that rules. They betrayed our people and negotiated a different Estatut (like a Constitution but belonging to Spain): An Estatut that was cut by 65% less than what the Catalan Parliament had decided!!!! (The Spaniards are the worst doing this kind of business and if some Catalan politicians betray their own people, there is nothing to do)
It was still a good autonomy Constitution but 65% less than what we had already decided. Can you imagine, you elect a government this goverment choose something and after 3 months what you voted is for nothing, your opinion as a citizen is nule! Even tough the Spaniard president had said: "I'll accept the Estatut that will come from Catalonia" (sic).
One more lyer. Tomorrow there is the referendum. I live in Ireland and I couldn't travel to Catalonia, therefore I would not be able to vote as I am still waiting for the post, to vote by post (although today was the last day!!!!). I feel really cheated and if I could vote (tomorrow is going to be impossible) i would vote NO. The people who will say NO (like myself) is people who feel absolutely cheated by the Spaniards and by the majority of the Catalan politicans. If tomorrow the answer was NO (probably will be YES because they control ALL the medias) the message would be very clear: We have had more than enough. The next step is the independence, Catalonia is going to be the next country in Europe. Although if YES wins it is a really tiny step forward.
Thankfully everyday more and more Catalans realize that there is no future if we keep belonging to Spain. If we want to have the same rights as the other countries in Europe, we will have to become a new country in Europe. It is a mater of survival as a people.

My national team.

I am from Catalonia, it is an stateless nation that belongs to Spain and France as well. The Catalan national team can not play any official tournement. We normally play once or twice a year friendly games, we have played against Brazil, Argentina, and other national teams. As a Catalan, we do not have the chance to play for Catalonia, most of the Catalan people usually support all the national teams that play against Spain and France too.But this season Barça won the Champions league and the league of the Spaniards as well. So we were double lucky, now we only have to wait seeing Spain and France out. Let's keep the fingers and hope it will be soon!

Freedom

Three weeks ago we could see how the people from Montenegro gained their freedom. I would like to know when a referendum similar to that in Montenegro will be held in Northern Ireland, under the EU supervision, to decide on Irish unification. And of course the same for Scotland and Wales. I am a Catalan, and I hope that we will soon have our own referendum on independence, and likewise hope that we will regain our freedom, provided that France and Spain do not deprive us of our right to self-determination. Every nation must decide what they want for themselves. The sooner all the stateless nations become independent countries, so much the better for freedom and democracy in Europe. Anyway congratulations to the people of Montenegro. A good lesson of democracy that some EU states should learn.

Democracy

The last weekend we could see how the people from Montenegro gained their freedom. I think that would be a good question to all the people who believe that this is democracy : When will the UK allow for a referendum in Northern Ireland or Scotland or Wales? When will Spain or France allow for a referendum in Catalonia or in the Basque region? Or for instance, France in Corsica? Anyway congratulations to the people of Monenegro. A good lesson of democracy that som EU states should learn.

Independence

"Do you want Montenegro to be an independent state with full international and legal legitimacy?"

This was the question that Montenegro answered "YES" today, after Montenegro, the next country in Europe is gonna be Catalonia. Will Spain let us decide our own future??

How long?

How long do we have to wait to stop it? Are we still human beings? I wouldn't say so...

Easter 2006, 90 years.

This year I have spent the first year in Ireland commemoreting the Easter Irish Rising of 1916. It has been a great experience. During these days, It is when you realise that the Irish people are still alive, very alive. For instance, yesterday there was a fantastic demonstration among the main Dublin streets to commemorate the Easter Rising. A demonstrate and a meeting organized by the Irish men and women, it wasn't a military demonstration as the one we saw today, an army parade when just few years ago almost all of the Irish citizens where on the streets claiming for peace and against the armies.

The mesage yesterday was very clear, the business started during the 1916 rising are still not finished. Those Irish men and women who fighted and died for the full freedom of the island do not deserve this actual state of the country. In which equality is not in the goverment's agenda, in which poverty among young people is one of the biggest problems so far, in which we do not have a united Ireland yet, and I could go on and on...

The weekend before this one I went to the North of Ireland -I don't like using Northern Ireland, for me is the North of Ireland even if it belongs to the Brits- It was my third time to that land, in my opinion a land with fantastic people. I went to Belfast again, to Derry and to the Giants Causeway route as well. I had a great time, mainly because what I like more is talking to the people, and the Catholic people from the North are georgous (Even though i am not religious at all). Talking to some of them, they were complaining themselves regarding the people from the South, mostly they feel they don't get too many help from the South, although just few weeks ago there was a report stating that 75% of the republic citizens want a united Ireland.

It is sad, in my opinion, always in life when you see something you don't like, you see a problem, and you continue with your arms crossed, you are part of the problem.