This is where I've been working

Oh, hells yeah.

Wha??

So, just picking up a little ground beef - or "mince" as they call it here. Ah, there it is. Wait, what's that on the bottom right corner of the package??



Oh yes, that's right. Let me just blow that up for you:



Um, NO FANKS! Don't need to know what furry cow this came from!

Car inspection

Here in Ireland, you only have to get your car inspected once every two years. Now this may lead you to believe that this process is much easier than in the US, but noooooo. What you have to do to prepare for the car and then what the poor wittle car has to go through during the inspection is much more intense than in the US (you know, drive to the gas station, turn your blinkers on, check the lights, pay $10 and VOILA! They give you your new sticker).

Before going to the NCT here in Ireland, you have to make sure that the entire car and trunk are cleaned out. You also have to make sure that the undercarraige is clean. We don't do a whole lotta muddin' in the Volvo, so we were alright with that. You have to make an appointment and fortunately they're open until 10:00 so we were able to go at 8:30 one night.

They take your car and roll it into a big warehouse:

You pay ahead of time and then you can go up to the "observation deck" to watch where all of the magic happens. They hook it up to a few machines and check God knows what:

And then they get in the car and drive over a this thing in the ground that holds the wheels so that the inspection guy can "drive" the car at a higher speed and then rolls over something else in the ground that lifts the wheels to check the shocks.

There's our little car going through the stress test:

Theeeeennn... they drive it to the next stop and lift it up as they would if you brought your car to the mechanic so that they can see what the story is underneath.

At the end they call your name on the loudspeaker and you go down and some Polish guy gives you your keys and says "Eet's pearfect." If they don't say "Eet's pearfect," then you have to go get the whatever is broken fixed and bring it back to have all of that done again. Fortunately we passed!