Little Adventures

The radiators didn’t come on this week after all, and our clothes hung damp all over the apartment until they started to give off a lovely odour. Our landlady has come collecting twice now only to find bras hanging to dry on every doorknob. I sincerely hope she comes by when the place is clean next time because we look like absolute slobs when in actuality I haven’t missed a single week of vacuuming since we moved in. Which is why I was utterly shocked and horrified one night to see something move out of the corner of my eye. When I looked up it was to see a gigantic full-palm-sized wolf spider sprinting at me. I gasped so loud I made Dale jump and whipped my feet off the floor, which thank God made the tall monster run and hide under the hanging clothes. How many times have I had that nightmare, and now I’ve had to live it? I spent the rest of the evening shuddering and staring at its crumple-legged corpse, wondering how it got in, if it’s been in here the whole time, if there are more, and why I had to choose that night to wear my glasses. As if I needed to see that more clearly!

On Monday at Fitgerald’s we found ourselves surrounded by people we didn’t know. It seems a new wave of foreigners has made their way to Dublin, and they are predominantly German. Unfortunately the group was also so large that we ended up at a separate table, but were later glad to find that some of the usuals came to join us. I mentioned to a few more of them my idea about collecting true short stories about Ireland and they thought it was pretty cool too. On Wednesday I took the bus to the USIT office on my own to print off our Ryanair flights for Sunday. I’ll skip the part where I applied for jobs so much this week that I got sick of sitting on the couch. I spoke to the very nice social media lady and she thought my short story idea was great (I also love that they don’t mind my using their printers even though I didn’t come here through the program). I did a small write-up for her and she later posted it to the "USIT’s Work in Ireland Program" facebook page, which currently has 660 likes. Let’s hope some writers out there are interested!

I heard back from the family I interviewed for last week, and they said they are going with someone else. I’m sure it has something to do with money, and I can’t really blame a family of four including triplets for that. On Thursday I had an interview for a wait staff position at the fairly fancy Conrad Hotel. It sounded like the work would be difficult, but varied because there’s a breakfast place, a pub, an evening restaurant, a banquet hall, and a cocktail bar. I was also told it would be fairly easy to book time off, and that they offer their employees free courses such as finance or languages. I mentioned Heather, who gave me the contact information for this job, and how we both want to learn some Irish while we are here, and my interviewer was impressed. She put me through to the second interview with Human Resources, but I don’t know when it will be yet. I also posted an ad for nannying on gumtree.ie, and received from one jackass, “Are u single?” and some more appropriate questions from a genuinely interested family. They are looking for someone to watch their 18 month old daughter for four days a week. I still love the idea of being able to take weekend trips or volunteer at Niall’s school, so I said I was interested. I’m not sure which job would be better for me if I had to choose, but it’s too early for that at the moment anyways.

On the way home from my interview on Thursday I noticed a girl looking at a map on the corner of my street. I hung back for a moment to be sure, then asked if she needed help. I think she must have been from Poland, but I was able to show her where she was and where she needed to go. I went home smiling because I helped a stranger, and because it's becoming clear that I live here. Another cause for a smile was that after playing guitar for about four years, I finally managed to tune both mine and Dale's guitars! His took about five minutes after I learned on mine. A lot of people may find it easy to tune a guitar, but I am still pretty proud of myself for finally managing it!

The chapel's ceiling

A stained glass view

Roisin offered me a job on Saturday with her company, Green Light Events. I got up before the sun and dragged my feet into a cab  and off to the Royal Hospital on Kilmainham, which isn’t actually a hospital anymore, but an art gallery and banquet hall. I basically just sat in the stain glass-windowed former chapel under a high, ornate ceiling, and handed teachers their name tags and goodie bags all day. Before I realized I should ask people to spell their names, I did give a few people some blank stares. I couldn’t even read half of the names out loud myself, let

A peek at the garden

alone spell them from hearing it. For example, one man’s name was spelled something like, “Seamabh Ceallobhani.” But I survived. It was boring occasionally, but there were also good conversations with the girls I was working with, a free lunch in the huge cobbled courtyard with the sun beaming down, and explorations of the rooms in what was practically a mansion. On the crazy route to the bathroom I came across the stone torsos of Roman warriors. The next room over from where I worked was a ballroom with massive portraits just below the intricate crown moulding and chandeliers. Beyond that there were bright rooms with tall windows, and dark-wooded rooms where I could hear a choir singing. The choir turned out to be children who I got to listen to perform in the Ballroom. Through a great big door in one of the bright rooms that we were using for storage, I found a small door in the wall. When I opened it I found myself in a tiny cube of a room with another little door. I tried it, but it was locked. Eventually I figured out it opened into the hallway, but I still thought it was neat. I sometimes have dreams about exploring the rooms in big houses like that, and it’s always so exciting to imagine what’s around the next corner. The windows of the storage room also looked out on the grounds, which were perfectly manicured, and one garden even had the type of bushes and plants that are perfectly shaped and very old-England. I managed to talk to my cab-driver all the way home as well. All in all, I enjoyed the day and am happy to have a little money for Germany tomorrow—and for something other than plain ham sandwiches and Mr. Noodles!

The sunlit courtyard