Luck of the Not-So-Irish

This week was a bit of a disaster. First, I had to get up before five am to walk to work for 45 minutes because the buses don’t run early enough for this job. I was already exhausted from work when I had to take the bus, let alone from walking too, but Dale was exceptionally helpful and actually got up with me in the morning to make my tea and see me off. It made for a much more pleasant start. However, more than once I found myself running for stretches of the walk in order to make it on time, and one day in particular I managed to get lost. I called Heather to try and figure out where the heck I was and she had to laugh when I suddenly found St. Stephen’s Green…I had managed to get a block past the Conrad. So I sprinted to work and signed in, believe it or not, exactly on time.

A quick picture of Alex, the breakfast restaurant

Then I went to my locker and realized my key had gone missing from my wallet. I was shaking enough as it was! Luckily for me one of the laundry ladies had a spare size six pair of black shoes and she was able to collect a vest for me from the laundry. The tie took almost an hour to make its way upstairs for me, and there were no spare aprons. The female supervisor didn’t notice that I got upstairs so late, thank goodness, but she noticed my clothes. I was relieved that she seemed okay with the situation. I guess it’s happened before. But then she pulled me aside and said I needed to cover the tattoo behind my ear. I had a side-braid that day, but apparently hadn’t done a good enough job covering it. Damn it.

For the rest of the day we felt attacked as she criticized everything. No one had told me that there were almost literal measurements for how far to set the forks and knives along the tables, and she delivered this news by asking, “Does this look like a five star setting to you?” Down at Alfie’s in the afternoon she stopped Heather and I communicating a guest order to each other by saying, “Girls, I see you chatting on the floor all the time. You need to stop.” Then she walked away so we couldn’t even defend ourselves. For the record, we don’t stand around chatting. We’re far too afraid to get in trouble for that. By the end of the day stress was on high and I doubt anyone felt like they could do anything right. Then I had to get my lock cut and am now sharing a locker with her until she can collect a new lock for me.

I spoke to the Food and Beverage Manager that same day and told her the truth about how the shifts were too early and asked if I could start at 6:30 instead. I dealt with it for the rest of the week, but next week’s schedule has improved by that necessary fifteen minutes. Unfortunately for me, the Saturday bus schedule is different from the weekdays and even Sunday, so even though I was scheduled to work at the much more pleasant time of 8:00 on Saturday, I had to hail a cab and set myself back nine euros. The cab driver railed about the stupid buses and she just about invited me over for Christmas, so she managed to lighten my mood a little. It’s too bad the changes won’t help me on the weekend when drunken people are still walking around from the night before. If I can say one thing about this week, though, it’s that it never rained on my walk. It’s actually been quite nice. Also, my back is getting stronger from balancing heavy trays in one hand and I’m definitely getting my exercise with my morning “runs.” By the way, I caught some American guy at work look at me and then say to his lady friend, “Did you know it’s a sign of an inexperienced waiter to hold the tray like that?” I wanted to shove my tray in his face. We are expected to carry them that way because it looks more professional.

On Saturday I walked home with Heather and did some grocery shopping at Aldi again, then she went home and I met Dale at Lenehan’s for lunch. In the evening we even bought tickets for the "Doctor Who" special that’s playing in theatres on Saturday. Now we have about eight more episodes to catch up on this week before we go see it. I’m also really looking forward to seeing "The Hunger Games!"

Dale's new bike!

While I was at work on Sunday Dale took two buses across town to meet with a very chatty lady about buying a bicycle she was selling on either gumtree.ie or donedeal.ie for 80 euros. Then, his first time riding a bike in Europe, he took it all the way across the busiest parts of town without a helmet and managed to survive. I’m actually really afraid of riding a bike on the opposite side of the road through town, but his bike is a bit too big for me anyways.

Trying out Dale's bicycle

I’m currently all caught up on my Nanowrimo-ing, but I need to get two days ahead so I don’t have to worry about Barcelona. In the meantime, I have today off at last, and tomorrow I might be going into town with Megan, also from USIT, for a little touring (and some errands I’ve been putting off). It is with relief that I can say that money, while not abounding, is now under control! And the water is fully and officially back to normal!