Ireland Updates
Hi,
I said I'd try and post on LJ, so I'm just gonna copy/paste the emails from the past to start.
Hey Everyone,
Sorry for the mass email, this is just to let you all know that I am
currently in Dublin, Ireland, and will be here for the next four
months. As of right now, I am living in a hostel, looking for a job,
and enjoying the beautiful winter weather of the emerald isle :-P My
internet access is sporadic at best, but I will check email as often
as possible, and once I am in a more permanent living situation, I
hope to be online a bit more often. As of that point, I will be using
gchat, skype (sn: jedapo), or AIM (sn: JeffyPop7) to communicate with
people, but I also have a mobile phone here, the number is 353 85 754
2678. For those of you in the US, dial 011 first, the rest of you
should probably only need to dial 00 (0011 for Australia). There
might be some fancy thing with '+' on cell phones, but I don't know
exactly how that works. Anyway, I'll be sending out periodic 'update'
emails, so let me know if you would be interested in getting those.
Possibly updating livejournal as well (Happy_Fun_Jeff). So now that
you all know 50 ways to keep up with me, I hope you're all doing well
in your respective countries and cities. I'll be in touch!
-Jeff
Hey everyone,
You're getting this because either you expressed interest in my goings on abroad, or I'm just not giving you a choice about keeping up to date with my life :-)
So because I ultimately fail at updating livejournal, this is going to be the first of several emails chronicling my journey to and adventures on the Emerald Isle. Yes, you've been warned, and it's true, I'm in the Republic of Ireland right now, in the capitol city of Dublin, where I plan on remaining for the next four months. Not only remaining, but hopefully earning a living and making myself a useful member of Irish society, which is more than I ever really did in the USA!
Well, maybe that's being a little harsh, but either way, this will be my first on-my-own foray into the real world, and what better way to ease into that than to go to a completely new country where I don't know a single person? But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. First off there was my...
Week in London!
After all, when going to Europe, why not take advantage of the cheap, easy travel. In this case the € 2 round trip ticket from Dublin to London (plus another € 60 in taxes and stuff, but who's counting). Anyway, I jumped at the chance to return to the city I love most, the place that inspired me to travel even more, and there were other ulterior motives to going there as well... that being, as many of you have either heard or noticed on facebook, that I am newly in a relationship with Meg. For those of you who don't know her, she was a senior at Oberlin when I was a freshman, she helped inspire me to continue on and pursue theater, and we became wonderful friends in the process. And now, through a series of events, chats, and the occasional phone conversation, we're something more, and it makes me really happy. So yeah, how could I not go to London!
Anyway, I wish that I could regale you with a long list of amazing and fascinating things that I did while in the UK, but frankly, I slept a lot, because it wasn't as easy for me to adjust to the 5 hour time difference as I thought it would be. Apparently the 'not sleeping for a day or two' strategy doesn't work too well. So yeah, I got in to London around 4 in the afternoon, managed to stay awake through an hour long tube ride, a fun little jaunt through the Angel area with my four bags, dinner with Meg's friend Kat, more wandering about with all my luggage, meeting Meg's flatmates, and then collapsing for about 12 hours. The rest of my stay there, while not sleeping, was spent either hanging around various pubs, meeting up with friends and acquaintances also in London (Maria, Tasha, Willow, and Donna Vinter), or a combination of the two.
Ok, so not entirely. I did a lot of nostalgic stuff, like going to Wagamama's, walking along the Thames, visiting Greenwich (the Observatory was closed when we got there, and the Cutty Sark under construction, but I got to wow Meg with the Painted Hall and the 'Humped Pelican Crossing'), and strolling about Hyde Park and Bayswater. And there was plenty of other fun as well, in the form of new areas, new places to eat and drink, and even some fun new experiences (muttering guy in the Angel tube station with a broken bottle!).
Sadly (in part), the week came to an end, and it was time for me to pack up all my stuff once more, lug it back to the airport, say goodbye to Meg, and head to Dublin. And thus began...
The Ireland Experience!
Ireland began in a mixed sort of fashion. Customs was a breeze, baggage claim was a breeze, and some random lady outside the airport gave me a free bus ticket into City Centre. Once I got off the bus, however, I finally had to deal with carting four bags, most of them quite heavy, through crowds of tourists and over rough cobblestones, desperately telling myself that the hostel was only a few more blocks. By the time I got close, I had to stop every ten feet or so to give my arms a rest, and to this day they are still a bit sore! Anyway, the hostel was nice (IS nice, I'm still there), it's in the Temple Bar area in Dublin, which in retrospect I would NOT recommend! I mean, I can't complain too much about the accomodations themselves, but the location truly sucks. Crowded and noisy, day and night, and supremely overpriced as well. I'm also still bitter about having to drag the suitcases over the cobbles But yeah, aside from that, and losing a glove during the process, once I got settled in and had a good night's sleep, things began looking up.
And that's pretty much where I stand as of today. No Job, no place to live, still stuck in Temple Bar, but I've got a better sense of what I'm facing now. I'm slowly familiarizing myself with Dublin City Centre, scouting out job possibilities, including the theatre scene, and even meeting a few friendly folk along the way (a couple Irish guys kept buying me pints of Guinness last night!). Hopefully the next time you hear from me I'll be in a more stable position, but in the meantime, I'm living life as it happens, and frankly, I enjoy it. I miss Meg, and I miss all of you back home or at Oberlin or wherever you are. I hope everyone's doing well!
-Jeff
P.S. As of my sending this, it's been a few days since I wrote it, so new things have occurred, but I'll save that for another time.
Hi,
So yes, this is coming relatively soon after the last email, but the last email was late, and enough has happened that I just wanted to get another one out there before I forgot anything important.
For one thing, I have an address now! That's right, I found a place to live, finally. I have to say, I was getting seriously fed up with going out day after day looking for jobs and rooms, and finding neither. For a place that's supposed to be great to live and work, Dublin certainly puts up a fight about it. Anyway, on the verge of just resigning myself to the hostel for four months (sadly cheaper than a lot of rooms in Dublin), one of the people I'd emailed contacted me back. It was a place a bit further out of the city, but theoretically easy to get to by bus and train, so I agreed to meet him that afternoon so he could show me the place.
Anyway, I'll spare you the negotiation details, because obviously I took it. It's a pretty sweet deal, all things considered. I have a double bed in a 8' x 10' room all to myself, with cable TV and broadband internet also in the room. The room and house are a little on the dirty side, but not in a seriously disgusting sense, more like a 'neglected student housing sense' (something along the lines of 148 Woodland St. - but no kittens). All the other modern conveniences are present, although the dishes are somewhat lacking. And the area is incredible. We're practically IN St. Anne's Park, a large park that borders the Irish sea. There are a bunch of other little smaller parks around, and a smaller 'town' center about a 10 minute walk away with a grocery, pharmacy, banks, pubs, restaurants, and anything else I could ever need short of something specifically in Dublin City Centre. Even if I need to go to City Centre, there are about 5 buses that'll get me there in 15-30 minutes, one that leaves practically from my doorstep, and a DART stop as well. And all of this for the grand old price €360/mo. Which, if that doesn't mean anything to you, is ridiculously cheap. So yeah, I scored, and my address is 56 Maryville Rd., Raheny, D5.
As if angry about this turn of good luck, Dublin retaliated and did show me one of the downsides. I arranged to bring my heavy luggage over that night, so that I only had to drag the little stuff out of the hostel in the morning. So at 8pm I got my stuff, dragged it to the train station, and overconfidently managed to get on the wrong train (in my defense, unlike the Underground, there are precious few flyers explaining how the DART system works). Anyway, I apparently hopped the commuter line, and an express one at that, that took me way up the coast to Skerries, where, I had the choice of either waiting 88 minutes for the next train back, or, as I found out after dragging my bags all the way down into the town of Skerries, even longer for a bus. Eighty-eight minutes later (in the cold) I got the train back down to Howth Jct., and a 20 minute wait after that (in the cold and wind) got on the right train to Raheny. So yeah, adventure over right? No, because I drop off my bags and it's 11:30pm, and apparently the last bus and train to City Centre leave at 11:30pm! And all of my important stuff is at the hostel, so I sprint for the nearest bus station, get there at 11:35, and find out that there's ONE more bus. Ten minutes later, though, I decide it's lying and start walking. Cue last bus zooming past as I'm approaching the next bus stop... *sigh* But it was a nice hour and a half walk, and I didn't really get lost, which I think is pretty impressive. And I had no problem getting to sleep. But more importantly, having a place to live and having defied public transport, the new score was Jeff - 2, Dublin - 0.
Dublin still had other surprises, though, as well as the ultimate trump card which it still holds, that of employment. I've had small luck, but mostly frustration on that front. Theatre-wise, which was my big hope, things look very slim. My biggest boon, in fact, has been that Maggie's Uncle lives in Dublin and teaches theatre at Trinity! So we met up for coffee (tea for me) and he told me how bleak the situation was, but then was like "Well, I'm having dinner with the voice director for the Abbey theatre, I'll bring you up"! And since then has either mentioned me to, or given me the contact info for, people at the Abbey, Trinity, and some other big theatrical folk around! So yeah, he's the best (and thank you Maggie for his info!). Other than that, though, it's a struggle trying to find the one job in some other field that I am actually qualified for, because everyone here wants experience. All the bars, restaurants, stores, everyone short of Domino's Pizza (and I did not fly across the Atlantic to work at Domino's Pizza) want prior experience, which begs the question of how the hell do you get prior experience? But whatever, I've found a few things, sent out a few apps, and I'll keep at it.
So yeah, apparently that attitude being too positive, Dublin's most recent stab at me occurred four days ago, in the form of (I suspect) my well meaning housemate's welcome dinner for me. It was my first night in the new house, and Jen (who's Chinese. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the housemates: Jen, Steven from Amsterdam, Andre and girlfriend from Russia, neither of whom I've really met yet) made me some chicken curry. And in his defense, it was really good curry. But possibly the chicken wasn't cooked enough, because, well, I'll spare you the gruesome details, but I've been bedridden the past four days. I mean, I was able to drag myself to a doctor on Thursday, to confirm somewhat that it was a virus, from food poisoning, and to get me drugs which would theoretically help while it worked itself out. So yeah, two days of literal hell, and then friday night the fever broke and yesterday was spent feeling not as bad, actually eating a little food (gross frozen pizza, bad choice on my part, I was hoping for Red Baron), and today I feel almost as good as new. Kinda week from having been in bed for four days, but I'll get over it. So yeah, I don't blame Jen, I think it was once again Dublin trying to get me. Maybe that's not a healthy attitude this early in the trip, but it's given me the contrary sort of mindset that I can beat whatever it can throw at me, and that should hopefully help me to get by.
So yeah, that's where my life stands as of right now. I'll let you all know if anything else interesting happens such as me getting a job or being deported. I hope that all of your respective towns and cities are not as eager to get rid of you, and that life is going well, feel free to write me back. Until next time!
-Jeff
I'll try and keep LJ updated more often in the future, sorry guys!
I said I'd try and post on LJ, so I'm just gonna copy/paste the emails from the past to start.
Hey Everyone,
Sorry for the mass email, this is just to let you all know that I am
currently in Dublin, Ireland, and will be here for the next four
months. As of right now, I am living in a hostel, looking for a job,
and enjoying the beautiful winter weather of the emerald isle :-P My
internet access is sporadic at best, but I will check email as often
as possible, and once I am in a more permanent living situation, I
hope to be online a bit more often. As of that point, I will be using
gchat, skype (sn: jedapo), or AIM (sn: JeffyPop7) to communicate with
people, but I also have a mobile phone here, the number is 353 85 754
2678. For those of you in the US, dial 011 first, the rest of you
should probably only need to dial 00 (0011 for Australia). There
might be some fancy thing with '+' on cell phones, but I don't know
exactly how that works. Anyway, I'll be sending out periodic 'update'
emails, so let me know if you would be interested in getting those.
Possibly updating livejournal as well (Happy_Fun_Jeff). So now that
you all know 50 ways to keep up with me, I hope you're all doing well
in your respective countries and cities. I'll be in touch!
-Jeff
Hey everyone,
You're getting this because either you expressed interest in my goings on abroad, or I'm just not giving you a choice about keeping up to date with my life :-)
So because I ultimately fail at updating livejournal, this is going to be the first of several emails chronicling my journey to and adventures on the Emerald Isle. Yes, you've been warned, and it's true, I'm in the Republic of Ireland right now, in the capitol city of Dublin, where I plan on remaining for the next four months. Not only remaining, but hopefully earning a living and making myself a useful member of Irish society, which is more than I ever really did in the USA!
Well, maybe that's being a little harsh, but either way, this will be my first on-my-own foray into the real world, and what better way to ease into that than to go to a completely new country where I don't know a single person? But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. First off there was my...
Week in London!
After all, when going to Europe, why not take advantage of the cheap, easy travel. In this case the € 2 round trip ticket from Dublin to London (plus another € 60 in taxes and stuff, but who's counting). Anyway, I jumped at the chance to return to the city I love most, the place that inspired me to travel even more, and there were other ulterior motives to going there as well... that being, as many of you have either heard or noticed on facebook, that I am newly in a relationship with Meg. For those of you who don't know her, she was a senior at Oberlin when I was a freshman, she helped inspire me to continue on and pursue theater, and we became wonderful friends in the process. And now, through a series of events, chats, and the occasional phone conversation, we're something more, and it makes me really happy. So yeah, how could I not go to London!
Anyway, I wish that I could regale you with a long list of amazing and fascinating things that I did while in the UK, but frankly, I slept a lot, because it wasn't as easy for me to adjust to the 5 hour time difference as I thought it would be. Apparently the 'not sleeping for a day or two' strategy doesn't work too well. So yeah, I got in to London around 4 in the afternoon, managed to stay awake through an hour long tube ride, a fun little jaunt through the Angel area with my four bags, dinner with Meg's friend Kat, more wandering about with all my luggage, meeting Meg's flatmates, and then collapsing for about 12 hours. The rest of my stay there, while not sleeping, was spent either hanging around various pubs, meeting up with friends and acquaintances also in London (Maria, Tasha, Willow, and Donna Vinter), or a combination of the two.
Ok, so not entirely. I did a lot of nostalgic stuff, like going to Wagamama's, walking along the Thames, visiting Greenwich (the Observatory was closed when we got there, and the Cutty Sark under construction, but I got to wow Meg with the Painted Hall and the 'Humped Pelican Crossing'), and strolling about Hyde Park and Bayswater. And there was plenty of other fun as well, in the form of new areas, new places to eat and drink, and even some fun new experiences (muttering guy in the Angel tube station with a broken bottle!).
Sadly (in part), the week came to an end, and it was time for me to pack up all my stuff once more, lug it back to the airport, say goodbye to Meg, and head to Dublin. And thus began...
The Ireland Experience!
Ireland began in a mixed sort of fashion. Customs was a breeze, baggage claim was a breeze, and some random lady outside the airport gave me a free bus ticket into City Centre. Once I got off the bus, however, I finally had to deal with carting four bags, most of them quite heavy, through crowds of tourists and over rough cobblestones, desperately telling myself that the hostel was only a few more blocks. By the time I got close, I had to stop every ten feet or so to give my arms a rest, and to this day they are still a bit sore! Anyway, the hostel was nice (IS nice, I'm still there), it's in the Temple Bar area in Dublin, which in retrospect I would NOT recommend! I mean, I can't complain too much about the accomodations themselves, but the location truly sucks. Crowded and noisy, day and night, and supremely overpriced as well. I'm also still bitter about having to drag the suitcases over the cobbles But yeah, aside from that, and losing a glove during the process, once I got settled in and had a good night's sleep, things began looking up.
And that's pretty much where I stand as of today. No Job, no place to live, still stuck in Temple Bar, but I've got a better sense of what I'm facing now. I'm slowly familiarizing myself with Dublin City Centre, scouting out job possibilities, including the theatre scene, and even meeting a few friendly folk along the way (a couple Irish guys kept buying me pints of Guinness last night!). Hopefully the next time you hear from me I'll be in a more stable position, but in the meantime, I'm living life as it happens, and frankly, I enjoy it. I miss Meg, and I miss all of you back home or at Oberlin or wherever you are. I hope everyone's doing well!
-Jeff
P.S. As of my sending this, it's been a few days since I wrote it, so new things have occurred, but I'll save that for another time.
Hi,
So yes, this is coming relatively soon after the last email, but the last email was late, and enough has happened that I just wanted to get another one out there before I forgot anything important.
For one thing, I have an address now! That's right, I found a place to live, finally. I have to say, I was getting seriously fed up with going out day after day looking for jobs and rooms, and finding neither. For a place that's supposed to be great to live and work, Dublin certainly puts up a fight about it. Anyway, on the verge of just resigning myself to the hostel for four months (sadly cheaper than a lot of rooms in Dublin), one of the people I'd emailed contacted me back. It was a place a bit further out of the city, but theoretically easy to get to by bus and train, so I agreed to meet him that afternoon so he could show me the place.
Anyway, I'll spare you the negotiation details, because obviously I took it. It's a pretty sweet deal, all things considered. I have a double bed in a 8' x 10' room all to myself, with cable TV and broadband internet also in the room. The room and house are a little on the dirty side, but not in a seriously disgusting sense, more like a 'neglected student housing sense' (something along the lines of 148 Woodland St. - but no kittens). All the other modern conveniences are present, although the dishes are somewhat lacking. And the area is incredible. We're practically IN St. Anne's Park, a large park that borders the Irish sea. There are a bunch of other little smaller parks around, and a smaller 'town' center about a 10 minute walk away with a grocery, pharmacy, banks, pubs, restaurants, and anything else I could ever need short of something specifically in Dublin City Centre. Even if I need to go to City Centre, there are about 5 buses that'll get me there in 15-30 minutes, one that leaves practically from my doorstep, and a DART stop as well. And all of this for the grand old price €360/mo. Which, if that doesn't mean anything to you, is ridiculously cheap. So yeah, I scored, and my address is 56 Maryville Rd., Raheny, D5.
As if angry about this turn of good luck, Dublin retaliated and did show me one of the downsides. I arranged to bring my heavy luggage over that night, so that I only had to drag the little stuff out of the hostel in the morning. So at 8pm I got my stuff, dragged it to the train station, and overconfidently managed to get on the wrong train (in my defense, unlike the Underground, there are precious few flyers explaining how the DART system works). Anyway, I apparently hopped the commuter line, and an express one at that, that took me way up the coast to Skerries, where, I had the choice of either waiting 88 minutes for the next train back, or, as I found out after dragging my bags all the way down into the town of Skerries, even longer for a bus. Eighty-eight minutes later (in the cold) I got the train back down to Howth Jct., and a 20 minute wait after that (in the cold and wind) got on the right train to Raheny. So yeah, adventure over right? No, because I drop off my bags and it's 11:30pm, and apparently the last bus and train to City Centre leave at 11:30pm! And all of my important stuff is at the hostel, so I sprint for the nearest bus station, get there at 11:35, and find out that there's ONE more bus. Ten minutes later, though, I decide it's lying and start walking. Cue last bus zooming past as I'm approaching the next bus stop... *sigh* But it was a nice hour and a half walk, and I didn't really get lost, which I think is pretty impressive. And I had no problem getting to sleep. But more importantly, having a place to live and having defied public transport, the new score was Jeff - 2, Dublin - 0.
Dublin still had other surprises, though, as well as the ultimate trump card which it still holds, that of employment. I've had small luck, but mostly frustration on that front. Theatre-wise, which was my big hope, things look very slim. My biggest boon, in fact, has been that Maggie's Uncle lives in Dublin and teaches theatre at Trinity! So we met up for coffee (tea for me) and he told me how bleak the situation was, but then was like "Well, I'm having dinner with the voice director for the Abbey theatre, I'll bring you up"! And since then has either mentioned me to, or given me the contact info for, people at the Abbey, Trinity, and some other big theatrical folk around! So yeah, he's the best (and thank you Maggie for his info!). Other than that, though, it's a struggle trying to find the one job in some other field that I am actually qualified for, because everyone here wants experience. All the bars, restaurants, stores, everyone short of Domino's Pizza (and I did not fly across the Atlantic to work at Domino's Pizza) want prior experience, which begs the question of how the hell do you get prior experience? But whatever, I've found a few things, sent out a few apps, and I'll keep at it.
So yeah, apparently that attitude being too positive, Dublin's most recent stab at me occurred four days ago, in the form of (I suspect) my well meaning housemate's welcome dinner for me. It was my first night in the new house, and Jen (who's Chinese. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the housemates: Jen, Steven from Amsterdam, Andre and girlfriend from Russia, neither of whom I've really met yet) made me some chicken curry. And in his defense, it was really good curry. But possibly the chicken wasn't cooked enough, because, well, I'll spare you the gruesome details, but I've been bedridden the past four days. I mean, I was able to drag myself to a doctor on Thursday, to confirm somewhat that it was a virus, from food poisoning, and to get me drugs which would theoretically help while it worked itself out. So yeah, two days of literal hell, and then friday night the fever broke and yesterday was spent feeling not as bad, actually eating a little food (gross frozen pizza, bad choice on my part, I was hoping for Red Baron), and today I feel almost as good as new. Kinda week from having been in bed for four days, but I'll get over it. So yeah, I don't blame Jen, I think it was once again Dublin trying to get me. Maybe that's not a healthy attitude this early in the trip, but it's given me the contrary sort of mindset that I can beat whatever it can throw at me, and that should hopefully help me to get by.
So yeah, that's where my life stands as of right now. I'll let you all know if anything else interesting happens such as me getting a job or being deported. I hope that all of your respective towns and cities are not as eager to get rid of you, and that life is going well, feel free to write me back. Until next time!
-Jeff
I'll try and keep LJ updated more often in the future, sorry guys!