Observations

After a little more than a week here in Dublin land, I've noticed a few things and confirmed a few things I alway knew. For example:

• I hate public transportation. OK, as a concept, I guess it's OK, but practically, I despise it. Case in point - there's a bus that runs straight from my crappy temporary apartment to my office. In theory, this is perfect. In practice, however, the fucking bus shows up approximately once every 30 minutes, if you're lucky, and even less often if it's raining.
  
  Of course, there's always the LUAS, which is much like Boston's T. It's clean, reasonably fast, and affordable. Again, not bad. But, it's a 10-minute walk to the nearest station, which is always fun in the rain, and the train stops a good 15 minutes from the office. Again, practical it's not.
• Walking is a great way to learn the nuances of a new city. I've been doing lots of walking in the past week, and I've seen a fair amount of downtown Dublin already. Of course, Downtown Dublin is fairly small, so it's pretty easy to take a lot in on an impromtu walking tour.
  
  Also, I've been able to see some neighborhoods I know I might want to live in, and a few I know certainly don't. For example, right next door to Ranellah (I'll figure out the proper spelling one of these days) is another neighborhood named Harcourt. I wandered that way today thinking it was worth checking out. It was, but only because it's the first hard-scrabble part of Dublin I've really come across. Tenements, grafitti, clapped out cars. Definitely not a neighborhood I'm going to consider.
• California has softened me when it comes to dealing with weather. It's not that I don't enjoy weather and, in fact, it's sort of nice to experience something other than 85 and sunny every day (or, more recently before I left, 100+ and sunny). Still, I've forgotten how annoying having to walk moderate distances in the rain can be, especially when you're carrying a computer bag and your dinner.
• Driving in Dublin is going to be an experience. Of course, I'm not ready to buy a car just yet, but I can see it happening sometime in my future. That said, I don't have a lot of experience driving on the opposite side of the road, and it's going to take some getting used to.
  
  As for a motorcycle, which is the form of transporation that I think would actually work best here for many reasons, the aforementioned rain may well put a damper on that plan. As miserable as it is to walk in the rain, riding in it is even worse.
• The combination washer/dryer is another great sounding idea that, in practice, sucks. Sure, the clothes get clean, but they don't get dry. Ever. Also, I can't figure out for the life of me why it takes three hours to do one load of laundry. At least I'm not using quarters.
• Drinking here is a sport. More than a few years ago, I'm sure I could have been competitive. As it is now, spending a Friday night in the Temple Bar and Grafton Street areas of town is certainly fun, but inch-for-inch, I think this is the most densely packed bar scene I've ever experience. And I'm not just talking the number of bars crammed into this relatively small area - I'm talking about the number of people crowding into each of these establishments. It's an amazing scene.

There's more, of course, but I'll save it for later.

Until then...

Line of the Week

The scene: A Thai restaurant in the Leopardstown section of Dublin.
The time: 10PM, after a long night at work.
The players: Me, my co-worker Ernest, and a waiter with a strong and unitelligible Thai/Irish accent.

Ernest and I walk in carrying backpacks. It's pretty obvious we've come straight from work. We get to the table and are about to take our seats.

Waiter: You bawk?

Ernest & Me: Huh?

Waiter: You bawk?

Ernest: Did we walk? No, we took a taxi.

Waiter: (Emphatically) Did you bawk?

Me: Yes, we just came from work.

Waiter: Do you speak English?

Ah... Dublin.

Feet Don't Fail Me Now

I think it's safe to say that I've done more walking in the past four days than I have in the last two I lived in Los Angeles. Dublin is a walking city, even when you're heading for the public transportation. It's enjoyable enough, especially as a newcomer, but my shins feel like they did when I used to run track. Yeah, it's safe to say I'm a little out of shape. The good news is, that if I stay away from the beer (yeah, right), I'll probably drop a quick 10 pounds just by doing my daily commute.

Still, I've covered a good amount of ground in the past few days. I took the LUAS to the office on Friday, which is very much like riding the T in Boston. A 10 minute walk to the station, and 15 minutes on the train, and I was still a good 10 minutes from the office. My boss met me at the other end and gave me a ride to work, but until we get a shuttle running between the end of the line and the office, I'm thinking I'm looking for other transporation.

Which leads me to the bus. My co-worker Chharlie (yes, he does spell his name that way - don't ask me why) took a ride out to Blackrock on Saturday to attend a Bar-B-Que thrown by one of our Irish co-workers. He's living in a really nice, very new house and, aside from various people from the office like FHRDH and his wife Facty, the party was attended by a number of his family and friends. To say it was a gregarious crowd would be an understatement.

After a few hours of Guinness and grub, a few of us decided to head back toward city center and try our luck at one of the local casinos. A few hours of Pot-Limit Hold'em turned out to be a profitable way to spend the evening, and led to a 3:00AM walk back across the city to my dingy temporary apartment. It's kind of amazing to see how lively the city was at that hour, as tons of people were still gathered on the sidewalks hanging out around some of the city's afters-hours clubs. I'll have to check those out sometime in the future.

Today was spent doing more walking... another trip to LUAS led me to DunDrum and the biggest mall in Ireland where I quickly blew my winnings on some necessities I forgot to pack. Upon my return home, I quickly went out again and took a 10 minute walk (everything seems to be within reach of a 10 or 20 minute walk) to Baggot Street, which seems to lie between Ranelagh and Ballsbridge where I found a local Tesco supermarket so I could buy a little food and some laundry detergent. Exciting stuff, I know.

Anyway... I'm back trying to figure out the strange little combo washer/dryer that lives in my kitchen and typing this rambling note for all three of my faithful readers.

They'll be more to come... I think.

Welcome to Dublin

It's been about 36 hours since I've arrived in Ireland, and I'm slowly beginning to adjust. I certainly haven't been here long enough to form anything more than quick impressions, but I thought I'd share some of what I've discovered so far.

• It's expensive. Of course, I was warned about the fact that Dublin is a "pricey" city, but still, it does surprise you when a quick pasta dinner at a local cafe costs about $20. It was tasty pasta, sure, but $20?
• The people are truly friendly. And no, I don't mean in that service economy sort of "Please, we're trying to make this experience nice enough so that you don't realize you just paid $20 for a plate of pasta." No, I mean, these people are genuinely friendly. They're more than happy to engage you in conversation at any time about anything. It's going to take some getting used to.
• Walking is a viable, if somewhat challenging, method of transportation. The city isn't that big. You seem to get to many places within 20 or 30 minutes and the scenery on the sidewalk is quite pretty. That said, you do have to be alert enough to dodge the occasional bike/motorcycle messenger who zoooms onto the sidewalk or zips through a red light, as well as the drivers who believe it is perfectly fine to park half of their car on the sidewalk.
• It really is a lot like Boston. The weather is similar, as is much of the architecture. And the accent is spot on, as long as you remove the words "wicked" and "pissah" from your vocabulary.

Tomorrow, I'm off to spend my first day in the office. If I can find it.