July 6, 2009
Hey readers –
A Yank in Dublin City is on hiatus indefinitely, and here’s why.
The blog I co-author, Literary Transgressions, is participating in NaBloPoMo this month. This will take up most of my blogging time, and as all of my Ireland stories are pretty much old news anyway, I think it’s time to just drop this blog and concentrate on LT and my thesis.
Again, thank you all for reading! I really appreciated all your comments, and I hope you will go check out LT!
Cheers,
KT
June 15, 2009
Hey all! As some of you already know, I am no longer in Dublin…but I do have a few posts still in the works, so I’ll get those out ASAP.
As for what will happen to this blog, I’m not sure yet. I may just let it rust, might let it turn into an ordinary slice-of-life blog, who knows? I’ll let you know when I decide, which should be after the last few posts. Thanks for sticking with me for this long, anyway, and please visit my other blog, Literary Transgressions.
Cheers,
KT
May 29, 2009
Wet. That was the first word that lept to mind when I peeked out of the Howth DART station and out into what was the furthest I’d been outside Dublin in months. Though it was only drizzling for the moment, the sky seemed about ready to open up at any moment.
Corey and I had left Dublin in very different moods that morning – her excited about this magical place called Howth, with all of its ruins and hills and trees and happiness, and me craving some sort of caffeine. Once the train started moving, I had some coffee and we started seeing the ocean out the windows, however, I cheered up considerably. By the time we got to Howth proper, I was definitely looking forward to traipsing around some castle grounds. (more…)
May 29, 2009
(Warning: This post is boring and history-heavy, but at least it’s a post! Sorry for the delay – I’m moving in a week and what with this paper hanging over my head, I have barely been able to write my name, let alone a blog post. Also, sorry, but I’m doing a couple themed posts rather than a day-by-day account of Corey’s visit, because believe me, four posts that say something like, “Got up. Ate an amazing scone. Trudged through rain to [insert site here]. Ate. Trudged. Went to sleep,” would be much more boring even than this.)
St Patrick's! All photos courtesy of Corey.
It’s probably odd that after almost a year in a hugely Catholic country, I had not stepped foot in a Dublin church until Corey (who is, ironically, half-Jewish) came to visit. Considering that the Irish are not keen on Protestants in general (especially Protestants attending Mass), and that Dubliners are not that likely to practice their Catholicism anyway, it’s understandable, certainly, that I hadn’t entered a cathedral at all, but it’s still strange.
And it’s a shame, too, because as we found out, Dublin has some pretty amazing churches. (more…)
April 21, 2009
Grafton Street on St Patrick's Day
I can’t tell you how many times I heard this in Buffalo: “Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.” This was the excuse countless people of Polish, German, and undetermined descent used to justify wasting a day downtown at the parade (where it would always rain), dumping Bailey’s in travel mugs full of coffee, and drinking beer that was roughly the color of the faces of the people who had started drinking much too early.
That saying does have some truth to it, though, even in Dublin — so long as you define “Irish” as “person wearing a funny green hat and drinking.” The city was positively overrun with tourists all week, all of whom could be convinced to wear stupid hats shaped like pints of Guinness and cough up the eight euro ($11) to see the Book of Kells.
All of the tourists got me thinking: if wearing a Guinness hat doesn’t make you Irish, then what does? What makes the ‘Irish’ of Boston different from the Ireland Irish? The answer is not terribly simple, but here are some guidelines to help you distinguish the Irish from the Iwish: (more…)
April 20, 2009
Not actually my Centra...but close enough.
I have an inordinate attachment to the convenience store down the street, Centra. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t shop at a convenience store, due to high prices and the fact that food from convenience stores is, well, usually like food from the dollar store…you just don’t trust it.
But when the nearest grocery store is a 15-minute walk and you’re out of milk and toilet paper, it makes sense to take the 10 total minutes, round-trip, and go to Centra. This is Dublin — food is expensive everywhere, so convenience store prices aren’t even terrible compared to Dunnes or Tesco.
Pretty soon, I began to rely on Centra’s convenience, and quickly began shopping there every day for something. And somewhere around the second spate of essays, I realized that the guys at Centra probably know way too much about my life, based on the things I buy.
Toilet paper and dish soap? It’s my turn to buy shared flat items. Four bottles of American-style pancake mix and a jar of Nutella? We’re hosting Pancake Tuesday. Pizza, shoved into a laptop bag? It’s essay time, and I am too stressed to cook. Wispa bar and a Coke on a Friday night? I don’t have a date, and am depressed about it. Friday night, but a bottle of water and a half pan of bread? Hangover prevention supplies — I’m headed out.
It’s nice, in a way, kind of like Cheers, only instead of my name, they know my favorite chocolate bar and Jillian’s brand of cigarettes. Like the baristas at the italian place know my coffee order, or the people at Lemon could probably bet on which crepe Jillian’s going to order. I’m pretty sure the cashiers at Marks and Spencer know Amy as ‘the water girl.’ It goes a long way toward making a strange city feel familiar, that’s for sure.
What did I buy at Centra today? Painkillers, sea salt, cotton swabs and antibacterial soap. I’ll let you speculate why in the comments 
EDIT: Check that list of things I bought today again…
April 2, 2009
Yes, I know, I have been totally and completely MIA for so long that the dollar has fallen again, completely negating my last post. Luckily, it fell after my loan checks went through, and so I did actually save more money this term than expected.
There’s no real news, except that there have been a few developments in my everyday experience here that I feel should be grouped together into one post. This is the stuff I have not been blogging about, because it was really too small to mention, but since it’s been over two weeks, I feel like I should write something:
1) My roommate is back. Ya know, the one who sings, talks to herself, drinks out of glass jars, and asks me why I say I’m sorry when I nearly knock her over in an attempt to get to the fridge. She’s a special person, this roommate, almost an archetype of that weirdo roommate I’m sure everyone has had from time to time…you know, the one with no grasp of social norms? Yeah. After a blissful two weeks of just having the three normal people together in one apartment, two weeks of a semi-clean kitchen, and two weeks without hearing her horrible door BANG every time she shut it, she’s back from the States, banging and singing away.
Also, she has a cold. I know this because she has hacked and wheezed constantly over the past two days without bothering to cover her mouth. This, along with her refusal to clean, is possibly her most annoying habit to date.
2) Essays are basically complete. This is a big deal, since I’ve been deep in the essay process since late February, and it’s hard to believe there might actually be a light at the end of this tunnel. Essay completion also marks the completion of my transformation into not just ‘that girl,’ but ‘That Girl Who Wrote Essays on a Comic Book and Fantasy Fiction,’ which cannot be altogether good. But the end of the essays means that maybe as of Friday, my life will no longer revolve around finding the last available power outlet in the library. Probably not, though, as my thesis comes next…
3) Thanks to number 2, I now know all there is to know about Watchmen or The Lord of the Rings (or at least know what secondary source to look in). Come on, ask me anything. I dare you.
4) I have solved the Wispa vs Aero debate. For those of you not familiar, Wispa is a type of ‘aerated chocolate bar’, which basically means it is chocolate with little air bubbles in it, and Aero is roughly the same. Why, you ask, would people put air into chocolate? I don’t know, really, but all I can tell you is that it is amazing. Well, the Wispa is. The Aero, not so much, as the holes are too big and you get the feeling they were just trying to cost-cut–though maybe the mint one is better. Regardless, the Wispa is my new favorite chocolate in the whole wide world — but then, it’s Cadbury as opposed to Aero’s Nestle, so there’s no surprise there. (Also, according to the Wikipedia page, Wispa’s latest ad tagline was, ‘Wispas are back. Apparently.’ How much more British can you get?)
5) I got my tickets for Trinity Ball yesterday — rather, I reserved them yesterday, and can pick them up the day of the dance, but regardless, I am definitely going to the largest private party in Europe on May 8th! The dress is picked out — this in the blue color — and though shoes are pending, I’m looking at these and these. Look forward to an exciting (though possibly more bacchanalian then normal) post around May 10th!
6) I will have a springtime post up for you soon, as well as maybe an Irish pride one. We’ll see. My friend and Literary Transgressions co-blogger Corey is coming up in April and we have big plans to hit many, many tourist spots and museums, so that will be excellent blog fodder as well!
And with that, I am off to enjoy this beautiful weather and the fact that my essays are printed in anticipation of their being handed in tomorrow!
March 16, 2009
…is that when it crashed, the euro crashed harder.
When I left the States, loan checks in hand, the exchange rate was about $1.50 to 1 euro, meaning that a 17,000 euro education meant taking out $26,000 in loans, not including living expenses. The interest rates were high, and it was not a terribly good situation.
However, the exchange rate is now hovering a little under $1.29 to the euro. In essence, I have saved $4,000 just on tuition, my later loan checks are worth more, and once I get home, I can refinance and save some money with the current low interest rates.
Sometimes, a shitty economy can actually be a good thing Now, if I could only find a job, I’d be doing pretty well…
March 8, 2009
And that's about as clean as it's going to get.
Well.
I have just spent the last four hours in what can only be described as a domestic whirlwind. There was laundry, there was hospital corner-making, there was floor scrubbing, stove cleaning, counter wiping, and more. I even scrubbed the wine stains off the odd shelf near our table. Such is the extent of my dedication to a clean kitchen.
Why would I do all of this? Because I live in mortal fear of the housing inspection ladies.
Like in any dorm, living at Trinity means putting up with rules and regulations that simply don’t exist in a normal apartment. At my previous institution in Buffalo, this meant being kicked out of your room the night after classes ended before every break, including long weekends. It also meant ‘community builders’ with people in your building whom you never wanted to see, especially not while being forced to make a picture frame out of dried macaroni and construction paper.
At Trinity, it means putting up with the Housing Nazis.
These ladies come bursting through the apartments twice a term, using their keys to get in the flat and then banging on bedroom doors in such a manner that suggests they are about to bust you for some sort of illegal activity. When they knocked last week, I was fresh from the shower, still enrobed, with clothes and towels strewn all over my room, leisurely combing my hair when –
My door. It's very resonant when it comes to knocks.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.
It’s hard to describe how much the sound of banging on a hollow metal door echoes in a very small bedroom, especially when you’re standing right next to it.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.
I may or may not have screamed “HOLY CRAP, WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS GOING ON?” Down the hall, I could hear the same thing happening to Jillian, who yelled something even more obscene as the housing ladies worked their way down the hall. I dressed faster than I ever had in my life and flung my door open to see a very short, yet very stern, older lady in front of me, poised to pound on my door again.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I uh –um–” I stammered as I backed up to let her in.
She grunted, then peered around me to look at the room — which, admittedly, was in a poor state for 11 in the morning. She gave a sniff, a brisk nod, and then left my room to inspect the kitchen, taking ten years of my life with her.
Actually, it kind of DOES look like the kind of kitchen where one would find illegal substances.
Too shell-shocked to follow, I listened from my doorway as the Housing Nazis opened and shut our fridge, thoroughly inspected our oven as if looking for illegal substances (as if we’d keep them them there when they clearly don’t check under the mattresses), and murmured to one another in ‘tsk, tsk’ tones.
Finally, with a final “SHAME ON YOU” sigh, the Housing Nazis swept out of the apartment, slamming the front door behind them. Jillian and I emerged, shaken, almost afraid to read the report that we were certain the ladies had left.
They had indeed written us up for 1) an unclean stove, 2) an unclean floor, and 3) not defrosting our fridge. Considering the fact that our other roommate had just done a thorough sweep a few days past when her parents came to visit, I felt this was a little unfair. Shock turned to rage as we realized that defrosting the fridge meant that our teeny little fridge, stocked full of things like milk and yogurt and other items you don’t want to leave outside a cold environment for too long, would be out of commission for several hours, if not several days (there was quite the layer of ice).
Still, we played along. We defrosted the fridge, carting all the perishables to the apartment across the hall and commandeering theirs. We chipped away at two inches of ice, pouring hot water over it for several hours, and stabbing it with a metal knife, despite the warning label that distinctly told us not to.
This is after 15 minutes with a scrubber, a gallon of cleanser, and some serious elbow grease.
Then I went on my whirlwind, Jillian took out our piles of trash and plastic bottles, we cleared the wine bottles off the side shelf, and basically made everything gorgeous. I swear to god, our kitchen has never, EVER been so clean. Granted, the tiles are still falling off the walls and the stovetop has the grime of a decade burnt into parts of it, but the whole place is about as clean as it can get.
If after all that, the Housing Nazis write us up again, I will not be a happy camper.
