Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Update from Ireland

My two month anniversary of living in Dublin was this past Saturday and I must say that it has been a couple of up and down months. I thought I would write a little about my experiences here since I have arrived.

Dublin is a very nice city, it has great atmosphere and I have to say the Irish are right up there with some of the nicest people I've met. The pubs are very nice and if I drank beer I would say the Guinness is great but I have enjoyed a few pints of Bulmers (Cider) over the past couple of weeks. There is pretty much a pub on every corner which is handy but it also makes it difficult to pick a place to go. The pubs are great for going and chilling with some friends over a few but there are also a few night clubs where you can go dancing but I wouldn't say it is a city for that. I haven't really been able to experience a lot of the pubs here in Dublin ... a few that I enjoyed and remember are The Porterhouse and The Market Bar ... Also there is a nice small place just around the corner from my house called the Cobblestone.

I haven't had the chance to do much traveling outside Dublin ... except for my trip to Cork. Even though I have been here two months I have really only felt like I have been settling in the past 1.5 weeks. I have a semi stable job as a temp in a service company working for their HR department which is really not a bad position. The company has about 3000+ employees so you can only imaging how much complaints, lawsuits, etc we get. I got into my bank account finally after about 5/6 weeks in Dublin ... this was definitely a happy day. However, I have been planning some traveling over the Christmas Holidays but I'm going to wait and tell you guys my plans when I have the all confirmed hopefully in the next week or two.

Living and working here is pretty simple, I did luck out with the apartment ... I really pay a great price (350 Euros/month) plus bills of course and its in a great location. People do say that Smithfield is not the best place to live because back in the day it wasn't that popular but the city/government have pumped a lot of money into the community and its really a respectable neighborhood ... a temporary skating rink when up last week in Smithfield square where you can even rent skates so who know maybe I'll check that out this weekend. Also I heard about this great food market in Temple Bar on Saturdays and I'm really hoping to get to that and pick up some fresh food. Food is also a great thing here in Dublin ... I must say they definitely enjoy eating and drinking which is great by me since I love eating and drinking haha.

Alright so let me oo get down to the culture differences that I have noticed since I have been here. The major one was on Halloween night ... I have to drive a long way to get to work and by the time I get home its really dark ... anyway on Halloween people start huge fires in their communities and I don't mean on the beach or in a field I'm talking about right down town city in a children's parks or in a vacant lot. That was definitely a shock for me to see and they weren't really supervised either. I also read the next day in the paper that it was going to take like 1 million euros or something like that to clean up the mess from Halloween night ... crazy eh. Another one I really don't like is that people don't really pick up after their dogs when they take them for a walk so when I go running outside I really have to watch where I step. So far no incidents but I have to be alert at all time.

Finally, the weather here in Dublin I have to say has been pretty good since I have been here. Actually people have been telling me that it was a lot better than the weather they had during the summer. It is starting to get a little chilly in the morning and at night but I'm still running outside and only had a couple of nights I found it really cold. I don't really expect the weather to last though I'm just waiting for that one cloudy/raining day that turns into 40 days of clouds and rain haha.

Well thats all my stories from Dublin for now ... I'll write more again in a couple of weeks and hopefully than I'll have much more to tell you about Dublin and about my upcoming adventures.

Cheers :)

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