Rain

After this morning I can no longer avoid this subject! There I was happily getting up in the dark listening to the wind and the rain (not really happy anymore when I noticed the rain) and then walked my usual way to work trying to avoid the big puddles of dirty rainwater on the side of the streets (there are loads of them and with hardly any space its really hard to avoid them).
I almost made it, always carefully avoiding other pedestrians, cars and well loads of water, but then I made a big mistake: I crossed the street in front of my office turning my back on the traffic behind me for a moment. I had not noticed the biggest puddle of rainwater just on the other side and one minivan concentrated all its effort on really targeting the water.
It was the biggest splash with at least 10 meters of dirty waves all over me.
This was my worst start to the day ever! Water was dripping from my glasses; my coat and my shoes were drenched and squeaked when I walked away.
My bag was luckily waterproof (I am here now 8 months and yes there is at least something I learned already).

Against a stream of penguins

So far I was able to avoid the favourite, or shall I say most hated subject of Dubliners: the traffic. Its bad, I knew that, I have seen it but so far I was lucky enough to avoid the it.

I started a new job this week and now instead of travelling from my little southern suburb even further south (not the most popular direction and therefore completely bearable plus also equipped with a new tram system); I now have to cross town and head North.
I still take the nice new modern tram, but now unfortunately into town, which proves to be the far more popular direction. In fact it’s so popular that instead of jumping right onto the tram and occupying a decent standing place I will need to let a good few trams go past before I get to squeeze myself into one of the most overcrowded cabins. Soon they will need to employ someone to push people into the trams. I guess I should travel to China before complaining to much.

After this free slimming treatment my journey continues in an exciting manner. Now I need to walk through town to catch the local train. Again everyone seems to prefer the opposite direction and I have to fight my way against a stream of penguin suited men and women in nice costumes and chunky trainers on the slimmest of all sidewalks. On my first day it was raining on top of that: imagine managing thousand of people walking your way with umbrellas and then of course you also need to avoid the occasional obstacle such as a beer delivery for some bar or a heap of trash.
It proves to be a challenge.

From then on its actually fairly easy, because I seem to take the local train into the unpopular direction, once I have managed to walk up the stairs against the stream of people leaving the train I get a fairly decent standing place.

Just when I left work I thought that surely now I would be heading into the right direction…little did I know.

Merry Christmas

My first Christmas in Dublin; it was very interesting. Christmas started a lot earlier here.
In mid October Christmas decoration was already competing heavily with the Halloween decoration in the shops. It looked rather funny: windows decorated with witches and spider webs and then in the entrance area of the shops the big gift packs of chocolate and shower gels all nicely decorated with golden ribbons, angels and of course Santa. It was a really amusing sight.
Things got even more exciting after Halloween. Friends had warned me that from now on most ATMs in the centre would always be out of cash and the city would be unbearably crowded. Did I believe them? Of course not; I thought it would be crowded alright, but not THAT crowded.
Well it was an experience and I surely learnt now where and when to shop for Christmas.
To be honest it almost feels a bit empty now. For months the ads on radio and TV were reminding us to get all this Christmas shopping done and the voices started to talk faster and faster coming closer to Christmas and now its all over. Of course there are the sales, but I am still recovering and won’t venture back into the centre just yet.
Otherwise Christmas was lovely. People send loads of cards here, even more than in Finland; they eat, drink and party like everywhere else! It was a great holiday!