Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family in the US! I wish I could be there to celebrate with you. All I ask is that you eat a little more of everything for me, especially the pies. : )
Cheers!

I'm legal!

I finally got my immigration card!! This is a huge relief because it has taken almost 2 months to pull together the paperwork (I finally got the bank statement last week). Now, I will be able to get back into Ireland if I decide to go on a trip. Very helpful!

Also, I finally have my pin number for my "lazer" (debit) card so I think I might be all set with all the bank stuff. Except, now I need to go change my address... Good thing I have a reason to go back to the bank because I probably would go through withdrawal if I went a whole week without going there.

Need to run - back to presentation prep.

Who doesn't love public speaking? & new apartment - Yay!

I moved into my new apartment last Thursday night and I totally love it! It has the perfect amount of space for me and, yesterday when I was doing a bunch of school work, I was able to spread out and get organized. It was great! You definitely need to come over and visit now, especially since there is an extra bed for guests. I'll post some pictures soon. It is so great to be closer to the city center and be able to walk to school, rather then being dependent on buses. Now I have a new neighborhood to explore!
I really need the space and the quiet right now because I am putting together three class presentations for this week and three Rotary Club presentations for the end of this week and beginning of next week. I have not done any presentations up to this point and somehow I ended up with 6 presentations in 9 days. My head is spinning with information about, dates and court ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man and the American Convention on Human Rights. All this is competing for space in my brain with questions about multiculturalism, assimilation, immigrant incorporation, vulnerable populations within government cultural policies.... I could keep going but I won't. It is fascinating stuff but I don't feel like I have nearly enough time to really delve into, take in and grapple with all this information. Ahh, student life. : )

Bank update

Finally received my debit card last week and took it into the bank to activate it. Unfortunately, there is some strike or protest or something going on (not that I have seen anything about this in the newspaper) so it is going to take at least TEN business days to get me my pin number. So, I have a useless card in my wallet.
By the middle of last week, I still had not received the statement I need for my visa stuff. So, I requested another one which takes 4-5 business days. At this point, I have overstayed my passport stamp by 3 weeks.
At least they have my name and address correct now...well, except for the fact that I am moving into a new place soon....

Yay for moving in a new place though! I cannot wait to move and not wait 30 minutes or more for the bus to get home each day and to not go home to a place that smell of cigarette smoke. Yay!

Cool evening stuff

Wednesday night:
Opening of a photographic exhibit titled "Migrant Mothers & Daughters in Wales".
Cool pictures and narratives.

Thursday night:
Private tour of the National Gallery with a small group of Rotarians from the Dublin Central club, topic: “the Influence of Caravaggio and the Home Grown Masters”.
I love art! It was so great to have someone really knowledgeable about the artwork walk us through a few of the pieces in the National Gallery. Wandering through the Gallery is on my "things to do on a rainy day" list. And learning more about art and art history is definitely on my "something I want to learn more about when I have more free time" list. I am sure there is some free time in my future, really.

Friday night:
Went to see "Into the Wild" with a couple friends. Good film, powerful story. It made me think a lot about life, conviction, walking away from people who care, life cut short, .... it's worth seeing.

Traveling to the north and the south

As I think about what to write for this blog, I am looking out the window of a train at green fields made soft by low clouds and haziness as we travel swiftly back to Dublin from the city of Cork. From being in Cork this weekend to Buncrana, County Donegal last weekend, the last nine days have been a comparison in contrasts – from north to south, from rough basics to great comfort – and I was reminded of how much I enjoy the crazy variety of this world we live in.

A few weeks ago, I met an American guy from California with a fascinating story. He told me that he and a friend had spend the past three months living in a rundown farmhouse in the northernmost county in Ireland and working to restore it to livable conditions. This intrigued me and filled my mind with visions of a picturesque, old house set amidst rolling pastures along the ocean. How could I not check it out? So, another Rotary Scholar, Eddie, and I jumped on a bus nine days ago to travel three and a half hours north out of Dublin for a weekend of exploring and construction. The bus dropped us by the side of the road under the light of a full moon and we started walking – two miles along a winding road, right between an old church and cemetery, over a hill and down the other side and left on to a dirt road. Thank goodness for the full moon because otherwise we would have been completely lost! Brian had warned us but it was not until we arrived that we realized what we had really gotten ourselves into – the house was in really rough shape, even after months of work. There was no bathroom, no kitchen, no hot water, no heat in the bedroom and very little keeping the wind from blowing through the rooms. I do not remember the last time I was so cold while I tried to sleep. We spent the day on Saturday working around the house and trying to get it in order for the guys to leave it safely for a few weeks while they travel in Europe. It was a picturesque spot but there is a harsh reality in the form of cold and damp conditions with few, if any, luxuries. They recently put a small wood stove in one of the rooms and we spent our time warming up around this small source of heat as the rain poured down outside Saturday evening. Despite the discomforts, I am really glad we went there for a few days. I am also really glad it was only for a few days!

This weekend, I took a train in the opposite direction. A friend from the US was in Cork City for business last week so I took the train down at the end of last week to hang out and explore Cork and Kinsale for a couple days. Cork is an interesting city with its foundations sunk into the earth of an island in the middle of the River Lee. We meandered around the island and the surrounding area discovering colorful, fascinating buildings, restaurants, cafes and churches. Late in the afternoon, we discovered the Firkin Crane (don’t say that name too quickly), a round concert hall situated next to the Butter Museum, and impulsively attended that evening’s concert featuring a couple playing Brazilian guitar music and a man from Cameroon. It was an amazing concert! If you ever have the chance to hear Duo Siqueira Lima or Muntu Valdo, definitely go for it.

The next day, we took a bus to Kinsale, a cute coastal town that reminded me a little of Rockport. After window shopping and getting a drink from the Blue Haven café, we followed someone’s recommendation to walk southeast to a fort across the bay from the town. The ~two mile walk followed the coast past beautiful houses, restaurants and lush trees with branches shading the path.

After the frustrations of the last few weeks, it was so good to get out of Dublin for a couple weekends. Now I have vacation for a week so hopefully I will be able to finally straighten out my visa, catch up on reading assignments and start researching for the papers that are due for this term. I also have a few presentations scheduled at area Rotary Clubs so I need to put together what I am going to say at those. When I thought about being a full time student, I imagined that I would have a lot more free time than I did when I was working. I was definitely very wrong. That is not necessarily a bad thing because I definitely have not been bored since the first week I arrived.

Pictures:

1) The front yard

2) The backyard - cows and sind farm

3) The colorful streets of Cork

4) Sailboats in Kinsale Harbor

5) Standing on an old fort near Kinsale

Week five - frustration sets in

So, I know I am spoiled by the efficiency of the US systems but does it really need to take a month to open a bank account? I filled out paperwork for a bank account during the first week of October, gave them a copy of my ID from Trinity and they told me I would have an account within 7-8 business days. A week and a half later, they texted me to ask for a copy of my passport. So I go to the bank and find out that they want a lot more documentation. By the time I left, they had a copy of my passport, a copy of my acceptance letter to Trinity, an original form from Trinity stating my address and another copy of my Trinity ID. Five days later, after me showing up in the bank every day to ask about the account information they promised me, they finally call me with my account number - great! I am finally able to give them a check with all my money from my scholarship which they tell me is going to take 5-7 business days to be available in my account. This is a check in euros from another Dublin bank - why does this take so long?! Whatever, I have some cash to tide me over so all I really, really need is a statement from them that says I have money in the account so I finally can go to the immigration office to get the ID I need that allows me to stay in Ireland more than 30 days. I finally get the statement from the bank through the mail on Wednesday - except they have spelled my name and my address wrong! The immigration office will not accept this. Now, I am being told that it will take another 5 business days to get this fixed and a new statement sent to me - at which point, I will have overstayed the date stamped in my passport. They also needed another copy of my Trinity ID (seriously, don't they keep any records?). Don't get me started on the fact that I still do not have a debit card so I cannot access my money yet and I am running out of cash. If I have to, I will use my US debit card to pull money from my account in the US which means I will lose money transferring dollars to euros.
This is just one example of little frustrations I have been dealing with that, this week, I am losing patience with. I have not had internet access at my house for a week and a half so I have been using Trinity's computers. This means I cannot post pictures I have taken, I cannot download Skype or another tool like that to call any of you to catch up and I am trying to keep up with emails in between classes and reading assignments. But I am sure this is not what you want to be reading in this blog, which is one of the reasons I did not write earlier in the week. The other reason is I am just tired. I had forgotten how much energy it takes to get settled in a new place - to find the grocery stores, the good but inexpensive restaurants, the post office, bank, bus routes, etc. - and the energy it takes to make a new group of friends. (Green Cheerio Gang and others, I really miss you!)
In better news, I found a great Asian grocery store today in what will be my neighborhood in 3 weeks. Let me clarify: currently, I am living in a house in Ballinteer, south Dublin, which is a 30 minute bus ride to Trinity. Even though I like the area, the buses are not reliable so I waste a lot of time waiting at bus stops. As you can probably imagine, this is not a great situation. So, I found a great apartment on the north side of the Liffey River through a friend of a friend of a former colleague. (Thanks Gail!) This place is a 30 minute walk west of Trinity and will be available November 15th. I am not looking forward to changing locations again but I am definitely looking forward to a better commute and really nice place to myself. I also really like the north side - it is grittier, culturally more diverse and has a personality to it that I feel more at home in.
This weekend, I am heading out of town with a couple people. Hopefully, I will be in a better frame of mind after getting out of the city for a couple days. I keep trying to tell myself that, a month from now, all of these frustrations will be sorted out. Sometimes that even helps. : )
Hope you have a great weekend!