My life on the Train

Hi all,

Well, it's been a busy week, good, bad and all the rest as things usually are around here. Am settling into my new place...it's amazingly spacious compared to my two room apartment in Central Sq. Someone went a little crazy with the paintbrush (yellow kitchen, blue bathroom, something approaching what Tom calls, "terracotta" walls in the bedroom...) but the living room is huge and has a beautiful victorian era fireplace and there's a sliding door out to a pretty little patio/yard type thing and there are nice wood floors upstairs and a skylight so I can't really complain. The strange thing about apartments coming furnished here in Dublin is the problem of where to put things that you don't want...I was able to find a hiding place for the ceramic ducks (in the closet under the stairs) but am going to have to tie up a couple of big, flowery rugs and hoist them into the attic space to get rid of them...haha. I found a good discount store and am starting to make the place my own...with some accessories in nice, neutral colors to offset whatever lunatic with a paintbrush lived here before...haha.

Have been attempting to become a real, legit, resident of this country. Got my green card last week after several hours in the National Immigration Bureau which was very exciting and surprisingly easy. Have not had such an easy time getting the Irish equivalent of a SSN (a PPS number). First off, the offices are only open during shortened business hours (10-4 with an hour break at lunch!) and you can only get the number in the neighborhood where you live or where you work. Anyway, made it down to the Drogheda Social Welfare Office this morning and showed them ID and a job offer letter only to find out that I need to present them with a utility bill in my name to prove my address. The chicken and egginess of this requirement is that I don't have any utility bills in my name because I don't have an Irish Bank account and the utilities here require either direct debiting or huge deposits...and I don't have an Irish bank account because I can't get a bank account without a PPS number...Oh the joy of ass-backward beaurocracy. At least in the states, I know exactly what type of assbackwardness to expect. Anyway, managed to find a work around if I get a letter from my landlord and present a utility bill in someone else's name at my address but this will push things back yet again and meanwhile, I can't get paid...Thank god for my Tommy, aka, sugar-daddy or I would be on the streets.

Also working on getting broadband and a land line in the house so I can stay in better contact with all y'all but this is also proving convoluded and time-consuming. Called up Eircom (the big-daddy telecommunications co.) to inquire about broadband and was told that I needed to have a phone number/landline to get broadband as the cust. service rep. told me that broadband goes through the phoneline...hello?! Not DSL mind you, but broadband...since when? Anyway, to get a phone-line one has to "rent," a line from who else but, Eircom for 27 euros a month. This is not phone service per se, just a charge for having a line and does not include any calls...Both local and international calls are charged per minute and at rates that would make any spoiled American cry. Anyway, to get broadband and or phone service, one needs to get this line rental from Eircom and until they mail us an account number, we can't sign up with any of the phone/cable companies...Ah, the strange, strange, world of telecommunications where you need a phone number so that they can tell you if you can get broadband which apparently goes through the phone line is an endless mystery to me...How would they explain my broadband connection and NO phoneline that was the setup in Cambridge?!!!

Alas, I don't mean to be a complainer but this stuff is all kind of funny (as is my ineptitude at navigating all of this infrastructure.) Everything I attempt to do really does take twice as long as I expect it will. I just have to laugh about so as not to rip my hair out.

Started my new job in Drogheda and so far the work has been fairly interesting. Went to a Dublin Institute of Technology Design Degree show tonight with my new boss which was pretty cool. The guy I'm working with seems fairly decent although working in someone's house with one other person who owns the company is definitely giving me bad Katie flashbacks....(shudder). The commute (while a scenically beautiful, coastal train ride) is extremely long and includes a 20 minute walk through the ghettos of north Dublin to the train station, nearly an hour on the train and then a 15 minute walk through a housing development in Drogheda. Work is definitely better than no work though so I will suck it up for now and either find another job or get a car and attempt to drive on the lefthand side of the road, the 28 miles to Drogheda. I really have a hard time thinking about shifting with my left hand but it will probably be better than walking through junkieville in the winter when it gets dark out early.

On a more positive note, It stays light here until almost 11pm every night which rocks and we've had some amount of bright sunshine everyday for the past week. Gotta love those long days...Have also found a most lovely restaurant on the north side which Tom and I and his parents went to last week and was absolute deliciousness. Got an invite to a dinner party this Saturday night which should be good fun and had a good night out last weekend with Tom and his coworkers which ended in 2am pizza in Dublin city centre. (Just like hifi...sigh...gotta love late night greasy eats mixed with copious amounts of scotch and soda...haha.) Figured out the hot water system in our new house - you have to flip a switch and heat the water before you shower - which ended my three day stretch of cold showers and did much for my overall mood.

So that's all the biz for now...Hope all is well out there with all of you. Am happily anticipating the American invasion in July...gotta use that spanky, new, spare room.