Muddled Accent

Podcast Escapism

2010-01-08T01:37:00.003Z

With the end of the year came the end of my assignment at Insurance Place. It never really improved. I continued to spend the majority of my time opening mail and folding forms. But I actually came to prefer this to writing letters, which is what I was hired to do. When opening mail, I could listen to my iPod. In addition to being entertaining, the podcasts I regularly downloaded made it possible for me to drown out the gossipy and inane conversation going on in the cubicles surrounding mine. I would much prefer to hear Ira Glass spin tales on This American Life than listen to my coworker repeatedly tell the story of how her daughter was up all night puking into a bucket. I find Terri Gross' interviews on Fresh Air much more enriching than my coworkers' hostile phone interrogations of their husbands.

While few people hesitated to share their personal business with the rest of the office, one person went above and beyond. A few months ago, she and I were some of the last people in the office. She took a call and, from phrases such as, "What about last weekend," "Was I just a conquest," "What do you want from me," and "I don't need a relationship," I determined that she was blatantly discussing an affair. I sit within plain sight of her, so she should have been aware of my presence. But I started making an excessive amount of noise just in case she wasn't. This did nothing to stop her all-too-detailed conversation. Unfortunately, the statement, "This has nothing to do with the baby; she's not even born yet" revealed exactly who her partner had been. One of two men in our department was soon to be a father. Suddenly it made sense why L had been complaining about how weird S had been that week. She'd been spurned. I'm not sure what S's relationship with the baby's mother is. Maybe it's not necessarily wrong that he's sleeping with someone else. But the whole thing disturbed me. Mostly because I just don't want to know.

I also didn't want to know about the boob job L had after Thanksgiving. But I heard all about it. Repeatedly. She told just about everyone in the office about it before she had it done, squealing about how excited she was and reveling in the dramatic story of how she had revealed the news to her daughter. She was out for two weeks for the procedure (which I relished), then returned wearing low-cut tops and complaining about how sore she was. I take mental notes about occurrences like this just in case I am ever hired to write a season of The Office. Unfortunately, a boob job episode has already been done. And whoever wrote it must have worked with someone just like L. I was frequently struck by how often she did or said something exactly like what Jan said or did after she had her boob job on The Office. I was also bemused by the behaviour of the other ladies in the office. Several of them came by to see the results for themselves, with one woman inquiring, "Do you have anything for show and tell?" I'm fairly certain I also heard one person ask if she could touch them.

As much as I liked tasks that allowed me to drown out such conversations with podcasts, I never became fond of packing up processed claims. This may be because I was offered more instruction on this aspect of my job than any other. I was supposed to remove all the clips from stacks of paper, put the paper into a box and tape the box shut. While this sounds like the most self-explanatory task one can be given, it sadly was not. The second time I packed up the claims, I attached a mailing sheet to the top of the box as I had been instructed. I taped all four sides of the form just like I had the previous month. The next day, my supervisor forwarded an email she had received from one of the people in the mail room which stated that that we should only use one small piece of tape when attaching the form. Above the forwarded message, she had written, "FYI." For your information, too, I thought. I would never have done something as pointless as taping a form on all four sides if she hadn't told me to do so.

I had a few more claims to pack up on the day that I received the tape instructions email. I very deliberately only used one small piece of Scotch tape to attach the mailing form to the remaining box. But the next day, another forwarded email was waiting for me. "The box yesterday had almost as much tape on it as the day before," the mail room person griped. Above this message, my boss had reiterated the instruction to only use one small piece of tape. I replied immediately, writing that I had only used one small piece of tape. I explained that after I had taped the box shut, one of my coworkers had reopened it to take out a claim she had given me accidentally. She had retaped the box herself, and, I told my boss, could have taped over the mailing sheet. Maybe it wasn't noble to call out my coworker, but there's no way I was going to make it look as though I couldn't follow so simple an instruction.

If she were to provide a similarly detailed explanation about proofreading to her other employees, then they might stop sending out letters that included wrong names in the salutations, misspellings of cities and incorrect verb tenses. Sometimes the mistakes I found were comical. I was supposed to send follow-up letters to people who needed to submit documents before we could pay out their death claim. To find out what documents I should ask for, I had to look at the last letter the claims examiner had sent. One of these letters was addressed to the city of Creep, Illinois. I was skeptical about the likelihood of anyone naming their city Creep, so I typed the city, state and zip code into the Google maps search bar. The result read, "Did you mean Crete, IL?" Sigh. In another case, the beneficiary was listed as Rabbi Someone-Or-Other. The examiner had crossed out Rabbi and written "Robbi." On the letter, they reduced the Rabbi's actual first name to a middle initial following the first name Robbi. I did a search for "Rabbi What's-His-Face" on Google just to make sure I wasn't uncorrecting a valid correction. Sure enough, the person is listed on several websites as the leader of a Jewish congregation. He name is not Robbi.

To be fair, several of my coworkers were nice and I appreciated my boss letting me adjust my schedule around my class. But I'm glad my assignment is over. It could very well be the last temp job I have. I'm enrolled as a full-time student for this coming semester, and my classes and internship at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will take up most of my 9-to-5 hours. I'll have to work what is likely to be an unfulfilling job on the evenings and weekends to make up for it. But, when an unfulfilling job is paired with making great strides in another direction, it doesn't seem so bad.

Robots and Mail Merges

2009-07-15T02:47:00.003+01:00

I have returned to the workforce. It's not necessarily a triumphant return. I'm on another temp assignment. I've been away from an office setting for a while, so I've been finding it a little difficult to readjust. I'd forgotten, for example, what disgusting habits people have. Our warren of cubicle walls, while effective at blocking sight, don't do nearly enough to muffle sound. I share a carpeted cube partition with a woman who likes to eat while she's talking on the phone. The fact that I'm not the one on the other end of the line makes no difference. I can still hear her talking with her mouth full, and it's still gross.

But that pales in comparison to the sound of fingernail clippers that sometimes comes from the cube cater corner to mine. Admittedly, I am quite squeamish about fingernails and am probably extra sensitive the noise that cutting them makes. But I would imagine most people might have a problem with their coworkers sending nail particles flying about the office. Having to listen while the owner of the clippers trimmed her nails one day was fairly painful. But an even higher threshold of disgusting office practices was crossed last week. The woman who sits in the cube behind me went over to her neighbor's unoccupied desk, borrowed the clippers from her drawer and started cutting her own nails with them while she was on the phone. I sat in my decidedly non-soundproofed cube, flinching with every snip of the clippers.

Yet on rare occasions, I'm glad to be able to overhear what goes on in the office. One recent verbal exchange proved to be very amusing. One woman, who usually prefers to complain very audibly about her divorce, was instead seething about a very condescending email she'd apparently received from a co-worker.
"I just can't stand the condensation any more!" she cried. "You know what? I'm smart!" Somehow, confusing the main word in her sentence seemed to belie her statement.

But worse than any ambient office sound I could hear is the crushing boredom of temp work. The setting may have changed from Class Action Place to Insurance Place, but the menial, vacuous tasks are the same. When the position was originally described to me, I was told that I'd be writing letters to inform people what they needed to submit before they could claim insurance money. That in itself sounded boring enough. But when I turned up on the first day, I learned that by writing letters, they meant filling in the blank fields in a form letter with the same pieces of information over and over.

The additional tasks I've been assigned over the last three weeks have continued to decrease in difficulty. First, my supervisor told me I'd be spending several hours a day helping to open the mail. This involves date stamping every single thing that arrives in every single envelope, so it's a very time-consuming process. And it seems to require an immense wealth of knowledge and skill compared to what occupied my time for most of the day today. I was tasked with removing the paper clips from large stacks of paper and then packing the paper into boxes. The elevator lobby on each floor is hung with a poster that encourages employees to submit their ideas on how the company could save costs. I was tempted to write an email that said something along the lines of "Stop paying a temp to do what robots and mail merges could do." But then I'd be out of a job.

Rejected?

2009-05-18T02:09:00.006+01:00

My assignment at Tax Place ended about a month ago. Since then, I've spent some quality time each day searching for employment. It's a very disheartening process. I haven't been finding many jobs for which I'm qualified, since even the administrative positions out there seem to require 5+ years of experience. Often, it is a bit muddling to simply read through the job descriptions. One position to which I recently submitted had 30 bulleted items under the "Preferred Qualifications" heading. How does one even begin to address each of those within a single-page cover letter?

When I do meet the listed requirements of a job and decide to apply, the process is often more involved than I expected. I thought I'd finished an online application for a local coffee chain after submitting my employment and education history and three references. But advancing to the next page uncovered a very extensive character evaluation. There were about six pages of statements with which I was supposed to strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree. You'd have to be completely daft to answer most of them incorrectly. I found it fairly easy to discern that agreeing with the statement, "I don't work too hard because it doesn't pay off anyway" would make you appear to be lazy and apathetic.

But a few statements were completely baffling. The one that bemused me most was, "It's maddening when the court lets guilty criminals go free." If I strongly disagree, it indicates that I'm lenient towards crime and, presumably, theft of company property. But if I strongly agree, the word "maddening" might make it look as if I have anger issues. So which is better? Anger issues or a tolerant view towards the imperfect court system?

A different company's online assessment gave me a math exam along with their personality test. I realised then just how long it's been since I had to apply any of the concepts I used in my high school math classes. I remember doing really well in calculus. So how can I not recall how to find the percent difference between two numbers? I eventually re-taught myself over the course of the 10 questions they asked that involved that formula, but it was yet another blow to my self-confidence. Then they threw in a word problem. "Raul has more seniority than Colbert, but less invested than Renoir. Colbert has least seniority, but more invested than Raul." It introduced several more parameters, then asked who should be interviewed first for something. It didn't matter, really, because the company never interviewed me.

But interpreting the exhaustive job descriptions and completing ridiculously intensive applications isn't the hardest part of the employment search. It's the waiting. Sometimes there isn't much and there's a swift and merciful rejection. But usually there's a prolonged period of wondering what the status of my application might be. I read the "How to Apply" information for one company where I sent my resume, looking for an estimation of when I might hear back. The material contained the question, "What do I do if I haven’t heard from anyone within a month after submitting my resume?" The very evasive answer was, "If you are interested in any other opportunities, please apply online." A month?! That's an awfully long time to wait for potentially no result.

Some companies try to be merciful by allowing applicants to monitor their status online. This is informative, and helps to eliminate the possibility of uncertain rejection. But it's also addictive. And it can still be frustrating when your status doesn't change. One of my applications has carried the same "Under review" status for a few weeks. Granted, I enjoy the glimmer of hope that remains every time I hit the refresh button and don't see a phrase of rejection. But now I'm just growing annoyed at how long the process is taking. I tried to advance my cause by retrieving the contact information for the position from the HR department. I called the contact to follow up, but it didn't do much good. She said that they were still reviewing applications and that I might receive notice in another two weeks.

So it'll be another two weeks of searching, applying, waiting and (up til the time of publication) being rejected. That's the process. It's frustrating. It's demoralising. And I'm trying again tomorrow.

The Naysayers

2009-04-19T23:27:00.005+01:00

Maybe my plan to become a curator isn't such a good idea. Maybe it's impractical. Maybe it's borderline impossible. What if I spend all the time, effort and money to go to grad school only to end up exactly where I am now? What if I still can't find a job when I'm through? I've obviously been experiencing a lot of self-doubt and uncertainty lately. It's entirely warranted, I think, since this new plan of mine involves a commitment of several years and several (hundreds of) thousands of dollars. But knowing that doesn't make me feel any more sure about what I'm doing.

The lot of accountants at work have managed to make me even less sure. I ran into one of them in the elevator bank when I was headed to class one night.
"Leaving already?" she asked.
"I have a midterm that I need to get to," I explained, even though no explanation was necessary because it was already after 5:00. This statement inevitably turned into a conversation about what class I was taking and why. I briefly summarised my plan to go to grad school and eventually become a curator.
"How many jobs are there in that?" she sneered.
I fumbled some answer about how there were more than she might think, since there were so many museums all around the world.

"Well, do you know what Y has a degree in? A Master's degree in?"
"No," I confessed.
"Library science. She has a Master's in library science, but she couldn't find a job. Now she's been working for us so long that she doesn't think anyone will hire her."
I couldn't argue this statement with any known numerical facts about the infallibility of my own plan, but I did manage to counter somewhat nicely.
"Oh, I've seen a few job postings for people with library science degrees. I should tell her."
My naysayer shot me a withering glance. Luckily the 30-story elevator ride was finally over.

She wasn't the only one who thought that mocking my future career plans made a wonderful topic of conversation. B picked up on it as a replacement for his daily comments on my hairstyle. We had been talking quite normally about the University of Minnesota, and I mentioned that my sister was going to med school there.
"Med school, huh?" he asked, with a clear note of admiration. This quickly settled back into his normal, slightly taunting tone. "She's going to medical school and you're going to settle for art curation?"
I couldn't think of any response to this besides a firm "Yes."
"Okay," he said in a sing-song, that's-a-stupid-idea tone and walked away. He has since brought up the subject several more times, always in a teasing manner.

While these comments mainly served to make me angry, they also elevated my pesky feeling of uncertainty. But I've recently received some reassurance from my current art history professor. She is a curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and I met with her to talk about her own professional path. The biggest and most painful surprise to me was that I will need to have a PhD instead of a Master's. The idea of so much more school is definitely daunting. But it's not insurmountable. She also recommended that I start learning how to read French and German and gave me some helpful suggestions on what I should include in a cover letter.

Most importantly, she told me I was doing all the right things. That is quite comforting when coming from someone who has already taken this path. And it makes me really excited to keep following my own. Soon I'll get to pick somewhere I'd like to live and choose a school there (or maybe the other way around). I'll get to learn all about art and museums. I'll be able to read French and German. And hopefully I'll find a job I really love in the end. Luckily the people who have mocked or questioned me lately are offset by an equal, if not greater, number of supporters. Paying more attention to what they have to say, and to my own determination and interest in the profession I'm pursuing, will help me to put the naysayers in their proper place--behind me.

Soap Sud

2009-03-30T01:14:00.002+01:00

Having lived in Minnesota for most of my life, I thought I knew what it felt like to have completely cold-numbed feet. I didn't. I found out yesterday during my two-hour orientation at the Soap Factory gallery in Northeast Minneapolis. The gallery has no heat, and it was colder inside than the sun-warmed 45-degree conditions outside. My Converse trainers were not designed, nor well-chosen, for the frigidity I encountered.

Dressed, as we'd been advised, in fairly warm clothing and coats, we learned about the Soap Factory's history, went over the duties and opportunities for volunteers and took an extensive tour of the space. Near the end of the tour, I finally stopped feeling the tingling, biting pain in my toes. I stopped feeling anything. When I re-emerged into the sunshine at the end of the session, I decided to take a walk to help reawaken my comatose nerves. Walking on numb feet proved to be a very odd sensation. I was moving forward, but had no sensory record of how I had done so.

But frozen feet were, I think, a very small price to pay. The reason why the gallery has no heat is also the reason that it's such an amazing space. The building once housed the National Purity Soap Factory (hence the name), which always was or came to be owned by Pillsbury. In the late 90s, before real estate near the Mississippi became trendy and expensive, some people from the company were discussing their plans to demolish the building. Apparently this conversation took place in a bar and was overheard by someone who convinced them to donate it to an artists' collective instead.

No Name Exhibitions eventually acquired the old factory for one dollar. But since it had been scheduled for the wrecking ball, many essential elements had already been removed (like the heating system). The $4 million cost of installing a new one is obviously prohibitive for a non-profit organization. But these small imperfections somehow make the space ideal for housing art--especially the sort of emerging, risk-taking art that the Soap Factory seeks.

We were shown several of the building's quirks during our tour. The locomotive boiler still lies dormant in the basement, an absolutely massive, hulking, awe-inspiring and antiquated piece of machinery. The basement itself is one of the eeriest places I have ever seen. It's very well-suited to the Halloween Haunted Basement that is held there each year. I was spooked whilst travelling the maze of dark spaces without costumed characters and other scary effects. I can't imagine what my reaction will be when it's done up properly. Probably sheer, silent terror.

The organic, constantly improving nature of the gallery means that I will have a very interesting volunteer experience there. Unlike the Walker, where I man a kiosk and occasionally direct a visitor to a café or gallery, I'll have the opportunity to be involved with a little bit of everything at the Soap Factory. According to the orientation slides, I'll be able to work one-on-one with artists, help with installations, contribute to rebuilding the floor that was torn out along with the lard-boiling vats, bar tend at openings--and, of course, gallery sit. I feel like I'll have a chance to make a true impact and learn a lot in the process. That is very exciting.

The Soap Factory is already doing interesting things, and I think it has great potential to achieve a lot more. The organisation is fueled by enthusiastic people with great ideas for fundraising and gallery improvements. Hopefully I can contribute a few of my own thoughts in addition to helping to carry out visions already in place. Despite having frozen feet, the orientation left the rest of me warm with eager anticipation. And I now know why the Soap Factory presents the Art Shanty Projects on Lake Minnetonka every winter. No-one expects those to be heated.

Wheels

2009-03-24T01:47:00.007Z

Following a string of 40-plus-degree days that melted most of the lingering ice, I embarked on my first bike ride of the season. I was fully prepared for it to hurt. I recalled last year's first ride, which left me gasping for air and feeling a strong desire to throw up. This year, it was my hands and face that were burning rather than my lungs and legs. It was still probably a bit too cold, and the wind rushing across my exposed flesh left my fingers and ears numb. But aside from that, it was a very pleasant ride. I even pedaled against the wind up a long hill and found myself only reasonably winded at its summit.

Apparently the frequent unemployment walks I took this winter gave me some physical stamina. That and making endless rounds amongst the copy machine, printer, binding machine, and errant accountants' offices at Tax Place. While I expected to have some humourous-in-hindsight stories about my pedaling plight, the lack of physical pain I experienced means that a more interesting scenario involves wheels powered by an engine. Before I went to Australia, I had been borrowing my parents' third car when I needed to go somewhere. They and I both thought that I would be gone much longer than I actually was, and they sold the car about a month before I came home. This made it more difficult to go to class, go to my shifts at the Walker--go anywhere.

Luckily Raf and Laura went to Canada a few weeks ago. Luckily, Raf and Laura were generous enough to let me borrow their car whilst they were gone. I had just dropped them off at the airport and driven to work, exalting all the way about my new four-wheel freedom, when I received an email from Andy's parents offering to let me borrow their car when they went to Colorado the following week. I was thrilled at the prospect of having a car for three weeks, and scheduled every conceivable thing to which I would need to drive within that period of time.

But it got even better. Andy's parents decided to let me use Andy's car until he comes home in May. I must admit I teared up a little when he told me. To the people who lend me their vehicles, it may not seem like a huge deal (maybe it does and I just don't realise it). But, for someone who lives in a part of Maple Grove where the nearest coffee shop is a two-hour walk away with no transportation besides the Monday-through-Friday morning and evening rush-hour bus service, having a car is a significant luxury. I met Russdad and Dianemom for dinner and picked up the beautiful green Subaru about a week ago. It has made everything much easier and more accessible.

It has also opened up some new opportunities. I was interested in volunteering at the Soap Factory in addition to the Walker, but I didn't think I'd have reliable access to a car. After discovering that I'd have my own means of transport, I immediately signed up for one of the orientation sessions. It's coming up this Saturday. Working there will be an interesting contrast to the Walker, since it's a much smaller gallery with no permanent collection (as far as I know). That means there will be a lot more exhibitions coming through, which subsequently means more opportunities for me to witness or talk to people about how they curate the shows.

From a much easier first-ride-of-the-season to borrowing a car of my own, the wheel situation is greatly improved this year. Now I can focus on other aspects of life I'd like to improve over last year, like my job. I consider myself very lucky to have basically had the vehicle situation straightened out for me, and I'm hoping that luck holds out.

Toner Lung Relapse

2009-03-18T01:45:00.004Z

After an unexpected five-month holiday, I finally returned to being gainfully employed in February. I returned to Tax Place. Not surprisingly, it is much the same as it was last year. Everyone, with the exception of two temps, is still there. I'm sitting in the same cubicle. I'm assembling the same e-file returns for a lot of the same clients. And I think I'm once again suffering from Toner Lung. I remember my fellow temp, M, complaining of mysteriously swollen glands last year. I've noticed that my own glands have become perceptibly larger over the past week, but I thought it was due to a recent cold. I didn't associate this telltale symptom with Toner Lung until today when, in the course of trying to clear a jam in the copier, I found my face in very close proximity to the acrid fumes it produces.

Suddenly everything fell into place. The excessive thirst. Dry, chapped hands. Fatigue. Grogginess. All symptoms that I also experienced last year and that led me to postulate about the existence of the disease in the first place. And this strain of Toner Lung seems to be more severe than ever before. Last year, one of the accountants provided evidence of the respiratory difficulties associated with Toner Lung by clearing his throat almost incessantly. This year, the "Ahm" and "Hrrrrm" to which I had grown accustomed have escalated to a full range of horribly phlegmatic noises. Rather than giving a simple cough, he now sounds as if he's blatantly trying to dislodge a fairly sizable loogie.

I've also noticed strange behaviour from another accountant. Now that M is no longer here to captivate the wheezy preparer, I've seen a lot less of him back by our cubicles. Instead, I've been hearing far more from B. Last year he confined himself to asking me what I was listening to on my iPod. Now it's become much more personal. I'd grown out my hair a bit last year, and it was too long to spike it up as I usually do. I'd forgotten about this change in coiffure until B started constantly teasing me about it.

"What'd'you call that?" he asked, gesturing to my hair. "The Rooster?" Another day he greeted me by calling out, "Hey, Spike!"
Once he ran out of clever jokes about my hairstyle, he moved on to my nose stud. "Do you stick that on there or is it real?" he inquired.
"It's real," I answered. "I've had that for a while. I'm surprised you didn't notice it last year."
"Oh I noticed it," he sneered. "I just didn't say anything about it."
I'm beginning to suspect that the only explanation for this verbal diarrhea is that it's yet another symptom of Toner Lung.

But I don't have quite as much time to study the disease and its strange manifestations as I did last year. Since I already knew how to assemble completed returns, my supervisors decided to teach me how to scan tax documents into the computer. This new task is now the bane of my Tax Place existence. It involves sorting through the big mess of W2s, 1099s, 1098s and whatever else people send back with their tax organisers. Many people seem to have an annoying fondness for staples, paper clips and Post-It notes, all of which I must remove. I have to watch for marks in any highlighter colour other than yellow, since they will turn into black censor bars if scanned in black and white. And, unlike assembling, I can't fix a mistake without completely starting over. I don't have the ability to delete a page that might turn out wonky. Cultivating the eagle-eyed forethought necessary for this task has kept me far busier than I was last year.

Despite the scanning, I generally like being back at Tax Place. I'm getting paid, the passage of time has picked up considerable speed, and I'm treated quite well. But returning here has highlighted the main difference between my life now and my life then. I really miss Andy. We had just begun dating before I started this assignment last year, and my nearly constant love-stupid giddiness must have been apparent to others, too. Immediately upon walking in the door on my first day back, the receptionist called, "I saw you kissing a boy!" Seeing my confusion, she went on to explain that it had been around the time I'd been working there last year.
"I was going to say it must not have been any time recently," I replied, and explained the separate travel paths that we're currently navigating.
"Well, you looked really in love, and it was cute," she concluded.

And that is a big part of the reason why I'm also ready to be done with Tax Place. Unlike last year, where the end of my assignment meant only uncertainty and, eventually, a far worse temp assignment, this year I have a great deal to look forward to. By 15 April, there will only be two weeks left until Andy comes home. Soon after that I'll move out of my parents' house. I have fall classes to plan. And I've been working really hard to find a job I might actually enjoy by the time tax season is done. I'm feeling pretty optimistic and eager to move on to new things. And, of course, I need to recover from this new strain of Toner Lung.

Line, Shape and Form

2009-02-11T19:37:00.005Z

After diligently addressing, stamping and mailing an application for a volunteer position at the Walker Art Center this week, I expected at least a few days to pass before receiving a response. But the very next day my inbox contained a message from the representative to whom I'd sent my form and introductory letter. I opened it eagerly and scanned to the part where it said I'd be a good fit for the program. I couldn't help but grin rather hugely. I was, and am, absolutely thrilled.

Based on the amazingly fast response time, I doubt the selection process was very competitive. Perhaps just sending in the application was all that had been required. But it feels so great to finally be chosen for something. After all the negative responses (or lack of responses) I'd received in Australia during my job search, this is truly gratifying. And it's an opportunity I'm tremendously excited about. I can't remember ever being so eager to do work for which I'm not going to be paid.

But, even though they're not monetary, there are still many benefits to be gained from the experience. I'll learn more about art. Make connections at the gallery. Find someone I can talk to about grad school programs. Interact with lots of people. And, hopefully, enjoy myself as well. Though the position only requires me to volunteer four hours a month, this seems like a big step for me. Things are finally taking shape.

Part of that shape is formed by the art history class I'm taking at the University of Minnesota. I was told by the graduate program's director of admissions that I'd never be accepted with the single art history course currently on my transcript. So I'm slowly building a more substantial background in art history, one class at a time. I've started with a course dealing with the history of prints (woodcuts, engravings, etchings, lithography, etc). I'm finding it really interesting, despite focusing on very early religious prints thus far.

Though I graduated only about two years ago, it's quite strange to be an undergrad again. I'm a bit removed from the student lifestyle, so I'm able to look at it from a different perspective than I could when school was my main career. I'm basically surprised at how uptight and anxious some people seem to be feeling about the class. The midterm exam, for example, has proven to be a huge source of worry. It's still at least a month away, but our professor feels the need to reassure us every week because someone has come to her with concerns about it.

At least four people have also asked during class if our professor could put the slides and lecture notes up online before class rather than after. She refused, telling us quite honestly that she generally worked on the lecture up until class started.
"It's always a race to the finish," she confessed. I personally like her style. She told us on the first day that, "8.50 [the end time for our class] seems really late, especially in the winter. I'm all for letting you guys out early." This she has done consistently, which completely makes up for any tardiness in posting the lecture materials.

Then there was her tact in fielding a fairly delicate question last week. We had been looking at a print by Goya that featured a scary woman threatening a small group of people with an even scarier gigantic needle. Our professor told us that this would have been used to deliver an enema. This statement was seemingly going to pass without comment. But one student posed a question after we'd moved on to the next slide (which she seems to have a habit of doing).
"Wait...what was that big needle in the last slide?"
"I think it's called a clyster," the professor responded.
"But what's it for?"
"It's to give an enema."
"But what's an enema? That's what I'm asking."

The professor hesitated for a moment, certainly trying to figure out how to respond without delving into graphic descriptions. Trying to save us all from having to hear what her answer might be, one student announced to the girl, "I'll tell you after class." But Professor M discovered a way to disclose the information somewhat discreetly.
"Well, what's the opposite of Imodium AD?" she asked, having forgotten the name of the drug.
"Ex-Lax," another student chimed helpfully.
"Yes," our professor announced, sounding understandably relieved. "It's like Ex-Lax."

And yet some people in the class look bored!

Despite some awkward moments, I'm enjoying the class and the other steps I'm taking to reach my ultimate goal of being a curator. I'm excited for Walker orientation this week. I'm excited to pick my class for summer term. I'm excited to pick a grad school. I'm excited for all of it. I've felt a little lost career-wise for the past year or more, so it's exhilarating to pursue this line. I'm not quite sure exactly where it leads yet, but I know it's going somewhere I like. And the fact that it's still flexible is the most exciting part of all.

An Object at Rest...

2009-02-03T18:28:00.004Z

Repatriating this time around has not proven to be as traumatic as it was last year. I think in a way that's because I never truly felt like an expat in Australia. I felt far more transient than I had on any of my previous excursions abroad. There are several reasons for that. Part of it was that I didn't discover a source of steady income and couldn't dismiss my concerns about running out of money before my visa expired. Part of it was that I didn't latch onto anything about Sydney that made me absolutely need to stay there. Part of it was that I took a lot more guided tours. Part of it was that Andy wasn't there.

And part of it was that I genuinely missed the Twin Cities. I missed the Current, the local music scene and the free local publications. I missed Punch, Chipotle, Quang, and the rest of Eat Street. I missed the bridges over the Mississippi. I missed the Mississippi in general. I missed having more clothes than I could carry in a suitcase. And after seven months of hot weather, I even missed the winter (though the solid week of -30°F temperatures that heralded my return was a little excessive). More than all the tangible things, I was actually happy to have a sense of stability. I've been moving about so much over the past two years that the idea of settling into one geographical place for a while is very appealing. I was glad to come home.

But my enthusiasm about being back doesn't help to eliminate the intense boredom I've felt since returning. I'm going back to Tax Place for another temporary assignment, but not for over two weeks. I have no car and very little money. I've largely been confined to the house, and am struggling to combat the inertia that such entrapment seems to encourage. For me, being bored is a vicious cycle. The logical way to fight boredom would be to engage myself in something interesting or productive. Something I always wished I had time to do when I was working. It's simple in theory, but in practice it's close to impossible. Instead of reading my textbook, I compulsively read facebook updates. The longest thing I've managed to write lately is a text message. And I won't even talk about how many games of Snood (a ridiculously simple and ridiculously addictive computer game) I play in a day.

Last week was much better. I think finding ways to leave my house has been the key to setting myself in motion. I'm taking a night art history course at the U. My friends have been supplying pretty frequent invitations for dinners, ice skating or watching football matches at the pub. I've been taking the bus downtown when I feel like I'm about to lose it in suburbia. I brave the cold and take long walks. All that getting out of the house helps me to be more productive when I'm in the house, too. I've been applying for weekend jobs, reading, inquiring about volunteer opportunities at art galleries...and writing. These latest posts on my blog represent my return to being an object motion. And if I adhere to Newton's first law, I'll hopefully stay in motion, too.

Gallic Expectations

2009-01-31T03:47:00.012Z

My expectations of France were not at all disappointed. At least in terms of reuniting with Andy. I finally arrived in Charles de Gaulle airport after about 34 hours of travel. I was in a very focused daze while I waited in the line at passport control, which seemed to be continuously growing and barely progressing. I mustered a smile and "bonjour" that hopefully sounded more energetic than I felt when I finally reached the sullen man brandishing the stamp. Despite the line, inking my passport was expedient enough. And my backpack was one of the first things to arrive on the conveyor belt of luggage. I felt fortunate, since every additional minute of waiting was extremely irritating. I slung my massive pack onto my back, hopped once to help it fall into place, and made tracks for the arrivals gate.

I scanned left for Andy and didn't see him amongst the line of waiting people. So I turned right, searching. I heard my name and turned to see him trotting towards me from the left. I hadn't spotted him. Or maybe I just hadn't recognised him. Actually seeing him was quite startling. So was hearing his real voice, unaltered by phone and Internet signals travelling over great distances. I was taken aback at how weirdly like a stranger he seemed. That uncomfortable feeling lingered through our first hug. But it slowly dissipated after we moved off to one side and stood hugging for what was probably a solid 10 minutes. And it was replaced with an inundation of pure giddiness.

That lasted for the first few days. When I finally started to re-devote some sensory perception to my surroundings, I noticed that France was full of things I didn't expect. Like food that exceeded my idea of delicious by such a wide margin. Buttery, flaky croissants. Moist, soft, eggy baguette de campagne with crispy crust. Hot chocolate with thin sheets of actual chocolate melted into it. Warm, chewy, butter and sugar crêpes. Some sort of dessert that far surpassed the sum of its pecans, massive amounts of chocolate and sprigs of decorative aloe. Breakfast cereal that consisted of crunchy hazelnut pillows filled with smooth chocolate and hazelnut. Pitchers of house wine that were fantastic without exception. Even the oysters started to grow on me. I visibly gained weight within a week.

Given the overall deliciousness of the food, my first surprise was at just how bad some of it looked or tasted. On our second night in Paris, we were blissfully eating curried mussels at a restaurant in Montmartre. The pair of women at the table next to ours were appraising our food as they waited for their own to arrive. We returned the interested glances when the waiter finally delivered their dishes. Hopefully our appreciative looks remained in place, masking the philistine shock we felt when we saw what they'd ordered. A plate of raw hamburger, a raw egg, a chopped onion and various spices. They mixed everything together into a pile of pure uncookedness, ate every last bit, and gave their compliments to the chef. For what? we wondered. He didn't actually do anything.

I wish that another of our food mishaps had been merely observed rather than experienced. While Andy's French vocabulary has expanded immensely over the months he'd been there, he still is not able to translate every single word. I came across something called moelle d'os on a menu and asked him what it was.
"I don't know," he said. "Let's try it." That plan had worked well for us during the rest of the trip, so I agreed.

"What is it?" I asked when the waiter who brought the dish was safely out of hearing range.
"It's bone marrow," Andy said quietly and disbelievingly. We both picked up one of the tiny spoons and scooped some of the gelatinous substance from the centre of the large bones. We gingerly tasted it. We set the spoons back down and desperately reached for slices of the toast meant to be a vehicle for the marrow.
"That's AWFUL!" Andy choked, pushing the plate towards the edge of the table.

One waiter passed, glanced down at our plate and walked by without picking it up.
"He didn't take it," Andy said with dismay.
"Of course not. We have plenty of delicious bone marrow left," I explained. A second waiter rescued us from our culinary plight, but not our embarrassment.
"Is something wrong with it?" he asked, stopped in his tracks by the sight of perfectly good bone marrow not being adequately appreciated.
"No," Andy said, "We just thought we should try it."
"Yes, it's something you need to try," the waiter agreed, and took the offensive plate away.

Beyond the good and the bad of food, other aspects of the country did not fit into my perception of France as a stylish, romantic place of culture and refinement. The toilets were the most obvious departure. Most establishments offered a tiny, freezing, semi-clean single stall. Many didn't have seats, and I quickly learnt that toilet paper was a luxury. One had a particularly memorable DIY element to it. Instead of being affixed to the wall as it should have been, the soap dispenser was sitting on the counter next to the sink. You had to hold it suspended with one hand whilst pushing the soap-releasing lever with the other.

Sometimes we were lucky if there was a toilet at all. There were two armoured port-a-potty-like public bathrooms near a beach we were visiting in Sète one afternoon, but neither was working. One gave the impression of functionality by flushing its toilet every few minutes. But the red "occupé" button remained frustratingly illuminated. No-one came out or responded to knocks and inquiring shouts from the few desperate bystanders. It was a bit of an urgent situation, so we curtailed our beach walk and drove until we found a different, paid public toilet.

"My treat," Andy offered. But the coin slot built into the side of the structure only accepted 10 and 20 cent pieces. He wound up having to barter with a passerby to obtain enough correct change. Despite the printed claim that it was automatically washed and sanitised after each use, the facility's condition made me resentful that we'd had to pay to enter. But compared to a rest stop we used on the way back from Marseilles, that toilet was amazing. The women's stalls there consisted of two texturised porcelain foot grips, a handle and a hole. At least going to the bathroom was never boring.

Large packs of stray dogs, larvae in the holy water at a church we visited, a lack of some things we take for granted here (drop boxes at movie rental stores, for example), and completely erratic shop hours were some other things that surprised me about France. But even if some of these differences struck me as slightly unpleasant, they couldn't detract from the overall brilliance of the place. The food, as I said, was beyond delicious, people were warm and welcoming and the scenery was generally gorgeous and frequently breathtaking. And I was able to share all of it with Andy.

There were some surprises there, too. Andy and I had never been together continuously for such an extended period before. We did spend most of our free time together in the States, but we'd never had such an excess of free time. I think I would have begun to harbour some quite unpleasant thoughts about anyone else after so much quality time together. It was definitely an adjustment, but I learned a lot about Andy that I hadn't known before. That was really cool. And affirming.

I'm glad my time in France didn't match my expectations exactly. I enjoy staying somewhere long enough to discover some not-so-good elements along with the enviable aspects. At that point, I really feel like I've gained a sense of what life in a place is like. It fascinates me and often makes me appreciate certain things in the US that I'd always taken for granted. And some aspects of my visit were better than I could ever have anticipated. I'm happy for that, too. I feel some sort of need to like every place that I go, and it's wonderful when that comes easily. Not all of my expectations were met. But I wasn't disappointed. The reality was better.

International Couple

2008-12-18T02:26:00.003Z

The past several days in Sydney have been passing excruciatingly slowly. This has a little to do with boredom. I’ve been here nearly three months without working. I’ve had more than enough time to visit everything in Sydney that sparks my interest—two or three times in some cases. But the crawling passage of time has even more to do with an unbearable feeling of anticipation. I’ve been here nearly three months without seeing Andy. Tomorrow I’ll be boarding a plane that will finally bring me to him. And as the time of my departure approaches, each hour seems to pass more slowly than the one before.

Our separation has been hard. It has become a little easier with time, if only because my memories have grown less vivid as they’ve become less recent. I’ve adjusted to Andy being present only through electronic messages, slightly distorted voice and occasional pictures. He’s taken on a sort of abstractness. To such a degree that being in close geographical proximity again seems strangely unbelievable, and actually makes me a little nervous. And though this abstractness has reduced the initial, sharper pain to a dull ache, I don’t like it.

Usually we can work around the distance and express our love for each other through the means we have available. But sometimes it really feels like we’re on opposite sides of the world. When schedules don’t align. When words, unaided by visual cues, just don’t come out right. When one of us is off-kilter. And especially when, as so often happens, technology gets in the way. Internet access in our respective countries is not what we’re accustomed to. There are frequent disconnections, delays, weird electronic interjections and total Internet outages in the middle of our conversations. Sometimes we barely have time to rehash our day-to-day activities. Most of the time we spend talking is taken up by the sentiments that overwhelm everything else: “I miss you” and “I love you.”

Since the time that we have to connect each day is limited, it sometimes seems excessively important and precious. It feels like we no longer have the space to be silly. And being silly, inventing absolutely fantastic scenarios and characters, used to be an important element of our relationship. When we do have a chance to make up something ridiculous and laugh at it, laugh really hard, it’s wonderful. It’s a sudden and startling return to what our relationship used to be like before all the international seriousness crept in. And it illustrates how things have changed.

They haven’t changed beyond recognition. The foundations of love, affection, and mutual respect are still there. But there are small differences. We’re not quite as close as we once were. That’s inevitable, given the 10-hour time difference and 10,543 miles between us. And it’s not irreparable. I have a feeling that physical closeness will allow us to regain what we’ve lost very quickly. There’s an additional gravity. There’s extra frustration. There are tests of trust, patience, maturity and commitment.

There’s also, unfortunately, a bit of jealousy on my part. Andy has been doing a brilliant job of making the most of his experience in France. He’s meeting people and being invited to hikes, dinners and events as a result. He’s sitting in on extra classes. He’s taking tango lessons. Essentially, he’s finding and taking advantage of all sorts of opportunities. And I can’t help being envious. I feel a little like I’ve failed. I didn’t find a job. I didn’t really make friends. I know I ultimately made the decision to call it quits. But I can’t help having a sneaking suspicion that I was fired. That I didn’t do everything I could have to make myself happy in Sydney. That’s all usually short-lived. I want Andy to be doing exactly what he is. And I’m exceedingly proud of him.

For all the difficulties, living in opposite hemispheres done us quite a lot of good. Maintaining a really-long-distance relationship is something I hadn’t dealt with on previous experiences abroad. It made things a little harder. But, paradoxically, it also made them easier. Andy has been caring, encouraging, sympathetic, optimistic and supportive. He still has the ability to make me happy, even across multiple oceans. He’s worked really hard to make sure that this separation is as painless as such a thing can be. So have I. And it seems to have worked. This hasn’t been quite as hard as I anticipated. If anything, it’s made me more certain that I love Andy and will for a long time. I’ve felt a little empty the past few months. But I’m reserving that emptiness for Andy. And it’ll be filled tomorrow.

A Bus Full of Slightly Drunks

2008-12-08T01:05:00.002Z

I woke up to my alarm and a weak, gray, far-too-early-in-the-morning light on Thursday. I was going on a day trip to the Hunter Valley wine region, and it left early. But even the prospect of delicious wine tastings did nothing to elevate my spirits as I dazedly stumbled downstairs and lingered absent-mindedly in the shower.

The rest of the city didn’t seem to have fully awakened yet, either. Glebe Point Road was eerily but pleasantly quiet when I walked along on my way to Central Station at 6:30. Most of the shops and restaurants were still shut, and only a few people were about. The chaos picked up a bit along the main thoroughfare of Broadway, as did my pace when I realised my relaxed gait likely wouldn’t get me there on time.

I needn’t have worried. I stood for what seemed like ages outside the Central YHA, compulsively checking my watch. My tendency to impatience, quickened by the earliness of the hour, was provoked as the minutes slowly ticked by and the bus still didn’t appear. It finally pulled up 20 minutes late. That was another 20 minutes I could I have devoted to precious sleep. So I was not particularly receptive to the couple already on the bus who tried to strike up conversation.

In response to the driver’s query, I announced that I was from the US. The man of the couple said, “Oh! Small world! We’re from Boston.” I can recognise an American who hasn’t left the country much by how utterly shocked they are to meet another American outside the US. I’ve heard loads of American accents around Sydney and knew a fair few compatriots in London and Dublin. So to me, it only qualifies as a small world if the other person is from Minnesota.

The man exhibited further evidence of insularity when he started talking to the Scottish couple we’d picked up. He twisted round in his seat and immediately asked them something about Braveheart. I think I visually cringed. It was a line of conversation so deeply rooted in popular culture stereotype that I couldn’t believe he’d actually pursued it. But, setting the tone for the day, D answered him in a friendly manner.

In addition to the free-flowing wine, the tour group itself made the trip quite fun. We had three Americans, a woman from Hong Kong who was dressed head-to-toe in glittery and bejewelled clothing, the Scottish couple and three older sisters from Northern England. The sisters were especially jovial, referring to themselves as “Ten Pound POMs.” They’d all immigrated to Australia after World War II, taking advantage of the 10-pound fare offered to anyone with a British passport. One stayed; the other two had since returned to England and were now visiting their sister. I was called upon to show my support of Liverpool FC when one of them introduced herself as living near Manchester and added, “If you’ve heard of Manchester United.”

The tour guide kept us entertained on the two-and-a-half hour drive with further historical anecdotes. Of particular interest to me was the Hawkesbury River. G told us that on a visit to Australia, Mark Twain had referred to it as Australia’s Mississippi. It was quite a bit wider than the part of the Mississippi I’ve cycled on the East and West River Roads, and it was missing the sheer drop-offs with which I’m familiar. But the rolling hills and the fairly similar vegetation made it a decently apt comparison.

It was still gray when we reached Lindemans, the site of our first tasting. A heavily made-up, blonde-dyed young woman lined 10 glasses up on the bar and filled them with splashes of a sparkling white. The Hunter Valley is known for its Semillon and Shiraz, so each vineyard included samples of each. But after tasting seven to 10 wines at each of four places, particulars of type, body and taste escape me. Nothing at Lindemans was particularly good. Most of the wines were quite young, 2007 or 2008 vintage. The more experienced wine connoisseurs wrinkled their noses at most. They complained of the excessive sweetness and the tannin.

Next up that morning (it was still only 11.15) was Tempus Two. We parked alongside a surprisingly modern building. The exterior was painted black with slanted steel supports stretching angular white shade awnings overhead. The interior was similarly contemporary. Incongruously darkened against the morning light, the focus of the room was the wall of wines at the back. A bright orange/pink illuminated panel provided backlighting for the bottles lined up against it.

A businesslike older woman, dressed in a black imitation of a chef’s button-up coat and black glasses, conducted the tasting. She had an air of superiority about her, making it clear that she was not particularly fond of having to give samples to an uncouth busload of tourists. She didn’t have so much cause to be snobby; out of the six or seven wines we sampled there, only the Merlot was very impressive. The hushed opinions that my fellow tasters expressed back on the bus echoed my own thoughts. The winery was new to the Hunter Valley and just seemed to be trying too hard.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was tipsy. How? I’d only been drinking tiny samples! But I’d had 14 of them, and they add up. Mixing the variety of red, white, sparkling and dessert wines probably contributed to the effects. The lunch break that followed our Tempus Two visit seemed perfectly timed. Unfortunately, our lunch stop was at the Blue Tongue Brewery. But my condition, and, more convincingly, the condition of my pocketbook, made it possible to avoid buying the six-beer tasting paddle.

Instead I ate my packed lunch and talked with the other people who’d chosen the light lunch option. These were the driver and the three English sisters. All of them proved to be quite interesting and distracted me from the beer quite nicely. The food and the entertaining conversation helped to clear my head a little before we all boarded the bus and drove the short distance to the Oakvale Vineyard.

Here we were seated at a long, round, dark wood table rather than standing at the bar. The feel couldn’t have deviated more from the flashy nightclub atmosphere of Tempus Two. Oakvale was more like an airy family farmhouse. The wines here were more pleasing as well. A heavy-set man dressed in a black collared shirt embroidered with the Oakvale name explained the difference.
“These are actual Hunter Valley wines,” he said as we sipped one of the samples. “Those other places use grapes from all over. If you ask them where their grapes are grown, they kind of dance around the answer.”
D, the Scotsman, agreed.
“They either don’t know or they won’t answer you,” he complained, referring to his recent experience at Tempus Two.

My imbibing and their proximity to me at the table led me to strike up a conversation with the American couple. Despite their earlier cringe-inducing comments, they weren’t so bad. We’d all had to introduce ourselves on the bus that morning, a gentle coercion I’d resented in the still-pretty-small hours but which I appreciated now. I’d briefly summed up my job search saga then, and we talked about that and the strange barriers to graduate studies that both I and the other American woman were encountering.

The man in charge of the tasting offered to pour us a sample of anything on the list that hadn’t been included in the seven varieties we’d tried. I asked to try the Peppercorn Shiraz and deemed it the best wine of the day. I became convinced that I’ll need to export some of it, despite Oakvale not shipping internationally. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to get it out of this country, into France, out of France and into the US. Simple.

Drayton’s, one of the oldest vineyards in Australia, was our last stop. They were in the midst of ongoing renovations, so their cellar door was actually a small tin-roofed temporary building. The man presiding over the tasting was originally from Northern England, to the delight of the sisters and the Scots (and me).
“Where’re you from, anyway?” D demanded, hearing the man’s definitively non-Australian accent.
“Between Newcastle and Durham,” he explained. His football allegiance was questioned. It lay with Newcastle, and I had a second opportunity to declare my support of Liverpool. He retorted that he’d once forced someone who’d come dressed in Liverpool kit to take it off before he’d pour them a sample.

The 10 wines included in this tasting ensured that most of it is a blur in my memory. I talked to the American couple a bit more. I think the Chardonnay was good. Then I promptly fell asleep when the bus started rolling back towards Sydney. The trip wasn’t so much fun after I woke up. I felt fine, but we’d arrived in the city centre at the height of rush hour gridlock. This prompted me to walk home from where G dropped the American couple rather than waiting out the ride back to my pick-up point.

Despite the long walk home, I'd enjoyed the group experience of this group tour much more than the Penguin Island tour. That probably has much to do with the fact that I was surrounded by people from the UK, which I dearly miss. They, and my relative inexperience with wine sampling, made me much more tolerant of being guided. The grumpiness with which I’d greeted the morning had dissipated with the wine and the hour. I enjoyed becoming better acquainted with everyone at the same time as I increased my familiarity with Riesling, Semillon, Merlot and Shiraz. It was quite a welcome break from Sydney and makes me hopeful for the guided dive experience I’ll be doing in the Great Barrier Reef next week.

Penguin Parades and Kangaroo Smacks

2008-12-02T10:39:00.002Z

There are penguins in Australia. I’d had no idea that penguins inhabited anything but ice floes in the Antarctic until arriving here. As it turns out, Melbourne is a short distance from a large colony of Little Penguins. The YHA where I was staying offered day trips to witness the spectacle of what they cutely called the Penguin Parade. I have a fairly deep-set prejudice against group tours, preferring to travel independently. But there was no alternative form of public transport to the island. Having the opportunity to see a wild penguin wasn’t something I wanted to pass up, so I decided to make an exception and sign up for one of the tours.

Unfortunately in order to see the penguins I had to see a whole lot of other things first. One of the stops was at Maru Koala and Fauna Park. This was very similar to the Featherdale Wildlife Park I’d already visited, so I wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. Especially since we were guided as a herd from cage to cage. We started with a wombat. The tour brochure had promised the chance to cuddle a baby wombat, but the only person who got any cuddle time was the animal’s keeper. He hoisted her up in his arms and the group immediately crushed forward to get photos, obstructing my view completely.

Like Featherdale, we had the opportunity to feed the wallabies and kangaroos that also inhabit the park. But with a mob of people outnumbering the wallabies at least two to one, it was not easy to find a wallaby that didn’t already have its mouth full. I was growing progressively annoyed with my group and having to wait until all of it reached a cage before the keepers would start talking. So when the rest of the group went into the kangaroo enclosure, I discreetly hung back by the emu pen. I knew what time we were leaving, so I figured I’d let the crowd subside before I went in. I waited and fed the emus until the rest of the group had passed to the far side of the enclosure, then let myself into the pen.

I could see everyone else attempting to feed a group of kangaroos clustered near the exit. I chose to feed an isolated bunch I saw lying off to the side instead. One of them got up as I approached, anticipating a feeding session. I was a little startled by its size. He was much larger than any of the kangaroos I’d seen or fed at Featherdale. His clawed front paws looked a little menacing when he spread them on the ground. But he ate out of my palm politely enough.

As soon as his allotted portion was gone, he became quite greedy. He stood up on his hind legs and attempted to shove his nose into the bowl that contained the rest of the feed. I gave him a few more servings from my hand, then tried to feed one of the other animals nearby. The first kangaroo did not like this at all. He got angry. And he hit me. He used his front paw to smack my arm so that I’d drop my plastic dish and spill the rest of the food. It worked brilliantly. Stunned, I looked around to make sure no-one had seen. The tour guide had probably told everyone else to avoid that particular group of kangaroos because they were aggressive. But of course I hadn’t heard. I picked up the now-empty bowl and slunk back to the group, brushing bits of feed off my shirt and examining the scratch on my arm.

We left shortly after that, making a few more stops before finally reaching Phillip Island. From this point on, the tour completely made up for its lacklustre beginnings. On the way to the island from the mainland, we saw several wild wallabies and the houses that had been built for the penguins to encourage them to expand their nesting grounds. Phillip Island is a dormant volcano, and we started our exploration at a volcanic rock formation called the Nobbies. The scenery there was absolutely breathtaking. Uneven, black rock extended from the base of the hilly island into the water. The sun was weakly penetrating the clouds, creating dazzling reflections off pools of water that were trapped in the pockets of the rocks.

Our tour guide led us along the boardwalk, pointing out holes where some of the penguins were nesting. But the more noticeable birds on the island were the seagulls. They were absolutely everywhere. So was their shit. I’m astonished that I escaped unsullied. I nearly did get pecked, though. I was setting up an autotimer shot and must have encroached on a nest. One of the birds started shrieking, hovering above my head and occasionally diving at me. It persisted until it had driven me a sufficient distance away.

After that, I was happy to leave the windswept area. I was cold and increasingly disturbed by the masses of threatening seabirds in the air and the large number of dead ones on the ground. The journey from the Nobbies to the Penguin Parade was very short, leaving us with plenty of time to explore the gift shops whilst we waited for it to get dark enough for the penguins to come ashore. Finally it was dusk. As the light faded, clusters of the little bird gathered at the edge of the water. They stood there, judging whether it was safe to leave their camouflaged environment for the exposure of the sand.

Eventually a group would grow brave enough and start to waddle across the beach. Then suddenly they’d lose courage, turn around and run back to the water. As the gathering darkness made them feel more secure, clusters of penguins started to make the passage across the sand. We watched from two sets of concrete risers as they ran across the beach to the grassy brush that separated the two stands. They leaned forward, wings spread, and swayed ridiculously from side to side as they moved. They were tiny—only 33 cm tall. It was incredible to see penguins in the wild, even though it was based in such a tourist-attraction setting.

After watching several of them make the crossing from afar, I left the stands and walked along the lengthy boardwalk that traversed the scrub. Several penguins were standing within arm’s length, completely unperturbed by the hoards of humans tromping about so near to them. Perhaps they weren’t afraid because they couldn’t hear us. Once in their burrows, the penguins made tremendously loud chirping, wailing and snoring sounds. The sheer volume was incredible, especially coming from such a small animal. At one lighted section I saw a wallaby climb out of the bush and cross the penguins’ path, disappearing into the grass on the other side of the boardwalk. Compared to the tiny penguins, the small wallaby seemed huge.

I’m very glad I saw the penguin parade. Whether or not I’m glad I went with a tour group is something I still haven’t decided. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to watch the penguins or be hit by a kangaroo if I hadn’t done the day trip. But I’m a little reluctant to do another in the future. It makes certain aspects, especially transportation, easier, but it restricts choice and makes it impossible to find my own off-the-beaten-path sorts of places. And being shuffled along amongst a herd also annoys me very quickly. I’m planning to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef next week, so I’ll have to weigh the options again at that point. If someone offers a Sea Turtle ‘Stravaganza, I may just have to take them up on it.

Thanksgiving in Melbourne

2008-12-01T11:24:00.002Z

For the first time in my life, I think I burned more calories on Thanksgiving than I ate. In keeping with my goal of seeing as much of Australia as I can afford before I leave, I booked a trip to Melbourne over the Thanksgiving weekend. Thursday promised to offer the best weather of trip, so I rented a bike from my hostel and spent the morning cycling along the banks of the Yarra River.

I got lost almost immediately upon leaving. But I wasn’t discouraged. I was still in the city centre. The streets are laid out on a fairly simple grid pattern, so I was confident I’d be able to correct my navigational error on my own. I wasn’t. I was thankful that one of the YHA front desk staff had outfitted me with a cycling map. If he hadn’t, I’m not sure I would have found my way back before dark.

After studying the map, I righted my path and found myself on a long, stop-start journey through the city centre. I was feeling great when I found the trailhead. It was warm but not absurdly hot, and the fairly stiff breeze felt good. The scenery was not spectacular. The river was like a smaller, tamer and more placid version of the Mississippi. But it was nice to be outside and doing some form of physical activity besides walking. My initial enjoyment made me a little overconfident. I bypassed the first point where I could turn off to go back into the city. The trail was pretty flat, the bike was mine for the whole day, and I had seemingly boundless energy.

When the fatigue hit, it hit hard. The stiff breeze that had felt pleasant before now felt like an evil headwind. And for flanking the river, the trail was surprisingly confusing. I didn’t want to miss the next fork into the city, so I found myself consulting the map rather frequently. This was difficult in itself, since the map was large and the gale-force wind attempted to refold every crease I’d just undone. And each time I got back into the saddle seat I realised just how sore my arse was. My mountain bike at home must have pretty superior shock technology. My bum was quite comfortable on it all summer. But this was a pummelling it hadn’t felt the likes of since Dublin.

Eventually I lost the trail completely. I’m still not quite sure how it happened, but I wound up on a residential road running through a small neighbourhood. I managed to instinctually travel over to a busier area near one of Melbourne’s multiple tram lines, where I stopped to look at the map. After searching for 10 minutes, I finally figured out where I was. By this point the ride wasn’t very fun anymore. And I still had a long way to go. Everything on the map looked closer than it seemed to be once I was actually pedalling. I consulted the map at least three times in trying to find the road that would bring me back to the Yarra trail, convinced that I’d missed it. But I hadn’t. It was just really far away.

By this time I’d been cycling about two hours. The alternative route I’d mapped took me through a delightfully dodgy suburb, filled with cafes. Had I been smart, I would have stopped at one of them to rest. I had a lock and money. But I’m stubborn about cycling. Once I start, I want to keep going until I’m done. I pedalled past all the restaurants and finally rejoined the path. I eventually reached the Melbourne Zoo, from which I should have been able to take a fairly direct and short route back to my hostel. Unfortunately this landmark and the surrounding park proved to be the black hole of the ride.

No matter how many times I consulted the map, I could not figure out where I was or which way I needed to go. I was close to tears when I reached another intersection that wasn’t what I thought it should be. I had my map open yet again and was studying it intensely when a passing rider took pity on me and stopped.
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I confessed, which was probably rather obvious to him already. He asked where I was trying to go, pointed me in the right direction and gave me a set of flawless verbal directions—all without a map.

I could barely walk when I finally arrived back at the hostel 3.5 hours after setting out. The shower I took after returning the bike was the best I’ve experienced since coming out of the Boundary Waters. Drinking some water and cleaning off the grit and sweat renewed my energy a bit, and I took to the Melbourne streets. The hot, sticky weather and roads crowded with rush-hour traffic certainly didn’t evoke images of sitting down to a turkey dinner. Instead, I celebrated Thanksgiving with a meal at a Korean restaurant.

I walked in to find wooden tables and benches, each adorned with a woven mat to mark the seat. A large wooden mask, grinning theatrically, occupied the wall nearby, and very good jazz was playing on the sound system. After taking in the décor, I couldn’t help noticing that I was the only white, non-Korean-speaking person in the restaurant. I was perfectly content with that, taking it as a sign that the food was authentic and delicious.

I ordered a spicy BBQ beef soup and a beer. After drinking that, the complimentary tea and an entire jug of water, I finally replenished all the fluids I’d lost from my extensive bike ride and walk. I was pleasantly surprised when the server brought over some small plates of side dishes. One was rice. One tasted like crab meat. One looked like un-breaded onion rings and may or may not have been kimchee. One looked like a cross-section of a pickled devilled egg. It wasn’t an egg, but it was deliciously pickled.

The soup, when it arrived after I’d sampled the other foods, was incredibly spicy. There was a profusion of red pepper flakes floating in the broth. I think both my manner of eating it and the fact that I was eating it proved amusing to everyone in close proximity. One man sitting at a table behind me said something in Korean to a server who was standing in front of me. She nodded and immediately brought a stack of napkins over to me and laid them next to my plate.

I was a little concerned at this. Granted, I couldn’t always manage to pile the unbelievably long, clear noodles onto my spoon in their entirety. I was forced to discreetly slurp the ends. I splattered a tiny bit. But were my manners really so bad that someone else felt it necessary to ask for extra napkins on my behalf? When I paid, I began to think that the request had more to do with the fact that the food was hot. The server who’d brought the supply of napkins asked, “You like spicy food?” I’d like to think there was a hint of admiration in her voice.
“Yes, I really do,” I confirmed. I react very visibly to spicy foods, with my face assuming quite vivid shades. The observer probably guessed I was sweating as well. I realised how red my face must have been when I walked outside and noted the rush of cool air against my cheeks.

It was quite a delicious, if slightly non-traditional, Thanksgiving meal. It was the first I’d had that didn’t feature turkey and all the usual sides. Despite being in Ireland for Thanksgiving last year, I’d kept fairly close to the typical Thanksgiving meal. Mimi and I cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and lemon and asparagus pasta for ourselves and shared with our Australian friend Janice. I would have been really upset last year if I hadn’t stuck to that food tradition.

This year I didn’t mind doing something different. Maybe it was the summer weather here. Maybe it was the 17-hour time difference, which meant that it actually wasn’t yet Thanksgiving on my Thursday. Maybe I’ve grown used to celebrating major American holidays in other countries. But I was happy enough to celebrate in my own way. I did miss my family and friends and the holiday spirit. But I’ll be reunited with everyone soon enough. I’m thankful that this Thanksgiving proved to be a unique experience I’ll never forget.

What Happened and What's Happening

2008-11-25T03:49:00.003Z

In addition to providing a habitat for a frightening number of poisonous snakes, spiders, jellyfish and octopi, Australia also seems to be home to an inhospitable job market. I reopened my job hunt when my temp assignment ended about two weeks ago. Ellina suggested that I try looking on one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Pitt Street, near Circular Quay and the Opera House. I walked there one Friday, but the tons of small cafes always looking for help of which she’d spoken didn’t seem to exist. I checked at the few I was able to find. One of them may or may not be hiring at some time in the indeterminate future when their take-away counter is complete. The others were fully staffed.

I wasn’t too discouraged by the lack of progress there. It’s quite a distance from my house. I simply decided to search once more around the closer suburbs. The next morning I walked to Newtown. The manic atmosphere of the crowded sidewalks and even more crowded cafes discouraged me from working in the area. So did the reception I received at the one café where I did turn in a resume.
“I was wondering if you happen to be hiring,” I said when the barista finally acknowledged me. He shrugged indifferently.
“You can leave your CV with me,” he offered. I handed it to him, slightly reluctantly, and he told me he’d show it to the boss.

I walked back to the significantly more relaxed Glebe and went to a combination art gallery and café that I’d only noticed the day before. I’ve walked past it almost daily since I moved to Forest Lodge, so I’m not quite sure how I missed it. I think the labyrinth of mesh fencing that’s enclosed Glebe Point Road’s massive street construction project is partly to blame. It was removed just recently, revealing a wider sidewalk and never-before-seen signage. I walked into the gallery to find a man with a ponytail of long, dusty-coloured dreadlocks leaning against a small coffee counter.
“How can I help you?” he asked.
“I was wondering if you’re hiring at the moment,” I ventured.
“Well, that depends,” he mused thoughtfully. “We’re looking for someone pretty specific. Ideally someone who’s had gallery experience and is pretty good at making coffee.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t have barista experience,” I confessed.
“I’m sorry, then,” he said.

I expected to be dismissed at that point, but he persisted in the conversation.
“Do you live around here?” he asked. When I confirmed that I did, he inquired as to what kind of work I was looking for.
“I was hoping to volunteer for the Museum of Contemporary Art,” I explained. “They want people who are available during the weekdays, so I was hoping to find something where I could work on the weekends and have a day off during the week to do that.”
“Would you be interested in volunteering here?” he offered. “I can teach you the odd thing about making coffee."
“Sure,” I answered, surprised at the turn the initial rejection had taken.
“Have a seat.” He pointed to a stool in front of the coffee stand and walked into another wing of the gallery. He returned a minute later shaking his head.
“Naw, I can’t help you,” he said regretfully. “I’d really like to.”

I’m not sure what changed his mind. But I left feeling pretty crushed at the tease. I was discouraged at the overall lack of receptiveness within the job market and was about to give up for the day. Then I saw another café where I’d been intending to ask about work. They were still open, so I decided to make one last attempt.
“I was wondering if you happen to be hiring,” I said to the girl who greeted me. I was fully prepared to receive the customary no and walk straight back out. Instead, she looked surprised and said, “Oh…we were just talking about that.”

She pointed me out to the manager, who came over immediately and confirmed that they had indeed just been discussing adding more staff. One of her employees had just been in a car crash, leaving them unexpectedly short-handed. She launched straight into a negotiation about how many hours I wanted, on which days, how much I needed to be paid, when I could start, how long I could stay and my plans for the holidays. We went as far as talking about how my superannuation might work. We seemed to have settled on mutually agreeable terms. She said, “I really want to help you out. We are hiring, and you seem to have everything we’d be looking for. Let me talk it over with my husband, and I’ll call you on Monday.”

She didn’t. I waited until 2:00, only an hour or so before a lot of cafes in the area closed. I then decided to take matters into my own hands and call them. The person who answered asked if the woman I’d spoken to could call me back in an hour. Two hours later I called again. This time the woman herself answered.
“Oh, hi Nikki,” she said. “I haven’t had time to talk to my husband yet. Is it okay if I call you back in a few more hours? Sometime this evening?”
That would have been fine if she’d actually done it. She didn’t call back that night. Or the next day. Or the day after.

I let it go at the time because I’d received a call from a different café on Monday morning. The conversation was very strange.
“This is Amanda calling from a café in Newtown. Are you still looking for work?”
I confirmed that I was, and she told me to come in for an interview on Thursday. Before hanging up I attempted to get the name of the café. She declined to tell me and said, “I’ll give you the address.” I looked it up on Google, trying to ascertain a name. No results matched that address to a café, so I wound up walking to Newtown to satisfy my curiosity. The address belonged to a modern Italian restaurant where I hadn’t even turned in my CV. I assumed they’d received my details from a form I’d filled out at the Responsible Service of Alcohol course I’d taken.

I turned up there for my interview on Thursday. It didn’t seem to go very well. As it turns out, the restaurant where I was told to go is owned by the café in Newtown where I’d left my CV. Its name was on the paper application form I had to fill out, which included a test asking things such as what cutlery you should provide with linguine and an inane question about what type of car you’d like to be and why. Then I waited for the interviewer to finish conducting an interview with another girl two tables away.

I could hear everything that was said during their interview, and mine seemed to go rather dismally by comparison. The interviewer scanned the employment history section of the application, where I’d been asked to provide information about my three most recent employers.
“And previous experience?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem like you have much.”
“Well, it was more in the past,” I explained, and told her about my host position at Olive Garden. “And I also have a lot of customer service experience that would hopefully make up for gaps in serving experience.”
She looked like she very much doubted it. Her attitude expressed that she thought taking the five minutes to interview me had been a colossal waste of time. I wanted to point out to her that someone who failed to even mention the name of the café had invited me to an interview after looking at the qualifications on my CV. I also wanted to point out, rather cattily I admit, that the girl she’d spoken to before me thought it was acceptable to wear jeans to an interview.

This desire grew even stronger when I told her at the close of the interview that I had my RSA certification. She must have thought I said I needed my RSA, because her response was very terse.
“Well, IF you are successful,” she clipped, really leaning on the ‘if,’ “you’d still be a few weeks away from needing that."
“Well, I just wanted to let you know I have it in case that’s helpful,” I countered.
“Oh, you HAVE it,” she repeated, not bothering to apologise for not listening or for being completely rude. Instead she showed me to the door. I don’t expect to hear anything back from her.

I also don’t expect to hear anything from a café where I stopped to inquire about employment immediately after my interview. There was a help wanted sign at the door, but the woman working the counter was as unimpressed with me as my interviewer and even more rude.
“How many years of experience do you have?” she snapped.
Years? Not even one. But I exaggerated on that point a little when I answered. With a glare she accepted my resume and immediately stuffed it under the counter, which probably concealed a trashcan.

Given the poor reception I’d received that day, I decided to ask the woman who’d never called me back for a definitive answer. I think through her lack of response I already had one. But I just wanted to be sure. When she picked up the phone, I said, “I’m taking it as a bad sign that I haven’t heard back from you, but I just wanted to know one way or the other whether you’re still interested in having me work there.”
She wasn’t. The girl who’d been in the car accident had come back and wanted full-time hours, so they couldn’t have me on. OK, fine. But she couldn’t have told me that straight out?

I am just fed up. I’ve been here two months with absolutely no success in finding employment. And being in Sydney is keeping me from starting on the educational and career path I actually want to take. I emailed the director of graduate studies in the University of Minnesota’s art history department to get an idea of what sorts of requirements I might have to meet to be accepted into an art history graduate program. It’s more complicated than I thought. She told me that with only one art history course on my transcript there’s no way I’d be accepted. I’m going to have to take some classes as a non-degree-seeking student first. I can’t do that here. It’s summer, and none of the schools in the area offer art history summer courses.

And to top everything off, the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen, dead or alive, went on a prolonged, scuttling journey across my kitchen floor this week.

So I’m coming home. I was planning to stay until the end of February, but it just doesn’t seem to be the right thing for me at this point in time. This thought was echoed by Andy, who said flat out last week, “Just go home.” If Andy’s advising me to go home, it must be getting pretty bad. He’s never said that before. He’s more likely to say, and has often said, “Don’t give up,” or “Keep trying.”

I’m going to France on 18 December and was supposed to fly back to Sydney on 4 January. I ultimately made my decision by thinking about how I’d feel about that when I was standing in the Charles de Gaulle airport. I’d be at least mildly depressed at the prospect of going back to Sydney. But I’d be perfectly content and even a bit excited to go home. So I’m going to use the time and money I have left to see as much of the country as I can before I leave it. And I’m OK with that. I tried. It didn’t work very well. I’ll be back on 9 January.

Breaking and Entering

2008-11-20T10:44:00.004Z

I learnt last night that I am definitely not fit enough to be a successful burglar. After being unable to find my coin purse in the house, I went outside to see if I’d dropped it on the front walk whilst fumbling with the change for my bus fare that morning. I opened the front door as wide as I could and carefully picked my way down our treacherously sloped sidewalk. Halfway down I heard a sickening click. Oh no, I thought, and turned to look at the door. Sure enough, it had blown shut. Of course it locks automatically. Of course I hadn’t brought a key outside with me. Of course my flatmate wasn’t home.

It was such an obvious and easily prevented situation. It was like a scene in a film where everyone sees what’s coming several minutes before the unfortunate character on the screen. And the way I fixed the situation was also fit for a bad comedy movie. I walked around the back of the house to the fence that encloses our backyard. I reached above my head, grabbed the edge of it and tried to scrabble up and over it. But my disgusting lack of upper body strength made this approach impossible. I needed a boost.

I walked back to the front of the house and looked for the big, black plastic container that I knew was around somewhere. I hauled a heavy and stinky sack of fertilizer out of it and carried the bucket around to the back alley. I turned it upside down and climbed up, trying not to crush it or upend it in the process. I made a few furtive attempts to swing my leg up and over the top of the gate. Still not enough height. I left the bucket in place and went in search of some additional assistance.

Luckily someone had left a sturdy-looking empty recycling bin lying on the sidewalk nearby. I brought this back to the gate and tried to balance the black bucket on top of it. This was too precarious to stand on even in my desperate situation. But another look at the recycling bin gave me another idea. If I turned it on its end, it was taller than the black bucket. I set it down this way and carefully climbed up. It gave me just enough of a height difference.

I clung to a corner post with both hands whilst clumsily managing to catch hold of the top of the gate with my heel. I used my much stronger legs to pull the rest of my body to the top of the gate. Then it was just a matter of getting down. I slowly lowered myself a little ways and used the lock on the inside of the door as a foothold. I jumped the rest of the way to the ground without serious injury. Luckily I’d left the back door of the house itself unlocked and was able to gain access very easily.

For the rest of the night I expected to hear sirens approaching as the police responded to reports of breaking-and-entering. My forced entry had been far less than stealthy. Robbery is definitely something I cannot take up as a profession, no matter how bleak the job search becomes. I have massive bruises on my legs, scrapes on my legs and wrists and tremendously sore muscles. But I didn’t have to sit outside for the three hours that passed before my roommate returned in the downpour that started shortly after I made it back into the house. And I found my coin purse, too.

Day Tripper

2008-11-12T23:37:00.003Z

Judging from my Sydney guidebook, no visit to the city would be complete without a day trip to the Blue Mountains. At least one Australian I’ve met doesn’t understand it. “Everyone goes to the Blue Mountains,” he said perplexedly. “What’s so great about the Blue Mountains? They’re not actually blue or anything.” Ellina probably doesn’t understand it either. But being a dutiful daughter, she organised the requisite outing there for her visiting father and invited me and her friend Peter along.

The four of us boarded the train at Central, which was already idling at the station 20 minutes before it was due to depart. Had we known how long we’d be on the train once it actually started moving, we probably would have opted to do something with our extra time besides sit aboard it. We stopped at station after station, making progress seem slow. Judging from the leisurely rate at which the scenery slid past the windows, progress WAS slow. Trees and faces of sheer rock crowded the sides of the track, and a thick mist was settling over everything. I was quite restless by the time we reached Katoomba, the town from which we would access the popular scenic overlooks of the mountains.

With the increased elevation, the weather had changed from bordering on chilly to definitely chilly. I was relieved to pull on the long-sleeved shirt I’d brought against the possibility of brisk air. A very light rain or heavy mist was falling. This deary weather and our early departure time made us all feel a bit dull and sluggish, so we decided to stop at a café for some coffee and lunch before attempting to determine which of the many transport links to the mountains was best.

Feeling renewed after our collective caffeine infusion, we discovered which bus was cheapest. It was a replica of a historical trolley bus, which a plaque on the interior informed us had begun running in 1951. Ellina joked that they could have at least improved the suspension. We sat on the wooden, slatted, park bench-like seats with our backs to clear plastic windows that could be opened and closed with zippers and snaps.

We jounced on to Echo Point, which overlooks the Three Sisters rock formation. From our elevated vantage, the entire tree-covered valley spread below us in a blue-green swathe. Three pieces of rock jutted into the sky in an orderly row. We, along with several other tourists, walked up to the railing and admired the view. Despite the completely different topography and vegetation, it reminded me of Gooseberry Falls State Park. It was a wilderness attraction, but sufficiently crowded, paved and safety-railed to make you feel as if you weren’t too deep into the wild.
After gazing at the expanse for a while, we walked down a path that led to a very steep staircase. The trail was lined with trees that had strings of bark moulting off them. Ellina’s dad laughed that they were strip trees. The walk also featured tall surfaces of rock, thoroughly coated with messages carved by the many passerby. We climbed down the narrow steps at the end of the path, sharing the tight space with others huffing mightily as they made the brutal ascent. We went as far as the point where one of the three sisters broke from the surrounding rock, and decided that was sufficient.

When we reached the top of the stairs again, the mist had turned into a dense fog. Most of the valley was now invisible. We went back to the bus stop and waited to be taken to Scenic World. From there, you could board a cable car that traversed a steep ravine and take a different cable car down into the valley. When the trolley finally arrived, we found the same elderly driver who’d taken us to Echo Point. He explained the three modes of transport—the Scenic Skyway, Scenic Railway and Scenic Cableway—and assured us we’d have time to do all three before the final bus went back to Katoomba.

We boarded the first mode of scenic transport, the Scenic Skyway, eagerly anticipating the thrilling, slightly dangerous-feeling trip the bus driver had described. But unless you’re scared of heights, the ride proved to be very tame. The car inched along the cable perfectly smoothly. The entire experience lasted about a minute. We disembarked at a payment station, where I learned that that minute of bare-minimum adventure would cost me 10 AUD. This was definitely a tourist destination.

After paying, we were routed through the gift shop to the Scenic Railway. Its operator, wearing a stereotypically Australian Akubra outback hat, asked us if we were interested in a ride. “Ah, we are still deciding,” Ellina said. She asked for details, and learned that the 7-10 minute ride would cost somewhere around 20 AUD. We all agreed that we’d been taken for a ride on one of the rides already and opted not to do so again. We loitered around the gift shop for a while and then walked back outside to wait for the last bus back to the Katoomba train station.

It was being driven by the same man who had been shuttling us about all day. “How much is it?” Ellina asked, though we all knew what the fare would cost by now. He waved his hand, dismissing our obligation to pay a third fare that day. He seemed to have become rather fond of us. He asked what our plans were for the evening. When he learnt that we were heading back to Sydney yet that night, he asked, “So you’re looking for somewhere to eat first?” We agreed that we may indeed do that, and he began raving enthusiastically about a restaurant where he ate regularly.

“You can get a meal there for $5,” he said. This is unheard of in Australia. Even fast food costs just under $10. And the food he described sounded amazing.
“They have steaks about that thick,” he elaborated, holding his thumb and forefinger a good distance apart. “And a family burger that needs a spear in it just to hold it together.” We confirmed that this sounded like a good dinner option, and he directed us to it when he dropped us off near the train station.
“Just tell them Peter sent you,” he said. “And I’ll join you there in about an hour.”

We walked in to find the sort of dining room that would perfectly suit an elderly gentleman like our bus driver. The soundtrack featured jazz tunes from the 1930s, and the atmosphere was quite anonymous. The waiter was much less enthusiastic about the restaurant than Peter. We glanced at the menus he handed us, looking for the $5 meals. Nothing cost less than $9.50. Every price Peter had quoted was absolutely wrong. What was going on? Did he have some sort of arrangement where he received commission from the restaurant? Is that why he told us to tell them he sent us?

We didn’t mention him to our server, and we didn’t hang around long enough for him to meet us after his shift. We paid for our average meals and dashed for the train. At least Peter was more accurate with the train departure times than the restaurant’s prices. We crawled along towards Sydney, finally arriving home two and a half hours later. Despite the excessive travel time, outrageous prices for scenic rides and faulty food recommendations, it had been an enjoyable day trip. I think the guidebook was right in suggesting it as a destination close to but outside of the city. But, like my Sydneysider friend, I’m also a little bemused by the publicity it receives. After all, the mountains aren’t actually blue or anything.

Market Day

2008-11-10T12:23:00.002Z

As I suspected they might, certain aspects of Sydney are starting to work their way into my affections. Oddly enough, a stinky pile of fish was one of those aspects. I went along with my roommate and her father, who is visiting from Russia, to the Sydney Fish Market on Saturday. It was an overcast day, which somehow lent charm to the waterside scene. The white masts of the ships docked in the harbour were barely distinguishable from the grey cloud cover of the sky. The umbrellas on the rows of four-benched tables had done nothing to protect the seats from the rain. This did not stop people from sitting on them. One creative individual even hauled a gigantic cardboard box over and used it to soak up the excess moisture before casting it aside and plonking down on the bench.

We arrived early enough to lay claim to a table. Ellina and I went inside to buy lunch whilst her dad guarded our seats. I was pleased to discover that a buttery, battery, flaky serving of fish and chips was actually as cheap as chips. I have no idea what sort of fish was buried beneath the breading, but it was delicious. I also sampled Ellina’s eel and bought my own marinated octopus. The label should have said marinated octopi, since I found a mass of baby octopi when I opened the plastic container. I was a little bothered by the baby-ness and the chewy-ness of this marine delicacy, but I’m glad I tried it.

The stand selling prepared seafood dishes was next to one of several amazing displays of raw ocean life. There were shellfish, octopus tentacles, prawns, eels, lobsters, live crabs, squid tubes, and cuts of fish I’d never before encountered. No walleye or bass at this fish market. The seaflesh was gathered in mounds of beige, grey white, pink, brown, and purple amongst piles of ice. I wandered amongst the selection, absolutely fascinated. This was definitely something cool about Sydney. Although fish markets exist almost everywhere, I’d never before sought one out. And the offerings here were so exotic!

The seafood wasn’t the only thing being sold fresh on site. A produce market, wine store, cheese counter and bread shop shared the space. Despite the more unusual papaya, passionfruit and bok choy available, I couldn’t resist buying a heinously expensive plastic container of massive, juicy-looking blueberries. I also picked up a variety of kiwi that is less hairy and said to be sweeter than the standard fuzzy fruit. I then ogled the selection of cheeses. Edam, mozzarella, brie, camembert, Roquefort, gorgonzola…I was amazed. And I’m not even that fond of cheese.

I decided that I could certainly get used to making separate stops at shops that specialised in each type of food I wanted to purchase. It may take longer, but it would certainly be far more pleasing than slogging through my local supermarket. ANYTHING would be better than the supermarket. It’s dreary, uniform, and always packed with other grim shoppers wearing glazed expressions. I’m quite willing to spend the extra time to find higher-quality food and a more vibrant atmosphere.

After exploring the food markets, we continued on to a goods market. While Paddy’s Market also sells produce, a large portion of it is given over to merchandise. It’s all packed into a cavernous, concrete warehouse area. And it is indeed packed. Each stall is crammed with as many products as can possibly fit into each square inch of space. It’s all cheap and caters to the tourist market. T-shirts, electronics accessories, jewellery, wigs, stuffed animals, shoes, bags, boomerangs, and anything that can possibly be emblazoned with a Sydney or Australia logo make up the inventory. It’s a screaming display of consumerism, which doesn’t suit me at all. Though I must admit I bought a few less-cheesy souvenirs that I intend to give various people for Christmas.

I was in gift-hunting mode at that point, so I decided to visit the Glebe market located just a few minutes from my house. I enjoyed it for its approach to a market, which was the absolute antithesis of Paddy’s Markets. This market was open-air and featured unique goods that were far from cheap souvenirs. They weren’t cheap, for one thing. But they were reasonably priced and interesting. Jewellery, original screen-printed T-shirts that said nothing about Sydney or kangaroos, soaps, leather journals, used books, clothes, and woodworks were spread on the tables in such a way that each individual item was visible.

There was also a pleasant community feel amongst the vendors. A woman selling wood-framed mirrors was lamenting the fact that her stall looked like shantytown.
“Walk past it! I want to see your reaction,” she ordered her neighbour, who sat behind a tasteful display of jewellery. The woman did as she was told, and both sellers burst into laughter at her surprised face.
“Thanks for nothing!” the mayor of shantytown jokingly yelled after me as I eventually walked away with a purchase from her neighbour’s table, but nothing from her own. Nearby, a bookseller was deeply involved in literary conversation with a browser.

I had a good time shopping in that atmosphere. I’m thrilled to have discovered an alternative to Sydney’s ridiculous number of soulless shopping centres, which I’d rather avoid. Like fish markets, this sort of market is not exclusive to Sydney. I used to browse those in the Portobello Road and Camden when I lived in London. But unlike those, the Glebe markets offer a lot that I would actually buy. Unusually for me, it took some effort to remember my uncertain budget and refrain from purchasing everything I liked. This particular market is unique to Sydney and is something I quite like about the city.

As I left the park that houses the market, I realised how pleased I was to wholly enjoy a few things here. Not to say I haven’t appreciated other things I’ve seen and done so far. I have. But my experience has previously been tempered, even tainted, by my unsuccessful job search and the stress that accompanied it. Perhaps having work helped me to enjoy Sydney more. But at the same time, enjoying Sydney more makes my job search seem more worthwhile. My assignment at Coupon Place ends tomorrow, and I’m ready to renew the hunt for work with renewed energy. I just have to leave enough time to sightsee and keep finding those things that make me want to work here.

Bad Days Lead to Good Decisions

2008-11-02T11:53:00.004Z

My future plans have taken an unexpected turn. Not entirely unexpected, since it was me who decided what turn to take. But it is a turn I never would have anticipated making. It was prompted by my re-entry to the workforce this week. Whilst writing my blog post about being cursed, a temp agency where I’d interviewed the week before called to offer me a two-week assignment. I was tremendously delighted to finally cut down my excessive amount of free time—and, more importantly, to be paid! But the thrill very quickly wore off.

It was ground down by the commute, which is over an hour long and involves three forms of transportation. A walk, bus ride, walk, train ride and walk later, I arrived at Coupon Place. They set me to work filing as soon as I walked in. I was introduced to no-one except the other receptionists, which, in my experience as a temp, is unusual. I was at least given an introduction to my co-workers on each of my previous assignments.

This lack of introduction was accompanied by a strange lack of instruction. I returned from lunch expecting to continue the leisurely filing I’d been doing all morning. Instead, L said, “Come sit over here,” and indicated one of the seats at reception. Suddenly, after five minutes of training, I was going to start answering phones and doing data entry. This was a bit bewildering, since I had no idea who anyone in the company was or what they did. Actually, it was tremendously bewildering. I also had no answers with which to combat the queries I was receiving about the company’s product.

My head was reeling when I left the office. What happened to the days where I was ridiculously thoroughly trained in how to apply a label? I really didn’t want to go back the next day. But of course I did. And I learned that I was stressed on Monday because everyone else was, too. There are usually three administrators at Coupon Place. I’m covering one of the spots until they can find a replacement for a woman who recently found a different job. And the lead administrator learnt that morning that she had blood clots in her leg and would unexpectedly be gone for the rest of the week.

This left one administrator who actually knew what she was doing. And it wasn’t me. L had to learn all the things that the lead administrator would normally do, plus teach me my job. I have sympathy, but I think the stress got to her. She was distinctly rude, condescending and unfriendly by the end of the week. Everything she explained to me was accompanied by a sneer. My attempts at conversation were dismissed, until she turned around and started discussing the subject I’d just tried to open with someone else who doesn’t even sit at reception. It was as if she wanted to emphasise the fact that she was ignoring me.

So instead of feeling more integrated into Australian life, I felt more isolated. But it turned out to be a surprisingly good thing. I was wretchedly miserable on Monday night. I felt purposeless. I came here with only a very vague idea as to why. But it definitely wasn’t to do more temp work. Especially with a miserable co-worker. I’ve been temping for nearly a year. I don’t like it. At least at home I had Australia as my end goal. But that goal didn’t have as distinct an end as I’d thought. So I’m doing more temp work here, with no end in sight.

But if I don’t want to be doing this, what DO I want to be doing? I’ve been casually pondering this for a while now. On Monday I arrived at the answer surprisingly suddenly. I thought about how ridiculously excited I’d been about the possibility of working at the Tate Modern museum when I was trying to avoid going home by finding a job in England. I thought about how I’m hoping to volunteer at an art gallery here. And it became clear. I want to be a curator at a gallery. To do that, I need a degree in art history and/or museum studies.

So I’m going to grad school.

And I’m probably going home early. It’s not definite. I’ve not booked the plane ticket yet. But at this moment, it seems inevitable that I’ll run out of money. My savings have gone ridiculously fast, and I’m not sure how steady my temp work will be. But if that happens, I won’t be crushed. I don’t have the vehement desire to stay here that I experienced in London and Dublin. Or, perhaps more accurately, I don’t have an absolutely panicky adverse reaction to the idea of going home. It actually makes me pretty happy.

None of this is what I anticipated. Going back to school had never entered my mind. But now that it has, it seems completely right. I never would have considered ending a period as an expat early. But I want to get going on this new plan of action as soon as I can. I’m not going to be closed to any possibilities Sydney might yet offer. If something happens to make me want to linger here a little longer, then I’ll go with it. But I finally have a direction that I want to take going forward. If I wind up not being able to finance this interlude in Australia, it’s OK. It was being here that helped me to figure out what I’ll do whenever it is that I go home. That alone was worth the trip.

No Regrets

2008-10-23T08:10:00.000+01:00

I had a few interesting encounters yesterday evening. After being confined to the house all day by my unwillingness to brave the wind, rain and cold, I was glad to empty the last few drops of milk from the carton. That gave me an excuse to go out, if only for a bit. It was as blustery and unpleasant outside as it had appeared from inside. I decided that the inclement weather warranted a mocha whilst I was out.

I went to a café that I’ve been frequenting lately called Fair Trade Coffee. The woman who took my order there was the same person with whom I’d placed my order for molten apple cinnamon toast the day before. She’s Irish, and I’ve been tempted to ask her what part of the country she’s from. I’m hesitant to start a conversation in this way sometimes because I remember how weary I became with answering that question for everyone who heard me speak in Ireland.

Yesterday it took her a while to make my drink after I’d ordered. Another employee was in visiting, and they were talking for a bit before she started steaming the milk. Her speech was peppered with “fecker,” “fouk,” several other swear words and multiple dropped h’s. The strong lilt to her accent made me guess she was from Cork, and I decided just to ask her when she came over with my drink.

“Are you from around Cork?” I asked as she gently balanced the drink on the arm of the green leather chair I occupied.
“No, I’m from the other side—Kilkenny?” she corrected, her answer ending in a question as to whether I was familiar with the town name. I explained that I’d lived in Ireland last year and had a friend from Cork who I thought sounded like her. We started talking about how long I’d been in Ireland, why and where I’d worked. She perched on the arm of the chair next to me and asked, “Where’d you live?”
“A little south of Dublin in Rathmines,” I said.
“Ah, I was just about to ask if you’d lived in Rat’mines!” she exclaimed. We then commiserated about the difficulty of finding work and she went back to it.

When I left, I wound up tailing three guys walking three wide on the sidewalk. One was commenting on how he doesn’t say it’s spitting anymore when it’s raining because he’d once said that to a girl and she looked around to see who was literally spitting. The way he pronounced the word reminded me of my flatmate in London, Peter, and I guessed they were Kiwi. I was proud to have determined this before the other guy indicated the construction on Glebe Point Road and said, “When I go home to New Zealand and come back in five years, this’ll still be here.”

Eventually I heard the shorter guy walking in the middle say something in French. A couple of tall New Zealanders and a smaller French guy. It reminded me so much of my flatmates in London. I was probably following close enough for them to think I was creepy. But I wanted so badly to hear them conversing about how the Frenchman was a taxee drivair and how he used to “learn” ten-nees when he was in France (he meant teach). I also wanted to join in on their chat, but decided that listening to it was good enough.

The conversations I both had and eavesdropped on made me feel quite content. I wasn’t sure why I’d been so eager to have one and listen to the other. Then I realised that they triggered memories of my experiences abroad. Good memories. And I knew that my time in Sydney would be worthwhile. Despite the thoughts I’ve been having to the contrary lately, I will never regret coming here. In fact, no regrets I may have in life will be the result of travelling.

I know that because had a hard time in Ireland. I never came to like Dublin as a place. But hearing the brogue tonight reminded me of Ireland. Thinking about Ireland made me happy. There are certain elements of that place that were sneakily endearing to me. Similarly, my relationships with my roommates in London were an aspect of that place that I didn’t value appropriately at the time. But I miss J.P. and Peter. Thinking about them makes me happy, too.

No matter what happens here, I will not regret it. If I never find a job, completely run out of money and have to go home I won’t be sorry. It was worth trying. I haven’t grown wonderfully fond of Sydney yet. But I’m sure there will be something about this city that I’ll miss once I’ve left it. There’s something in every place you live that is or will be meaningful. Sometimes it just takes distance to figure it out.

Comedy of Errors

2008-10-22T06:54:00.001+01:00

I went to sleep last night with a small suspicion that I might be cursed. This morning I awoke and was certain of it. The sky, usually bright blue or covered with a thin, soon dispensed cover of clouds, was heavy with several layers of dark, ominous clouds. The branches were being tossed recklessly by a merciless wind, whist rain plunked off the metal roofs of the neighbourhood. It is the worst weather I’ve experienced since arriving.

And I had been planning to go to the zoo.

It’s just a little storm. I can go to the zoo another day. I have to expect that things will not always work out as I expected. I know that. But the sheer number of small things that have not played out in my favour is ridiculous to the point of being funny. Several of these occurred yesterday.

I’ve fallen into the habit of going to the library every morning to use their free WiFi. This helps me to save money on the Internet service I have at home, for which I pay based on the amount of data I use. However, the library’s service is far slower than my own. Often intolerably slow. That was the case yesterday, so I thought Stuff it and went to a café that I knew offered WiFi.

I ordered cinnamon apple toast along with my mocha to meet the minimum purchase amount required to use the Internet. When the dish arrived, I sawed off a piece of toast, speared a chunk of apple and put it in my mouth. The unmelting butter on my slab of toast was a completely misleading indication of the temperature of the food. It was a downright lie. The apple was a pouch of molten cider that scalded the roof of my mouth and any gum line unfortunate enough to be surrounding my upper molars.

I shifted the burning fruit to various parts of my mouth, trying to cool it down. I only succeeded in damaging a larger surface area. Each time I attempted to bite down, boiling juice would squirt out. After a sufficient time period, I finally managed to chew and swallow the ill-tempered and hateful apple. I then finished sending out resumes with a throbbing ache around my teeth.

After lunch, I needed to go retrieve my wayward Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate. I’d had to make some phone calls, search some online records and provide my credit card details again, but it was finally ready. There was no problem with picking it up except for when I was leaving. The elevator stopped, and I got out as someone else got on. I had no idea where I was, and looked so confused that a woman walking by felt the need to offer assistance. It turns out the elevator had stopped on the second floor to let the other woman on and I hadn’t noticed we’d not yet reached the ground floor.

With evidence of my RSA savvy in hand, I submitted resumes at a few more theatres. On the way home I decided to stop at a different branch of the library. I’d been perusing the catalogue earlier, and another Hemingway book I wanted to read was checked in there. I walked in and looked for it without success. Confused, I checked the library catalogue computer again. The Hemingway book actually belongs to the Surry Hills branch. It was a book about gentrification that was at Haymarket. I’d had the two confused.

I still wanted to read about gentrification, so I rode the incredibly dodgy elevator up to the second floor. I found the section of dewy decimal numbers where the book should have been located (this post is getting progressively nerdier all the time). The catalogue had assured me it was on the shelves. But it wasn’t. I checked about 10 times.

I was cranky and without reading material when I arrived home. And my feet hurt. I thought that was due to the fact that I’d been walking around for close to four hours. But when I took off my shoes, I noticed certain concentrated areas were itchy as well. Upon further inspection, I discovered that an aggressive swarm of mosquitoes had perpetrated an assault on my feet when I’d been out on my deck Skyping with Andy the night before.

Books, apples, mosquito bites and raindrops are small things. I can easily deal with them. I have all the tools I need, like patience, close-toed shoes and umbrellas. And now that I’ve reached the point of finding my small hoard of misfortunes funny, I’ll be able to combat them with attitude as well. Bring it on, Sydney!

Thwarted

2008-10-19T13:26:00.002+01:00

My new direction contains a few more bumps in the road than I expected. I was certain that once I expanded my options I’d have a job within a week. A week has passed. I don’t have a job. I’m feeling thwarted. Very little seems to be turning out properly at the moment. Some days it’s comical. Some days it’s downright depressing. I was revelling in the former yesterday and am tending towards the latter today.

The most recent example is my attempt to keep pursuing front-of-house theatre work by sitting for the Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate. I was determined to take the course as soon as my money completed its electronic journey from the US to Australia. My frighteningly diminishing funds cleared on Thursday, and I promptly registered online for the course being taught on Saturday.

My name wasn’t on the list when I arrived.
“Oh, I don’t see myself on the list,” I said, pleadingly seeking assistance from the woman manning the sign-in table. After a thorough verbal investigation of how I’d registered, she perkily told me that the course was full but I’d be allowed to take it if someone else didn’t turn up.
“But I paid online already,” I protested, very reluctant to have arisen early on a Saturday and made the 20 minute trip into the city centre for no reason.
“Did you get a confirmation?”
“They sent me a text.” Drat. I’d thought that was a bit suspicious at the time. Apparently my suspicion was correct.
“Well, we won’t be able to give you your certificate until we’ve verified that you paid for the course,” she said. “What we can do is have you sit the course today and call on Monday to make sure your payment’s gone through. Then you can come pick it up once we have all the details.”
So instead of walking out with confirmation of having passed the RSA like everyone else in the class, I have to spend Monday tracking it down.

That incident, had it been isolated, would not have ruffled me much. But it’s another addition to a host of small problems (many involving the Internet and payment for it) that, taken together, are making me increasingly frustrated and decreasingly confident. Or maybe, that incident, had I a job, would not have ruffled me much. I’m fairly certain the responses I’ve been receiving from my efforts are the main thing that’s irking me.
“Someone will call you back.” (I have yet to receive a call back when told I would).
“If they were going to call you they would have already.”
“We’ll contact you in another 10 business days to let you know if you’ve been shortlisted."
“Your application was unsuccessful.”
Or no response at all, which is most common.

Given all the piddly frustrations and the sheer stasis of the job search so far, I expect that something has to look up soon. While it didn’t include a concrete offer of employment, last week wasn’t a complete wash. I received a call from a temp agency (the only one of the seven to which I’ve applied and follow-up-called to contact me) and went in for an interview with them on Thursday. It was a surprisingly enjoyable experience, since I’m still going through that initial infatuation with Australian phrases. “Hi, how you going?” the receptionist chirped cheerily as I walked in. This set the tone for my jovial interview a few minutes later. The interviewer frequently interjected, “Oh, good-O!” if I said something that pleased her. This infatuation also factored into the RSA course. Hearing “GOATee” instead of “goaTEE,” “trollied” instead of drunk and other random words made the class far more entertaining than it probably should have been.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a new week. My fourth in Sydney. I haven’t given up yet. And some good things have been happening as well. But it’ll be easier to focus on those when I’m running on more than four hours of sleep.

Hitting the Streets

2008-10-14T11:42:00.003+01:00

It seemed strangely fortuitous that I woke up to clouds and sprinkles today. Perhaps just because it was different from the long string of warm and absolutely clear days Sydney has had lately. Perhaps because it reminded me of London. I was planning to start the new branch of my job search today, and I found the weather strangely motivating. I discovered a library and its printing services yesterday, so went there straight away this morning to print out a stack of resumes for different purposes—theatre jobs and café jobs. I decided yesterday that working in a theatre would be fun, so I decided to pursue that in addition to café work.

I walked out to find the bus to Circular Quay waiting at the stop right across the street. I trotted across the intersection and boarded, intending to visit the four theatres clustered together in the Rocks area near the Opera House. The bus driver was cranky and the jerking motion of stopping and starting made me quite carsick. But that failed to make me feel downtrodden. It was lunchtime when I alighted in the Rocks. I figured that anyone who managed front-of-house staff would be eating, so I decided to do the same.

I wandered until I noticed a kebab stand. The food was a decent price and the structure itself didn’t look nearly as dodgy as most kebab shops do. I think grime is actually a hallmark of a respectable kebab place, but it’s still something I can do without. I ordered a falafel with tabouli and hummus sauce and enjoyed it quite immensely. The packaging was very innovative. It’s usually impossible to eat a kebab without half of its contents spilling out. But this kebab was wrapped in paper and slipped into a foil-lined sleeve. You simply pull out part of the kebab, roll up the resulting slack at the bottom of the foil sleeve and tear off the paper to eat it. Genius!

I crossed under the Harbour Bridge after lunch, and the rain began to fall quite a bit harder. Rivulets of cold water dripped off my umbrella and down the back of my shirt as I approached the theatre area. I was happy at the prospect of taking shelter. But my time outside didn’t end simply because I’d found the building. It looked nothing like I’d expected. It was a low, grey, wooden structure that occupied the entire length of a pier built out into the harbour. I slogged to the end of the pier through the gathering puddles, looking for the Bangarra Dance Company. I saw numerous fire doors, but no appropriately marked entrance.

I turned round and headed for the more visible entrance to the Sydney Dance Company section of the building. The space I entered looked like a cursorily renovated warehouse. The floors were constructed of well-trod diagonal wooden planks. Rows of windows were located near the ceiling and the floor, admitting a grey, hazy light that added to the careworn atmosphere. Thick, square, diagonally slanted slabs of wood obscured the top row of panes. A hip, bustling café counter was located near the door, and ambient house music throbbed through some suspended speakers. I loved it.

After wandering the interior for a bit, I saw a sign stating that the Administrative Offices were upstairs. I climbed the open, winding steps to find an empty reception desk just inside a glass-walled office. I timidly stepped inside, and a confused-looking man sitting just beyond the desk stood up to attend to me.
“I was wondering if you happen to be hiring,” I said.
“Wot, are you a teacher?” he inquired.
“No…I was wondering if you had any sort of front-of-house roles.”
His expression changed from quizzical to amused and slightly disdainful as he said no.

I was a bit put off, but not deterred. I went next door to the Sydney Theatre Company and dropped my CV off with their much friendlier receptionist. When I left I happened upon a map that showed me where the Bangarra administrative offices were located. I traced my steps back to the end of the pier, again without finding an appropriate door. I turned back once more and entered the only door I could open without setting off an alarm. Once inside, a piece of paper taped to a heavy beige door informed me that the Bangarra Administrative Offices lay just beyond. I’m not sure all the effort was well spent. The receptionist gave me the company’s card, saying that I should email my resume because all the entire production staff was on tour until the second week of November.

Shortly after leaving the pier, I happened upon the Sydney Theatre and decided to try my luck there. My shoes squeaked obnoxiously as I crossed the floor to the box office. The sole worker there said that they were always on the lookout for front-of-house staff.
“Do you have an RSA?” she asked. Huh? A what? I grudgingly had to display my ignorance.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a Responsible Serving of Alcohol certificate.”
“No, I don’t,” I answered. I assume she’d already gathered that, since I didn’t even know what one was. She said that since front-of-house staff man the bar sometimes, she thought they were required to have an RSA. But she took my resume anyway and assured me she’d pass it on.

I attempted to find my way back to George Street, where I would find the two additional theatres I was planning to visit that day. I soon had no idea where I was. It was thrilling. I had my map in my messenger bag, so I could easily have figured out my coordinates. But I resisted looking at it. I had a good sense of which way I needed to go in order to reach George Street, and my roundabout route took me down a few new streets. When I emerged onto George Street, I saw a sign for Martin Place right over the road. Perfect! That was just where I needed to go!

I wound my way around a corner to the City Recital Hall and queried the box office attendant as to whether they were hiring.
“I’m not sure, but I can take your CV and pass it on,” he said. I was in the process of extracting it from its folder when he added, “You need an RSA to work in a front-of-house role.”
“I don’t have that,” I said disappointedly, thankful I now knew what it was.
“Everyone who works in a job where they serve alcohol needs to have one,” he stated matter-of-factly. I put my folder back in my bag.
“Do you know how I go about getting one? Is it a course?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s a one or two day course. A lot of places do them. Just Google RSA. It usually costs about $80.”

Right. I decided to skip going to the last theatre until I had obtained said RSA. On the way home, I did made one last stop at the Fair Trade Coffee Company. I’d gone in the day before to inquire about whether they were hiring.
“We’re having a few people on and just seeing how they go,” the woman replied. “Do you have your CV?”
I didn’t at the time, but said I’d bring it by. I dipped in today to drop it off. It’s a relaxed, comfortable, slightly hippie café. Having a nose ring seems to be a prerequisite for working there, so I think I’d fit right in.

I didn’t get hired quite as fast as I thought I might today. But the process of searching was surprisingly fun. Despite the rain, going about and talking to people is much more enjoyable than sitting at home and typing a string of inquiry emails. I’m still inspired. Once my money finishes its electronic journey from the US to Australia, I’ll probably book myself into one of the RSA courses. Unless the café calls back first. I still don’t know what’s going to happen from here. But I’m getting used to liking that again.

A New Direction

2008-10-13T12:06:00.001+01:00

I have days here that are better and worse, easier and harder. Yesterday was worse and harder. I was missing Andy particularly badly and feeling stressed about still not having found a job. Plus, I was already bored and faced a day frighteningly devoid of responsibilities or ideas on how to enjoy my leisure. The prospect of an entirely empty day spent by myself can make me anxious and uneasy for some reason. This was yet another in a long string of such days.

I eventually tried to kill some time by walking to Circular Quay, where the Opera House is located. My wanders there were plagued by discomfort and a frustratingly implacable discontent. It was the same unsettled feeling that has pervaded most of my days lately. Since I’ve already been to Circular Quay three or four times in the past two weeks, going there again didn’t help to change my dismal attitude. What did was reading my friend Erinn’s blog when I got home.

Erinn is a fellow expat. She relocated to Canada about a month before I left for Australia. She has also been facing a job search, displacement, and an unprecedented amount of free time. What she does with that free time is what particularly encouraged me. She writes, reads voraciously, ponders what she’s read, wanders, people-watches and makes plans for the future. A lot of that is what I have been doing in Sydney or used to do in London and Dublin.

Reading about her activities, and what interesting things have come out of them, made me realise that I’ve been looking at my Australian experience the wrong way. Having excessive free time isn’t bad. I just have to use it more constructively. I spoke with my parents yesterday, and my mom mused that if nothing else, this would be a good time for soul-searching. She’s right.

I have some soul-searching to catch up on. I’d postponed a lot of it while I was home, since I was wrapped up in my developing relationship with Andy and making logistical plans for Australia. I was disinclined to do a thorough examination of certain parts of my life that I was frustrated with—namely my job. I’m at a stage where I’m not really sure what I want to do for a career. I thought that would sort itself out once I arrived here. I had been looking at my time in Australia as an opportunity to find a job I loved and wanted to work in no matter where I lived.

But having clearance to work for one company for only six months is not conducive to being hired for a career-advancing job. The lack of responses I’ve received from the multitude of places I’ve applied is simply depressing. Even the temp agencies won’t contact me, and I get maddeningly fobbed off when I try to call and follow up. So my new plan is to take a more casual sort of job. It may not be the job of my dreams, but using my time here to figure out what the job of my dreams is would still be a worthwhile endeavour.

Andy encouraged this bud of an idea wholeheartedly. When I confessed my frequent thought of the day—that I almost hoped I wouldn’t find a job and would have to go home early—he was adamant that I shouldn’t give up. He said he could sense that I wasn’t fully engaged with my Sydney experience and suggested I do something immediately to make myself enjoy it more. Volunteering was one option he mentioned. I hadn’t thought about that before, but it’s a prospect I’ve become excited about. I could, for example, work at a café and use whatever day I have off to volunteer at an art museum.

After receiving so much indirect and direct encouragement, I have renewed energy for my job search. I also have a new attitude about being here. I’m on walkabout. I might as well follow the Australian example and enjoy it.

People and Place

2008-10-12T11:41:00.001+01:00

I have frequently been at a loss lately. I really don’t know what I’m doing here. At first the whole point was to be anywhere but the US. Now I’m rethinking that, and reflecting on my previous abroad experiences. During my initial study abroad experience in London, I had unforgettable moments and developed an exhilarating independence. I also found closer friends than I’d ever had before. It wasn’t quite the same when I went back. I still loved the city, but I remember being lonely a lot.

I was desperately lonely in Dublin for a while as well. And though I never developed a particular affection for the place, I eventually solidified friendships that made my experience there a lot better. I was also still enchanted with the expat lifestyle. I was having incredible adventures, growing out of my shyness and developing my writing. I absolutely dreaded going home. So much so that I made a plan before I left Ireland to travel to Sydney in less than a year.

But I was taken by surprise. My life went in an unforseen new direction when I fell in love with Andy. And I realised that contentment has a lot less to do with where you live than I’d originally imagined. It’s all about connection. Having people that you care for in a place can change it entirely. That has a great deal to do with why I fell so hard for London initially. That eventually made the difference in Dublin. That completely upended my experience at home. That is what I’m lacking in Sydney.

As a result of my originally discovering it with flatmates I cared about, I have a tremendous affinity for London as a place. I’d often use that as a substitute for connection with people when I was lonely. I can do that a little bit with Sydney. It’s a cool city. But I’m lacking the absolute need to be here that I felt in London.

At first I thought that was just down to Andy not being here. A lot of it is. I miss him terribly, and our separation is, unfortunately, as difficult as I feared it would be. But it doesn’t have everything to do with Andy. A lot of it is just not having formed connections here yet. That will come.

For now I’m homesick. Wherever home may be. Part of it’s in England. Part of it’s in Ireland. Part of it’s in the US. And part of it’s in France. Because this has nothing to do with place. It’s the people that make it home.

Gastric Lament

2008-10-07T12:19:00.001+01:00

I have been eating on a budget in Sydney. And I have been eating some pretty bad food. Not intentionally. I harbour a great hatred of spending money on a bad meal. It’s so unsatisfying and disappointing. But food prices here seem ridiculously high, the facilities in my hostel discourage me from cooking anything more complicated than pasta, and I’m not making any money. So I’ve been opting for cheap. I thought I was doing a good job of being discriminating, but not so.

The most recent run-in with bad cuisine occurred today at a take-away salad shop in the mall near Bondi Beach. The salad part of the salad was fine. It was the chicken in this dish that was particularly offensive. The first piece I ate was normal. The second was un-chewable. I had to pull the mass of what was decidedly not consumable chicken out of my mouth. The third had a disconcerting fishy taste.

After this, I examined the poultry more carefully. It was unbelievably thin, and most of the pieces I looked at were veined with gristle. I pushed the remaining slices to one corner of the take-away box and concentrated on isolating the greens. Unfortunately the disgusting meat had contaminated either the salad or my tastebuds and left me craving anything that would banish the foul flavour from my mouth. A Cadbury Time Out bar served that purpose quite nicely.

I’ve had particularly bad luck with Indian fare. A lamb vindaloo I ordered has the distinction not only of being the worst curry I’ve ever had, but probably the worst food. I enjoy Indian dishes because they’re hot. A good curry makes me sweat and makes my nose run. I want a vindaloo that leaves me gulping down every liquid within arm’s length, desperate to salve the third-degree burns in my mouth. This vindaloo had no spice. Actually, it had no flavour aside from that of the lamb. And that was bordering on rancid. I ate as much of it as I could tolerate and then closed the container, gagging a little.

After this experience, I don’t know why I risked buying bottled madras sauce from the grocery store a few days later. I certainly regretted it. My faith rested on a bottled green curry sauce I’d bought in Ireland that was quite good. This is not Ireland. It turned into yet another meal that I had to choke down, wincing at the odd tang of the spices.

But I am not yet despairing of ever finding tasty cuisine in Sydney. There have been a few bright spots. I stopped at an unassuming chippie near the beach tonight for dinner and ate the best plate of fish and chips I’ve ever tasted. I don’t know what kind of fish it was, but it was hot and light and flaky. The tang of the lemon and vinegar offset the buttery batter flavour perfectly.

Then when I got home I had a few of the TimTam biscuits I bought yesterday. They’re chocolate wafers with chocolate filling covered with dark chocolate. They’re crispy and creamy and…chocolaty. I can already see myself coming home with a stockpile of them. And I think they’ll be my exclusive meal option from now on.

Slightly Down Down Under

2008-10-06T01:56:00.000+01:00

I love being an expat. I think. I’m not so sure at this point of my antipodean adventure. I forgot all the hard work and stress involved in establishing myself in a different country. I forgot how much of a confidence-shaker having no job and no home really is. I forgot the boredom and the loneliness.

This initial shock reminds me of my first few weeks in London. How I’m feeling now mirrors that experience nearly exactly. It involved frantically searching for jobs and flats and panicking at the prospect of not finding one or the other soon enough. That was combined with the boredom of not having a job to go to and not wanting to spend money I’m not earning on going out. That gave me a lot of time to dwell on missing people back home.

My experience in Sydney so far is pretty much the same. Except this time there are additional factors thrown in. I knew London. I had connections there. I had a friend there who met me at the airport and let me stay with her for two weeks. The same was true in Dublin. Here, I know no one and I’ve never even visited Australia before. And now I have a boyfriend on the other side of the world.

The last bit has proven more difficult than I anticipated. My communications with Andy have been uncertain. We are both having Internet troubles. The free wireless my hostel promised has only worked one day out of the seven I’ve been there. Andy has found Skype and gchat blocked in most places where he can access the Internet. But we’ve both bought our own wireless services now and should be able to talk more easily. And when we can talk, Andy has been a great source of encouragement.

This is, I hope, the worst stretch. Though it seems slow, I have made progress. I found a flat this week and will move in on 9 October. This is the first time that my flat search has gone so smoothly. It’s never been particularly hard; I’ve never had to look at more than three places before finding something suitable. But this time I loved the very first place I saw. The room I will have is huge and extends to my own private deck.

And, Sydney is awesome. Once I become fully settled I think I will absolutely love it here. On my first day I went to the Opera House. That was not the earth-moving experience I thought it would be, but the neighbouring Royal Botanic Gardens were. All the plants and wildlife are so new and interesting to me. I’ve yet to see any kangaroos, koalas, wallabies or platypi, but the cockatoos, small parrots and gigantic fruit bats flying around are amazing to see.

If I forgot how difficult it was to start over in a new country, I also forgot the full extent of the thrill I get from doing just that. I forgot the excitement of seeing a place that is entirely new. I forgot the sense of possibility that comes from getting lost. I forgot how fulfilling it is to meet new people and new friends. These are the things that will make this uncomfortable time worthwhile. They will also make me sure: I love being an expat.

Already Jet Lagged

2008-09-29T00:10:00.001+01:00

The most dreaded part is over. I dropped Andy off at the airport on Tuesday morning. I was not as inconsolable as I was hoping I wouldn’t be. But it was ridiculously difficult to break the hug and walk away. I couldn’t look back, fearing that if I did I would break down beyond the tears I’d already shed. I was able to make it to the bathroom and lock myself away in a stall before doing that. I stayed in the confined space long enough to pull myself together and walk back to where Andy was just about to go through security. I drew as near as I dared to a TSA official, who looked up warily when I called Andy’s name from his side. All I could do under such an ominous gaze was wave, but it helped a great deal.

Despite all of the preparations I needed to undertake for my own departure, I’ve felt empty this week. Empty and a little lonely. Luckily, my friends have helped to alleviate, or at least suspend, my longing for Andy. Phone calls and face-to-face chats over pints and coffee have kept me in fairly high spirits. So have a few strangers in the medical profession, who gave me reduced-price dental exams and free contact solution when they learnt of my upcoming travel. It makes the transition a lot easier knowing that I have so much support from…well, everyone.

What did NOT make leaving easier was my mom’s decision to buy a new puppy two days before I left. I needed to go to a particular mall in order to visit an eyewear store that could complete a new pair of glasses on time. Mom decided to come along and suggested we go to the pet store after I’d finished picking out my new frames. We always go to the pet store, but we usually don’t come home with a dog. The fact that we did this time was due to a combination of circumstances. He’s a Shih-Tzu, the same breed as the two dogs we already have. He has the colouring my mom likes. He was half-price. And, probably most importantly, Noelle moved to Dinkytown and I’m moving to Australia. The dog is our replacement. And he’s a pretty cute replacement.

I haven’t had time to form a strong attachment to Yet-to-be-Named, so his presence did not outweigh my excitement to get out of here. Andy’s been doing quite well in France, and I can’t wait to go and begin my own adventures. They’ll made being away from him easier, and, of course, they’ll be incredible in their own right. They’d better be, as I’m writing this in the San Francisco airport. I left Minneapolis at 2.55pm, landed in Chicago at 4 something, left from there at 6.45 and arrived at San Francisco at 11pm Central/9pm Pacific. I’m sick of airports. I’m exhausted. And I still have a 13-hour flight ahead of me. For all this, Sydney better be pretty bloody amazing.

Duluth, Australia

2008-08-01T14:25:00.001+01:00

Finding accommodations in Duluth was eerily easy. It required only one phone call as we were driving out of Copper Harbour on Saturday morning. The only difficult part about it was me trying to remember how to drive a manual through the maze of Houghton streets that suddenly emerged while Andy was on the phone making the reservation. He resumed the wheel after we'd stopped for lunch, and we arrived at our hotel early in the evening.

And what a hotel it was. It was gigantic and included a couch, a table and a proliferation of downy pillows such that I'd never seen before (the table and couch proved to be quite useful in eating the waffle Andy made the next morning). After taking in our luxurious settings, Andy went down to the front desk to retrieve an Ethernet cable (old school) so we could research our dinner options. He returned with a pair of surprise gin & tonics, and we unwound from the drive. I tried my best to forget lingering images of the hokey lawn decoration I'd seen just before we crossed the border from Wisconsin into Minnesota. A plot of flowers had been planted between an iron headboard and footrest, and a sign affixed to the headboard had proclaimed, "Yes, this is a flowerbed!"

As far as its restaurant selection, Duluth surprised me by resembling a mini Minneapolis. Restaurants that I thought only existed in Minneapolis, such as Pizza Luce and Hell's Kitchen, also had a location in Duluth. We opted for neither of these, instead choosing to try the Lake Ave Cafe. It was a short walk down the lake shore from our hotel, and the menu online looked delicious. We were initially put off by the emptiness of the place. Only one or two other checker-tableclothed tables were occupied when we entered. But we quickly decided it was everyone else's loss. The food was fantastic, especially after the Pringles and suspiciously-smothered-in-sauce whitefish we'd consumed the previous few days. Our waitress was charmingly unrehearsed with the night's specials, but provided us with warm, fuzzy feelings and some good suggestions for touring Duluth.

We attempted to settle our disgustingly full stomachs by taking a walk to the Aerial Bridge after dinner. It was growing dark, and we stood for a long time marvelling at the bridge from a pair of lighthouses that glowed red and green. We were able to admire the lift element of the bridge up close as we were about to cross it on our way back to the hotel. A device that resembled an old school bell began to clang above our heads and a warning sign blinked red. A disembodied voice told us to clear the bridge, and a section of it slowly started to rise into the air. Like the cogs that powered Split Rock lighthouse, this mechanical miracle absolutely fascinated me. I was stupefied at the enormous counterbalance and the slightly disturbing sight of a bridge that dropped off suddenly and perilously into the water. That event was the extent of the excitement in Duluth that night. But I was so happy to be able to relax with Andy in a beautiful setting.

That somehow translated into a very melancholy Sunday. Not only was the long weekend coming to a close, but it fully hit me that my time back in the US is quickly coming to a close as well. This is a good thing overall, but it's never easy to move country. And this time I have a new factor to consider. I've never before been in a relationship when facing a prolonged period abroad. In fact, the thing that largely spurred me into going abroad the first time was a desire to escape the aftereffects of a relationship that had ended. This is going to be hard. I'm trying not to dwell on it too far in advance, but it's inevitable for me at times. Everything has had a bittersweet quality about it recently. Somber waves often follow in the wake of a carefree moment because I suddenly remember that the time we have left for such moments is short.

I've had an especially difficult time which this element of my departure the past week. Since coming home from our trip, I've had my work visa approved and Andy and I have booked our flights. He leaves for France 23 September, and I leave for Australia 27 September. Having a final, definite date attached to the beginning of my adventure makes it suddenly concrete. It had been a comfortably vague plan up until then. Now I have less than two months to pull all the pieces together and see everyone I care about, including Andy, as much as I can before I leave. It's stressful and it's scary. Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through this.

Then I remember how wonderful it is to travel and how rewarding it is to find your niche in a new place. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy or safe. All the unique experiences and adventures that I had in England and Ireland made everything that went into creating those moments entirely worthwhile. The downs while abroad can be dismal, and there will be no exception this time. I won't see Andy for a year. I don't know anyone in Australia. I've never even visited before. I don't have anywhere to stay. I have no idea where I might work. But the ups are incredibly exhilarating. I'll see kangaroos. I can learn how to scuba dive. It will be summer in winter. The water drains in the opposite direction. I'll invent several excuses for avoiding Vegemite. And it's quite likely I'll muddle my accent again.

I will make it. Andy will make it. We will both make the absolute most of our time abroad. And then we can come back and use what we know when we travel together, whether we're scrounging for lodgings in the UP, luxuriating in Duluth or adventuring somewhere else entirely. It's amazingly scary, but, regardless of what happens, it will be amazing.

The War for Independent Lodging, Part II: The Outcome

2008-07-20T21:31:00.006+01:00

There were about three hours remaining before Andy and I needed to go back to Keweenaw Mountain Lodge to finalise our clandestine room arrangements. With a sharp eye on the time, we hiked a little way though the woods and climbed down to a cluster of large rocks protruding steeply from the waters of Lake Superior. The toe-numbing temperature of the lake helped us to keep our minds off of the potential disaster that could still ensue regarding our lodging. The sun-warmed rocks were incredibly comfortable by contrast, and we took some time to let the stress of the search evaporate by lying about on them.

But the tension didn't entirely dissipate, and we allowed a significant amount of time to travel back to the car and up the hill to the lodge. We arrived in the parking lot at 8.40, surprisingly nervous. We discussed what our plan would be should our receptionist connection be unable to give us the room she'd promised. Given the unrewarding day we'd spent pursuing a place to sleep and our unwillingness to increase the Sunday drive home by venturing further East, we decided to leave the UP regardless of how we fared at Keweenaw. Duluth sounded alluring, so we set our sights on that for the next day. But we needed to resolve situation at hand before making further plans.

At 8.45, we walked into the reception area. Our receptionist was still there, and she seemed to recognise us. As soon as she was through helping the person who'd been in front of her when we entered, she executed a covert look around the area to make sure her flouting of the rules would not be discovered. She needed no reintroduction to us or our situation. She immediately set a registration card before us, quickly eliminating our fears that something had gone awry in our conspirational plans. When I handed back the completed card, she noted that my name was Nicole and said that was her name, too. "Do you go by Nicole or Nikki?" she asked. I revealed that I went by Nikki, and she exclaimed, "Me, too! How do you spell it?"
"N-I-K-K-I," I recited.
"Me too!" she cried, even more excited. "I'm going to be geeking out about that all night!"

We then made our way to our hard-won lodgings. Despite Nikki's apologetic warning that it was a smoking room, nothing but the ash tray on the dresser hinted at the truth of her statement. We detected only the scent of new carpeting when we went in to dump our belongings. Our investigation of the room's lingering smells was not very thorough, though. We desperately wanted ice cream, and the stated closing time of the place where we'd intended to buy it was fast approaching. As we made our way back to Andy's Subaru, we crossed paths with a woman heading the opposite direction. She must have been able to detect that we were no longer desperate room seekers because she greeted us with a warm smile and friendly hello. Our stigma had vanished. We returned her greeting, but I couldn't help thinking, Where were you three hours ago when all we wanted was someone to be nice to us?

When we came upon a line of cars newly parked along the hill leading to town, we decided to preempt what we guessed would have turned into an intensive search for parking by joining it. "How do you feel about a short jog?" Andy asked when we realised how little time we had to make it to the ice cream shop. We sprinted. It was, thankfully, mostly downhill. A woman coming from the direction of the shop recognised our urgency and guessed our destination. "Going for ice cream?" she called. Our breathless nods prompted her to warn us that it would be at least a twenty minute wait. As the shop came into sight, we saw that she was right and that our effort had been expended needlessly. A line extended beyond the door of the tiny building and well out into the lawn. But we would not be deterred.

We joined the queue, panting. It was a beautiful night, and the only thing that would ruin it for us was if, after spending a prolonged period in line, the shop closed just as we reached the threshold of the entrance. No-one seemed to mind the wait. The promise of sweet, delicious ice cream kept everyone in good spirits, and the atmosphere amongst the queuers was jovial. It seemed a major accomplishment when we finally advanced as far as the wooden porch that extended about 10 feet in front of the entrance. I jumped onto the slightly elevated surface as triumphantly as if I'd just conquered a new land. As we drew ever nearer to the door, I tried to peek through the windows of the shop, now lighted against the dusk, to discern what the promised 36 flavours were and which I would possibly choose. It was an easy decision in the end. Amaretto Cherry Mackinac Island Fudge.

It was well past the closing time chalked on a blackboard outside the establishment, but the proprietors didn't seem to mind in the slightest. They were an elderly couple both dressed in stars-and-stripes themed shirts, and they smiled and chatted happily with the eager ice cream loving hordes as they laboured over their scoops and tills. "This is the busiest we've been all year," the woman said. Despite my worries, Andy and I both had double scoop waffle cones securely in hand long before the shop finally decided to end their impromptu extended hours. And it was well worth the wait. It was, with no exaggeration, the best ice cream I have ever had the fortune to lick. That includes the pieces of chocolate embedded in it. They were not the stale, wax-coated pieces of chocolate that I'm used to finding in ice cream, but chewy, bittersweet chunks.

I was completely absorbed in the delicious endeavor of catching the streaks of melted ice cream dribbling down the cone as we walked to the site of the legendary fireworks that were soon to begin. The charmed nature of the day held out, and we found ample space on a dock that extended into the lake directly across from where the fireworks were to be launched. As we were waiting for it to start, Andy began to muse about how the officials of the UP had spread the word about the expanded fireworks display. They would have needed to be careful not to incite undue commotion amongst the residents of Copper Harbor. A code was essential for seeding the information amongst key members of the hospitality industry, who could discreetly spread the word as they saw fit. Andy recited what he imagined the Copper Harbor code had been: "Albatross is bringing a bigger sandwich this year! Pastrami on rye. With mustard on one side. OK, maybe two sides. But don't say anything."

After much anticipation, the first rocket whistled into the air and exploded into arms of light and colour that radiated outward in bright shimmers. Sharp cracks and deep booms shook the air, and I could feel the sonic reverberations in the deck beneath me. Copper Harbor had a right to be proud of the show they produced. The display drew collective shouts and sounds of awed wonder from the gathered crowd. And it was a crowd. We were certain that the population of the town had at least quadrupled that day. The thunderous finale drew an equally noisy response of applause and cheers from the ground as everyone demonstrated their appreciation for this even longer celebration of the country's independence.

But as soon as the fireworks ended, so did the festive atmosphere. Whereas before everyone had enjoyed sharing the collective experience of watching the fireworks, families quickly turned against each other as they turned their attentions to reaching their cars before everyone else. Spectators folded up their canvas camping chairs with an efficient and hurried snap. Parents herded and towed their children in the necessary direction. The dock emptied within minutes. Andy and I watched. We were in no hurry. With our tummies full of ice cream and a room secured and waiting for us, nothing could bother us. We definitely didn't win the race back to our vehicle and faced some traffic as a consequence. But we made it back eventually, extremely content with the outcome of the day and excited to see what the next would hold for us in Duluth.

The War for Independent Lodging, Part I: The Search

2008-07-15T01:00:00.009+01:00

Andy and I are idiots. We went to Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the 4th of July with no accommodation reservations. Well, we'd booked a room in Iron River for the night of the 3rd. No problem, we figured. We'll just go from there and see where we end up. After a fitful night of sleep interrupted by fuzzily remembered morning shouts about six-cylinders, we faced the day with optimism and heaping bowls of Count Chocula. We did a quick search on Google maps and wrote down the number for every hotel and motel that appeared within 15 miles of our destination, Copper Harbo(u)r. Things seemed promising enough at first. The woman who answered at King Copper Motel was quite friendly and, though they did not have any rooms available, took my number and promised, "I'll give you a call if something breaks." This was much more reassuring before my mobile lost reception about a half hour later.

But the situation began to look bleak as I dialed down the list. We quickly discovered that there seemed to be a stigma against late bookers. My naive inquiries were greeted with suspicion and distrust, as if the person on the other end of the phone wanted to keep anyone crazy enough not to have advance reservations at arm's length. We arrived at the end of our list of prospects quickly. One woman's crisp answer to my inquiry as to whether they had rooms available that night, "No, we don't, and I don't know anyone in the area who does," still rang in my ears. Perhaps our original plan to plan as we went had been reckless. But we decided to carry it out. After all, there were bound to be accommodations that weren't listed on Google. One of them would surely have a room open.

We began stopping at every hotel and motel that wasn't displaying a "No Vacancy" sign once we reached Eagle River. As part of this venture, we decided to try our luck at the Shoreline Resort. We rang the bell as a sign taped to the door directed. After waiting an inordinate amount of time without response, we opened the door and stepped into a completely deserted dining area. Our voices echoed in the rafters as we discussed what to do. Andy thought we should go around to the lakefront side of the resort to see if we could find the proprietors.

A row of lucky lodgers stood in swimsuits on the shore, watching as their similarly accommodated compatriots splashed about in Lake Superior. When we approached, the people on the shore turned to stare at us. Their glances registered confusion tinged with hostility. "You're not from one of the same families that's stayed at this same resort every year for 30 years," their eyes seemed to say. Andy asked one of the visitors where he could find the owner. "She'll be right back," the woman answered. "Or, he's right there," she smiled a second later, pointing at a man emerging from the lake in cut-off denim shorts. "These two are looking for you," she explained as he scrutinised us quizzically. Andy explained that we were wondering if he had any rooms available. "No, not tonight. Sorry," he replied, quickly veering off with one last curious and wary look back.

We continued on towards Copper Harbor, feeling quite discouraged. We looked intently for lodging signs along the road, but a "No vacancy" message was appended to each. With few options left, we took a sudden sharp turn when we saw a sign that announced Keweenaw Mountain Lodge was 1 mile down the road. We felt a glimmer of hope as we drove down the freshly tarred pavement. Perhaps other potential lodgers had missed the place. Our hopes were confirmed when we pulled up and saw the word "Vacancy" hanging vertically from the end of the resort's sign. "Yay!" we cheered. But I was suspicious. "Now we'll get up there and find out they just forgot to change the sign," I remarked pessimistically.

We drove up a hill past rustic cabins and finally found the reception in a large log building at the crest. We entered and waited for the couple ahead of us to finish checking in. "Hi," the slightly spacey receptionist smiled. She was appropriately dressed for the holiday in a blue shirt and white trousers with red strands of crepe paper strung jauntily through the belt loops.
"We were just driving by and saw that your sign said you had vacancy," Andy said.
"Ahh, no, we never change that sign. It's a pain in the butt," she said, dismissing our last hopes of finding a bed for the night with a wave of her hand. "We're all full."
We disappointedly thanked her and started to turn away, but our crestfallen faces pulled on her heartstrings. She quickly craned her neck in the direction of the bar to make sure no-one was within earshot.

"C'mere," she whispered, leaning conspiratorially over the counter. We drew closer, intrigued by this secret she was about to relate to us. "The deal was," she confided in a low voice, "if someone came late, I could give away our last room. It's set aside for maintenance problems in the other rooms. I'm done at 9. Check in Copper Harbor. If you don't find anything, come back at ten to 9. If it's still available I'll give you the room."
We were stunned and grateful at the prospect of sleeping comfortably that night. She answered our stammered thanks with the explanation for her action: "You just looked so sad."
No longer. We drove back down the hill towards town, laughing incredulously about how our luck had changed. Rather than doomed, the day now seemed charmed. It reminded me of my experience at Anfield when I arrived without a ticket. The Keweenaw Mountain Lodge receptionist was my female, American Tony.

Having sacrificed lunch to work on finding a room, we finally conceded to our rumbling stomachs and stopped to eat. In the course of some conversation we'd tried to strike up with our bored-looking waitress, we learned about a fireworks display that would be happening later. She let us in on what seemed to be another Copper Harbor confidentiality when she said, "The finale's supposed to be twice as long this year." The woman running the register confirmed her story when Andy told her we'd heard about the fireworks. "Biggest in the UP," she said, somehow conveying pride and tedium simultaneously. Whether or not we would be able to stay for this pyrotechnic spectacular all depended on our rather shaky room deal coming through.

We're All About Each Other

2008-07-10T19:02:00.000+01:00

My blog disappeared for while before this recent flurry of activity. For a long time I simply didn't know what to write. While I was, and still am, having an adventure, it was of a wholly different sort than those I usually include in my posts. In fact, it largely runs counter to those I usually include in my posts. Rather than cultivating my independence, it's been an adventure in allowing myself to become more dependent on anyone than I've been in a long time. In balancing wanderlust and continuity. And in being honest with my writing. Sharing this particular adventure in this forum involves deviating from my usual style and persona. That makes it harder for me. But I'm going to do it anyway, because the subject is important.

The adventure is being in love. I'm in love with Andy Ford. I've mentioned him in the blog before, but he's not yet received a proper introduction. We met at a Guerrilla Blue show in January. Jackie told me she was going to see her friend Nick Williams' band play at Big V's and urged me to come along. I did, and found myself in the dankest, sleaziest dive bar I'd ever entered. I already wrote about the craziness that ensued that evening in my The Twin Cities Music/Crazy Scene post. But I skipped over the most significant part of the evening. As we watched the band's set, I felt an uncomfortably vague sense of recognition. "The violin player looks really familiar," I commented to Jackie. "I think he might have been in some of my poli sci classes or something."

Jackie will likely tease me about this forever, but I decided to explore this suspicion when Andy came over to chat with us later that night. "I feel like I know you from somewhere," I said, unwittingly dusting off and offering the oldest pick-up line in history (I still maintain that I was being sincere). "I know, I feel the same way," Andy answered, thankfully making my clumsy stab at conversation plausible. We soon eliminated every possible way our paths could have crossed prior to that night, and moved on to the present and the future. I was still a recent repat, so I was talking about coming home and how I thought it should feel like home. What initially sparked my interest was Andy's response to this comment. "Oh, I don't think it should," he contradicted. This rare understanding of my situation caught my attention. As did his intention to go teach English in France.

We actually worked up the nerve to go on a date about a month later. After that, our relationship unfolded, I think, very quickly. But it also unfolded very naturally, with both of us seeming to mutually agree on the direction it should take without any prior arrangement or discussion. Anything that I'd been hesitant to say because I thought it was too soon proved to be a voiced reflection of something Andy was already thinking. The best example of this occurred a few months ago. I noticed I'd been silently adding "I love you" in my head whenever we said goodbye to each other, and I decided it was time to say it aloud. The first time I did, however, it was met with what seemed like an interminable and excruciating silence. My stomach dropped, and my heart started banging from anxiety rather than anticipation. When he finally returned what may have been the most significant thing I've ever said, I cried, "Why did you hesitate?!?" He explained, "I just wanted to save the moment. Because I was soooo happy you said it."

Now that we've taken that step, and many others, it's hard to believe our relationship was ever so fragile that saying something at the wrong time could have broken it. But it did start out that way. When I was perplexed about how to handle a relationship I was trying to start in England, my good friend Raf wrote to me, "New relationships are soap bubbles. Any input can and usually does pop them." Luckily Andy and I were able to avoid such fateful input. This is actually miraculous, considering all the mishaps that happened on our second date. The night was so disastrous that we were completely unable to accomplish the planned event of the evening, which was ice skating. Instead, we got lost multiple times, hit a keypad box of some sort while reversing out of an uncooperative parking ramp, lost the Subaru in a different ramp for at least 15 minutes, and struggled with a couple unexpectedly locked doors. But we survived, and even enjoyed, all that. Now it would take something very significant to rupture the bubble in which I've been living since February.

This is because of how unabashedly happy I am to be with Andy and how fortunate I feel to have met him. This is where words start to fail. Being unable to describe something in print is very odd for me, since text is usually where I am best able to say exactly what I mean. But there aren't words enough to sum up how I feel. In this instance, a glance, an expression, a vocal inflection impart so much more than anything I can type. Basically, everything seems to have a greater significance. Cooking. Driving. Sitting in silence. Going to sleep and waking up. No matter where we are or what's going on, we simply take great joy in being together. At first I worried that being in a relationship would hamper my future plans as a nomadic expat. But now I know that Andy will only encourage my adventures and enhance the wonder I see in the world.

It turns out my two types of adventures are not as disparate as I'd thought.

A Synonym for Guerrilla Blue

2008-07-01T00:34:00.011+01:00

Dating a member of a band has turned me into a groupie by default. I have attended all but one Guerrilla Blue show since they starting playing live again in April. This stunning attendance record includes accompanying the band on a road trip to the Synonym Toast Festival in Wisconsin this past Friday. Technically my function was to poke Andy in the ribs periodically to keep him from falling asleep behind the wheel. But I've also enjoyed watching the band evolve over the past few months, and playing a festival seemed like an exciting new venture for the band that I wanted to witness.

When I hear 'festival,' I picture something on the order of Glastonbury, SxSW or Lollapalooza. I wasn't expecting the Synonym Toast festival to be quite of that size and caliber, but assumed it would be at least similar to the Hennepin Avenue Block Party. A winding drive down Wisconsin's desolate and difficult-to-locate County Road F should have tipped me off to the reality of the situation, but it wasn't until we arrived at the destination that I realised my expectations had been extremely lofty.

"Yay, New Auburn!" Andy exclaimed as a campground sign came into view. We'd repeatedly lost and found the route and Nick Williams with the aid of Google maps, Mapquest and frequent mobile conferences. We pulled into the parking lot of a bar to regroup before going to the actual site of the festival--or so we thought.
"This can't be it," I said.
"What's the address?" Andy asked. The address on the Google map matched that of the street sign right in front of us.
"This is it," Andy said, laughing incredulously.
"Where's Williams, then?" I protested. As if on cue, Nick's Chevy Impala appeared from behind the bar and pulled past us. I could see the expression of disbelief on Wingate's face as Paul's Dodge followed the Chevy. I began laughing hysterically. The Synonym Toast Festival was a dive bar in Middle-of-Nowhere Wisconsin.

The group of us walked in to find an open, high-ceilinged room with long tables arranged in a cafeteria design. A small group of people crowded around the bar, which occupied one end of the hall. They seemed to be locals who convened at this spot nightly. The conversation indicated that everyone felt very comfortable around each other. Just after walking in, I heard one of the younger men crow, "I've got one on my penis!" I've still no idea what he had on his penis, which is a shame. A row of mounted deer heads stared glassily at the stage from the wall behind the bar, guaranteeing at least some form of attentive audience for the band.

After the lads and I had hauled the equipment in from the various vehicles, Andy and I struck up a conversation with one of the locals smoking at the bar. He was a younger man dressed in shorts, a Boston Red Sox baseball cap and a button-down short-sleeved shirt over a wife beater. He spoke passionately about how well a sit-down restaurant would do in the area. The town was overrun with bars and bar food, he explained, and a place offering good, fresh food was sorely wanting. His talk of the Southern-style Waffle House, along with the slight Southern drawl that carried through his passionate discourse, prompted me to doubtfully ask if he was from the area. He answered that he had grown up there but had worked at various restaurants in the South for several years.

"You have a little bit of a drawl," I pointed out.
"Y'know, everyone here thinks I sound like I'm from the South," he said. "When I'm in the South everyone thinks I sound like I'm from the North. I remember when I went down there, the first thing someone said to me was, 'Hey, d'yeeew know y'ave an ac-cehhhnt?' I was like, 'Excuse me?'" he laughed. "No matter where I go, I sound like I'm from somewhere else."
I could identify with that completely. In Ireland, everyone thought I sounded American. But when I came back to America, everyone thought I sounded Irish.

It was now growing late, and the audience was tiring of watching the first band set up. One particularly sodden person slipped behind the bar and activated the tornado siren that outfitted the rafters above. He then set about furiously clanging a massive bell, creating optimum noise conditions. Andy and I went to join the rest of the band at one of the long tables in the middle of the room. After waiting a while longer, the underaged, long-haired group burst into what seemed to be an emo version of Pink Floyd's "Time." From there, they continued on with a string of various covers. Perhaps the ear-bleeding volume of the music drew my attention to the sound guy. I nudged Andy and nodded over to where he was reassuringly using his cell phone to light the various controls on the soundboard.

Finally Guerrilla Blue was up. I talked to Paul while the rest of the band hauled their equipment onto the stage. He summed up the feeling of the bar pretty well when he said, "I feel like I'm in a bar in Tennessee decorated like a cabin in Wisconsin." One glance at the skates, skis and hornet nests decorating the rafters confirmed this description. Such surroundings created great potential for disorientation. But Guerrilla Blue still played an incredible set. All the members of the group delivered a high-energy performance from the first notes of "Fluorescent Fuzz." In fact, the strange setting seemed to be a spawning ground for innovation. Nick Williams felt inspired early on to accentuate the dueling mandolin and guitar solos on "Sometime After Midnight" by shuffling back and forth between Andy and Wingate while playing a driving bass riff.

Aside from a few occasional dancers, the audience largely stayed clumped at the opposite end of the room from the band. That's where the bar was. But they reacted well to the music, yelling, clapping and setting off the tornado siren. A few women in leis came up to dance and called up to Andy between songs.
"I like your guitar!" one of them cried.
"It's a mini guitar," Paul informed her.
"Like a ukulele!" she exclaimed.
Andy smiled and explained, "It's a mandolin."
"Oooh, a mandolin," she repeated.
"A ukulele," her friend scoffed, mocking the woman's instrument confusion.

The energy continued to build throughout the night, becoming particularly palpable on "Kobe." I'd appointed myself band photographer for the evening, and I desperately wished my point-and-shoot were more adequate in low-light situations. I wanted to capture the intensity with which everyone was playing, but I largely captured blurs. I gave up before the band launched into "Taken." It was the last song on the set list, despite my hopeful penning of "DNC" beneath it on a few of the copies. Paul and Andy left the stage for a bit in order to leave more of the spotlight to Wingate, Williams and Wiersma. They headed towards the back of the room and had a few words with Chris, the organiser of the festival. He asked, "You're doing one more song, right?" That left them no other choice but to play "DNC." The change from trippy maudlin' to 60s beach beats and back went without a hitch. After the last verse, Paul again abandoned the stage to the instrumentalists. But this time Todd stepped out from behind the drums and followed. Williams then played one last riff and unplugged, leaving the song to finish with just violin and guitar.

While Synonym Toast was no Bonnaroo, the gentlemen of Guerrilla Blue treated it as though it was. The band's cohesive performance definitely set a precedent for the festival to become more well-known in the future. The excitement of the show kept Andy and me alert all the way back down County Road F and WI-29, but couldn't compensate for the lack of sleep and the increasingly wee hours of the morning. I'm happy to say I fulfilled my assigned duty of keeping Andy awake, and passably driving his manual Subaru Forester when he stubbornly started nodding off and swerving. And though the venue was not a milestone in itself, I had a great time watching what I think was a milestone performance.

North Shore, Part III: Hoist and Derrick

2008-06-26T03:10:00.007+01:00

Sunday morning began with a deliciously trans-fatty breakfast of shrimp and cheese omelettes and Cinnamon Grands. This left us happy but uncomfortably full on the drive to Split Rock Lighthouse. We arrived just in time to take in an informative and hilariously awful film about the site. I shook with frequent and silent laughter from the very first shot of our bespectacled, bow-tied narrator. "Name's Tinkham," he announced in a condescending, businesslike manner. "Ralph Tinkham." Ralph taught us all about the lighthouse its lens from France that turns on liquid mercury. He was not so forthcoming about the hoist and derrick used to haul supplies from the water up to the lighthouse construction site. "I won't tell you how we got the derrick up here," he smiled smugly.

After the dreadful movie ended, we went to see the site of the hoist and derrick for ourselves. We were unable to shed any more light on how the equipment had arrived at its former station, so we descended a long flight of stairs that led to the shore. The large, loose rocks that made up the beach provided a spectacular view of the lighthouse. Despite the fact that the site is designed to direct visitors down to the area, it felt very isolated. We climbed out to the edge of the beach and sat soaking up the spray from the lake until we realised how late in the afternoon it was. We were determined to make it to Gooseberry Falls before heading home, but the glinting of the lighthouse itself deterred us. I hadn't realised that visitors could go inside. We chatted to a person in uniform there before climbing the spiral staircase up to the shiny rotating lens.

I finally tired of looking at the gears displayed in a glass cabinet below the light, and we made the short journey to Gooseberry Falls. These falls were quite a bit busier and, seemingly, more tourist-friendly than the Tettegouche High Falls. You could walk across the stone in the riverbed and come close enough to put your hand in the rushing water. I wasn't quite as impressed with these falls, since I hadn't become lost in the process of finding them. It seemed a little too easy. And we were both craving a second slice of Rustic Inn pie. So we left after following the clearly defined trail around the falls.

We rather embarrassingly had the same waitress who had served us the previous afternoon. This time she was unfazed by my request for apple cherry pie, and I didn't have to wonder over her insistence upon the use of the 'and' conjunction. I'm now convinced that the best way to leave the North Shore is with the taste of pie lingering in your mouth. I was certainly content on the drive back to the Cities. It took far longer than we expected due to deer, mist and the languor of the employees at DQ. I was exhausted when we finally made it back, but I was also very refreshed. This may have had something to do with being around so many waterfalls. But my expat side had reemerged as a result of exploring so many new places, and that was the most pleasing aspect of all.

North Shore, Part II: Lost Like A Cyclist in Dublin

2008-06-24T03:30:00.003+01:00

Contentedly stuffed with pie, Andy and I retrieved the car from across the street and drove down Highway 61. The original destination we'd had in mind was Palisade Head, but the drive was so scenic that we decided to bypass it in favour of the more distant Tettegouche State Park. Andy went into the ranger station to buy a permit and asked what we should do whilst in the park. The ranger on duty suggested a brief 0.7 mile hike to the High Falls.

We covered this distance slowly, stopping frequently to indulge our inner photographers. We'd had the good fortune to be sheltered in the car during the afternoon's sole bout of rain, and the sun soon made an appearance from behind the falsely foreboding clouds. Other hikers seem to have been deterred by the brief shower, however. We had the trail to ourselves, with the exception of a lone running man who startled us by bursting from a side path.

As we walked, evidence of the recent rain emerged in the form of expansive and frequent patches of mud. Likely because my trainers had grown uncomfortably soggy, I began to question the distance we'd travelled before Andy did. "I feel like we've gone farther than 0.7 miles," I ventured.
"No," he countered cheerfully. "It just seems like it because we've been stopping a lot to take pictures."
We continued on, and continued to take pictures. We kept confusing the sound of the wind with the sound of rushing water and expected to find a waterfall around every next bend as a result.

Instead we stumbled upon a sign for Nipisiquit Lake. We consulted our map (which previously had been of no help whatsoever) and discovered that we were significantly off course. We'd missed a turn somewhere, but where? We couldn't remember coming upon an intersecting path where we would have had the option to alter our route. While we were still lost in thought about our navigational error, Andy glanced up into a birch tree and noticed a mushroom growing high amongst its sparse limbs. "Fungus! You WAAAAAY up there!" he exclaimed, adopting his best gangsta tone and swagger (which weren't good). "WORD!"

Being doubled over with laughter helped me to forget about my wet feet and simultaneously cleared my memory. "Wait...do you think we were supposed to turn where that guy came running out of the woods?" I asked. That indeed proved to be the case. When we arrived back at the spot where we'd encountered Running Man, we found that the turnoff for High Falls was clearly and un-missably marked. I blame the distraction of Running Man coupled with how enraptured we were with the trail.

The route to the High Falls was significantly less muddy than Mystery Route. And it was significantly shorter. We reached the falls in what to us seemed to be record speed. We lingered long enough to rest our feet and take a few pictures, then started to hike back. We were hoping to catch the sunset from Palisade Head. As we reached the top of the staircase that ascended from the falls, we came across another hiker. We talked for a bit about the muddy condition of the trails. "I knew I shouldn't have worn my work shoes," she lamented. Glancing down, I saw that her feet were tied into a pair of New Balance trainers. What a great job she must have. We encountered her again in the parking lot and learned that she volunteers for the Superior Hiking Trail, driving five hours from Bemidji to do so. "Husband thinks I'm crazy," she quipped. "He can stay home."

We parted ways with our fellow hiker and embarked on the harrowing drive up to Palisade Head. The road was narrow, with tree limbs and other various forms of plant life encroaching on the black strip of tar that slashed through them. The steep incline and tight turns added to the sense of exploration we'd been enjoying throughout the day. This dissipated slightly when we found the parking lot and a couple busily steaming up the windows of their car there. We paid them little mind and managed to regain our sense of adventure by climbing as close to the sheer drop down to Lake Superior as we dared. The view of the rapidly shifting water was vertigo-inducing. And the deep crevices in the dark, slate gray rock, while not brandishing the power of freezing, pounding water, were intimidating in their own way.

Finally we turned away from the water and started exploring a little ways inland. We quickly came upon an area where white clumps of something were scattered all around. "That looks like deer hair," Andy mused, picking up a piece of it. The fibrous appearance of the cluster made me argue that it was a plant spore--a bigger, thicker dandelion puff. "You're probably right," Andy conceded. But his agreement didn't last long. After taking a few more steps he stopped and in a hushed, urgent voice told me to "Look over there...but look slowly."

Contrary to his instructions, my head snapped in the indicated direction to see a headless skeleton next to a strangely tidy pile of hide. After absorbing the initial shock, we climbed onto a higher rock for a better vantage point. From this angle we could see an intact deer leg poking out from under the hair pile. The circumstances of the deer's death seemed a little dodgy and made us both uneasy. We didn't linger long into the dusk. We found the other couple, oblivious to the carcass nearby, still parked in the lot when we went back to the car.

Perhaps it was the lingering memory of the skeleton, but the drive back out to Highway 61 seemed even more perilous than the trip in. Actually, my discomfort can probably be attributed to my realisation that what I'd assumed to be a one-way was actually meant to be a dual carriageway. But we made it back to the cabin without incident and relaxed over a steak dinner and some Newcastles. We still had one more day of exploring (and all the attendant becoming lost and finding dead things) ahead of us.

North Shore, Part I: The Pre-Adventure Adventure

2008-06-24T01:54:00.010+01:00

With all the overwhelming inappropriateness that had been going on at work, I definitely needed a holiday. So Andy and I took a break from temping and broken transmissions and spent a weekend exploring nature in the North Shore. I've somehow managed to live most of my life in Minnesota without ever seeing Lake Superior, so a visit there was long overdue. We left promptly after work ended on Friday, and I felt considerably better after putting some miles between us and the cities. A clear, moonlit night greeted us when we reached Duluth and the start of Highway 61 around 10 PM. A wide patch of the lake reflected the moonlight with unbelievable brightness, creating some spectacular scenery as we drove the rest of the way to Two Harbo(u)rs.

We explored the surreal lighting further once we arrived at the cabin we'd reserved for the weekend. Only a short flight of hewn log stairs separated our dock from the lake. The light spilling into the shallow pools trapped in the craters on the rocky shore formed a beautiful and completely indescribable scene. It seemed as though it had been artificially created. I couldn't help feeling as though I was walking on the moon. Andy and I spent some time trying to capture the scene, but the images we composed are only a faint approximation of the lustrous scene.

The next morning was very lazy. It was our obligation to check in with Jerry, the person with whom we'd made our reservation over the phone, that finally coaxed us out of the cabin. No-one answered our knock at the main office, but a sign on the door directed us to cabin 9. Jerry motioned us in through the window as he finished up a phone conversation. We choked on the overbearing haze of stale Winston smoke that pervaded the cabin as we entered and waited for him to hang up. When he did, he explained that he'd been chatting to a woman who'd "supposedly" been his friend for years. "But now she thinks I'm an asshole for not keeping in better contact," he growled.

He seemed to set the matter aside quickly enough, and he led us out into the fresh air and back to the main office. He chatted as he attempted to run the credit card reader, telling us that he'd lived in California before coming back to help a friend with the cabins. He'd thought it was temporary. But, as he explained, "I got stuck here." Despite his gruff demeanour, I can't imagine he was actually bothered by the pristine setting. Just before we left, Andy mentioned that we were planning to visit the renowned Betty's Pies for lunch. "Is that a good place to go, do you think?" he asked. "Enh, it's OK," Jerry shrugged. "The place across the street is better, though."

Indeed, the Rustic Inn was all that Jerry had succinctly said it was. I was immediately impressed by the enormous jalapeno that garnished the toothpick spear barely keeping my turkey cranberry sandwich assembled. And the taste lived up to the expectation set by this daring condiment. Andy and I had both decided to take advantage of the lunch special because it included a slice of pie. We pored over the varieties carved into a wooden menu board as we finished our entrees, carefully considering our options. Suddenly we overheard a waitress reciting additional possibilities to a nearby table. Andy was taken with the prospect of cherry peach pie, and he inquired about it when our server returned to take our dessert order.

"Well," she replied thoughtfully, "I know we have cherry and peach, but I don't know if we have cherry peach." I shot Andy a baffled look. Surely cherry and peach was the same thing as cherry peach? Luckily Krystal assured us that they did, in fact, have the latter. It didn't occur to me until embarrassingly later in the day what she'd meant by emphasizing the conjunction. She knew they had cherry pie, and she knew they had peach pie, but she didn't know if they had cherry peach pie. Sadly, figuring this out caused the statement to lose much of the humour I'd found in it.

While we slowly ate these amazingly delicious specimens of pie, it started to rain quite heavily. A brief electrical interruption accompanied the downpour. When the lights blinked off, we immediately grew concerned for the huge quantities of ice cream they must have on hand for a la mode orders. What would happen if it all melted? In addition to the sticky puddles of ice cream coating the floors, there would be a tragic increase in the number of naked pie slices. Fortunately that disastrous outcome didn't occur. The power, including the stereo system, was immediately restored. "Is the Titanic music our cue to leave?" Andy asked. It was.

Temp Nostalgia

2008-06-19T01:59:00.004+01:00

My job at Tax Place has come and gone. I must admit that I didn't realise how good I'd had it. They fed me free lunch every Tuesday and Thursday, my coworkers were appreciative of the work M and I did for them, and they generally just let us be and didn't treat us like we were five-year-olds. But the value of these small luxuries didn't become fully apparent until I started my new temp assignment.

Something about being a temp seems to make all of your coworkers assume that you are absolutely stupid beyond hope. My supervisor at Class Action Place demonstrated this on my first day when he was explaining how to affix adhesive labels onto forms. He not only instructed me as to where I should place these specific labels, but also how to apply them. "You just peel it off, stick it on, and give it a little press," he revealed. I let this comment slide, barely refraining from making some snarky remark about how my preschool education had sufficiently prepared me to handle stickers. Another woman felt the need to tell me how to file a form. "Make sure to put it between the one that goes before it and the one that goes after it," she said.

The superfluousness of these instructions lessened as my coworkers discovered that I was capable of opening envelopes, labeling, filing and even scanning. But this victory over insulting explanations soon lost its lustre. I arrived at work one morning to discover that people from another department had infiltrated the Temp Annex. Previously we three temps had been surrounded by empty desks. Filling these spaces would not necessarily have been a bad thing. But they were filled with some of the most obnoxious people I've ever encountered. None of the Temp Force ever determined what these people do, aside from talking excessively and excessively loudly.

The topics of the endless stream of conversation range from the Bible verses with which they intend to decorate their new cubicles to the laying on of hands to late periods to pregnancy, delivery and epidurals. Recently, a woman who feared she might be pregnant began to confide in a woman who is already pregnant. I unfortunately overheard them discussing each of the early signs of pregnancy they'd experienced. I even more unfortunately overheard one of them utter the word 'discharge' in the context of that discussion. To make matters even worse, such conversations are conducted in the droning voice of the pregnant woman, who too liberally sprinkles her speech with "Yaa knooooow," and the horrendous grammar of the might-be-pregnant woman, who favours phrases like, "Why you ain't in here?"

It quickly became apparent that no solace would be provided by this team's supervisor, who sits amongst them. In fact, he is a large part of the problem. Thankfully, he avoids talking about biology. Instead, he shares the tricks he's learned in Excel whilst managing the spreadsheets of films that he likes to keep in his spare time. When he's not boasting heartily about his love of films, his band (a cross between Tool and some other metal band), or any other subject on which he considers himself to be an authority (which doesn't exclude much), he speaks in an exaggerated stage whisper. When he's not whispering, he hisses along to the heavy metal beats playing in his headphones.

The object lesson in his pomposity occurred a few weeks ago. He sneezed, and said something in Latin to excuse himself. He then sneezed a second time and uttered a different Latin word. I know it was Latin because he then cried, "Whoa, that's a lot of Latin for one day." To me, this is very similar to saying gesundheit and then remarking, "Whoa, that's a lot of German for one day!" The others around me must have felt the same way because no-one responded. After a second of what must have been excruciating ego-crushing silence, he repeated, "I said, that's a lot of Latin for one day!"

My assignment was due to end just when I thought I couldn't take much more. I saw my supervisor in the hall as I was heading out to lunch on my rather joyous last day. "Don't forget 2 o'clock," he reminded me.
"What's at 2 o'clock?" I asked.
"The big processing meeting," he replied, looking confused as to why I hadn't informed myself about this important event.
"Oh. I don't have email, so I didn't know about it," I replied. "And it's our last day anyway. Do you even want us to come?"
"What?!?" he cried. "No, it's not. It better not be!"
I told him that Staffing Place had told us 9 June was our last day, and I hadn't heard that the assignment had been extended. He resolved to talk to the other supervisor and try to fix the debacle.

I went to the meeting after lunch. The other two temps, who'd already decided not to come back even if an extension was offered, didn't. My supervisor left the meeting to fetch them, and they eventually slunk in late. At the end of the meeting, my supervisor said, "I just found out at 2 o'clock that the temps won't be coming back tomorrow." There was general uproar amongst all the overworked people present. "They've accepted other assignments," he said, with resignation in his voice. "They weren't extended and their assignment's done." I had been looking forward to having a week or so off to write and just enjoy being rid of my coworkers. But I'd learnt from one of the other temps that morning that Staffing Place didn't have much else to offer. So I cracked under the pressure at the meeting and agreed to continue there until 3 July (if not longer).

To make matters worse, I was now the only person from my department sitting amongst the obnoxious members of the infiltrating department. I thought this might be too much to bear. Fortunately my supervisor bailed me out. "We're not going to leave you sitting over here all by yourself," she said, stopping by my desk the next afternoon. "Starting tomorrow, you can sit over where P. used to be." My escape from Temp Annex did not come soon enough, however. I was there to hear the woman concerned about being pregnant reveal that she was definitely not expecting. "It came last night!" she exclaimed joyfully.

While I can still hear Latin Sneezer ranting about films from time to time, my new area is blissfully quiet and relatively normal. It makes the job a little better. It's certainly good enough to be my source of income until I leave for Australia. But I can't help waxing nostalgic about Tax Place occasionally. I will always have my memories...and traces of toner in my lungs.

Toner Lung

2008-03-21T00:28:00.003Z

Copying tax returns is a big part of my job at the Tax Place. M and I use the copier so much, in fact, that I am convinced we will both develop a rare and debilitating disease. I first became aware of my risk of contracting Toner Lung when I noticed the acrid, tangy fumes permeating the air around the over-used office apparatus. They definitely smell harmful, and they make your nose sting when you inhale. My fears were compounded when M began exhibiting likely symptoms of the illness. She was coughing more than usual, and complained about her frequent sneezing. Both symptoms, to me, are sure signs of aggravated respiratory passages.

And then there's M's accountant. Now that I think of it, I'm positive Toner Lung is the cause of his constant throat-clearing. Hmm. Or, rather, "Hrm."

Aside from slightly searing my fingertips by touching the copies before they've fully cooled, I've yet to experience any adverse copier-related effects. But I have had several mechanical issues with the machine in the past few days. Shortly before leaving on Monday afternoon, I picked up a five-state, 18 shareholder return to assemble. Just the original document was about as thick as an entire package of paper, so I knew the multiple copies I had to make would produce a staggering pile. I was about halfway through the arduous replicating process when I accidentally caught and slightly opened one of the multiple doors on the top of the copier. It began beeping furiously and immediately refused to keep working.

Annoyed, I gazed at the screen to see what debilitating injury the petulant office fixture was supposedly suffering. Per the copier's instructions, I fully opened the door I'd just bumped and cleared the mis-fed sheet from 5A. Once that had been taken care of, the screen insisted that I open the front door and check for a jam in the cavernous compartment it concealed. I did as I was told, and was shocked at what I found. There was paper everywhere. 3A, 3B, 3C and 2A were all clogged. I managed to clear all the afflicted sections and safely shut the door without burning myself on the fuser. But the copier kept beeping and insisting that I recheck compartment 3.

I opened the door again to find that the paper jam had seemingly regenerated itself out of nowhere. Paper had mysteriously reappeared, lodged in all the places from which I'd just removed it. I diligently pulled out all the firmly lodged sheets and shut the door. The copier resumed its protest, and the same series of events occurred at least twice more. Finding my usual small-repair capabilities exhausted, I sought the aid of my supervisor. She deleted the current print job (I'd cancelled it, but that must not have been definitive enough for the copier to understand) and cleared paper from sections I didn't even know existed. Her assistance silenced the copier's aggravating beeps and left it in perfect working order. By then it was time for me to go home. I was relieved to do so and left the rest of the burdensome copying process for the next morning.

After that debacle, each copy endeavour I've undertaken has run smoothly. Until this morning. I had to use a different copier than normal in order to take advantage of its ability to stamp COPY across documents as it replicates them. What I didn't realise was that while this copier has superior extra features, it's not as intuitive as the copier to which I am accustomed. This new machine doesn't sort the document unless you specifically ask it to do so. I wasn't aware of this until it was far too late.

I loaded my 50-plus page return into the tray, changed the number of copies to three and waited. I watched, slightly horrified, as the copier spat three copies of page two on top of three copies of page one, three copies of page three on top of three copies of page two, and so on. It was a small disaster. Rather than simply picking up a neatly staggered stack of three complete returns, I had to collate the documents by hand when they came off the printer.

Despite the tedium of this task, it didn't actually take too long. And now I know better. I'd still prefer dealing with jams and unsorted documents to suffering from Toner Lung.

Ah, Ahhhh, Mr. Willllson. Ah, Ahhhh, Mr. Heath.

2008-03-20T18:46:00.006Z

It's tax season. While this widely dreaded occasion usually passes without much consideration on my part, it is more evident to me this year than ever before. This is because I've spent the last five weeks temping at an accounting firm. As one might imagine, the work is eye-gougingly tedious. I'm helping to alleviate the strain of the rush by assembling tax returns. This involves making a lot of copies, then stapling, red x-ing, Post-It noting and paper clipping the federal return and the state return(s). Then I bind a copy for the client and print a cover sheet and mailing label. This over and over and over and over, hour after hour, day after day.

And my coworkers are accountants. People in this profession are not renowned for their sense of humour. Some of them defy this stereotype. But I think I previously gave some of them more credit than they deserve. A few weeks ago I had finished all the returns waiting to be assembled and was doing something non-return-related (probably involving gmail) in my cubicle. One of my coworkers approached me and asked, "How's it going back here?"

"Fine," I answered. "We're all caught up. There's nothing in the bins."

"RE-ally?" she asked, obviously astonished.

"Yeah, I just checked five minutes ago, and they were empty." I hesitated, and when she issued no response, added, "I can check again..."

We both walked back up to the front of the support area and looked in the still-empty bins.

"Well," she stammered, clearly taken aback by the light load we were carrying. "I wonder if someone's slacking off in review."

"Nope, we're just fast!" I quipped as I was walking away.

"Oh, you are?" she asked, a bit too eagerly and gullibly.

"...Yes?" I'd intended the comment to be flippant, but this nuance had gone undetected.

A little later in the afternoon, this same woman had decided to help the flagrantly lagging reviewers by checking some of the returns herself. I brought one over to her after I'd finished assembling it.

"That was a really fun one," I said as I handed it over. "A three-state shareholder one."

"Oh! You liked that, did you?"

"...No."

"Ooooooooooh! You were being sarcastic!"

Since she'd called me out on it, I then had to find a way to detach myself from my snarky statement to avoid looking like a complete snot.

"Well, it was nice because it was different. Otherwise it can get a little monotonous."

Last week, I encountered another example of the humour void. I was missing a piece of a return I was assembling and went to retrieve it from the appropriate person. While I was waiting for her to print the portion I needed, I noticed a librarian action figure gracing a ledge of her cubicle.

"Oh, that's funny," I commented, "A librarian action figure."

"Yeah," she answered, "It's kind of a joke."

Um, I know! While librarians are certainly staunch defenders of citizens in the literacy and educational arenas, theirs is not a profession that would traditionally inspire one to create a miniature replica. That's why producing one is funny. Thankfully, my coworker then went on to say that she'd been educated as a librarian but couldn't find a job in that field. So she wasn't explaining that the existence of a librarian action figure was funny. Rather, her owning the action figure was the joke.

Though these coworkers don't seem to entirely understand humour, that is exactly what makes them funny (to me). Another of my coworkers takes a different approach to amusement. The standard procedure in the office is for the reviewers to put the returns that are ready to be assembled in bins at the front of the support area. One of the accountant managers flagrantly flouts this established practice. He prefers to bring his returns directly back to me and the other assembly temp. Actually, he prefers to bring them only to the other assembly temp. If she was in the middle of assembling a five-state, 35 shareholder return and I was idly checking my facebook, he'd still hand the new return to her.

The extent of his devotion to M was not entirely clear until she left early one day. I was assembling in my cubicle when I heard the constant throat-clearing that indicated he was in the vicinity of my desk. He looked a little bewildered when he saw M wasn't present. "Hrm...M's not here, huh? Hrm. Hm. Hrm."

"Nope. I can take it," I offered, only slightly sympathetic to his dashed dreams of seeing her in all her assembling splendour. He went away, and I didn't think much of it. But he came back with another return just before a firm-wide, in-office happy hour scheduled for that day was due to begin. M's accountant looked for her, then settled for talking to me when he saw that her chair was still crushingly empty.

"M didn't stick around for happy hour, huh?" he asked. "Hrm. Hrm."

"No, she went home," I confirmed. "I can take it."

He handed me the return and walked back to his office, clearing his throat in a decidedly lacklustre and heartbroken fashion.

When M returned the next day, I informed her of what had transpired. "You make me sound like a..." she hesitated, the word she wanted escaping her.

"Seductress?" I supplied helpfully. "That's because you are. He tries to stay away, but he just can't resist your charms." Pointing out the special attention her accountant paid to her may have made M feel a little awkward around him. The consequences were disastrous. She came up to me late in the afternoon and rehashed an incident that had just occurred. She'd passed her accountant in the hall, and he'd said "Hi" and stopped (presumably to have an intimate chat with her). She returned his greeting without breaking stride. "It's just getting too weird," she confided. He must have taken her not-so-subtle hint. When he brought back a return the following day, he placed it on the neutral shelving unit between our two cubicles rather than handing it to M directly. "I'll just leave this here. Hrm. Hrm."

I didn't fully realise the significance of the direct interaction M's accountant had insisted upon until last week. This time, he intercepted me near the bins and handed me a return to reassemble. This exchange happened in front of one of my supervisors, who questioned me about it after M's accountant had gone. "Which return is that?" she asked.

"Oh, <name withheld to protect confidentiality>," I responded.

"He shouldn't be giving you stuff directly," she chided.

"I think he just gave it to me because I assembled it in the first place," I explained.

"Well, he knows better," she countered.

So, he knows better than to give us returns directly. But M's special lustre is just so impossible to resist that he'll defy all the approved procedures in order to see her, consequences be damned. It must be love.

While he has not made much of an impression on M, M's accountant seems to have a more powerful effect on another of my coworkers. The returns that this particular woman prepares for assembly always seem to have something wrong with them. They're missing pieces, or the pieces are wrong, or they're out of order. A few days ago I noticed an interesting correlation between her mistakes and the location of her office. It's right next to M's accountant's. I hear his incessant throat-clearing every time I pass his office, and I have thought to myself several times how annoyed I would be if I had to sit anywhere near him. But she is actually forced to live the experience that makes me cringe to even imagine. Perhaps listening to this repetitive and, frankly, rather disgusting sound all day drives her to distraction and causes the problems I so often encounter with the returns she's reviewed for assembly. An interesting theory, and one I'll likely explore in the remaining weeks.

Tax Place has proven to be one more in my series of odd jobs in even odder places. But this time, the assignment is enlivened with, perhaps, some of the oddest people I've yet encountered as a temp. This additional element definitely helps me to continue plowing through and assembling the seemingly endless pile of paper. As M and I often remind each other just before free lunch is served on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's the little things that help to keep you sane.

Turning the Entry

2008-02-22T17:27:00.005Z

It seems that I'm surrounded by dancing lately, whether I'm voluntarily doing it myself or others are inflicting it on me. Andy and I went to see Chris Koza, Romantica and the Alarmists at the 7th Street Entry last weekend. Another venue, another nutter. The show started out innocently enough. Perhaps we can credit Koza's infectious melodies and riveting lyrics with keeping the insanity temporarily in check; the only odd character was a balding man leaning on the side of the stage. His eyelids drooped and he nodded his head absently as though he were about to fall into a deep sleep at any moment. The cause of this could probably be explained by his protruding beer belly.

When Romantica took the stage, though, all crazy broke loose. It came once again in the form of a particularly avid crowd dancer. Other people around us were moving along with the music as well, so she did not seem to be remarkable at first. In fact, she was very polite and apologised for each of the numerous times her fervor caused her to collide with an innocent bystander. But suddenly she decided she was not content to keep her momentum to herself and took to spinning those standing near her in the crowd. This, of course, included me and Andy. And about 10 other people. To her credit, she did not physically grab and twist us. Rather, she insistently offered her hand and commanded, "Spin!" until her target complied.

After she'd acted the dervish in our section of the audience, she started working her way through the more remote portions of the venue. She disappeared for a noticeable period of time--at least one song. When she returned, Andy and I started speaking with her. She enlightened us as to the logic behind her mission to spin. "I just want to have a good time," she said. "Good music, good beer...it should be fun. I'm trying to get people to have a good time." Indeed, many of our fellow crowd members looked as though they could use her assistance in lively-ing up themselves. Despite being at a concert and having easy access to an abundance of beer, a good portion of the audience seemed unaffected and wore stony, gloomy expressions on their faces.

The girl continued to recruit spinning partners throughout the rest of Romantica's set, through the break and into the Alarmists' set. And, far from being as hopelessly crazy as I first suspected, Andy and I became a bit fond of her. She did make the atmosphere a little more fun. And we definitely couldn't argue with her philosophy.

Squares

2008-02-20T21:02:00.006Z

I have not done any salsa dancing since I've been back in the US, and I've been a bit restless. The urge to dance, combined with my quest to explore the Twin Cities as a repat, made my friend Erinn's invitation to a square dance very appealing. This despite having a great and professed inclination to stay home. Jackie's birthday celebration the night before had taken a small toll. I was also a bit concerned because my square dancing skills were limited to what I'd learned in 8th grade PE. But Erinn didn't seem too bothered by her own inexperience with dancing in squares, so I decided I shouldn't be, either.

We arrived at the Bedlam Theater just as a new dance was about to begin, and we initially partnered up to form one side of a square. But our square-mates decided it would be better to disperse us around the figure so as to minimise the damage we could inflict. That was a wise decision. From the beginning, my square dance experience was filled with rather exhilarating confusion. The caller walked us very slowly through the applicable calls before each dance, explaining to us what "allemand left" or "dig for oysters" meant in terms of motion.

I thought I had the hang of it until the band started playing and the calls came at full speed. I suddenly felt very inadequately prepared to face the mysterious ways of the square. For one thing, I hadn't thought to enquire about the step to use. I began with a fairly normal stride but quickly noticed that everyone around me was doing something else. I shifted into a small variation on skipping, which seemed to work well. I never did find out if there was a universally accepted step. After that, I was able to remember what the calls meant and execute them properly. And if not, I managed to get out of the way before I caused irreparable harm to the figure.

The dizziness that soon followed added another layer of complexity to the procedure. The second square proved to be particularly nausea-inducing. One of the calls, which was repeated four times throughout the dance, dictated, "Ladies in the centre, back-to-back, gents go around the outside track. You elbow-swing the one you swung and swing the next one on the run." That's a lot of swinging. And swinging is a lot of spinning around with your partner in one spot. Perhaps it was the vertigo, but that dance seemed particularly exhilarating.

After we took a break for some beer, Erinn and I felt confident enough in our new found square dance abilities to be partners. We made it all the way through the dance without causing any sort of breakdown, though there were a few narrow escapes. By this point I was able to start focusing some attention on my fellow dancers. They represented a wide range of ages, styles and experience levels. Some looked the (stereotypical) part in cowboy boots and plaid shirts. Some wore skirts. Some weren't wearing any shoes. Some men had a great and wild profusion of facial hair. Some were bald. But nearly everyone was smiling. One person I'm not sure about; his mouth was buried in his beard.

The last square of the night got me very dizzy again. It used the same "Ladies in the centre" call that had threatened my balance earlier in the evening. But it also incorporated a more complex motion where one couple split a second, made an arch with their arms over the guy, went slightly over to the right and, walking backwards, made an arch over the lady. It was called Peekaboo something or other. So after being spun like crazy, you were actually required to recover yourself enough to make or go under arches without smacking anyone in the head. This square was, understandably, the most chaotic of the evening. And the most fun, in my opinion.

After the hectic square was complete, the square dance finished with a waltz. My partner initially said, "I'm not going to show you what to do" when it became obvious I didn't know. But he quickly conceded a bit under the looming threat of me stepping on his feet (or worse). He counted the steps for me and pointed out how the dancers were meant to progress around the room in a large circle. I managed to catch hold of it by the end of the song. My satisfaction in this was short-lived, because I then erroneously referred to the Minneapolis Eagles club as a VFW. He then explained the difference between that and a community centre, adding in a slightly embarrassed fashion that noting the distinction was "an old man thing."

I think the excessive spinning jarred something in me and helped to reawaken my hibernating adventurous side. It was the first time since coming home that I'd entered into a situation where I didn't know what I was doing and didn't know many/any of the people who were interacting with me. I'm glad I made the attempt. And I'm glad Erinn goaded me into it. I'd gone so far as to send her a lame backing-out email on the day of the dance. A few hours later she sent me a text enquiring as to whether I'd changed my mind about dancing in squares. In fact, I did. And I've no regrets. Where's the daring in sitting home?

Morning Bus Freakout

2008-02-03T21:37:00.000Z

When I am not borrowing my friends' Subaru while they are on holiday in Hawaii, I ride the bus to work. Or, to substitute Raf's name for it, I ride the Rolling Box of Despair to work. Usually the Rolling Box of Despair from Maple Grove into Minneapolis isn't all that desperate. People tend to keep to themselves, reading the paper or chatting at a normal voice level to a friend. But one day last week, the typical atmosphere of calm was shattered.

The last stop on the route I normally take is a park and ride lot. The bus had waited for several minutes at the stop and was on its way out of the lot when a couple of straggling cars pulled in. "Stop!" several passengers cried. "There are people coming!" The driver didn't appear to be stopping immediately, so one particularly passionate rider yelled, "STOP! There are people coming! This is a service!"

The bus driver eventually halted the bus. While we were waiting for the late people to park their cars and walk over, he turned on his microphone and admonished, "Chill out. I don't slam on the brakes on the ice."
"You don't stop!" the irate passenger countered. "There have been several occasions where you haven't stopped."
"Sir, if you don't quiet down, I'm going to call the cops," the driver threatened.
"Ooooh, I'm shaking!"
"Sir, if you have a problem, call customer service..." the bus driver began.
"I DID!" interrupted the aggrieved rider.
"...call customer service, but don't create a negative experience for everyone else on the bus," the driver continued, seemingly unfazed.
"I think the negative experience is with you!" the rider exclaimed, his voice modulating to a higher pitch.
"Sir, like I said, if you don't stop, I'm going to call the cops."
The rider made some incomprehensible quip.
"Not another word..." the driver growled in a warning tone.

Not another word was heard. We made it downtown without any further emotional outbursts or incidents. But I was still really grateful to drive the Subaru in the next day.

The Bruise

2008-02-03T04:18:00.000Z

I have a big bruise on my hip. It has turned a very vivid shade of purple and is shaped like a duck. It reminds me of falling off my bike last year. And falling off a tree this summer. And dancing with an elderly gentleman in Excelsior last Saturday. That was the cause of this most recent contusion. At the beginning of the night, Jackie and I met for comfort UK/Irish food at Jake O'Connor's pub in the beautiful and historic County Hennepin. Upon discovering that the pints there were a little dear, we decided to take advantage of the much cheaper local taps in a nearby townie bar.

We had settled into a booth and were chatting over the rather wretched cover band when a man approached us. He appeared to be about 50 and attempted to chat us up by asking, "Do you have any gum?" Both of us claimed to have eaten our last pieces earlier that day (an excuse that was true on my part; I'm not sure about Jackie). We suggested that he try asking some of the couples seated at other booths. They were far more likely than we to be in possession of such tools of personal hygiene enhancement, since Jackie and I have reached the point in our relationship where we no longer feel the need to impress each other.

The man's disappearance from our booth was brief. He succeeded in sourcing breath mints at a different table, and he took enough from the generous donor to allow him to bring some back to us. He then swept Jackie out onto the dance floor. After their song was over, he came back for me. We danced to a Rolling Stones cover. Between leading me in incessant spins, he morphed into Keith Richards (he was about the right age) and fit in some impressive air guitar work.

I rejoined Jackie at our booth, but we didn't stay long. The guy came back, bought us drinks, and took us out to dance floor again. When Keith was occupied with Jackie, a younger guy complying with the dress code of a t-shirt and backwards baseball cap captured me for a dance. He soon tired of trying to win me over with this gentlemanly display of culture and decided to revert to a more failsafe method: alcohol. He repeatedly asked me what kind of shot I wanted, despite my unchanging answer that I didn't want one because I was driving. I even resorted to steering an imaginary wheel to help illustrate my complex answer. Finally it either sank in or he became frustrated. In any event, he went back to the bar.

Eventually Jackie and I took leave of the dance floor, Keith and Bayside. Without consulting each other, we had both turned up dressed in brown shirts and cowboy boots. While we both shared the blame for committing this egregious fashion faux pas, I ultimately suffered more than than she. The lack of traction in the soles of my boots left me suddenly sprawled on the ice outside the door of the bar. During previous mishaps on ice, I've been able to tell that I was slipping and that a fall was both imminent and inevitable. This spill, however, was completely unexpected. I just suddenly found myself on the ground. "Are you OK?" Jackie asked (while trying to suppress laughter, I discovered later). I said that I was, but I wasn't entirely sure. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

In the end, I was OK. Despite the pain that indicated I should have a massive bruise, it was a few days before one actually appeared. It was worth the wait. In addition to proof that my injury was as grave as I imagined, I now have a nice memento of my first townie bar experience.

Trailer Temp

2008-01-29T21:19:00.000Z

In order to finance my exploration of the Twin Cities music scene, I've taken up more or less gainful employment with a temp agency. While I was originally looking and hoping for a job in advertising, I tried to stay positive about the situation. I decided that I would be like Ryan the Temp on The Office. I would be sent to a slightly bizarre and dysfunctional office, meet some interesting people, and create a stock of writing material that would last for years.

After exhausting me with math, spelling, filing, typing and computer software exams, the temp agency called back the same afternoon to offer me an assignment. I arrived at the Minnesota Green Expo at half 6 the next morning, bleary-eyed and dressed in my former Olive Garden uniform. My duties involved typing information into a Word document, printing name tags, affixing star or dot stickers to them when necessary, stuffing them into a plastic clip-on protector, and finally handing them to the registrants. Far from being the long, excruciating day I'd anticipated, the time flew by. The queues were huge, and we were kept quite busy.

Fortunately, my stint at the Green Expo was only three days. The work was perfectly acceptable, but I am desperately trying not to re-acquire the elongated vowels of my former Minnesota accent. The Green Expo, attended by a large number of outstate landscapers and nurserers, was definitely not the place for my mimic's ear if I wanted to continue to stave it off successfully. The proliferation of general ohhhhhh's and aaaaaaae's, and especially someone's comment about a "bohhh-t," demonstrated to me that there is at least a little truth in the stereotypical accent portrayed in Fargo.

The assignment I began the following week seemed to be an immediate improvement, if only because I would be starting at 8 instead of 6.30. I successfully navigated the buses and arrived at the building early. When I walked inside, eager to escape the cold, I found a slightly less frigid entryway that smelled of of canned fruit that had just gone off. After finding the doors to the main office locked, I happened upon a different office under the stairs. The receptionist buzzed me in, and we chatted for a bit. She informed me that the company was a potato processing plant. While that was interesting, the sentence from the conversation that really stands out in my mind is, "Did you know you'll be working out in a trailer?"

So I spent the last two weeks working in a trailer at a potato factory.

As you might imagine, it turned out to be rather entertaining. The job itself required fairly low brain-wattage: alphabetising, hole-punching, filing, filling out forms, stapling, entering data. But I liked my fellow HR trailer occupants. At regular intervals I would take a break from my clerical tasks and cover the receptionist while she went on breaks. The route to her office under the stairs took me through the maintenance area of the plant, where I was always greeted by the smell of potatoes. But not just normal potatoes. Potatoes that had been trodden upon and left on the ground to soak up some indeterminate liquid and spoil. I'm not sure what brought this image to my mind (perhaps the constantly wet door handle), but it seems to be the only sufficient way to describe the smell.

Generally not much was required of me when I was covering reception. Between phone calls, I usually had plenty of time to read or examine the numerous paper cuts I'd acquired. But that's not to say that strange things never happened. On one occasion, a man appeared outside the glass windows of the office and shouted that he needed a favour. Probably against my better judgment, I buzzed him in. He pointed out a dump truck near a line of semis and asked me if he could park it there overnight. Apparently the brakes had gone out and a mechanic wouldn't be available to service it until the next morning. His dump truck was not affiliated with the company in any way, so I called the plant manager to see if that was OK. He flatly refused, I relayed the information to the suddenly belligerent driver, and he stalked out.

During my second week on the assignment, I went on a tour of the plant. I felt a little guilty for going with the plant manager instead of the safety guy who had repeatedly offered me a private tour, but it was fascinating nonetheless. I was outfitted in a white coat, boots, a hairnet, a hard hat and earplugs. It was as though I was participating in one of the segments on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood where they toured factories and taught the audience how things were made. Recalling it now, I can remember Mr. Rogers' exploration of a crayon factory down to a disconcerting level of detail. I'm not exactly sure if this is because I was really interested in crayons (I was) or had a previously unrevealed affinity for factories (apparently). Regardless, I was happy to discover that the odor coming from the plant itself was far more pleasing than that I regularly encountered in the maintenance room.

Despite my initial incredulity, I grew a little fond of the potato plant over the weeks. It was my last day there on Friday. And while leaving has not made me sad to the degree that I'm going to visit the grocery store and press my face against the freezers where they store our hash browns, I have to admit I enjoyed my time there. Maybe I already found my Dunder Mifflin.

The Twin Cities Music/Crazy Scene

2008-01-27T23:38:00.000Z

My initial endeavors in re-exploring the Twin Cities have centred around the local music scene. I've already been to several concerts, which I've quite enjoyed. But while most of the bands have been entertaining, their performances pale in comparison with those given by some of the audience members.

Big V's in St. Paul had its share of interesting characters lurking among the stuffed gorilla decor. I went with Jackie to see her friend's band, Guerrilla Blue, play. We were leaning against a sort of counter and chatting when we noticed a short older woman who kept nodding knowingly at us. Occasionally she'd gesture or laugh as if she were trying to work her way into our conversation. When that failed, she took to waving at the captive audio tech manning a tiny sound board next to us.

Another unusual concert-goer made an appearance toward the end of Guerrilla Blue's set. With beer bottle in hand, he strode purposefully up to the edge of the stage. He then leaned over and put his ear directly up to the monitor sitting on the stage in front of the lead singer. This could hardly escape the attention of the singer, and he quipped, "Loud enough for you?" before the group launched into their last song.

As we were leaving, Jackie and I encountered one last member of the strange contingent. A man at the bar made the OK symbol at something when he saw us. I assumed he was making it at me, but he wasn't actually looking at me. He appeared to be focusing on something over my shoulder, so I turned around to see what was capturing his attention. Nothing. When I turned back he made the sign again, keeping his eyes trained on the same imaginary object in the distance. "What?" I asked. Then I noticed the woman who'd tried to cultivate us earlier standing nearby. I took that as an indication that he was her partner in crazy.

The Varsity has also proven to be a venue rich with in-audience entertainment. The first show I attended there after coming home was Mel Gibson and the Pants/Dance Band. Before that show even began, a person standing in front of us began to strip off his clothing. At first it seemed as though he was removing a layer because he was too warm. Then he started pulling off his pants. The outfit revealed when he'd finished peeling away layer after outer layer was a white wife-beater tank paired with orange, floral patterned swim trunks. Granted, the outfit seemed less strange when Dance Band appeared on stage in costume. But none of the Dance Band members stripped, so that bit still lacks justification in my mind.

The most interesting audience member I've had the pleasure to observe attended the Varsity show of a different costumed performer. Inara George, the lead singer of the Bird and the Bee, took the stage dressed in a polka dot dress seemingly sewn out of a pair of bedsheets I used to own. She'd accessorised with frilly bloomers, white tights, white Mary Janes, a white headband, and white gloves with the fingers cut off. The audience member had (knowingly?) borrowed an element from George's stage dress and was sporting red gloves with the fingers cut off. He completed the colour scheme with a red Harry Potter t-shirt and hair dyed a matching shade. He first attracted my attention with the video of the band he was capturing on his digital camera. To increase the artistic merit of his impromptu production, he had taken to rotating his arms and the camera in slow, circular pan/tilt combinations.

When he took a break from his filming, I discovered that he would likely use the recording as a reference for choreographing dance routines later. In addition to accomplishing some slightly spastic upper body swaying, he would occasionally break into highly polished moves that had clearly been painstakingly rehearsed before a mirror. The most stunning example of this was the step he executed each time he heard the lyric "Don't take my picture." He created an imaginary viewfinder with his fingers and jerkily rotated his elbows around as if composing the shot. This culminated with him creating a shutter click by rapidly closing his finger square.

His dance moves weren't the only thing he'd prepared in advance for the concert. The chorus of a song the group performed goes "Again and again and again and again/Do it again, do it again/Again and again." After the song was over, he waited for an acceptable level of silence to emerge as the applause died down. Finally a moment arrived that he felt would sufficiently showcase his cleverness. He seized it and yelled, "Do it again!" clearly chuffed at his wit (prefabricated though it was).

One woman near us seemed oblivious to this extraordinary personage. She was kept busy with a completely different occupation. The person I'd gone to the concert with was was standing over his jacket, which he'd laid on the ground. Inexplicably, the woman came over to us, reached down and felt Joe's jacket. Then she reached up and felt Joe's leg. He looked a little shocked at this minor molestation, and I burst out laughing. She heard me and looked over. Then she turned her palms up and shrugged her shoulders in a classic "Oh well, what can you do?" gesture, which I returned.

What can you do, really, besides attempt to enjoy the crazy as well as the concert.

Backtracking Holiday

2007-12-21T21:55:00.000Z

As I neared the end of my expat adventure, I began to contemplate the return portion of the return Dublin to London ticket I'd already purchased. I decided not to use it. Instead I chose to wander my way back to London with my friend Jimmy. In just under three days, we took a train to Cork, a bus to Rosslare, a ferry to Wales, a train to Cardiff and a train to London. Considering all those transport links, the holiday went surprisingly smoothly. In fact, and perhaps because of this, much of the trip was disappointingly unremarkable. The closest thing to a mishap we experienced, and thus the most interesting bit, was our arrival in Rosslare.

Jimmy and I were spending the night there in anticipation of taking a ferry to Wales the next morning. The only address we could find for the B&B where we were staying was the very helpfully specific "Rosslare Harbour," but it appeared on Google maps to be remarkably close to the Europort. We'd decided to disembark there and walk up to the B&B. Suddenly we noticed a brown, clover-adorned sign pointing toward the Clifford House just as the bus pulled away from a different stop. As it was too late to get off there, we just rode down to the Europort stop as originally planned. How much further could it be?

The bus pulled into the Europort harbour, travelling a surprising distance from the point where we should have left the bus. "I wish it weren't driving so far in," Jimmy commented. I had to agree. We were supposed to check in to the B&B at 9 PM, and we had little chance of making it at that time. I'd rung the owner from the bus to tell her that we'd be 10 or 15 minutes late, and we both figured we'd easily be able to make that time. We're fast walkers.

Our driver wasn't so confident. We were the last two passengers on the bus, and he'd to come down to help me open the hatch on the side of the vehicle so I could retrieve my luggage. We chatted to him for a bit, and he asked us where we were staying. We told him, and he stood mulling it over. "Clifford House, Clifford House...I don't know it." He gave us general directions as to how to reach the area where most of Rosslare's B&Bs are situated. He apparently had very little faith in our ability to navigate, because he suggested, "There's a boat leaving tonight. You should probably just take that. You'll have to cancel the Clifford House." He looked at us regretfully and then boarded the bus.

Jimmy and I decided that was rubbish and went to find the B&B despite his counsel. We located and climbed up the lengthy set of stairs he'd described as part of our route to Rosslare's B&B enclave, then turned right as he'd directed. After walking past an ubiquitous chain hotel, we encountered a construction site and a torn-up sidewalk. We were not prepared for, nor enthusiastic about, fording a mud puddle, so we turned back the other direction. Directly we came upon and walked down a short gravel path, finding a paved road lined with B&Bs at its end.

We followed it, carefully searching for our accommodation. Eventually we arrived back at the intersection where we'd seen the sign for the Clifford House from the bus. It, of course, pointed accusingly in the direction from which we'd just come. We duly turned around and trekked back up the road, redoubling our efforts in scouring the signs along its sides. We failed and came once again upon a fast food restaurant we'd encountered at the outset of our journey. We went in to enquire if they could help us. Fortunately they were able to direct our poor, misguided selves a few metres beyond the gravel path from which we'd begun and from which we'd elected to turn the wrong direction.

Given this guidance, we finally found the Clifford House. We picked our way down the slightly dark gravel driveway and walked directly through a pair of glass doors. There was no-one about, and it felt very seriously as if we'd just broken into someone's private home. We'd poked our heads into a dining room, a sitting room, and a kitchen before one of the owners found us skulking about. "Oh," she said by way of explanation, "I didn't hear the doorbell." We hadn't seen, nor had we rung, the doorbell, and I'm certain she was perfectly aware of this. However, she was perfectly lovely and polite as she showed us to our room and directed us to a pub where we could still find food service at that time of night. She then left us with the key, which was attached to an enormous, lacquered cross-section of a tree branch, and headed out.

Jimmy and I slowly threaded our way up the now completely dark gravel drive and successfully navigated our way to the pub. To my delight, I discovered that SKY TV was airing a highlights reel of sorts from the Liverpool v Bolton match I'd missed the day before. I managed to avoid devoting all of my attention to the telly, and Jimmy and I launched into a discussion about our respective states (he is also an American expat). Suddenly he interjected, "I hate to say it because I'll probably jinx it, but I really like Rosslare!" I completely agreed. It probably had something to do with our only staying there for 12 hours, but Rosslare had exceeded all the expectations we hadn't dared to hold.

The only other incident particularly worth noting happened on the train from Cardiff to London. The service was slightly late in arriving at the platform, and the train manager soon made an overhead announcement explaining why in exacting detail. They had reached Swansea 45 minutes late after being held up on the English side of a specific tunnel by a broken-down train within the tunnel. They had to wait for that train to be removed before they could continue with their journey. But, they had managed to reduce their tardiness down to a mere 10 minutes by the time they reached Cardiff.

This is, I think, typical of UK public transport announcements. In the US, it would be sufficient to blame "technical difficulties." But in the UK, that is just not informative enough. I remember being taken aback the first time I heard a Tube announcement proclaiming that, "Due to a person under a train, there are severe delays on the _____ line." What?!? Are they OK?!? That was always slightly unsettling, but I encountered a far more morbid explanation when I once attempted to change to the Victoria Line. A Transport for London employee was working his way down the stairs from the platform, turning the crowd away as he went. "The Victoria Line's closed," he announced. "Why?" one of the more belligerent crowd members demanded. "Because someone just died on the platform." Oh.

Jimmy and I enjoyed several more entertaining announcements from the train manager throughout our journey back to London. Just before the train reached its final destination at Paddington station, he remarked, "We've had a good run" before launching once again into a full description of what had transpired earlier in the journey. That was one of the last announcements I heard before I repatriated. How apropos a summary it was.

Repatriating

2007-12-18T04:43:00.000Z

My overseas adventure met its untimely end a few weeks ago. I slowly wound my way back to the US via Cork, Rosslare, Fishguard, Cardiff, London and Toronto, finally touching down in Minneapolis on 5 December. Now instead of being an expat, I'm a repat. This is the second time I've needed to switch the prefix of my label, and the experience is uniquely bewildering. But I'm finding it quite amusing as well, so I'll to try to describe it as best I can.

One source of bewilderment is the strange temporal shift that occurred when I arrived back home. Suddenly the period I spent away compressed so completely that it's impossible to believe I was gone for 10 months. And the time occupied by my adventures is capable of stretching and collapsing depending on how and where I think about it. When I was thinking about Minnesota before I left Ireland, I felt as though I'd been away forever. Recalling or recounting specific incidents also makes the time expand to forever proportions. But taken overall, and compared to the fairly constant continuity of home, my time abroad seems incomprehensibly brief. So brief that it's almost like I never left.

And yet the familiar also seems so alien. Streets that I used to be able to navigate automatically suddenly require a thorough scouring of my mental map. And that mental map now has blank spots. Both metaphorically, in not being able to remember how streets connect, and literally, in the case of the 35W bridge. Then once I've figured out where I'm going, I'm sometimes thrown off by my fellow vehicles and the direction in which they're moving. Single-decker buses drive with SUVs, trucks and vans that have increased wildly in size since I left (at least compared to the smart cars I'm accustomed to seeing). At stop signs, I find that I look right first, then glance left to find cars that I didn't think were there suddenly approaching from a different direction than I expected.

Everyday procedures, objects and surroundings can also be confounding. I'll have the correct change for a purchase counted out and waiting when I reach the cash register only to find that I've forgotten about sales tax and the price is actually higher than listed. There are dollar bills instead of pound/Euro coins. I need to flip light switches instead of pressing them. The accents, phrases, mild profanities and intonation of the people surrounding me are completely different than I've become accustomed to. They stand out to my brogue-acclimated ears in a way they never did when I used to live here. And rather than feeling at home in the place where I supposedly belong, I feel lost. Adrift. Alienated. I will never truly belong here again.

While this can be a bit disconcerting at times, it is also a source of pride for me. I like it when people remark on my trace of an accent, when they laugh at and correct my strange British/Irish idioms. It may seem stubborn, but I am going to keep using those idioms, and their British English spellings. Because I want so badly to retain something, some sort of evidence of an immensely meaningful part of my life. My warped sense of time already seems to have robbed it of part of its significance, and I don't want to lose any more. In a particularly desperate attempt at preservation, I've even caught myself exaggerating the bit of an Irish accent that I managed to pick up. I drop more h's when I tink certain tings tan I ever did before.

Clearly, there is a large degree of reentry shock to be dealt with. But I also take pleasure in rediscovering the luxuries I've grown accustomed to living without. While much around me may have taken on an unfamiliar familiarity, my bed will always be irrevocably mine. And it's perfect. At least compared to my London mattress, which had a deep trench in its middle, and my Dublin mattress, which featured springs that had lazily uncoiled and were given to poking me relentlessly. I've also found American water pressure amazing. It blasts shampoo out of hair rather than tentatively trickling it out. Sink faucets, too, are shining examples of ingenuity. Hot and cold water coexist in one faucet. No scalding my hands under one faucet and having to turn it off and ice the burn under the cold tap at the opposite corner of the sink.

While I'm gradually becoming more used to being home, it will take a while to re-acclimate to Minnesota and its ghastly winter climate. I don't think I ever will completely. I'll always be a repat to some extent. But I'm pleased with that. I've found that it's easier to create interesting adventures with an expat/repat/outsider mentality. I'm going to retain that, explore the Twin Cities as if I've never seen them before and wring everything I can from them. Because that's what I mean by repatriating.

A Very Dear Tin of Ham

2007-11-20T16:41:00.000Z

I came home on Thursday to find a very sad-looking pile of groceries on the counter in the kitchen. There was a loaf of bread, some spaghetti, a frozen enchilada dinner and two tins of chopped ham. The Marks & Spencer receipt next to the food showed that the total for all of it was less than €5, and it had been paid for with a gift certificate. I marvelled at the quantity of (admittedly not entirely appealing) food one could buy for so little money and then sat down to eat my own food.

One of my flatmates came into the kitchen just then and went over to the pile on the counter. He picked up one of the tins of chopped ham and attempted to open it. The pin that he tried to use to peel back the lid came off in his hand, and he had a small meltdown. "The pin came off my pudding" he exclaimed. He clicked his tongue in exasperation, then continued his tirade: "For f***'s sake! That was dear enough! It's from Marks & Spencer!" I had to try really hard at this point not to laugh. For one thing, all of his food had cost less than €5. The enchilada meal would have been most expensive by far, so the tinned ham couldn't have cost more than 70 or 80 cents. Plus, he hadn't even used his own money. He gets the M&S gift certificates from his work when he has to go in on Saturdays. This is in addition to being paid time-and-a-half or double time.

After the pin mechanism failed, he decided to try to open the container with a tin opener. Unfortunately for him (and the rest of us), he lost the tin opener. He also apparently forgot that he lost the tin opener and launched into a desperate, rummaging search of the kitchen drawers. He finally gave up and asked, "Do you think I can open this with a knife?" He managed to stab a small opening in the top of the tin without drawing blood, then commented on the disgusting smell that wafted from it. It's chopped ham, so I'm not exactly sure what he'd expected. In any event, all of this became too overwhelming for him and he aggressively chucked the tin into the bin. As a backup, he decided to eat the frozen enchilada. "How do you cook this, then? Oven? You can't microwave it, can you? Oh, for f***'s sake! 20-25 minutes!"

The story grew even funnier a few days later. My expat friends came over to my flat on Sunday for a take-away curry. I'd told them about the tin episode earlier, and they'd both found it hilarious. After we finished eating, one of them went to put her leftovers in the fridge until she went home. She found the second tin of ham inside and took it out to inspect it. We discovered then that the pin is supposed to come off. There's a slot on the side of the tin where you put the pin and then turn it to peel back the lid. This is very, very obvious if you spend any time looking at the packaging. I could see it from across the table.

We were all in hysterics about how my flatmate had gotten so angry over nothing. Then, right on cue, he came home. One of my friends had to leave the room after meeting him because she couldn't keep from laughing. I kept snickering periodically, hopefully at appropriate times to make it sound like I was laughing in response to whatever he and my other friend were saying. Luckily she was able to keep herself pulled together.

I continued to laugh every time I thought about this yesterday, which was the perfect antidote to walking to work in the dreary, rainy and windy Irish winter weather. It turns out that tin has become dear in a way my flatmate never would have imagined.

The Long and Winding Road to Anfield, Part 3: The Cab

2007-11-15T10:50:00.000Z

The match itself flew by so quickly that I'm left with precious few impressions of it. One moment that does stand out in my mind is when the stands stood to sing the team's anthem, "You'll Never Walk Alone," before the match began. That was amazing in a way I can't describe, but from there the event is a blur. There was much standing in anticipation as Liverpool advanced on the goal, followed by a collective groan of despair when they failed to score. Chants, curse words and shouts of encouragement resounded from all corners of the stands.
"Come on, Crouchie!"
"Go on, lads!"
"That was shite, Stevie! Do something with the ball!"

The first half ended with a nil-nil score, and the second half continued in much the same fashion. As the 80th minute approached, I started debating whether or not I should leave. I was resigned to abandoning the stands before the match was entirely over, but I wasn't sure how soon I would need to go in order to beat the crowd and find a cab. The thought of leaving that early after working so hard to find my ticket struck me as unbearable, so I chose to linger a little longer.

I was quite pleased with that decision when Torres scored the first goal of the match in the 81st minute. All of Anfield exploded. Those who hadn't done already jumped to their feet to celebrate. The noise of cheering, clapping and shouting was unbelievable and continued for ages. The exuberant crowd had just begun to settle down and take their seats when Crouch was fouled. Stevie G stood before the Fulham goal planning his penalty shot, and a tense hush fell over the stadium. After a few excruciatingly prolonged seconds, the crowed roared again as the ball sailed safely into the net past the Fulham keeper.

Once that celebration ended, it seemed to be the perfect time for me to make my exit. Now that the excitement of the match was over, the full anxiety and urgency of reaching the airport on time hit me. I thundered down the stairs to street level and literally ran from Anfield Road back around to the KOP end. I trotted after a few other people on the main road who were equally eager to clear the grounds before the deluge of Reds fans choked the streets. I scanned my surroundings for a cab constantly. This was difficult because the streetlamps caused all the passing cars to reflect a yellow light that looked frustratingly like the one on the top of available taxis. Unfortunately no actual cabs were anywhere in sight, and I was soon joined on the street by the emptying stadium.

I really had no idea where I was going, so turned and went against the crowd back toward the grounds. I found a policeman on the street, told him I couldn't find a cab and asked if there were any buses that went to the airport. He directed me toward the city centre (where the mob was headed), saying I'd be able to find one there. I wasn't too concerned yet because I still had more than two hours before my flight was due to leave. Plus I was making better time on foot than the cars alongside me. By now it had started to rain. I walked with the ever-thinning crowd for ages without seeing anything that resembled the city centre. Doubting myself, I asked some men walking near me if I was going the right way. They pointed out a stop where I'd be able to catch a bus to the city centre.

I walked to the stop they'd indicated, keeping a sharp lookout for cabs as I went. None passed except for those that were already carrying passengers. My initial impulse upon reaching the bus shelter was to stand under it and out of the rain. The uncertainty that I was actually waiting in the right place soon drove me outside again, and I went to check the route information posted on a nearby pole. As I was poring over it, I saw a cab draw up to the kerb just a few feet from me. I trained an attentive stare on it, and rushed over when I saw its passenger stepping out. No sooner had he cleared the open door than I poked my head in, asking the driver if he could take me to the airport.

I'm certain he thought I was a bit daft. I told him I wanted to make sure I had enough money for the fare first, adding, "I only have £40" (bear in mind a cab from London city centre to the airport costs £50). "Ach, you'll be fine, luv," he snorted. Gleefully, I slammed the door and settled back for the ride. The post-match coverage he'd tuned in on the radio confirmed that I hadn't missed anything after the 86th minute. Liverpool had won 2-0. The driver tried to avoid some of the traffic by taking a few back streets. This made me feel a bit unsettled because I was locked in a car with somebody I didn't know in an unfamiliar city. How do I know we're actually going to the airport? It didn't help that the roads we travelled were paved with mountainous speed bumps. We lurched over them, sending my stomach lurching as well.

I felt better once we'd returned to the main roads. The signs that appeared reassured me that we were, in fact, en route to the airport. I arrived at John Lennon with a mere £20 fare and more than an hour before the check-in desk closed. I killed my excess time and British mobile credit by calling friends and family and enthusing about my day. I really miss having a mobile plan that allows me to call the US for 5p a minute, so I took full advantage of having it back temporarily.

Somehow I misread the boarding gate screen and nearly missed my flight anyhow. But my luck continued to hold out. I made last call and stepped onto a plane full of people dressed in Liverpool kit. Aside from some stupendously drunk English girls begging the flight attendants for alcohol, the flight was short and uneventful. Back at the Dublin airport, I watched with envy as all the people with EU passports flashed them at the customs officers, barely breaking stride as they passed. I was left waiting in the queue for the "All other passports" desk. It wasn't long at that time of the night, and I soon found myself before the officer.

"Are you living here?" he asked when I slid my passport through the opening in the plexiglass. I flipped to the page that bore my work authorisation stamp and told him I also had my (huge 8.5" x 11" laminated) visa if he needed that. He didn't wish to see it, and instead asked, "Where are you coming from?"
"Liverpool," I responded, unconsciously drawing out the ending so it sounded a bit like "Liverpewl."
"Shopping?" he asked.
"No," I answered rather indignantly. "I was at the match."
"What do you know about the match," he snickered. What an ignorant arse. I was tempted to tell him off, but thought better of it. Though I'm still not entirely fond of this country, I'd rather not be ejected from it before my visa expires.

I consider my journey to Anfield quite successful. The extent to which I enjoyed the match experience more than outweighed the initial strife of finding a ticket. True to the team's anthem, I discovered that you'll never walk alone if you have hope in your heart...and an LFC steward who fancies you.

The Long and Winding Road to Anfield, Part 2: Sorted

2007-11-14T12:10:00.000Z

When the long-anticipated match day finally arrived, I felt some trepidation about going to Liverpool. I knew I was likely to find myself so close but yet so far, at Anfield but without a ticket. Anticipating this possible disappointment made me reluctant to go all the way to Liverpool only to experience it. But I'd already booked my train and flight, so I had no choice but to try my luck.

I arrived at Anfield by noon and went straight to the ticket office to see if there had been any returns. I found a man wearing a bright orange reflective jacket near the sales windows and queried him about a ticket. He chuckled and shook his head. "I'd suggest you snuggle up with a pint and watch it on the telly. Sorry luv." With the legitimate option gone, I went back outside the grounds to see if any ticket touts were offering reasonable prices. They weren't; one asked for £100 and one wanted £80. After turning them both down, I realised that I didn't have any cash with which to pay them even if I'd wanted to.

I set off to find an ATM, which proved rather difficult. I didn't think to check at the newsagent shops right over the road and instead went looking for a hole-in-the-wall or bank. I plodded down a steep hill, lugging everything I'd packed for my four-day trip in my messenger bag. After searching for 20 or 25 minutes, I finally found a gas station that offered a cash machine. I was tempted to boycott it on the grounds of the fee it charged, but my options were slim. I took out some money and lugged myself and my bag back up the hill. This is not going well at all, I thought.

Things appeared to have grown even worse by the time I returned to the grounds. The few people selling extra tickets had been replaced by people wanting to buy tickets. Not knowing what else to do, I went to the official shop in an attempt to kill some of the four hours that remained before kick-off (and to buy some Liverpool kit, of course). When I was finished there, I went to check the tout situation on the Anfield Road side of the stadium. Nobody. Probably out of sheer desperation, I decided to make a last-ditch effort at the ticket office. Maybe someone had returned a ticket while I'd been away. Maybe it would make a difference if I specifically asked about single tickets.

I was waiting in the queue at one of the ticket windows when an LFC steward singled me out and approached me. "Are you looking for a ticket?" he asked. When I confirmed that I was, he also told me that the match was sold out. "Even singles?" I asked, most likely with a tinge of despair in my voice. "Yes," he said, "but if you wait here by this railing, sometimes people come up to us trying to get rid of a single because someone couldn't make it. All they want is face value, and at least then you know it's a real ticket. Just stand right there, and if anyone comes up to me I'll send them over to you."

That sounded like the only viable option still available to me, so I stood where he'd asked. I wasn't quite far enough inside the fence, though, so he came back and told me to move. "I just don't want a tout to see you," he explained. We chatted for a bit, and he asked me if I'd had anything to eat. When I said I hadn't, he told me, "There's a cafe just across the street. Go get yourself something to eat and a cup of tea. If anyone comes to me with a ticket, I'll bring them over to you."

I was duly hungry and happy enough to do as he suggested. I devoured a cheap-as-chips English breakfast, even eating about half of the black (AKA blood) pudding. Just as I was heading toward the door, my steward came in and motioned for me to follow him. He told me that a guy had come up to him with a single ticket, and he'd told him about me. Supposedly he'd gone to the toilet, so we went back to the grounds to meet him when he returned.

My steward and I chatted outside the box office, waiting for my contact to show up. After a while we had to move over to the door of the shop so my steward could fulfill his duties minding the queue. By this time, the shop was absolutely mad. When I'd gone there, it had been busy but not unduly packed. Now the line extended from the door of the shop to the gates of the grounds and beyond. My steward (who introduced himself then as Tony) was tasked with counting the number of people who entered the shop and stopping the queue when it reached capacity. While we were standing there, Tony asked me about the boyfriend I don't have. Oh, I thought, so that's why you're trying so hard to find me a ticket. If I were a bloke, there's no way you'd be doing this for me. I definitely should have sussed that one out sooner, but I'm dumb about things like that most of the time.

Tony kept an eye out for the man with my ticket while we chatted, but he never arrived. When it became evident he wasn't coming back, Tony found someone to cover the queue for him and took me back to the box office. He introduced me to the head steward, who he said would almost certainly be able to sort something out for me before kick-off. I stood waiting in my original spot by the fence for that eventuality. The wind had picked up considerably, so I was happy to be carrying an excess of clothing. I pulled on a jumper and my new red and white LFC scarf. I still had two hours to go before the match began, so I was confident that Tony or the head steward would work something out.

Tony came back over on other business and asked me whether I'd found a ticket. "Not yet," I answered. "If you get sorted," he said, "come find us. We'll be right over there." As he left to go back to the queue, I saw him pointing me out to a third steward. I stood there looking as cold and miserable as possible, trying to engender some sympathy (I didn't have to try too hard; it was bloody cold and miserable). The latest steward to whom Tony had pointed me out came over after a bit. "I'm looking for a ticket for you. You must be cold," he observed. "You should go stand over there by the door so you're out of the wind." The head steward saw me starting to move in that direction and called, "Oh, don't leave yet, luv!" The third steward and I explained where I was going. I took shelter near the designated door, thrilled because I now knew for certain that they'd sort me out eventually.

I happened to be standing right next to a refreshment stand, so I bought some hot chocolate to help me ward off the cold (the doorway wasn't that much warmer). I scalded my tongue and the back of my throat on the initial sip, so I took the lid off to make it cool faster. I was standing there debating whether or not it was too soon to take a second sip when the head steward found me. "Come with me," he said. "I've got you sorted." I eagerly followed him, spilling my hot chocolate all over my hands on the way. This seemed to amuse the third steward quite a bit, but I can't say I blame him.

I went through a doorway and stood in a stairwell behind the ticket office with the head steward. He asked me if I had £34 (the face value of the ticket). I did, but I had to make him find me a napkin before I could hand it to him. Once that small dilemma was rectified, he went into the box office and emerged with my shiny ticket. I couldn't believe my luck and thanked him profusely.

I still had about an hour before kick-off, so I went to tell Tony I'd been sorted. He said he was now trying to sort my cab. Earlier we'd discussed the logistics of making it to the airport in time. It was going to be tricky; the match wouldn't end until about 7.00 and I was due to fly out of John Lennon at 9.30 that night. A cab seemed to be the only option, and Tony had warned me that the fare might be quite dear. I now told him not to worry; they'd already done enough by finding a ticket for me. "Well, do you want to pay £30 or £40?" he countered. He said to come find him in the main stand after the match and he'd try to sort me. I explained that I'd most likely have to leave early, so I wouldn't be able to take him up on his offer.

After we'd chatted for a while longer, Tony again found someone to cover his post for him and walked me to my seat in the Anfield Road stand. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes," he told one of his fellow stewards. "I'm just going to show her where her seat is." "See you in a couple of minutes," the second steward replied with a warning, you'd-better-be-back-soon edge to his voice. Tony picked up on this and laughed. "Ahhh, I'll see you later tonight," he said, waving him off dismissively. Then he returned to business and mumbled, "Nah, I'll see you in a few minutes." He brought me up to my seat, said goodbye and then left me to enjoy the match.

The brilliant help I received that day definitely helped to make up for the slightly lacklustre assistance I'd experienced previously. I had arrived in Liverpool wishing that I already had a ticket, but that wouldn't have been nearly as fun as being adopted by Tony and the rest of the LFC stewards. And having to pursue a ticket made finally finding one all the more rewarding. I was completely thrilled with my Anfield experience already, and the match hadn't even begun.

The Long and Winding Road to Anfield: Part 1

2007-11-13T16:17:00.000Z

I probably expended more effort in finding a ticket to this past weekend's Liverpool v Fulham match than was rational. But I've been a Liverpool supporter for about six months now, and there's no guarantee that I'll ever be in such close proximity to England again. I couldn't go back home without making a journey to Anfield. Earlier this fall, I chose a match to attend and started looking into how to acquire a ticket. According to the team's website, I'd need a Fan Card first. I posted off the necessary application and proof of address in September, allowing more than the required four weeks of processing time before the tickets I wanted went on sale.

Then the UK postal strike happened.

My plans were now in shambles. I thought the tickets were going on sale on 19 October. When I hadn't received my Fan Card by the 15th, I checked my British bank account to see if the fee had been processed. It had, so I knew my card was on its way, likely held up by the strike. I emailed LFC Customer Services to ask if they could give me the information I'd need off my card so I could order tickets without having the physical piece of plastic. I never received a response, so I tried to call customer services a few days later. That also proved fruitless, as I waited on hold for 15 minutes and succeeded only in burning all my mobile phone credit.

I eventually realised that the tickets going on sale on the 19th were only available to Priority Ticket Scheme members. I wouldn't be able to order tickets until 25 October. That bought me nearly an extra week before my Fan Card needed to arrive, so I held out hope for that. I eagerly and slightly desperately checked the post each night, sifting through the envelopes compulsively. I sorted through the pile with particular urgency the night before the tickets went on sale and felt a wave of disappointment when I realised my card hadn't arrived in time.

I checked the website again to see if I had any other recourse. It appeared that you didn't need to have a Fan Card if you purchased a ticket over the phone, so I decided to try that. The only barrier was the €0.50 per minute I'd be charged to ring England from my mobile, plus whatever fee the box office charged per minute. I asked if it would be OK for me to call from the land line at work over my lunch hour instead. The person who granted permission speculated that I'd have an easy time getting tickets since the Reds were playing so badly at the time.

I rang up and encountered a message stating that on a certain specified date, the box office had changed their number to XXXXXXXXXXX and I should ring XXXXXXXXXXX rather than XXXXXXXXXXX. Unless, of course, I was calling from overseas. Then I should continue to dial XXXXXXXXXXX (the number I'd just rung) until further notice. So essentially the message was not applicable to me at all. Next I was prompted to push 2 for Liverpool v Fulham, then 1 to confirm that I would accept a single ticket or restricted view. The hold music had just begun when a cold, clipped automated voice informed me, "We're sorry (she totally wasn't), all our operators are busy. Please try again later." Click. I stared at the receiver, which was now emitting only a dial tone. I couldn't even wait on hold? I had to keep calling back over and over and being charged to listen to the message that didn't apply to me? Yes. I did.

I kept phoning back with no success until the end of my lunch hour. Then I finally made it through...to a hold system. I stayed on the line until a different automated voice informed me that I was number 68 in the queue. It was my turn to hang up, distressed and disgusted. I decided to call back the moment the box office opened the following day, hopefully gaining a better position in the queue.

I rang up promptly at 8.30 the next morning while I was walking to work. After suffering through the long-winded number-change message, I listened for the Liverpool v Fulham option. It wasn't there. I hung up, suspecting and fearing that the tickets were gone. I pulled up the website as soon as I reached my desk to check. When I clicked through to the proper page, I saw bright red letters glaring out from under the Liverpool v Fulham heading: SOLD OUT.

But I was not giving up so easily. The boyfriend of one of my friends here earned himself tickets to the Liverpool v Arsenal match by calling to complain when his Fan Card didn't work. I decided to see if the same strategy would work for me. I explained the situation to the woman who answered, and she had absolutely no sympathy. She said that it wasn't their fault; there had been a postal strike. Besides, having a Fan Card wouldn't have given me any advantage. I think the key in such situations is to become so irrationally angry that the rep is willing to do anything to make you hang up, but I just couldn't muster it.

From there, I emailed one of my former coworkers whose grandfather has season tickets. Or used to. I learned then that he'd sold them off years ago. I also had a friend in London "put on his corporate pants," as Jackie described it, and see what he could find for me. He came up with a corporate ticket for £170, which I obviously had to turn down. Searches on Gumtree, ebay and Craigslist turned up nothing, and a connection at my work also failed to come through. To add insult to injury, I came home to find my Fan Card waiting for me five days after the match sold out.

I was out of ideas by then, but I'd already booked a flight out of Liverpool rather than London. All that was left for me to do was go to Anfield with hope in my heart that I could sort something out on match day.

Eating With Expats

2007-10-24T13:01:00.000+01:00

My life as of late has begun to revolve around a few common themes: food and expatriatism. The two are more easily intertwined than it might initially seem. My explorations of culinary Dublin always occur in the company of two other expats. I have recently set up a weekly lunch or dinner date with my American and Australian friends, and we are determined to try a new type of cuisine every week.

This week we chose sushi. Mimi and Janice were quite experienced with it, while I am a complete neophyte philistine. But my induction was rapid and thorough, facilitated by the conveyor belt pumping the raw fish creations out of the kitchen and past our booth. We had 55 minutes to eat as much sushi as we possibly could. Mimi and Janice took up positions nearest the belt, and I entrusted them with my gastronomic well-being. I told them to pass me any dish they pleased, and I would try it.

While this left ample opportunity for palate abuse, they were gentle with my underdeveloped taste buds. I tried quite a variety of dishes and liked the majority of them. The tuna sashimi was a particularly pleasant surprise, being that it was simply a slab of raw fish. The three of us savaged the conveyor belt, leaving towering piles of empty plates scattered across the table. I think the dishes I didn't find so appealing were those that I ate later in the venture. I was so disgustingly full that no form of food was appetising. I quit a bit before Janice and Mimi, groaning meekly every so often.

I think my discomfort was a payback for the previous week, when we'd gone for Korean food. Janice and Mimi were the disgustingly stuffed and groaning duo on that occasion, while I escaped with a mere sufficient fullness. I did quite enjoy the cuisine then as well, but perhaps the missing element of a set time limit made the difference.

While our conversations during these meals centre on what's going into our mouths, we usually move on for coffee and bit of conversation afterwards. It's there that the expat element emerges.

Until this point in my journey, I didn't realise what a distinguishing characteristic being an expatriate could be. In London I always felt like a pseudo Brit, with few people remarking on the fact that I am American. This is most likely because London is a highly multicultural city. Hardly anyone seemed to give a second thought to interacting with someone from abroad.

Dublin, however, has only recently begun to attract foreigners. Conversations with people I've just met or don't know well tend to revolve around how I ended up in Ireland, what I'm doing here and how long I'm staying. While this topic did come up at some point when I spoke with people in London, it usually cropped up later in the conversation and didn't assume a primary role. I have the impression that I'm still a bit of an abnormality to the people here, which can sometimes make me feel like an outsider even though they're friendly about it.

I seek refuge in the dinners with my expat friends. Crossing and living in a different culture is a fairly unique situation, one that breeds seemingly endless conversational topics when we get together. There are small, very subtle cultural norms that are imperceptible to the people who have grown up with them, but can prove to be quite obvious to outsiders who are trying to fit in.
These differences can sometimes act as boundaries that are daunting and impenetrable, but they can also prove to be amusing or pleasant when compared with your native culture. This is one of the reasons that I genuinely love being an expat. As I've expressed in my previous posts, it can be maddening, frustrating and isolating. But at the same time it's fascinating to uncover the little nuances of a culture, adapt to them and perhaps even start appropriating them for yourself.

In facing the discord between cultures, it helps to have other outsiders with whom you can compare notes. You bring up the confusing and frustrating bits and realise you're not the only one finding them difficult. Or you point out the endearing aspects and come to appreciate them more. In general, I think expat discussions help you adjust, overcome and find a place in a different culture. This, for me, has been quite a fulfilling experience. And I've also enjoyed just being full.

Fuelling My Thoughts and Keeping Me Amused

2007-10-23T21:54:00.000+01:00

Because I've devoted so much space to my cycling trauma, I felt the link about bicycle commuting deserved its own post. But there are several other things I've found interesting as well.

Culled from the New York Times:
Why Democracy?
Another War Between British and American...Squirrels
John Paul Stevens: Liberal by Comparison
Is 'Do Unto Others' Written Into Our Genes?

The collective feeling of the day:

It Only Tuesday

And lastly, something I worked on in England that just went live.

I Knew It!

2007-10-23T20:51:00.000+01:00

Confirmation of my fears of bicycle commuting came from a study cited on the Freakonomics blog. I'm going to pretend the same statistics apply to Dublin. The "One Got Fat" video linked in the post is a bicycle safety education tool that I found simultaneously callous, disturbing and hilarious.

But I'm still cycling to salsa tomorrow.

Dublin Roads Win Again

2007-10-10T20:43:00.000+01:00

I left salsa class tonight and walked out to the signpost where I'd locked my bike. I was initially pleased to see that both tyres were still intact, because my U-lock just hadn't been able to accommodate the pole, frame and tyre. I went with the frame and the pole, and hoped for the best. I think the fact that my tyres are balding helped to divert any would-be thief. I'm relatively certain they're not worth the effort stealing them would require. After strapping on my helmet and turning on my taillight, I took a moment to study my Dublin map and mentally prepare a route home. I took careful note of the one-ways, as those have wreaked havoc in my cycling plans previously.

Once I'd committed the path to memory, I cycled off. It didn't take long for my plans to go awry. My map hadn't shown that all traffic was diverted into a left-hand turn at an intersection where I'd hoped to go straight. Laughing to myself because any trip on my cycle of course, of course, had to be like this, I went with the flow. I wasn't quite sure where I was, but somehow I found my way back to St. Stephen's Green. From there I knew the way. Or I would have if I'd turned on the correct street.

Again, I blame Dublin's obscured and camouflaged street signs for the turn I made down a cobbled alley. Rather than speeding down a smoothly paved road (well, smoothly paved by Dublin road standards) to the street that would take me to Rathmines, I reached a winding, dusty, broken-up street that went past loads of parking ramps and dumpsters. After escaping that portion on foot, I found my way to the road on which I should have turned. Unfortunately the lanes were divided by a median, and I couldn't turn right as I needed to. I hauled my bike up onto the pavement and took to foot again.

I went back to the bike and the road at the intersection, confident that I could manage the straight road that would lead me the rest of the way home. Suddenly, however, I came upon another all-traffic-must-turn-left intersection that again was not marked on my map. This caused simple annoyance rather than confusion, however, because I was well aware of where I was now. I'd walked in the area many times. I had to make a square to go around the one-way section of the straight road from which I'd been diverted, and then I was finally able to maneuver into the cycle lane that took me the rest of the way home.

Wish me better luck next week. I planned a new route given what I now know about one-ways, and I'm hoping it will allow me to triumph over the labyrinthine Dublin road system at last.

Trading in the Trad

2007-10-08T22:18:00.000+01:00

About a month ago I was eager to spend a Saturday night out in the Dublin city centre. I chose the Palace pub in Temple Bar, which my guidebook assured me was a good location for traditional Irish music sessions. Unable to induce anyone into accompanying me, I was planning to use the music as an acceptable guise for going to the pub alone and then start chatting to some random punters.

When I reached the second floor and slipped through the door, I was surprised to see someone performing a recitation at a banister. I made my way to a seat as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, sliding into a booth along the back wall. Glancing around the room, I noticed that there were no instruments anywhere. I was a bit disappointed to discover that I'd stumbled upon a poetry reading rather than a trad session, but I quickly began to change my mind.

Everyone in the room seemed to know each other by name and shouted insults or witty quips at whomever was commanding the makeshift staircase podium. When the reader began to recite, however, the room fell completely silent. Well, silent but for a completely sodden man who yelled slurred and indecipherable comments whenever the mood struck him. The others scolded, "Shurrup, Paddy!" when he was particularly obnoxious, and that usually quieted him.

The readers were all quite different. Some recited from pages, some spoke from memory. Some nearly shouted in a frantic, agitated performance, some lent rapper stylings and hand gestures to their words. Some spoke in a straightforward manner, some added dramatic pauses and discernible weight to certain words. Eyes closed, eyes open, quiet, animated. I savoured the accents, and it was quite interesting for me to hear how the words sounded when spoken aloud. It provided an entirely different dimension to the language, shifting the emphasis to the sounds of the words and their rhythm, cadence and relationship. I was held completely rapt.

My favourite ending to a poem came from a lad with long brown hair who was giving a passionate and emotional reading, fairly spitting his words at the room. Suddenly he turned up a new printed sheet of paper and bounded from the stairs, howling, "I've forgotten the last page!" The room erupted in good-natured laughter and consolatory applause. "I quite liked that ending," someone commented. It was a very supportive atmosphere overall, with enthusiastic clapping and shouts of "Good man!" or "Good girl!" greeting the end of each reading.

The night slowly began to wear down, and the host, a tall, lanky, white-haired man, took the stairs. He recited a poem about his children, then was compelled by repeated requests from the audience to read some Kavanaugh. This he did from memory, lending wonderful pause and emotion to the line, "I know nothing of women." His twinkling blue eyes lingered on each female in the room in turn as he repeated the line.

Then he sang, or attempted to sing in an off-key sort of way. He was upstaged by a boisterous blonde woman who applied a wonderful, resonant voice to some traditional Irish ballads and Gershwin's "Summertime." Eventually the ballads gave over to raucous limericks, with the whole room joining in. Finally the host called an end to the evening with a toast and a declaration of indebtedness to the bartender.

After the reading had ended, I struck up a conversation with one of the readers. "Does this happen every week, like?" He explained that this wasn't a regular event, but called the organiser (a man from outside Liverpool) over to tell me about other regularly occurring poetry readings. Eventually the host's brother came over and joined us. He accused the organiser of trying to chat me up, to which accusation the organiser responded with a comical show of exaggeratedly disgraceful chat-up lines and mannerisms.

The pub started to close soon after that, with the bartender blatantly encouraging us to leave ("Get out! I've a date tonight!"). I stood up to go, and the host's brother gripped my hand in an eternal handshake. "You're not leaving?" he asked. I told him I had to catch the Luas home before it stopped running (it already had). He initially insisted that the Luas doesn't run to Rathmines, but then conceded that he only rides the Red Line and not the Green. "Oh, where do you live?" I asked. "Why, are you coming home with me?" he chuckled. He was about 65, so we both knew that wasn't happening. Eventually he wished me luck in finding a way to stay out of Minnesota and "away from the ice," let go of my hand and told me I'd been a good sport.

I've managed to stumble upon some pretty entertaining events and people in Dublin. And as long as I embrace randomness and don't mind trading trad for poetry (or something else), I'm confident it will continue.

Winking and Waggling

2007-10-05T16:02:00.000+01:00

It is a gorgeous day in the Dub. It was the perfect temperature for my walk to work this morning (I abandoned the bike after taking the usual bruising on it yesterday). It was chill enough to unleash a crisp fall smell and for me to amuse myself by forming breath clouds, but not uncomfortably cold. The sun actually made a rare appearance as I was going through Herbert Park and created visible criss-crossing patterns as its shafts of light fell through the leaves.

The beautiful morning only added to the elation that was still lingering after my salsa class last night. I had an absolutely brilliant time, and managed to make a new friend. The advanced class was just finishing up when I arrived. I was standing near a couple of guys waiting for the floor to clear, and I overheard one of them saying that the weather here now was like a nice Canadian fall. I asked him if he was Canadian, and said I was American. We chatted about Dublin and our expatriatism until class began and the instructor herded girls to one side of the dance floor and guys to the other.

After doing some basic steps in that segregated fashion, we came together in randomly-assigned partner pairs. The women stayed with each partner for a few minutes and then moved on to the next guy on the left. Unlike last week's class, the ratio of guys to girls was fairly proportionate. That meant I didn't have to assume the lead as I'd done previously.

Going down the line of guys was highly entertaining. One of my first partners picked up on my American accent after me just saying my name. Maybe my accent isn't quite as muddled as I'd like to think. Things got a little stranger as I moved down the line. You pick up on everyone's nervous tics very quickly in this setting. One of my partners winked at me repeatedly. Another waggled his eyebrows strangely frequently. Some studied their feet intensely. Some were sweating profusely. Some were afraid to touch me. Some pushed me across the floor quite enthusiastically when we were doing a cross body turn. A few didn't lead at all. Essentially, the entire experience is amazingly awkward. First there's a clumsy introduction, followed by even clumsier dancing and small talk. And this scenario is repeated over and over again throughout the night. Despite all this, it somehow manages to remain enjoyable.

My last partner of the night happened to be the Canadian guy. They transform the studio into a salsa club after class has ended on Thursday nights, and I stayed on to dance for a while with him and his regular salsa partner. They tried to teach me a more advanced move that I've not yet learnt, but they couldn't remember exactly how to execute it. One of the instructor's aides went by, and they asked him to remind them. After he'd shown them where they were going wrong, he danced with me for a while. I learned more then than I had the rest of the evening. It was much more instructive to dance with someone more advanced than me rather than having the blind leading (or not leading) the blind.

So the dance class is great fun and seems to present many exciting prospects. Like having the chance to observe more winks and waggles.

Cultivate! Why won't you cultivate?!?

2007-09-25T11:11:00.000+01:00

I simply am not acclimating to Ireland very well. I like much of the atmosphere and many places in Dublin. But I am finding it excruciatingly difficult to make friends. Surprisingly, given Dublin's reputation for great night life, I just can't seem to lure people out of their houses. Literally, I'll extend invitations to people who respond to say they say they are staying home. Or they don't respond at all. I'm becoming a bit frustrated with trying to cultivate friends. It's extremely out of my comfort range to start conversations with strangers and extend invitations. Now I've done this time and again, and I still can't get anywhere with it. I know I've touched on this before, but the issue is still dogging me.

The latest escapade was particularly disappointing. I went to work on my portfolio at a coffee shop after work. On the way there, I saw on a sandwich board outside a pub that the France v. Ireland rugby match would be on later that night. I decided to go back to that pub after working for a bit. This place had a much better, more raucous atmosphere than the couple-y Toast pub where I'd watched the Georgia v. Ireland match, and I was quickly able to strike up conversation. An Irish lad standing near me told another guy, "Here, take this seat." Then he chuckled and said, "A bit of Irish hospitality. And that's about all the hospitality you're going to get." It turns out the lad now seated was French. I started talking to him, asking if he feared for his life cheering for France among Ireland supporters. Eventually I fell in with the rest of his group: two Americans, a Canadian, and the Irish guy. One of the Americans was quite an arse. At the encouragement of someone else, I took his seat while he was gone somewhere. When he came back, he was honestly (and, I think, overly) upset that I'd taken his seat. To the point that the French guy felt compelled to offer his own seat, which American Guy took (I offered to give the seat back, but Canadian Guy said no, I shouldn't). Plus he said American peanut butter was crap. Enough said.

Despite American Guy, the rest of the bunch was great fun. After the match, they invited me to move on to a different pub with them. I had the cab driver drop me off at the final destination, Tram Co, while the boys went to change. I paid my €5 cover and waited for nearly an hour, realising shortly after I'd arrived that I'd lost the inner fleece part of my winter jacket somewhere along the way. Eventually I saw the boys come up to the door, exchange a few words with the bouncers and walk away again. Likely they wouldn't have come in at all, and I would have been sitting there all night had I not spotted them. I went outside to meet them, and they said they were now going to a different pub in Harcourt with a €10 cover. Seeing as I was a bit miffed at already paying €5 to sit in Tram Co for an hour waiting for them to show up, I decided to just go home. The French guy hadn't come back, though I did think I saw him waiting for the train to Malahide on Saturday. In retrospect, I should have found out if indeed it was him, but my shyness got the better of me there.

I do enjoy just talking to people without necessarily seeing them again later. But I would like to have a group of friends here to accompany me on some of my adventures. So how do you convert acquaintances to friends that you invite out to do other things? Be bold and do it, I suppose is the answer. And I will work up to it. But at the moment I'm feeling a bit let down and increasingly isolated.

This is perhaps best demonstrated by my surprising affinity for a small kitty that snuck into the house with me last night. I generally don't like cats. They feel like they don't have any bones, they're aloof and they're sneaky. They tend to seek out places to hide (like under my bed) and then silently slink out, scaring me half to death when I see them out of the corner of my eye. But I really liked the little cat that darted in the door past me yesterday. It ran up the stairs to my flatmate Johnny's room, and I had to go retrieve it. Somehow despite its disconcertingly stretchy skeleton and sharp claws, I desperately wanted to keep it.

But life is full of small ups and downs, and there are islands of contentment and delight in my sea of moroseness. I found my coat when I called at Friday's pub again on Sunday. The kitty slipped in with me when I was returning from salsa class, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And I also received a special personal export of Jif peanut butter, which has been providing daily doses of contentment. Maybe I'll start carrying (and perhaps sharing) the wondrous American peanut butter with me at all times. It's sure to have good cultivating properties.

Light Wrangler

2007-09-14T11:36:00.000+01:00

I returned home from the shop last night just after dark. After putting my groceries away, I went up to my room and tried to flip on the light that's given me so much trouble. I waited for a moment for it to sputter and flicker on. Then I remembered that this was not my London room, and my light should theoretically come on right away. Agh, bollocks! Not again! I futilely snapped the switch on and off a few more times. Grumbling, I climbed up onto the bed and twisted the light bulb out of the socket. I desperately hoped a burnt-out light bulb was all that was wrong. It couldn't possibly be that my handy keyring-screwdriver repairs had gone awry.

I went back out to the shop, tremendously annoyed that I'd just come from Tesco and could have bought a replacement bulb there if I'd known in advance that I'd come home to darkness. I bought the bulbs and walked back home to discover whether they'd solve the problem. They did indeed, and flipping the switch had the desired effect of actually producing light. This fixture has been much more work than it's worth. Perhaps this is my payback for the flawless functioning of the lights in my London room. One of the two fluorescent bulbs in my ceiling there was burned out when I moved in. I never replaced it, and I was fortunate enough to have the second bulb last the entire six months I was there.

In addition to once again restoring light to my life, I finally managed to cycle all the way to work without becoming lost. I was too daunted by last week's disastrous expedition to make another attempt before mid-week. In fact, I probably would have been too daunted to cycle at all this week were it not for my need to make it to work quickly on Wednesday. My intent was to arrive early so I could finish at 4.30. I was successful in this, which was a source of pride for me for the rest of the day. I even made it to the city centre from work without becoming snared in a navigational tangle. Though my fear of lorries was confirmed on the way. I gave my hand signal, started making my right turn and suddenly found myself inches from the front tyres of a lorry. "Jaysus, what the f***'s wrong with you?" the passenger shouted out the window. Luckily, nothing.

After that narrow escape, I managed to reach Temple Bar without further incident. I had an appointment to meet Mimi so we could both have piercings done--her ear and my nose. While I feel piercings have the potential to make highly entertaining stories, mine passed rather uneventfully. Mimi was waiting outside while they were puncturing my nose, and she remarked on how quiet the procedure was. She was shocked when I emerged, newly studded, without her having heard a whimper or wail. But after having sinus surgery, jaw surgery, and three adenoid removal surgeries, I'm quite used to people manipulating my face. So far I've managed to remember that the stud is there and not accidentally have a towel, clothing, or sheets catch it and rip it out.

I followed the piercing with another successful biking venture: riding home in the dark. I'll attribute my visibility and safe return home to my amazing new skills in light wrangling. I affixed a headlight and taillight before I took off.

Hopeless Cyclist

2007-09-08T16:59:00.000+01:00

Despite generally having a fairly good sense of direction, I have found myself completely unable to cycle to and from work without becoming lost. One of my co-workers Google Mapped a cycle-friendly route for me, and I've been trying to follow that. I rode to work two mornings this week, and missed a necessary turn at the same place both days. I blame the half-hidden street signs and the distraction caused by my innate fear of being hit by a giant lorry. I thought that approaching this trouble spot from the opposite direction would help me piece the two halves of the route together. This was not as straightforward as I originally anticipated, however.

Coming from work proved to be an even bigger disaster than riding from home. Shortly after pedaling out of the parking lot, I went straight at a snarled intersection where I ought to have turned right. I turned round when I realised my mistake and, rather than correcting my course by taking a left, made two right turns at the same intersection. That put me on Donnybrook Road, which I followed for an inexcusable amount of time before sussing out that I was on the wrong street. I growled a bit, turned around, reached the notorious intersection for a third time, and finally navigated it correctly.

Everything went according to plan until I reached the place where I'd been missing a turn in the morning. "Ah," I thought. "So this is where I need to turn." I made a mental note and, quite pleased with myself, turned left into the cycle lane. This was an egregious error, as I should have continued going straight. I cycled for ages down Clonskeagh Road, which eventually turned into Roebuck Road, then Goatstown Road, then Kilmacud Road. I didn't recognise the road names, nor did the landmarks seem familiar. "I don't remember seeing that in the morning," I mused. But somehow I managed to convince myself that I had, in fact, come across the BMW dealership and the Goat's Tavern before.

What should have obviously given away my mistake was the steep incline of the route. As I was puffing up the never-ending hill, I wondered why I'd been cheated out of an equal and opposite downhill coast on the way to work in the mornings. Finally, panting and confused at the absurd amount of time it was taking me to reach home, I turned around and enjoyed a well-deserved downhill ride back to the increasingly ill-fated trouble point in my route. I followed my usual walking route the rest of the way home, which proved to be quite bumpy and painful. I arrived home after a 15-minute commute had turned into an hour of hapless navigation. I was a sweaty, red-faced, hungry and ill-humoured mess. I trudged up to my room and immediately looked up my route map to see where I'd gone wrong. It turns out I'd ridden 3.5 miles out of my way (7 round-trip) just on the last wrong turn. But now I think I've finally learned my way. I'll let you know on Monday.

Electric Maudlin'

2007-09-04T12:12:00.000+01:00

I've completed my self-proclaimed last step in settling into Dublin: repairing my broken light fixture. I went into the garage on Saturday afternoon and stared up at the fuse box. The switches were labelled with blue ball-point pen scrawl, which I found a bit untrustworthy. Given that I was dealing with electricity and facing possible electrocution, I really wanted to see a sturdy, reliable, no-one-has-accidentally-mislabeled-these-switches serif font. But I needed to restore light to my room, so I forced myself to trust the handwriting and flipped the two switches that said "Lights." My trust was very limited, however, and it didn't prevent me from compulsively checking each and every light in the house to make sure the electricity was definitely off.

It became quite a makeshift endeavour from there. We don't seem to have any sort of ladder or elevating device, nor could I locate a screwdriver. My solution was to stand on my bed and use the thin metal ring connecting a set of keys. I successfully freed the red and blue wires from the screws pinning them down, wincing in anticipation of the electrocution that would surely follow. I was momentarily concerned by what appeared to be an extraneous piece in my replacement part, but I eventually decided it must not be important. I carefully recaptured the wires under the new screws, turning them as tightly as possible with my keyring. That done, I replaced the bulb and marvelled at how the non-broken fixture held it in place. After turning the switches in the garage back to "On," I returned to my room and hesitantly pressed the switch in the wall. Nothing popped, nothing exploded, nothing sizzled. It would be so much better here to say "Nothing happened at all," but it's not true. The room filled with light, just as it should have.

Despite my resounding success with simple electrical repairs, I still don't feel settled. I haven't yet been able to form a connection with the place or people. This a little disconcerting to me because I've already been here a month. I've made some promising starts, but certain things are so slow in coming. I tried to cultivate relationships with a few of my contacts here on Saturday, but I didn't receive a response. I felt a bit lonely, which led me to start pondering what makes a city welcoming. Is Dublin really as friendly as I initially thought?

On the surface it is. You can easily go up to nearly anyone and engage them in conversation. And it won't be the kind of conversation where the person you approached is focused on escaping from the situation as soon as possible. This is a wonderful thing. One of my co-workers has suggested that this is possible because Ireland has been uni-cultural for so long. You already have a sense of shared background and common culture, so it's easier to strike up conversation. But converting a casual connection into a something more enduring is what I'm finding difficult. While people are more open and warm up front than Londoners are, it has been just as hard for me to get past exteriors. They're friendly fronts, but they're still fronts, beyond which I haven't been able to reach. More time is inevitably what's needed. I will give it that, and will probably come away with brilliant friends. After all, I am a pretty handy electrician.

Ouch

2007-08-30T21:03:00.000+01:00

My arse was thoroughly pulverised on the way home from work today. I'm the proud borrower of a newly-repaired bicycle and helmet, and I tried the evening commute with it for the first time. I've been walking to work and back all week (just under an hour each way) to avoid the damp despair of the bus. I've been told that the 18 is the worst bus in Dublin, and I absolutely believe it. I can walk the entire way to work in the time it takes me to walk from home to the bus stop, wait for the bus, ride the bus and walk from the bus stop to my work.

Since walking was an improvement from riding the bus, I expected cycling to be better yet. This was my first time commuting by bicycle in any city, and it was a bewildering experience. One major factor contributing to my confusion was riding on the left side of the road instead of the right. Each turn required that I devote special attention to winding up on the correct side of the street without causing an accident or being involved in one myself. Do I ride as far to the left as I can when I pull up to a stoplight? What if the cars turning left don't see me and hit me when I'm going straight? This method of going to work is fraught with much more peril than walking.

It is also fraught with more pain. I don't know if the roads are bumpier, my suspension is worse or my bum is just less...calloused than in Minnesota. But regardless, the frequent jolting impacts drove me to whimpers. This was mingled with muttered instructions to myself on how not to get killed.

But the speed and convenience of this new commuting method may just be enough to override its drawbacks. I somehow made a wrong turn when attempting to follow my usual walking route home, and I found myself significantly further north than I'd needed to travel. Despite taking a long, looping detour, I made it home in half the time it's been taking me to bus or walk. This means I'll be able to sleep later in the morning, and I'm quite happy to endure my rear being pummeled (by a bicycle) for that.

How to Fight Loneliness: Join a Stag Party

2007-08-26T11:06:00.000+01:00

I left work on Friday absolutely determined to have a brilliant weekend in Dublin. The city has yet to win me over, and I've been feeling rather low and homesick for London. There are aspects of Dublin that I prefer to London, such as the friendliness of the people. But I just don't like the city as a place very much. I've found it restrictively small and comparatively quiet as far as entertainment outside the pubs. I was resolute in my desire to change this, so I spent the night wandering around the city on foot, trying to find something particularly endearing that I could fall for. I only succeeded in wearing myself out.

The next morning began in much the same way. I went to go buy a replacement part for the light fixture in my room that I broke. Well, it was already half broken, and I broke it the rest of the way while trying to make the lightbulb stay in despite it being half broken. I had intended to repair the light fixture that afternoon, but I couldn't access the fusebox. My key for the house didn't fit into the lock on the garage, and none of my flatmates were home to provide me with the proper key.

Instead I wandered into the city centre again. I moped around feeling lonely because the few people I know here were busy. I quickly became weary and incredibly hungry, and I had a strong urge to just head home. I was lucky I hadn't been able to restore light to my room, because the pervading darkness I would have encountered there finally persuaded me to stay out and make my own fun. My first priority was finding a decent cheap meal. This is close to impossible in the city centre after a certain time. My usual refuge is a sandwich shop, but most of them close fairly early. Eventually I ducked into a kebab shop. I must have been nearly starved, because my kebab tasted wonderful. Over the meal, I decided to go to Kehoe's to see if I could make a new friend. And I did. Several, in fact.

I'd squeezed through the hoardes of people outside and at the bar and had found a seat at a counter. I was sipping my lager and pondering my next move when an older guy approached me. "Your boyfriend's not here yet?" he asked. The last chat I had about being single ended with back-handed compliments about my "serial killer" eyes, but I decided to see where this conversation led. I told him that I had just moved to Dublin and didn't know many people yet. He invited me to join him and his gang of rugby team friends who were out for a stag do. I couldn't see why not, so I ventured outside and met the rest of the boys.

I found myself going through a few more repetitions of the standard conversation I have with everyone I meet in Dublin. I'm from Minnesota. It's on the border of Canada. Pretend my left hand is the US. New York is somewhere near the tip of my middle finger. California's at the heel of my palm. Minnesota's somewhere near where my index finger meets my palm (I need to start carrying a map of the US). I'm in Dublin for four months. I'm working in advertising. I live in Rathmines. I came here from London. Because my visa expired and I could either go home or come here. Rehashing my story has become a bit tiresome, but I still enjoyed telling it to new people.

I'd been chatting with a group of three or four guys when suddenly an adjoining group of guys turned in my direction and started singing, "I love you, baby, and if it's quite alright I need you, baby..." It turns out they were the rest of the stag do. And that this stag do was only the pre stag do. The husband-to-be is getting married in New York in October, and will be having at least one more party in Killarney before then.

Though I did receive a surprising number of comments about my teeth (by American standards my teeth are not particularly white, nor remarkably straight), no-one drew any comparisons between me and a serial killer. I enjoyed some drinks, was spoken to in Italian, watched hilarious drunken dancing and tried to determine when people were being serious and when they were taking the piss (most of the time it's the latter). Even if it was a little strange, it was good fun. And much better than moping around by myself in the dark.

Pubs revisited: Kehoe's

Pathetic Pool

2007-08-22T22:42:00.000+01:00

When I say I'm bad at pool, I don't just mean I'm not good. I mean I'm astonishingly abysmal. As in I frequently miss making contact with the cue ball. Or send it straight into one of the pockets without it striking any other ball. That kind of bad. Somehow I found it necessary to demonstrate this to a large number of my coworkers at a pool tournament after work today. My boss recruited me to be his partner, and I'm certain he deeply regretted that decision. I did respond "Poorly" when he asked me whether I played pool, but I don't think he knew exactly how poorly.

Although my severe lack of hand-eye coordination promptly knocked Eoghan and myself out of the tournament, I quite enjoyed the rest of the evening. Shouts of "Jaysus!" mingled with friendly jabs and consolatory phrases like "Hard luck," and "Good effort" as we watched the final rounds. The friendly atmosphere made me feel less pathetic. But I think I'll sit out the next tournament. For the sake of everyone involved.

Big Red Switches

2007-08-21T21:17:00.000+01:00

I think I have nearly sussed the mysterious workings of Dublin domestic life. I had many opportunities to research it when I moved into my new flat in Rathmines this weekend. I spent Saturday morning at Mimi's, packing up the quarter of my belongings that weren't still meticulously rolled and stuffed into my suitcases. I called a taxi when I'd finished, trying to avoid a repeat of my London luggage-on-public-transportation escapade. I successfully escaped without any new luggage bites. I was grateful for that because my particularly bad luggage bite had just vanished.

My new flatmate, Gerard (I thought he'd said Jared the other two times I met him), helped me haul my suitcases up the stairs and I eagerly took out all my stuff. It always feels a bit odd to finally unpack after spending two weeks gingerly fishing out necessities while trying to disturb as little of the suitcase infrastructure as possible. After my suitcases were empty and snugly nested inside each other, I went to go buy sheets and a duvet cover.

I'd been directed to Dunnes by several of my coworkers, so I walked over to the store near my house. They had no single duvet covers in stock, so I left with only sheets. I went to Pound Saver for my hangers, which wasn't such a save after all. I paid 2 Euros for sets of 8 hangers there and saw sets of 10 for 1 Euro 50 at Tesco the next day.

After finishing my domestic chores, I went to meet Mimi at Wagamama for some deliciously gingery udon noodles. The members of a rock band from California sitting next to us started chatting to us as just before leaving. They offered to give me and Mimi a shout out at their gig on Friday if we turned up. An enticing offer, but I'm still exploring my options.

It was a Saturday night and we live in Dublin, so we naturally ended up at a pub after dinner. Our path to the bar took us through a group of lads who were sitting on stools strewn across the walkway. "There's plenty of room if you want to sit here," they called. We took them up on their offer, and they all turned out to be lovely. I chatted with a doctor named Michael. He and another lad who Mimi had been chatting to left fairly shortly after we arrived. Mimi and I stayed on at the pub with the third lad, Enda. He was an absolute riot. He did an analysis of my personality based on my clothing and came pretty close.

We stayed at the first pub with Enda for a while, then went with him to join his mates who were celebrating someone's 30th birthday. I left very soon after we arrived. I was suffering through my normal settling-in period of feeling low, and I just wanted to be by myself. My departure was hastened slightly by someone who decided that telling me that he'd told Mimi about a show that had a helicopter named Mimi in it was a good conversation starter.

I spent the rest of my Saturday night desperately regretting that I didn't have a duvet. I'd gone to bed in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms and woke up shivering. I pulled another long-sleeved t-shirt over the first and tried to wrap myself in a cocoon of sheets and the two thin, scratchy wool blankets that had been left on the bed. I was still freezing, so I dug a hoodie out of my closet and zipped that on as well. That worked as far as keeping me warm, but the pesky springs in my mattress kept poking me awake throughout the night.

I got up fairly early for a Sunday and went to run more errands. I owed Stef a half month's rent, which I wanted to pay by changing my pound notes into Euros. I was dead set against withdrawing any more money from an ATM after seeing the hefty fees my British bank charged. Unfortunately, no bureaux de change are open on Sunday. I was skint as far as cash, but I absolutely had to buy a duvet. I checked a second Dunnes location, which did have a single duvet in stock. I charged it with my debit card, fees be damned.

Before buying the duvet, I went for a coffee to battle the chilly weather. I spent some time reading in the cafe, then decided to explore the Powerscourt Centre next door. There was a rather brilliant jazz trio playing on the ground floor, so I skulked around the place and listened until they'd finished. At one point I was sitting on a bench on the second floor. Suddenly a man who was walking past me let out an enormous belch and shiftily slid his eyes in my direction. I was slightly appalled, a feeling that was greatly intensified when he walked past me again going the other direction and belched a second time. I'm still not sure entirely what to make of that.

When I got back to my house that evening I put a pot of water on the hob to cook some pasta. I didn't see any sign that the burner was working, despite my having turned the appropriate knob to the highest setting. I was baffled and started examining all the different knobs. I eventually expanded my search to the walls around the oven and spotted a big red switch. I have a natural aversion to flipping big, menacing-looking levers, so I hesitated for a moment before switching it to "on." That was indeed the solution to my problem, and the burner coil promptly started to glow.

I had a similar experience with the shower. It had worked flawlessly when I used it on Sunday, but nothing happened when I tried to turn it on Monday morning. I tried flipping a few switches I'd found in the closet, to no avail. Frustrated, I went back to my room to wait for someone else to get up and come to my aid. On the way there I noticed another of the threatening red switches on the wall above my head. I flipped that on and heard a reassuring humming come from inside the bathroom. Now if an Irish appliance fails, I know to look for a big red switch.

Despite nearly mastering appliances, I still haven't quite sussed the transportation system. I attempted to take the bus on Monday and was late. I tried a combination of the Luas light rail and DART commuter train this morning and was late again. I left an hour early both days, so it means an earlier start for me tomorrow. Inconceivable, really, since I lived farther away in Smithfield and made it to work faster. The DART and Luas are cleaner, but I really miss the Tube. The morning threw another disappointment at me when I tried to make a mocha out of the lattes that our coffee machine at work can churn out. The cocoa I added floated to the top in chunks and only succeeded in making the mixture more bitter. I'll try a different tactic tomorrow. Like looking for a big red switch.

New pubs explored: The South William, The Duke
Pubs revisited: Grogan's

New Country Requisites

2007-08-11T12:22:00.000+01:00

Certain things are essential when you move to a new country. Finding a job, filing a load of paperwork, finding a place to live, and going exploring are all New Country Requisites. I've managed to square all of these away during my first week in Dublin, which leaves opening a bank account as the only task I've yet to complete. The first New Country Requisite to be checked off the list was securing a job. I'd set up an interview with Irish International BBDO back in July, and went to that on my third day in Dublin. Our discussion about my previous work experience, the rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul, differences between American, British and Irish English, and Irish authors ended with a job offer.

I was ecstatic about this new opportunity, and my excitement helped to carry me through the drudgery of the second New Country Requisite: filing my paperwork. There was a fair amount of it, and each thing was dependent upon something else. To open a bank account, I need a PPS number. To get a PPS number, I need a GNIB card. I took care of that first hurdle on Wednesday. I turned up at the GNIB Office early in the afternoon and tried to suss out the chaos. There were people waiting in chairs at the back of the room, people waiting in chairs at the front of the room, and a big random queue at the front. I didn't know where to start, so I decided to join the big random queue. They issued me a paper ticket with the number 280 on it. Below that in small letters it said, "You are number 67 in the queue." What? Really?

I went and sat down in one of the rows of prefabricated wooden chairs and finished up James Joyce's Dubliners. The numbers slowly increased and the time slowly passed. Over two hours later, my number finally appeared on the digital screen above one of the counters. I slid my passport and visa into the tray under the window, and the Irish lad on the other side got to work entering the data. It proved very difficult to understand his accent through the solid sheet of plexiglass, but we managed. After he'd processed the paperwork and taken my photo, I went and waited for the announcement of "American national Nicole Otten to counter one, please," that would end my GNIB experience. That call came relatively quickly, and I escaped three hours after entering the office.

Given the huge expenditure of time required to secure a GNIB card, I was not looking forward to going to the PPS office on Friday. That proved to be much less of an ordeal. I was there for a total of 15 minutes, and there was even a speaker device in the plexiglass window so I could hear the woman on the other side.

The PPS office was located close to Phoenix Park, so I decided to go exploring after I was through. I walked along the road that runs along the outside of the park for quite some time before I could find an entrance that wasn't gated and locked. I'm still using a pocket street atlas to navigate, and only one small corner of the park is included in the atlas. I wandered for a bit until I came upon a roundabout that was on my map. I started walking in the direction that would bring me to the exit, but nothing seemed to match the map. Monuments were missing, ponds were nowhere to be found, and entire cricket grounds had disappeared. All I could see was tall prairie grass and an unidentified road. I second-guessed myself and walked back toward the roundabout. On the way there, I noticed that the open-topped Dublin tour buses were pulling in, swinging around the roundabout and heading back out in the direction I'd just been walking. Feeling confident that a tour bus wouldn't lead me astray, I turned back around and followed their route. After walking for ages, I came upon a second roundabout--the one that was actually on the map. From there, everything was laid out as it should have been, and I found my way to the exit.

Friday night continued with some culinary exploration. I was missing London, and Mimi decided that raw seafood was just the thing to cheer me up. We joined her friend Kritika at Aya, where a conveyor belt of sushi wound past booths and countertops. Mimi and Kritika took part in Sushi 55, where they were allowed to eat as much sushi as they could handle for 55 minutes. I'd never had sushi before, and I was afraid to dive straight in with a 55 minute session. I had a delicious plate of chili beef udon noodles instead. But I couldn't let all that sushi pass me by without giving it a go, so I nabbed a piece off Mimi's plate when our strict waitress had wandered away somewhere that put us out of her line of vision. The bit I had was pretty tasty, so I'll likely experiment with it more in the future.

In addition to new food, Mimi has been giving me a thorough introduction to Dublin's pubs this week. My favourite so far is Cobblestone, a pub at the top of the square where we're living. There are incredible live traditional music sessions every night, and the place boasts a very laid-back, genuine atmosphere. People go simply to enjoy themselves and their pints.

After taking care of the first three New Country Requisites, I decided to focus in on the flat search. I went to see my first place on Sunday. I would have been living with two Polish guys in a basement flat. The person moving out, Peter, came up to let me in and show me around. When I walked in, his roommate stood up to shake my hand. His palm was discomfortingly moist, and he wouldn't let go until the greeting had extended well beyond awkward. I took a quick tour through the place and returned to the living room, where Peter began to explain how bills and the lease would work. He revealed that the rent was so astonishingly cheap because Handshake Guy slept permanently on the sofa. But I didn't have to worry because I could walk through the living room to the open kitchen and cook without disturbing him. Peter also explained that they smoked in the living room, "but not in your room."

I answered "OK" in response to each of these points, as people tend to do. Suddenly, Handshake Guy laughed and said, "You say OK to everything! OK! OK! OK!" In response to this, I started trying to reply with substitutes to OK, such as "Alright," "That sounds good," and "Sure." Finally Peter took down my name and number so they could let me know whether or not I'd been chosen to be the lucky new roommate. He remembered my name as Nicole instead of Nikki and wrote that down. As he did, Handshake Guy said suggestively, "Ahhh, Nicole!" and I felt my skin crawl a bit. I was absolutely relieved to make my way back outside.

My second viewing was a bit less shudder-inducing. An older Irishman named Walter showed me a small, slightly tattered room with its own kitchen and bathroom. The place wasn't bad, but the pervading stench of old woman perfume lingered in my nostrils a good distance down the street. I had another viewing that night in the same area, and I felt optimistic about it. I walked for ages down the street, eventually calling the person showing me to flat to make sure I wasn't headed in the completely wrong direction. When I finally arrived, I loved the house. The room was small but nice, there was a garden, the area seemed safe, no-one permanently occupied the sofa and neither of the people I met insisted on clasping my hand in a neverending damp handshake.

I went home and agonised a bit over the decision, as I generally do. A few hours of Google searches returned no dodgy results, and I determined that I could make it to work in a reasonable manner. I texted Johnny that night to say I'd take the room. I waited nervously though the next day to hear if they'd have me, and finally received good news as I arrived home after work. I'll be moving in with my four new Irish housemates on Saturday. I'm delighted to be settled in and able to focus my energy on only one New Country Requisite: exploring!

Transferring

2007-08-06T22:16:00.000+01:00

I'm battered and bruised, but I'm in Dublin. I look like I got into a fight with my luggage, and I did. It was three against one, so not exactly fair. I had three suitcases--one gigantic, one medium-sized, and one small. I hooked the medium and small ones together and hauled those in one hand with my gigantic suitcase in the other. I set out with a little trepidation at my ability to wrangle so much luggage and quickly learned that these fears were well-founded.

To my dismay, I'd discovered the day before that the Willesden Green Tube station two minutes from my house was shut down for refurbishment at the weekend. The replacement bus service they offered went to a station in the opposite direction of where I needed to go to catch my train to the airport. This made my trip longer and, more significantly, meant more lifting. Instead of bringing my luggage to Willesden Green and lugging it down the one flight of stairs at that station, I had to haul it onto the bus travelling to Dollis Hill, then off the bus, then down two piddly flights of stairs (with just enough steps to make me unhook my connected suitcases and lift them down) connected by long walkways, then make three trips up one huge flight of stairs. I'm fairly certain London hates travellers.

I needed to change Tube lines at Green Park, which involved more flights of stairs. In between these flights of stairs, my suitcases had the annoying habit of flipping over when I was going around corners or slipping out of my hands and biting me on the back of the leg. At the platform, I was in a frenzy trying to lift all three suitcases onto or off of the Tube before the doors closed and either took one of my pieces of luggage away without me or took me away without one of my pieces of luggage.

I finally made it onto the train at Victoria. When I reached Gatwick Airport, I discovered that the terminal I needed was another train ride away. The floor of this train, helpfully, was level with the ground, so boarding it required no lifting. I finally checked in at one of the electronic kiosks in the designated departure area and queued up at the bag drop-off counter. I'd prepaid for my second checked piece of luggage, and neither bag was overweight. I felt that was a small victory and happily took my carry-on bag over to the security check point. It was a relief to have only this single piece of luggage left in my possession.

As passengers leaving the UK are allowed only one piece of hand baggage, I'd initially packed my laptop bag in my suitcase. Early on in the journey, I'd taken it out and slung it over my shoulder to distribute the weight in a more manageable manner. I paused to repack the laptop just outside of security, pleased at how successfully I'd handled the luggage challenge. The security personnel visually sized up my bag and made me put it in a metal rack to determine whether it would actually fit in the overhead compartment. It was about an inch too large and sat suspended over the basket. I pushed it a bit, but it refused to slide in. All I could do was sigh wearily in response to the attendant's helpful observation of "It won't fit."

I unpacked my laptop again, went back to the bag drop and stared a bit mournfully at the long queues that would almost certainly make me miss my flight. I explained the situation to a staff member and he let me bypass the crowds by going to one of the VIP lines. There I checked in my third suitcase and was sent to the customer service counter to pay the money (30 pounds) to check that as well. I brought my laptop bag on with me, forgetting that my iPod and camera were in my carry-on bag until it was too late. In my rush, I'd forgotten that my iPod and camera were in my carry-on bag until it was too late. The story does have a happy ending, though, as all my luggage made its winding way back to me on the conveyor belt and nothing that I've yet discovered is broken.

Thankfully for me and my broken body, Mimi and her Scottish flatmate Stef picked me up from the airport in a car. Things immediately turned around from that point. They've both been absolutely lovely. Despite my knee literally being covered in bruises, I'm thrilled to be in a new city. And I'll be shipping some things home before leaving it.