Dublin - first few weeks in a strange city

As most of you probably know by now, I have left the tiny mothercountry of Belgium and have embarked on the next great adventure: Dublin.

Though it’s close to home, and the population of Ireland is not even half of Belgium’s, and it’s almost winter here, it’s still quite warm and I felt really adventurous when I started out. I asked my father along to help me look for a place and he really helped me out in a lot of ways.

But when he had gone back to Belgium things started to get weird…

I found a room in the centre of Dublin. It wasn’t big, or well-looked after, and was rather expensive, but still I liked it a lot, and it was just a stone’s throw away from the Indignados that occupy Dame Street, (or at least a little square of it), Trinity College, Temple Bar, and all the landmarks that let tourists know where they find themselves in a strange city (like the Spike or Spire, a giant – you guessed it – spire that pierces the air above Dublin and that according to local legend is just put there so you can find your way home from the pub. Since the pubs already close at three I doubt this but it’s such a nice explanation I’d rather not know the truth and am content with this little spiky nugget of information). All in all I liked my room, but not my roommate.

He was a Scandinavian guy that seemed to live solely on beer and fried eggs and ham. Every night the entire apartment would stink of yet another batch of fried eggs, and although he went to the gym every other day or so it seemed, you couldn’t help but notice – mostly because he insisted in walking around the apartment in nothing more than some tight boxers or a towel – that it didn’t do him much good.

And since I’m from Belgium, I’m quite used to people having a few drinks. But when someone doesn’t even bother to come home from work and just stops at the nearest pub to down a load of pints that they don’t seem to be able to handle you tend to ask questions. Not directly to the person in question, I soon figured out that was not the way to go. Any query was met with a “Eeuh, I don’t think I understand, could you explain it to me again please?” and although seriously considered, by the time the consideration was finished the query had been forgotten. So that did not get us anywhere.

To be continued.