Finding the Craic

Oh Dublin. What a fantastic city you are. I arrived on Saturday night, absolutely smashed from the cross country flights. I tell you what, KL and Heathrow airports are mazes. In total, I think I ran a 5k getting through those places. As soon as I stepped out of Dublin airport into the cold, I knew I did the right thing. Passed right out when I got to the hostel and woke up yesterday ready for adventure.

Yesteray I got to know you, Dublin. I wandered around your cobbled streets (yes, they really are cobbled) and found Temple Bar and O'Connell Street. I got a phone and I got hit on by the guy who sold me the phone. (aaah he was so Irish and handsome) I had lunch at an American booth diner (what the?) and by the time I got back to the hostel I passed right out again.

This morning I am at my USIT office for orientation and thank goodness for free internet.

I've fallen madly in love with Dublin. A lot of my friends who have been here say that the city is crowded, smelly and ugly, but I don't see that. It's such a different world that what I am used to and every single thing I see, I am in awe of. There is a church every two streets and all the buildings are joined together and pubs are 5 deep and about 2 square feet inside. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the sights.

After orientation today I think I might go to St Stephens Green and check it out.

Now all I'm hoping for is snow.

(Sorry for not posting a more cohesive entry, but my thoughts are scattered all over the place!)

The countdown is on kids! I leave for the Emerald Isle next week! I have my woollies and my gloves, got me a pair of boots, some Australian gifts for my au pair kids and I'm set! I've started losing sleep because I stay up at night like a kid on Christmas eve. There isn't a lot to do right now, I lost my job due to the Queensland floods. While I'm thinking about that, please readers, we need your help. Please donate to the Queensland flood relief fund.

Donate here

We've been devastated by floods since December and many people have lost everything, some of them have lost their lives. The media are calling it the worst natural disaster Queensland has ever had. We need any support we can.

But Queenslanders are known for their hardiness and we will pick up and start over.

Anyway....

This isn't the first time I've lived in a foreign country, but I still feel the stirring of unease in my stomach sometimes. Each country has it's own set of customs and cultures and I'm sure most travellers concur when I say that I hate making cultural faux pas. Any foreign national I've known is desperate to appear at home and shake the 'tourist' label because of the ugly stereotype attached to them. (Maybe that's just me.) I want to make this work.

My favourite part of travel is at the end of the flight, the air stewards are handing out last drinks, the buckle seat belt sign comes on, (if you're like me) you wake up from a chemical induced knockout and when the plane slices through the clouds, you see your destination country and it's alien and beautiful and exciting and nerve inducing all at once. That's my favourite part of travel, when the possibilities are stretched before you. What's your
favourite part of travelling?

Updates to follow...

Was that the name of the movie with Scarlett Johansson? I can hardly remember the movie, I can only remember that character went through hell as a nanny. I hope I don't have the same problem.

I am going through a company called IEP-International Exchange Programs to help me get a job, a tax number, a bank account etc. When I applied for the program, they sent through a whole bunch of useful bits and bobs to help get me organised. Now the only real concern I had about this adventure was the economical climate in Ireland right now, (it's not good) and that I'm going at a time when no-one is hiring. (The latter I only found out AFTER I booked my flight) However, IEP send through a list of sites that past foreign job hunters used to gain employment. I had a half hearted search on them, thinking I would find my job when I got there. Apparently the percentage of people getting a job before they land is 1%. ONE PERCENT?! There was no-way I was going to get one before I left Australia.

Anyway, I threw together a ramshackle profile on an au pair site. www.newaupair.com. No-one was going to hire me from an au pair site! I have no experience with kids! However after a couple of weeks, I had a family contacting me, and after emailing to and fro for a fortnight, I have been hired!
Three adorable Irish girls will be in my care. One is 20 months, Aoibhinn (pronounced 'Ev-een'), another 4 years, Treasa and the eldest who is 9, Sorcha.
They all have flaming red hair and cheeky smiles. As you can tell, I am besotted already.

The family have offered me an incredible situation. A room with an en-suite, all meals, use of the car, and pay- I get weekends and nights off. The mother is a shift worker so I will also have some days in which to explore. I can't believe my luck.

My new home is located in the west of Ireland, in County Mayo, the town of Castlebar. Again, my luck is unbelievable. The west of Ireland is where the majority of Irish speaking nationals live, and the town in which Irish is the lingua-franca is in my county. I've been studying Irish for the last few months and have fallen in love. It's a beautiful, poetic, expressive, difficult, frustrating, mystical language. I get the opportunity to immerse myself with native speakers.

I've looked up my new home, and it sounds incredible.
Here are some pictures for you to get an idea of the beauty.

Christmas Scenes Around Castlebar

Has anyone been to Castlebar? Does anyone live in Castlebar? Hit me up if you know this small town in the west.

The first week I am in Ireland, I'll be staying in Dublin. I've got friends that have been there that have told me it's busy, dirty, smelly and generally unpleasant, but I find myself ignoring them and being irrevocably drawn to this city. I've been spending hours looking up what it is I want to see and do in the seven short days of my stay, and I just won't have enough time! The city is seeped in history and culture. Now I come from a country that has so little history and such recent stories to tell, so for a place to have centuries and centuries of stories, and at my fingertips, how can I resist?

I've planned a few geeky touristy things for my first few days. I'm going to jump on the Dublin Ghost Bus tour, a night-time bus tour that will take me around the city to all the haunted places! I can't wait! I love history and I love things that go bump-in-the-night so this is right up my alley. The bus itself is incredible. It looks like something out of Harry Potter.

Check that out! 'The world's only ghost bus!' I'm such a geek.

I've also booked a two day tour, and it's a 'jump on jump off' kind of thing. I figure I'm going to spend the first day just on the bus, going around to all 23 places on the tour and just listening and looking and then on the second day I'll jump off to each place and check it out. I'm such a lucky girl!

I've got to register as a foreigner, and attend an orientation meeting at my exchange office, but that will take a day at the most. I've been frantically searching on google maps how far it will be between these places, trying to find bus routes, but as I found directions on GM, I discover these places are like a 1km apart! I can walk anywhere in this city! I don't think I can quite comprehend how small this country is. In my city in Australia you have to drive 10 minutes to get to the next suburb!

I'll be staying at the Dublin International Hostel. Now I've stayed in YHA hostels before and not ONE of them looks as amazing as this one does.

It looks like a freaking manor!

I can't wait to see Ireland's capital, hopefully I will be able to spend more time in it than the seven short days I've allocated for myself.

If you've been to Dublin, and know all of the good things to see or do, please comment! I would love any suggestions.

Craic is a term for fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation- and I plan to find as much of it as I can!

Hello there! My name is Lee. I'm set to live and work in Ireland from January 2011! This blog is to document the adventures I hope to go on during my time on the Emerald Isle. I'm fairly new to blogging, so please bear with me. Please allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Lee. I'm 21 years old and a year out of university.
I studied Languages and Linguistics with a major in Japanese language.
I lived and studied in Japan in 2008-that experience has given me a travel bug that I can not seem to satisfy.

I've wanted to go to Ireland since I was a little girl and now I feel is the time. I've studied the history, the culture and even the language, but now it's time to live it! I've got my ticket, I'm booked into my hostel and my adventure officially begins at the end of January. During my time abroad, I would love to explore Europe in it's entirety and I want you all to come with me. I hope to post faithfully to this blog, so watch this space!