I have a home!!

So yesterday, I discussed about how I was homeless and how weird it was to not have a place to call my own.

A couple of hours after my post, I had another interview with another place and it went well enough that they asked me to be their roommate an hour later.

.......what a relief to finally come to a place to store my stuff, lay out, and now let myself to do other important things here in Dublin.

For example, I could not open a bank account nor extend my stay here through the Garda until I got a permanent address here.

My roommates are going to be three Irish guys and a French girl and I'm happy to live with thus far. The location is near the center of Dublin and the cost is low compared to most of the other apartments on the apartment search site.

Also, in my brief time in the apartment thus far, I have learned quite a bit about unique places in Dublin that are not highly publicized by tourist sites.

Hopefully, I can go to some of these places and take some pictures and post them on here.

Also, today was the FIRST DAY of classes!!! Yay!!

I had only one class today called Irish Cultural Studies II and the professor was very animated and passionate about Irish Culture and the topics that will be discussed about this semester.

One thing that was interesting was that the minority in the class were students from the United States.
There were a good bit of students from Germany and France, which prompted the professor to talk in French at random times during the class.

For example, Daniel Day-Lewis, the starring actor for the movie Lincoln, is from Ireland. Also, as noted in an early blog post, Jonathan Swift, creator of Gulliver's Travels, is from Dublin too.

Also, the professor was so fascinating with knowing every person in the room and where he is from. That just goes to show how much you can remember if you simply attempt to identify one particular fact or event with a person.

I really enjoyed the class and, despite being later in the day, I liked the class structure and openness of it as well.

After that, I went out to dinner at this Asian restaurant called Neon. My dish was a combination of yellow curry and noodles and it was delicious. The curry had an unexpectedly sweet taste to it and, by adding to the noodles, created a soup that was pleasant to drink afterwards.

On the way to pick up my stuff from my temporary housing to my new apartment room, my friend and I stopped by the Temple Bar area and relaxed and listened to the live music and banter by the bartender on the sound system during breaks.

Also, there is this map in the back of the place that shows how Dublin looked from the 9th century to about the 16th century. It was fun trying to identify streets and names of places that existed back then and remain to this day.

For those interested in historical places, Dublin Castle, St. Stephen's Green, and a couple of roads were listed on the map and there was considerably less shown on the map in comparison to the one now.

The most fascinating part was being able to picture how Dublin went from the wee little town it was in this town to expanding east, west, north, and south around noticeable landmarks over the years, decades, and centuries.

Finally, my friend and I picked up my stuff from the apartment by my friends from Germany and Mexico. It was a bittersweet moment because this truly meant the end of the 'hostel life' and the beginning of focusing on what I need to do. I told them that we will keep in touch and then my friend and I began to depart.

Initially, taking the taxi was the original plan but I decided to see how we feel about walking to O'Connell's Street and decide then if to take a taxi since that road has enough taxis for the entire population of Indianapolis haha. Somehow, we fought through and walked the entire trip to my new place. I measured it on Google Maps after doing it and found that it was about a mile walk between the places. By doing the walk, we saved about 10 euros in cost and got a tremendous workout and chat. Also, I saved myself a potential headache with dealing with another stressed-out taxi driver. Do I recommend doing it? Probably not. However, it was a great time and challenge to do to navigate through Dublin.

Since I have not discussed it yet, the story behind the taxi driver is really brief but pretty remarkable in my eyes.

So my friends from Germany and Mexico and myself were being taken to their flat with our suitcases because.. well.. I packed too much and needed a taxi.

Anyway, the taxi driver never engaged us in conversation and seemed to be a really upset fellow. Nevertheless, we arrived at the place and I was so relieved of all the help that I decided to pay the entire fare, which was 9 euros. Also, I was going to ask them if they could give a tip for his help but they were pre-occupied with getting the stuff out of the cab.

So I go up to the driver and I was just making sure that I got the fare correct while I waited on them to take the stuff out of the car and then he absolutely blew up on me in disgust saying 'Oh so no tip for all those bags.' My reply was 'Huh? Sir, I was going to get the ladies to give the tip but they are getting the bags out.'
His reply was simply 'Don't bother' and, as I attempted to give him something in remorse, he stormed to the car and nearly drove off before they got everything out.

I felt bad about the entire situation and looking back, I should have had the tip with it. However, the way he carried on was so sad and disrespectful. Oh well.. like the old saying 'You can't please them all.'

I have yet to unpack my stuff but I am tired and feeling lazy about doing it tonight. Until then, I hope you all have a great night!