First Day of Work

April 16- Day 5 - First day of work
I started the day by getting on the train going in the wrong direction...not a good beginning for my first day of work in Ireland! I realized just one stop into the train ride that I was not headed for the office and got on in the right direction. Then I proceeded to get royally lost before I finally made it to the office just 5 min. before I was due to arrive. I was escorted to my desk and meet a few people in the department. Everyone was very friendly! Yeah!

I looked at another apartment over lunch and it was lovely but it was ground floor and on a main traffic way, with the bed only about 12 inches from where a lot of people were standing around. I don't think I'd get much sleep with people standing right outside my bedroom window...I'll have to keep looking.

I dove right into my work project this afternoon. We have a lot of work to do and the girl that I will be working with is very nice. We have similar public accounting backgrounds and she helped explain a lot of terminology that is different in Ireland. Overall a good first day!

April 15 – Day 4
It’s crazy, but I slept in so late that I barely made it to an 11am church service. I found a church in Dublin online and decided to attend. The congregation is very diverse. They had each of the visitors stand up and say where they are from and afterwards I met two students from my home state. Joey and Jeff and studying in Ireland this summer and headed back to the states the end of May. I hope to see them next Sunday at church. I decided that today I would take the DART as far as it would go North…the opposite direction from yesterday. The last stop to the north is Howth. It is a fishing village complete with a pier, lots of seafood restaurants and a picturesque setting. They were actually having an outdoor market today with shops selling everything from jewelry and vintage clothing to cheese and fresh fish. Now it’s time to get ready to go to work tomorrow morning.

April 14 – Day 3
I got a late start because I slept in!!! I met Gerry about 11:30 to look at apartments and we saw three. The first one was a very modern apartment in the Grand Canal Dock area with two bedrooms and it was very nice!! The next two – one was very old and not well maintained and the second was small and overpriced. We made a bid for the first apartment and we are now waiting to see if I get it. There were apparently 13 people who viewed it and there were only 3 who the landlord (Dannacha) would be interested in renting to.

Gerry dropped me off at Christs Church and I did a tour. On my way out a girl asked me to take her picture and I asked her to take mine. We started chatting and I found out that she is a student on a semester abroad in Spain. Laura (21) is from Ohio and a student of a school in Kentucky. She asked what my plans were for the afternoon and I said that I had none. She asked if I would want to go with her on the DART line for Bray (last stop to the South on the DART) to have a look around. I said sure and we headed in that direction. We had a nice train ride down and looked at the coast. We walked along the water in Bray and stopped at a pub with a nice patio – Mallito- and had a wonderful dinner. We even shared an order of fries and cake. It was great to have someone to talk to and eat with! After a wonderful afternoon near the water we got back on the DART and headed to the hotel. What a fun way to spend the afternoon and find another American girl traveling alone.