Knuckling Down, in a Lazy Kinda Way
April 21st
Acclimatizing to Galway means accepting that sometimes you have to wear sunglasses and hold an umbrella at the same time. It also means, in a city where the seasons change by the hour, that your sinuses will, in their confusion, revolt, and you will spend the first few days or weeks (depending on how robust your head's inner workings are) with an annoying, though not debilitating case of congestion and sniffles.
At least, that's what things have been like for me, but I am proud to say - with a voice that is no longer raspy - that I have officially acclimatized to Ireland and to Galway. To mark the occasion, I have also managed to get a bit of work; in fact, I'm supposed to be there at 11am, about 50 minutes from now, but no bother: work is, literally, right around the corner.
Remember the Da Tang Noodle House? Well, they need an extra hand in the kitchen today, washing dishes. Nothing glamorous or permanent; one of their staff is leaving in about a week, so this is more a tryout to see what I think. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, now that I've done some sightseeing and such, it's time to knuckle down and get serious, and go out and get myself a job. Which I'm going to do. Now. Or, well, eventually. Sooner or later. Hell, at least the next time you hear from me, I'll have a little extra dosh in my pocket from the dish-washing...
Accommodation hasn't materialized yet either, but there have been some near-hits. Picking up a copy of the Galway Advertiser on Wednesday afternoon, it was amazing how, within just a couple of hours, a number of properties were already taken. However, there are plenty left, and I've arranged to see a few of them, so hopefully I will also have a home soon. Actually, read 'soon' as 'by tomorrow night': Barnacles is full-up for Easter weekend, so I have to check out tomorrow morning.
April 22nd
For the past week and a half, I have spent my nights on top of a beautiful French woman.
Okay, so she was only sleeping in the bunk underneath mine, but still, a guy can dream, can't he?
Well, I'll have to do my dreaming elsewhere; it's Saturday morning, so out the door I go and, for the moment, I'm still flatless. One of my friends has said that I can crash at hers if I don't find anything though, so at least I have a place to stay in the meantime (sadly, it's not the French girl - she's going away for a few, and moves into a flat of her own when she comes back on Tuesday). The hostel staff also let me leave my pack in the luggage room for the day, so there's one more concern literally off my back.
Walking out of Barnacles at 10:30 in this Saturday morning in April, Galway is in the middle of summer. Unhindered by clouds, the sunshine skyrockets the temperature; I am so warm that my overshirt needs to be taken off, and the sleeves on my thermal rolled up as I walk to Eyre Square to sit down and think for a while.
A few minutes later, though, the sun and the blue sky are gone, and my instincts trouble me, so I take off for my haven coffee shop where I now am writing - excuse me for a moment, but I'm going to the window to watch the hailstorm that started just a minute ago - okay, so the hail actually lasted about as long as it took me to write this sentence.
Twenty minutes have passed since I left Eyre Square for my haven and, with the hail over, summer sunshine has returned to Galway.
After another 20 minutes, the sun is gone, the rain returns - and suddenly winter has started all over again.
This is the first time in my life that I have ever been in a place where I can understand why the weather would be a constant subject of conversation.
The rest of the day? Not much of interest, except that I am still homeless - until 5 o'clock, when I go to see one of my friends. She works at a stand in Corbett Court (a mall on the high street; it also has two grocery stores), and she tells me that she has some good news.
A couple of days earlier I had looked at a flat on Lower Abbeygate Street, right in the center of town. Unfortunately, I found out the next day that the three people living there had decided to offer the available single room to another person.
My friend had gone with me to see this flat, and at the mall she told me that the girl in charge of the letting had seen her working, and came over to tell her that this other person, after being offered the room, had effectively disappeared, so she and the other flatmates wanted me to take the room.
Of course, I promptly turned it down - kidding, kidding. I moved in that night, homeless no more. Well, now it's definitely time to knuckle down and get a job: I have rent to pay now.
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