biking on the left, and other stories

I'm in Ireland for a purpose, which I find much more enjoyable than being here as a tourist. Instead of staying in a hostel in the midst of loud, frenetic central Dublin, I'm living in a small, adorable house 15 minutes out of town. My room came with a bike, and I've been using it.

Biking on the left isn't difficult, at least after the first five minutes or so. What is difficult, actually, is walking. I generally try to do as the locals do, which means walking on the left side of the sidewalk. No tourists do this. As a result, the pedestrian arteries of Dublin are constantly clogged: a stumbling chaos of backpacks and underdressed Italians.

It's cool in Ireland, even in the summer, and no one seems to have anticipated this while packing. Tourists from warmer climes walk around, shivering, wearing two shirts and buying scarves on the street to wrap around their goosebumped necks. It's not really that cold, just much colder than most of the world at the moment. Now that I've been here a few weeks, I am acclimated enough to wear a skirt and sandals in temperatures around 60, but for the first few days I, too, huddled under my raincoat and wore only long pants.

For a while I kept thinking I'd just heard people speaking German or Dutch, or at the least maybe Gaelic, but each time it turned out to just be Irish people mumbling in English. I've also become accustomed to this, and can now usually understand people, but during my early errands, it caused some problems:

Me: I need to buy an ethernet cable.
Clerk: A whhhoth?
Me: I mean, an ethernet "lead."
Clerk: Ehhhrh! A lead. Noo, we'ven't got those. Try Mcgnnennds.
Me: Try - sorry, where?
Clerk: Margnehhns.
Me: I... what?
Clerk: [glaring]
Me: Can you just spell it for me?

But now, for whatever reason, people's accents are usually easier to understand. I have to remember to alter my own vocabulary a little: pants are trousers; elevators are lifts; awesome occurrences are grand, or deadly, or brilliant; that jumper looks "well" on you; 4:30 is half four.

As far as I can tell, about half the people here have red hair; most of these are also curly. Everyone is extremely charming, except for boys between the ages of 12 and 22: these are the most disrespectful, insolent of their age group in any country I've been to. I've gotten more guff from nice-looking Irish lads in three weeks than I did from youths the whole time I was in Amsterdam or the six weeks I've been in New York. Maybe it's the claustrophobia of living on an island where nothing is more than five hours away, or maybe it's frustration over the frequent rain; in any case, Irish boys are kind of jerks.

But every few blocks there's someone heating their house with a peat-burning stove. It smells so lovely, and so Irish.