"Ahhhh, Qwerty!"

After searching the internet, newspapers, and posting boards for places to live, we finally decided on a house- an amazing feat for 3 very indecisive people! It’s not at all what we had imagined, but after debating for an hour over a pint of Guinness we finally made a decision. It’s a newly renovated house at the top of O’Connell St. in north Dublin, one of the most famous streets in the city. It’s a 4 story house that’s kind of like a hostel because its rooms are rented on a weekly basis, so people from all over the world can stay there for any length of time and there’s a common living area and kitchen. However, we got a pretty sweet deal because our room is in the basement and we have our own bathroom, entrance and kitchenette, so if the kitchen is ever really full we have our own space to cook in. We’re pretty excited because it’s in a great location, and we can meet random people who are coming and going from the city. We move in Monday!

We’ve had some interesting and fun times meeting people so far. One night we went out for a couple drinks in Temple Bar, a touristy district with lots of pubs. The 3 of us were sitting at a bar in the second floor of this place called the Gogarty, which has a yellow façade and all of these international flags on the outside of the building. They had live music playing, so it seemed like a pretty cool place to have a pint. Little did we factor in Rory and his very drunk friend. Rory was a construction worker who gave us his business card and told us repeatedly to get out of the hostel as quick as we can, and not to work at McDonalds because they pay pennies. After not leaving us alone for 20 minutes, we made up an excuse and escaped down the stairs to a new, safe location.

Though we did meet some weirdoes, there have also been some cool people, such as our new French friend Camille. Erica and Erin had gone from the hostel where we were staying down the road to the grocery store to buy a pack of beer (Tesco brand—they even have “bobo brand” beer here!). Erin was waiting outside the store because she didn’t have her id with her (they sometimes card us here—we think that it is because of our American accents…discrimination!) and Erica started talking to Camille in line. He was also buying beer. We started walking back to the hostel, and lo and behold, he was staying in the same one!

We hung out with Camille for a few hours, and we talked about everything from the American Civil War and current Presidential election to the advantages and disadvantages of Guinness. We also instantly made him our facebook friend! When he logged onto Erica’s computer to accept our facebook friend requests, he exclaimed “Ah, Qwerty!”, much to our surprise. Apparently the American keyboard is called (slang, we’re assuming) Qwerty because it starts with QWERTY instead of AZERTY. We had no idea what he was talking about. It was pretty funny.

The last night in our hostel we went into our new room (long story short: we had to change rooms because our reservation got messed up) and ran into two German guys, Franz and Hans. We started talking with them and ended up staying in our room chatting with them for five hours! They were super nice and really funny guys who made up erupt into hysterics countless times. Their English was great for the most part, but a few times their intended meanings got lost in translation, making for some comical imagery. For example: when Franz said he likes to read historical romance novels (imagine Fabio in the 16th Century), or that his mother would have us over to eat for dinner, or asking us if we brought traditional American clothing with us (would the American equivalent to a German lederhosen be colonial garb?). The next morning we walked around the city for a couple hours with them, but then they had to go to the airport to return to Germany. They actually live in Bavaria near Munich and told us to come to Oktoberfest to meet up with them, which we would love to do. It probably wont work out because Oktoberfest starts really soon and it would probably cost too much money to plan last minute, but hopefully we will see them again one day.