Yes, this is the view of our Hostel (Dublin International Youth Hostel) and the place that Nate and I currently call home. It's really rather a charming building and was previously a Nun Convent back in the day (1800's I believe). Anyway, it's hard to see it from this view but the entire Hostel is four buildings all connected, including the Church that you can barely see with the cross at the top of it. The church is where the Harry Potter tables are at and all the stain-glass windows that are all on Facebook, and which I can't actually find right now.
This blog is going to focus on life at the Hostel so that you understand what a day in the life of a Hostelite is like. For instance, this morning I got up around 7:30, changed my clothes into work clothes (jeans and a dirty tank top, and a bright orange apron with the Hostel logo on the back), and put on my tennis shoes (called 'runners' over here). I opened my door and bumped into Oscar who was debating if he should knock on my door to wake me up or if he could find some female who would walk in and make sure I was awake, because I'm in a female dorm and males aren't allowed inside without female permission. I had asked him last night to wake me up if he didn't see me by a quarter to eight this morning because I had to work. He worked the night shift and gets off at eight so we usually have breakfast together before I have to work. We headed up one flight of stairs to the 200's (my room is in the 100's) and found my way through two different security doors with my awesome key card. All the way to the west is the Church Restaurant where breakfast is served from 7:00am to 10:30am. I didn't have enough time for breakfast so Oscar and I just had a cup of coffee and then I went to wait for Neus, the weekend Housekeeping manager AKA Crazy Spanish Lady (occasionally Crazy Spanish Be-atch).
The thing about Neus (pronounced, Nay-owz) is that she can be funny and easy going, but when she gets her crazy Spanish on she is a violent thunderstorm of incoherent language. Since there are many Spanish speakers in housekeeping, Nate and I are in the dark a fair amount of time and have to search for interpreters from one of the better English speaking Spanish people. Below is an example of what Neus does to her victims:
The guy she is strangling is Atsuro, a 40-something Japanese guy who is part of housekeeping. His English is fairly limited but he came to Dublin (along with probably 90% of everyone here) for the express reason to learn English. Why Dublin you may ask? No idea, something about it being cheap and full of Irish. Anyway, Atsuro only understands what I am guessing to be between 3 and 10% of any given conversation. The Spanish boys like to make fun of him when they get the chance because he can't keep up with them (cause he like us doesn't understand Spanish) but he is very sweet and he and I always greet each other. One night I was hanging out in the Games Room on the computer and he was in there writing song lyrics in English. I asked if I could read them over and he handed his paper to me. It was an Irish ballad he was writing about older men who lost their jobs at a factory and now couldn't face going home to tell their wives. It was actually very sad. Anyway, I never would have expected it from this random Japanese guy, but you never know what people are like. He and I also like to discuss sushi, and apparently Atsuro is a big fan of raw (and alive) oyster with a little bit of lemon juice. Interesting taste.
Some more interesting Housekeeping Crew are these two girls, Sandra and Yoon Jung. Sandra is from Spain and has a definite Spanish accent, which was surprising because I'm used to the brown skin that comes with the Spanish accent, not here though. The Spanish speakers are a bunch of whities lol. Anyway, Sandra was one of the first people to train me in Housekeeping and is quite funny and sweet, but has an unexpected silliness that strikes out, usually by swearing at us when we least expect it lol. She's one of those people who seems so innocent that she probably doesn't even know swear words, but then she will be like 'Fook you!' and we have to laugh at her. Yoon Jung is similar. She's from South Korea and is here to learn English. At first I thought she was one of the easy going nice Asian girls, but something upsets her and WHAM! You're in for it. Don't let her sweet smile fool you, she can be scary, but it's almost funny to watch...almost.
They've moved my bedroom to a staff room now that's downstairs and my roomies are both Sandra and Yoon Jung and a new Spain Spanish girl -Sylvia. They are fun and are room is pretty cool, though they complain that I'm not around enough cause I'm always running off to different parts of Ireland and taking pictures lol. Anyway, we get along really well, Yoon Jung, despite her youthful appearance is actually 28 and we tease her that once she hits 40 she will get all wrinkly and look 80 because she looks so young right now. She mothers us all in this weird 'be shure tow clean up woom' way of hers. Syliva is 17 and the newbie and we all like to tease her whenever we can because she's still rather young and innocent and somewhat idealistic. Nate and I have told her we were going to attempt to corrupt her but she said she's from Spain and if it didn't happen there it definitely won't happen in Dublin, which she's probably right about.
I'll have to add some more pics later, it's taking like 20 minutes per photo and I keep falling alseep. Anyway, we clean bathrooms and then rooms for about five hours everyday, and mess around talking to people and hearing their life stories. Nate's going to try to do a few vlogs on Facebook later, if it will let us upload them. Have fun!
