Yes I would like some cheese with my whine!

So today marks the 9th week since I've arrived in Ireland, and while shocking yes, it doesn't really feel like I've been here more than 2 months already. I mainly attribute that to all the similarities I've noticed between Ireland and the U.S.

That being said, after 2+ months of being here, the differences have certainly become more noticeable. I mena there's obvious ones like driving on the other side of the road and the drinking age being 18, but there are definitely ones that caught me by surprise, some that didn't, ones that I find hilarious, and those that definitely are not. I figured I'd fill you guys in on some of them if you ever wanted to picture what my day to day life is like rather than just hearing about all my fun adventures. Which I'm sure you don't mind hearing about anyway, but still.

Because I like ending on a high note, I'll start this post with the confusing and/or frustrating things here and I'll have a second post about the good and funnier differences. That's not to say some of the confusing or frustrating things aren't funny though, because some of them are riotous. You'll also find I might double dip with some things that fall under both categories. If you get confused then you'll be on the same page as me. I also promise, as much as I sound like I'm complaining, these are only small things in everyday life that I've gotten used to by now so it's not like they're actual problems anyone should be concerned with. And as many downers as there seems to be in this post, I swear there's more positive things in the next one.

1. Walking on Sidewalks

If any of you have every heard a Baumann do an impression of my grandma, this will make the quote funnier. For those who haven't, you're missing out cuz it's hilarious. My grandma has a lot of... well we'll call them "catchphrases." Basically it's her gripes and stories about life that we've all heard millions of times before. It might be about what she's eaten that day, about her dog Butter-drop-lemon-butt-scotch (i'm not sure what her dog's actual name it but she had has a "butterscotch" and other candy named canines), or her complaints about life in general.

The one that comes to mind in situations while I'm walking down the sidewalks in Cork is "Pick a lane and STAY in it!" Now, in her case she complaining about drivers on the highway, but for me I'm complaining about people walking. You'd think as in the U.S. people would tend to walk on the same side of the sidewalk as they do when they drive, in this case on the left. Now, I'm a flexible traveller of the world and can walk on whatever side of the the walkway that is customary in whatever country I may be at the time.

It's only when everyone walks on every side of the sidewalks that things get a little awkward. You end up on a different side for every person you encounter. You make really awkward eye contact with someone and you both KNOW that one of you is going to have to move. You end up bumping into people. You can't get past slow people. You try to avoid an oncoming person and accidentally move into their path instead of out of it and then the both of you just have a whole raging party of awkwardness as you dance around each other trying to figure out who goes on which side. I've decided I must look like this when walking down the street:

On the bright side, I'll be immune to the awkwardness of these situations by the time I leave.

2. Lack of Information

Now, this one could be taken as me just being a baby or the Irish having a much crueler sense of humor than I thought. I'll use the building I live in as the main example just because that's where I have the most experiences. You'd figure that when you move in somewhere, especially a university owned building, the packet of papers they give you would explain most everything. And they did explain most things.

Well, things that were important to them not necessarily us. They explained all about the fire alarms, made us do inventory and damage reports of the apartment, and other stuff that would make their life (and ours inadvertently) much easier. Here's a list of things I didn't know until after it would've been helpful to know about it:
-reception give garbage, recycling, and compost bag for free....after we bought them.
-reception gives top-ups for phones......after I walked 10 minutes to the store only to find their machine was broken.
-you can blow a fuse....after we blew out two.
-you can turn said fuses back on yourself....after the electricity to our fridge was accidentally turned off and this happened to ALL our food:

-you can adjust the radiators in the main room and hallway.....after needing to open windows because it was so hot.
-you can permanently open your room door...after we locked ourselves out multiple times.
-there are lights in the hallway outside our apartment door....after walking through dark hallways night after night.
-how to work the oven.....after we needed to use it.
-how to turn on the hot water......after taking many a cold showers

And trust me this is only a few of them. They just keep coming and coming as time goes on. It also happens in classes, at the library, on campus, in city centre, on the rugby team, literally everywhere here you almost never have as much information as would be helpful. But not all are important and in fact some are pleasant surprises. For example I just found out that they kindly donate all extra stuff in apartments to homeless shelters at the end of the year. But the pleasant surprises are far and few between. Like I said I don't know whether I'm just being whiney or the guys working at reception think it's hilarious to watch us flounder around cluelessly. Probably some combination of both.While we're on the topic of frustrating things where I live.....

3. My Shower
It has absolutely no water pressure whatsoever. I've called maintenance and they insist it's in working condition....if by working condition they mean dribble down the wall then yes! It's working perfectly! It feels like this:

when I usually like my showers fire hose status when it comes to pressure:

It's only really a problem because I have such thick hair and if I wanted to shower I would end up with my head pressed against the wall for 5 minutes just to get my hair wet. I thankfully have roommates who don't me encroaching on their personal space and have been sharing a shower.

Another thing that isn't really frustrating just slightly confusing at first, is turning on the hot water. It was uncomfortable talking cold showers, but it's not the first in my life. You need to remember to turn it on about 30-40 minutes before you want to shower which just takes some getting used to, but it's not inconvenient most of the time.

4. How EXPENSIVE things are

I finally broke an awful habit of not converting things here. I'd look at something and be like "Oh 12 euro! Awesome!" thinking it's $12 when in actuality it's closer to $15 or $16. The thing is, the prices here would be normal back home if it were dollars and not euros which means that everything is a bit pricier than usual. And for a poor college student who isn't allowed to get a job here (even though now I have the time for a job), it can be kind of frustrating shelling out the cash. Spongebob can commiserate:

But I usually pay anyway cuz what the hell, I'm in Ireland and I don't wanna miss out on anything.

5. Not Having "American" foods

Before I left my friend Brendan asked me what food I would miss most while abroad. And while it was at least a more interesting question than "Are you excited?" (duh who wouldn't be excited to study abroad for 5 months) I couldn't really answer it at the time since, well, I wasn't abroad yet.

Well now you have your answer Brendan and it's surprisingly tortilla chips.

They do have them in some stores, but the bags are often small and not worth the money. Tortilla chips were my go to snack back home and I just don't have them as often as I do back home. They're not too big on the whole Mexican food thing considering there's a single Mexican food place in Cork and in the supermarket the Mexican food takes up a pitifully small amount of space. It's weird for me coming from a place where there's a Chipotle, Qdoba, and home owned Mexican food place all within 2 blocks of each other (if you're wondering that's on Forbes Ave in Pittsburgh). I guess it has something to do with the fact that the U.S. is quite a bit closer to Mexico than Ireland is.

While tortilla chips are number one on my list, it's closely followed by the peanut butter/chocolate combination. Not just Reese's, but ANY candy that has peanut butter and chocolate. It simply doesn't exist as far as I've seen. I guess it's a by product of not having very much peanut butter at all here. These aren't the only things, I've seen maple syrup all of once, and have yet to see mac and cheese. I also miss good pizza and bagels, but really that's no different than my usual griping since Pittsburgh doesn't really have those when I'm at school either.

6. Being a Far Walking Distance From Everything

This is one of those double edged swords. Yes I'm being healthier by walking, but when it takes 40 minutes just to walk to the food store, you're a bit less inclined to go at all. Or you end up shelling out the money for the bus and as seen earlier, we all know how I love to do that. The bus is fairly expensive as it is so then I'm usually just stuck making the trek back and forth. If I'm with other people talking to them passes the time nicely, but if i'm walking back with heavy groceries this often passes through my mind:

7. Internet Allowance

This one is specific to my building as I don't know of any other university accommodation that has this.  Every once in a while, I'll get the dreaded "white page" when on the internet. It has this ironically cheerful wording warning me that I have now reached my internet allowance and my future browsing will be continued at a slower rate.

Now usually, I don't use enough to actually reach this threshold. I've only encountered it maybe a dozen times since getting here. It's only a huge pain in my butt when I want to Skype with someone or watch something on Netflix. Both are huge drains on whatever allowance they give you. It doesn't work at the "slower" speed afterwards either so if you hit it right in the middle of Dexter or if you're talking to the fam it cuts out. It is kind of annoying having to be careful and plan ahead. It's quite the downer if you friend tells you the day of that the only time they can Skype is that day. Oh well! You've used up your internet so nothing you can do!

Like I said, I haven't really run into it many times. At least I feel good about myself knowing I don't waste away in front of the computer all day.

8. Outlets in the Library

...or lack thereof. Most of the work I do in the library involves me needing my computer either for looking up where books are in the library, typing an essay, or researching online. Considering the library is a good 20 minute walk from home for me, I also don't just go to the library for an hour or so, I usually hunker down and stay a minimum of 3 hours trying to get stuff done. It's also on a different WIFI system so if I have work to do online, it's faster and less of a drain on my account at home.

And while Macs are indeed wonderful computers, they don't have incredible super powers for having long battery-lives. The problem arises then that I need to charge my computer and there's really only about 2 outlets for every 25 spots. And that's being really generous.

If you're lucky enough to find an outlet, chances are it's already being used or it awkwardly on the other side of the desk so you need to be creepy and lean over the divider to plug it in totally bursting some poor person's personal space bubble.

9. How NO ONE Looks Like a Slob

But actually, everyone looks presentable ALL the time. Very few people wear sweatpants or workout clothes to class or even camping out in the library. The only exception I can really think of is if someone is an athlete on their way to practice. And that's really it. Granted I don't really have to put that much effort into my daily low standard look of jeans and tee or sweatshirt, but it must take so much effort to look nice all the time. ALL the time. Can't we all just have pajama day everyday like in the U.S.? Go to class looking like you're still half-asleep?

Ok not quite this. But ya know! Sweatpants! Sweatshirts! Comfy clothes! No makeup! Sloppy buns hair-do cuz you're too lazy to do anything else!

So there you have it. I was really stretching for somethings as they could very well happen in the U.S. too, but I've just noticed they happen to me here a lot more often. The next one will be about all the positive and/or hilarious differences so don't go thinking I don't like it here....because I definitely do.