Irish Locks Are Confusing, Day 3

Today started with a little Frank McCourt with toast, yogurt, and tay (tea) with lashings of sugar and milk. Sure, there were jack hammers and sirens in the distance, but I sort of love the sounds of a city.

It was the first official day of classes and I was excited to see the CEA classrooms and to learn about the space(s) we'd be hanging around in for the next three weeks. My walk to school is scenic and beautiful--I only took one picture today because I was anxious about getting there on time, but I'll take a few more tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a picture of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

We learned many interesting things during our orientation at CEA today--why the Irish are so friendly, the definition of craic, how to call the police, and why you don't want to end up in an Irish emergency room.

At some point during orientation, however, I received a panicked text from Peyton. "I can't get the lock to unlock!!" I replied, "The apartment door? Oh, I struggled this morning too." "No, I really can't get out!" After orientation, we were all going to go to lunch, but instead I had to run back to the apartment. I really thought there was something simple we could do to fix the lock and break Peyton out of the apartment. I was wrong.

His first message to me was at 12:33; he wasn't liberated until almost 4:00. When I arrived at the apartment sweaty (those g.d. stairs) and out of breath, I couldn't get the key to work at all. Then, I struggled to find our landlord's phone number. Eventually, I got a hold of him and he was incredulous that we could't open the door and tried to explain how the lock works. I had no patience for his explanations to the stupid Americans; the lock was simply broken. Resigned, he said he would be there to check it out.

**Aside: In the past we have indeed struggled with Irish locks. We never quite mastered the lock at Eleanor's and the lock in Lisdoonvarna was incomprehensible. So, Ian's suspicion that we might simply not understand the lock was not unfounded. But, in this case, he was as wrong as I was.

I left Peyton in his luxurious and food-filled prison and went to find the rest of my crew at The Larder. Still sweaty and panting after a couple wrong turns (some of them uphill), I arrived to Tim and the students placidly drinking beers and cider. I settled in, ordered, and figured that Ian (our landlord) would figure it out.

Then, Peyton started sending me updates. The locksmith would be there at 3:00, the lock was really and truly broken, and we were not American dumb asses (at least in this moment).

The locksmith had to drill through the lock to get poor ol' Peyton out. In the meantime, we've hopped on a Dublin tour bus and are having a great time.

Then, we decide to hop off the tour bus and take a break at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. There were at least two reasons for this stop. 1) The bus driver was making some incredibly sexist and homophobic comments (we have no time for such things). 2) We all needed to pee.

There were some cool exhibits including a thoughtful exhibition of the work of Lucian Freud. It was nice to shift gears from purely touristic pursuits to something a bit more cerebral. And, the bathrooms were great. At some point during our tour of the IMMA, Peyton was released from his high-end prison and took a cab to meet us. On our way to find the Freud exhibit, we found this surprisingly lush garden. We were all enamored with manicured grounds and the wild and fragrant roses.

We browsed a bit more and then got back on the tour bus (it's a hop on/hop off deal) and saw the rest of the sights.

We said goodbye to the students and then started making plans for dinner. We settled on Arthur's, a pub in our neighborhood with a reputation for good Irish food. Arthur's lived up to its reputation. Peyton had fish n'chips, Tim had Guinness stew, and I had fish stew.

After dinner and a couple beers, we drifted back down to Francis Street and stopped into our local beer/liquor store. Now, it's a well known fact that Tim is a nerd on many level, at one of the nerdiest levels is his love of IPAs. The more undrinkable the better. This picture is him trying to decipher local brews with a guy from the liquor store. Check out the serious scrutiny he's giving the beer section. The beer dude was less than thrilled that I was taking his photo. Oops.

The more time we spend in our neighborhood, the more I love it. Below is a selection of street graffiti/art that I've managed to grab photos of--this is just a taste of what's to come.