Me Irish Culture

The last number of weeks living in Dublin city centre have been interesting to say the least and learning my way about the city has been easy enough, compared to other cities that I have been to.

Possibly one the strangest things that happened was when I was sitting in the Temple Bar having a pint of Guinness and listening to an Irish traditional band. It was the same night that France was playing in the World Cup and had won their match. As I sat in the bar and looked out onto the streets of Temple Bar I could see a couple of hundred French fans jump up in down and waving the French flags in celebration. Now I have never seen anything like this in Ireland and I really had to pinch myself to remind me that yes I was in Dublin. It was just complete madness listening to the Irish music and seeing all the French people outside the bar, very weird.

Last week I had to visit the social welfare office in Dublin city centre to apply for my PPS number (social security number) and to be honest I think I was the only Irish person in the office. I could hear all kinds of different languages and each person seemed to be there for the same reason, applying for a PPS number. I just hope that all these foreign nationals had actual jobs in Ireland and were not applying for the PPS number so they could pickup unemployment benefits, wouldn’t that be unfair to the people paying taxes in Ireland?

For now I avoid the Grafton Street area like the plague as there are too many people crowding into those narrow streets. You literally need to battle your way through the crowd and when you come across someone who is just dandering (walking slowly) you just want to push them out of the way.

Walking to work each morning is turning into a pain as I seem to be confronted each and everyday by those people handing out the free newspapers such as the Metro and Ireland AM. They seem to be getting more aggressive in trying to get me to accept the newspaper and I have already knocked over one girl who stepped in front of me to stop me dead in my tracks. Now I am very fast walker, especially walking to work, so if you step in front of me I’ll end up knocking you over which I did with this aggressive newspaper handler.

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