Dublin Musings

Good morning, friends, ex-neighbors, and ex-countrymen/women,
Well, it’s finally happened. I am sitting in a café in downtown Dublin - on O’Connell Street, no less - drinking a cup of coffee at – would you believe The Muse Café? and blogging away. It’s been an exciting morning in Tizzieland – no I haven’t walked out in front of a bus yet although they do persist in driving on the WRONG SIDE of the road over here. I wonder who I should talk to about changing that. .. There are big signs painted on the streets which say “LOOK RIGHT” or “LOOK LEFT”. However, they don’t provide those in the middle of the street or on corners which can be a problem. No mind, I can honestly say that I have only stepped out in front of 1 bus and two cars so far. Bob rescued me once; I rescued myself the other two times while also achieving a remarkable aerobic heart rate.
This morning I have walked downtown with Bob on his way to work. He walks through the heart of the city, and I have stopped along the way to do some investigating on your behalf. You behalf, you say? Yes, that’s right. If all of you who are threatening to come to Dublin actually show up at my door, I will need to know where to take you and what you’ll want to see. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it! I was most excited to wander through two stores this morning: Penneys and Ireland’s equivalent of a Dollar Store (however, it’s a 2 Euro Store which translates in about a $3.00 Store). I was happy to see some semi-American looking good old-fashioned crap. I picked up 2 plastic bins, some hot chocolate mix to mix with WATER (for some reason they want to mix all their hot choc with MILK over here; I was happy to find a good, cheap water version!), and a couple bags of Brand X coffee. They have a love affair with instant coffee over here, and ground coffee is not that prevalent in the stores. Usually, there’s just one small brand in one size. However, there is PLENTY of tea, and I have even learned to drink that in the past 2 weeks. I’ll let you know how the coffee tastes…
Responses to you Queries…
Have I ”cozied up” the apartment?
Yes, you can see above that I bought 2 black plastic bins in which to ’cozy up’ the papers on the kitchen table. I also plan to check the apartment dumpster as I saw a metal strainer and a 3-tiered metal rack of some kind that looked interesting. And you thought I only dumpster-dove for U.S.A. Todays at the University Bookstore!!
Has anyone actually said “Top ‘o the morning “ to me yet?
No, only a few of you would be -comedians have said that to me.
Now for your comments:
**My proudest one is from my daughter-in-law, Megan, who said that she “jumped for joy” when she saw that I was going to write a blog! Bob insists that she must have been kidding and that I just couldn’t see her tongue in her check, but I believe her firmly and truly. I think every daughter-in-law should be required to read her mother-in-law’s blog every day, don’t you??

“Tizzie, you will liven up the lives of those old Irish geezers in your apartment.”
Well, either that or I will become an old Irish geezer myself. We’ll see…
I will stop now as I know some of you have other things to do like work and I don’t want to bore my audience too early on.
Love from the Emerald Isle,
Tizzie, Tizmom, Mom, Liz, Elizabeth