Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Irish News

Christmas is over, and today Katherine and I return to the work routine. Correction: Katherine does, since I was deemed by my former employer to be unfit to return after the holiday. The pain is still fresh.

I felt very foolish this morning. Having some errands that have been waiting since early in the month, I set out on the first post-Christmas, post-Bank Holiday weekday that has come around in quite some time. Our kitchen is being overtaken by a rapidly growing pile of recyclables––I can no longer ignore the need to go to city hall and get some 'official' recycling bags––and I have some letters to mail. I felt foolish because, you see, I was assuming that places like the post office, city hall, and banks would be open. I probably should have known that today is the traditional, um, Holiday Following the Bank Holiday That Comes After Christmas; or, St. Jimmy's Day; or, The Feast of the Holy Virgin of Whitsuntide Boxing Day...whatever, the point is nothing is open and I walked through 33º-farenheit horizontal rain for nothing.

In the wake of this snafu I decided to do something useful, so I surfed Irish news sites. I have provided the highlights of this cyber-adventure below complete with pictures, saving you, the reader, the time of slogging through mundane and confusing headlines such as, "Rise in Number of Calls to Embassies," "Jurys Inns Expects Profits to Fall by 30%," and "Cheika Chops and Changes" (a piece about 'sport,' I think Gaelic Football or some similarly primitive game).


This could easily be an allegorical representation of Ireland in 2009. Unusual weather leaving Irish folks upside-down in a ditch of debt, unemployment, and losing their World Cup qualifying match to a bunch of cheaters (the French). But in fact, it is the picture being carried by the Irish Independent for their lead article on the recent foul weather. The country has been ravaged by an rare winter bout with––yes––below-freezing temperatures. Couple this with the country's average of two inches of precipitation per day, and you get slick roads and even snow. I don't know the exact number, but I think Ireland has around three plowing/salt-spreading trucks for the entire country.

The dearth of snow equipment helps explain the coverage from the Independent: "Freezing fog and ice left many roads in Co Cork and Co Kerry treacherous yesterday..." Wait...freezing fog?! What the hell is that? I've heard many mentions of this apocalyptic weather condition, and I hope to God I never see it. Sounds like something from a bad horror movie.



The reader of the Independent is also confronted with this image today. Without an explanatory article accompanying it (this is part of the "Best Images of 2009" slideshow), I am forced to rely on educated guesses as to what is going on. My more cultured readers will recognize that the vegetable (fungus?) on the velvety pillow is a massive truffle. The truffle is either standing trial or being auctioned. I think the latter, as the best way to judge a truffle's value is to test its texture on the nose and face, which is obviously what this woman is engaged in.


In entertainment news, Ireland is closely following the Christmas domestic disturbance story that saw Charlie Sheen (seen above in a recent photograph) spending the day in jail. The conflicting accounts of the fight between the Sheens are intriguing. Consider the discrepancies:

According to the Independent, Mrs. Sheen reported that Charlie "straddled her on a bed with one hand grasping her neck and the other holding the knife. She said Sheen told her: 'You better be in fear. If you tell anybody, I'll kill you.' He also told her 'Your mother's money means nothing, I have ex-police I can hire who know how to get the job done and they won't leave any trace,' according to the affidavit."

Wow, serious stuff. But there must be some misunderstanding, because "Charlie Sheen, who is listed in the affidavit as Carlos Irwin Estevez, told police....they had slapped each other on the arms and that he had snapped two pairs of her glasses in front of her." Oh, Carlos.

Who do you believe? I believe that it's a slow news day.

***
As you can probably gather from what I wrote at the beginning of the entry, the country is still in Christmas Holiday mode. The job search was especially dry today, as no new listings have been posted since before Christmas. Next week will give me a better sense of where things stands.

For now, a disturbing development is that Ireland's Training and Employment Authority, FÁS (an acronym standing for some Irish words), had nearly four hundred jobs listed for Counties Cork and Kerry about a month ago, and now there are under three hundred. Many of the listings in that dwindling total are essentially reserved for Irish nationals as part of an employment scheme, wherein jobs are open only to those who have been out of work for six months or more. Aye, the job databases are dry at the moment. Hopefully January brings a spike (and not the trough many are predicting)!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Happy Christmas and Merry St. Stephen's Day

Merry Christmas! to everyone, a couple of days late. Ireland has taken full advantage of a Friday Christmas: Monday is one of the famous “bank holidays,” ensuring a four- to five-day break for everyone (unless you work retail). Christmas day and yesterday––the twenty-sixth, which is apparently called St. Stephen’s Day––produced a sight I didn’t think possible. I refer to Oliver Plunkett Street, the heart of Cork City and also where our apartment is situated, being completely deserted. Not a soul! No drunk revelers and road work crews at midnight. A miracle.

Well, maybe not too miraculous. All of the shops and watering holes closed early, naturally, for Christmas Eve. And as it turns out, Christmas day is one of two days out of the entire year when pubs are required by law to be closed (Good Friday is the other).

Christmas day we spent with the family of our friend, Gemma. We had many Irish Christmas specialties, including spiced beef (a Cork tradition), pork liver pâté (Katherine “forgot” to try this), potato-leek soup, and roasted potatoes (the secret is to baste the spuds with goose fat). We also had time to watch the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street. While Richard Atterborough is jolly and entertaining in a hard-to-describe way, my advice is to stick with the original. The newer version doesn’t even have the Macy’s v. Gimball’s dimension!

Tomorrow is Katherine’s birthday, she joins me in the doldrums of the mid-twenties. Send her some birthday wishes to cheer her up. On Tuesday I begin anew my job search efforts, as well as my entry writing.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Les Parisiens

In response to the request for more Paris photos, I give you this picture. It conveniently sums up the whole city (or at least the heart of it) and its inhabitants:


Paris is basically lots of beautiful, perfectly proportioned people parading around under magnificently opulent architecture. The City of Lights, and of Gold Leaf too!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The End of an Era; and, Paris Afterthoughts

It became official today. After an epic tenure marked by stunning successes, bitter disappointments, volatile personality clashes and life-long friendships, my manager at Michael Guiney's informed me today that the store will no longer need my services after Christmas. The official explanation is that holiday sales have been weak and post-Christmas is going to be quite slow. He and I understood, however, the real reason: I am a threat to his job security.

My approaching departure from the world of bargain retail has led, of course, to nostalgia. Allow me to recount some of the more interesting memories. My first day on the job––my first day in retail––when I was instructed to organize the women's underwear. Or my big break: promotion to the "hardware department." There my humiliation subsided, as I was stocking Christmas decorations and scented candles instead of enormous women's briefs. Or my proudest accomplishment in hardware, the erection of a formidable rug display. There was the day that I was told to condense the contents of two shelving units of kitchen wares into the space of one shelving unit, a feat all thought to be impossible. I did it in one afternoon without breaking a sweat.

The shining moment of my time at Guiney's, without a doubt, involved the complicated relocation effort of a large bin full of brushes (or, as we would say in the US, a box full of brooms). Three employees including myself were tasked with moving the bin down one floor so it could be placed in front of the store as a clearance item. Weighing in at about two hundred pounds, and of awkward proportions, the bin was too much for us to get down the steps without serious injury to ourselves and/or customers. We stood around the bin, each man deep in thought. We furrowed our brows, scratched our heads. Then it came to me: take the brushes out of the container, and move them downstairs separately! My plan was a smashing success: the empty bin's weight was manageable, and I carried my head higher from that day forward.

There were countless other victories, large and small. Too many to describe. My final days at Guiney's have come full circle. I am back in the women's department, only this time I am pricing gloves and winter hats––a task reflective of my senior status, of how far I have come.

***
The rumors are true, it takes forever to get anything done in Ireland. Over two weeks ago we stopped into a bank to open up a joint account, as we had finally received our PPS numbers. We gave the bank all of the information they needed; they made copies of all of our documents, and put it all together in a package for Dublin (everything has to be done with the permission of some person in Dublin. Katherine's co-worker, Paula, says that her 'favorite' phrase is, "We just have to send this up to Dublin, it will only take a few days.").

"This will take five days, maximum," we were told, after which our account information would be mailed to us. Well, we came back from Paris and, two weeks after this bank visit, nothing had arrived. Katherine went back to the bank today to see what was behind the delay. What was behind the delay? The slight hiccup that they managed to lose all of our information. Gone! All of the photocopies, forms....they are "sure" they sent it to "Dublin," but "Dublin" never got it. That's okay, nevermind the fact that I need a bank account to get paid. Or that fact that it should take all of fifteen minutes to set up an account and deposit money.

While we're on the topic of things moving as slow as molasses in January, I should say that we just received out "welcome letter" from the electric company. We've been here for over a month, and we just got notification that our meter has been activated. Our lease is only for three months, I wonder if we'll ever see a bill?

***

As for Paris, my advice is to go. It's a wonderful experience. If you've any appreciation for art, architecture, or just enjoy looking at completely over-the-top opulence, then the city founded by the Celtic Parisii tribe is the place for you.

I thought I had seen fancy, I thought I had experienced luxury. I was wrong. Katherine aptly called Paris "The City that is Forever Competing with Itself." That's the key to the grandeur: many successive generations of megalomaniacs determined to leave an unrivaled mark. But I'm not down on it at all. On the contrary, I'm glad there are places where we can see what happens when individuals, when societies, really push the envelope. Sometimes the results are jaw-droppingly beautiful (as in experiencing the Louvre for the first time), or shockingly heinous (as in the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, when over 1100 people were beheaded for, well, I can't really say what).

I could go on and on about our experience, but instead I will be briefly suggest some activities. First, go to (and in) all of the clichéd places: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, le Jardin du Luxembourg, Sacre Coeur, and so on. Second, admire––and consume––the wonderful food. There's nothing like it. And third, walk everywhere. At night. They don't call it the "City of Light" for nothing.

I highly suggest a winter visit, the crowds were very manageable and there's the chance of snow:



Between us, Katherine and I have over a hundred pictures. Conveniently, Katherine has posted all of them on her Facebook profile. If you're interested in more visuals, take a peek at her Paris photo album. If you don't have Facebook, then I can post more pictures here (if I'm asked nicely).

Friday, December 18, 2009

Hello from Paris

Katherine and I have the ability to bring unusual weather with us: we're in Paris just in time for some very early snowfall. Not that I'm complaining, it's absolutely beautiful. Take a look. Of course it would have been a good idea to bring the proper hardware to post my own personal pictures, but I will just have to rely on Le Monde.

I will keep this brief since I'm using a French keyboard, which is tougher to use than I ever would have imagined. I hope the photos above whet your appetites for the much better visuals I have recorded.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Chionn tSaile

Yesterday Katherine and I made our way to Kinsale, an ancient Atlantic port that had its heyday a few centuries ago, before Cork took over as the dominant city in the County. Now, kind of like our college town of Chestertown, Maryland, Kinsale relies not on ships and commerce but tourists. We were happy to oblige.

We have a busy couple of days until the departure for Paris––Katherine is working nine-hour days at the golf shop as the acting manager. I am doing full shifts as well, the stores are swelled with Christmas shoppers. Wednesday afternoon we leave for France: the apartment we're renting has a computer, so there's a chance I will update Éire Apparent from the Continent!


Katherine taking a photo of a disused portion of St. Multose Church in Kinsale. The church was built by Normans in the twelfth century, and most of it is still used to this day (but as an Anglican house of worship). This incarnation of St. Multose is actually the "new" building, as it replaced a previous church built in the sixth century.


Me beside the old French Prison. This miniscule window was too good to pass up.


James Fort, about two kilometers outside of Kinsale. This fortification was one of two that guarded the harbor. At the bottom right of the picture you can see the gate I had to jump to get inside.


The port of Kinsale (Chionn tSaile in Irish) from the James Fort peninsula.

Charles Fort, the other (much larger) fortification near Kinsale. This one was in use until 1921 when the British finally evacuated. They burnt and destroyed most of it in the process.

Ah, even the Irish are capable of hideous condominiums. This row of waterfront flats (seen through a gap in the James Fort wall) appear as a montrous scar on the landscape, a scar that someone unsuccessfully tried to stitch up. You can't escape mass-produced housing!

***
The jury is definitely still out on living in an apartment complex. Out flat is the first time I have lived in a proper city, and my first tenancy in a building devoted to apartments. My one firm conclusion is that I miss the quiet of the country. Call me a bumpkin, but I grew quite used to not hearing anything, and, in turn, being able to hear myself think. The bustle of a downtown area in addition to the racket tenants above, below, and beside you can make adds up to, at times, an unbearable din. If we're lucky enough to have quiet neighbors, there's a good chance there will be jackhammering outside (at night). If there's no road work, the folks below us play loud music (at night). And if that's not happening, there's a good chance our upstairs neighbors will be doing laundry (at 2 a.m.––I'm not kidding).

Of course you get what you pay for, and we're not paying much. If we were shelling out €1200 a month for a luxury apartment, things would be different. At the very least there wouldn't be leaky windows.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Correction

It was brought to my attention that the links I am posting do not work. I have fixed the problem, at least in the most recent entry. If older links have issues, just Google it! I'll make sure this doesn't happen again.

We're back from a day in Kinsale, I have some good photographs to post. Probably will happen tonight or tomorrow night. Keep checking in!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Living the Grind

All of the sudden, I have work every day. I've only had one full eight-hour day, but the usual six-hour stints are more than enough. We were out late last night at a very cool place called The Crane Lane (it also houses a burlesque theatre––last night's show was "Adult Panto-Mimes"), and I was again made aware of the reputation of my employer. Upon telling folks were I work during a normal conversation, the usual reaction is a hearty laugh. One fellow told me it's "[blanking] hilarious!" that I work at Guiney's, after which he told me to be careful to not get "beat up" while on the job. But he works for the Irish revenue authority, so I can at least be grateful that I'm not the dreaded tax man.

To be honest, Guiney's is not my ideal job, even as far as part-time gigs in a foreign country go. I have continued to look for work, but the market seems more desolate than ever. Over the past week the best source for job opportunities, the internet, has become completely barren. I might become much more concerned about this in a few weeks' time, as my job is still officially temporary for the Christmas season. Because of the Paris trip we have next week I have only five more work days before the holiday.

The harsh realities of the working world aside, we are still having fun. The other night Katherine and I went for a long walk through the city's north side, a journey that produced some photographs (as promised):



This picture features one of the minor threads in Éire Apparent: St. Finbarre's Cathedral. You can just see the twin spires in this photograph. The church absolutely dwarfs the rest of the city, and is easily the dominant landmark (especially at night).



Here is some of the blight that you see in certain sections, although this ancient doorway was pretty camera-friendly. My camera takes pretty grainy pictures in low-light situations, my apologies. I'm not willing to buy another one on Guiney's wages.

More blight. And how about a picture that speaks volumes! This is all that hardcore Irish Republicans can muster anymore, a bill posted on a run-down hovel. The free-state Irish population cares little for reunification these days. The issue is hardly on the minds of the younger population at all, from what I gather. But then again, maybe it is and they don't voice their opinions in the presence of mixed company. The Irish, self-admittedly, tend to be polite to a fault.

Lastly: I always keep an eye out for Maryland connections in Ireland. This is not a conscious effort, but just the basic instinct to notice the things that are familiar. I don't experience too many Maryland "hits"; probably 90 percent of the people I have met here have (a) never heard of Maryland, or (b) haven't the slightest idea where it is. The best I can do is say, "It's next to Washington, D.C."

But inexplicably, the Old Line State has made one indelible impression on the Irish culinary landscape. I'm talking about Chicken Maryland, of course. Or Maryland Fried Chicken, or whatever you want to call it. This stuff is a fixture at Cork's famous English Market:


Strange, since most Americans (most Marylanders?) have never had it, or even heard of it. Look it up. According to an old recipe I've seen, Maryland Fried Chicken should be served with a gravy topping. I presume this is so the deep-fried poultry easily slides down the esophagus, among other healthy bonuses. Alas, the Irish don't seem to have the gravy. Amateurs.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Golfer and the Scobe

Katherine and I managed to find retail jobs catering to the opposite extremes of Cork society, which has made for interesting conversation and armchair sociology. Far more so than in the United States, playing golf in Ireland is a very class-conscious affair. Sure, there are snoody golfers on American courses, especially at the more expensive clubs. But there are also countless public links full of beer-guzzling Joes hacking divots the size of mortar impacts. Alas, I have witnessed the latter half much more so than the former.

In Ireland, if you golf it means that you're rich. Or, at the very least, you want people to think you're rich. During my visits to Katherine's workplace it isn't too hard to see what stratum of people she's dealing with: well-dressed, well-educated folks (it's easy to tell the education level by the accent, or lack thereof). And some of them are willing to shell out a few hundred euro for golf attire in the middle of a nasty recession. Katherine's customers are also all Irish...for the significance of this, read on.

My employer, Guiney's, is a different story. There we cater to the most modest of shoppers, who are desperately looking for deals. On my first day a woman asked me about winter coats, one of which she wanted to buy for her construction worker husband. Relying on my own knowledge of construction attire, I found her a good candidate for €29. Her response? "That's a bit expensive, don't you think?"

Guiney's customers are a good cross-section of the new immigration to Ireland, as are the employees. I work with Slovaks and Poles, and I have only met about 20 percent of the workers. Of the dozen or more customers who ask me for help during the day, probably three to four are Slavic, one or two are African, one is Indian, and the rest are Irish. And the Irish are sometimes the hardest to understand––this is where I run into the real Cork accent that everyone grumbles about. But it's fine because half of the time they don't understand me.

Why golf is so class-biased I'm not entirely certain. The easy answer is tempting: it's because of the English. They certainly exported a class system along with settlers. In a similar vein is hunting: here, and in Britain, hunting is a very elitist activity, dating back to when the forests and the game therein were property of the barons and the King. It's funny how utterly opposite the situation is in America. Please speak up if you disagree, but for the most part hunting is regarded as a poor rural activity.

Long story short: Katherine keeps track of seventy-euro golf jackets, and I arrange brooms that are worth €1.50 each. But we earn about the same, so I'm not complaining.

****
I'm painfully aware that I haven't been posting many photos recently. The fact that it has been raining constantly is partially to blame, as is the work schedule. We have tentative plans to journey out to Kinsale or somewhere this weekend, I'll be sure to have a full photographic record. But for now, I will add to the visual appeal of this entry with an older picture I took in Killarney––the interior of St. Mary's Cathedral, which took about seventy years to build:


Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Michael Guiney's

Well, the unlikely happened––I got a job. It's at a bargain retailer called Guiney's. And I mean bargain retailer. This place makes K-mart look like Nordstrom. But hey, I am finally gaining that valuable, and elusive, retail experience. The path before me is paved with gold.

Not too much rejoicing is in order. My employment is a "trial period," according to the manager, a trial period that ends with the Christmas season. Until that point I'm working around twenty hours a week. My first day's duties included reorganizing the clothing in the women's section. Picking up loose articles from the ground, putting articles back where they belong, etc. About an hour into this I had, I admit, a bit of a existential crisis. Five years of higher education and I'm arranging thermal underwear? Humiliation began to creep its way into my consciousness.

But that's all just pride, and I've put it behind me. Guiney's is not a career path for me, it's a little extra money before Christmas. And as a friend of ours said, having a Master's and working at Guiney's is better than having a Master's and not working at all. I'm getting to know some of my Polish co-workers who have very tough-to-pronounce names, and, thank goodness, they got me out of the women's section. It'll all be okay. Paris is only a week away.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Have You Ever Seen the Rain Coming Down on a Sunny Day?

As I am sure you all and the rest of the world wide web noticed, I took the weekend off to lick my wounds from another emasculating week of job searching. I also dried my socks, which takes at least forty-eight hours since Cork's atmosphere is at a constant 98 percent humidity. It reminds me of a section of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, which rings truer than I ever expected:

From October to April the walls of Limerick [or Cork!] glistened with the damp. Clothes never dried: tweed and woolen coats housed living things, sometimes sprouted mysterious vegetations. In pubs, steam rose from damp bodies and garments.... (12)

Thank God Ireland now has electricity!

The weather is playing with me. I really feel this way. Every morning for the past week I wake up, throw aside the curtains and embrace a perfectly clear sky. "It's going to be a nice day!," I think to myself. I shower, eat, doddle around a little bit, and eventually leave my building to go conquer the day (which, admittedly, is usually around 11 a.m.). By this time it is usually dark, windy, and raining. All one can really do in these conditions is drink tea. Indeed, I will never make fun of the British and Irish tea habit again. The fact is the weather absolutely requires it. (I will continue to ridicule the "tea time," which is asking for it).

While I'm on the topic of perplexing phenomena, a few words on systems of measurement. The Irish have no idea which system they're on. For all intents and purposes, both English and Metric are official. One trend I have noticed, for example, is that most measurements of distance, area, or speed are expressed in metric. Speed limit signs are in km/h, apartments are advertised in square meters, and the nearest market is "oh, fifty or so meters up the hill." But most measurements of height and weight, especially when described verbally, are in English. So-and-so is six-foot-one, I went on a diet and lost forty-three pounds, etc. Most of the personal scales are in stones! (For the Americans: one stone equals fourteen pounds. I weigh twelve and one-quarter stones, how about you? Break out a calculator and have fun with it). And at open-air markets, about half of the prices you see are "per pound," the other half "per kilogram." At the very least, these circumstance can make one fluent in metric pretty quickly.

But every culture has some peculiarities. Walking around the city last night––Sunday night––I saw something that I think I admire: most of the pubs were not only open, there were full.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Oh, Tannenbaum; or, Maryland, My Maryland

I now have to adjust to Katherine going off to work every day. It's only for four or five hours at a time, but it's four or five hours when I have nothing to do and no one to talk to. As I write it is raining outside, so walking around and desperately looking for new "help wanted" signs is not too attractive.

The internet is, of course, the main way to apply for jobs these days, even in Ireland. Despite work being as rare as hen's teeth, folks try to give helpful advice. My personal favorite (and this has happened at least five times) is when an Irish person says, "You know, you should really have a look at IrishJobs.ie, they have a lot of work postings." This is like saying to anyone with a computer, "You're trying to search for something on the internet? You should try Google.com, they have a decent search engine." But it's the thought that counts.

My drill is to scan the new postings every day, with the hope that I'll find something that doesn't require fluency in Dutch or Swedish or extensive experience in the lady's fashion industry. Speaking of the lady's fashion industry, in our wanderings a few nights ago we came across a storefront with a help-wanted sign for part-time seasonal retail work. I figured "What the hell?, I'll go in tomorrow to see if they'll hire me." I entered the store the next day only to realize that they sell only women's knitwear, and that I was the only male out of about fifteen people in the room. I turned around and left. This pretty much sums up the reality of retail work in Cork. And it also might help explain why, in the middle of the workday, the pubs are busy serving an all-male crowd of patrons.

The job descriptions should include caveats such as "extensive retail [or serving, or bartending] experience required. Unless you're a cute little thing, in which case all training will be provided."

Good Brews

To celebrate Katherine's new job we went out and spent all of the money she earned on her first day. The first stop was the Bierhaus, which has the largest beer selection in the city. I had a bottle of "Chimay Blue," a dark Belgian porter that really packs a punch. Nine percent alcohol content...goes straight to your head and is very tasty. We then stumbled to the Franciscan Well, Cork's justly famous microbrewery.

Finally, we have decorated our Christmas tree. As you all know, the tree itself was criminally cheap. It definitely doesn't meet the State of California's flame retardant standards. And Katherine came up with another brilliant idea to keep costs down: decorate the trees with colorful paper gift tags, which come in packs of twenty for €1. Throw on a fifteen-meter string of lights (€6), and we're in business:

As you can see, the tree is accented by the exquisitely ugly rose picture. We are lucky enough to have a copy of that photography in every one of our rooms. And each copy is listed as inventory in our lease, so we can't even do future tenants a favor and destroy them.

Anyway, other than Éire Apparent being an obvious cure for my downtime, I have ideas for how to stay busy. I might do some volunteer work for the History Department at University College Cork. I might do what I do best and find some archives and see if there's anything interesting to write about. And, to be sure, I'll stay optimistic that something paid will turn up.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A Breakthrough

As you can surmise from my previous entries, Katherine and I have been a little pessimistic about finding work. But rather than being down about it, we think we should take advantage of all of the time on our hands and do some traveling. So two nights ago we booked five nights in Paris for December 16–21. Capitalizing on an idea I gained from the Frugal Traveler, we looked into vacant apartments on Craigslist.org. Worked like a charm: we will be staying in a fully furnished studio within a few minutes' walk from the Louvre for €50 a night––cheaper than most of the hostels.

What happens right after we finalize this journey? Katherine lands a retail job with a golf store. Very luckily, her new boss is willing to work around the trip. This position might be our saving grace, at least for our goal of staying in Europe for a year.

In other news, I bought the last €15 fake Christmas tree in Cork City today. Dunne's had them, six-foot, fairly realistic trees for only fifteen quid. I bought the floor model. I don't know how it was only €15, it's probably extremely flammable or gives off toxic fumes. Luckily our windows are as drafty as screen doors, shouldn't be too dangerous.

Last but not least, we found the best pan-handler in all of Ireland:


This guy––unlike the other street performers in the city––has real talent. I mean, look at those dancing figurines! Elvis actually hit the cymbal! The other accordion players of the city are endlessly annoying. In particular, the man who plays "Jingle Bells" in a constant loop for sixteen hours a day (I wish I was exaggerating). But not this fellow, with his band members Marilyn and Elvis. We walked past him a half-hour later, and he was rosining up a bow to play a fiddle. That's impressive!