Are ya okay?

Hey everybody! Well, it rained the first day we arrived in Dublin and really, it seems to either be raining or there is a threat of rain all the time. Everyone is saying this is the worst summer they've had in years and our friend Jim at the homeless shelter (more on that later) said they had 3 straight nice days in April and that has been it. They overbooked the hostel for our first night here so we got upgraded to a hotel room next door which sounds great, but it also involved lugging around our hundreds of pounds of luggage and keeping it locked up while we were in between rooms - we're ripped now because of that and also walking at least 5 miles a day.

Our first few days involved taking care of a lot of necessary stuff - buying cell phones, looking for apartments, interviewing for jobs, etc. - so we didn't get the opportunity to go out and do what the Irish do best - drink! Luckily, we got that monkey off our back last night and went to a pub in Temple Bar and listened to some great live traditional Irish music. Melissa danced with and made friends with an Irish girl, and we tried figuring out the mystery of how to answer the question "Are ya okay?", which is our equivalent of "Can I help you?" and a bunch of other phrases.

One day I was walking around Temple Bar by myself while Melissa was on an interview, and I saw a place called the Housing Advice Centre. Great I thought! This would be a perfect place to go to and sit down and talk with someone about finding an apartment, and hopefully get some tips. So Melissa and I went there the next day and when we entered the place we were met by two men who gave us some pretty strange looks as they sized us up and asked if they could help us. After I said we were looking for information on finding an apartment in Dublin, the one guy, who later introduced himself as Jim, asked us "Do you know what this place is?". I said I thought it was a place to get advice on housing, and he said it sort of was, but they operate as a place where the homeless can come and get meals and stay and talk with other people. They were nice and still allowed us to come in and sit down and get food and Jim talked to us for a little while, and we got to watch an older man (probably homeless) lick his soup bowl and go back for seconds (how can you not for 80 cents!) . Throughout it all we stayed humble, because as I reminded Melissa, that could be us in a couple of weeks.

More to come soon! Feel free to leave comments.