A random Thursday

Scrolling through my previous blog posts I realise that all I write is about weekends away in Ireland, weekends abroad, weekends in Dublin and the occasional remarkable evening in Dublin. Perhaps it is time for a taste of an ordinary day in my life, one that reflects the more day to day events that keep me going here. Let’s say last Thursday, which featured a nice confluence of idiosyncratic events that altogether let me fall asleep fully satisfied that night.

With Bo abroad for the week and a dentist appointment at half nine in the morning I could wake up at a time that tasted of weekend. I had had Koen over for a few days so while I nourished my breakfast cereals he gulped down three times my quantity in equivalents while preparing for his journey homeward later that day, endeavouring to fit three “onesies” into a small backpack. After breakfast we walked towards the junction in Ranelagh from which Koen would continue down the airport and I walked my casual walk towards the dentist. While the dentist would be in my top three of least favourable people to visit things could have been worse and I wasn’t all that depressed leaving the practise in the drizzle that had meanwhile commenced. Although it has already been nine months since I started my Dublin life I still try to hold on to the exciting feeling that I am living abroad and blending in with the local life. A small sparkle of this feeling suddenly emerged when I answered the dentist’s assistant’s questions about my address and contact number, realising that all were Irish and that the girl was Irish and the dentist was Irish and that I was living in Ireland and doing very ordinarily Irish things like going to the dentist. Holding on to these feelings keep making me appreciate my life abroad and are one of the biggest plusses of my current career phase.

Work was work as usual and sometime during the day Will from ASU asked whether I felt like replacing a team member that evening for a 5 a side football game. Will joins in occasionally during our Tuesday lunch session football games and thus knows how much I like the game. For that Thursday night I had had numerous plans and ideas, from drinks with Edel to Christmas drinks that a business partner from work was organising that night to the option I eventually thought to have settled for: taking a run around the block and having a relaxed evening afterwards (without drinks and at home). Well football brings the same positive externalities as a run does and it much more enjoyable which is why I told Will happily that I’d be there. Unfortunately I didn’t succeed in buying astro shoes in the hour after work before the game commenced which is how I found myself walking in studs on what normally is a tennis court. Apart from slightly painful and disastrous to the quality of my leather Puma King football boots, I couldn’t run or turn properly which all in all diminished my added value to the team considerably. All that was left for me was to take shots at the goal, which is what I did, and luckily to an extend that I am now invited to join the team for weekly games.

After the match Pieter would pass by and pick up my golf clubs that two former colleagues who were visiting for the weekend would like to make use of. Rather than them passing by we agreed to meet in Smyths in Ranelagh for a drink and while more and more people joined it was with great discipline that after three pints while the clock approached midnight that I called it a day and went home to sleep.

A random Thursday full of energising bits and pieces which make Dublin feel at home and me feel very happy to live there!