ArchiveOctober 2020

I slept in a little longer than usual this morning, after staying up watching some TV. Last night, there was a noisy group of young people on Crow Street directly below my living room windows. The Foggy Dew pub actually runs through the ground floor of my building and has a back door that opens up to Crow Street… perhaps it opened in protest? The noise finally died down around midnight. I...

The weather today is raining and gloomy, a fitting backdrop for the mood of Ireland at the moment. There were a record of new COVID-19 cases over the weekend. On both Saturday and Sunday, there were +1,250 daily cases, which is significantly above the previous record of around 1,000 daily cases that Ireland experienced at the height of the first wave in April. Last night into...

Today’s adventure is an outing to the National Botanical Gardens, located in the burrough of Glasnevin located on the northside of Dublin about a 30 minute bus ride from Temple Bar. I was invited by a new friend I met online, whom I’ll refer to as A. He lives very close to the gardens and suggested we meet there. The weather today is slightly warmer, close to 60 F, but no rain. I...

Today I take my friend J out for a belated birthday brunch. His actual birthday was the day after I arrived to Dublin, when I was still in self-quarantine, and this was the first time we’ve been able to hang out. He’s open to most anything, so we take a look around at a few places just on the other side of the Liffey, but it looks like they all have long waits given the high demand...

This morning I get up at a reasonable hour. My grocery delivery window is at 10:30-12:30, so I want to have my coffee, get dressed, and be ready for whenever the intercom buzzes. A text from the shipping company DHL informs me of a delivery expected today by 6pm, then another text also from DHL says I’m required to pay an import duty/tax (?!). It’s the router I ordered as part of my...

I took full advantage of my first day of “freedom” to get out and really explore some more of Dublin for the first time since my arrival. Meanwhile, with the daily count of new COVID-19 cases still exceeding 1,000 across the country, the Ireland government has imposed Level 4 restrictions on the counties bordering N. Ireland and, in addition to the Level 3 restrictions already in...

Today is the last day of my self-quarantine. In observance of the occasion, the Irish government sent me a very understated text message this morning: Gov.ie Thank you for your support. Please see www.hse.ie for COVID-19 public health advice, including mandatory face coverings in shops and on public transport. I am still in bed when a buzz from the intercom launches me to my feet. It’s a...

First… more progress on settling-in My TransferWise PIN-and-chip debit card arrived in the mail over the weekend, so I’m psyched about that, although I haven’t used it for an in-person live transaction yet. I also received some new linens I ordered on Amazon.co.uk, including a fitted sheet deep enough to accommodate the mattress memory foam topper I had previously ordered and...

A Brief History of Temple Bar Probably few people reading this blog know much about the Temple Bar area in Dublin. In fact, I don’t know that much about it myself! So that inspired me to read up about its history and write a synopsis, plagiarizing heavily from Wikipedia articles and other sources I’ve linked. Dublin’s “Temple Bar” is named after the Temple Bar of London, on its western...

COVID-19 in Ireland The daily count of new COVID-19 cases in Ireland has topped 1,000, the first time since April (not counting N. Ireland which had 900+ of its own). Meanwhile, on Saturday there was an anti-lockdown protest here in Dublin that sounded very tense… thankfully only a few minor incidents of violence occurred. Unless these trends level off and/or reverse soon, the...