Blogcoven

The Wanderer and I put down a security deposit for a flat yesterday morning. Walking down Westland row on the way back, I noticed a slight ache in the back of my neck. By the time we passed O’Neill’s in Pearse Street, I had it figured out. It was whiplash.
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My path into town takes me past the Guinness brewery, so passing by during the day guarantees a few tourist spottings. Today, while on the bus at the stop closest to the brewery entrance, the driver directed a passenger towards the brewery entrance. In case there were more, shyer tourists on the bus, he turned around and called, “Guinness? Anyone else for Guinness?”

The passengers behind me giggled. “Sure, I’d love one,” one guy replied. “I’ll take a gin and tonic,” another called.

And so on.

While attempting to set up an Irish bank account, I remembered another crucial piece of official documentation I needed but had completely forgotten about: the PPS (Personal Public Service) number. This is akin to the American Social Security number, and like a SSN, you need one in order to do most things having to do with money (like get paid). While you don’t need one for a bank account, you do need proof of address, and the kind and helpful teller pointed out the easiest and fastest way to get such a thing is to get a PPS number.

Of course, you need proof of address to get a PPS number too. They recommend using a recent bank statement. For a moment, I thought I was in a classic Catch-22 situation. Upon a moment’s quiet reflection and a quiet reminder that Ireland is a good and reasonable place, I stumbled upon a solution.
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After the multi-year, $1,000+ madness involved in getting an American green card (permission to live and work in the States essentially indefinitely), I had a difficult time accepting that the analogous process in Ireland would be so much simpler as to create a divide by zero error while comparing the two. I could not wrap my tiny head around the idea that all I had to do was show up, smile my way through passport control, and then visit the Gardai (police) once I was already in the country. My raging dislike of Delta aside, I could not believe it would be more difficult to physically transport myself than to obtain permission to stay. I woke up at 4:30 Tuesday morning from a combination of nerves and jetlag. It could not possibly be that easy.

Of course, it was that easy.
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I’ve neglected my corner of the blog so long I’m surprised there aren’t colonies of spiders and layers of cobwebs blocking my way in. The sad truth of the past year is that I’ve had nothing I wanted to share with the Internets: grim accounts of thesis writing, power struggles with my PhD advisor and committee members, panic over table formatting in LaTeX, terror in the face of overwhelming evidence of my own incompetence, and the eventual resolution of pretty much everything.
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