disorientation meetings

There are orientation meetings today, all day long, and I am already 30 minutes late. I have to figure out the shower and get to a place I can’t even pronounce let alone locate. I’m excited. The last time I tried something I couldn’t pronounce it turned out to be a delicious dish of steamed dandelion stems at a little restaurant in Greektown.

Several hours later…

The day has been long and full of small glimpses of what is to come. I feel as if I have been walking along a corridor full of doorways, and each of them has a keyhole just large enough for me to curiously peek through. I went on a walking tour of the campus today, and it reminded me of the Hogwarts from my fictionalized memory. I met a good many people, many of whom were good to be met. I trudged through the rain with three new friends to a mobile phone store where I purchased a high-tech version of a glass bottle and scrap of paper, all for the low, low cost of 30 euro. I hope the bottle’s signal makes it across the Atlantic. I have people to call. It was pricey, but looking back I think I actually bought a little of the time I needed to make some friends.

I’m still lonely, but more hopeful that things will change. The Irish are charming and brash, and above all, friendly. After the meetings, the tour, the trek to buy a phone, and dinner, I meandered back to my dorm and debated whether or not to head out later with Maureen, to meet up with her future softball team. I like her, and she seems to like me, so I opted to join her even though I was freezing and exhausted.

Long story, short – I made friends. The Irish are relentlessly good talkers, and once Maureen, Anthony, and I were cornered, the only choice we had was to converse. The two fellows we met simply turned around in their seats and started talking.

I am a decent conversationalist when I need to be, but these two were amazing.

One of the better moments happened when Aidan (Irish) started calling my friend Anthony (American) a stupid bint after finding out his relatives come from Cork. Aidan had just finished a good-natured tirade about the “pretentious snobs from Cork.” I jumped in, mock-angrily demanding that he not take that tone of voice with my friend. Aidan paused for a moment, bowed his head, then looked up at me and said, “You’re right. I ought to be a bit angrier,” before bursting into laughter.

I kept thinking, “How do they manage to keep up their banter, the friendly line of questioning, the tidbits of personal history, and opinion on Ireland? Did they practice?” And then it occurred to me: they do practice. I decided that the caricature of the drunk Irishman is unfair. In America, people go to bars and get drunk. In Ireland, people go to pubs to socialize. The result is a country of people that enjoy company, and happen to enjoy it most frequently in a pub.

In Chicago, working in bars, I have seen some disgusting behavior. Things I didn’t see tonight, that I would have expected: drunken girls wearing little more than cocktail napkins, slobbering beasts of drunken men, vomit, annoyed bar staff, and idiots who insist they “can drive just fine.”

The glimpse from the evening’s final outing showed me that for the Irish, a laugh is more important than a drink, but if they can get away with having both, they will.