In my shoes…

Our friend's moved to London recently. Surprisingly enough she is not looking for a job, she is getting her masters instead.  She lives in White Chapel, the colourful part of town, “home” of Jack the Ripper. It's like a walk-in film set. But here's what she says really amazed her:

“Whitechapel is buzzing, but it's buzzing with people who don't speak English and who want to sell each other phone cards mostly, it's a little isolating, but I quite like the business of it, even if I am a complete outsider. “

So that's exactly how I felt when I came to Dublin 7 years ago. The city was buzzing with language which I couldn't understand. I thought I had some English before coming to Ireland and it was my understanding that the official language was English on the island. But I had to revise my assumptions, both of them, when I got on the first Dublin bus and had my first conversation whit a bus driver. I can't remember the bus number now but it was going to Tallaght. It let me realise I couldn't speak or understand the language at all!

For a quite some time Dublin for me was a place filled in with this strange buzzing.  Fortunately nobody tries to sell me any phone cards, well, not any more…