An American in Ireland

My snaps of LA life: View of LA hillside; Paris Hilton waiting for her car; Surfers at the beach; Restaurant opening party in Santa Monica

It’s hard to believe that barely three months ago, I was packing up my life in Los Angeles and preparing for a whole new adventure in small-town Ireland. As I’ve hinted in several previous posts, I decided to move because I wanted to challenge myself and to force a change that felt necessary.

LA can be a strange place. It’s a city where residents get to observe celebrities in their natural habitat. It was perfectly common for me to see Drew Barrymore in the grocery check-out line or Orlando Bloom picking up coffee at Starbucks. Most people in my circle of friends have some connection to the entertainment industry whether it’s through work or social circles. My freelance work with a well-known celebrity magazine frequently placed me right in the center of Hollywood parties, red carpets and celeb-driven charity functions. One of my best friends works for Screen Actors Guild and my sister is a managing editor for a celebrity gossip television show. There are also actors, musicians, chefs, and filmmakers in my social group in Los Angeles.

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Living in a new country has had its challenges, and not surprisingly my friends here do whatever they can to make the transition as painless as possible. They’ve introduced to me other people who’ve quickly become new friends; they’ve answered endless questions on everything from television licenses and immersion heaters to farm slang and bank holidays. Whatever I may need, they are here for me and I can’t imagine surviving without them.

But part of creating my own life in Ireland is about developing both personal and professional relationships outside my circle of friends. In a very short span of time, I’ve found a supportive and fun group of people within the blogging community here in Ireland. And though I haven’t even met most of them in person, they provide great inspiration and encouragement (often times without even knowing it!). Here are a few of my new blogging friends:

The Daily Spud

There is no vegetable or starch as popular here as the potato, and if you want to try something new with the beloved spud, Aoife Cox of The Daily Spud can give you a few [hundred] ideas. From the classics like Champ (a velvety potato mash topped with melted butter) to eye-openers like Fruity Potato Milkshake (don’t knock it ‘til ya tried it!), Aoife has the scoop on Ireland’s favorite veg. But she doesn’t stop there; the blog offers lots of non-spud recipes, restaurant and product write-ups and even a few gardening tips, all written with dead-on dry humor and wit. I will be forever grateful to Aoife for accompanying me to a much-needed sushi night out in Dublin. She may be The Daily Spud but I refer to her as my Sushi Partner in Crime.

I Married an Irish Farmer

Imen McDonnell gave up her fast-paced urban life complete with an exciting entertainment-industry job for the love of an Irish farmer. She now resides with her family in the Irish countryside where she’s more likely to sport Wellies than Manolos. But with her inherent sense of style and natural glamour, Imen has created a fashionably fabulous farm life that resembles something off the pages of Country Living magazine. The best part? She also has a heart of gold. After reading one of my blog entries about a rough day, she reached out to me to offer advice and friendship. A former city-dwelling American herself, she understands how frustrating the transition to small-town Irish life can be and her support is a real gift.

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Dear Stacy,

It’s been two months since I moved here, and though life is quite good and probably even enviable to most of my friends back home, sometimes I wonder what I thought was going to happen here. Well, as my best friend I suppose you probably know more than anyone what I wanted to happen. I had fantasies about living in an apartment overlooking the Boyne River, sipping tea on my balcony, selling lots of fabulous articles to fabulous magazines, and of course falling in love with a dreamy guy.

Here’s the rundown so far: I do have an apartment along the Boyne River, but it faces the street, not the river. The view isn’t bad at all; I can see five church steeples and lots of birds and I don’t even mind the glaring nighttime floodlights of the shopping center across the street. I have a balcony, though due to the moist climate and the lack of a functioning drain, the wood is covered in slippery moss – not exactly what I pictured in my al fresco teatime fantasies. Selling lots of fabulous articles? Not yet, though the local paper has actually written three stories about me and I’ve been on the radio twice. I’m entirely grateful but I’ve yet to figure out how to parlay all this publicity into money-making opportunities. The other day I wrote an article about how to break into professional writing (for a friend’s website) and to be honest I almost felt like a fraud writing it.

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There’s nothing like a dinner party to make a new apartment truly feel like home. And though it’s been two months since I up and left the bustling city of Los Angeles for the quiet adventure of Drogheda, Ireland, it was only last Saturday that I finally hosted friends for a home-cooked meal.

I will admit that I geeked out a bit on the preparations: out came the cloth napkins and napkin rings, matching dishware and candles. I cleaned the apartment top to bottom. I even created a playlist on my iPod specifically for the dinner (major nerd, I know!). But when it came to the meal, I made food that could be cooked in advanced so I could enjoy my friends’ company versus being stuck in the kitchen all night.

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Stop yer messin!

While it isn’t exactly the Irish nature to be mean-spirited, they are known to carry on a joke a bit too far. This is why I live in fear. Now before you judge me as paranoid, allow me to share a few gags – all carried out by people I know personally – and then you can tell me if you’d feel safe in this group of jokers. Me? I prefer to sleep with one eye open.

Sometimes, one can just be at the wrong place at the wrong time. As my friend sat in her car, stuck in traffic on West Street (the main thoroughfare in Drogheda), she saw another friend walking on the sidewalk. Foolishly, she called out to him to say hello. He walked over, said hello, reached into her car and promptly removed the keys from her ignition before walking away – with keys in hand. Now most people would get a good laugh, turn around and hand the keys back. Not this fella! He kept walking and my friend had to leave her car parked there, amidst the blaring horns and vocal abuse from annoyed fellow drivers, and run after him to get her keys back.

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Yolks were used to make this

As I’ve mentioned before, there are few nationalities in the world more creative in the verbal insults department than the Irish. This knack for clever verbiage also applies to slang words and phrases, so I wanted to share a few of my favorites along with my misunderstandings of them.

Phrase: Cop on
What I Thought It Meant: Something to do with the police or “garda” as they say here, as “cop” is what we call the police in America.
Meaning: Kind of the same as “get with it.” If someone is telling you to “cop on,” they want you to realize something already. Typically used as a verb (“Cop on, you stupid cow!”) it can also be used as a noun, which I find hilarious.
Best Use I’ve Heard so Far: “Daddy can’t buy you cop on!”

Word: Jeggings
What I Thought It Meant: When I first saw a sign that said “Jeggings” in a storefront, I hadn’t the slightest clue as to what this meant.
Meaning: These are a cross between jeans and leggings, known back in the states as “jean leggings.” In typical Irish tradition where everything is shortened into a nickname or catchphrase, they are jeggings. Imagine if J-Lo was instead Jopez or instead of “chillax” (a  way of combining “chill” and “relax”) we said “relachill.” It just doesn’t sound right nor does it glide off the tongue the way good nicknames should. Jeggings? Can you think of a word that sounds more jarring (besides the word jarring, that is)?
Verdict: Though the name leaves much to be desired, I love jeggings. Finally I can tuck my jeans into my boots without them bunching up around the knees. So for this reason, and this reason only, I will forgive the God-awful name.

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I’ve never really had a sweet tooth. Much like my mother, I always preferred salty foods like crackers, nuts and cheese. But as if overtaken by some strange force of Irish nature, I’ve practically become a chocoholic since moving here, which would disappoint my dentist back home.

 Everyone here eats chocolate, all… the… time. Whether it’s in the form of a Flake bar sticking out of a soft-serve ice cream cone or covering a digestive biscuit, chocolate is everywhere. And it’s all good chocolate, not like the grainy, oddly-flavored Hershey’s bars back home. Even the cheap stuff at discount shops is rich, creamy and outrageously good. 

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When Mark Twain said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” he’d obviously never been to Ireland. From what my friends tell me, the last three summers here have been unbearably wet and cold, with weeks of downpours and cloudy skies keeping any semblance of sun from making an appearance.

That is the reason why they all predict we will have a fabulous summer this year (“Ah sure after dem last few summers, we’ll have a great one – we deserve it!”). Of course this makes no logical sense at all; good weather isn’t earned. This type of wishful thinking is just a way to cope with the weather in Ireland, which can be flat-out schizophrenic at times. In a 24-hour period, you can experience lashing rain, sun, gusting winds, hail and cloudless skies. The sheer volatility of the climate here makes it impossible to plan anything outdoors in advance, and often wrecks havoc on such important events as weddings and funerals.

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Mr. Lepruchaun says: “Open yer ears!” 

I’m finding that it’s not always good practice to pretend I understand what someone is saying even when I do not. It’s just that I feel like an idiot when I have to ask someone to repeat themselves again and again because I can’t make sense of their Irish accent. Sometimes it’s just easier to nod my head and act like I know what the person is talking about.

Case in point: Recently I was at the pub with a group of friends. One guy at the table told a sexual joke (half of which I couldn’t even hear). A few minutes later, my friend turned to me and asked me a question. To me, it sounded like this:

 “[blah blah blah blah blah blah] hung?”

The only word I understood from his whole sentence was “hung,” which was clearly a reference to the other guy’s tasteless joke, so I just made a face at him and ignored his question. He pressed on.

“[blah blah blah blah blah blah] hung?”

Now he was just being cheeky, I thought. “F*ck off!” I said, laughing. He looked at me, confused. This time he leaned over and spoke louder.

“DID YOU GET YOUR TOWEL RACKS HUNG?”

I realized then he was referring to some bathroom towel racks I had purchased the previous week. He’d driven me to the hardware store in search of them, hence his interest.

“Oh, uh…no,” I responded, red-faced.

Lesson learned: It’s better to ask than to assume, and it’s not always easy being an American in Ireland!

Dislike: Lack of variety on television…

It’s been a little over one month since my arrival to Drogheda and I’m starting to settle and adjust to my new environment. Things that I thought I’d never get used to, like driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the car, is now second nature. I use my laser card for nearly all my purchases, drink tea about 3-5 times a day and have become quite adept at hanging an entire load of laundry on one clothes horse.

…sigh.

There are some things, however, that I still have a hard time with. And while I realize the following may make me sound a bit like an entitled, spoiled American, I’m just being honest. So, without any further ado, here are some things that drive me pretty nuts:

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