Ways in Which I Fail at Ireland: Part One

It's the small things, really. I had been prepared for the more obvious differences while abroad in Ireland: different currency, different word for "soccer," different drinking age...etc. What I wasn't prepared for were the smaller surprises in my daily life. Experiences I thought were universal, and rights I took to be God given -- like industrial sized bags of chocolate chips and one-dollar double cheeseburgers -- shocked me greatly when they turned out to be courtesy of Uncle Sam. So: Travel to England and back again? check. Live on the contents of a single suitcase for five months in a row? No problemo! Yet, I try to do laundry and all hell breaks loose. Yes, going abroad is hard, but not for the reasons I expected. What follows are a few lessons I wish I'd had learned January. These are the ways in which I fail at Ireland:

Doing Laundry

So, you guys know how, at Kenyon, everyone complains about having to shell out six quarters for one load of laundry? Well, to you I say, "whatever." Yeah, that's right. I'm worldly now. I've experienced the hard knocks of doing European laundry. I think you should know that there are innocent college children in Ireland who pay twelve euro just to do laundry once. My friends, I have been one of those children. My views have been expanded in a way yours never can.

Anyway, the steep price of clean clothing is bad enough on its own, but when you mix it with the non-metric system and washers and driers that appear to have been purchased circa 1927, you have a meltdown docktail. The first time I attempted to do laundry I just stood, staring at all the nonsensical numbers on the washing-machine dial for about five minutes before some guy wandered in and asked me if I needed help with anything. "Oh no," I laughed, "It's totally fine!" as I just started shoving clothes into some holes and soap and coins into others, trying to look self assured. I left hoping I wouldn't end up with any shrunken sweaters or sudsy laundry tokens when I came back.

Luckily, Everything seemed fine when I transferred my wet clothes into the drier. Upon returning again after an hour to see if they were done, however, I discovered that the drier had stopped, but my clothes were still sopping wet. In the states, this would have been a major annoyance. In Ireland, however, where this broken drier had eaten three precious euro and I had to be on a bus in a half an hour, I considered it grounds for a rock star scale temper tantrum. I mean, I don't remember exactly what happened, because I blacked out in a blind rage at that point, but I'm pretty sure I kicked a washing machine and/or punched a wall. I yelled a lot too. I delivered a monologue that was nothing short of Shakespearean:


"I...I...argh. AAAAAARGH! What the!? damn it. DAMN IT! What am I supposed to do now? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW DEAN'S HALL??? Dean's DUMB Hall. AAAAAARGH! Stupid Ireland."

Since, as I mentioned earlier, I was supposed to be getting on a bus in half an hour to leave for the weekend, I didn't have time to run the drier again. So, I took my clothes back to my flat, and just sort of spread them out on the floor of my room hoping they wouldn't get moldy. Since that first incident, I have attempted to do laundry a few more times, and I run an approximate 45 percent success rate with those driers. Because I just did laundry a few days ago, I currently have a wet pair of jeans draped over my curtain rod, and my room smells like mildew. Or failure.

Turning my heater on

Seriously. I still don't know how to turn that thing on and I've been here for over two months. Sometimes, it turns itself on, and then I can't figure out how to turn it off. People have to stop assuming that college students are just born knowing how to do things like turn on heaters and use mops.

...Stay tuned in a couple of days for more ways in which I fail at Ireland. For real! I've written about them already, but they were so epic -- or long winded...Potato, potahto -- that they wouldn't all fit in one post!