Ham Story.

Well, well, well! How have you all been? The Cultchie and I signed the lease to our new apartment today. Its a happy day! We need something bigger, our furniture is beginning to take over. Something I never thought would happen, or happen so soon at least.
After reading Green Fish's blog again, it made me think back to what brought me here... When we moved into this apartment, a "junior 1 bedroom". ALL of our stuff fit into the back of a little van. We had a futon, a TV and a book shelf that was built backwards. In 2 years we have accumulated an extra large red sofa with a "chez", a complete bedroom set, a kitchen table, a computer....you get the picture...normal house stuff.
Then I think back even further to when I arrived in Toronto 4 years ago this April. I had been living in Ireland for just over 4 years. I moved there with 1 piece of luggage when I was 18. I planned to stay for a year. I arrived knowing nothing . I really had no clue what I was getting my self into. I read in books that I could stay at some place called "hostels" ( I really didn't know what they were) until I found a job, most likely at a pub. The picture I had in my mind of Dublin was the same as I had for the most remote parts of Ireland...green, hilly and basically all country side with little villages.
Wow! was I naive! (that's a nice way of saying DUMB) I was blown away by the size and fast pace of the city. It was NOT what I had expected. It didn't hit me until my second day there, that I was really on my own-at MacDonald's nonetheless! I was walking down O'Connell St. not knowing where the hell I was. I went to MacDonalds for lunch and asked for chicken MacNuggets. The girl asked me what kind of dip I wanted with them and I said; Honey. She looked at me as if I had 2 heads and 12 eyes. I could feel myself blushing and just said; I don't want anything for them. I sat there eating my dry nuggets holding back my tears thinking...What the fuck did I do?!?!?! I felt soooo alone.
I had met a guy in PEI before I left that was from Dublin, his name was Alan*. He had come into Tim Hortons, where I had been working. We started chatting after I noticed his accent. He told me to give him a call when I got to Dublin, he said the would show me around and whatnot. I really thought nothing of it, so I did. We met for coffee and chatted for hours. I felt like I had made a friend and I didn't feel so alone anymore. We met a few more times and he showed me around Dublin and such. In the meantime I had contacted another Canadian girl that I met through a friend in PEI who had moved to Dublin a month before I did. She offered for me to stay with her and her roommate until I found a place of my own. I moved in after a week of staying at different hostels and sharing rooms and bathrooms with other strangers-some very, very strange strangers. It was great not having to sleep in a room with 6-12 other people. But it still was not comfortable sleeping on an armchair with my Canadian friends in their 1 room apartment.
Then one evening I was out with Alan* for coffee again. I was completely fascinated by him. He was a typical Dub. He could fabricate stories like know one I have ever met. I was in no way attracted to him, but I did like his company, and he was only 1 of the 2 people I knew in the entire country. He was telling me about his job, he was an archaeologist. He was starting work at a dig in Waterford and suggested that I go down and work there too! He said I didn't need experience, that I could start off as a laborer and after 6 weeks of training I would be an actual archaeologist and get paid as one too! He also told me that the company he worked for paid for your accommodation for the first 6 weeks.
It sounded great to me. A place to live and work! Sorted! I moved down the next day. All the archaeologist's lived in the same hostel for the first 6 weeks. So I got to meet everyone the day I arrived. I would be starting the next morning. There were two other British girls starting the next day as well who would later become my roommates after our 6 weeks at the hostel, along with a crazy redhead girl from Kerry who showed me what real Irish fun was about. I noticed that evening that I was the only one who was not really an archaeologist (everyone was talking about what university they studied at, and the last place they worked). I asked Alan about it and he said I'd be fine. He showed me some of the equipment they used and told me the names for them. But I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Later that evening we stayed up talking (honestly he never shut up) one thing led to another and he kissed me. I was competely taken by surprise, but I didn't stop it. I didn't because I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I went to bed that night, in my dorm room that would be my "home" for the next 6 weeks, thinking....oh shit, what have I started. But I thought the next morning, everything would be forgotten and we would just go back to being chatty friends. No such luck.
Once again I was too afraid to hurt his feelings by telling him that I wasn't interested in him in the same way he was interested in me. Because of that decision, I spent the next year and a half with the craziest person I have ever met. Its too detailed to really go into what kind of person he was, but lets just say, my daily life consisted of hearing stories of how he worked undercover for the Irish equivalent of the CIA and that he was a liaison for the Russian KGB and how he dated famous tennis stars before he met me...it was purely insane. I never believed his stories but I let him go on with them.
I'm sure your asking, why the hell would I stay with him for so long if I knew he was crazy. I asked myself the same thing everyday for a long time....the answer is, I don't know. All I can tell you is; I need him until I didn't need him.
After the dig was over Alan convinced me to move to a shitty town on the boarder of Northern Ireland. I got a job waitressing at a VERY expensive restaurant, I was fired after my 3rd shift. I had no idea how to waitress. I had no concept of table numbers. I would take food for a table of 4 people to a table for 2 and a table of 2 to a table of 10. It was a mess and so was my life, and I was only 19 freekin years old!
Although I lost my job and had no source of income I did gain an amazing friend. I met at girl at the restaurant that would forever change my life. Her name is Julie and she is the reason I am where I am today....

To be continued........