Last night, after hours of tv-watching in the hopes that bedtime would finally come, I was overwhelmed by the invasive you’re-not-doing-enough-thoughts. How unkind of me to think those things after literally just moving across the world? And yet, those same sentiments drove me out of bed this morning.

We begun our day attempting to get Kendal’s passport stamped. Unfortunately, the house-looking Garda station in our tiny town is only open on Wednesdays for a few hours. So we hopped on the next bus and began to tackle the shopping.

The Pavillion is one of the bigger malls here. It’s very similar to the smaller malls we have all around Joburg. Our first stop was the shoe shop. I actually found some really good shoes (quality and style) and they were the cheapest pair I’ve seen. However, Ken is still struggling with exchanging the currency in his head and he couldn’t get over the €51 price tag. We found a store very similar to Istore in SA, the apple equivalent where there is no actual apple store. Ken would love to work there. It’s exactly the kind of space he imagined himself in. For me though, Swords just doesn’t have the same magical vibe that Dublin does. It makes sense though, our church is there and there really isn’t a lack of things to do or buy, but I want magic — it’s why I’m here.

We decided we needed some coffee. Let me tell you, no street or bend in Ireland is lacking a coffee shop — but the nearly €4 price tags really scare you. We went to every one of them in the mall and found ourselves “uh”ing out of each one. Eventually the South-African-lunch-time kicked in and we knew — with our already grumpy dispositions — that we needed to get something. The next stop was Bakers and Baristas.

We got a toasted sandwich and a coffee and bagel combo. Culture shock: most toasted sandwiches here seem to have cheese on the top as well as inbetween. Our total came to €12.20. Gag. But we sat down, prayed God would help us find jobs and enjoyed it. Man, that coffee was good.

After a little recuperation we began to plan the rest of the day. Unexpectedly the waitress came up to our table with a serviette in her hand. She said, “There was a lady behind you who would like to buy you a box of muffins and 2 cups of coffee.” She handed me the written on serviette.

We were so shocked. What did we do? What did we say? We racked our brains for what inspired such generosity (the equivalent of about R400). We figured she must’ve seen us counting our bus coins and praying before we ate. But wow. What an incredible act of kindness. It really felt like God’s grace was so close. Maybe we are going in the right direction.

(I nearly ended the blog here but more things happened today and I want to share them with you, but I ask that you just take a breather after that, because I needed to. In fact I took a little cry too. It’s important to know that we’re seen — even in a far-away country with no friends or family — we are seen).

Afterwards we did some quick grocery shopping to the grand total of €30.44. I must say that if we can get the tiny amount of food we got to last us a week then I would have still kept my grocery bill under R600 for the week. Go me. And then we headed back for a little break. I did a load of washing, called my Grans and Kendal gave The Host a lesson in guitar playing.

We spent the afternoon looking around our little town. I’m sure I’ll find time to tell you more about it later. And then caught what we thought was the right bus to Dublin. It was not.

We ended up in the neighbouring town called Rush (which probably gets its name from its incredibly busy streets). Rush is the beach town and with the sun still slightly visible in the sky, we walked briskly to the sea. I’ll tell you, few things are colder than walking towards the ocean, wind in your face, as the sun is setting in winter in Europe. May my nose forgive me for what really did feel like torture.

As you can guess, it was magnificent. First European sunset. The beach is much the same as a South African beach, with actual sand and not pebbles as I expected, the same looking shells and kelp, and same sense of endless wonder. It does, however, stay about 6° year round so that’s a bummer.

We walked back up to the bus, my husband’s enthusiasm for adventure shining bright, and took the next one to Dublin. 40 minutes into the ride, and long past a stop near our town, our sense of adventure had faded and regret was slowly creeping in. It was close to 7, we hadn’t eaten, it was cold and our legs were tired. So we agreed that tonight was date night. We saw a romantic sunset and decided that once we got into town we would splurge on a Whopper. 1 Whopper meal and 1 Whopper burger come to €15. We went in hopes of having something familiar and comforting, but instead we were faced with yet another thing that just isn’t the same. But hey, what are new countries for?

As we walked the last little bit home, our legs aching, our brains overwhelmed, our noses in torture I looked up to the stars. There is a beautiful view of stars here (probably because the towns are smaller). And they’re upside down. I chuckled and Ken and I kissed under them. “We’re in a new country. How exciting”.

Thanks for joining on my journey dear reader.
With Love, from Dublin,
Cheylin.