Things take a dribbly shift for the better when I finally arrive in Ireland.  The tricky thing of rock bottom is that you can’t go any lower, but you still may slide around for a bit on the rock before you get any footing, stubbing a toe along the way.  The dismal and often horrific existence I had come to experience in just one short week continued for the next nine months.   In other ways, I started to comprehend the cards I was dealt, and started to adjust to my new situation.

After landing in Dublin, I prepared to get the children settled in our new house on the Sunday we’d arrived.  Driving out to our house in the Ratoath, a tiny little village, 20 miles North-West of Dublin and out in the country, I realized the purgatory I had just entered.  Not only was I living in a foreign country with my two small children on my own, but also my house is in the middle of no-where.  To get my village, you take the N3 either straight out from city center or towards Navan.  You hang a right onto Ferry House Road, also known as the N56, towards Ferryhouse Racetrack, the infamous racetrack where the Irish Grand National Horse Races are held.

My community of houses sat past the Racetrack, just before the Spar a recognizable store and landmark on the Ferryhouse road.  To get to my house in this unmarked community, you take a nondescript road off the N56.  A two-feet high, round stone set off about 50 yards from the road marks the turn.  Traveling down the N56 at 50 miles per hour, a stone set 50 yards off the road can readily be missed, as it often was!  Once on this “main road”, you take the second left just passed the grounds, which was just an overgrown, under-kept large grassy, weedy area to get to my house, as there are no road signs or markers on any house or street.  You then take your third left, and I’m the last house on the left.  Miss a turn, and you are totally lost.  It’s a maze.  I think the Irish find it quaint or amusing.  I found it annoying and inconvenient.

What I came to realize about my neighborhood and house is that my neighbors had no desire to get to know a transient American and my house was so far away from my co-workers and civilization that I was effectively living in a foreign country within this foreign country.  I was utterly on my own.  I wish I had known that I was going to be going to Ireland without a husband.  There’s no way that I would have picked that house.  That house seemed idyllic when we were going to live there as a family.  A cute house in a village in the middle of no-where has a certain appeal when it’s your haven from the world.  It becomes a nightmare when the one thing you need is the support of the world.

One of the attractive features of the house when I first found it back in the summer of 2000 was the farm just behind it.  How cool that we had cows just behind our house!  Having grown up in the suburbs of Washington DC, it felt like I was moving into farm country—which I was.  I thought it would be a treat for the kids to see the cows every day, and since we were supposed to be there for three years, they would have an experience as a child that I never had.  The backyard, or garden as they called it, was a nice stretch of (hole-ridden) grass around the house.  I thought it was enough space to run around, kick a ball, jump rope and be silly, assuming you didn’t mind spraining an ankle in the hidden-sea of holes.

Around the edge of the yard was a six-foot high unfinished cinderblock wall.  How attractive!  When I found the house, I thought I would see if we could at least paint this wall to reduce the awfulness of it.  It took away from the lushness of the farm and obliterated any view.  The landlord had planted a few sickly vines, each about six feet apart, along the edge of the wall. I think she was hoping that in fifty years the vine might cover five percent of the massive gray wall.  But, when I moved in, that was a lifetime away.

When I asked my neighbors, Jackie and Gerry, as to why each house had these huge ugly gray cinderblock walls around them, they replied very matter-of-factly, “So we don’t have to see each other.”  At first I thought they were kidding, so I pushed the point.

I remember saying, “But Ireland is supposed to be a warm and friendly country!  Why don’t you want to be able to see each other?”

Again, very plainly they answered, “Because in reality, we really just want total privacy.  We have no desire to see our neighbor’s property, or neighbors for that matter.”

The inside of my house was nice enough.  Four bedrooms, a playroom, two full baths, a half bath, kitchen, living and dining room and office.  The kids had plenty of room to run around and play.  But, it was always cold in that house.  Didn’t matter the season, it was always freezing.  What I eventually came to understand is that everyone maintained a temperature of about 65 degrees in the summer, and 55 degrees in the winter in their home.  The Irish like chilly temps.  I know my nanny enjoyed it.  I couldn’t figure out why my oil bills were so high.  For some unknown reason, I was chewing through oil for the furnace, despite the fact that the house was always frigid.  I find out months later, at Christmas, that year that my nanny was opening the windows during the day while I was at work, draining the heat from the house and my oil tank of oil!

Warm air is spilling out, cold air is pouring in.  But, I had no idea.  My heating bills were astronomical, my oil bill was outright gross, and it’s because my nanny was trying to get some “fresh air” in the house!  The guy who filled up my oil tank liked to tease me, calling me the spoiled American who likes to keep her house too warm.  I always bristled at his teases, because my house was anything but toasty.  After I found out why my oil was evaporating faster than water on a steamy day, I asked my nanny to please stop opening the windows.  Unfortunately my request was akin to asking her to slit her wrists.  I learned it’s nearly amoral in Ireland to live in a nicely heated environment.  And, so, we continued to suffer.

The house offered other highlights.  There was the time the dishwasher decided to commit hari-kari and unleash a hose from the sink while mid-cycle, spewing water all over the kitchen.  I had started the dishwasher, put the kids to bed one night, and come downstairs to find the 200 square foot kitchen flooded with two inches of water!

When I called the landlord to get help, the first words out of her mouth were, “Oh no, what have you done to my dishwasher?”  The trust in me was palpable.

One of the most surprising discoveries in Ireland is that once you get outside the hotel and service business, you find a different creature.  I’m sure it’s the same way in other countries; I just never expected it in Ireland.  Time and time again, I ran into nasty, mean-spirited, bigoted responses.  I was keenly aware of the ugly-American syndrome and despite my personal cyclone; I was vigilant at representing the US with dignity.  But, my landlord typified the anger and hostility I came to expect.

I’m sure my landlord hated me.  While I was there, the washing machine broke.  The furnace had problems, the oil tank had difficulties and the dishwasher ruptured.  She accused me of sabotaging her home.  All I was doing was attempting to just use the facilities.   However, most of the fixtures and appliances were not of the best caliber, and it was time for repairs everywhere.  Unfortunately, it was just bad timing on my part.  The one very nice appliance in that house, though, was the refrigerator.  It was an American-sized fridge, complete with a freezer.  Most Irish refrigerators wouldn’t even hold a gallon of milk.  I had that going for me.