Marianna's European Adventures: The Garda: Irelands Way of Saying "Get the Hell Out"

I'm now taking bets on how long it will be before Old Man Pete cracks his favorite joke about the French in response to my title....

As of tomorrow I will have been here for a full month (wow, fast). Tomorrow would also have been my first day as an illegal alien if I didn't get myself to the Garda, Irelands police force/immigration service. Let me explain, when you land you immediately find yourself woozy-faced starring at an angry underpaid civil servant who is stamping your passport. Before they let you through the gate they give you a card and tell you that you have one month to

register with the Garda, or they kick you out. They do not explain who the Garda is. I told myself "Marianna, you make sure you register with the Garda IMMEDIATELY" and 30 days later I did, I think thats pretty good response time for me.

My day goes as such:

I should begin by saying that I never went to sleep last night. A combination of factors, mainly cold medicine and chocolate, kept me high strung until 6:30 am when my alarm went off, signaling that I should get ready to catch the bus. Why so early? Because the Garda registration process is basically a giant line that you join and anywhere from 45 minutes to 5 hours later they give you a little ID card. So I was dead set on being there at 7:30 in order to be in line for 8am opening time. I jumped out of bed, marveled at the fact that I was still completely awake, grabbed all of my documentation and my iPod, and my copy of Trumpet of the Swan (Quality Book) to keep myself occupied. I even made myself some tea and toast for a pre-Garda snack, otherwise known as breakfast. I skipped out on this fabulous Wild-Card Wednesday, anxious to become a legal temporary resident of Ireland.

Once on the bus, I began to have terrible thoughts. What exactly was going to happen at Garda registration. I realized that it was basically a modern day version of Ellis Island.

Side Story

I've been thinking about Ellis Island ever since a girl at a club asked me "Why would you ever want to leave America, there's so much opportunity there!". Making me wonder if the next morning we were all going to board the Titanic and set sail for streets paved with gold. It also made me contemplate what a modern day version of Titanic the Movie would be like if all the Irish passengers dressed like modern day Dubliners, with booty shorts and sequined halter tops. Instead of the traditional Irish dancing in Third Class everyone would instead be flailing to Soulja Boy. Shannon, I think I have a movie idea....lets work on this...

Anyway, my overactive mind started thinking of all the reasons they could turn me down, improper paper work, not enough money in my bank account ("HA!" They would laugh at me, "You could never afford to live in Dublin on that paltry account....anything less that 1 million is worthless"), this plague that's sticking around ("Well, now we're going to have to quarantine you" they'd say, before throwing me into a ward of sick immigrants to die). I clearly was sleep deprived and the cold medicine hadn't quite worn off.

I finally found the Garda station at 7:45, I walked inside, carefully surpressing my nagging cough (I wasn't taking ANY chances). A man inside who I thought was homeless then barked at me "Why are you here!" "Uhhh...to register...." "Are you a student?!" "yes...." "Then you have to wait until 9 o clock" The man was not homeless, but rather a civil employee....whoops.

9 o clock, an hour and fifteen minutes of hopeless waiting. My energy was waning and walking around until that time did not seem like an option. So I plopped down, plugged in to my iPod and began reading the glorious adventures of Louis the Swan.

at 8:45 I noticed some students starting to line up in the endless line. A public announcement asked them to sit down. They did not, I did not dare join, even though I knew it would be a good idea. At 9 o clock exactly I joined the line, I still have not figured out why we couldn't line up with the rest of the group....clearly anti-student prejudice. There were no repercussions for those who broke the rule, once again my inability to break meaningless orders had left me screwed. Another 45 minutes of waiting and I was finally at the front, where I was cleared to meet with a Garda official. Back to waiting. By this time my roommate had joined me, also on her last legal day, so at least I had some company. Another 20 minutes of waiting got me to meet with a jolly man who had no problem clearing me to stay until exactly the date I'm supposed to leave.

Him: "When are you leaving"

Me: "Well right now the 23rd, but I'm not sure if..." (trying to get a few extra legal days out of him)

Him: "Good, you will leave no later than the 23rd" *Stamp*

He then took my passport and said "alright, you're good" When I asked for my passport back he laughed and said "Oh you're good to go wait some more until your card is ready"

Tricky tricky Ireland.

I waited with Lauren, my roommate, for about 15 more minutes when I heard over the PA system "Will American national Marianna Bah...oh christ....American national Marianna please come claim your card"

As I now respond to Marianna BahOhChrist as if it were my actual name, I skipped on up to grab yet another useless form of ID to carry in my wallet. My picture looks exactly like you would imagine someone who had been awake for 24 hours would look in an ID photo. Fitting.

Lauren still had awhile to wait for her process to be done, so she told me to go wander around Dublin for a little bit and then we'd meet up for lunch. Not much happened on my aimless wander of Dublin. I walked down the river Liffey and took pictures of the bridges, then wandered up to Christ Church and explored that, which was beautiful, then Lauren called and I walked back through Temple Bar and out to O'Connell St where we met for sandwiches. I then had to come back for class. Have I slept yet? Nope.