in limbo

The latest ... I'm still in Galway. Essentially, Brian and I are squatting at the Kinlay House. We checked out at 11 but left our packs in the bagroom. We just finished cooking what would either be described as a really late lunch or a really early dinner - a terrific meal of pasta, chicken, mushrooms, green onions, bread, and irish cream butter (fantastic).

We dealt with the Irish bureaucracy for about four hours today. We went to the Irish Social Welfare office with the hopes of securing our PPS numbers (American equivalent of a SSN). We were there from about 12:10 until 3:30, only find out that we didn't have sufficient proof of address. We have a letter from USIT who helped to secure our work visas for us - it states that we are currently residing at the Kinlay House. The SWO requires a letter from Kinlay house stating the same. Kinlay house won't write the letter unless we are long term guests (3 weeks). We don't want to book a room for three weeks because we're hopefully going to land a job with face2face Fundraising Ireland. But, we won't know if we'll be working for face2face until we hopefully set up an interview in Dublin for Friday. The circle continues ... most companies will want you to have a PPS number before hiring you. But, the face2face job would consist of us traveling throughout Ireland, raising funds for local charities - accommodation would be provided - so, there is no need to secure permanent housing.

So, as for now, we're waiting until we hear from face2face tomorrow. I put in a couchsufing request with a guy who lives on the Aran Islands. We're going to give him a little longer to reply, and if not, probably book a bus to a hostel near the Cliffs of Moher.

So, in limbo seems to be a pretty good description of where I am now. All part of the journey, right? Either way, the Guinness is cold and, "good for you."