He actually told me he pushed the Blogger localization into Hebrew so I can blog in Hebrew. How sweet! I broke his heart, by the way, by telling him I prefer blogging in English.
Christian was very disappointed that I haven't posted since the beginning of December. So when we were on the train on our way home, I told him that I had many ideas on what to write about, and showed him my small notebook I always have in my bag. I started reading and explaining my notes on what to write about and he was impressed by the Hebrew letters. Eventually I promised him that during the weekend I'll write about the Gardai and the drunk/junky greedy lady.
Sooo, you probably wonder how do policemen and policewomen (Gardai) day looks like. Here's a quick glance:
Talk on your mobile. As much as you can. You probably think to yourself: what's so interesting about that??... Patience, there's more.
Give instructions to turists that lost their way in the huge city of Dublin.
Ask homeless beggars not to beg for money on the streets. After the gardai are gone, the beggars go back to their corner, begging for money again. From what I understood, the gardai can do nothing more, even though an Irish friend told me that once he witnessed a gardai took one of the beggar's money. Keep reading, and you can get a clue on what the gardai could possibly do with that money.
While walking next to the exit of the parking lot of one of Dublin's biggest malls, there were 2 gardai directing the traffic. It probably was essential to have 2 gardai, for 1 line of cars. Did I mention there was a traffic light on the exit of the mall's parking lot? Yes, it was working that day.
This story is about a friend that lost his wallet, lets call him Conall (which is the Gaelic for Connell and means Strong as a Wolf. Approx pronunciation: Chonnell.Pronounced like the Hebrew word for parking as in the sentence 'He is Parking' + L). He's not Irish, though.
One day Conall lost his wallet. He got a call from the gardai, telling him that his wallet was found and given to them in order to give it back. He was asked to come to a specific Garda station.
Conall went to this specific Garda station, but no one knew what he was talking about.
You might think they have a kind of 'Lost and Found' dept, which makes a lot of sense. But they don't. Here's how it goes when someone finds a wallet, for example:
The concerned citizen goes to the nearest Garda station, and hands in the wallet.
I don't remember who suppose to locate and contact the owner, but I do know that the officer on duty is responsible for the found wallet. There's no lost and found thing and he doesn't have to report about the found wallet, nor hand it to anyone or anywhere. As far as he's concerned, he can keep it in his locker and forget about it (or not ;-) and let no one know about it, and do whatever he wants with it.
So Conall kindly asking the officer to investigate who has got his wallet. A quick (my addition, DB) investigation revealed that the day the wallet was handed, the officer in charge was a Kevin. But there's no Kevin in this specific Garda. So they were trying to locate the Kevin in other Gardas. Apparently there's only one Kevin in the near by Gardas. But the Kevin said that he has no idea about the lost and found and lost again wallet.
Until today, poor Conall knows absolutely nothing regarding the fate of his beloved wallet.
He did find out, though, that it was found by a neighbour. He saw one of the neighbours few days after losing the wallet, and that he told him that he found his wallet on the corridor, and since he couldn't recognize him (Conall and the neighbour never met before) he handed the wallet to the police.
I'll end this long post with a 4 short paragraphs of a daily newspaper article. Another amusing (to my opinion) Garda tale, beginning with 'Before Christmas...' (just double click the image).
Since this post is too long, I'll tell you about the drunk/junky greedy lady(yeah, right, lady. He he he) next time.
