The fairytale inn, a little Irish hotel in a hidden valley, is bursting with people on the evening I arrive.
I'm exhausted and shaking with adrenaline as I walk into my new life with no idea what to expect. Darkness has fallen on the May night outside but the inn is as merry as one would expect of a fairytale - lights, laughter and clinking glasses. The geography is confusing - I wander winding corridors with slanting floors before I find the hotel reception.
I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman who just days ago completed the last assignment for my Master's degree in English as a foreign language, back home in Finland. I have no experience whatsoever of hotels, unless you count a few unmemorable nights in cheap chain hotels during my travels. Nevertheless, here I am in an Irish hotel, hoping the job offer sent to me in an informal email is still valid. Hoping that my father's irate prediction, that I will end up chained to a brothel bed in a foreign country, is NOT valid.
I'm two days into my new freedom after a completed university education. My official graduation "ceremony" is still months away and will consist of me opening a boring envelope with my diploma inside, sent to me care of the hotel. I'm dizzy from the sudden transition from university life to working life - over a thousand miles and a lifestyle shift away.
I'm fresh off the plane and the bus, so exhausted that I'm leaning against my heavy suitcase. But it will be three hours before I get to fall into bed in my temporary staff accommodation. In that time, I will have experienced my first hour behind the reception desk, found my first friend - the chatty Canadian receptionist who will later lead me into so much trouble - and fallen in love with the red-haired chef who put together a simple spaghetti supper for me.
Before I fall asleep I look out from the window of my tiny room, somewhere deep inside the maze of corridors. A cobblestoned courtyard, the bright windows of a bar, a merry party. So this is Ireland?
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