I was supposed to live in a city, that was my destiny

While working at ELLE in New York, I had to challenge quite a few of my colleagues’ misconceptions about Ireland. 

They would comment on my clothes and say I was ‘actually stylish’ as if they expected me to appear in the fashion closet brandishing a pipe and wishing them a hearty Top O’ The Morning.

“I hear the only thing you eat in Ireland is, like, bacon and cabbage?” one of them asked me and my friend Vicky. We hastily denied such accusations, waxing lyrically about the slow food movement and grass-fed cattle. (‘God, I would kill for really good bacon and cabbage right now’, Vicky and I confessed to each other that night.) I will admit that it didn’t help matters when I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the computer the first day - they were Macs! I had only ever used a PC. CAN I LIVE? - and the constant hilarity that my accent caused.