Back to Dublin...and beyond!
October 31, 2005
Oh man�I just had THE best cup of Turkish coffee I�ve had in a while, and now I�m all ready to get back to Dublin.
My flight back to Dublin was supposed to leave at 9 pm on Monday September 26th. After seeing Yaz off on her train to Scotland at around 1 pm on Monday (at Paddington Station which looks just like the train station in the Harry Potter movies�it�s not, is it?) I met up again for one last time with my other high school friends, and kind of last track of time. So I ended up getting back to Yaz�s place to get my bag and things kind of late, and ended up deciding to take the express train back to Gatwick (which cost 4 pounds extra. Boo.)
I needn�t have worried or rushed though. I got to Gatwick�after directing a nice Pakistani gent to the right train�only to find out that my flight was delayed THREE FUCKING HOURS. Rihan, the Pakistani gent, was on his way to Dubai and had told me to wait at the check-in desk for him and we�d grab coffee together before our flights left. I was kind of distressed, though, about the prospect of having to wait at the airport for 3 hours when I was already kind of tired, so I wandered off to find a place to smoke (I should mention that prior to this trip to Ireland I hadn�t smoked for about 2 months. Perhaps more. Oh well) and kind of forgot about Rihan. When I realized that he had probably come looking for me I felt bad and went back to the check-in desk, but he was nowhere to be found. I felt slightly guilty about that, and slightly relieved. If there is a single underlying theme to my life it is unfortunately this: I do not trust most men, but I especially do not trust nice Arab and/or Muslim men, especially in foreign places.
ANYWAY, (and, Jing, how many times are we going to have this argument? I did not steal ANYWAY from you. You stole it from me) I ended up arriving in Dublin at 3 a.m. The air shuttle buses were not running, so I grabbed a taxi, which ended up costing way too much but was my best option at that point, and headed to the hostel.
I decided not to stay in the hostel I had stayed in previously in Dublin, because I�d found another hostel that was cheaper (but in a sketchier area) and right across from the bus station, and I had originally been planning to take a bus to Belfast the morning of the 27th. It was a good thing I was in a taxi�even though the taxi driver had kind of a psycho-killer, unblinking look to his eyes, and kept talking about how �dear� Dublin was (it took me a minute or two to figure out that �dear� meant �expensive�)�because when I arrived at the door of the hostel, which is in a back alleyway beneath the DART train tracks, there was a crazy-looking hobo wandering around, dribbling tobacco juice down his bushy white beard. Basically, it was a scene right out of my mother�s worst nightmares, and though I�m generally not fazed by such scenes, I did feel a little better that the cabbie drove me right up to the door, and went out and rang the bell for me before I got out of the cab.
Despite its drab appearance and dubious location, the hostel was really secure. You had to swipe to get into the freaking stairwell, swipe to get out, and then swipe again to get into the room. My 6 roommates probably hated me for quietly trying (and failing) to drag myself in at what was now 4 in the morning, but they were nice about it the next day.
Basically, I decided to stay another night in Dublin because I couldn�t face the prospect of moving again, and I needed to meet up with Maz to get some essential items before leaving for Belfast, but I wasn�t able to reach him until very late in the day on the 27th.
But it was a lonely day (and a half) in Dublin, and I didn�t know what to do with myself. Everyone I knew in Dublin, besides Maz, was elsewhere. I was feeling kind of gross, because I couldn�t shower seeing as Maz had my towel and my flip-flops, and I couldn�t really afford to buy new ones (either I didn�t find them or there really aren�t that many bargain places in Dublin). So, I spent most of Tuesday walking around feeling sorry for myself and trying to sort out why I was feeling kind of down. The day cheered up considerably though when on Grafton Street on my way to a caf� I grew to love while in Dublin�the organic-food-and-free-trade-coffee-serving Busy Feet & Coco caf�I encountered an interesting quartet. Other than the guitarist, the quartet�s instruments were made from household appliances�a wash tub fitted with a broom handle and a rope to make a bass-like instrument, a washboard and a thimble, and an overturned bucket for a drum. Other than the novelty of it, the blue-grassy, country-type music was actually really fun, and the �bass� player�who plucked away at his instrument with a look of deep concentration and his tongue lolling out of his mouth�was reminiscent of Christian Bale�circa Jack Kelly in Newsies. *Swoon*. Things only got better when I actually got to the caf�, where I discovered Mongrel Magazine . The issue of the magazine that I flipped through while eating managed to single-handedly improve my opinion of Dublin. It sounds silly, I know, but it made me laugh and gave me something to do, and most importantly it showed me that there is a young, thinking population in Dublin�the apparent lack of which was something that had kind of turned me off about Dublin the first time around.
Moving along�I made my way back to the hostel, and in the common area I spoke to a Swedish dude who had greeted me earlier that day in the stairwell, and who ended up knowing a little Arabic. I nearly choked on my ramen noodles when, after I told him I was from Egypt, this strikingly blue-eyed, blonde-haired Scandinavian said, �3m tehki 3rabi?� (�So you speak Arabic?� in Lebanese dialect.) It turned out that his best friend growing up was Lebanese.
It was still pretty early in the evening, but I decided to be responsible and book hostels in Belfast and Galway. I called around to all the hostels listed in my Rough Guide to find the cheapest rates in Galway. The rates were all pretty much with the same range�but the guy who had answered the phone at the last hostel I called sounded really friendly, and frankly, was pretty cute in the way he kind of mumbled when he first answered the phone, so in typical girl fashion I decided to stay at the hostel with the cute-sounding boy. And he ended up being this boy.
Sorry for going into all this boring detail, and not really getting anywhere with it. I�ll leave you all with a funny sign that was hanging in the kitchen of my hostel, and with a promise for a much better and more interesting account of the fun that was Belfast. 