this post, i'm even more exhausted than last time. the reason? i'm sitting at the dublin airport; it's 5:39am; i got here at 3:30am and didn't sleep before that. add to that the fact that the most sleep i got all week in dublin was 6 hours one night, and you can calculate that i'm fairly pooped. my plane boards in an hour, and i felt a very strong need to reflect on the week in dublin.
i saw przemek a total of 3 times, one of which was when he picked me up at the airport. apparently, his cold came back and prevented him from meeting up to chat or anything. i was disappointed, but at the same time i got some of the closure i needed; i just don't have anything to say to him at this point. it was nice to see him again and maybe we'll meet again someday down the line, but at this point there was just nothing to be said and i just didn't really feel like i could relax and be myself around him.
as for the reason for the title of this post...*cough cough*...the farewell between me and the guy from utah i mentioned last post (chris) became a tad more meaningful than planned. now i know this surprises no one who knows me but is definitely making me seem even more absurd than previously. it was simply the case of having spent every waking minute together for 6 straight days, not for any reason more than that we were just really comfortable together and enjoyed each other's company. we got along a little too well, even. anyway, it was a farely emotional goodbye...i'm not really sure what to say about the whole situation, except, why me? and also, that it was really great to get the chance to know him. he's off to explore the rest of ireland and drink beer in small-town pubs in order to meet tons of local old geezers who will help him develop his irish accent, and i'm on my way to discovering whether managing to travel through eastern europe really requires as much of a sense of humour as i've been warned. hm. this is all still sinking in. why is it that people i meet on trips always seem to feel i'm something special?
as for some of the events of the past few days (and let it be assumed that all of them involved chris as honestly we hung out constantly). my foot finally started feeling better so we started to explore the city pretty extensively. both chris and i are nature fanatics so we walked to quite a few parks. phoenix park was most notable for the endless fields and the random herd of spotted deer wandering around among the tourists. upon arriving at the guinness storehouse to experience the much-touristed tour, a frenchman standing by the gate happened to hand us two free passes to the storehouse, thus saving us €15 each. the tour itself was unremarkable, but worthwhile for the gorgeous view of the city from the pub on the top floor. we both wanted to see the bay and so walked as far east as the road would go (not far; dublin's a pretty tiny city), discovering not the bay (as it was blocked by construction sites), but quaint and interesting residential neighbourhoods featuring tiny houses with tiny doors that looked the perfect size for, well, me. chris had never eaten indian food or been to a nice restaurant, so we did that, and i got to teach him how to order and eat indian food. we discovered a particular bar in the long strip of central bars which is constantly packed with happy, singing people, and spent a ton of time there people-watching. the best person we met there was the drunken irishman named raymond who kept high-fiving us and trying to make the moves on an uninterested young woman from baltimore. he also bought us some irish coffees without a word, just left them on the table in front of us. probably the best part of the trip was the daytrip to a couple towns south of dublin. we took the commuter train about 45 minutes to dun laghoure (i think i'm spelling that wrong but you get the picture), and walked along the coast - finally discovering the sea. two towns south in dalkey, we ate a very modern variety of traditional irish food at a cafe that had both irish bacon and eggs, and statues of buddha in the corners. it was great to get out of the city and be surrounded by green, fresh air and water. we also saw spiderman 3 when it rained again, and it was not as bad as i expected. 2 more interesting meals: we stumbled upon a georgian restaurant with a cheap lunch menu while i was waiting for my laundry to be done, and enjoyed the flustered waitress' attempts at english (as we were clearly the only people in the restaurant not speaking russian). the random rolls of meat i ate there were also filled with pomegranate seeds. our dinner before i left was the best of all; we bought some very tiny but strangely delicious donuts from a roadside stand that for some reason only served donuts, and ate them in the hostel along with fresh whole irish milk drunk from cups made from cutting a water bottle in half. delicious, if not nutritious.
as for how much money i spent in dublin, i'm afraid to calculate it. just to give you an idea of the price of necessities: today for lunch i had cheap, fast-food chinese food (think the stuff you get for $5 from manchu wok), and it cost €10. which is basically $14 CDN. now think of me doing similar things every day.
so, there you have it; a very interesting if unexpectedly shared week in dublin. i certainly enjoyed it, even if i'm not yet sure what to make of it. oh, one more thing: irish cities, for some reason, have tim horton's. now *that* is what i call culture shock.
more from russia, when i get me across the border...
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