Vagabonding begins!

In a few hours I board a plane for Stockholm to begin a new chapter of my trip.

After 18 days in Ireland, I find it hard to leave. The people, the scenery, and the pubs have been more than outstanding. I will probably break my legs and my budget coming back here again real soon.

I spent last night in Waterford with my friend Trish who I met in Kentucky last summer, and one of her friends visiting from France. It was a great little town on the sea, I wish that I had more time. We went to a bluegrass music festival of all things. The craic was awesome, one huge party, but they had the music turned down so low that the performers were more of a stage spectacle with their straw hats and suspenders, than musicians. I drug myself out of bed this morning and learned the beauty behind Irish doors. Once locked, you still need a key on the inside! I was locked inside and had to climb out a window to retrieve my rucksack to get ready for my 3 hour bus ride back to Dublin. I find it so strange that Europeans have more strict fire codes than the US, there are red breaker switches for appliances, hot water, etc mounted right on the walls next to every device instead of hidden away in a basement somewhere like we do it in the US, but you cant unlock the damn door from the inside if the place is on fire!
We made it home sometime around 04:00am and sat around playing guitars and trying to sing the lyrics to Fields of Athenry with her friend Adan until 06:00am. I was up again at 10:00am this morning to catch the bus. Its going to be a nice sleepy flight.

Trish also introduced me to the old Irish sport of Hurling. It is basically a bunch of guys in a field with clubbed weapons that look like hockey sticks beating the hell out of each other trying to hit a ball the size of a baseball. It took some practice, but after an hour I could at least hit the ball to her using the club. These things look more like skull splitters than athletic equipment. It was cool though, and as simple as it was, one of the highlights of my visit. Where else am I going to get to play hurling?

I must have the worst luck with buses in the world. Unlike airplanes, where I almost always end up sitting next to someone friendly or interesting (have even made existing friendships on planes), I end up with the grand finale of a freak show sitting next to me. This morning it turned out to be a French guy that boarded the bus on rollerblades. No shoes at all, just rollerblades. WTF? He rolled down the bus aisle in my direction and I tried to look angry and asleep at the same time so he would roll on by. But no, rollerfreak decided to plop down right beside of me, after passing scores of empty seats, and immediately began an assault on my nostrils. This guy smelled like B.O. so bad that I could taste him. He kept lifting his arm to adjust the air vent and even the people behind us were talking about him. When he took off his rollerblades to air his bare feet out, I threw up a little in my mouth. For 3 hours he held me in his reeking embrace. I just pray that there was no permanent damage to my olfactory nerves.

On a happier note, I received an email from Erin Barnard, the Rose of Texas and the Rose of Tralee contestant that I met in Chicago. We never exchanged emails, she just randomly found my blog, so now I have a celebrity reader! Thank goodness I didnt take my crudeness to its usual levels when I was talking about the Roses in the festival.

Life is good!

I didn’t know if I should be angry or laugh my butt off.

One of my 7 new roomates at Sheila’s hostel, a large full facility hostel across the river, had just managed to somehow find his way home after 03:00am. I was sleeping in a top bunk near the door, so before he even entered the room, my spider-sense has gone off and I was awake as he was outside the door fumbling with his key card. It was a friday night and he had made good use of it by pounding his liver into submission with God knows what. He made made a half hearted effort to get undressed, which resulted in his pants around his knees (one shoe still on). then he belly flopped into the nearest bottom bunk, much to the surprise of the sleeping occupant. They argued for a while in what I think was Dutch, then the drunk bastard fell asleep in the floor. He was still lying there when I got up to pack my backpack in the cramped quarters this morning. There were 8 of us in bunkbeds in a tiny, very narrow room. All guys. I had seen dozens of attractive German and French girls in the lobby, and the rooms were co-ed, but who knows which room they had ended up in. Not mine, for sure. I had 7 guys, mostly younger than myself, snoring like a platoon of chainsaws and smelling like unwashed man-parts. A smell that reminded me of the barracks when I was in Basic Training for the Army. I could only lay there and dream of the semi-nude pillowfight going on in the room next door where all the women backpackers had randomly ended up. Even the bathrooms were co-ed, which was a little hard for me to get used to. I was showering in a stall, with German girls on each side of me in stalls having a full blown conversation. There was nothing sexual about it, but for some reason I just didnt feel comfortable shaving and popping pimples in the morning while women did their mysterious things in the mirrors to each side of me. I had a place to sleep, but dont feel like I really got my $20 worth. I did manage to meet 3 German backpackers at the Bru Bar down the street, and we had a good talk about Germany which will help me in a few weeks.

I had stowed my daybag in one of the locking mesh drawers under my bunk, which meant that someone was sleeping directly on top of it. When I got it the next morning to pack, it was literally dripping wet. My books, my journal, everything was damp on the inside. There was no smell (Thank GOD), but I have no idea where it came from. I dont know if I even like to think about it, random moisture in a setting such as the hostel is NEVER a good thing.

Paola was headed off to Italy, so I rode with her to the airport in Cork, which is new and clean. After a sad goodbye, I was sitting there wondering what to do with myself, and once again (how many times have I said it?) I was reminded that things always work out. My Irish friend Sarah, which I had met in Kentucky last year, comes strolling through the airport. Here we were, meeting again, 4000 miles and 1 year later. Her happy energy and excitement helped dull the pain of another goodbye, and she put me in touch with my lost friends in Waterford – which is where I am heading in only a few minutes. Its a 16EUR, 2.5 hour bus ride, but it is mostly on the way back to Dublin, which is where I need to be anyway to fly out tomorrow. It is simply amazing the kind of luck that I have had already on this trip with finding people. Maybe I should grab a ticket straight to Vegas for a week?

I will enjoy a night of craic with my Waterford friends and then head to Dublin in the morning and tell Ireland goodbye for now.

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