Eye Your Land!
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006When I thought of this title I felt that in some way there may be more meaning to it…who knows!
Before I get into my first few days in Ireland I want to say a few things. Have any of you ever had a moment where the light bulb just went off? You had some kind of revelation and it all just made sense? You looked up at the sky and to yourself went:
“Aaaaaaah…Now I get it!!!”
Part of the reason for my trip, or maybe most of the reason for my trip was to do a little “self discovery”, perhaps a little “soul searching”, call it “finding myself” if you will. I guess we all have questions about ourselves that we may or may not try to seek the answer to. I have questions everyday that I swear I may never be able to answer. I had tons of questions before I left on my trip and I probably answered a few but now I have tons more. However, with all that being said, it took me til my 27th, and final country for most of it to all make sense…Thank You Ireland…Now I get it!
Arriving in Ireland now and having spent a few days has helped me make sense of alot. These are my people. Never has the light bulb been so bright. I now know where the attitude, vengefulness, sarcastic witty sense of humor comes from.
My first two days were spent in Dublin…I will give all of you credit who warned me to get out! Well let it be known that I am out, I am now in Cork. Dublin is what it is, a big city. I couldn’t tell you the exact number of piles of puke I saw about on the side of the road but lets just say I stopped counting after the first few hours. I spent my first night out with my friend Kevin. Kevin is the guy who got stuck with me at his house for 2 and a half weeks in Scotland. We went out and tossed back a few guinnesses with a few other guys that he knew through his work. The Guinness really does taste better here and for €5 it better.
I am sorry to say I did not to any of the tourist attractions in Dublin. I was tempted to see the Guinness Brewery but after buying a few of them at the Pub felt like I didnt want to give them any more money to those worthless scumbags…I will remember you guinness and your outrageous prices….I will remember! Trinity College looked nice but since they wont let my brother Tom in their exchange program I hope they rot in hell…those F*cken bastards!
You see?…it is happening….I can feel the transformation…my bitterness, it is growing stronger…my ability to curse is so much more enhanced…My power to hate people or things who really have done nothing to me at all is incredible….I feel like Popeye after 10 cans of Spinach now that I am in Ireland.
Ok, I will be serious for a moment! To be completely honest Dublin is not that horrible but it is not the real Ireland, it is becoming a very international city. You see people from all walks of life calling it home. As long as the beer is still coming out of the taps and homeless drunks and are still screaming at passers by and traffic it will be an exciting place to visit. Funny story…I passed a homeless guy while walking down the street and he was yelling at this guy walking next to me who had no hair….
#Get a f*cken haircut you bastard.”
The guy either did not hear him or did not care…I laughed a little bit!
After the two days of excitement in Dublin I headed southwest to Cork. I am spending two nights here. Today I went to Kiss the Blarney stone at Blarney Castle…you gotta kiss the Blarney stone if you are in Ireland. Sadly enough it was my first kiss, not with a rock, but with anything. Even worse there was an old man holding me during my first kiss, how is that for a memory? Oh wait, i gave him a tip after as well…what is my life coming too?
Kissing the Blarney Stone is not what I expected. You climb to the top of this castle and there is a spot where this guy is sitting. He has a few pads on the ground and you go over and sit on the pads and lie back. The Old man holds on to your chest a little. You grab two bars behind your head and arch your neck all the way back so you can reach down and kiss the stone, kind of awkward.
This afternoon I returned to my hostel and had a baguette with cheese on it, tasty! The lady running the hostel was putting up a xmas tree. She is a very nice lady, probably about 40 or so. She was sitting quietly in the living room and untangling christmas lights. I sat quietly at the kitchen table a few feet away watching her mess with the lights. Pretty much on cue I heard this about every 10 seconds.
“F*ck…F*cken Lights…F*cken Hell! (Here in Ireland it sounds like this…Fook!)
Then she would look up at me and smile and say with a pretty irish accent:
“Ya didn hear dat.”
I think the F word was invented in Ireland because I have heard it more here than in any place I have ever been in my life. There is another word they say quite often as well, that word begins with a “C” and that is as far as I will go. I cringe when I hear that word, I don’t like it much at all.
Tomorrow I am off to Killarney. I am going to spend two days there before heading up to Gallway and then to Shannon Airport on Sunday for my flight home. I will update as much as possible here in Ireland. Keep up the reading, we are almost at the end!
Gagnonius