Dublin
22 Sep
Green patchwork quilts stitched together by thin lines of mossy green treetops. Wet sidewalks with leaves on pavement being swept away by natural-bristled brooms. City folk in Dublin are pretty friendly – especially if you are first.
A stressful day of first impressions. I realize I arrived totally unprepared… but Dublin showed me both its good and bad sides. Upon arrival, Kyle and I frantically searched for a place to stay.
All the hostels were booked; who knew this was some major international golfing weekend? Except, city limits… 20E was the fee… and upon further examination we were better off sleeping on a park bench (or the street.)
We sucked it up, despite Sara’s nagging vomit sound in the back of my mind. The hostel itself was rundown and grimy – not unlike Dublin. Luckily, this night is the annual Dublin Culture Night 2006. This means all the galleries were open and serving free wine and hot chocolate, old movies were played in the stone courtyards in the downtown area, and all the hipsters are milling about. After a crazy cold night of wandering through Heroin Central, Ireland, we never did make it to this ‘writer’s talk’ that sounded really interesting.
We did, however, catch some awesome sound/image art-in-process research sorta thing. They used special machinery to put images to sound frequencies… or was it sound frequencies to microscopic images? Either way, it looked like some crazy MS Paint art paired with really random non-melodic Super Mario Brothers music. My favorite part of the exhibit was the porthole viewer and images of white noise vibrations.
We also got to look at some paintings and prints. We drank red wine and watched an ameteur printmaker do a print, that wasn’t even his own. (lamecore.) We ended our evening with an old movie set in Ireland with the guy who played the original Willy Wonka. His character pushed a cart of shit for a living. he fell in love. We watched it in the some random square, outdoors. Magical.
Upon returning to the hostel, Kyle passed out and I decided to research more about our next stop, Cork. Just reading about it lifted my spirits. I noticed a boy trapsing about, and we got to chatting. He was Polish, tattooed, and a recovering alcoholic. He came to Dublin with friends and has worked at the hostel for a few months. Then came his drunken Scottish friend, Steve. Steve made me laugh with his rediculous cursing in a Scottish accent.
“I Fecking git kicked out, my fecking gil-friend chaytes on me… and… who the feck are you? Where the feck are you from?”
“New Jersey”
“Bloody fecking hell!!”
He must have asked me where I was from 4 times in the 10 minutes we talked. I hope I can attain such a fantastic accent in my time in this country.
MRumianowski
haha I like the Polish guy. He’d make my mama proud I’m sure. hehe. Damnit I want to go to Ireland and like well EVERYWHERE!