Infinite Grey

By Akmonki | Location: Ireland | 04/21/08

My surroundings have changed again! After my exciting (but shortened due to extraneous reasons) cycling trip, it was really time to leave Spain—honestly, my 90 passport days were nearly up. I spent about a week visiting a distant cousin in Sevilla, and moved on.

One of the few places not included in the Schengen zone (one which would permit me a fresh, new 90 days beginning in their country) was Ireland, so I bought a cheap plane ticket, sold my bike and took off to new territories once again. This time I would no longer have to worry about any language barriers, although I daresay that my Castellano (Spain-ish Spanish) was getting pretty darned good. I did not know anyone in Ireland, had no reservations, nor connections. All I knew was that I would be in Dublin on Saturday afternoon. From the airport, I caught a double-decker bus that dropped me off in the City Center. Outside it was raining and overcast. A kind of infinite grey that made me think the weather here never cleared. By foot, I came upon the towering Spire, statue of James Joyce, and the famous O'Connelly Street before stepping into a tourist info center (yes, I still do visit those; they're still useful resources even though I hate acting like a tourist and have been traveling for 10 months now). I asked the attendant for a city map and inquired about hostel rooms. "There are absolutely no hostel rooms available in Dublin tonight," she told me without hesitation. For a moment, my heart skipped a beat. I hadn't heard anything back from Dubliner couch surfers and had made no prior room reservations. On the map, the tourist information lady circled the hostel-clustered areas, if I wanted to go check if they had space due to no-shows. I thanked her and went on my way to see what I could find. By the third hostel I looked in, they said that they had an availability tonight. It was in a mixed dorm room, but only cost 15 Euros (about 10 Euros less than most dorms in the area). The place looked shabby, but I figured that I hadn't many other options, so I paid for one night. After I'd been unsuccessful unlocking the door combination for about ten minutes a large man who didn't speak English opened the dorm door from inside and let me in. I dropped my bags on an unclaimed bed and made up my mind to spend as little time as I could in the room as possible. Some bread, cheese, an orange, and some licorice made up my dinner and I sat down in the dorm hallway to read until I was tired enough to try and sleep. A couple minutes after taking seat, four boisterous guys loudly came in from the stairwell with Guinesses in hand, asking me what I was doing sitting alone in the hall. "I'd rather be out here, than in there," I answered motioning to my dorm room. "Yeah, well our's isn't much better..." We chatted for a bit and I learned that they had all met up here but individually were from Australia, Italy, Lesbon, and South Korea. None of them knew each other before Dublin, and had been living in this very hostel for various time periods between 1 day - 3 months. I could hardly imagine staying here for an entire weekend. They all claimed to have the same intent to leave Dublin as myself, but "just couldn't leave the place." When the hostel manager came huffing into the hallway after the three flights up stairs to scold us for being too loud, they guys took off to a party and left me to my reading. Half an hour later, the flustered manager returned and told me that I was not allowed to sit in his dirty hallway either, even though I was causing no disturbance. So I sulked into the bedroom, stuffed my ears with music, and tried to fall into sleep among some terrific snores. Every other person (besides the snorer) in the room was shifting around, unable to sleep as well. I survived the night and got out of there pronto the next morning. I walked around the town a bit more extensively to see the Ha'Penny Bridge, Temple Bar area, and even found myself walking along the famously eerie "Fleet Street". Dublin is not very "with it" in the Wifi scene, I had to research in an internet cafe to find a few. Turns out that most McDonald's offer free wireless; upon request, it comes a little 30 minute pass for customers. The great McDonalds rises to the occasion once again. So far today I've already had a latte, chamomile tea, and cookie from the McCafe, and an afternoon McFlurry to qualify as a customer for use of their wireless Internet services. So I think that just about catches me up for now. I've been sitting in McDonalds for a few hours now, expecting every employee that passes by to tell me I need to leave or purchase another product to justify my table hogging. In the upcoming days I will be searching for a better room, and job/volunteer opportunity in Dublin. And if that doesn’t look likely, then I think I'd like to get out of the big city... Maybe do some more organic farming through WWOOFing on some islands south of here or more cycling (although these conditions would make for some soggy bottom days). But I’ve absolutely nothing lined up for now. So anyone out there who might have some tips about traveling/living/working in Ireland, feel free to drop me a line. Ciao for now!--

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