It all started in my dirty, Polish hostel where I was so afraid to leave my bed the night before that I ended up sleeping for 11 hours trying not to touch anything (especially the pillow which i could only mostly cover with a spare shirt). Upon springing from bed, I threw on some clothes, packed up and went to the front desk. I asked the surprisingly clean girl at the desk what I needed to do to vacate my bed (ie. turn in sheets for cleaning), she said, "Eh, just leave." So I left with a sick taste in my mouth, scared I had already contracted TB.
I checked my email and Paul and his friends had made the flight to Dublin, so I went to our meeting spot on the Northeast corner of the O'Connell bridge. I thought they'd be there around 9 or 9:30, but they ended up getting there around 11:30. I discovered that I am absolutely intolerant to waiting. Without a cell phone and the ability to know exactly where someone is and when they will arrive, I shut down. I was pacing up and down the bridge, jumping up on the wall to sit, then jumping down again. But they eventually showed up, and it was like no time had passed at all.
Fist thing we did was walk back to my hostel to grab my bag which I had stashed in a closet. The vomit I almost stepped in the day earlier was still just stagnating outside the door. We walked to a good hostel which I already knew was full and they redirected us to some good hostels. Brown's hostel was very nice and we ended up booking for the night, however, in our quest to find new accommodations, I walked into a hostel and was surprised to be greeted by Marta, the Pollock lady who had checked me into the hostel the day before. She recognized me, and I said, "This place isn't as bad as the other one is it?" And she said, "It's not much better, but that one down the street (the one I'd stayed in) has to be the worst hostel in Ireland." (Not an exact quote - explicatives removed). So, not only was that hostel nasty by my standards and the Moroccan guy who was in the bunk next to me, but it was also admittedly the worst hostel in all of Ireland.
So we checked into Brown's, and away we went. We walked down O'Connell street, across the bridge and past Temple Bar to Trinity College. We walked around the 16th century campus and pretty much talked about how much fun we were having walking the streets of Dublin. As we went from Trinity to St. Stephen's Green, we passed the buskers and flower stands and I felt the reality of the moment. What could have been a simple suggestion, a whim even, from 3 weeks earlier had become a reality - putting us on the other side of the world, seeing things we've never seen before and learning about a people that, before this day, we knew nothing about. That wasn't the only time I felt this way during the weekend, but it was the first.
St. Stephen's Green was indeed green. Nice statues of people I've never heard about, grass and trees. By the time we had walked around Dublin for a few hours, it was lunch time. We went into a pub down the street from the hostel. I had already bought a baguette, so I sat down for a few seconds before excusing myself. As I stepped out of the booth we were sitting in, my foot got caught under the leg of the table and I slowly and awkwardly tumbled to the ground, almost landing on a woman and her daughter - "Yeep!" I got up and said, "Oi, mate!" and then just whispered some embarrassed, half discernible Irish/American/confused phrase and walked out of the pub as the guys in the booth next to us were chuckling.
We took a nap and then left for the Ambassador theatre, where Iron and Wine were performing. I remember buying my ticket online a few weeks ago. I said to myself, "Well, I'm throwing this money away." I didn't have them send me the ticket in the mail because it would have been a lot more likely that I lose them between Utah and Dublin, then if I picked it up when I got there (and when i bought them, it was more like if I get there). But I got there, and that feeling came again - it was real. In fact, standing outside the theatre minutes before the show, Paul said, "Somebody pinch me, am I really here?" I pinched him - it was real.
We walked in and a band called Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit played. They definitely had a strong Irish folk sound and really rocked. Go to their MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/johnnyflynn. Again, we were really in Ireland. When Iron & Wine came out, I looked around and noticed that most the guys in the audience were middle aged with beards. Is this some demographic that I didn't know I was a part of? It was awesome because Sam Beam's beard beat them all. And his hair was long and bushy. He had a soft stage presence and his voice is so distinct and clear. The music was awesome. So worth coming to Ireland (ps. They will be performing in Magna, Utah in December).
After the show, we walked out on O'Connell street again and sat down on the base of a statue of Sombody Grey and just watched people go by and laughed a lot. People were dressed in their Halloween costumes and every time a girl would walk close to us, Paul would cry out in the dirtiest Liverpool accent he could conjure, "Helloe, Lovvely!" We would all be embarrassed, but laughing our heads off at the same time.
We ended up walking back to Brown's, only a couple blocks away, and fell easily asleep. A good day in Dublin.
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