Rain and Random Happenstance

There’s always a change in the way you think before any adventure–the change that comes between the point where you’re planning to do something and the point when you know you’re going to do it. Tuesday night I was watching television shows online, passing the time. But on Wednesday I was saying my good byes and packing all of the next three months into my backpack.

And on thursday morning I was driving to the airport. I’d worked right up until the day before I left, and it felt a bit unreal to be suddenly on my way to a flight overseas and a few months of the nomadic life.

It felt even stranger to wake up two flights and a seven hour layover in Boston later as we were landing in Dublin at just after five in the morning local time. I caught the first bus to the city center and from there, walked. The skies were overcast, with a light rain, and it was still too dark to take out my camera, so I just walked the streets and watched the city wake up. I ended up in the center of the Trinity College campus as the first few people moved around there, getting it ready for the day. The cobblestone square shone with the rain, and the perfectly manicured cricket lawns (‘keep off the grass’ printed in both English and Irish) were as green as all other plant life I’d seen here so far.

As the day drew on the city came alive. Soon there were flocks of tourists descending on the sights, having their pictures taken with the statue of Molly Malone, following tour guides in tight little clusters (the word ‘herds’ being an obvious but perhaps too unkind alternative). I stopped in at the tourism office, a converted church, to buy a map and get my bearings.

I had reservations for the night at a Dublin Hosteling International, so I first found it on the map. Before I could go to it, though, there was something I had to see. I walked back into the Trinity College Campus and found the line to the Book of Kells and the famous Long Room of the college library (yes, you’ve seen it before; a clear example of the dangers of travel porn). The Book of Kells was first, and quite interesting if very touristy. The star of the show, though, was the Long Room. You enter the room to the strong musty smell of old books and a dark wood ceiling arching high overhead. Double stacks of books, two floors and full of old volumes, line the long corridor, with display cases along the center. Iron staircases spiral up from the corners (all behind ropes to prevent tourists climbing around), and, unfortunately, photography is banned. I sat for some time there, imagining a time when the place was full of scholars instead of sightseers.

(Not my picture--but you can still be jealous)

After I left Trinity College I found my hostel and checked in. One thing I noticed immediately was that it was not all young people–in fact, a fair percentage of those staying there were around retirement age, and there was one couple with two children. Most hostels these days rent smaller rooms out to private groups (like families) and aren’t at all party oriented–this one didn’t even allow alcohol on the premises–so they provide a good, low budget alternative to expensive hotel rooms.

I walked around Dublin a bit more that evening and the following morning–after discovering that the hostel computers didn’t allow image uploads and thus, no post last night–and bought a bus ticket to Belfast. The drive was several hours, but pleasant, through the impossibly green Irish countryside. When I finally arrived in Belfast the first thing I saw on leaving the bus station was an enormous wall mural proclaiming the presence and, presumably, supremacy of the loyalist party of Northern Ireland. I’d come to know more about this issue here, but for the moment I just took a few pictures and walked toward the river to find the ferry to Scotland.

I hit the river and followed it down toward the bay where, according to the map I’d seen on the bus station wll, the ferry would be. I passed some interesting sights (“See the place where the Titanic was built–it was still fine when it left here!”). Graffiti covered the walls anywhere out of sight of the main roads, and construction sites were surrounded by some of the wickedest bladed wire I’ve seen anywhere. Even so, cranes towered in the sky all across the city, and teenagers laughed and skateboarded around as if not even noticing. Belfast is clearly in a state of change, and it will be interesting to see what the next few years bring.

As I was approaching the ferry I met a man carrying a tray of sandwiches through an empty parking lot and asked him for directions to the ferry. We got to talking, and it turned out he was a couchsurfing host already having a few people over. He invited me to stay and I accepted–the best spot of luck I’ve had on my trip yet. That night several people from all over–Holland, Germany, Italy–descended on the apartment for a Eurovision party. If you haven’t heard of it (being American, I hadn’t), it’s essentially singers and musicians from different countries all around Europe competing on television–with a somewhat biting BBC voiceover narration throughout. Mostly I talked. One Irishman named Christo had recently visited both Turkey and Syria, and so promised to give me some good advice on both regions for when I get there in a month and a half or so. Two others were alternative energy engineers working on a system for harnessing tidal energy, while another (a girl from Holland) was an anthropologist studying the political and social situation here in Northern Ireland. My host, Michael, handed out the sandwiches (they were convention leftovers–turns out he’s in the web development business too), and a good time was generally had by all.

I woke up the next morning to have an enormous Irish breakfast of sausages, eggs, fried mushrooms, potato bread, soda bread and tomato, with a steaming mug of coffee (a “heart attack on a plate” as Michael’s roommate had it)–now this, I thought, was how days should start. After we cleared the plates we talked (I mostly listened) about the situation Northern Ireland’s in–a conversation sparked by a loyalist marching band passing by the apartment building in the street below that morning. For those as uninitiated as I was, the two strong parties are the Catholic nationalists and the Protestant loyalists, with a number of other smaller parties holding seats in various positions between the two. Though things have generally been peaceful since “the bad old days,” old wounds are by no means yet fully healed. My earlier impression that Northern Ireland will be an interesting place to watch over the next few years was confirmed.

I’m sitting now in Michael’s apartment, using his computer to upload this post and its accompanying pictures. Later today I hope to catch a ferry to the Scottish coast and then on to Glasgow.  Next time (hopefully): Scotland, the West Highland Line, and, weather permitting, the mountain of Ben Nevis.