I wanted to mail back my scarf and some postcards, so I found a post office nearby online and walked out the door... to thirty degrees. Maybe 31 degrees! I walked out in a long sleeve and pants and was sweating in no time at all. I mailed my stuff and got a sandwich on the way back. Some guy was talking in Spanish, but it was the weirdest Spanish I'd ever heard.
I got back and finished packing - no easy task. Everything fit no problem, so next was figuring out how to get to the airport. I'd never been to JFK before, I'd always arrived by land! I had no idea how long it was going to take. It looked like I had a few choices, so I picked one that looked easiest...
And I was off! I had my backpack on in the sweltering heat, which didn't help. I walked to the subway, and discovered that it was delayed due to track work. More and more people were waiting at this stop... and there I was with my giant bag. It was okay in the subway since it had a bit of air conditioning... but it was full for a while and the delay cuased me to miss my connecting bus. Ah well, I was arriving three hours early like the website told me to, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to need that long.
After waiting for the bus in the heat as well, I finally got to the airport, It was so massive that even the aircoach thing that went to the different terminals took forever!
Check in was funny - it was so relaxed and easy. I ate some overpriced shitty pizza and rolled through security. I am getting used to them now. Immigration was going to be on the other side, which was the scary part.
So there I was very early...
there was a security guard watching a basketball game, so I watched it with him. Orlando was playing, and it made me think of Stacey, the girl I met at Marco's from Florida... she was all about basketball and was checking the scores online all the time. Turns out the guy was rooting for Orlando. We chatted for a while, until he decided that he should go back to work. It was so lax. The security guards were all standing around talking and laughing... not what I've ever seen. This guy kept coming back to visit me: he was really surprised by my itinerary. He gave me his email and stuff - it was cool.
The game got me through over two hours - it was actually interesting. Fast paced - plus the score was so close so one team would be winning then losing three minutes later.
The flight was the most pleasant I've ever been on.
The stewardesses and pilots had accents. There was a blanket and pillow on the seat already waiting, and they gave you pop and pretzels pretty much right away. After a little while they served a massive dinner, and I was able to sleep for the rest... so I left at 9:40pm and arrived 9:00am due to the time difference!
This eliminated being fucked up from the time change since I slept then arrived in the morning.
Ireland looked like a patchwork quilt of green from the plane. It was unbelievable. I was not expecting it to be that... I don't know... green?! I was so bright but so gentle... really beautiful stuff.
Immigration was extremely lax. He looked really bored until he asked me when I was going home... that was a bad question to ask, and not one I had thought about. So I told the truth. I was going to be home in about a year because I am traveling around the whole world. I braced myself, but he didn't seem to care that much.
I showed him my Eurostar for June 23rd, he asked me when I was going to leave Ireland, and I said sometime in the next month or month and a half, so he can pick a date anywhere about a month and a half from now...
and he gave me till June 27th! So he gave me two full months, plus it was after I was supposed to be leaving from London, so it was unnecessarily long! Hoorah! He looked totally bored the whole time, it was so easy. That's two months just for the south too, so that's not even counting Belfast.
Mwahahahaha
I got my bag, hopped on a double decker bus (they are all doubles here!) and I was in town within a decent time.
I had all day to get to St Stephen's green for 4pm to meet my host, so I wanted to get my phone working in Ireland.
At the airport, I had tried to get a sim right away, but the old USA unlocked phone was too old and crappy to work in Europe. I was going to have to unlock my nice Canadian phone.
There were a ton of places in the city. I was dropped off in the city centre, on the North Side of the Liffey, so I ended up walking down Talbot street near the Spire. North is old Dublin, recently fixed up and now very nice. South is where most of the attractions are. I found a phone place, but this stupid phone is a pain in the ass.
The girl said 20 minutes, so I went walking with my pack on, came back, but she was having problems so she said she needed more time. After waiting in the store for quite a while, she gave it back saying she couldn't do it: she would have to order an unlock code and it would take 2 days. I was not happy. It was booting up with a weird black screen with writing.
I walked down the street and there was another one and just for the hell of it I asked them if they would be able to. I told them the people down the street couldn't, but they said they'd try so guess what... I walked around for another 20 minutes. It was nice to see lots of North Dublin, but I wished I didn't have my stupid pack on. I came back and they said they were having trouble. Stupid phone.
The guy came up and told me that the chinese girl had used the wrong program to unlock the phone, and now the software was damaged. He would have to downgrade the software blah blah blah it was going to take a while. Grrrrrr.
I went and had something to eat. I took my time. I came back. By now I was getting really tired of carrying my bloody pack around. The guy was still having issues, but I was impatient. I got their information, and told them I'd be back tomorrow. I was going to take it unlocked or locked. I really wanted a phone.
It was pretty easy finding a bus. I just walked up to one and asked where I could catch one going past St. Stephen's Green. That bus did!
The park was stunning - I was there about 45 minutes early, so I had time to type for a bit, and walk around.
I didn't see anyone though, and I was not able to call him cause I had no stupid PHONE!
I waited till 4:30ish, but I didn't see anyone in a green coat with an orange backpack.
I decided to take a taxi since I had no idea how to get to his house from there. I didn't really want to, but it seemed like the only way there at that point. I got in the taxi, but he didn't know where the street was! He had no idea, but he had a GPS. I asked him why not use the GPS and he said he just got it a couple days ago and had no idea how to use it lol.
The poor old man didn't want to just drive around aimlessly, and looked fairly stressed that he didn't know where that was. I offered to figure the GPS out (Annastajia's TomTom finally did some good for me haha) and got it programmed no problem. It directed us there.
I knocked and at first no one was answering. Uh oh! I had tried to call Marcus with the cabbie's phone earlier, and it wasn't working (turns out it was because it had the long distance numbers on it still, don't know why the cabbie couldn't figure that out!) but I walked up to some young guy and tried to ask to use the phone anyway.
he looked at the number and took the first few numbers off and it worked... Marcus was already outside looking at me haha! I got to put my pack down... that felt good.
The house was cute. I was going to get an actual mattress on the floor instead of the couch, so that was rad. Sarah, Marcus' girlfriend, was there too. The three of us went out and got some food and beer. They cooked some chili, which was awesome, and we drank beer, talked, and played cards. It was a good night! I got oriented as to where I was in the city, and figured out where to walk.
There are a few people living at this house. There is Marcus (Sarah is in a lot but doesn't actually live there), Ari, Fin, and Dania. Ari is from Sevilla, Spain, and her boyfriend Pepe is also around a lot. Fin is a tall irish guy from somehere-I-don't-remember, and Dania is Polish and mostly is only in her room hanging with her polish boy or in the kitchen with him making food. They are a pretty fun crew to be with, I'm super lucky :)
I met Ari the first night, and Dania briefly (and still have seen her only once in a while for the past week). I fell asleep after watching Deadwood.
It's pretty damp here, so going to bed feels a bit weird at first until your body heat warms things up and it feels dryer. That was a bit interesting. Sometimes I sit on the couch and it feels wet, but I put my hand on it and it's dry. I think it's just cold.
It is a rainy city, but it's in short spurts and you end up not really minding since it's such a light short rain. Nothing like the torrents of Vancouver.
3 comments:
Finns from not from limerick. Sure yer as mad as a bag of spiders.
Be Smart, be safe, have fun. Luv you lots. Dad
ah whoops! my bad. I shall fix that!
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