I decided to do a walkabout of the city. My legs were definitely feeling it from the camping trip though, and I had blisters I had to take care of. So it was more of a hobble around. I ran into one of the girls that I had met the night before, which was cool. I wandered around, found the tourist office, got a map... walked up to a big cathedral and went to take a picture when....
my camera lens wouldn't come out. It made a weird clicking noise.
"This can't be good" I thought. It wasn't it kept making a clicking like something was out of alignment, although I hadn't dropped it lately and hadn't even used it since camping! WTF! They wanted money to get into the church so I bailed and walked by the Black Abbey, which was also interesting. No photos at the time though. I decided to go to a camera shop to see if it could be fixed and how much it would cost, plus I texted to see if my warranty was still good.
I went into three places that sold cameras, and they all gave me a "oh crap" look. The last one was a Canon dealer that repaired some cameras there, but they said they would have to ship it to Dublin and it would probably cost the same as a new camera.
UGH. I wasn't sure about the warranty, and I wanted to see what the internet said, so I refrained from buying a cheap piece of crap camera. I tried to walk it off so I went by the castle, just to see the outside of it, and ran into the Italian girl from last night again! Crazy!
I then decided to go across the street to a design/gallery thing, which was also very pretty. There was a nice house with gardens in the back of it, and at that point I was getting annoyed at not being able to take photos. It made me contemplative as well though: made me think about why I want to take them in the first place. It's not like I'm going to forget everything, right? So why was I feeling so lost?
I ended up coming to the conclusion that since I am traveling alone, photos are a way I still feel connected with people back home. When I'm running around taking boring photos of building or the like, I am thinking at least to some degree of family and friends that are going to be looking at them while I am out and about... sort of bridging the gap in a vague way.
Either way I wanted to have a go at home to see if the internet could tell me how to fix it... or how long my warranty lasted for.
I got back and found a site that was dedicated to the error I was getting. When I turned it on, it said "lens error, restart camera" and make a broken clicking noise. This could have been caused by a few things, but one of them was it being turned on in a place where the lens couldn't come out... like my belt... which is possible I guess... but unlikely. Sand or grit in the lens thing are also possible causes. Apparently it's a common issue and there is a lawsuit going on.
I tried and tried but it wasn't coming out. I was beginning to lose hope. Ross came back and we tried taking it apart a little, but the lens mechanism was behind the screen since it's so compact, so it was impossible to get to.
I started looking up new cameras. Ireland is one of the most expensive places in Europe from what I've been told; not a good place to buy a camera. They were really pricey for anything worth having. I didn't want to lost ALL my functions of my previous camera, so I was looking at 200 or more euro!!! YIKES! Wasn't budgeting for that one...
Turns out, it broke one month after the warranty ended. FUCK YOU CANON.
Soooooo needless to say I felt like drinking that night. Grrrrr.
Ross and I went down to a different pub that night. It was also extremely cute! I was able to borrow the bike again too which was awesome! Yay! We met up with two girls from the night before that I really enjoyed :) One girl was from France, the other from Denmark; both of them were living in Kilkenny for the time being. More people showed up as the night progressed, then when this bar shut we went next door and entered a different late bar than the one last night. This one we stayed inside, but then it was shutting soon as well. People started to leave, so we biked back to the house again.
We were smart to make toast when arriving home, because when I woke up I didn't have a hangover! Woo! I slept in a lot though, so I may have slept it off as well.
Either way this was camera day. I went walking around to several shops, and decided on the one with the repair facility. 200 euro later I had a new camera almost exactly like my old one haha. It was the display one so they gave me a deal. The battery was dead though so I couldn't use it right away.
I was happy that I had a new thing, so i went for a walk. I thought about how maybe I should charge the thing first, but I was made of time so I wandered for a while before stopping into Esquires and using their electricity.
I tried reading a paper while drinking a hot chocolate, but I was finding myself falling asleep when doing so. Maybe it was because the paper was British, or maybe it was the hot chocolate, or maybe it was the rain pouring outside randomly... I don't know. I was sleepy.
The rain stopped, so I went to check out the castle from the outside (at that time I would have been rushed looking on the inside too) and test out the new camera!!
Then I walked around a bit more. I didn't mind the drizzle. It keeps the plants green.
It seemed to work.
I got back in time to go to a play! It was Cabaret themed, performed by a group of people Eilie is a part of, although she was performing in three weeks not that night. There were two stages on opposite sides of the room, so there were monologues and dialogues one after the other! It was a lot of fun! They gave me wine hehe.
After the performance, we went out to the bar we were at the night before :) Then it was food then house party :) It was good times; everyone walked home at 6am or something ridiculous like that... it was getting light out...
sleep was welcome!
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