Moneydick

I’m in Dublin now typing furiously on a 1euro/60min stuck-keyed terminal in a sketchy ‘low-cost international phone call/Internet’ shop. It’s 4:24p, and I’m ready for a nap after long hours of sniffing the paint of Italian Masters… my second visit to the Ireland National gallery on my second visit.
I arrived the 13th and walked to my hostel, Abraham’s House (all hostel’s seem to belong to a name for some reason) but only stayed there two nights because they were booked full after that. My next two days I stay in ‘Isaac’s House.’ My first night out I went to dinner with a few Americans from the University of Wisconsin. I had been used to the typical ‘oh wow people do that in your country? That’s weird. Here’s what they do in Cali’-type of banter with international travelers… but things were uncomfortably familiar with these Americans. That’s not to say I didn’t have a great time… It just started to feel like an MTV Europe Real World episode. It began at the point when Ashley’s Birthday dinner location was too much of a dive for Amanda’s standards, and before Jamie managed to spill half a pitcher of something resembling Margarita mix onto the table. Ohh the antics… I can just see the spoiler clip! I spent most of that night laughing on the inside.
I started my second day on the Dublin Tour bus to get a feel for the city, and ran into two Americans and a German studying at Sterling University in Scotland who were on a weekend trip to Dublin. I soon learned their names, but they started as Alaska, Tahoe, Germany, and, Pennsylvania. We made a tourist’s day of it, then met back at their hostel with the hopes of gathering all the young folks we could lure out into the Irish night for an evening of rascality.
By 9ish, Weston and I had recruited (with the help of Mindy) a ‘hip-hopper’ (as the Europeans call them) from Milwaukee donning color-coordinated Jersey’s and doo-rags, two lively Swedish girls named Yohanna and Maria (who would blend in very well with the quasi-Hipsters of Vassar), two lady Americans who study at Norwich University in England from Boston and Connecticut, a smiley girl from Colorado, Missouri (Alyssa) with fiery red hair, and the aforementioned Weston, Tabitha, Vera (veray German), and Mindy. We listened to live music, danced around the Temple Bar district, and spent time catching up on each others lives.
I spent part of the next day at the National History Museum looking at ancient Celtic designs and whatnot, but an honest fraction of my time was spent smirking over something the Swedens or Germany told me the night before. Cultural exchange is fun! I’m sure I looked like one of the many drunk loonies roaming the streets here who aren’t even crazy enough to be seen giggling at the peat-preserved body of a Irish peasant from 200 B.C… a sight which is about as unfunny as things get.
And last night guess who shows up at the hostel (that I don’t live in) in this far away city of Dublin, across the Atlantic, approximately 5,300 miles from my hometown of Westchester, CA, in L.A. county… John Finney–the bloke from 5 years of my state-sponsored education! Sure he’s studying in Munich and it makes sense that he may choose to visit Dublin…. but still quite a coincidence. I’ll never forget in all my days hearing that my friends happened to meet someone else from L.A., and then seeing this Finney character with his 6-pack of Guinness. Finney, you’re priceless. If only Tim could see us now.
Tomorrow morning I head for Cork in the southerly part of Ireland, where Corks come from. Maybe I’ll go to the Cork museum or something like that. cork cork cork. wheee
Maybe I’ll stay in this internet cafe: 24 euros a day is cheaper than anything I could find. Soon I’ll develop a way to eat the internet so I won’t have to cook cheap pasta over a cheap electric stove that takes 20 minutes to heat up in a kitchen that smells of a bad cheese shop.
Hope America is holding together across the pond there and that there’s enough natural gas for the impending winter to keep us out of a snowballing economic depression.
Keep in touch everyone!
Pictures soon
Cork 17th-19th
Stockholm 20th-27th
Rome 27th- November 4th…