Currently, I’m on a plane leaving Ireland. I’m sad to leave because this island feels like home, but I know that getting too comfortable anywhere is the opposite of what I’m trying to to do right now.
To give you a nice picture of my journey so far, here is a map that I drew on using my iPhone before realizing it probably would have been easier on the bigger screen of my iPad:
I’m headed to Iceland, and I have no idea how I’m going to get around or see the sights – especially because I definitely don’t know how to drive stick and those are apparently the cheapest rental cars. However, I’m pretty confident that I’ll figure everything out when I get there, because that seems to be the general trend thus far.
After my slightly embarrassing pub crawl in Dublin, I walked back to my hostel with a pounding headache around 8am. I napped for awhile in my room and missed breakfast by about ten minutes. Luckily, when I was moping around the kitchen feeling sorry for myself, the awesomest French guy offered me the rest of his eggs (he had apparently already eaten like 8? Maybe he is secretly Gaston.) We started talking, and he’s been so many places: he’s one of those “adventure travelers,” who you know, does stupid shit like bungee jumping and skydiving, both of which actually sound amazing (I’ve never done either). Anyway, my only contribution to this was my immense love for rollercoasters, and he suggested that I go to the largest European theme park, which is in Germany. The best part? IT’S OPEN IN THE WINTER. LIKE. THE WINTERTIME. So that is now on my list for December.
I hung out with my Chicago friend for awhile again, but then I absolutely needed to take a nap because I felt like I was going to die. That evening, we went to this pub called The Ginger Man, which had been suggested to me by a local, and specifically that I should go there on Thursday night because it was Gaelic night. Meaning everybody would be speaking Gaelic. What. So the two of us brought along two of my roommates that I had met only a few minutes previously, an Irish man (who had never heard of this particular pub) and a Hungarian man who didn’t speak a whole lot of English. And it was so incredible. I’m pretty certain we were just about the only tourists there, and the place was PACKED. Shameless Genevieve immediately started talking to somebody, and before I knew it we were surrounded by all of his coworkers.
Our night really got started when my friend told me that she thought a dude was cute, so I sat down with him and his friends and asked if we could join them. I’ve completely run out of fucks, so I just do whatever the hell I feel like anymore. We ended up spending the rest of the evening with the guys, and it was fun, relaxed, and one of my favorite nights in Ireland.
The next day I left for Belfast – it was about a two hour bus ride for only 10 euro. Ahhhhmazing. Belfast is part of Northern Ireland, not regular Ireland, but nobody checked my passport or anything (which is kind of a bummer because stamps!) but also it was nice to not have to spend the time or energy on it.
And then I got to my hostel. Where I felt at home immediately. It was the chillest, most entertaining, most fun hostel I’ve ever stayed at. The staff was so welcoming from the moment I walked in the door, and within two minutes of me getting there I was already joking around with them. The staff all just hangs out together in the lounge area when they aren’t working (and sometimes when they are), and I ended up spending several hours with about six or seven of them and absolutely no guests, watching TV, playing video games, and eating.
That evening I went to a show at The Lyric, which was…decent. It wasn’t bad exactly, but I definitely had some directorial issues. I’m so glad I went, because I wanted to see more theatre, and it was about dealing with the Catholic/Protestant divide in the country from a contemporary point of view.
The next day was a tour to the Giant’s Causeway, which is a natural rock formation that you can climb on, with all these crazy shaped rocks…I’m making it sound way less cool than it actually is. The tour was also awesome – we stopped at like six different places, and the road that the causeway on is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world. I might have appreciated it more if I hadn’t been asleep during half the tour (it went from 9-6:30 and I was sitting on a bus for a long time, what do you expect?). On the bus I sat with three Spanish girls from my hostel, and then we met a group that is all teaching language in England – two German guys, a Spanish girl, and a French Canadian girl. We all hung out during most of the tour (except during lunch, when I sat with a Swiss couple that were originally from Croatia and Ireland!) and afterwards, all of us minus two of the Spanish girls but plus one Indian girl from my room went out to eat and then out to a pub. I was still tired and definitely couldn’t drink a whole lot, but I have severe FOMO (fear of missing out) so I ended up staying out until the pub closed anyway. On our way home, we met a million people because it was Halloweekend; one random girl that we were talking to offered me a sip of her weird-ass wine – I forgot the name of it, but it’s basically caffeinated wine and apparently a huge thing in Belfast. I suppose it could have been poisoned, but I haven’t died yet.
Yesterday, I slept in and then met my England friends for a Black Cab Tour. It’s a private tour in – you guessed it – a black cab, and you drive around looking at murals on both sides of the wall, learning about the history of the conflict between the Catholics and Protestants. It was so interesting and moving, and our tour guide lived through all of this and had friends that died because of it. At the end of it all, we signed our names on the Peace Wall: hopefully, one day it would come down and everyone can live together.
After getting dinner with my friends and seeing them off to their bus to Dublin, I went back to my hostel and started drinking, because what else is there to do ever in Ireland. I met a couple of really cool New Zealanders (is that the word for them?) that got me chocolate during a beer run so they are officially my favorite people. Staff and guests all sat together playing drinking games and eventually graduating to the cliche guitar playing that happens at the end of a night.
Which brings us to today. Not much to tell there: ate some food, shopped a bit, went to airport. Somewhere in there I also convinced the hostel staff that they should hire me; if there are openings when I’m looking, they said I’m in. Yay!!
On a separate note, I can feel my anxiety just melting away. Getting from city to city, even country to country, has been so easy; there has never been a need to stress about anything. Even when things haven’t gone as planned, they’ve still happened, somehow. I don’t worry about what I’m doing tomorrow or the next day; I don’t worry at all. I just enjoy the moment I’m in, knowing full well that the next one will happen no matter what I do. I haven’t stressed about any choices: I just decide because I have to, because I have no one to bounce ideas off of, because I have no one to make happy or to fear disappointing, and because I’m the only one that can decide.
People have always told me to follow my dreams, and I took that advice to heart; I nearly killed myself working towards something I thought I wanted. But here I am, wandering and exploring, meeting people and doing stupid and wonderful things, not a goal in sight…and this is the happiest and most liberated I’ve ever felt.