Well, I'm back where I started: London.
I have mixed feelings about Dublin, much of them colored by my hostel. Issac's is a great hostel, I'd recommend it to anyone. It was for the most part clean, safe, secure, and comfortable. Well, as comfortable as one can expect a hostel to be.
But.
Hostel living takes its toll. At first I was excited about it all: It's just like camp! Being in bunk beds, eating at long wooden tables with benches, storing your things in a locker. But then, after a few days, it's just like camp: No space, nowhere you can go to escape people, the noise, everyone moving about in cliques and groups, showers are kind of grimy, etc. I've determined that I can only handle a hostel for a couple of days. After six nights, I was going barmy. I hated that other girls staying in my room had complete disregard for the comfort of anyone else lodging there -- coming in drunk in the middle of the night and turning on the lights and then forgetting to turn them off, clomping around at 6:30 in the morning in stilleto boots packing, not using indoor voices, etc. Someone also got a hold of my towel and used it them self, squicking me out beyond belief and forcing me to do a costly €6 load of laundry.
I also had a hard time with the hostel because no one, seriously, no one there spoke English. I had expected a certain Eurotrashiness about the place, but it got ridiculous. Everyone was either French or Spanish (and we had a pack of Bolivians!), and if they did speak English, it was only a little bit -- enough to get by, basically. The people from America, Canada, or Britain that did come to the hostel came for only a night or two before moving on.
I tried, as best I could, to make some friends in my hostel. There was Antonio, a young man from Spain who told me in stilted English that he came to Dublin to find work, but that he'd have no luck yet. I tried to inquire about the line of work he was in, but he was having trouble understanding me and I got the impression he would take any job that would hire him. There was Sebastian, a very intense French man who was in Dublin to improve his English and do some employment networking. Sebastian worked in "business" and I gathered it had something to do with technology of some sort, media-related perhaps, and it seemed he was a contract worker. One evening we sat together and using my computer, showed me photos of all the various places he had lived: Senegal, Brittany, etc. When I pulled up photos of Philadelphia, he looked deeply into my eyes telling me he was impressed by my "power."
Still, it was alienating living like this. Everyone traveling with their friends, speaking in languages I didn't understand. Dublin also has a huge immigrant population -- people bent on coming into Ireland and seeking their own portion of the Celtic Tiger wealth (that's now starting to fall, due to the world economic crisis) -- and my hostel was situated in the Polish quarter. I swear, I heard more Polish and Polish accents than I did Irish.
It was tough being in Dublin all on my own. I had waited and longed to come to Ireland for so long it was hard being there and having no one to share it with. Mostly I wished for my Dad, who has wanted to come to Ireland his whole life. I kept seeing things and knowing he'd love them. It was also just plain lonely, as in Dublin, for the first time in my whole trip, I was truly on my own. No hosts wanting to show me the town, no conference attendees to chum around with, etc. Just me.
Monica, my brother's sometimes sort of girlfriend (it's complicated) lives in Dublin, and I hung out with her as much as I could. Still, Monica has a full time job, as well as two part-time jobs, so it's not like she had oodles of time to baby-sit me. But she was awesome. She and I went out to dinner twice and I attended an art opening at her gallery, as well as the corresponding lecture the next day. On my last night in town we had dinner and then went to the pub for a drink or two and ended up staying until 1:30 or so, and there's a grand story in there about my big mouth and the consequences of talking to strangers, but that's for another time.
Despite all my loneliness and the craziness of hostel living, Dublin itself did not disappoint. I could easily see myself living in Dublin and loving it. Most people I encountered were unfailingly friendly and kind. The city is certainly vibrant and alive, and while Dubliners themselves complain about how tiny the city is, I loved that aspect of it. Dublin is certainly a city, but it's manageable and not overwhelming and easy to get around.
I saw so much of Dublin, I managed to hit everything on my list: The Guinness Storehouse (FOR REAL, BEST STOUT EVER), Parnell Monument, St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College, The Book of Kells, Temple Bar, Oscar Wilde's Birthplace, Grafton Street, Dublin Castle, Phoenix Park and zoo, the Clarence Hotel (owned by Bono and The Edge -- I thought of Maggie), Irish Museum of Modern Art and Kilmainham Gaol. I spent a day touring the Wicklow Mountains and seeing some the green (well, greenish...it is winter, after all) countryside. I walked along the River Liffey, drank pints, and ate the most incredible Irish brown bread.
All in all, Dublin was grand, as they say.
I returned to London yesterday in the early afternoon, in the middle of a rainstorm. Jess and Mya were excited to see me and promptly asked me to to go out with them and Mya's brother Neé to a German Christmas market on the South Bank. I was so thrilled to be with friends again that I agreed. We headed back out into the rainstorm and cold and walked along the South Bank, examining intricate Christmas ornaments, nutcrackers, candle holders and quaint wooden toys. After the market we picked up some take out, came back to the flat and had a feast.
Today is my last full day in the UK and I had intentions of going to the Tower of London. But my shoes were still soaking and it was lashing rain outside. So instead, I was a lazy slug, stayed in, curled up with a cuppa, sat in the window and watched London go by.
I have mixed feelings about Dublin, much of them colored by my hostel. Issac's is a great hostel, I'd recommend it to anyone. It was for the most part clean, safe, secure, and comfortable. Well, as comfortable as one can expect a hostel to be.
But.
Hostel living takes its toll. At first I was excited about it all: It's just like camp! Being in bunk beds, eating at long wooden tables with benches, storing your things in a locker. But then, after a few days, it's just like camp: No space, nowhere you can go to escape people, the noise, everyone moving about in cliques and groups, showers are kind of grimy, etc. I've determined that I can only handle a hostel for a couple of days. After six nights, I was going barmy. I hated that other girls staying in my room had complete disregard for the comfort of anyone else lodging there -- coming in drunk in the middle of the night and turning on the lights and then forgetting to turn them off, clomping around at 6:30 in the morning in stilleto boots packing, not using indoor voices, etc. Someone also got a hold of my towel and used it them self, squicking me out beyond belief and forcing me to do a costly €6 load of laundry.
I also had a hard time with the hostel because no one, seriously, no one there spoke English. I had expected a certain Eurotrashiness about the place, but it got ridiculous. Everyone was either French or Spanish (and we had a pack of Bolivians!), and if they did speak English, it was only a little bit -- enough to get by, basically. The people from America, Canada, or Britain that did come to the hostel came for only a night or two before moving on.
I tried, as best I could, to make some friends in my hostel. There was Antonio, a young man from Spain who told me in stilted English that he came to Dublin to find work, but that he'd have no luck yet. I tried to inquire about the line of work he was in, but he was having trouble understanding me and I got the impression he would take any job that would hire him. There was Sebastian, a very intense French man who was in Dublin to improve his English and do some employment networking. Sebastian worked in "business" and I gathered it had something to do with technology of some sort, media-related perhaps, and it seemed he was a contract worker. One evening we sat together and using my computer, showed me photos of all the various places he had lived: Senegal, Brittany, etc. When I pulled up photos of Philadelphia, he looked deeply into my eyes telling me he was impressed by my "power."
Still, it was alienating living like this. Everyone traveling with their friends, speaking in languages I didn't understand. Dublin also has a huge immigrant population -- people bent on coming into Ireland and seeking their own portion of the Celtic Tiger wealth (that's now starting to fall, due to the world economic crisis) -- and my hostel was situated in the Polish quarter. I swear, I heard more Polish and Polish accents than I did Irish.
It was tough being in Dublin all on my own. I had waited and longed to come to Ireland for so long it was hard being there and having no one to share it with. Mostly I wished for my Dad, who has wanted to come to Ireland his whole life. I kept seeing things and knowing he'd love them. It was also just plain lonely, as in Dublin, for the first time in my whole trip, I was truly on my own. No hosts wanting to show me the town, no conference attendees to chum around with, etc. Just me.
Monica, my brother's sometimes sort of girlfriend (it's complicated) lives in Dublin, and I hung out with her as much as I could. Still, Monica has a full time job, as well as two part-time jobs, so it's not like she had oodles of time to baby-sit me. But she was awesome. She and I went out to dinner twice and I attended an art opening at her gallery, as well as the corresponding lecture the next day. On my last night in town we had dinner and then went to the pub for a drink or two and ended up staying until 1:30 or so, and there's a grand story in there about my big mouth and the consequences of talking to strangers, but that's for another time.
Despite all my loneliness and the craziness of hostel living, Dublin itself did not disappoint. I could easily see myself living in Dublin and loving it. Most people I encountered were unfailingly friendly and kind. The city is certainly vibrant and alive, and while Dubliners themselves complain about how tiny the city is, I loved that aspect of it. Dublin is certainly a city, but it's manageable and not overwhelming and easy to get around.
I saw so much of Dublin, I managed to hit everything on my list: The Guinness Storehouse (FOR REAL, BEST STOUT EVER), Parnell Monument, St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College, The Book of Kells, Temple Bar, Oscar Wilde's Birthplace, Grafton Street, Dublin Castle, Phoenix Park and zoo, the Clarence Hotel (owned by Bono and The Edge -- I thought of Maggie), Irish Museum of Modern Art and Kilmainham Gaol. I spent a day touring the Wicklow Mountains and seeing some the green (well, greenish...it is winter, after all) countryside. I walked along the River Liffey, drank pints, and ate the most incredible Irish brown bread.
All in all, Dublin was grand, as they say.
I returned to London yesterday in the early afternoon, in the middle of a rainstorm. Jess and Mya were excited to see me and promptly asked me to to go out with them and Mya's brother Neé to a German Christmas market on the South Bank. I was so thrilled to be with friends again that I agreed. We headed back out into the rainstorm and cold and walked along the South Bank, examining intricate Christmas ornaments, nutcrackers, candle holders and quaint wooden toys. After the market we picked up some take out, came back to the flat and had a feast.
Today is my last full day in the UK and I had intentions of going to the Tower of London. But my shoes were still soaking and it was lashing rain outside. So instead, I was a lazy slug, stayed in, curled up with a cuppa, sat in the window and watched London go by.
Labels: 8K in the UK
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