The Ninth Week

Week 9- Ireland. Paddy’s Day. 21^st Birthday.

            People didn’t believe me when I said that my name was Kathleen, half of me is one hundred percent Irish, and that my 21^st birthday was on St. Patrick’s Day. Many head nods accompanied by a Guinness raise were sent my way all weekend

             My trip to Dublin included a six-hour bus ride up to Madrid at 2:30 in the afternoon and then a flight the next morning at 11:30 to Dublin. Before I could leave I had to eat lunch. Usually lunch is at two or 2:30, and asking to eat early is an insult, but not eating at all is even worse. My roommate’s mom was visiting and Manoli made her paella (“The best you will ever have.”- Manoli), but the problem was that neither my roommate nor her mom speak Spanish. I had to try and translate between eating paella that was burning my throat as it traveled to my belly and bites of the giant crouton crunchy toast. Impossible. Then Manoli decides that this is a time to have a deep conversation with me about how she has been hosting American girls for 28 years and she still doesn’t know any English…Manoli, I have 15 minutes to be at the bus station, and it takes 20 to get there. I tell her as gently as I can that I can’t talk anymore, “No puedo hablar nada más”, and put my plate in the sink. Before I get to the door, Manoli wraps me up in a bear hug and plants two big kisses on my cheeks, and I know I am ready for my trip.

            The bus ride up was easy (running to the bus station was the worst part). They even showed a movie in Spanish called “The Garden” with Craig Ferguson in it. Awful movie. We stopped one time, meaning I couldn’t drink anything for the whole second half of the trip and if I did, I would be in trouble. I have a bladder the size of a hamster’s bladder, so this was a bit of a problem. Made it all the way to Madrid, and did so without needing to change my pants. Then I took the metro all the way into the city center to meet my friend from high school studying there. I stayed with her for the night, and came prepared with chocolates for her señora (who eagerly accepted the gift, even without the, “Oh you shouldn’t have”). We were in bed by 4:30 am, after celebrating another friend’s birthday and doing a little nighttime sightseeing. Believe it or not, I made it to the airport on time.

             When I was in line at Gate 31, Ryanair flight 7159 to Dublin, there came an announcement over the intercom. I was in the back of the line (meaning last to board the plane), watching Spaniards around me buying shirts that had the acronym DUBLIN using words in English and Spanish that made no sense (I only remember these ones being included- “Drunk, Besos, Leprechaun, and Irlanda”). I just barely hear the intercom and it says in English (Ryanair is an Irish airline), “The gate for flight 7159 to Dublin has been changed to Gate 25. Gate 25.” I take off, startling and confusing those around me. I am the first one out of the line with my peacoat and Osprey backpack flying everywhere. I turn to look behind me as I hear the announcement in Spanish and see a stampede of wild Spaniards running toward me. Some are running with their arms out like a T to prevent anyone from passing them, others are yelling because they don’t know where the gate is, and the overly prepared ones were trying to keep their Guinness hats on their heads. It was straight out of a movie and I was leading the pack. I had about a 15-step lead when I took a very little wrong left turn. I saw everyone in the front of the pack snake around the corner with me, then I saw the gate the on the other side. It was follow the leader/trample the leader and the gap between me and the Spaniards was significantly less than before. I reached the gate first, holding out my boarding pass and passport. When everyone else got there, I got booed. Then an Irish man came up to me and shook my hand and said, “Good race.”

            I am picked up at the airport by Dan and Aisling and I realize that I haven’t changed my clothes or showered in two days and smell like the cheese sandwich the lady next to me on the plane was eating (how very European of me). We start the unusually sunny day off with a drive all around the Dublin coast into Maldahide and Howth. This is my first time in a car (that isn’t public transportation) in three months, and everything was opposite! Roundabouts are weird to me already, but then add driving on the other side of the road to it and you get a flinching Leen throwing up her hands as protection from an oncoming car. I repeatedly looked for excuses as to why I looked like a total spaz, but once the “Oh, I thought there was a bee in my hair” excuse didn’t work, I had to admit that driving on the left side of the road made me nervous. I stayed the night at Aisling’s family’s house in the suburbs of Dublin, where I had family dinner, which included a cake, candles, and a birthday song for me. I ended up going to one of boy’s high school play that night. My first night in Dublin I went to a musical mash-up (Chicago, West Side Story, Les Miserables, and Mamma Mia) in a high school gym, but I couldn’t make it through more than half. I fell asleep.

            The St. Patrick’s Day parade was not what I expected, but the atmosphere was exactly what I was hoping for. Everyone in green. Faces painted. Guinness and Jameson everywhere. Irish nonsense being shouted in every direction at no one in particular. People were in every crevice of the city including window ledges a couple stories up. The Gaelic Games, hurling and football, were our next stop. I knew as much about these games as I do about shoe making…nothing, but give me a little time to observe and I can probably catch on. Paddy’s Day is the only day of the whole year you can see both games being played on the same day. It was there that I was introduced to the Ireland Chill. My bones were shaking. It’s so deceiving because the sun is out and the sky is clear, but its like you are having ice water poured down your back. The rest of the day was spent trying to get into the overly crowded pubs, eating at Joburger (my first burger in three months), and playing Cranium (not even the Irish know the people in the Irish version of Cranium- the makers of Cranium want to make losers out of all of us).

            One day we made a drive into the country and through a bog, but carsickness was a problem for one person in our group and the windy “are we lost?” journey out to the country was a quiet one. After our drive I was introduced to Irish scones and the proper way to eat them (with raspberry jam and cream). That plus a cup of Irish tea and surrounded by fields of green…I could have died and gone to heaven, but decided against it given that I still had to go souvenir shopping.

            I got to wander around on my own for part of the day Saturday and landed in St. Stephen’s Green, where I hid myself, from every other tourist, on a little bench in the very back of the park. As I’m sitting there, in the Irish rugby jersey I had to buy for a friend, I hear this yelling and cheering that sounded like a bunch of baby rhinos fighting. I decide that was a good enough reason to go see what was going on and cruised on over. I see a huge group of guys wearing rugby jerseys and warm-ups, doing rugby drills. I think, “Wow. People here really do take rugby seriously. I can’t believe that there are guys out here this early in the day getting ready for the game tonight” (Ireland and England were playing in the Six Nations later that night). I decided I would watch for a little bit, but then I realized it wasn’t just a bunch of “guys” making baby rhino sounds. It was the actual Irish National Rugby team. I recognized about 4 of the players (I learned the rules of rugby, by watching the Ireland v. Wales game, just before I got to Ireland so that I could be prepared). This Irish guy comes up to me looking like he is about to wee his ultra saggy pants, “Do you have a pen and paper? Please.” I tore off part of my Carroll’s bag and told him to go get me an autograph too. I don’t know why, but nonetheless this guy surprisingly brings me back the manager’s autograph. Watching the game in a pub next to a bunch of drunken Irish men was ideal. Before the game they were talking to me about what I was doing in Ireland and what I was studying. They went around the table and told me what they studied and one man at least 60 years old tells me, “I’m studying… Studying girls!” Laughing at their own joke they did the shoulder dip nudge with elbow clinks, as if it were a more subtle form of a high five. Their accents got harder and harder to understand with each glass of scotch or shot of Jameson, and at one point this is how I responded to one of them, “I’m sorry sir, but I did not understand one word you just said to me.” That same night I went to go watch Greyhound dog racing, where I won 2 euro and 60 cents one time and then lost every other time, while seven year olds were winning hundreds of euros with the single euro their dad gave them.

            The morning before I left started with a real breakfast- eggs, sausage, thick Irish bacon, hash browns, black pudding, real toast (not my usual breakfast toast) and tea. I felt it necessary to spend the last part of my day taking photos of St. Stephen’s Green, and I am so glad I went back. I have this ability to attract crazies like no one I know. It’s probably because I talk to them. I walk into the park and see this wrinkly old white haired lady feeding a swan. I think, “Oh what a great photo. I have to take it.” She turns around, ruining my photo, with her dog squeezed tight in her arms. I could have easily just walked away and acted like I wasn’t trying to take her picture, but instead I say hello. Why is, “Good morning” code for “Please, ma’am, tell me every personal detail of yours and while you are at it tell me everything you know about this swan here.” This lady was a character. She looked like a naked mole rat with a full head of hair. Her face was something I will never forget. She had crow’s feet in the corners or her eyes, as if she had been smiling constantly for her 79 years, but I never saw here smile once. Her eyebrows only had about three scraggly hairs apiece and always seemed to be raised at the ends but furrowed in the middle. The wrinkles in her forehead wrapped all the way around her eyes creating deep bags. Her eyes were the color of a pale gray blue with some yellow flecks and always seemed to be looking in a direction other than where she wanted to be looking. That’s creates a good mental image of what this lady’s aged face looked like…now throw a handful of dirt on her face. Dirt. Not dirt like, “Oh you have a smudge of dirt on your cheek”, but dirt like she had been buried in the earth for decades. She went on to tell me how the “wife” swan was gone and the “husband” swan was so sad that he couldn't even eat and that he would float from spot to spot around the pond looking for his “wife”. She was so worried that he was going to leave at any moment, that I was worried that this lady was going to faint. I walk around the park with her, and she realizes that she can’t see the swan anymore. “He’s gone. That’s it. He left. He will never come back again. He went to go look for her. Doesn’t he know she is dead? Oh no. I have to talk to the park guards.” I could see him on the other side of the pond making friends with the other ducks, but apparently her daytime eyesight was severely damaged when she spent the last quarter of a century in her home under the earth. She eventually saw him after I literally led her to him. Once she knew he was safe, the topic switched to her dog. Well, it was her sister’s dog but…the story goes on. I ask what his name is. “Well his real name is Teddy, but I can’t call him Teddy. I have a friend who has a dog named Teddy, so I call him Teddy Bear.” This dog was so fancy and clean in comparison to this lady. When she set him down on the ground, he pulled the leash in every direction with all of his might and she says, “He’s mad about where he’s going, but he’s going nowhere!” I leave her with the swan and her bag of sour cream and onion potato chips (her swan food) and head toward my bus stop.

            I took the bus to the airport and got on my flight wearing four layers clothing (you learn how to make your bag small when you fly Ryanair). My flight landed in Madrid at 6 pm, and I still had a six-hour bus ride ahead of me. The problem was that my bus from Madrid to Sevilla didn’t leave until 10 pm. I was back to the apartment at 4:45 and in bed by 5 am. School the next day was brutal.

Manoli-isms

“Lin. How do you say ‘Cómo estás?’ in English?” I respond, “How are you?” Manoli looks shocked and says, “That’s too difficult. Nope.” Then she looks back at the TV, with her arms crossed as if she was pouting, and about two minutes later she looks at me with her eyes wide and uncertain and says, “How do you do?” The way she said this was like there were “d’s” and “b’s” at the end of each word, “Howb dood youb dood?”

I have had a cough ever since I got back from Ireland, and I was at the table coughing really hard and Manoli grabs her chest and says, “Pobrecita.” I think, “Wow there’s nothing else she has to say? Usually she would tell me to finish eating the deep fried tapa she made for us because ‘It’s so good for you.’” I respond with, “No, I am okay.” Her response to this, “Oh Lin. You are as strong as an Oak. The really thick, sturdy trees, you know? It’s because you exercise so much.”

Every time I leave the house to go for a run- “Waow. You are so crazy. You love this sport. Your clothes are so athletic. Why don’t you just walk? Lock the door when you leave.”

My first lunch back at Manoli’s after Ireland- “Lin, they all told me that you guys want a salad once a day. Is that okay with you?” I say that it’s not a problem. Manoli happily claps her hands once and says, “Operación bikini!”


*New photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/19751197@N06/