Shortly after writing the last post I stuffed my laptop into my bag and took off for the airport. I was hoping to have left it behind, but I had been at school and so the logistics of doing that were just too complicated. At the same time, I had absolutely no desire to turn it on at any time for any reason at all over the next few days. Never mind surfing the internet - I didn't even want to boot it up for music or word processing or checking my calendar. I have been glued to this device for months, and for the health of the relationship we both needed a break.
Fortunately, even if I'd had difficulty resisting its temptations I would not have been able to succumb, for I did not have the proper plug converter for Ireland. (And the battery no longer keeps a charge.)
Yes, that's where I was off to, to see my friend from high school and her mom. "You're only going to Ireland for two days!" people at school asked me incredulously. Well, why not? After all, I only take three to see Cambodia...
One of my favorite joys in life is to be met at the airport by someone I like, and so it was very nice, as well as somewhat random, to be met by my friend in Dublin Airport (it was also very exciting that for a change I got to exit through the BLUE "EU Traveller" channel when I left customs...). Not that I was surprised to see her - indeed I would have been unhappy if she had not been there! - but it's interesting that we have such a tremendously geographically unspecific relationship. In the years that I've known her we've met and hung out in all sorts of far-flung cities all over the place. This was just one more.
Unfortunately Dublin airport is on the other side of the city from where her mom lives, and unfortunately Dublin traffic is insanely awful so it took us a while to get there. And dissuaded us from spending much time in the city. But that was ok because there were people and places to see in County Wicklow, where we were. We spent time with some of her old friends from Ireland that I'd never gotten to meet before, and the next day we toured a ruined monastery tucked away in the hills by two glacier-formed lakes. We were fortunate because the weather was very nice during the time I was there: pretty sunny, and warmer than Hamburg. The food, however, was another story.
I do think junk food is much better in Ireland than Germany. More interesting "crisps" packets, and loads of interesting and tasty chocolate concoctions, mostly brought to us by the wonderful Cadbury company. These things do not exist so much in Germany, where we are forced to eat nothing but paprika-covered potato chips (maybe pretzels if we're lucky) and Mars bars.
On the other hand, German food by and large is dramatically cheaper and much better. Which is not to say that German food is so awesome, but that my encounters with Irish food were so dreadful - perhaps made more so by the usurious prices charged for such unremarkable offerings. The pizza we had one evening was unforgiveable in a cheese and "tomato" sauce kind of way (though the crust was ok), I found the fish and chips extremely flavorless, and the ever-so-trendy "Mao" restaurant we visited had the culinary subtlety of a mallet. It was supposedly a Thai restaurant, although perhaps "Asian Fusion" might better describe its aspirations, yet there was a dearth of actual Asian people working in the restaurant. Or at least none in charge of the kitchen, and the few who were on staff seemed to be Korean. (The rest of the staff seemed to be Eastern European.) The duck soup was tolerable, but the rare beef salad had such a poorly-balanced and tart dressing that my peeling and eating a lime directly would have been a more flavorful experience. Definitely not worth the exorbitant sums charged for it, but then it was hard to find anything much cheaper. Even the fish and chips from the tiny take-away show were 6.90 euros, about two euros more than equivalent (and tastier) offerings you'd find in Germany.
And then there was the Great Dessert Fiasco that followed my mostly inedible lime-drenched dinner. I was still hungry (naturally) so I proposed we find a place that did coffee and dessert. Yet others wanted a beer. So if only we could find a place with both... Which, amazingly, we did! Still, perhaps we should have been put off by the fact that the interior decor of this uber-trendy estabishment (EVERYTHING in Ireland seems to be recently redone for optimum trendiness) made it look like a hair salon. But the menu was so tempting, promising hot chocolates and crepes and all sorts of yummy things (as well as beer and wine). Yet better it should have offered chopped liver and mushrooms, rather than dashing our taste expectations on the hard, cold rocks of reality and their disgraceful excuse for pancakes. Now, pancakes can come in many forms - eg, French-style wide and thin, or American small and plump. But hard and cold is not an acceptable form in any country where I've ever had them. Except, apparently, Ireland.
Well, maybe I'm being too hard. I did have two tolerable meals during my short time there. But things still were annoyingly expensive. And we never did get a chance to try out the Irish excuse for Chinese take-away.
But I'm getting sidetracked, since my time there was not completely spent attempting to eat - it also involved driving! I finally got to do something I'd always wanted to (legally) attempt: driving a car on the wrong side of the road... And more than that, to be able to drive a reverse-configured stick shift. My friend had rented a Toyota mini of some sort and we put me on the contract, so the second day I got to try it out. The gear shift is exactly the same as on an American car (meaning the lower gears are still on the left) and the peddles are the same as well. But you need to use your left hand to toggle the gears. This took a little getting used to, but was not so bad. Still, I think it might have made more sense to have the lower gears on the right because it was a bit of a reach to get into the lower ones. Normally when you drive you spend more time fiddling with the lower ones than the upper ones, so it would seem to make more sense to have the ones you play around with less further away, like on American cars. But oh well, no one asked me...
Harder to get used to was the driving on the opposite side of the road, yet it wasn't really too bad, especially with the steering wheel being on the right. What made it hard was that the roads are very narrow, so there was little room for error. Still, I did well, only hitting the curb once (ok, maybe twice) the whole time.
But then I quit while I was ahead and went back to Germany, waking up at the crack of dawn to take the train in. Actually, it wasn't the crack of dawn, per se, because that didn't occur until after 8am! Europe is a strange, dark place... But I got to the airport on time, caught my flight (on Aer Lingus - first time I've ever flown them), and landed back in Hamburg less than two hours later, an overtired heap. I limped back to my apartment and took a nap for a while. In the evening, after it became dark again (didn't have to wait long...), I went out to the river to meet a friend from school. There we boarded a series of commuter ferries for an impromptu tour of the harbor. The river is quite large at Hamburg - wide and deep - and large cargo ships cruise its waters, while others get drydocked for maintenance. It was a pretty night, very clear, and the lit up city was pleasant to look at as we tooled along its length.
But that was the last of my tourism for the remains of my "vacation," as the friend I was going to visit Berlin with the next day had to cancel. I was initially disappointed, but later I decided I was somewhat relieved because I was pretty tired and would have had a very long day doing it. I was mostly saddened that my scenic tour of cities ending with "-in" would be incomplete, but then again, it's not like I saw all that much of Dublin either. Instead I slept in and then did something I've not done in ages: read for pleasure! I've been shlepping around a 5 or 6 volume tome of Douglas Adams novels with me for YEARS, and finally, FINALLY, got around to reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wonder how many years it will be before I get to the second installment? (Edit 12/18: Not so long, apparently, as I read it this morning...)
So all that took a little more than 72 hours total, and now I am back on my computer, catching up on all the things I've neglected for the last three days.
Eh. It was worth it.