Ireland Travelogue 6

Intro
Part 5
Part 7>>

Oct. 12, 1:29 p.m.

Already halfway through the first shift of the day and now I've been moved from the box office over to Triskel. I feel like I'm meeting all sorts of people without getting to know them. I really underestimated the whole time frame of the whole thing.

I've been passing out my email address so hopefully people will keep in touch. Triskel is real nice and the cafe here is adorable. It seems like no one knows about it too. I'd definitely come back here if I ever found myself in Cork again.

Oct. 14, 8:43 a.m.

Sorry. I kept falling asleep yesterday after I got into Dublin so I just went to bed super early for what I think amounted to 15 hours of sleep. Considering the fact that I have to start working as soon as I get back home, packing in the sleep probably isn't a bad idea.

I was talking to Dave here about how he wanted to leave Cork for someplace else and it was weird because that how I felt like about every place I've been in. Maybe it's just how you feel when you're young? I certainly hope so because I can't imagine feeling this way when I'm past 30.

I kind of thought about what they said. I can see how someone could feel that way about Cork. It's nice and I think it's sweet, but it's so big yet manages to somehow feel so small at the same time. One thing that I kept noticing was when sometimes I'd talk about someone to someone else I'd just met they'd ask, "What's their name?" or "What do they look like?" like they might possibly know who this person is. I had to buy an umbrella so I went to Penney's on a Sunday, but they don't open until 2 p.m. on Sunday so I sort of waited about and got back there right before they were to open only to find a bunch of people standing around waiting for it to open up. I don't know if there was a sale going on...but it definitely was a lot of people milling around waiting for the shop to open.

At the same time, there are places that take a good couple of minutes to walk to. It's not like it's a small tiny place in a physical sense. And it's not bad, but I could see how it could make someone claustrophobic after a while. And some people like that. The small closeness of everything. Some people like the city because it's so big and bustling. Dave said it must be weird going from Cork back to New York and I said maybe. The thing is every place is different but same. At least that's how I've felt.

It's hard to articulate without sounding really bizarre and I feel like I'm beating a dead horse whenever I bring it up, but eventually, places get claustrophobic for me. Growing up in Seoul, it was a huge place. It was a large city. But I grew up with the same group of expatriate people. Military base, international schools, what have you. It started feeling small and the same to me pretty soon and life just felt like a giant hamster ball. Not that I didn't have a life in Seoul itself outside of that structure. I was lucky. I spoke the language and all that, but after a while things became too routine. I hung out in the same places doing the same things around the same time.

Now New York feels that way and Chicago felt that way at times and I keep running away to newer places because once I settle down I'd realize how exactly the same every places is and freak out.

I've been trying to get used to the fact that I'll have that weird feeling that I'll never belong anywhere and all the signs seem to point towards how I'll probably never shake that feeling. Yet I keep trying. Silly rabbit, feeling like you belong are for normal people.

I can't stop trying though because I feel like it's not normal to feel so lonely or nervous all the time.


(My first meal in Dublin. Cod and chips from Leo Burdock's. So good, it will make you smack your mama.)


(The view as I ate my meal.)




(Pretty flowers I took some photos of. They almost looked like paper, especially the way they were folded and were shaped around the edges.)



Anyhow, my first day in Dublin yesterday, I ended up walking over to Christchurch Cathedral (I'm staying in a hostel in Temple Bar). The inside lighting made it hard for good photography and I hope the power of PS will help me once I get home. I got to walk around the outer parts of Dublin Castle today too and took a bunch of pictures. I'm thinking of checking out the Dublinia Museum...I just have to make sure what's closed and not today. Especially since tomorrow will be hard tot ry and see things.

Just ran out of room on my card so I'm almost afraid to go through pictures now. Oops, need to buy batteries now.


(Inside Christchurch.)












(Entering Dublin Castle.)
















Entrance to the garden on the grounds of the castle. Fun fact if you didn't know: The reason it says "Dubh Linn Garden" is because that's where Dublin comes from. Basically, the place was originally called Dubh Linn because in Irish that's "dark pool" and one of the rivers that fed into the moat of the old Dublin Castle used to drain into this brackish lake type of business which is where the name comes from. So I guess you could say Dublin=Blackpool if you want to get all English about it.)


(I loved the pattern of the gate. Had a Art Nouveau feel to it. Wonder when it was made.)






















(There's actually a pattern on the green but you can't see it too well if you're not looking down on it.)



[Ed. note: I'm only showing a small fraction of what I think looked good at a cursory glance. We're talking a little over a gig of photos here. I'll probably have an appendix type of post where I put up other photos that got looked over.]

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