Oy! What an adventurous day!

ARG, I spent about 2 hours writing out all the details of what happened today and then Travbuddy logged me out and I lost it... WHY... Well, I will try to recompse it, but I apologize for the lack of detail.

So, the morning before my friend Christine and I were supposed to leave for Dublin she came in my room and told me that she couldn't go anymore because she had too much work to do. I still wanted to go, and didn't want to lose all the money I paid on plane tickets and hostel reservations, so I decided I would just go by myself. I was really worried about this, since I don't have a lot of faith in myself from time to time, so I hardly slept the night before. I had an awful time getting there, even though I managed to make the plane on time. I had to get a cab at 4:15 in the morning, and then the picadilly line was under construction so I had to wait outside in the dark when it was 40-some degrees by myself for an HOUR until it opened. Ugh. Anyway, I managed to get everywhere I needed to be, and everything worked out. I was pretty surprised by myself, actually. First thing I did when I got to the airport was get euros and get a small street map/short list of major attractions and restaurants of the city, and then found a bus to take me to the hostel. I couldn't believe that nothing bad had happened!

The good thing about traveling alone is that you can do whatever you want to do, and you can do it on your schedule. So I decided to just go wandering into the city, since I didn't really have any specific ideas of where I wanted to go. Luckily, my hostel was walking distance from the city center. I walked down O'Connell Street (one of the main city streets) and looked at things around there. Then I crossed the River Liffey and found the Temple Bar area. This is the artsy hang out in Dublin, where there are a lot of pubs, hippie stores, music associated buildings (record stores, recording studios, etc) and awesome vintage clothing stores. It was neat walking around the skinny cobblestone roads around here. Lots of tourists, of course. Behind this, the map told me, was the Dublin Castle, so I walked over to see it. It was pretty cool... after a while, castles are castles. I didn't feel like paying to go inside. I don't know if it was actually expensive or not, but I kept getting realy confused about money while I was here, since I have gotten so used to doubling everything in my head with pounds. Plus, when I was in France four years ago, the euro and the dollar were about the same. Stupid American dollar. Anyway, I walked around the perimeter or the castle, and went inside the adjacent chapel, since it was open. I think I have a weak spot for religious architecture, because I swear, everytime I go into an old, beautiful church, I get teary-eyed. I just love the attention to detail and the high ceilings, and... I don't know. I'm a big nerd, I guess. There was a courtyard behind the chapel, so I went and sat in there for a while trying to take pictures of myself, since I didn't have anyone to take them for me. Again, big nerd. Man, I must have looked REALLY dumb, ha. Beyond the courtyard I noticed the Chester Beatty Library, which, from what I'd read about online, is supposed to be one of the coolest museums in Dublin (and free!), so I went to check that out. It was alright. Lots of religious stuff, and an exhibit about Asian brush art. Nothing that I was really excited about. But oh boy, were THEY excited about this Chester Beatty guy... they had placards up everywhere about how great he was... apparently all you have  to do it collect a bunch of old stuff and then make a museum out of it, and then you get to be really famous. Hmm.

Then I don't know what happened... I think I was trying to find Trinity and got lost, but I ended up in some shopping arcade (arcade = a collection of shops in a little inside area... weird, I know). I got lost a lot in Dublin. Well, not lost, but confused. The streets bend around in strange ways, and they change names about every ten feet. Also, the signs on the sides of the buildings are a bunch of lies. It was really difficult to get around before I knew where things were. Then I found myself on Wicklow Street, and bought a really expensive hot chocolate at this Irish chocolate chain called Butler Chocolates. Oh my gosh. So good. This chocolate is amazing. You must go to one of these (they're all over the city) if you ever go to Dublin, you need to check this out. Outside, they were already setting up Christmas decorations in the street, and you could see everyone running around going Christmas shopping. I don't care if it's too early for that; seeing this made me really happy. Christmas is awesome.

After this I somehow came upon Trinity College. GEEZ! After walking around the campus, I could not for the LIFE of me understand why Roisin and Kieran had decided to come to UCI for a year after going HERE. The campus is fantastic. The buildings are awesome, and just knowing how every cool person to come out of Ireland went to school here made me feel special walking around. I have this new thing I like to do (I think I'm spending too much time alone, as I realize I do lots of weird things like this now...) where I pretend that I live or belong wherever I am, so I tried to act like I went to school there. It was pretty easy sine my casual attire and bookbag made it look like I was going to class. I think I gave myself away, though, when I went in to see the Book of Kells. It was pretty neat, I guess. I just knew it was a really famous thing to see in Dublin, so I went. If you don't know, they are just really, really, really old versions of the scriptures that were (obviously) inscribed by hand. They were pretty, and definitely intricate, and it was cool to see soemthing that old, especially being Catholic myself. The best part, though, was the Long Room, which is above the Book of Kells. It's got 20 or so nooks with lots of shelves of super old books and a staircase to reach them by. I wish I could have taken photos in here, because there was this wonderful picture of an old metal spiral staircase in between two dusty bookshelved walls, and I could totally imagine someone coming down that narrow staircase with a handful of books to study hundreds of years ago. So cool.

By now it was starting to get dark, so I wandered back to O'Connell and looked around at the shops for way too long. I don't know why I do stuff like that. I don't have any money. I did see a nice sunset though. Then I made my way back up the street to the hostel.

OOOOH no, you think the day is over, after I had a stressful morning, and didn't sleep more than an hour the night before, but NO! put on some nicer clothes and went back out because I'd bought a ticket to see a show at the Gate Theatre, as recommended by Kieran. First I went to get dinner though, and stopped into a fish and chips place so I could get something quick. Then something very strange happened. I was sitting and eating my cod and salad, and this girl, about my age, definitely homeless looking, comes and sits across from me. She asked me if I could spare any money to give her so she could buy some food. It was kind of hard to say no, because she was sitting right across from me, so I said "I guess so, and she asked if she could have five euro. So I gave it to her, reluctantly, assuming she'd leave me alone. But she totally didn't. She started asking me questions, and I told her I was from California, and she said it's so nice that I have enough money to do something like that, and I tried to tell her I don't really have a lot of money and I'm taking out a whole bunch of loans, and she told me I had really beautiful boots, and I was trying to eat fast, because I wanted to get out of there so I wouldn't have to keep feeling bad about existing. But then she asked me if she could have more money, and if I gave her a ten she'd give me back the five, because she wanted to get enough money so that she could sleep in a hostel tonight instead of on the street, because she had to sleep on the street last night, and some guys were giving her some trouble, and said to me, "You've never been homeless, have you?" I told her no, and she said I'm so lucky that I have a family that supports me, because she doesn't have any family, and she kept looking at me so intently with her big blue eyes, and I told her that I would just give her the ten. So then I gave it to her, and she said, "Are you sure?" and I said, "Yeah, I guess," and then she kept the ten and didn't give me five back. I guess I misunderstood. Then she was asking me for twenty, since that's how much the hostel is, and I told her if I gave her anymore then I was not going to be able to eat either, and told her I had a show to go to, and got going. She told me thank you a bunch of times, and told me how kind I was, and how she wished there were more people like me. Then I left, and just felt really, really awful and used. I know that when you do nice things for less fortunate people you're supposed to feel really great about it, and I'm all about doing things like that, but I just felt really, really awful. I don't know if it's because I felt sorry for her, and about the fact that there wasn't anything I could really do to fix things, or because she completely took advantage of me and swindled me out of 15 euro. I can't even describe exactly how I felt... it was a weird experience...

Then I went to the show. It was alright. Going to the theater made me feel less lonely, because it's something I do so often. However, I was probably the only one in the room under 50. The play was called Festen, and was about this wealthy businessman having his 60th birthday party. It was mostly about the relationships of people within a screwed up family. Not too original. There were some shocking surprises that unravelled, and the audience was gasping a lot. A few of the actors bothered me a lot, but I did start to see some of the effects of physical freedom that we discussed in physical theatre class, which was exciting for me. The pacing was really bad towards the end, for which the director was obviously to blame. I think some of the people in it might have been famous. I wasn't sure.

Afterwards, I walked home by myself. I was worried about doing so, late at night in an unfamiliar city... I wish I didn't live in a world where I felt like I should be scared of walking alone at night just because I'm a girl... Nothing bad happened, of course, and I went into my eight bed room, and slept with people I didn't know for a very long time.