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Published: June 16th 2010
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The Final Chapter
I have been been back in Canada for over a month now. I have been putting off writing this final entery as I have feared it would make the end of this great journey far to real. But I have finally forced myself to face reality so here it is, the end...
I was back in Ireland and enjoying my time with the people that I had spent the last 15months with. It was bitter sweet to see them. I was excited to see them after the three months without them but also sad that I would soon be leaving them all again with no real idea when we would cross paths in the future. My first few days were spent with Monika, Milan and Karel. Milan's father was visiting so they had plans to go for 4-5 days to Kerry. They would be returning two days before I was leaving for good so I wanted to spend as much uninterrupted time with them. We relaxed and shared stories and made plans to stay in touch. I also spent time with my old coworkers.
I dropped in at my old work many times
so that I could see my friends (seeing as I was the only one not working every day). I also had dinner and movie nights with my Brazilian friends and some lovely field trips with my friends Rueben and Esther. So here are some moments from those times...
Edilson made some delicious chicken and a very salty bean dish. Edilson broke the salt container and accidently poured a crap load of salt into the beans. He tried to scoop some out but it was far too late for that. We all ended up downing a lot of water to compensate for all the salt.
Rueben, Esther and I went to the Botanic Gardens. We spent a really lovely day together walking around the gardens and laughing. After the gardens we went on to have lunch together at Jimmy's chinese buffet. We all ate way too much! Our desire to have a great day walking all over town turned into "god I'm really full... i'm sleepy.. who needs a nap..." and so the day ended with us all sleeping off our full bellies.
There were also many moments that I spent saying my own private goodbye to the
Dina
Johnnie Fox city that I shared a huge part of my life with. I wandered around Dublin to all the places I enjoyed the most. I wanted to soak it all in, the way the city feels, its noises, the constant singing in the background, the colours, the small details, the voices, the sayings, every little bit. So I walked all over the city: the cobbles of temple bar, the random bench that looks like a viking boat along the river, Ha'penny bridge, the shops of Henry st., the spire on O'connell, the board walk along the liffey, the parks... I also tried to make it to a couple places I was unable to make it to before.
In my first week in Dublin I was excited to visit the Natural History Museum, aka The Dead Zoo. Unfortunately, this museum had been closed for renovations my entire stay in Ireland. Fortunately, 4 days before my flight back to Toronto the museum had its grand reopening. I was so excited to finally make it to the museum and it was brilliant. It is literally packed full of so many animals that you do not even know where to look. On the first
Hooley Room
Johnnie Fox level are the animals that are from Ireland. They have giant deer that are literally massive beyond belief. Even though it is just the skeleton you can still imagine how enormous they would have been when they still walked Irish soil. In the upper level are animals from all over the world.
Another place I really wanted to visit was Johnnie Fox restaurant. It is said to be the highest restaurant in all of Ireland as it is high in the wicklow mountains. It is a typical Irish restaurant where they also have hooley nights of traditional irish music and dance. For my last night in Dublin my friends and I got together for dinner at Johnnie's. Unfortunately, there weren't enough people for the hooley night but they let us go into the hooley room so we could play around on the stage. The dinner was delicious! I was so happy to be there amongst my friends. At the end of dinner we went out to the bar area where a band was playing irish music. We laughed and danced until they shut the place down. Then we hopped into a cab and returned to temple bar where we
Carol & I
Hooley Room danced some more. Finally, I made the walk home at 3am just to fall asleep and get back up at 6am to prepare for my flight at noon.
It was a long journey but I spent my last week seeing the places and people I loved most in Ireland. The time I spent in Ireland and Europe have meant so much to me and I will cherish every last minute. My best souvenirs are the friendships that I have made with some truly amazing people: Monika, Milan, Karel, Usune, Pepa Pig, Caroline, Edilson, Leandro, Chan, Felippe, Dina, Rueben, Esther, Carlos, Bea, Almo, Wei, Clive, Petra, Gareth, Carol, Orla, Bart, Rob, and Jenny. All of them having touched my life in an inexplicable way. All of these people and Dublin have played a role in the person I am and I thank them for it.
So that is it... that's how it ends... ohh wait there was also my flight being delayed 5 hours and took an extra 1.5hours to fly because of the volcano activity again. A giant ash cloud was blocking our flight path so we had to wait for approval of our new path that would
Esther & I
Johnnie Fox take us up over iceland/greenland and northern Canada. So now that is truly it...
THE END
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