On the road again...

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Well, another phase of the trip has come and gone. I just saw Mike off to the airport bus and Mat left earlier this morning. At this point I’m feeling like I have put some miles under my feet. From Paris to Montgaillard to Bordeaux to Pau to Biarritz to the Pyrenees to San Sebastian to Barcelona’s L’Eixample, Ciutat Vella, Montjuic, and Barceloneta to Shannon to Limerick to Cork to Killarney to Dublin. I think I’m learning to enjoy the journey and the pleasure of movement, and to relish the expectation of the next destination as much as the memory of the last. My plans have changed somewhat. Tired of being tourists, Mat and Mike (as you might have guessed from what I just said) are headed home, leaving me with a good deal of time till I start teaching in Barcelona on the tenth. Instead of wandering around by myself the whole time, my Dad and my sister are flying out to meet me in London on the 27th, which leaves me with a week more in Ireland. I’m actually kind of excited to be on my own for a bit. I have always been partial to hanging around myself. At least I am always around and we get along pretty well. Sometimes we have some stimulating conversation. And we never get separated in big cities, though we do argue from time to time. In fact, we’re going to a concert by a band called Kila tonight, which should be pretty fun. Ok, enough of that. I’ve been inundated with my Irish music here in Dublin, which makes me smile. I recognize maybe a quarter of the tunes I hear, which makes the place feel that much more familiar. We have been to a session (that’s sort of a small concert in a restaurant or a pub) every day, and I’ve made some trips to some record stores and music shops. The music scene varies quite a bit throughout the country, with the most serious players and bands coming from outside Dublin, especially in the western counties Donegal, Mayo, and Galway. The weather is not great, the food is not incredible, and the architecture is not stunning, but the people here and the music really do make Dublin my favourite city I have yet seen. People are very friendly and open, which I think is a product of being a place with historically more emigrants than immigrants. Of course, things are different now. Today, Dublin is the most cosmopolitan city I have ever seen. There are sizeable immigrant populations from seemingly every nation. I’m at an internet café run by Chinese, I got my hair cut by a South African, a hot towel shave from a Italian, food from a Czech. I share rooms with English, Americans, and Germans and buy kabob from Pakistanis. Pretty amazing. Anyway, I am off to Glendalough for a few days tomorrow to walk in the hills. A little quiet will be nice. Well, I wouldn’t want to miss my concert, so I’ll be going. There should be more material on the blog during the next few days as I will have more time to myself, and pictures if we’re lucky. By the way, don’t hesitate to e-mail me if you have questions or just want to talk. I can never remember to reply to the comment things. Cheers

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