What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all About???

Travel intensifies the highs and lows of life

Well, it doesn't have to, but in my case it has; along with travel, I'd say this is also true of "new" experiences, such as moving to a new town, starting college, etc.

I'm in Dublin right now, writing from a busy internet cafe, and after almost 48 hours in the city the lonliness and frustration of travelling for 27 hours (from when i left for the airport in seattle tuesday morning to arriving at the hostel wednesday night) have finally started to wear off!

I felt terribly self-absorbed and wimpy, but to be honest the flights over and first night/day here were extremely low for me. Trying to fall asleep on my hostel bed, I felt a very similar rush of feelings as I did on my first nights at college, Australia, and Belize: where am i? what am i doing here? how much more comfortable is my bed at home? will i make friends? how will i make the hours go by? (I also questioned some personal decisions regarding my relationship with Suraj, which I'd rather not go into now.)

The thing was, this time there wasn't any routine in my forseeable future - at college i knew i'd make friends because a bunch of people my age and in my situation lived nearby (same in australia and belize), but even at a hostel, where there are other young people, it seemed unlikely that i'd meet people who would be on the same schedule as I; I got this impression after meeting about 8 people, most of whom were living at the hostel while working short term jobs and looking for houses or were going in different directions after Dublin.

I hope some of this negativity could be attributed to jet-lag, because it felt very unlike me. Where was the optimism? Where was the girl who loves penguins and cartoons - or maybe I needed to grow up? Isn't travelling supposed to be exciting rather than scary? It's funny, I'm told over and over again that the hard times are the ones where you learn something about yourself, but i feel my least lucid, thoughtful or self-aware when i'm in a negative state. Perhaps it's the times after the lows that we really learn, I'm not sure.

Anyway, there is a more happy note end to the story - with the help of some great conversations back home with Suraj and with people I've met here in Dublin today, I've regained some of my characteristic jovialness! I have walked ALL over this city, which is full of the characteristic western-european mixture of neoclassical architecture, quaint homes, pubs, and some great historical monuments and statues, and have been on a few interesting tours where i've met people from all over the world. I'm going on a "literary pub crawl" tonight with some canadians i met, and enjoyed lunch today with a couple on their honeymoon! Some might say it would be "good" for me to learn to be alone, but what i learned while alone is that i like to be with people, so that is my rationale!

Dublin is a much more cosmopolitan city than I expected, and believe it or not it reminds me of New York at times (with the crowded streets)! I'm looking forward to a day trip to the countryside tomorrow, then a longer stay in the western part of the country starting on Sunday (1/3 of the country's population, or 1 million people, live in Dublin, so the rural areas are very different - I have yet to see a sheep, I must sadly admit!). I have also yet to see some real Irish music or eat some great stew, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

I have to keep reminding myself that i've only been here a short amount of time and should give myself some time to adjust! I suppose I romanticized the idea of travelling alone, and the reality hit me quite hard when i first arrived. I'm not really wording this well, but I hope it comes across right; I'm looking forward to feeling more lucid and really enjoying this experience, for which i know many people envy me!

I'd like to end real quick with a few cross-cultural observations I made yesterday: I walked by a coffee shop and noticed a sign proclaiming that the shop was, "probably the best coffee in dublin." I just loved it, because it sort of poked fun at the bravado with which we Americans stereotypically market our products (or at least that's how i interpreted it). Also, I have yet to see a colon when reading the newspaper here - they seem to use the semi-colon exclusively! One last thing - at bookstores, there is no "nonfiction" section (this was also true at the London airport); books are either fiction or biography, science, etc...it actually makes a lot of sense, right, because the nonfiction books all fall into those other categories! | posted by Cheryl, 10/21/2005 08:32:00 AM