It's also been about 10 days since I left Dublin, and I'm my way now to Venice, having just left Zurich. Maybe I can get caught up while on the remaining 2hr train ride!
Getting into Dublin, I hadn't worried about getting directions to my lodging since it was in a commercial area. It was to be my first adventure into hosteling, and the last, at least for this segment of my European journey. The first thing I discovered about Dublin was that I had a hard time understanding what they were saying and thus missed my stop for the hostel. No matter, it's just a short drag of my 30kg of luggage through busy streets. Upon finding Isaacs Hostel, tucked in an alleyway, I discovered I had to lug that same 30kg up to the third floor, but hey, I was getting my own room. Yes, kind of defeats the purpose of staying in a hostel I suppose. But at 38 years of age (and feeling it) I wasn't so much banking on making new friends by the drones while bunking with them on the cheap. I did however show up for the communal breakfast and met a fellow from the Bay Area, of all places! Mark who hails from Petaluma, about 30mins from San Francisco, is also on a discovery journey. We parted ways after breakfast only to run into each other outside of Nyonya, a Malaysian restaurant I was having lunch at. Yes, I ate there...and was quite amused there was another Malaysian restaurant across the street barely on the next block. Anyhow, Mark and I ended up perusing the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College. Beautiful stuff, for lack of better words. I also got to view the first book on anatomy written back in the 1500's (by Vesalius), which was amazingly awesome for me as I'd quite gotten interested in the human body from having to study it in my yoga teacher training.
I spent the rest of my 2.5 days walking around Dublin quite a bit. The Shakespeare festival was going on but I didn't feel quite like forking out 20 quids to freeze my ass, much as I'd love to see a live rendition of Romeo & Juliet. I did catch a student play of Two Gentlemen of Verona at St. Stephen's Green, now one of my favorite parks. The funny thing is, I chanced upon this play in the park whiling away some time before heading to the airport when in the prior days, I could not quite make my agenda when I'd tried to plan on catching other ones. This whole trip has been an exercise in going with the flow, while reconciling with the fact that most trains and planes have their own flow of schedules where I would likely "miss my boat" left to my own device of timing.
It is very interesting what the concept of time has become since I no longer have to adhere to anyone else's timelines and deadlines (save for trains and planes!) I've been "on the road" now for 6 weeks. Phew! No, I most definitely do not miss work. I do miss not doing anything sometimes though. I am quite tired from the constant moving around, which started almost right after I completed the yoga teacher training back in February and knew I was going on this trip. I do wish more friends are traveling with me. Though, MeiLi will be arriving in Venice in a couple of days...and I've actually mostly been with a friend, old and new, this whole 6 weeks. Now I just gotta figure out how I can bring San Francisco to me, and the rest of my friends! Oh, and the yoga community as well! While I've been able to put in my own practice regularly, I do miss group classes. In two weeks, I'll be back in Penang with my entire immediate family!
Anyway, back to Dublin! It was good fun. And certainly good experience at the nice hostel...I'll be posting a picture of the room. cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment