Elizabeth

Returning to Ireland was surreal. I was immediately happy to be there, where the trees were in full bloom and the countryside was lush and green, and everyone, starting with the cab driver who picked me up from the airport, is outgoing and friendly to the utmost. Although it wasn't warm and sunny as it had been on my last visit, (that traditional Irish weather had returned, apparently) it still felt like a place I was meant to be in, and I felt much more at home. I was still feeling a little lost, and sad, knowing that I'd never be able to recreate my last trip, and the melancholy followed me through the week. But I knew I needed to be in Ireland to resolve it.

Ireland, this time around, was full of confusion and complexities, about which I won't go into here. After spending a day in Cork, touring Blarney Castle and lively St. Patrick's Street downtown, I was feeling down and wondering if I had been right to come back to Ireland. I knew it wasn't going to live up to my last, incredible, week there, and I worried that I was only going to tarnish those memories by replacing them with bad ones while I wandered around depressed through the streets of Cork. Beyond that, I didn't really know where I wanted to be right then. I had hit the most difficult point of my traveling so far, was feeling incredibly alone, and confused about everything. Further, I had come back to Ireland with a lingering question on my mind and, finding the answer in Cork, I was surprisingly left even more confused and sad than before.

The world has a funny way of bringing you exactly the right person at exactly the right time, even if you didn't really know what (or who) it was that you needed. For me, it was a 23-year old Australian law graduate named Elizabeth. Though we met under... unusual circumstances, to say the least, Elizabeth and I immediately hit it off, and she became the saving grace of my second trip to the Emerald Isle. She walked into my trip at exactly the moment when I needed someone the most, and I think she figured that out immediately as well. We sat and talked for a couple of hours at the bar adjoining our hostel, sharing our travel experiences as women traveling alone, and when our next round came (of Diet Cokes -- I'm off Guinness for now) she raised her glass to me.

"Come on girlie," -- clink --, "let's get the hell out of Cork."

And we did. In the morning we packed our bags and headed to the bus station, catching the earliest bus we could find that would get us out of that depressing city. (Cork is actually lovely, it was just the timing that made it unpalatable.) We arrived in Limerick a couple of hours later, only to find that there was going to be a six hour layover at the bus station while we waited for the bus to take us to Doolin, a small town in County Clare ("where the music comes from.") At first we just walked around Limerick, but found it even more depressing than anywhere else we'd been, with old, industrial warehouses lining the river bank, run-down store fronts on deserted streets, and almost no people. We had to get out of there, fast, so we hopped a bus out to Bunratty, a touristy Medieval castle, which had been recommended to me by the fast-talking, lively cab driver I had met at the airport two days before. The castle was interesting enough, and provided a much needed distraction on a day that was otherwise difficult, complicated and painfully depressing. I can't imagine how unpleasant this part of my trip would have been if I was alone. Though I felt miserable, I at least had someone who could make me laugh and suggest things for us to do other than sit in my room in the dark and be unhappy. Sometimes I felt like she was dragging me by the elbow to go from one tourist destination to the other, but I'm glad of that now, because the alternative would have been really unhealthy. Elizabeth actually kept me on a very regimented scheduled during the days (oh please don't throw me in that briar patch!), and made me eat at certain times, sleep at certain times, and forced me to get out of bed in the morning. It's difficult for me to explain why I hit such a terrible slump, or why the slump was so powerful, at this point in my trip, but I'm immensley thankful Elizabeth was there.

After the castle we made it back to Limerick, and took another bus to Doolin, where we stayed in the most adorable, Irish cottage of a hostel that I have ever seen. I was really just tagging along with Elizabeth at this point, having not made any reservations in advance, and just hoping that every plcae we ended up would have an extra bed. They always did, and Elizabeth has pretty impeccable taste for hostels. Not wanting to miss the famous musical scene in County Clare, we got dressed up and went out for a "pub crawl" in Doolin, a town that was so small there were really only two pubs (and about forty B&Bs, which gives you a sense of the dynamic), and it really reminded me of beautiful Dingle Town. We were told that the best place to go for music and atmosphere was O'Connor's Pub, "just down the road on your left." These directions were a bit misleading. For a town as small as Doolin, somehow everything seemed to be really spread out. We headed down the street, and soon realized that there were no street lights, and there appeared to be nothing in the distance towards which we were heading. We kept walking, trusting our directions, but got more and more alarmed as we trudged down this pitch black road, not even knowing if there was something at the end of it. And what else was out tonight? We didn't really worry about criminals in this part of the world, but wild animals maybe? How long would this dark road last? Where would it lead? As you can see, we were quite scared.

The directions were perfectly right -- however incomplete -- and after about a half a mile of dark wandering, we came to the other half of Doolin town, where lively bars full of music welcomed us. In O'Connor's Pub we found six old Irish guys, playing fiddles and bodhrans and tin whistles, and singing old Irish songs, which made me incredibly happy. The bar was packed with locals, and every few songs a group of them would stand up on the table and decide to sing along. I do love that Irish culture.

The next day we made our pilgrimage to the one place that actually puts Doolin on the map, the famous and breathtaking Cliffs of Moher. Though the weather in Western Ireland had taken a turn for the worse (dark, gray and rainy), we still found the sight of the monumental cliffs, standing guard over Ireland's coast like granite sentries, to be incredible.

From Doolin we embarked for Galway, the cultural capital of Ireland, said to have an atmosphere akin to Boston with it's student-dominated population and amazing night life. We spent a lot of our time during this trip on buses, which, actually, I think was good for me. It was nice to feel like I was constantly moving, and buses are a nice time to just turn on some music and zone out, watching the beautiful countryside whir by. I think it was also good to be changing cities so often; although this might ordinarily stress me out, I needed the constant change of scenery to keep me from slumping.

I enjoyed Galway; the nightlife was pretty much exactly as promised, and we spent our night there at a great college bar, where a local band played a fantastic choice of music that just made us both feel really happy. (Elizabeth went kind of crazy when they played "Do You Come From The Land Down Under?") The bar was packed with students, even though it was Sunday night, who danced and laughed and made the whole place feel like a fabulous party. I would go back to Galway again, given the chance, because it actually made me feel pretty happy, given the circumstances. The next morning, Elizabeth headed off to Northern Ireland and I decided it was time for me to let go and move on to Budapest, the next exciting leg of my journey. We said goodbye, but I couldn't find the words to thank her enough for how glad I was she had been in Ireland with me.

My time in Ireland, almost two weeks in total, was a fascinating exploration of the culture itself, and also of self-discovery. I still feel that Ireland is home to me -- even though the last four days were difficult, there's no where else I could have been to help me through it. I didn't feel as sad to leave this time. I felt ready to move on, and I feel like I made my peace with Ireland. Don't get me wrong, I will obviously be going back, I just don't have the same crushing misery of leaving as I did last time.

In retrospect, what I really remember are the fun and fascinating things that Irish people do. In particular, I loved how much Irish people are basically the polar opposite of the French. Really, I can't imagine two more different cultures. Where the French like to sit quietly and drink expensive wine, looking down on everyone else, the Irish love to stand around a bar drinking cheap beer, singing, shouting, laughing and making everyone there, stranger or no, feel completely welcome. The French think they are the best at everything, and will hear of nothing else, whereas the Irish admit to being the worst at everything (except sports) and constantly surprise you with their amazing cuisine and delightful fashion sense. I can't really think of anything more incongruous than an Irishman drinking a glass of champagne, or a Frenchman gruffly calling out for another pint of Guinness. France was just a vacation. Ireland was home.

On a couple of occasions in Ireland I made the mistake of referring to the "luck of the Irish." I was gently corrected, both times: "It's not the luck of the Irish that got us here -- it's the pluck of the Irish!" At another moment I made the grave error of asking for an Irish Car Bomb at the bar. I immediately regretted this when I saw the look on the bartender's face, who sternly replied, "I think you mean a Belfast Bomber, young lady, and you'd better remember that for the future." I loved that the two phrases I heard the most from Irish people were their two classics: "'Course you can, 'course you can!" whenever I asked for something, and "Thanks a million!" whenever they asked something of me. (Sometimes, especially in rural Ireland, this is just shortened to "Thanksmill!", which I think is really cute.)

Interestingly, the Irish make frequent use of one, old French phrase that I thought was very unusual. The term is oubliette, which historically is used to describe a Medieval defense mechanism, a trapdoor located at the castle entrance through which unwelcome guests are swallowed up and disappear, but which the Irish use to refer to different types of alcohol (that which makes you forget). If you walk up to the bar and order an oubliette, chances are you'll get a glass of Jameson's, straight up. It's always funny to hear French spoken with an Irish accent, conjuring up images of the total juxtoposition of two cultures, one so refined and self-aggrandizing, the other so coarse yet so happy.

What I found in Ireland was exactly that which I had been hoping to find by going on this trip in the first place. Oubliette. I guess what I've learned is that you should be careful what you wish for. Or else just very, very specific.

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Clarence: "Your lip's bleeding, George."

George: "Yeah. Yeah I was hit in the jaw in answer to a prayer."

Clarence: "Oh no, George. I'm the answer to your prayer."