Sorry this is late. I handwrote this last night and am transcribing it on the train to Westport, adding a bit here and there. And I'm going to use Dale's photos: I was feeling photographically lazy yesterday and his are cool.
Today's entry likely won't amount to much since today was mostly a travel day: a flight from Edinburgh to Dublin placed awkwardly in the middle of the day. It seemed a little lonely to head out to breakfast without Barbara and Sean. And I was feeling a little sad to be leaving Scotland. As the cliche goes, "all holidays must come to an end." It always sort of irks me when the cliches are right.
This is our third trip to Ireland in under four years: I'm always torn between wanting to spend holiday time exploring new places or visiting places I love. This trip was a bit of a compromise: new places and a place we love. I've missed Westport in unprecendented ways-- and I didn't realize quite how much until I booked nights the same place in Westport we stayed last year. Coming in to land in Dublin was magical-- seeing that landscape from the air doesn't fail to move me (though it was odd to see it in sunshine and blue sky!)
I have often remarked that travel is weird, especially air travel. You sit around in an airport for a while, get on a plane and then after an hour or eight you're in a totally different place. On one level,
"Well, gosh Heidi, thanks for stating the blatantly obvious," but if you think about it for a while, it can blow your mind a bit. Sort of like what Andrew said in To The Lighthouse, "Think of a kitchen table then," he told her, "when you're not there."
Our hotel in Dublin is right along the Liffey, near the Samuel Beckett Bridge* and the Convention Centre. For some reason, I'm coping really well on a lot less sleep than I'm used to (maybe half?) and last night l sat in my little bed right beside the window and watched another river flow by until the sun was nearly up again. Sometimes insomnia can be kind of nice.
We arrived in Dublin around 5:00 PM, checked into our hotel and then started our Dublin trip the same way we did two other times: dinner at the Porterhouse with tasty pints of Oyster Stout (no Oysters were injured in the making of that stout) and I had a great bowl of chowder and bread. We sat near the table we had last year and the time we were here with my parents. It seemed nice to reconnect with those memories. After that we wandered to find some music and ended up in a place we'd been before, the oldest pub in Ireland. Tonight, when we arrived, it was the quietest we'd ever seen it. The World Cup was on all the televisions and Spain was losing to Chile. At the bar a man wearing a Michigan State shirt held forth and I paraphrase ever so slightly, "I don't understand this game and I don't care about either team but let me give you my opinion. And then I shall compare this sport's rules to American football." The locals are polite. I laughed at the serendipity of a woman wearing a t-shirt saying "You lost me at hello" walking up to the bar and standing beside him. Once the game was over, the music started, opening with "Galway Girl." We listened for a while and then wandered around a bit more, finding a pub that had live music and Irish set dancing. I was completely enthralled and so excited to see it. I deeply regretted not finding any Scottish Country Dance where we were. I also realized it was Wednesday night and I really missed my SCD friends.
Yesterday morning, on our last little stroll around Edinburgh before leaving Scotland, I stared at the giant Scott Memorial* while a piper played Scotland the Brave. I wondered how one goes about saying "goodbye, thank you, I love you," to a city and a country. I'd wondered that last year too when we left Ireland. Sitting on the train today from Dublin to Westport, I am remembering doing this very trip last February, nervous about what we'd done in committing so much time to one place. Would we like Westport? Will it turn out? Will we be lonely? Doing the Westport to Dublin trip last April on our way back to Canada was the first time I wondered how you say goodbye, thank you, I love you to a place. I'm now watching the Irish landscape unfold and listening to familiar place names announced in Gaelic and Irish. Now I'm wondering how you say, "hello again, thank you, I still love you."
Here are some of Dale's photos.
* I keep meaning to write about how cool it is to have writers so prominently honoured. Canada needs to do more of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment