Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Mike Abroad

Preface:
 I will be writing exclusively about my trip to London and Dublin for the next month. It was an amazing and profound experience. I am going to attempt to tie the trip into other aspects of life so that I don't bore the few readers I have accrued. Ultimately, these blogs are going to be a narrative written mostly to preserve my own recollection of the journey. I would like the thank my best mate in Charlotte for making the trip possible. Traveling abroad even at my age is difficult without being pointed in the right direction.

Note: These blogs are not going to be written in chroniclgical order. I will vacillate through different moments of the excusion as I sporadically recollect them. There will not be any salacious details to be discuss, frankly because there are none to speak of. This was strictly a tourist trip and not a "Eurotrip."

The Avalon House- Dublin Ireland

I spent Saturday night at a hostel called "The Avalon House" in Dublin, Ireland. Admittedly, I was too old to stay there but I needed to conserve money. The accommdations were becoming and cost a mere 15 Euro. The lobby was filled with young tourist. I was only there to drop off my backpack, spend a few minutes on the computer and sleep in the room. My advanced aged remained clandesent and I was able to avoided any undue embarrassment.

 I met two students, a soft spoken Italian boy and a ambitious young girl from Denmark. She had moved to Ireland on a whim and was living at the hostel until she found a permanent home. I met them when I first checked in Saturday. I took two Tylenol PM to help me sleep that night because I knew I needed to awake at 4:10am to catch the airport shuttle. This prevented me from meeting the third person in the room.

Sunday, May 1, 2011. 4:20 A.M.

The shuttle left at 4:20 A.M. I prepared my backpack the night before and planned to quickly dress and descend downstairs to catch the shuttle. I anticipated being the sole person aboard but was pleasantly surprised to find only one vacant seat.

It was dark and chilly as I entered the van. Moonlight barely escaped behind the night time clouds. There were blank stares upon every individual face. A young couple spoke to each other softly in Russian. The Phil Collins song "In The Air Tonight" played loudly throughout the van. Although the lyrics of the songs did not apply to this situation, it felt like it was specifically written for this occasion.

Traffic was heavy in the streets of Dublin. I glanced over and saw an intoxicated Irishman in a taxicab with glazed eyes, his head bouncing up and down, exhausted from a night of drinking and chasing sin. The array of tourist that cluttered the streets during the day was replaced by young fucks. I was content to have been mere tourist, armed with my sobriety and ambitions for the upcoming day.

I would leave Sunday morning to spend my first day alone in London.

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