in ireland
things that I love:
-how all of the doors and signs and mail boxes look as if they were painted fresh just yesterday
-the wee shriveled old men who, assuming that I was also Irish, asked me if I was ditching school and, after I smiled and shrugged, chuckled, nudged each other, winked, and nodded conspiratorially
-the sea, the sea, the sea! (much better than in california)
-irish accents, espec. tiny children with irish accents (much better than on TV or movies). also grandmothers who speak in gaelic to their grandchildren.
-the "snot green sea" from the beginning of Ulysses and the cute cute cute irish boys who swam in the bathing hole there
-the book of kells and especially the fabulous library at trinity college
-that all of the buses, even the regular ones, are double-decked
-the smell of the countryside
-the man who sat playing a concertina on the boardwalk by the liffey river
-eavesdropping on languages that I do not understand
-reading Ulysses on the trains and chatting with people who have also read it, or know it, or have started it and never finished it and amazed that I am 250 pages in after just a few days
things that I do not love:
-the food
-walking miles and miles and miles and miles and miles because I am too fucking stingy to buy a bus ticket or two
Saturday: France. I've seen all of the writerly things in the vicinity of Dublin; time to move on.
-how all of the doors and signs and mail boxes look as if they were painted fresh just yesterday
-the wee shriveled old men who, assuming that I was also Irish, asked me if I was ditching school and, after I smiled and shrugged, chuckled, nudged each other, winked, and nodded conspiratorially
-the sea, the sea, the sea! (much better than in california)
-irish accents, espec. tiny children with irish accents (much better than on TV or movies). also grandmothers who speak in gaelic to their grandchildren.
-the "snot green sea" from the beginning of Ulysses and the cute cute cute irish boys who swam in the bathing hole there
-the book of kells and especially the fabulous library at trinity college
-that all of the buses, even the regular ones, are double-decked
-the smell of the countryside
-the man who sat playing a concertina on the boardwalk by the liffey river
-eavesdropping on languages that I do not understand
-reading Ulysses on the trains and chatting with people who have also read it, or know it, or have started it and never finished it and amazed that I am 250 pages in after just a few days
things that I do not love:
-the food
-walking miles and miles and miles and miles and miles because I am too fucking stingy to buy a bus ticket or two
Saturday: France. I've seen all of the writerly things in the vicinity of Dublin; time to move on.