Travel notes

What follows is a bunch of stuff I typed into the Notes app of my phone at random times during my trip to Ireland. Most of these thoughts are disconnected and nonlinear.

It is difficult to describe what I feel here. Back in the States, nowadays, an overzealous interest in Celtic or Viking history is almost always a dogwhistle for neo-Nazism and white supremacy. Make no mistake, I’m not imagining this trip as some sort of pilgrimage to a paterland far from the decadence and degeneracy of a society of secret Jewish cabals and vast underground homosexual conspiracies; I’ve just always felt intrigued by Ireland, and I wanted to see it. That’s because of where I grew up and with what name. Appalachia won’t let you forget where its current inhabitants came from; Dollywood has, to my memory, two different Celtic shops, and Gatlinburg surely has dozens. The more time I spend here in Dublin, the more I even hear the connection. If I’m not paying attention, and just listening passively, I can convince myself that I’m listening to a conversation at the Corner Cup in downtown Jonesborough. The disregard for the end of words, the lazy application of the letter t, the strong force of sound behind the r… it all maps onto itself. I can hear the timeline of movement from one continent to the next.

I’m now three days in Ireland and yet to write properly about it. So here it is. They aren’t kidding when they call this place the Emerald Isle. Mist lies low on the backs of sheep. Round mountains sleep in the distance. The world is quiet here and greener than any American summer I’ve ever seen. I spend a lot of my time moving. I don’t have time to stay in one place very long, so I catch things in passing. But I do stop a couple times to just sit in the world and listen to it.

Like when I stay in a bed and breakfast for the night in Tipperary. It’s owned and run by Gerry and Dièdre, and this is their 30th year with it. I am the only guest. The room is spartan but extremely clean and there’s a private bathroom. In the morning Gerry fixes me a traditional Irish breakfast, and then sits down across from me with his tea and we talk. He tells me about the Troubles in the north, about his daughter in London, about the changing landscape of Ireland. We exchange omens of death from our regions — apparently, a picture mysteriously falling off the wall is bad in Ireland and Appalachia. He says that there used to be factories here, Atari and Coca Cola and 7Up and car parts, but that they all left and nothing else came in. He said that people leave for jobs or they don’t. He says “used to” a lot. I am reminded of home in the worst ways.

Ireland’s population never recovered after the Famine, it turns out. On a tour in Dublin the guide explained that they relied on potatoes for food, and man in the group laughed. The guide told him to shut up, that it was nothing to laugh about. Like, the hired guide said that to his customer, with emotion in his voice. He said that Britain stole what was left at gunpoint and the country was never the same. The economy has been on a death march ever since.

On every street corner is a little shop just for betting. Horses, dogs, football, whatever. The lottery runs it. Lottery and gambling are massively important here. There are more of them than pubs. More of them than restaurants or banks.

By the way, the best tactic for traveling by yourself is to learn how to go completely unnoticed. This is helpful in many unexpected ways. For instance, whenever I want to take a tour, I just idle up to the back of an English-speaking group and follow them around like I’m supposed to be there. I toured Trinity College like that. Also, most bus tours don’t rigorously check everyone who gets on board, so if you have a pick slip to flash at the driver, you have unlimited free transport all over the city.

Another hot tip is to have a local on your side. My friend Leeah is studying in Ireland this semester, and she knows some handy tactics. When we needed to get back to her apartment across town (because I was sleeping on her floor that night), she stepped onto the bus, swiped her pass, and then slipped it into my waiting hand just behind her. Then I just swiped it. Free ride. She also helped me get a forty-minute bus ride to the airport for free. She still had a pdf document from when she took the airport bus, so she just copied it into Google Docs and changed the dates, and then printed the new version. Like I said, bus drivers don’t really investigate passes.

I probably saved about fifty euros by exploiting the weaknesses in the transport system of Ireland. But for all my below-eighteen readers out there, karma did come back to bite. I got pulled over at TSA for an extra patdown and search at every single airport. I could not catch a break. And European airport security doesn’t just pass a hand over your calves. At de Gaulle, the lady put her hands inside my pockets and weighed each of my shoes individually. Don’t scam, kids.

Cordialement,

Allison

P.S.: This is my first official disclaimer that I am an idiot college adult and nothing I say should be taken as advice or even strict fact. Flan In France LLC takes no responsibility for injuries or felonies accrued based on information provided on the blog.