Day 44

On the day I left Rome, I got up at 6:15 in the cold darkness and took the shuttle to Ciampino Airport. I got there several hours before my flight, and so had time to sit and have a delicious and incredibly healthy breakfast: a bottle of Pepsi, a Twix bar, and a mozzarella and prosciutto sandwich. The meal did much to avert the 'starving' component of my bad mood, but unfortunately the 'sleep-deprived' one was still in full effect. Then my flight was delayed an hour, which didn't improve my mood much. I also had the bad luck to be stuck in line beside a very large, very quarrelsome, and very loud Italian family.

Anyway, we were finally herded out onto the tarmac and into a bus, which proceeded to move at a speed, slower than walking, towards the plane. Then we got off the bus. Then we queued up again. Then we boarded the plane, and by then I was wondering if perhaps Ryanair would have us do any more ridiculously inefficient things, such as arrange ourselves in alphabetical order. Anyway, I took my seat. Then the Italian family swarmed into the seats behind me, leaving me to sink down and try my best to ignore them.

The plane finally took off, and as we soared over the Alps, I stared down and thought deep thoughts about overpopulation and global warming. Villages spread out below in the valleys of the mountains, and intermittently a peak would be frosted with a thin layer of snow. I wondered if there were people in those villages who remembered when the entire range would be snow-capped even in summer. While I suppose that it's good to consider two of the greatest problems facing the world today, it always engenders a sense of anger at the older generation currently in power. They are the Boomers and post-Boomers, who went through the Sixties, were all about free love and biocentrism, were supposed to be socially conscious and change the world, when really the only things they've changed, as far as saving anything goes, are, to be blunt, jack. Instead they grew up and became their parents, and not a one of the ones in power can muster the political will to do anything about climate change, much less overpopulation. Instead they hem and haw and deny, or if they don't deny they push the problems onto us, their children. As long as they don't have to change their lifestyles, they don't care.

I realize, of course, that the screed I just wrote is probably exactly what the Sixties generation thought about their own parents. Which makes me wonder if the Millennials will grow up to become their parents and nothing will ever be done. But anyway, enough depression.

Dublin International Airport is very new and very nice, although the Immigrations and Customs officer acted suspicious of me and demanded to know every detail of my itinerary before stamping my passport. The ink the stamp used was, of course, green. I took a bus to my hostel and checked in. The hostel was in an area of Dublin called Trinity Bar, located on the River Liffey beside Trinity College. Trinity Bar was designed to cater to students, and full of thrift stores, tattoo parlors, collective kitchens and record stores. If any of you have been to Portland, Oregon's Pearl District, it was similar to that. I wandered round for a bit, found a small cafe and had a hummus and tomato sandwich, then returned to my hostel and tried to sleep.

'Tried' being the operative word there. After much tossing and turning, I got up again, walked around the city for a bit, then went into a pub for a Coke and to watch the first half of the Ireland/Slovakia footy match. The live music scene in Dublin is great; there are talented buskers all over the place, and almost every pub provides live music. Our guy was quite good, although a man requested that he sing U2's 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' to his girlfriend.

Somehow I think the man didn't quite get the point of the song. Also, if you spend any length of time in Dublin, you will be heartily sick of U2 by the time you leave.

After finishing my Coke, I went to a gelato shop near the pub and then to the hostel. My first day in Dublin ended on something of a low note; I was disappointed that the Irish, reputed to be so friendly, came off as either suspicious or uncaring. Even in the pub no one spared a second glance, even though I sat near the bar. It just made me realize how lonely a thing it is, to be in a city where no one knows your name nor cares to. Still, my opinion of Dublin did improve, although that doesn't happen until later days.

Pictures tomorrow.