I think of Dean Moriarty.

The infrequency of my posting is lowering the quality of my words. I’ve got to be better about writing regularly. So here are the slapped together experiences of the last 2 ½ weeks:

More photos on my flickr soon.

From Saturday:

My internship has ended. I also finished reading “On the Road”. I am about to meet mom at the airport. I’m standing on the edge of a page between chapters. The first portion of my journey has ended and the next is about to begin. 

A bit on the last 2 weeks.

You win some, you lose some. I had wonderful final days at work- working in the community garden, outing to the botanical gardens, and drawing with Anne-Marie in the Rose garden. Another drum circle, Liffy river cruise, old faces and a few new ones. There were plenty of people who couldn’t wait for the internship life of copying and then shredding then shredding your copies to end, but I legitimately looked forward to work. I’m really no good at goodbyes. On Tuesday I went to help out at the Clontarf location, because they were a bit short handed. Of course I was happy to help and meet some clients I hadn’t met before, but I was disappointed that I didn’t get to say goodbye to the Donnybrook clients that are only there on Tuesdays. I haven’t gone into much detail about any specific client because I don’t have their permission and I don’t want to say anything that could be confidential, but I don’t want to understate how much I have learned and how I have bonded with many of them. They are incredible, inspiring people. My coworkers were also some of the kindest, most caring people I have met. They were always looking out for me, and going out of their way to thank me for doing even the simplest of tasks. Anne-Marie was extremely thoughtful and gave me a set of pastels and sketch paper so I could keep making art. Then my coworkers gave me a beautiful Celtic-style necklace to remember them by, not that I’ll forget. It was way more than I ever would have expected and I wish I had something to give them in return.  I am already missing everyone at Headway.

So I had big plans for after work and on the weekends the last two weeks. Most of my plans fell through. I was going to go kayaking… but they didn’t get back to me in time on the weekend, then I realized it was too far to go on Wednesday. I was all booked to go horseback riding in the Wicklow Mountains last Saturday but the bus was freakishly slow and the sun brought out traffic headed to the beach so I didn’t make it in time, (but I went to the beach/festival instead so it could’ve been worse.) I got a groupon for a yoga class but my phone died and I couldn’t find the studio after an hour + of walking. I did make it the bouldering gym again, which was fun, but now I’m out of practice and the gym had no ac on a record high temperature day.  I was supposed to go to EUSA’s farewell reception, but I was running a little late, which turned into too late to go from the rush hour traffic, but in consolation I found an amazing gourmet burger place with delicious ginger-lime-whiskey-spiked-lemonade. I did meet up with my BFF at the “illumonous” pink sweet shop. I gave him my number and we said we’d meet up. But I still don’t know his name, and haven’t heard from him. Oh well. I found a cool place in Temple Bar called Badass Café, where I could sit outside and listen to the street musicians, and be flattered by the foreign waiter who tried to ask me out for drinks, courtesy of my “stylish hat”. One plan that I did follow through with was my tattoo. I got an anchor tattoo above my ankle that says “Captain Kirk”. So it’s meaningful and what not. Everyone knows how much I like Star Trek. I also got my hair cut rather short. A good bit shorter than it was. I have this feeling mom is going to get to the airport and say “you shaved your head and got a tattoo?! What happened?!” Yeah… I haven’t told her yet.

From now:

So now I’m homeless, or nomadic as I like to think of it, but mom has arrived so for now it is the luxurious kind of traveling. (This means no more snail-mailing :/) There was the “I can’t believe you got a tattoo!” moment and several “I still can’t believe you got a tattoo” moments after that, but nothing dramatic. I was so happy to meet her at the airport. Adventuring on my own is a great experience but it is lonely time to time. Mom and I get along great. I’m used to talking to her almost everyday but since I’ve been in Ireland I really have only talked to her once a week or so and only with FaceTime dropping off every few seconds. Very frustrating. So I met her at the airport with all of my luggage, and we caught a taxi to the hotel. The taxi driver assumed we both were just arriving to Ireland and went on about Grafton street and Temple Bar and O’Connell street. He even stuck to his spiel after I pointed out a client I saw walking down the sidewalk. We checked into the Westbury hotel (very posh), grabbed lunch at Bewley’s café, walked around St. Stephen’s green and went on the Viking splash tour. There wasn’t much splashing but it was fun to supplement the tour guide; “that’s where the awesome 70c cinnamon donuts are… that’s where I got my tattoo… that is the river boat I went on with the clients… “ and so on. We then did the Guinness Storehouse tour thing and ran into Cat and her mom and sister. Small tourist world. We had a lovely dinner at the fancy burger place I found and made friends with the Irish people sitting at the table. They even ordered the drinks I recommended. Time flew by and we had to hurry off to see Riverdance. The Irish dancing and music were great; I wasn’t as big of fan of the singing or the random American 20’s, Mediterranean and Spanish dancing. The Australian dancer I met at the Globe a few weeks ago performed. Small world. The next day we had crepes and caught the bus to Enniskerry and walked to Powerscourt. There were horses and trees and golf courses and cow tombstones and a tower and roses we could ooh and ahh over. We asked for a taxi to Bray and they looked at us like we were crazy. But we got one regardless. Apparently there was a HUGE air show in Bray Sunday afternoon where the traffic backed up for miles. With a generous dose of luck we had a driver who had lived in the area for ages and knew the back way. Except the back way was closed to cars because of all the pedestrians. But the garda saw the driver was a “working man” and waved us through so we could “go visit our aunty at the end of the street”.  We had just planned on doing the hike from Bray to Greystones but the air show was an added bit of entertainment. We finished the walk with strawberries and ice-cream and a DART ride back to Dublin. Monday we shipped my excess possessions home from the historical GPO, wandered around bookstores, and paid O’Neil’s a visit. Too long of visit. We missed the bus, caught a taxi, and made a mad dash through the train doors as they were closing. I had the luggage to facilitate the rushing which meant I was too wide to fit through the aisles. I was singing apologies all the way down the car as I ran over toes, hit elbows and swung my backpack in some poor fellow’s face as I turned to beg forgiveness from the elbows and toes. Our B&B is an updated old house with an energetic host named Dolores. She gave us the low down on Cork. We walked around the center of town and explored the restaurants and pubs. Good food, lousy Irish coffee. We caught a train to Cobh yesterday, arrived, and both said “now what?” But we saw the quaint colorful storefronts, the one woman-three floors restaurant and pub, the “deck-of-cards” houses and the eerie cathedral. We had excellent Irish coffee at the grown-up Irish version of my bar.  We “snuck” on the train back without buying tickets because the booth was closed. Two stops later, we panicked because the ticket collector came by. We started stammering about having to buy tickets and gave him desperate look of guilt as we handed him the tickets we bought to get to Cobh earlier. He just chuckled at us as told us the tickets were for the return trip as well. “Relax, girls”. He walked away laughing.

Now we’re on our way again. We’re going to try to drive. “Just follow rule number one: don’t hit anything.”