It's about a 5 kilometer walk to the city centre, which is about 3 miles. I figured I could walk into the city, and then if necessary take the bus back. You get a totally different perspective of the surroundings when you are walking them, rather than when you are in the bus and I definitely enjoyed the walk. Flowers are blooming in Dublin, the streets are full of people, and the sky was blue. You can't ask for much more than that. I took my camera with me to capture some of the simple beauties of Dublintown in the Spring.
After a stop at Boots, I headed towards St. Stephen's Green. The park was full of people on their lunch break. Sitting in the grass and on the benches enjoying the springtime. St. Stephen's is beautiful in the winter so when everything started blooming, color is everywhere.
I found a patch of grass and laid in the sun listening to my ipod. So peaceful. People were everywhere, and it reminded me of the Quad on a nice day. After about 30 minutes of rest, I continued my walk. It was too nice of a day to stop walking, so I followed the usual bus route, knowing there was a TESCO on that street. I stopped in a bookstore to find something to read but the selection wasn't too good. I found the grocery, got some basics-granola, blueberries, yogurt, digestives-- a book, and a chicken pasta salad. I ate the pasta salad as I continued to walk.
I'm well known for taking my own way. I rather navigate than go on the same path twice. However, in Dublin's fair city, the streets are windy, and the buildings short so there isn't really any navigational landmarks. I could've taken the way home that I knew, but where's the fun in that. Needless to say, I got a little lost. Not really lost per say, but not quite sure of where I was going. So I just kept walking until I found something I recognized. I walked past the Rugby Stadium, the birthplace of W.B. Yates, and just kept walking. Eventually I smelled the salty sea air and found myself on the shore of the ocean. Alright, definitely in the WRONG direction than I intended, but I am not going to complain about the ocean. At least I knew where I was, so I headed in the direction of UCD. Why walk on the side walk when you can walk in the sand, so I ditched my gym shoes and walked in the sand. The tide was out real far so it looked more like a big sand bar than a ocean, but it was sandy and sea shells littered the ground. No complaints. There was a man using the sand bar as a driving range...I liked his style. I kept walking, the sand in my toes. Kids were playing in the sand, dogs were running around, the sky was blue.
I found a rock to lean against, and soaked up the sun for a while. At this point, my ipod had long died. Tragic really. I need to charge it before I decide to go on hour long walks. I enjoyed the sun, ate some digestive, then decided I should head home. I still had like a 3 mile walk from the beach. I headed home, passing these two old men, one in the wheelchair with an oxygen tube. His friend was pushing him along the beach, making conversation about this and that. True friendship right there.
By the time I made it back to campus, I had been gone for four and a half hours and probably walked close to 10 miles. Wondrous for sure. I had some dinner then hung out with Claire and Laura, discussing our respective weekends. I went back to my apartment for a bit to get some work done. My roommates had friends over, and they were having a guitar sing a long in our kitchen. Brilliant. At about 7 or 8, there was a knock on my door. I thought perhaps it was my roommates inviting me to the singalong. Nope. It was Claire and Laura, inquiring if I wanted to go on an exploration for ice cream with them. Undoubtably yes. We walked up to the SPAR on Foster's Ave and got ourselves a Venetta Ice Cream cake, plastic silverware, and a lotto ticket (because Claire was feeling lucky). We found a bench along Roebuck Road, and sat and ate our ice cream cake with our plastic utensils as cars and joggers passed us by. Dusk had that magical quality, and it reminded us of summer, even though our feet were freezing in our flip flops.
I came back to my apartment to the singalong still going on. I laid in bed and finished up my work listening to the guitar music. Good day, good night.
Tuesday had the same wonderful weather. Unfortunately, I had a pile of laundry waiting for me after class that desperately needed my attention. So I put on my gym shoes, packed my suitcase, and ventured down to the Laundrette. I planned on going for a walk while my clothes washed and then a few laps around the track while my clothes dried. Seemed like effective use of my time. I paid my 3 euro for one load and took a stroll around campus. I set my timer on my Ipod and came back to the Laundrette after its prescribed 38 minutes. But my laundry wasn't done. The washer seemed to be stuck at 8 minutes. I watched for a few minutes and the timer did not change. I tried to open the door, it was locked. I began to play over in my head the scenario in which my clothes were locked in this broken washer. The majority of my clothes were in there. I tried to open, pry it, no luck. Finally the timer hit 7 minutes. Alright, it's just slow moving. So I went and sat in the grass outside for a bit. After 10 minutes, I came back, still 4 minutes to go. Longest minutes ever. Finally it hit 0 and I opened the door. My clothes were completely soaked. Drenched. This was problematic. So I took out the clothes that were the most wet and individually took them outside to ring them out before putting them in the dryer. Finally after about 20 minutes of this, I set the dryer and went to do some laps around the track. After 45 minutes I came back to find my clothes still wet. I put it on for another 45 minutes (and another 1.50 euro) and went back up to my room to grab my book and sit in the grass and read. When I went to retrieve my clothes, they were still damp, no surprise. Air drying would have to do. I came back to take a shower, have some dinner, and go to my 6 o'clock class. On the way to class, I stopped at the front desk for my mail. I had gotten a sweet letter from Gram and a package from the Dsigs. Good day for sure :)
After class, I ran into Jen & Claire out for a walk. Join them, ofcourse. The campus was still lively with people playing soccer, and hurling, and frisbee. We did a lap around the grass and then headed up to Jen's to chat it up while she made dinner. We considered going out on the town but we all had things to catch up on. Relaxed for a while, caught up on the rest of the blog, and went to bed.
Today I had class, and then it was time to get down to business (my theme song according to my companions). I went to town on finding a summer internship. No more of this. According to our speaker last night, Bryan Cody--coach of Leinster Hurling-- confidence leads to success. I applied for a number of internships, anything I could find. From the Shedd Aquarium to NBC to Tiffany & Co to Zurich Insurance. There's no reason I can't get a sweet job that I enjoy...and sometimes you have to blaze your own trail. A little inspiration from my little Canadian friend.
We will see what happens, but after 3 hours of submitting resumes at least I'm not going down without a fight.
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