Cork now
Traveling is weird. I've put so much weight on this trip that I live with a fair amount of fear that I'm doing it wrong. I'm not taking a camera. I'm not seeing enough stuff. I'm not meeting enough people. Having set out with no specific goal in mind, I find myself evaluating my decisions based on any and all criteria that come to mind. I guess I just have to have faith in myself, or at least the version of me from a couple of weeks ago who decided that doing this was the most important thing in the world.
I get self-conscious about my backpack. I bought my backpack for $60 at an army surplus store, and I think it is awesome. But it doesn't look like any of the other backpackers' gear. It is squat and turtle-green, and I've strapped a blue sleeping bag to the top of it, just in case. I have not needed this sleeping bag yet. Mostly it has just been a burden on my back and my ego. I will keep it with me, though, 'cause you never do know.
In a few days, the trip changes. I'll go back to Dublin, and then I'll fly into Paris. I won't speak the language there, and I won't know anybody. My friend Stephanie will have left Paris earlier the same day I'll arrive.
Which, really, is closer to what I'd hoped for, I think. England and Ireland are awesome, but I think I was looking to culture-shock myself a little more. Will France do that? Germany? The Czech Republic? We'll see.
By the by, the hostel I find myself at in Cork is awesome. A little small, but the people who run it seem very nice, and it's tidy and secure.
Now:
The water in the quay breaks into so many pieces and each of them break off of each other. Endless moire fractious bouncing ripples, and in the low, diffuse light you can see every edge. A topographical map with all the topography jostling forward - trapping jawfuls of oxygen and releasing them moments later, toying with them. So are the voices in this crowded club: reflecting off the walls back into the center of the room, where they break off of each other into rippled phonemes and lapping laughters, periodically burping up a cache of quiet.
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Who opened for Laura Veirs in Belgium? A lady has just mistaken me for him. This, obviously, is indicative of my overwhelming yet latent musical talent - just as when the guy at the Supermac thought he knew me from the Aran Islands it was indicative of my predestined influence in this part of the world, and when the girl checking me into the hostel thought she knew my name, it was simply a sign of my fated rise to fame.