A promise delivered on- My weekend in Ireland (the Prologue)

Well folks, here it is. As promised. A fully detailed account of my hours in Ireland.

I will spare all the PAIN staking details, however, details there will be.

The mayhem of the trip to Ireland actually started Thursday Night. Well. Thursday at 3 30, when I was pulled from my desk to help with a cultural event at work. There, I stood amongst 70 Hungarians drinking Canadian wine, and discussing a love story written by a Canadian-Hungarian that was recently translated into Hungarian. (I could smell the Pellier Estates as soon as the bottle was opened….and it was good....) The book is a love story, based on the true lives of two people living in a small town in the Ukraine (right on the border of Hungary) (the town actually used to be IN Hungary (borders have changed a lot in the last century or so)). Both the brothers of the Christian Man and the Jewish women were at the event along with the author of the book and Duna TV. Notice the religious detail of the last sentence. Well, pointing this out is important as we are talking about the beginning of WWII, where this sort of inter-religious relationship was illegal, where the two where separated when the Natzi’s entered there town, where the two re-connected years later…..this is where my knowledge of the story ends…sorry…

There they served Canadian wine and Pogácsa (which is a Hungarian version of a small golf ball sized scone or mini Danish looking things, only extremely salty or extremely sweet. They are all about the extremes). I picked up what I thought was strawberry crème (as it was light pink and had a sort of lattice top on it). I bit into it only to taste some sort of salty muck. A friend confirmed that indeed, I had just taken a bite of what she translated as ‘meat cream’. I think it was some sort of Hungarian spam, pâté stuff. I’ve never had spam (or at least don’t remember having spam, so I was making the spam assumption based on who knows what). However, a lovely Canadian confirmed the spam suspicion, and simply said, ‘just don’t think about it’. It was one of those ‘root beer instead of coke situations’. I am sure it would have been a better experience had I not been preparing for strawberry. On a happier note, I went in for another try, this time a small one that looked plane Jane. It was, and although salty, it was much much better, flakey-er, and removed all spam taste from my mouth. Successful mission.

Back to my actual narrative…So the book launch ended quite late, when I got home I had just enough time to pack a bag for my trip and go to bed. I had to be at work for 8 o’clock SHARP to be the ‘go ahead’ group to help with the logistical organization of a work retreat. This meant I had to get up just after 6….ick… But the retreat was at a vineyard just outside Budapest, and while the venue was cold and musty (being a wine cellar and all), the wine was good and the company was better, including the ‘master wine maker’ who gave us a tour of all the cellars, and explained how their sparking wine (not champagne as it is not made in the champagne region of France, his detail, not mine) was made. We got there earlier and so the 4 of use got to scout of the digs before everyone else. I also got to take some pictures! After the retreat part and tour ended, the sampling came. I was slightly excited about this, because, well, in the past month I’ve had some unsightly distasteful wines….they were cheap, so really I shouldn’t be complaining….but still…. some of the locals have given me a proper price range for wine purchasing. Simply put 600 HUF will get you nothing but slightly moldy tasting grape juice….and well, I can confirm this with hands on experience. Really, how I am supposed to pick a bottle of wine when the English translation on every single bottle says ‘dry red wine’.

Oh well.

When the retreat ended we headed back to the city, and well, I headed to the airport. One of the people at work told me that I should leave very early to get to the airport because the four lane highway out of Budapest is always very busy, and Friday at rush hour was no exception. Seriously, the only way to the airport is a 4 lane highway. There are city streets in Budapest bigger than that. Thank you communism. Anyway, as the reliability of Budapest transit isn’t the greatest, and well, my ability to understand any form of fumble to do with changed schedules, construction detours, and non-operational lines is null, I left earlier. Plus my work colleague sufficiently frightened me enough to NOT be late for my flight, the last thing I needed was to deal with rescheduling on Ryan Air, the airline notorious for charging for everything from paying for your flight (the ‘admin’ charge), to printing out your boarding passes to their failed attempts at a 'fat tax' and 'bathroom fee'...they are now experimenting with a 'load your own luggage' scheme so they don't have to pay for baggage handlers (on a side note, I am not sure how the 100ml restrictions would jive with this, or what baggage handlers think about this, but it would mean that Ryan air would no longer charge for checking luggage, and the ways of the ONE BAG only would be no longer)...... So I decided to leave my flat around four for an 8ish flight(assuming it would take about an hour and half to get there). It took 35 minutes. When I got there I found out that the flight desk didn’t even open for an hour and a half. I was stuck at an airport smaller than the 6th floor of MRT, for three hours……it was slightly painful. I had toured the whole place in 10 minutes (including the observation deck), and read all the free English ‘about Budapest’ tourist magazines. I had to pack minimally, and well, clothing trumped the book I was going to bring. Ryan air has a strict ONE BAG only policy (and charges an extra 40 euros or something if you surpass this). One bag literally means one bag. A backpack and a purse count as two, and boy did they ever reinforce this. They patrol the lines for one bag only rule breakers. So I was the wanderer…..but finally, finally, the gate opened so I could get my passport checked and go through the security to get to a new area of the airport.

After being frisked (literally), I was allowed to go to the duty free, and then pass border control onward to my flight. I was thirsty, so I went to buy some water. Because there are three types of water here, and three different colours of bottles, with companies choosing to not follow a standardized ‘colour to type of water’ norm, I wasted about 10 minutes trying to find plain, normal water. I failed, and when I opened the bottle it was carbonated….gah…. I really should just one day buy a million different kinds at the same time and figure out what is what…but this is always an afterthought….kind of like now….you are probably thinking ‘why not just learn the words for spring water’. Easier said than done as all the bottles have the same (or very similar words), with slight grammar or spelling changes to the words to indicate ‘spring’, ‘still’ and ‘sparkling’ (or ‘with bubbles, without bubbles’ etc.._ As hard as I try, my brain just can’t get its head around these words…there are just too many ‘eszv’ combinations and permutations for me to process when I am thirsty….. (P.S. Please be advised that I completely made up the whole reference 'grammatical changes in words', who am I kidding, I don't even know personal pronouns yet. (or I do, but I don't know I do as I have been taught 'key phrases' which may posses some personal pronouns...). However, applying my english and french language logic, it makes sense to me.

Anyway, the flight was good, no big problems. We landed, we clapped and cheered (it was a european flight after all), and after going through another border crossing, I was finally in Ireland. Yay! When I got there I don’t know if I was more excited that I was in Ireland, or that I was in a country where I could understand people, announcements, road signs, pamphlets, everything, and well, in a place where people could understand me too (communication is a two way street, after all). It was a very weird. I found the shuttle that I needed to take, asked to buy a ticket to my destination (and remember how useful and informative people could be when I can actually ask a question once and be understood), and then hopped on the bus. I think the bus operator people thought I was a little nuts as it was almost midnight, I was travelling along with a backpack, and well was incessantly asking a million bazillion questions (a theme throughout the whole weekend).

As Vero lives on the other side of the city centre, I got a nice tour of the city centre while on the bus. When we arrived at Trinity College, fond memories of the two week stint I spent there years ago came flooding back. I also instantly had my bearings on the city, was able to figure out where I was, and it felt nice. So we drove past TCD, Oliver Cromwell (all lit up), and the famous Dublin Doors and then it was my stop. The stop was slightly more residential (having left the main drags), and the bus driver asked if I was okay…..I was more than okay, I was giddy, so giddy and excited that I probably should have been more careful…(on a parental note: don’t worry, I scouted my surroundings, realized that yes the street was slightly deserted, but saw that there was a pub and terrace across the street that was mildly populated, and knew that I could go there if I had any problems, and I knew that I could communicate with them, which to be fair improves my perception of security substantially). I didn’t have any problems. Vero came and met me on the street and we walked through her neighborhood towards her lovely little flat in Dublin 4. We had SIX years to catch up on, so we were up a little late that night…….chatting about the time in between Vero in Ottawa to Vero in Argentina to Vero in Dublin, and Jess in Toronto to Jess in Ottawa to Jess in Budapest. It was a lot of chatting, but very nice. There were also some slight Eva updates too (so don’t worry Eva, you were represented to the very best of my abilities and your LONG email which I read just before I left, and will of course respond to in due course).

Then we went to bed. Vero’s roommate was gone for the weekend, so I got a bed to myself. It was my first time since arriving in Budapest that I’d slept on a proper mattress in a proper bed with a proper pillow and although we had a painstakingly early morning…those 5 precious hours on a pillow top mattress were wonderful….