FIFA and a few pints

The rest of my time in Ireland shifted from enjoying natural beauty to the beauty of the city and the game of football. The World Cup has kicked off and I am the newest and biggest fan. I have watched in delight as Argentina progresses on and in dismay as USA drove themselves out of the tournament as soon as they started. Melissa and I haven't been watching the games alone though.

Our next stop after the beautiful North coast was Belfast. We had two friends from Seattle working there and we wanted to stop in and see them. We lucked out by arriving on BBQ night over at a lovely Irish bloke named Dave's house. You can imagine our delight over the first familiar social situation that we had in months. Young people eating together, talking, and watching football. The good company continued all weekend as we went from church to the pub and out to the park the next day. We also enjoyed being shown some of the sights of Belfast. I'd call it conflict tourism. We saw the 30' 'peace' wall between opposing neighborhoods, streets dedicated to both the pro-British and pro-Ireland groups, and more political murals. Here is me next to one of President Bush sucking oil through a tube from a ruined Middle East war zone, cluching dollar bills in his hands. Why doesn't the artist tell us how s/he really feels?

We picked up two friends who joined us for the drive from Belfast to Dublin. We stopped over in a beautiful valley and saw some tombs older than the Egyptian Pyramids. We also saw a castle which was featured in Braveheart and did some World Cup/people watching at a small town pub. Onwards to Dublin where we sadly dropped off our two fun friends Irvin and Stephen and our rental car. Back to my own two feet and public transportation. There was something satisfying about getting on the bus and not worrying about making turns or finding parking.

Dublin was very enjoyable and felt like home to me. It was cool and cloudy, with English spoken and plenty of coffee shops with soy lattes. I don't really drink soy lattes, but it was nice to know that I could if I wanted to. We saw The Da Vinci Code, visited a great print gallery, and relaxed in a few parks.

The good weather held up all the way from Dublin to London. I never wanted to take RyanAir, ever. I hate how annoying they are and how their cheap seats make people fly when they wouldn't have flown, thereby polluting the earth. But since we were flying, they did offer a competitive price and I thought, everyone else is doing it, and I want to share that experience. It was worse that I thought it would be. The terminal was all mobile-home style with echoing floors and awful direct lighting. There were no gate displays telling you which line to join, they kept switching the gate number, and people all line up for hours to get seats since there are no assignments. Everyone was grumbling as we departed an hour late, (late enough to miss the England football game). I was mostly entertained at the yellow plastic plane interior and flight emergency card plastered to the seat back, to remind you throughout the flight in case you might forget, that you could die in a fiery crash. I was hopeful, at best, that my bag would make it, and felt like standing and reminding everyone that we were getting what we paid for.

We landed in Gatwick, late but unharmed. Thankfully RyanAir only runs the planes, and doesn't build them, as Melissa reminded me. I was giddy with excitement as we were meeting up with a couple of blokes that I met back in Costa Rica last year. They are such a riot and I was really looking forward to spending a little time with them and seeing London again. They picked us up from the tube station near their neighborhood and dutifully took us out straight away for some pints. We laughed and reminisced about the good old days last summer and got caught up with the year. After that they took us for curry, put us up in Paul's home and treated us in manner of rockstars. It was wonderful to spend time at Paul's eating his parents' cereal and drinking their tea. Its the simple things that feel so luxurious when you are on the road.

Over the next two days we were taken to riverside pubs, on a river cruise, to visit Greenwich and the magnetic clock. We visited many pubs, and mingled with the London professionals in all the cool spots, Bridget Jones' Style. What a joy to see men in dark grey flannel suits with blue shirts and ties in the financial district- one of my favorite London sights. Paul and Justin kept us laughing and really outdid themselves hosting us. They even humored us by taking us to a bar where we could watch the USA play Italy.

They dropped us off at Heathrow airport after three nights of fun, that felt way too short. Melissa's parents were about to arrive though and phase two of England was about to begin. Its been a bit now since they left us, and I miss them. They are both incredibly nice and sympathetic people. I really hope that our paths cross again in this world. Actually Paul is going to be in Thailand around the same time we plan to be there...so who knows!

Our time in London also got me thinking about the origins of this trip. Originally, the plans were for four of us to work in London for a year. A few weeks looking up apartment prices and work visa requirements quickly scaled the trip back from working, to working/traveling, to just traveling. Also, Kerri fell in love and Liz decided to go to graduate school. It was fun to imagine the four of us in London trying to make ends meet and what kind of friends we would have made. I am not regretful though. Living in London would have been a great experience, but how much better has it been to slice tomatoes on an Argentinean farm and see a Rhino in Kenya? Better for sure.