"Don't lose your silly bandz! You won't be able to trade with the Irish children! Maybe they have shamrocks!!" says the mom in a thick Irish brogue, running after her kids at JFK, en route to Dublin.
The luck of the Irish must have been with me in full force, as I managed to score an empty seat next to me, the only one if the pilot's claims of a "fully booked" flight were true. I laid down, the last sight I remember being the jealous grimace from the young man in the middle section. I fell asleep 1/2 hour into the flight, and woke up 1/2 hour before I landed. One of the few benefits of being a really small person is the unmatched ability to cram oneself into any small space effotlessly.
I arrive in Dublin airport 5 am NY time, and I'm surprisingly refreshed. How do you know you're in Ireland? Everone is White. The women shining shoes are White. The team of young boys off to who-knows-where are White. And I don't mean just white. Blonde, light eyed, freckled.
Oh, and there's whisky tastings at every airport shop.
Although there was a 1 hour delay for my connection to Santiago de Compostela, a little bit of a mixup regarding my getting a boarding pass, the luck of the Irish continued to follow me around all day. I got another row to myself on the connecting flight, and when I arrived at Santiago, and after 5 minutes of watching all of the bags on the conveyor pass around and around, I thought to look behind me to realize that for whatever reason, my bag got its own conveyor belt, and I had the fortune of finding it before I tried to negotiate the lost luggage desk.
The girl at the visitor center finds the street my apartment is on and tells me “right now!! The bus is leaving now!” and the bus driver is kind enough to wait for me to take me to the center of town, which is happily, only about 10 minutes away. I walk to the apartment, and the proprietor sees me outside and calls my name.
The apartment is a 3-bedroom, 2 full bathroom with a large sectional in the living room that I lament not having in my real life, a full kitchen with dishwasher, a laundry machine. I’m sharing it with one other guy who was supposed to be away for the weekend.
The center of town is a good 20-minute walk away, up and down more hills than I would prefer. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would think it was all uphill. I spent about an hour wandering the cobble-stoned streets, took a peek at the cathedral,, and wandered into a bar for some tapas just in time to watch Spain vs. Paraguay for the quarterfinal of the World Cup. I had tapas of squid in their own ink and my first (but somewhat disappointing) octopus, served with a small gratis plate of mussels, olives, a beautiful hunk of crusty brown bread, and a glass of vino tinto. I watched the first half of game, leaving right before Spain scored its first and winning goal of the game. If my Spanish isn't failing me, it was the first time in history that the Spaniards made it this far, and the screaming in the bars could be heard all over town.
I wander back to the apartment, only to realize that although I remembered the street (Rua Berna) and the building number (4), and the portal letter (G), I didn’t remember either the floor or the apartment number. Shit. I panicked for about 10 minutes but then realized that when I looked at the courtyard there was a lot of laundry above me, and the the door had its lock on the left. I go the first floor (which is really the 2nd, in the European fashion) and find the only apartment on the floor with the keyhole on the left. I nervously turn this weird key into the apartments, hoping for the best, praying that some angry Spaniard doesn’t try to kick my ass for trying to break in. Success!! #1C. Just like my apartment at home. Dumbass.
Really, I couldn’t have been more fortunate all day. And, I suppose, neither could the Spaniards.
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