On The Road

The past five days have seemed like an age. My weekend basically started on Thursday night when my friends and I went out to The Elk to celebrate (mourn?) Tinja's leaving by consuming our collective body weight in £3 mojitos.

After struggling through both a healthy dose of post-tequila self hated and a veritable mountain of ironing on Friday I went out again, this time with a different Finnish. Happily Iina is back in London, on a permanent basis. I had thought the return of one Finnish friend would balance out the departure of the other, but on Saturday as I was walking home from my (new) second job, with 2 hours sleep under my belt and plans to spend my Saturday night consuming gin-jelly with Isabel I thought casually "we should ask Tinja to come".

I think Tinja leaving is the saddest thing to have happened to me since I've been here. I hardly knew Elena when she left, and Iina was always going to come back, but I don't actually know when (or if) I'll see Tinja again.

On Sunday I was back at work and by 5pm I was more than happy to just pack my bags and go to sleep, in anticipation of my whirlwind 12 day tour of the UK.

Which brings me to Ireland. Because this morning I got on a train, and now I'm in another country. Just saying that sentence is enough to reassure myself that nothing - not a career, not being with my friends and family, nothing - would be worth missing this. I booked a hostel ahead of time, because it seemed like the sensible and efficient thing to do. However my talents apparently do not encompass efficiency or sensibility, because I got off the ferry in Dublin with no Euros, no address, and no real idea of what I was doing.

Eventually I got into a taxi with a driver who agreed to let me pay him in pounds and told him my predicament. He told me he'd never heard of the hostel I needed, and his speedy recon mission amongst his fellow drivers proved equally fruitless. Instead he drove me to a hostel he did know of, where I dumped my stuff for the evening and went of in search for my planned hostel. And also food.

The latter was easy, and I had a lovely picnic on the banks of the river that runs through the city. The former, however, alluded me. I looked up the place on the website, marked it on the free map I'd picked up at the taxi driver's hostel, and set off. But after an hour of trekking through Dublin I was still no closer to finding my destination. In fact I was beginning to think the place didn't exist at all (a fear by no means alleviated by the constant engaged tone on their phone).

While I ate dinner, though, I figured maybe this was a fortuitous turn of events. After all, being dropped off by a friendly taxi driver into the waiting arms of an unbooked hostel room (and incredibly attractive receptionist) seemed like too perfect a situation to walk away from, So I threw caution to the wind and cancelled my initial booking, choosing instead to stay where I had been led (by FATE).

I feel this is the best possible beginning to my trip.

I should be so lucky

I visited Oxford over the weekend to meet some of the Extended Family, and it just blew me away. I can't believe I spent three years of my life in Bathurst like a chump when I could have just gone here instead.

Kidding. But seriously, the entire city looks like something out of a fairytale. And not the dark, innuendo-laden traditional kind. The Disney fairytale kind. I mean, the streets are cobbled. COBBLED.



DO YOU SEE?

Anyway, the whole university city vibe got me a-thinking.
Before I hopped across the pond I was frequently asked by  people of widely varying ages and professions what my plans were, both for this year and in the long term. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure. I know that I want to spend some time footloose and fancy free before I commit myself to a career, because I also know I want to be completely amazing at it when I do.
My answer was usually something along the lines of:
"Oh, I don't know. Travel, work. Become a real person somewhere along the line. I'm not too worried. Things generally work out well for me."
And that, that last bit right there, was where I encountered problems. Almost every time I said those magic words I would be greeted with some combination of pity, disbelief and condescension. I got it from my friends, my parents' friends, from family members. And MY GOD was it frustrating.
I know that assuming life will be all rainbows and happiness is unrealistic, and that saying things will work in my favour is, you know, kind of arrogant, but it's also true. It has been in the past and, so far, it's still doing good things for me now. I've been incredibly lucky since I've been here, in terms of my living situation, my friendships, even my career prospects.
Leaving aside the philosophical connotations (do I make the statement because it's true, or is it true because I make the statement) it makes me really...angry? Upset? I'm not sure. But it makes me really negative-emotion when people disregard my awesome life potential just because they haven't had some kind of bullshit, fairytale smooth ride. (And when I say "my", I mostly mean "other people's in general"). Gah! Nobody does! It's not even that bad!
Basically what I'm saying is get some perspective. That'll probably clear your shit right up.
And also, don't be a hater.
I'm going to go now before I sound any more like Justin Beiber.