DOING IRELAND ON THE CHEAP
by Richie Patton
With my bulging 70-pound suitcase in one hand and a carry-on bag in the other, I leaned my wiry frame into the door of Room 403 at the Dublin International Youth Hostel, dropped the bags inside the dorm room, looked around and smiled. What have I gotten my 64-year-young self into, I wondered?
Earlier, on a chilly but bright day in late-March, I had arrived from Atlanta, Georgia, USA to begin my six-week adventure of a lifetime. An adventure I had planned for months. Tired from nine hours of cramped coach seats and a lengthy layover in Chicago, I had exchanged some currency and made my way to the Information Counter in the main lobby. Soon I was perched on the top deck of a municipal double-deck bus, headed toward city centre, marveling at the mix of medieval, Georgian and modern architecture of the more than 1,000-year-old capital of the Republic of Ireland.
At a bus stop, guaranteed by the jolly driver to be the closest to the hostel, I surveyed a drab, working-class neighborhood. Sure wasn't the beautiful countryside, with its 40 shades of green and brightly-painted houses, I remembered from a short visit – a gift from our five children – with my wife 18 month earlier. More like one of the neighborhoods I grew up in on the Southside of Chicago. (Stop, Richie, I chided myself … you're not here just for the beauty, the magic of it all - you're here on a mission).
My mission was to find family. That is, genealogical records that would reveal details of my heritage. Irish on both sides of my austere family, neither parents nor grandparents said much of anything about being Irish. Mostly 'we're Americans'. Out of years worth of stifled curiosity, sparse information from a cousin and some of my own library research, I was determined to learn where and from whom I came.
Finally, retired from my work career, self-employed as a handyman with my own scheduling and a tight budget, I took off.
The first passerby pointed me in the direction of the hostel. Spying the large suitcase, he quickly added it was three blocks and shook his head. As he walked off, I thought, if a part of doing Ireland on a tight budget is staying in hostels, taking public transportation ...I can sure tote my bags a mere short three blocks.
Arriving at the bottom of the narrow stoop at the entrance of the 4-story frame facility, I stopped to catch my breath. My C.O.P.D. – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease – was reminding me that in my trip excitement I had forgotten several doses of maintenance medicine. Inside, lugging the bags past solemn-faced youth bundled in layers of dark clothing and lounging on faded overstuffed couches, I came to the reception desk.
An earring-adorned young man and a harried-appearing young woman, both with European accents I didn't recognize, briefed me about the facility, handed me a plastic key card, two folded sheets topped by a pillow cover and pointed the way to Room 403, a fourth floor walkup.
The floor of the cramped dorm room was a hodge-podge of tossed clothes, boots and miscellaneous – various piles and postures of disarray. Immediately inside the door, against the nearest wall, was a metal frame double bunk. The lower bed, its occupant snoring contentedly beneath a heavy down cover, was cordoned off by a low wall of filled plastic bags and boxes. To the right, along one long wall of what appeared to be a room of eight by fifteen feet, there were two double bunks, with a small wash bowl beneath a wall-mounted mirror at the end. Opposite, eight waist-high narrow metal lockers, backed up to the wall at the foot of the fourth double bunk.
The far wall was mostly a large window above a silver-painted steam radiator. The same noisy strains and weird rhythms heard in the Chicago six-flat of my youth belched from it. The window, wide open to the afternoon chill, provided little relief from the close, hot interior. In front of the radiator stood a large round stool. It looked like the brightly colored stools circus elephants performed tricks on. This one, though, was more the color of the institutional yellow walls of the room, its paint also soiled and peeling. This was to be my economical 'home' for six days.
Eyeing my surroundings, I wondered what I had expected. My one and only experience with dorm living was a three-year enlistment in the U. S. Army. Back then, the barracks (super-tidy by command and our collective sweat) were comparatively spacious. What I saw, stood amidst and silently questioned, would have turned a drill sergeant into a raving maniac, and my neatnik wife, aghast, casting incredulous glances my way.
Suddenly, I felt people looking at me....
~~~
(part 2 next month!)
Richie Patton is the author of the 'Paddy O' & Curly Slim' Saga that you can view at his Amazon Page
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