The Shining

First order of business. Happy 4th of July. No fireworks here. Be patriotic for me.

Yesterday, I had a weird day. I’ll tell you why. I got to the biggest city I’ll be working in, Tralee. It’s not big at all by American standards, but it’s busy and confusing and disorganized. Map in hand, I still kept taking the wrong turns. This is walking, mind you, where making wrong turns is quite correctable unlike screwing up in a car. I managed to do laps around the city for a few hours. I walked a lot. Luckily, it only rained a little bit on and off. Earlier that morning in a tiny town, I was walking through a nature trail that clearly nobody ever walks and it started raining hard. There was enough canopy cover to keep me from shaking my fists at the heavens. Anyway, Tralee is confusing. Oh, and like I said before, I stick out like a sore thumb as definitely not Irish—more so every day as my beard and hair grow. You’ll see how this fits in, don’t worry. As I walked down one of the main streets for the 500th time, a car pulls over next to me with the window rolled down and an elderly lady pokes her head out the window and asked how to get on the road to Listowel. Now, I’d driven through it on the way there, so I vaguely knew the direction, so I gave her decent enough directions but qualified it by saying that I wasn’t the best person to ask. The best part is that I did all this in an Irish accent. She bought it. Not that any Irish person would believe me for a second, but the old Americans haven’t a clue about the intricacies of accent and dialect in Ireland so I got away with it.

I will say that it’s a little harder to pick out who is a resident of a city now that Ireland has become a haven for immigrants. In fact, in the past 4 years or so, 300,000 immigrants have come to Ireland for the incredible number of jobs available in this booming economy. In a nation of only about 4.5 million people, that’s a huge difference. This also makes Ireland the most expensive country in Europe. Let’s Go hasn’t factored that in yet and pays me as if Ireland is still in the dark ages.

I’m in this hostel/B&B that is absolutely dismal. It’s actually quite frightening. The room is nice, but the place is this neglected building behind a bar. It used to be quite bright and perky, but now no one really runs it other than the bar manager, who doesn’t give a shit. I think I’m one of maybe three people staying here. I ate a crappy breakfast in this large cafeteria-esque dining room with tons on tables and chairs. I was alone. Only one little light was shining on me in the quiet rainy morning. As I walked down the long empty corridors to my room, I couldn’t help but think about The Shining. I don’t think I need to explain any further.

Not the place, but an equally creepy abandoned boarding school for girls.


“Come play with us.”

Day: 26
Guinness: 35