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Italiano (Italian)
When people ask me about travel encounters I cannot fail to mentionIreland. Maybe it was also that by the fourth week on the trip I had definitely loosened up on English. Still, I chatted a lot with many, and I also got to know several people quite thoroughly.
The friendliness of strangers
To Ireland I went by ferry, from Holyhead. I arrived well in advance and by now true to local custom, went and waited in a pub near the harbor. It was Sunday afternoon, full of people, and I grabbed a beer. I stood looking at who was playing pool, but more generally at the people; listening, as is almost always the case in those places, to great rock music.
At one point a gentleman approached, with a big smile asked me how I was doing and offered me a beer-mine was still half full! Then he continued to play as if nothing had happened. Such friendliness, encountered several times, especially in Scotland and even more so in Ireland, happened to me really often.
I ran into people stopping me on the street to ask if I needed a hand, despite the fact that I may have been walking quietly on my own business, or for simple greetings. Over the years this has only happened to me again in the Middle East, and it is one of the reasons I have always said that when I am rich first thing I will buy a second home in Ireland. I hope it still remained that way.
Thanks to meetings on the road, I finally conclude and celebrate my birthday with an American
I already had a soft spot for Ireland and its music,as a good fan of the Pogues and early Modena City Ramblers. In the few days there I also fell in love with it because of the pub nights: for the merriment, the beer (I tried the cider but it doesn’t blow me away) and the live music. I practically found a concert every night, the dream of every lone rocker traveler.
In Dublin ‘s pub street there I celebrated my 23rd birthday, one of the best, with an American girl I met in the hostel. She told me at length about her boyfriend who had accompanied her to the airport a few hours earlier; that was her first day in Europe.
We kissed on the banks of the River Liffey, much mentioned by poets and singers. I remember very sweet kisses, but not only in a metaphorical sense. I was so naïve that I thought it was the Americans who had that particular taste, then I found out that it wasn’t, it was probably because of what she had been drinking.
We slept in the same dormitory, but with other people. In the morning our paths would part, but I was hurt because when I woke up she had already left without telling me anything. Anyway, I was proud of myself, not only was I chatting in English, but I went so far as to kiss a native speaker, who would have thought. In Dublin I am lucky, I went there twice and kissed two different women.
Taunted because of Umberto Bossi
But it wasn’t that I was making friends only with women. I toured Belfast with a German man and we went together to the area where there had been the scuffles and incidents between Catholics and Protestants and where even in those years the policemen didn’t dare set foot in.
The history of the Northern Irish conflict is very complex and bloody, deserving of in-depth study, and it seems impossible that we had it so close. This article is in-depth.
One morning my German friend made me ashamed to be Italian. At breakfast, he waved a newspaper at me where there was an article about Umberto Bossi (founder of the populist political party Lega) who had first ceremonized the ritual of taking water from the springs of the Po River. The German scoffed at me and said something like, what are you guys up to, what is this tomfoolery. I had to agree with him and never imagined the sequel.
Meetings on the road thanks to a soccer player
When you are out in the world alone, whether you want to or not, you represent all aspects of your country in some way. That same night, also in Belfast, I was given two Irish girls to say. In Italy it is unthinkable and if it happens it is because they want to steal your wallet.
They approached me and asked what my name was, when it came out that I was Italian one of them lit up. She declared herself a big fan of Pierluigi Orlandini, a soccer player who had an unexceptional career but had been a star in the national under-21 team. We talked for two hours about soccer (I wouldn’t be able to now) and then they said goodbye. They had wanted to chat without ulterior motives, and the next day would be their first at the university.
Awareness of being a traveler
Galway was the last stop on my trip and I faltered thinking about staying there and never returning home. It is not only for meetings on the road. It is a university and port city on the Atlantic Ocean. It has a really picturesque old town, lots of clubs and a cheerful atmosphere. It was the apotheosis with the pub nights that seemed even more fun to me; the people even nicer; the blondes even blonder and prettier.
The mussel and beer festival was imminent. The alternative would have been to stay there and look for a job there, screwing up college, family and friends. I went home, even a few days earlier than planned because for that trip I was feeling over-fulfilled and had reached the top.
In retrospect, in addition to the characteristic main cities, I realized that I should have rented a car and discovered other coasts and the hinterland, but at the time it was unthinkable for me. I realized at that moment, though, that I was a traveler, and that I had a world to discover.
Home trip Making the Interrail: France, UK, Ireland
Previous stop Visiting Scotland and Liverpool, the most fun evening
Trips taken, travel stories divided by continent
Countries visited in my travel stories
Anecdotes, divided by type in travel narratives
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