5B
or
Ireland
As seen through the eyes of a resident of Dublin’s cheapest Hostel.
«Damnit, Steven! Let me in, my bowels are soon to burst!» wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and a t-shirt with a six-pack of orange soda in his hand, he stared into the moist, green carpet, with his left hand resting on the toilet door. He looked like an old Basset hound. The air was thick with gas. Their massive intake of Guinness and junk food did its part to contribute to the metallic scent that made the linens damp, the carpets mold and our moods rotten.
«I ain’t gonna let you in! And for your consideration, it is way more fun, sitting on the floor in here than to be out there with you!» Jesus, I thought. A break down? A result of cabin fever? Confinement? Steven, the most manly man of the five of us, weeping in there like a little child? A schoolgirl? Was he in fact, just now, behind that poor excuse of a white door, trying to commit suicide by drowning himself in the sink? Mayhaps. I didn’t see no reason as to why he should not. He seemed to me as the unstable kind who in a spontaneous burst of paranoia could have forced his head down and submerged it until all that filled his lungs were water. Not that he would have managed. The Irish doesn’t seem to have fully realized the use of a hot/cold water mix battery. The result is that every sink in the entire country’s got two metallic nozzles with your average public shower design knobs. The kind you press down several times only to watch them slowly rise, leaving you with ten- fifteen second bursts of water. We had all also been raped by the hot water one. A vicious, exploding Nazi which erupted like a volcano whenever used, deliberately aiming towards one’s left upper thigh. The bathroom was an ugly, dangerous place. Fungi in the cracks, water on the floors. Fiends lurked in the cisterns and silent screams haunted the shower cabinet.
The rest of our hostel room looked like one of those horrible construction worker cabins you see in the news whenever the foreman has failed to fit the containers with efficient living conditions. Empty chips bags and tonic water bottles littered the floor. Torn linens, dirty socks, sour as vinegar and what looked like hundreds of fliers were everywhere. We had sucked all the marrow out of the city’s free offers. There was nothing left in Dublin now that was free and untried. The magazines, fliers and Saturday-night-deal brochures silently witnessed our systematical and utter drain of Irish hospitality. I couldn’t help pity them, and how naive they were.
A bottle of gin went out our window as they lit a piece of paper and started chanting «Bonfire, bonfire!»
I went out. My head was full of adrenaline, another symptom of my yet to be named illness. My hands were shaking, and my cheeks felt like I’d been lying on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of hours too many, perhaps had a couple of aquavit’s. What the hell’s wrong with me? I met our roommate in the hall. A Spanish girl, I can’t remember her name, only I know it had both an A and an L in it. Poor girl. A skinny little thing, with a crooked nose and spectacles, reading some kind of Indian liberalization novel, wearing colorful scarves, pirate earrings and bohemian jackets. Your stereotypical Greenpeace enthusiast, backpacking around to see the world and meet new cultures. Her goal was of course to save the world while traveling it. You could see it. She would never in a million years admit it, but she longed for the fame, the goodwill and sympathy she’d gain from such an achievement. Poor girl.
Luckily, she was up for a calm night. We all went to sleep long before she got in. Abraham House ain’t got no curfew. Kudos.
Drunk and disoriented, Steven entered the room. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, baffled mumbling and poor dictation spiced the two hours it took for him to fall asleep. I got up two hours later, just peachy as I’d stayed off the booze the night before. I grabbed my stuff, said my goodbye’s and left for an early departure.
I’m sitting in my first Starbuck’s Cafeteria. Some kind of piano-based, jazzy lounge music is making me restless. The Internet had promised me a flight, leaving Dublin at 15.20 pm local time, but when I showed up at the SAS office at 11.00 am the man behind the counter said he was sorry, and I believed him, but all planes due for Norway had left several hours ago except from one Ryan air flight, but that would relieve me of 300 Euro. About three times the added sum in my pockets. Including the knives and lint. Luckily, the man was a saint. An angel. A manifest of pure light and sacred friendliness. He was kind and helpful in every way. He arranged it so that I got a seat on a flight to Copenhagen the next day, free club sandwiches, coffee and newspapers included. Hell, I immediately thought. Copenhagen. I need to go to Oslo, damnit! But he proceeded by telling me that my stop in Copenhagen wouldn’t be for more than an hour and a half. My heart melted. All my things would be taken care of, he’d arrange everything, and I shouldn’t trouble my mind with anything but my own comfort. I can not remember his name, but if I ever turn religious, I’ll be sure to mention the kindest man in Ireland in my prayers. I was very relieved. The clock was 1400pm and I had some twenty hours to kill before my departure.
Now to find a cheap airport hotel. I didn’t dear return to the hostel after the sweet goodbye gift I’d left in their beds.
***A FACT***
Crumbled Pringles makes a mess
With twenty one hours to go and the standard security announcement going off every fifteen minutes like some kind of repeatative monster, I was bound to go crazy before the seven o’clock news. I managed to hack into an airport WIFI. Password: Easter.
«Raddish», I thought, «these Irish are patriotic.» My mind drifted off to the Dublin version of Champs Elysees, Henry Street, and all their statues and heroes as I googeled Dublin Airport Hotel.
Ass raped once again. The cheapest room in the Airport Hotel was 99 Euro a night. A bloodsucking, obscene fortune compared to the Hostel, free breakfast included, moist carpets be damned.
What would I face if I went back down? Of course an endless line of attacks to my person, roaring laughter, reminding me of the zoo we never went to visit and the gorillas confined within. Corporal punishment was self said because of my parting gifts.
Some piano phantom was playing what appeared to free New Wave Free Jazz and I knew that I couldn’t sit in the same airport for close to 24 hours. I needed food and a cup of coffee. A mayo tuna sandwich and a cup of dark roast to go made it to my rescue. I always feel like a rock star with a cup of coffee in my hand. It feels like I am a part of something bigger, something that everyone could choose to be a part of. It is probably the fashion in it, the hipness, the coolness. The sanctuary that the coffee offered, images of cool commercial designers and alike wandering down Cool street with a cup of steaming goodyness. It was indeed the 21st century in a cup.
I overheard some Norwegians behind me. Should I talk to them? Confront them, question them on the how’s and when they would be departing? I should. I dared not. The Irish that had joined me at my table were pointing at my cup of coffee and laughing. They were leaning over towards each other, giggling like middle aged women at a knitting party. I suppose they need it as well. The gossip and cheap laughs. The evidence that some people in fact are less worth than themselves. Or is it just the general mentality of the middle aged western human? Doesn’t it seem weird that the only thing people are laughing at when being outside, public, in a cafeteria, are the constructed flaws of others? It puzzled me and kept me puzzled until I re-entered room 5b in the Abraham House Hostel.
They were still at it. Like mental disoriented, pubertal madmen thrown into a new body. It seemed like they had a desperate need to explore things, and all things were within the yellow walls in our room. They were pushing the boundaries always further now, seemingly oblivious to any morals or anything regarding social behavior which the rest of society had got built in from the start. It really felt like we were some kind of experiments. Unleashed from whatever rules and norms that kept us at bay at home. Still, I did not feel as a complete member of that group, the madness had not yet gotten the best of me, but surely, if it hadn’t been for my early departure I would, in a few days time, also have been lying flat on my back, naked as the day I was born, ranting, with bowels in a constant state of movement.
Or was it so that I saw what my mind wanted to see? I had once heard that people who were going crazy didn’t think they were going crazy, on the contrary, they often thought they were going saner. I had been feeling lighter headed, and suddenly Erik pointed out that I in fact were wearing plastic bags on my feet. Was I worried? No. But I still hadn’t found an answer. What could possibly strip someone so utterly of social intelligence in such short time? Boredom? The plan was to stay in Dublin for nine days. Nine long days, with limited funds and that wast space of time to be filled, the boredom would surely soon be overwhelming if things had not developed as they had. Nine days in a city as small as Dublin. It was madness. Boredom attracts, or even grows craziness. The overwhelming Who the fuck gives a damn-factor that was omnipresent before the guys realized it was their responsibility to clean the place up gave the room its charming appeal.
I grabbed my piss poor excuse of a bag, I thought it had to be close to fifteen kilos, (it turned out to be 14.8) and stumbled over to the door.
«See you in another life…or something» I said and left the room, in which the night before, the guys had been busy creating a trap for our unfortunate, Spanish roommate. I felt like a backstabber and the luckiest man on earth at the same time as I left the boys to their own, self destructive, fungi preservative selves. I was going to bring hell to Copenhagen, and something would indeed soon be rotten in the state of Denmark.
