The Honeymoon is Over (Week 3)

When you first meet someone new and start to get to know them (whether it's in a platonic, romantic, or even professional context), you really only see the person they want you see. They're witty, knowledgeable, daring, funny, kind, polite, or whatever other practiced persona they've chosen. But as you spend more time with them you begin to look through the cracks in this front and see who they actually are. That's what happened to me this week with my experience of Dublin. I stopped seeing the city as it wanted to be seen and started to see it as it really is.

The first moment of awakening came on Wednesday. I had to go downtown to deliver court documents to various people and I had no idea what I was doing. But it was alright because every person I met was really unhappy that I was talking to them. Everyone was figuratively shooting the literal messenger and it wasn't a lot of fun. Walking around in the hot sun carrying pounds of legal documents and getting sassed everywhere I went got really old really fast. Needless to say, it was a very exhausting endeavor and left me wiped out for the rest of the week.

No no, the pleasure is mine.

Then on Thursday, when I was coming home from work, I had the worst bus ride of my life. I had stayed late to finish up some stuff due the next day so I caught a later bus than I usually do. Right as the bus pulled up, I could tell something was wrong. There was a lot of people and a lot of motion in my peripheral vision. Even before the bus doors opened I could hear a dull roar coming out. My brain tried to process this as I got on the bus but by the time I took my seat, it was too late.

I've made a huge mistake.

Imagine the worst family event you've been to (or heard of), where everyone is drunk and yelling at each other. Now imagine there are 30 people and all their kids at this party. Now imagine that party is on a bus.

This, times 10, in a moving metal capsule.

This gives you some idea of what was going on. There were adults yelling at each other, kids fighting with each other, babies screaming, and children hanging from the handrails. All Dublin City buses are double-deckers and it sounded like there was a cage match going on upstairs. Kids would come down crying because they had been hurt, or beaming because they had beat up all the other kids. Literally at one point, a man came down and yelled at a baby to stop crying. AT A BABY. Like, he didn't yell at the mom to tell her baby to be quiet. He looked the baby straight in the eye and told him to shut up.

The first rule of dealing with babies: SHOW NO FEAR.

Eventually the bus driver stopped the bus and called the cops, so I got out and walked the remaining mile or two. I'm pretty sure I still beat the bus. I think this was a good example of the bad side of the "Dublin mentality." The people here are relaxed, not afraid to talk to strangers, and passionate about their families. But here that translated into a bus driver too lax to maintain order, strangers who were not afraid to get in a screaming match with each other, and an old fashioned family brawl on public transportation.

I still really like it here. But I feel like I'm getting to know Ireland on a whole new level. Now that the honeymoon is over, it will be interesting to see where this relationship goes.