CHAPTER FIVE
The trip to Killarney had taken us longer than we thought. With four girls in a bus together with nothing but beautiful scenery out the window and snacks (Tato potato chips were my favourite Irish snack and I had a bunch of packets), the long trip was punctuated by giggling and storytelling.
After a while, one of the girls, a French exchange student, pulled out a deck of cards and a bottle of vodka.
"Drinking game?" She asked in her soft accent.
I motioned toward the window and she made a face, then I motioned again but she didn't catch my meaning.
"It's daytime." I told her by way of explanation as to why we shouldn't drink.
She wrinkled her nose, "Is it?" She asked.
I giggled and nodded.
"If you say so." She said with a face of disbelief that said 'that is not sunshine' at the Irish clouds. Then she began shuffling the deck.
I shrugged and started playing anyway. Of course I lost a bunch of times and by the time our bus pulled up at Killarney bus station, I was so drunk I could hardly think straight.
When we got off the bus, I almost forgot my backpack then I started walking in one direction, then the girls tapped me on the shoulder and told me to walk in the other direction. I laughed and followed.
There was only so much of this drunkenness the girls could put up with apparently as when we arrived at the hostel, the deposited me in the common room and went out to find some more food to cook dinner.
Sitting alone in the common room a young guy approached me. "Could I sit here with you?" He asked in a soft English accent.
I nodded as I really had no reason not to, then looked out a nearby window and hiccoughed. The room was small and pokey with over-sized furniture that left it feeling intimate and cosy. As a result, the guy was sitting on a couch very close to me, so I guessed that was why he asked me if it was okay to sit down, despite this being a common area.
"What are you reading there?" I asked, motioning towards a magazine in the guy's hands.
He looked at the cover then as if he had no idea what he had been reading all along, "Oh, it's an industry magazine. I'm a chef." He told me, barely making eye contact as he spoke.
I had noticed that since coming here that the locals don't make as much eye contact as we do at home in the states. I was used to it by now, but sometimes it did still give me reason to pause.
"Oh cool." I said, then without meaning the words to come from my mouth I asked dumbly, "You like it?"
The chef thought for a moment before nodding. "It's alright actually."
"Just alright?" I teased, enjoying myself now.
"Well," He began, "It's the thing I always wanted to do. It can be hard sometimes, but it's not the worst. I like it though, for a job. It makes me happy to make good food and see people smile when they taste it."
His words seemed really genuine and really warm. I envied him and until the words came out of my mouth I didn't know where that envy came from.
Then the words came, "I wish I could be like you, when I grow up I have to be a lawyer."
The chef looked me in the eye and told me as the smile spread across his face, "I'm sorry about that."
I laughed and shook my head, "You have no idea." I told him
Then my friends were through the door, all a bustle of energy. They had found the supermarket and had bought back a bunch of ingredients.
The chef turned back to his magazine in time to get away from my friends who probably needed help cooking. As they were here now, I chatted with my friends. I couldn't keep up with the conversation with their hectic way of talking and my being too drunk to keep up. They didn't mind, shrugging me off and getting on with their cooking.
I turned back to the chef once they were gone. I hadn't said anything when he pulled the magazine down from his face where he had been using it to hide himself from the room. He was smiling and told me, "Your friends are crazy!"
"I know!" I told him, "They're the reason I am drunk right now!"
"You're drunk right now?" He asked, seeming genuinely surprised and perhaps a little proud of me.
"Of course I am!" I told him, "Why else would I be talking to you?"
The chef chuckled and made a face, "That whole time I thought it was for my devilish good looks!"
I picked up a cushion and threw it at him. He laughed and threw it back, much lighter than I had thrown it at him in the first place. That was before I had a chance to return the throw and he asked me, "Why do you have to be a lawyer?"
Sighing I told him, "It's a family thing. I come from a long line of lawyers back in the states. My parents want me to continue the tradition."
"And what do you want?" He asked without missing a beat.
"I don't know." I told him, not meeting his eyes.
"What do you mean you don't know?" He asked, his voice dripping with disbelief.
I shook my head, "I mean I don't know."
Silence stretched between us. I let it happen and the chef didn't seem interested in stopping the extended silence either. His eyes were on me now, staring. This would have made up for the lack of eye contact earlier if it wasn't such a pointed time.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Nothing. I am waiting for you to be honest with yourself." He told me.
I felt my brow furrowing, "What do you know?" I asked, incredulous. "You don't know anything about me!"
The chef was smiling again. His smile was so easy that it annoyed me. He seemed to smile a lot, smile like there was some joke that I didn't know a damn thing about.
"I don't have to know anything about you." He told me, "You have told me all that I need to know."
"What?" I asked, frustrated.
"People are funny." The chef told me, "They tell you things because they want you to tell them something. Strangers think they are using one another as a sounding board when in reality they are using one another to hear exactly what they want to hear. To get the information they have inside of themselves, but from someone else."
His words were confusing for me to hear inside my drunken mind. I just stared at him for a long moment before he told me, "It will make sense to you later."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"When you are sober, you'll think about this conversation and what I said will make sense to you." He told me patiently.
"Huh." I said before turning away from him and getting up to join my friends in the kitchen. "I'll see you later then." I told him, feeling a little annoyed.
The chef nodded and I went into the kitchen to cook with my friends.
The following day we woke up early (me with my hangover, my friends all feeling fine and making a point of speaking loudly to me for a laugh as I cringed from the effect their voices had on my hangover headache) and we grabbed some coffee at the hostel before staggering across the road to one of the up-market hotels where we could board the tour bus.
We were all feeling excited for the tour and our buzzing excited energy must have been obvious to other people on the tour.
The tour bus was made up entirely of Americans. I fit right in and my friends all gave me cheeky looks before whispering so the other Americans couldn't hear about how I was with my people.
I dismissed my friends carrying on but that didn't stop them. They kept teasing, I kept shaking my head.
"What's wrong with you people?" I said in a harsh whisper, "Didn't you ever want to go to America?" I teased as if going on a tour with a bunch of Americans was the same as visiting the country.
Playing along with my friends jokes only lasted a little while until we left the township and it made them happy, so I did it.
When we drove out of town though, the tour guide/driver chatted with us from the front seat about all the things we passed and the ongoing jokes about American tourists stopped.
Ireland wasn't just a beautiful country, but also an interesting one. The driver spoke about people cutting peat (from peat bogs) for their fires in the winter and how they needed special permission from the government to do that. Apparently they had always done it but because of environmental sensitivity the government was trying to stop it.
The driver also spoke about festivals in Ireland. Everything from a festival for red heads to a festival involving a special goat (kind of like Groundhog Day). There was a few stops along the way at various tourist attractions, most of which my friends weren't interested in but that myself and the other Americans were interested in, much to the delight of my friends who teased me about my Americanness as I toured fake villages set up for tourists and ate Irish stew.
The day was a heap of fun though, with everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves. The Ring of Kerry was an even more beautiful drive than I had imagined when I was reading about it and looking at photographs.
There is nothing like actually being in a place and experiencing it after all.
By the time we got back to our hostel where they were minding our bags we had less than twenty minutes to get to the bus station and board our bus.
My friends were worried, but I wasn't. The reason it had taken us so long to find this place was because when we were first here I was drunk and we had never been here before. We had however been to the bus station. So, walking back wasn't a problem. We boarded the bus with eight minutes to spare and I sat down beside my French friend.
I felt a little silly bringing it up, so I waited for the others' to be busy with their own conversations so I could have the conversation with just one person, without everyone else joining in and teasing me as they had earlier that day when we were on a tour bus filled with Americans.
I told my friend then about the chef I had met in the hostel and the conversation we had had, "I think he's right, I think I do want out. I think I do want to change my major. I am not really cut out to be a lawyer." I told her earnestly.
"You're sure?" She asked, prompting me to go on.
"Well, yeah. I mean, the guy did say to me that basically I was setting it up for him to give me this advice that I wanted to receive. That I was just looking for someone else to tell me what I already knew. To tell me that I should get out of my college program." I told her.
"Right." She said, her jaw set.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing, I don't know what to tell you. It's your life." She told me.
Her lack of advice annoyed me at first, so I simply turned and looked out the window as she pulled out a book to read.
We were all tired after a whole day exploring and a night where we didn't sleep very much between all the movements in our room and getting to bed late after dinner before waking early to go on our tour.
I figured it was fair to leave my friends alone, and get a little rest myself.
Staring out the window I couldn't stop the cogs in my mind from turning. I could change my major, but what to?
Without too much thought, I realised what I really wanted to do, and it wasn't just because my professor was sexy and charming.
I wanted to be a writer. That was what I had enjoyed doing the most as I grew up and through school. It was only because of my time in Ireland though where I could take writing as a class that I had realised what I really wanted to do. Or rather, that I had just allowed myself to realise. Perhaps I had done something to prompt that same sexy professor to suggest I change majors just as I had done to the chef in the hostel. Perhaps the messages I was receiving were all just messages I was sending myself.
Thinking about that, thinking about how I could possibly be sending myself messages just hurt my hair. I shook it as if trying to shake the crazy ideas from my head.
Ireland was a beautiful country, and the country was just as moody as my mind was as I let it zip by me in the window. There was plenty to see here and it made me smile from gratitude to think that this country, this beautiful country full of fairies and folklore was where I chose to spend some time learning and growing.
As lucky as I was to be here though, I had plenty to think about. There was so much on my mind and I knew I could do better for myself than all of this. I'm a bright girl, and as long as I have a focus, I can achieve many things.
It was time to really examine where I should keep that focus though.