Fair City - Diaries of an Infomad

I first arrived in the Fair City on a cold Saturday night in the
infant days of the third millennium. I was tired, heart-broken and
basically skint. Dumping my case in the hostel, I took the taxi drivers
advice and made my way to the nearest pub. A couple of pints and a
little flirting later I began to feel better, but being on a tight
budget I could only stay an hour.


Back in the hostel room the other three complete strangers I
was sharing with were fast asleep. Students by the look of the gear
strewn around the place. Without bothering with evening ablutions I
stripped to T-shirt and shorts, climbed into the top bunk and without
even a glimmer of a thought of the last disastrous year fell into a
long dark sleep.


The room was flooded in bright winter sunlight when I woke.
My watch showed 7.30 a.m. Peeking over the edge I was met by an empty
room. The kids were up and gone. It was a beautiful morning and after a
quick communal shower and shave and a "continental" breakfast in the
tower of Babel I grabbed my camera and hit the streets.


Dublin, the old strumpet, was arraigned in her finest that
day. Walking down South George Street the red-bricked buildings
enclosing the old market glowed in the liquid light. The early-morning
streets were almost empty and it felt as if I had the city to myself.
Crossing Dame Street, I strolled through a hung-over Templebar down to
the Liffey. Over the Ha'penny bridge I turned right onto the North
Quays and walked up across O'Connell bridge, past the docks to the
harrowing Famine Monument. I sat for a while at the monument, wondering
if any of my Irish ancestors were among the 3 million who died or fled
the Great Hunger.


I turned back along the quays down to the Four Courts where I
crossed the river again and back into Templebar. Everywhere were
beautiful buildings. Some obviously restored but many others exhibiting
an exhausted magnificence beneath the neglect of decades. The Templebar
I returned to was gradually filling up with tourists and the local
predators.
I treated myself to a pub lunch and an entertaining couple of hours
watching Dublin Sunday afternoon pub life.


I returned to the hostel well fed and watered and generally
at peace with the world. The next day I would start my new job in a
city I knew I was going to fall in love with. And though I hated to
admit it, Steff and Gunter had been right to hassle me out of Germany
against my protests that I would not submit to Life's 10 yearly force
of change (my Decametamorphoses). For, as they both pointed out, if you
don't obey life you don't live.