Dublin

I Never Knew Their Name(s)…

…but they were the best strangers I’ve ever met. 

I had been in Ireland for three days. It was the middle of January and I was at yet another pub in the heart of Dublin. 

Three days ago, I left San Francisco to embark on my first true solo travel. I had flown around the world by myself, that was no problem. Airports are the same all over the world. However, this would be the first trip where no one I knew would pick me up. Where there would be no one else checking in at the same hostel or a safety net to catch me. I was 100% on my own from San Francisco to Dublin and back. 

The fear of being a solo traveler had crept over my shoulder several times leading up to the trip. I wasn’t encouraged by friends and family. They didn’t understand why I would chose to go off to Dublin, a country I had no connections with, in the middle of January, when I could be at home surrounded by friends and family. In fact, I was even missing the first week of the semester to take this trip. No one understood why. 

But I had been feeling lost for a while. It had been six months since I had backpacked Europe and I was craving a new experience. I wasn’t happy where I was and needed a bit of an escape.  I had a coach who was Irish and one of my favorite people on this planet. Round trip tickets were cheap for January, and in the spur of the moment I bought one. With the fear of being on my own tucked nicely into my back pocket, I got on my flight leaving rainy San Francisco for even rainier Dublin. 

After two flights, fifteen hours, and a day lost to time, I landed in Dublin. The familiarity of airports and customs gave me a sense of confidence. I was never worried about the logistics of solo travel. I could navigate busses, trains, and planes. That was never doubted. But what I did doubt was my ability to meet people on my own. I was terrified that I would be lonely and unable to meet people without a friend by my side. 

After five hours in the city, my doubts faded away. The Irish people are some of the friendliest in the world. Dublin is a university city that is not only extremely safe for youth, but also for women. I landed in the perfect place to begin my solo travels. 

The next few days involved getting lost in the winding streets (my favorite way to discover a new city), a lot of reading, and a great deal of tea. After all, in the rainy weather nothing is better than curling up in a cafe corner with a good book and a cup of tea. I had discovered the difference between being lonely and being alone. 

Yet being alone takes a toll after a while. Human nature craves conversation and company. It was on day three of my travels, that timing was on my side to meet five gentlemen who would teach me about beer, banter and, surprisingly enough, the bagpipes. 

Timing is everything. While I was in Ireland, the FA cup was being played in England. My all time favorite team had made it to the semi finals of the competition and I was dying to live out the classic night of watching the match in a pub with a pint. 

I had wandered by a pub earlier in the day that was perfect. A beaten down building painted a dark green with gold lettering, it looked like all of the pictures I had seen. With an advertised cheap pub meal and football scarves in the window, I knew instantly that this was the place to be for the night. It had a charm to it in the rusty door hinges that insisted that laughs were stored in all the cracks of the wood. 

A few hours later, I was opening the heavy oak door to the smell of home cooked food in the dimly lit interior. The place was where the locals went. Where a pint of beer could be spilled and swiped up with a good humored laugh. The place would get louder as the night went on, filled with banter and music. 

Hoping to get in a quick bite before the match. I wandered upstairs. New to the pub scene, I wanted a quieter corner to figure out how this place worked. It was upstairs, early in the night before the pub had really taken full swing, that I found a bar in the corner, with a large screen playing the pre game and a friendly bartender. How perfect. 

He was wiping down the table, and to my dismay, could tell I was new to the place. Asking in the ever so charming Irish accent how he could help, I explained I wanted to grab a meal and watch the game. Whipping a menu out from behind his bar, he explained to me how to go order the meal downstairs and then bring it up to get a drink from him. 

Smiling and thanking him I ventured down to get my corned beef. In my mind, a classic Irish meal involved corned beef, potatoes and carrots and I’ll be damned if I was going to have anything else. 

Excited about my new meal, I wandered back upstairs to get a beer to go with it and catch the kickoff. The bartender laughed at my choice, explaining that no one likes corned beef or eats it here. Happily chatting with him while he worked and I watched the match, I could have spent a great night stuck on that bar stool. 

But the bartender (while I don’t remember his name either) is not the focus of this story. The focus is the five strangers I would meet ten minutes later. 

As a solo traveler, and a woman at that, I was scared of men. It’s not the fault of the men, but I was worried about meeting someone with bad intentions and trusting them too much. However, two beers later and having my team up in the first half, I was being to relax and trust in people. It was then that my Californian accent sparked the interest of the guy ordering a round at the bar. 

He and his friends were sitting a table or two over. They were the life of the place. Laughing like old friends they were having a great night. When he heard me chatting to the bartender, he instantly stopped carrying the beers back to the table. Commically walking backwards, he stopped next to me and in his irish accent questioned, 

“Excuse me miss, but where are you from. That is far from an irish accent.”

Laughing from the alcohol, I explained that I was from California and was traveling to Ireland on my own rather than be stuck at syllabus week at my university. 

He insisted I come join his table immediately. Looking at the bartender, he gave me a nod of encouragement and I rounded up my jacket and scarf in one hand and the rest of my second beer in the other. 

Splashing the beers on the table for his friends, he pulled up a stool for me. Names were exchanged as the group questioned who this lady was that was joining them for the evening. Names were then quickly forgot in the excitement over California and explanations over where they were all from within Ireland. 

To sum it all up, they were a laugh. Irish banter is unlike anywhere else in the world. You have to keep up and have your wits about you. After locations were established, we debated football teams and players, teasing those who's team were being relegated. More than one beer was spilt on the table and floor as excited hands were flung around carelessly. It was amongst this laughter where I was subjected to the irish tradition of the three Guinness's. 

You see, I was almost done with my second pint. I had been drinking slowly and it was time for the next round. I had no idea what I was drinking as I had been taking suggestions from the bartender throughout the night. Whomever was buying the next round asked if I had tried Guinness yet. To the shock and outrage of the table, I had not. With a decisive matter, two of them went to the bar and returned with Guinness for everyone. I went to take a sip before being stopped and explained the entire history of the beer and how it must sit and become black before you partake in its excellence. It was then that I was informed that Guiness doen’t travel well and that not only would I be having one pint, but three. As they simply put it, this was the only way to do it because,

“The first one you will hate. The second gets better. And by the third, you’ll be loving it just as much as the irish!”

They weren’t wrong. 

So there I sat until the bar closed. Laughing so hard I cried with strangers over silly topics and jokes. It was everything I hoped solo travel would provide. A great night, with great people over a classic beer. 

As for strangers, they were the best people I could meet. As the bar was closing up, the asked where I was staying. Normally I wouldn’t tell people (safety factor), but it had been four hours of bar banter and I trusted them. It was two in the morning and my hostel was blocks away. I told them the name and the irish luck kept with me as one of them used to work there. They insisted on walking me home and I let them. The banter continued and they left me at the doorstep with a face splitting grin on my face. 

When I returned home to California, my mom wanted to know what I did while I was in Ireland. I told her all the things mothers want to hear: museums, tea, books. But the truth is, I traveled halfway around the world to sit in a pub, drinking beer, watching football, and talking with people whose names I’ll never know. I wouldn’t want it any other way. 

So to those five guys. Thank you for subjecting me to the Irish traditions. Thank you for the laughs. I hope one day we will crash into each other at a pub in California and this time, the round is on me.