What specifics can I give that explains the instant connection I felt with Dublin? At first, there is an immediate familiarity. The grey pavement all grimey and old. Driving on the left. The double yellow lines on the road, the same ones I remember from growing up in London, that I watched streaking by out the window as I was driven to school.
Continuously unfolding multi-floor pubs that lead into hidden nooks, surprise stain glass windows, and leaned-in conversations between hatted gentlemen. I had no problem wiling away an afternoon with a book here, nursing an appropriate buzz with the help of some neat whiskey. Everyone is incredibly friendly, pretty jocular too. There’s also a lot of elderly folk out and about, old couples holding hands, which I thought was lovely. Everyone rubbing elbows at the pubs and making way for each other on the cobbled sidewalks as green double decker busses rush past.
It’s an immensely bookish city. I was genuinely awestruck when visiting Trinity College. I loved it so much I sunk into a deep depression, mulling over how I misspent my own education. I feel hoodwinked. This is how university should feel.
