Time for a Change
July 2nd
The day started out so nice.
Ram came back to Galway for the weekend, and as today was warm - with more potential for sun than rain (though by evening both had their moments) - he and I decided to walk to Salthill, a resorty, seaside suburb about two miles west of the Galway city centre.
Tourists stay here, and on nice days the locals come around as well. But it's not all quite as nice as it sounds, not from what people have told me, anyway. Over the past few years it's said that Salthill has gotten rougher and rougher, until today "hackneys [cabs] won't go out there at night, and the Garda [cops] have no power in Salthill. They don't try to do anything out there anymore," one friend has told me.
In the sunny daytime, however, Salthill's reputation of anarchy and chaos didn't seem as evident. Ram and I bought a basket of strawberries - "Wexford Strawberries: Picked Fresh Today" - and then had some ice cream. Granted, the NATO presence perhaps contributed to the calm, recreational feeling in the air - with only a twinge of disquietude. It wasn't a peacekeeping force, though, only an air show, and tents were also set up showing some of NATO's equipment and artillery.
Fortunately, nothing about Salthill or NATO was so captivating as to make me and Ram want to stick around for more than a couple of hours, so we walked back to town, and got back to my flat around two.
Flatmate Clare was in a bit of a panic when we came in: "We've been trying to find you!" She was moving out today, to return to Strabane, near Donegal, and had been trying to phone our landlord. "I finally got the landlord - he wants us all out by half-two or three."
I nodded. "Oh."
Fortunately, a backpack doesn't take long to pack, or a room to dismantle.
Of course, the whole situation was more than a bit annoying. Legally, I'm sure the landlord was fully protected, yet even though he knew we were all moving out at some point in July, he had never bothered to return numerous phone calls trying to arrange things for exactly what date, so being given a couple of hours notice, well, and this was a nice way to ruin a nice day (did I tell you I like understatements?).
Covering his ass as well was that, since he wanted to close down the flat in July to refurbish it anyway, he had told me and two other flatmates that he didn't want to bother with deposits or contracts since we were here for so short a time, but while I'm sure that he was legally sound in his notice, being told that you have a couple of hours to pack up your shit can understandably get anyone's blood up.
I'm not a violent man, but I always pack a verbal pistol, and when he finally did show up - at four - it was all I could do to keep the safety on. I did, though, wanting to wait until Clare got her deposit back (which she did), but even then it just wasn't worth saying anything, not even for catharsis. Hell, I wasn't even too too put out; I was planning to leave Monday as it was. This was more just a mild inconvenience.
So now I am temporarily addressless - but not homeless. Between friends' floors and hostel beds, all is well. At the moment I'm drafting this piece, actually, I am sitting in the common room at the Woodquay Hostel, where Ram is staying. I've already made other arrangements for the evening, but the owner said I could hang around, so I'm alternating between writing this and watching France and Italy in the final of Euro 2000 - Jesus! Did you see that goal? There was a minute of bloody stoppage time left, and now the French have tied the match 1-1! FUH-kin' 'ell!
Oh, sorry... Sheesh, I don't even like football all that much, but oh well.
I digress, though. Things have actually worked out okay. Leaving the flat when I am is nice timing: after work tomorrow, I'm taking off for the Aran Islands, to get away from the city until Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Simply put, I've got to get out of Galway, because I'm already sick of the place again.
I sound a bit tired and jaded, don't I? That's precisely what I'm feeling right now, that's for sure. Do you wonder why I'm still in Galway? I still have about two more weeks to go before I leave - but I do at least have a good reason: work. The pay is good, yes (and my wallet can always use some more padding!), but mainly I just like my job, and the staff are too wonderful for me to just bugger off and leave them in a lurch.
Yes, I know I'm a traveler and a foreigner; the decision to remain anywhere in Ireland stems from personal choice, not obligation, and I have decided to stick around work for a while longer; it was already expected that I'd be around till the middle of July, and like I said, they're far too good a group of people to screw over.
All the same, I am now officially counting down the days before I leave Galway (14, as of today, but hopefully fewer, depending on what I can work out). It is a nice city, albeit a bit touristy and commercialized, but in all fairness, it is one of Europe's faster-growing cities, and the place wasn't nearly this prosperous - was quite 'derelict,' in my boss' words - only a few years ago. My, ahem, consternation comes because a few months is too long to stay put anywhere in Ireland, and my staying here has ceased to be for the better, and is now just for the being borne out.
Until my last day in Galway, I am jaunting off as much as possible - the Aran Islands, Connemara, Westport (near Croagh Patrick); sometimes we all need an escape, and right now I'm taking as many escapes as possible, before I finally can escape Galway for good.
Wish me luck.
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