Ireland 2009 Day 7

Philip, Alicia, and I all woke up fairly early. Around 8:30 if I remember right. Lauren, however, did not. Our hostel offered us breakfast (if I haven't mentioned this before, if you're in Dublin, I strongly recommend staying at The Pillar. Great location, nice people, internet, and breakfast in the morning). But since we were up anyway, we just decided to eat it in the small common area/kitchen with the Serbian family. Around 9 Lauren finally mustered the energy to drag herself across the hall to where we were at and finished her breakfast while we were getting ready. Also, and this is definitely worth noting, it was the first breakfast we had that did not include or have the option of including any meat whatsoever. It was bananas, yogurt, and croissants. And it was wonderful.

We had a lot planned for today. As we headed out of the hostel at around 9:30 we noticed a stark contrast between the day before and the present. No more vendors selling cheap souvenirs, no more drunk teenagers, far fewer tour buses, and Dublin was generally back to normal with business people hustling and bustling about. There was also much, much more smog. I'm not sure if it was because most of the roads had been shut down on St. Patrick's Day, or what but it was noticeably different. First up on our list of things to do today was visit the Guinness factory. Long story short, we worked our way up to the top of the museum and then onto the 360 bar, which gives a panoramic view at the very highest point of Dublin. The whole ordeal actually lasted until about 2 pm which was a shame because 1) we were absolutely starving and 2) it was a gloriously beautiful day outside. Around 16C if I remember right. After St. James Gate (the name of the brewery), we ventured back to The Brazen Head to get something to eat. St. James Gate is actually really far out of the way from the city center and the Brazen Head was conveniently on the way back.

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Stark contrast

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Original site of the Guinness Brewery

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Love it

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View of Dublin

Today we found The Brazen Head considerably less crowded and picked one of the downstairs rooms to sit in. Every room is decorated differently. Granted it's all organized chaos but each room has a different feel to it. We sat next to a wall with pictures of the manager (the guys in white button down shirts... just like the one in Whelan's) having his picture taken outside with both random people and celebrities alike. One of which was Adam Sandler. The food was delicious, once again, but this time I had the mussels because they were very much like the ones I'd had in France (I've been strongly considering writing a blog about my France trip. I probably will. But the Czech one will come first and will also be epically long because it was two weeks instead of one). The cool thing about this mussel dish was that I've just received an Irish pub cookbook for Christmas and it actually has the recipe for The Brazen Head's mussel in it. We had Bailey's Cheesecake, which was not at all like the kind I'd had before. This had some sort of crumbles in between two layers of cheesecake and honestly none of it had much flavor at all.

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Bailey's cheesecake at The Brazen Head

After our late lunch we set out about the city again. We were determined to make it to Trinity College to see the book of Kells and the Long library. We actually planned on it St. Patrick's Day so, although I wasn't originally planning on lugging my big camera around all day, I was wanting to get a shot of the long library but we obviously didn't make it that far. So, since we were determined to see it today, I lugged around my camera again. Do you think it happened today? Of course it didn't. This afternoon we largely concerned ourselves with finding a new hostel for the night since we didn't think The Pillar had any vacancy left. We found a hostel that was very student-oriented but we were lucky enough to get a room with two bunk beds and a private bathroom. The Ashfield House. The rest of the time we had we concerned ourselves with moving our luggage to the new hostel. It was dark by then and Trinity College had closed.

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Room at the Ashfield House

We decided to check out Temple Bar since it would have to be considerably less crowded that night. As we were walking through the many sequences of rooms we looked to where the band was playing, in the corner of the biggest room. We saw none other than our German friends from The Brazen Head the day before sitting right in front of the band. Seriously, their table couldn't have been in a better spot. They saw us and we waved but we kept walking, not wanting to intrude. We found a seat in the patio outside. It was a bit chilly but we were near a heater so it wasn't all bad. But as we were looking for a better spot the German man found us and, much to our delight, invited us to sit with him and his wife. The rest of our time at Temple Bar consisted of Guinness, wine, conversation, music, conversation, and more Guinness. Also, quite a bit of singing from the husband, who seemed to be a Johnny Cash fan. By the way, if you're ever in Ireland, you'll notice they play Johnny Cash a lot. Like... more than we do. Specifically "Ring of Fire".

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Temple Bar

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Our German friends

The walk back to our hostel, which was considerably closer to Temple Bar than The Pillar, was very foggy. A damp, cold fog had taken over the city and it ended up staying for most of the rest of the trip, even when we travelled north.

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Plans

There are two versions of Henry David Thoreau's quote: "Go boldly in the direction of your dreams" vs. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams." While "confidently" is more likely the correct quotation, I can't help but like "boldly" better. Last night I couldn't sleep, and while I'm starting to potentially contribute it to early on-set insomnia, I think something else was bugging me. Of course, I hadn't had a real dinner (brownies don't cut it) but this time I think it was genuinely my thoughts. And not even like my normal thoughts, where my mind goes into crazy day (night?) dreams, which have happened as long as I can remember, but something wasn't settling right.

Last year, almost exactly a year ago as a matter of fact, I decided that I was going to get my real estate license as a means of a career and try the culinary program at school to see if I liked it. If I didn't like it, I was going to give up on school altogether and just be a real estate agent (I'd tried about 5 different subjects and none of them interested me enough). I almost didn't even have that plan because I almost never brought it up to my mom when she asked what I was going to be. I thought it was one of those jobs that weren't much to look at. Much like banking. She hates bankers. But luckily I told her I'd been thinking about it and she liked the idea very much. Once again, I had a direction and it was a wonderful thing to have.

I went to the first class at the end of January. Six classes at around eight hours each for a rough total of 45 hours. I couldn't take the second class right after because I couldn't get the work off from the Herrett Center. But I took it in June. Another 45 hours.

480 miles of driving to Boise and back between four attempts at the $75 test later, I finally passed last Tuesday. This past summer I met with a broker who talked to me about working for him at his brokerage. Up until this past Wednesday, I had planned to do exactly that. Then I learned that company had a broker change, which that alone sort of sent up a red flag for me. He and my teacher were on the same page as far as using technology and I really liked that. He was still with the company as an associate broker but since he wasn't in charge I now had to be approved by the new broker. On Thursday my dreams were just this side of crushed. I met with her (and her husband) and my first impression was that they didn't exactly have any idea what they were actually doing. They'd been in charge for a month and didn't have any idea what to do with a new agent (as in someone who was about to get their license). This company evidently had loads upon loads of training for new agents under the old broker and these people had nothing. They did, however, open my eyes to what it actually takes to get your license. Somewhere around $1,600. Just to get started and join the associations and all that. That's not even including office fees, which are different for every office.

So, for one thing, the $1,600 delayed this pursuit for now. At least until I had the money, and it'd be a plus to have more time to devote to it, like this summer. School and work will pretty much eat my time, I can see it. But their attitudes were probably the worst thing about this whole reality check. Sure, I'm young. Hell, I'm not even 21 yet. Usually people don't "resort" to real estate until much later in life. I know some people will probably down right refuse to work with me because I'm so young and, even after I've been at it for a few years, I'll appear "inexperienced" unless they can recall my name. (Note to self: drop my name like it's hot... it might come in handy in a few years). But up until that very point people had been extremely encouraging. My instructor, classmates, parents, family... they all had at least something good to say. These people reaffirmed what I'd been afraid of all along. They never said anything specifically about my age, and to be honest I'm not even sure if they took it into consideration, but as someone who was simply entering the real estate playing field, it was downright discouraging. They talked about competing with established agents and that the market isn't so great right now and their part-timers in the office don't make that much, etc... Nothing like "yeah, it is bullshit, but you should press on anyway."

I don't like to feel broken or defeated. I bet a lot of people don't, though there are plenty of people who thrive on self-pity. But I did feel defeated. I got over the money fairly quickly even though it was initially the biggest slap in the face. I simply don't have that kind of money to throw away right now (since I don't have the time to justify it). I'm fine with that. I'll wait til this summer. Granted, it would have been great if someone, somewhere along the line gave me more of a heads up about it before I was sitting in a stuffy little office holding my now-pathetic license application for the broker to sign. But the resounding notes of discouragement ate at me for the whole next two days. It was a dream crusher. I have very big plans for the future, all of which require fairly large sums of money. One is a restaurant that I admit I've had a couple second thoughts about, but have ultimately decided to go for. One is an extremely nice house that, to be honest, I want more than anything, even if it is in the distant future. This suddenly felt impossible. It almost felt more than impossible, like I almost had no right to dream it.

Fortunately (though sometimes very unfortunately) I have a habit of believing what I hear first. I do the same with remembering facts, but this is irrelevant. So as I was lying in bed, still feeling very conflicted about who said what, Thoreau's quote popped into my mind. "Go boldly in the direction of your dreams." It gave me a sense of hope. Deep down I knew I could succeed because people told me so. I've never wanted to prove anyone wrong so bad before in my life. These people really pissed me off. I now no longer plan on working for their company (but to be honest, the only really big selling point was their training for new agents and seeing as how they didn't even have that anymore....) I don't know where I'll go, but I now have a few months to figure it out. Meanwhile my inactive license is being processed, which solidifies the first step in my path towards awesomeness. The $1,600 is pending.