Celtic Odyssey: The Unexpected

Friday, EUSA had an internship orientation in the morning. After that, I immediately booked it back to my room to get changed and eat so I could leave early for my interview. Leaving an hour early for what should have been less than a half hour trip, I was almost late. I knew the name of the street that I was supposed to get off, but because Dublin is a Viking city, the streets are illogically connected (i.e. not on a grid) so I didn’t know which stop to get off. I asked the bus driver to let me know, but I guess he forgot. I was waiting, watching the time tick past as we turned to the stop by the river. Then I knew I’d passed it and had to find a different way to get there. I walked, found a nice old lady who knew where my street was and directed me to it. Once on the street, I somehow missed the sign I was looking for (because my work is above Russo’s Italian Restaurant), but eventually found it – arriving 5 minutes early. But, turns out that my boss had a medical issue and couldn’t be there to interview me. That was fine, at least I now know exactly where my work is. So I headed home, took a nap because I got really tired for some reason, and then did some errands.

Later than night, everyone else had come back and we all decided to go see the Indian Tempest, a Shakespeare play put on in Trinity College by a traveling Indian acting group. We missed the bus because the timetable changed Friday night, so we walked to a different bus stop and caught another bus, which fortunately brought us to Trinity in time. We met some other friends waiting for us there and found seats under the tents. The stage was open air and the director jokingly said it wasn’t going to rain so don’t worry about it. Yeah, it poured the entire first half of the show – we were dry but those actors were such troopers! Some of them, like the wind guy, weren’t wearing too much and acted as if they didn’t feel the cold and wet. I was quite impressed. The show was FANTASTIC! (It was grand – Irish phrase).They had amazing costumes, incorporated several languages (English mostly, Hindi for enchantments, French love poems for the romance scenes) and best of all had superb musical accompaniment! An excellent violinist played many styles, from Indian to swashbuckling fight scenes, there was a singer, an oboist (not sure but some rich wind instrument?), and a multi-talented percussionist who not only played bass drums and timpani but also tabla (Indian drums). It was just astounding! I’m so glad I went.