19 September 2008: Moycullen, Ireland

When I woke up, Melissa was doing stuff around the place in her pajamas. I'm telling you, there's nothing like a cute girl in PJs to start off your day. Am I right or am I right?

Melissa was lovely and Emma was friendly, but Crona looked like she had had enough of the vagabond in the apartment. I figured it was time to go, which was convenient since they were all leaving to go home for the weekend.

I met Seana, the girl from the previous night in line, at 1:00 outside the union. We walked to City Centre to get lunch, but she checked bus times when we got downtown-- she was going home for the weekend, also, which is what nearly all the students do-- and her bus was leaving in three minutes. No time for lunch with Seana, so I got a loaf of bread and 40 slices of ham and made myself some grub for the day.

After eating I headed back to the NUI library to check my e-mail, but they didn't have any way for outside students to use the internet. NUI must be the only university in the entire world that doesn't let outside students use the internet in the library. Seriously, the only one.

So I walked back to City Centre and used a 90 minute voucher at an internet cafe that was included in a bag I picked up at the Welcome Week event. Then I headed back to campus, asked a kid where most of the student housing was, and set off to find it.

(The reason I mention all this is not because it's interesting but because those three things-- not having lunch with Seana, not using the internet in the library, going back to City Centre for the internet cafe-- all had to happen in order to have the rest of the day happen.)

And what happened the rest of the day is that I met the most beautiful girl I have ever in my life laid eyes on. Ever. Three years ago I prematurely and incorrectly bestowed The Most Beautiful Girl in the History of the World status on a girl in Ann Arbor. I had kept it in the back-burner since then, but I've got to pull it out now.

This was it. This was the one. Although to be honest, I didn't realize it until much later in the day.

For the beginning, though, I was walking down the street on my way to the main place where students lived. Someone had given me directions from campus, but when I asked someone else along the way she contradicted them. I went the way this second person told me to go, but wasn't sure so I asked the next person I saw. This girl.

I asked her for directions, and she said she'd give me a ride. In the car she asked why I was going to Careb Village, and I explained that I was on a European adventure and was in Galway for a little while and needed a place to crash. She thought it was interesting and said that she would let me crash at her place but she lived in a different town and it wouldn't make much sense.

At this point I really hadn't noticed anything about this girl and I said that staying so far away might not be such a good idea but I asked if I could stop by for a shower and maybe leave my stuff there overnight. She said that would be OK, but she was going to her aunt's house at the moment and wouldn't be going back to her place for a while.

Now, from this point on I'm not really sure how it all happened. And I'm pretty confident that if you asked this girl she wouldn't really know either. But, to the best of my knowledge, she drove to her aunt's house and then realized when we got there that I was still in the car. Which was no good. So then she drove to Careb Village and said that I should try to find a couch, but if I had no luck she would come back and pick me up. But when we got there she said that was stupid and I should just come back to her place instead.

I think that's how it went. I almost feel like I was partly blacked out at this point. Either way, I ended up back at her place.

So we're sitting down talking, and I really had no idea how this whole thing happened. I mean, really, I had gone from walking on the street to potentially leaving my stuff at this girl's house to staying at this girl's house in about 15 minutes. I felt like I had just seen a window into a whole new dimension.

Now, this girl. Her name is Aisling, which sounds like Ashling. She graduated from college in Limerick with a fiddle performance degree and was just starting three years of graduate work in a small college outside Galway to learn Alexander technique. Which is a whole nother topic to get into.

Anyway, this girl was sweet as apple pie and, without a shadow of a doubt in my entire mind, the most beautiful girl in all of Ireland. I fell in love for the fourth time of my trip, and this time it wasn't even close.

(The best comparison I can think of for Aisling is Catherine Zeta-Jones, although I admit it's a little iffy. Either way, I think it's funny that Melissa looks like Keira Knightly and Aisling looks like Catherina Zeta-Jones. Not because they both look like beautiful actresses, which is lovely, but because I could say that Melissa is "Keira Knightly with an accent" and Aisling is "Catherine Zeta-Jones with an accent"-- except of course that both of those actresses DO have accents. Maybe that's what it is. The accent.)

Aisling thought that my loaf of bread and super-package of ham was funny, albeit a bit depressing, and so we made dinner. And this time I mean that WE made dinner. Salmon, sweet potato, broccoli and carrots. It was a feast. I did the cutting and she did the cooking.

And afterwards I cleaned up. Major points.

As we were finishing dinner her roommate Tom came down and talked with us for a bit. Tom's a bit of a social eccentric, to put it one way, and is real big on singing karaoke at home. Aisling asked if he would sing a song for us, but he had to go and said he would "sing one next time." Next time? I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch, but...

The thing was, I was just shocked that I was still there. I mean, I had asked this girl for directions, ended up in her car, and somehow ended up at her place. What's more than that is that I had been positive, even after I was conscious of the fact that I was going back to her place in Moycullen, that it was just a fleeting friendship. Or, rather, a fleeting act of kindness. That she would help me out because I was in need, but I didn't think for a second that there was anything more invested. But now a "next time"?

Anyway, after dinner we went into Galway because Aisling wanted to find a trad session, which is a jam session for traditional Irish music. Because Aisling is bad-ass on the fiddle and goes to jam sessions at pubs in town. How sweet is that?

And, not to harp on this or anything, but the girl was wearing a black leather jacket, a red shirt, and black pants. It was as though Aphrodite had come to earth to grace me with her presence in the form of an Irish fiddler. The girl was sexy. No doubt.

(And no, it wasn't really a leather jacket. But it sure as hell could have fooled me.)

The session was pretty sweet, with people joining in and jumping out whenever they wanted, but Aisling didn't join in because she didn't know the tunes. And the bar, despite having authentic music, was about 95% filled with Americans. Aisling wasn't in love with it and I had no complaints about heading out.

So we went back to her place and sat around talking for an hour or so. Just sort of shooting the shit around and then Aisling played some tunes on her fiddle, which was lovely. I was beginning to fall asleep on the couch, but then her neighbors-- mom, daughter, daughter's boyfriend-- knocked on the door, drunk as could be.

They joined us and were, well, a bit of a trip. The boyfriend was a pretty good dude, and the daughter was alright if a bit on the loud side, but the mom was just a mess. She asked me who I was voting for in the presidential election and when I answered she said "I'm not ready for a black man as president of the United States, I just don't like the things that would come with that race." Wow.

I really, really didn't want to get into this conversation, because there was no way it would end well, but I was awfully curious about what would come along with that race. So I asked, as civily as I could, but all she said was that she knows McCain will die within four years but "it's better with two years of Sarah Palin than four years of Obama." I had to stop it right there. I was about to say something disastrous.

Eventually the three neighbors left and Aisling and I went to bed. But damn, that smile of hers.