I tell ya. I should be in excellent shape after this trip.
My poor feet, though. Yesterday the shoes that I wore to church gave me horrendous blisters - we're talking blood drawn, folks - and this morning when I went to put on shoes, my feet cried out in rebellion. Luckily it was warm enough out, so I didn't feel completely stupid for wearing sandals when everyone else is still wearing boots and snow-jackets. Such a California girl - I know. (I still wore a jacket and scarf, though, and wasn't cold throughout at all. My feet just felt slightly self-conscious to be so exposed in a land where, frankly, I'm not sure if anyone HAS toes. I've not seen evidence of them, anyway.) Still, even though my sandals hurt less than my tennis shoes or boots, they still hurt... so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I may take another easy day tomorrow, and maybe use cleaning as an excuse to go around barefoot. Hmmm.
Anywho. Shoes and blisters aside, today was really good. I got up early (here meaning 8:30...) and got on a train a bit after 11, city-center bound. I went to the Google headquarters of Europe and met the girl from church who works there. OH. MY. GOODNESS. I want to work for Google. I know I'm not an engineer or anything, but come on, there must be something?! COOLEST WORKPLACE EVER! I was dying. First of all, we had lunch in the cafeteria - which is a ridiculous amount of food, desert and coffee all for free. She said that the company provides so much for their employees because it makes them work better; I think it's because Google is run by a band of kindly magicians. After lunch she gave me a tour (I got a cool little visitor sticker with my name on it and had to promise that I wouldn't sell secrets and everything) of all the different floors. When I was younger, I wanted to be an interior designer - and today my childhood self was going wild with all of the ridiculously amazing things in that building. Every floor has a different theme - so different decoration, different color schemes, different rooms of AWESOMENESS that are there purely to de-stress the floor's inhabitants. Example: a massage room, a library (not a work-oriented library - a library that is build like a mini-Long Room Library [the heavenly one at Trinity College], purely for the relaxation and joy of the literary types), cafes/bars on each floor (FREE), and a music room - complete with drum kit, guitars, and keyboard. I asked if there was a practical purpose for these rooms. She said that the rooms are there purely for the employees to enjoy whenever they need to de-stress and take a break. There are also random lounges, telephone boxes (you go in and close curtains all around from the inside, so you're in your own little world), and these amazing chairs* - the backs and sides of the chair go up 4 or 5 feet above the seat cushion, so you're almost completely closed off from the busy office. Basically, an introverts heaven.
* Actually, when I was very young, I once invented a chair just like that. Sitting in the front pew at church used to make me really nervous, because I felt like everyone was watching the back of my head and seeing every move that I made. So one Sunday I invented (in my head) a chair that completely blocked you from the view of everyone except the pastor. Of course, this was also at the time when I wasn't sure if cartoon thought-bubbles were real or not, and I hated the idea of everyone who sat behind me being able to see my thoughts. So that chair of mine would really come in handy.
Anyway... so clearly I was very impressed with the place. Perhaps even a bit obsessed now. I'm strongly considering re-taking up an interest in interior design, at any rate.
After the tour, we went with some of her colleagues down a few blocks to a fantastic coffee shop. (Cheapest cup of coffee I've bought here, and by far the best.) There we parted ways, and I wanted over to the city-center. First I went to the National Gallery again - because, well, it's free entry there and I had to use the restroom. haha. I planned to go right back out afterward, but on the way into the museum I had a chat with the doorman, and I knew he'd recognize me if I walked back out five minutes later... so I found a wing of the gallery that I hadn't seen before (shame on me for missing it the first time!) and enjoyed that for awhile. Eventually I figured it was okay to go back out, so I did, and headed toward the Liffey. I walked all the way up O'Connell Street and passed the Garden of Remembrance - and it was open today! So I hung out there for awhile, too. It was such a lovely afternoon out that a lot of people were there; which I think is kinda cool. I mean it's cool that people go to hang out in a place that's dedicated to the people who died for the freedom of future generations. It's kind of like saying "thank you" every time. Most people probably don't read that much into it anymore - but I thought it was nice, anyway.
Then, finally, I made it to the Writers Museum. That was really fantastic - lots of cool books and letters and photographs and paintings. Also, typewriters, death-masks, suits, and James Joyce's piano (which I touched - HA). Although, it was a weird thing about that museum - when you walk in, they give you these things that look like telephones and whenever you come to a case or a plaque, you push a button on the phone and it gives you information about it. Except it actually annoyed me more than anything - I was trying to READ the things and these peoples voices kept saying different things in my ear. I mean, I know you can pause it and all... I don't know why it annoyed me so much, but it did. So I stopped listening after awhile and just looked on my own. (I'm better at learning that way by now.) Definitely a cool place, though. OH! Okay, the one cool thing about the phone things was that I got to listen to James Joyce reading a part of one of his stories (I forget what it was... I hadn't heard of it before). I listened to it twice, just because I couldn't get over how lyrical and strong and somehow hilarious his accent was. It was marvelous.
At 5 I had to leave the museum, but it was still so sunny and pleasant out (what a change comes when we put our clocks forward an hour! It's weird how suddenly the days get longer. Like the world just turned a corner or something.) and I didn't feel like going home just yet. So I walked down the center island of O'Connell Street and found a side of the O'Connell Monument that wasn't occupied by anybody. So I climbed up a few steps and sat on the platform, sheltered from the wind and a good deal of pedestrian traffic, and doodled a bit in my journal. It was nice to just sit there, feeling safe and secluded in the middle of a place that's so full of action. Sort of like cuddling up in a chair with high walls, in the middle of an office or a church or a school. Present, but invisible. How nice.
After awhile I walked across town, boarded a train, almost fell asleep on the train, and then walked back to the house where dinner was waiting for me in the microwave. So yeah. Nice day. :) Now to figure out how to get Google to hire me.
No comments:
Post a Comment