In the beginning…

…there was Guinness

Shortly afterwards there was Cuba.

Back tracking the steps and decisions involved in arriving at the place you’re currently sitting is an interesting exercise. Give it a shot. What got you to this moment in time where you are currently sitting here and reading this? Here’s one: how do we know each other? What course did your life follow for us to know one another? Weird one.

Having arrived in Ireland with no further plans, the bus trip from the airport (talking to the Polish midget about her after dinner habits), I felt a little empty and lost. The three different plans pulling me to Dublin (one made in a Munich beer hall, another over email with distant relatives and the last with a girl in a galaxy far, far away), had fought it out and left no survivors. Frankenbike had been given away, the New Year had arrived and life felt like an interrupted conversation. In times like these, I tend to make rash, impulsive and sometime irrational decisions. This is the sort of thing I sometime hope I’ll never lose but other times hope will mellow with age.

I got off the bus from the airport, hunted down the pub where I was meeting Clair (a person that if you didn’t get on with her, it would be your fault), sat down and was promptly presented with a Guinness. As I was drinking it, I felt pretty chuffed with myself having only arrived in Ireland an hour earlier and already I was drinking a pint of the black stuff. We laughed with one her work mates how our chance meeting on a train from Salzburg to Munich 5 months earlier had turned into me staying with Clair and her flat mate in central Dublin. On the second pint, Clair’s other work mate Annick turned up. Having just given her notice to the company, her plans (and energy), to see parts of the world I’d yet to see before re-birthing as a lawyer rekindled my wanderlust. After a couple of drinks, her ability to talk the leg off an amputee and a sense of humour to enter them in an arse kicking competition afterwards, Annick and I got on pretty well from the get go. Then she popped the question:

“Why don’t you meet me in Cuba?”

“Yeah alright”

Having said this in a half joking manner, in the following days, I began to consider my options. My finances were ok. My diary was clear. Ireland was cold and wet. The idea was growing on me. I looked at the cost of flights and researched the country. The humour was melting away. Before I knew it my flights were booked and my visa was sorted.

We are serious now.

I’m going to Cuba.

Fuck.

From a beer hall night to a long haul flight.