I visited Dublin nearly 20 years ago. While some details are hazy, I remember the way I felt like it was yesterday. Like many trips that have left an impression on me, there was adrenaline-pumping anticipation as well as moments of utter desperation. Unlike most trips, my Dublin visit was about equal parts of each.

 

My trip to Dublin was during a time where crossing borders was simultaneously new and routine. I was studying overseas in Belgium, which was my first international travel aside from Canada when I was four years old. But I'd been in Europe for about three months already, so I'd visited the close proximity (relatively speaking) hotspots; checking cities off my “travel to-do” list like Amsterdam, London, and Paris, and in that order. 

 

Amidst this galivanting across Europe, I was not only able to learn a thing or two in-and-out of the classroom, but also fall madly in love. At least at the time it seemed I was head over heels. When I left for Dublin, on my own, I was concerned about how I'd survive a long weekend without ‘what’s his name.’ In preparation for the 72-hour separation, I had written down every number in sequence that I would need to dial in order to reach him. These were the days before cell phones and international dialing plans. This required a Sam’s Club International Calling Card and a pay phone. In total, from country code to calling card number, it was about 30 digits long. So, I scrawled that number on a piece of notebook paper and tucked it in my backpack. I still have the piece of paper.  

 

In some ways I was fearless, this was before my attachment to a “Marriott-style” of travel. While I still adore solo travel, I look back on my twentieth year and think “yikes” imagine all that could have gone wrong.

 

So, there is Dublin, to this day my only totally solo international trip, even if it was only across the North Sea. Nothing was stopping me from going, not the mental anguish of leaving ‘what’s his name’ for a weekend, or the fact that I could only secure lodging for the first night of a two-night trip.

 

Traveling there, I took a discount carrier, back before discount carriers in the U.S. were really a thing. Instead of flying out of Brussels’ main airport, flights on Ryan Air flew from Belgium to Dublin leaving from Charleroi, close to Waterloo – of Napoleon fame, or infamy, depending on your perspective. While getting out to Charleroi could be complicated, especially for a 20-year-old American girl, in this instance the airport or the carrier (I can't recall which) had a charter bus run from a well-known Irish pub in the Brussels city center to the airport. First obstacle overcome!

 

The flight was unmemorable, which I guess is good. I rolled into Dublin on time, and distinctly remember my first stop was Burger King. I had unsophisticated tastes at the time.  After my Whopper and fries, I checked into my youth hostel. “Youth” is a relative term, while you're only as old as you feel, I remember thinking that people as ancient as 30 years old (the horror!) do not belong at youth hostels, yet there they were. 

 

The goal of the trip was twofold: strategic, check another country off the visit list; and tactical, stay busy enough to never have a free moment to be lonely. Achieving the second goal was made more difficult by a workers’ strike in the Emerald City that weekend. The strike made scheduling tours an exceptional challenge. While limited in choice and number, to my great relief I was able to book a castle tour for Saturday morning. This meant I only had to occupy myself for the full day and night until then.

 

I don't recall exactly how I filled that day other than I ate Mexican food for dinner (if you know me, you'll realize that finding comfort in Mexican food is a mainstay) and I went to the movies – because that is what you do as a solo, 20-year-old traveler in Ireland. I saw The Talented Mr. Ripley, which turned out to be somewhat depressing, and not the mental escape I had hoped. Before heading back to the hostel, in a subdued and sad mood, I picked up a magazine (and because no detail is too small to note, I remember it had Sandra Bullock on the cover).

 

When I arrived at the hostel, I was excited (that's a lie) to meet the characters I'd be spending the night with. I hadn't been too worried about my quarters. Compared to other hostels I’d stayed in this one was clean and had standard sized rooms of two bunk beds each with nondescript wall colors. Some hostels I'd stayed in, had room for a dozen people, limited bathroom access, and psychedelic paint schemes.

 

When I walked in, I was greeted by a Canadian woman, probably not much older than me, and two – count them two – Scottish men. Despite sharing a language with these three, I could barely understand the Scots, thus began my struggle to understand other native English speakers of other-than-American descent. Somehow, I grasped enough to learn that there is some tax benefit (God Bless the Queen) if these Scottish workers took a long weekend holiday to Ireland, proving that you have to spend money to make money, at least in Scotland, I suppose.

 

Since chitchat seemed out of the question, I did my best to fall asleep quickly.  I think I was successful, only because I was awakened at about 1 a.m. by my roommates, who had all decided it was a good time to toke up in the room. I rolled over, went back to sleep, and left in the morning before the other three had awakened.

 

You may remember that I mentioned I had only booked lodging for my first night. This hung like a cloud over my day, as I went about my planned activities. The worst-case scenario - go sleep at the airport.

 

I boarded the bus that would ferry our tour group to a few sites outside the city.  On the bus, a nice, English speaking woman started a conversation with me. Her name was Cathie, she was from California, and worked for a computer company. She was visiting Dublin on business and was intent on seeing the sites in her off time. We spoke some more, and it turned out she had a sister my age, who worked at the west coast version of the bagel shop I had worked at in Washington, D.C. And we were both Catholic. It must have been fate.

 

Somewhere between the castle and the coastline, I had told her that I had no place to stay that night and was searching for options. A few minutes later she offered to let me stay with her. I can’t remember which hotel, but I remember it being high-end, especially in comparison to my prior evening’s accommodations.  She said she had a big room and would order a cot. She told me I could think about it during the day and if I decided to stay with her, meet her at the hotel at 5 p.m.

 

I needed the time to think, after all isn’t it strange to spend the night in a hotel with another tourist you just met in a foreign country, even if she was American? And what kind of person offers to let a stranger spend the night? Seemed risky. But was it riskier than a night in a hostel with two Scots and Canadian smoking weed, or sleeping on a bench at the airport?  And keep in mind, that I too may have seemed risky. I was in a phase of life when I wore baggy pants and surfing t-shirts, and had a single, bleached blond streak in my otherwise dark brown hair. Cathie was taking a leap of faith just in offering, and maybe secretly hoped that I wouldn’t take her up on her offer.

 

After spending the day wandering across the city on foot and finding no other solution, I decided to meet Cathie at her hotel. It was a big room, and the hotel staff did bring a cot. I dropped my backpack on the cot, and we headed out.

 

I’m fuzzy on details of where we had dinner, but I remember ending up at a pub where, allegedly, members of U2 had been seen before. 

 

Cathie and I sat at the bar, it was loud and crowded, but at least I wasn’t lonely or thinking about how much I missed ‘what’s his name.’ She and I had drinks, she paid. (As a side note, I’m totally aware of the undertones of this story…meet a nice woman who offers to let you spend the night in her hotel room, she pays for food and drink…I get it, but it was nothing like that.)

 

At one point, Cathie went outside to smoke a cigarette. She was gone for few minutes, and I lost sight of her. That is all it took, my head started moving a mile a minute. I jumped from conclusion to conclusion. In my mind, I thought surely, Cathie had skipped out and left me at the bar so that she could “steal” all of my stuff that I left in her room, which was really just two days’ worth of clothes.

 

It goes without saying, I was wrong.  A few minutes later Cathie was back in the bar and on the stool next to me, ordering another Guinness. We got to talking. She said that when she was in college, she had studied in Austria. One weekend she and some friends had made the trek to Salzburg, which from what she said is a common trip for students there. They would visit for the day and stay outside the city. It was great, people were having a good time drinking, eating, and carrying on. However, at one point Cathie looked around the quaint bar she was in, and the staff were packing up, most people had left, including her friends. It was late and the last bus had already left. She was stranded, had no money, and had no place to stay. Seeing her despair, the couple who owned the bar and lived upstairs, offered to let her stay the evening with them, with the caveat that one day she would help someone else. So, Cathie spent the night in Salzburg with the couple, and a decade later she offered to let me to stay with her, as her way to pay- it-forward.

 

Eventually, we finished our drinks, she paid, and we headed back to the hotel. I felt safe, but still slept with my pocketknife under my pillow.

 

The next morning, after we woke up, we decided to go to church (remember we were both Catholic). Afterward we had a traditional Irish breakfast, I recall black pudding. Cathie paid, again. Soon it was time for me to depart for the airport, I needed to return home to ‘what’s his name’ and brag to my roommates about my adventures and how easy and liberating it was to travel alone.

 

I took a cab to the airport and got in line to check-in. Going in my backpack for my boarding pass, I found a few twenty-dollar bills tucked into one of the zipped areas. These weren’t my twenty-dollar bills, and it is weird to find American money in Europe, especially when you’re finding it in your backpack. In examining the cash, I turned one bill over, and written on the back in small letters it said, “One day you’ll do it for someone else.”

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