After making my way to Dublin, I set about getting used to town. Finding an apartment, adventures, climbing gyms and lifting weights… all of those revolve around good food. And hey – If I’m going to be settling into a city, I’ve got to know where the good food is, right?
And so, I started exploring.
I went with my Dad’s suggestion for finding the best restaurants in the North End, from when I first moved to Boston to start working on my Undergrad degree – “Wander around, follow your nose, and trust in what smells good.”
I wandered, I kept my senses open, and found quite a few good spots!
I’ll actually avoid listing them all out here, unlike the other cities I’ve wandered, simply because there were too many and I wasn’t keeping as tight a set of records as I was while on the Grand Adventure – but that’s fine. I’m settled down here, right? I don’t need to enumerate every little spot… I’ll be here for a while, and I can always find the good places again when I need.
This is more of a meta-analysis post, instead of an adventure log like I normally do… so, dear readers, please feel free to skip or skim if pure exploration and excitement are more to your taste.
On the 3rd of September, I landed in Dublin.
At the time, it didn’t quite feel like the end of my Grand European Adventure – I figured that the next two weeks would basically be like any other stage of my adventure, and that I’d blog about them accordingly.
It didn’t quite turn out that way, in the end. It was a subtle, but evident, mental shift for me – instead of exploring a town knowing that I likely wouldn’t be back, I was focused more on exploring for longevity… finding spots that I’d enjoy longer-term, and skipping over the spots that I had traditionally visited, such as art museums and tourist destinations.
I focused on restaurants and shops near Trinity. I looked at game shops where I could join a D&D group, and I methodically visited every rock climbing gym in the greater Dublin area. I spent a huge amount of time working with the relocation company, touring apartments and polishing my list of requirements down to a solid sheen.
Anxiety about where I’d end up living was omni-present, but kept at bay by keeping busy, and starting to lift weights and climb again.
It was distinctly different from my adventures; not in a better or worse way, of course, but simply a very different life.
All this is to say, this blog will likely slow down a bit in the near future.
The reptilian part of my brain is raging against losing out on my fancy “number of consecutive posts” streak, but the more intelligent side of my brain recognizes that the key goal in my life right now is the pursuit of my Master’s degree. This blog is awesome and amazing and enjoyable, as well as a valuable record of my adventures for posterity, but it’s still a secondary pursuit for now – maybe I’ll monetize it someday, or compile it into a book, but today isn’t that day.
Today, I’ve moved to Dublin.
Today, I’m biking to Trinity College to sit down for a lecture, in pursuit of an MBA and a forward shift in my career.
The Church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage… or, as it’s known now, the House of Compassion, sat a stone’s throw from my rental. It’s a pretty church, if looking a bit old and in need of a pressure washing, and it (along with the square around it) made for a very excellent landmark for my adventures.
Wednesday evening, after my adventures in the city, I realized that I hadn’t actually walked inside the Church of St. John the Baptist at the Béguinage. I’d walked past it quite a few times, but hadn’t seen the door open previously… or if I had seen it, I hadn’t quite picked up on it and walked in.
Today, I headed inside.
I was expecting your standard-issue church – some stained glass, a fancy organ, maybe some statues and paintings. A gilded alter, you know the drill.
I didn’t see what I was expecting.
I mean, okay. I did find all of that. I didn’t notice any of it, at first, though – instead having my attention captured by what had been made of the church.
It was an art exhibit.
It was stories of refugees, of asylum seekers, and of the homeless population.
It was a meeting place, with a long table with dozens of chairs in the center, seemingly waiting for people to come in and have a communal meal.
The whole interior had been reworked – and as I wandered, I ran into a docent who told me the whole story: I short, the church had become abandoned during COVID. Belgium has quite a few churches, and a dwindling religious population it seems, and so when the previous pastor retired… this massive stone edifice that would have been the cornerstone of any religious group in the United States was simply left empty. They tried to get a new pastor, but as none were available the congregation simply moved on, and left the building locked up.
Squatters moved in – but instead of defacing or damaging the building, they turned it into a home for asylum seekers and refugees abandoned by the system. The previous congregation slowly came back, helping them maintain the building, and the church turned from a place of worship into a place of survival… and then, when the asylum seekers and refugees found more permanent housing, it was transformed again into a memorial to their struggle and the struggle of so many like them.
I adore this.
I can’t say how much I adore this idea – instead of huge cathedrals laying unused, as a gilded monument to the power that religion used to hold, they’re turned into places to help those in need. I spoke at length with the docent, learning about how the whole process went, and got his contact information so that I could reach out once I finished settling into Ireland.
It really was an incredibly moving experience – all the more so because it was unexpected and unplanned. Absolutely worth stopping in.
