What are you going to do for two months?

After saying good-bye to Toledo and Spain, I am ready for part two of my time abroad: Ireland! After leaving Toledo yesterday afternoon, I took the bus to Madrid, the metro to the airport (with my giant suitcase-- I explained to a couple who remarked on its size that I had been here for three months. And to be fair, I still have about two months to go), and then caught a flight to Dublin, where my cousin was waiting to pick me up and drive  the two hours to Waterford.

This plan to stay in Ireland for the next month or so (I fly back to the U.S. on June 22) developed after the hiccup with my schedule back in January. In summary, I was supposed to stay in Spain until the beginning of June, and then spend two weeks (not months!) in Ireland. When my plans to stay in Spain fell through, I decided to go to Ireland anyway and leave my return date for the end of June.

The question that people have been asking (and that I had been asking myself as the end of the semester approached) is what exactly I was going to do in Ireland for that length of time.

The customs man in Dublin actually had the same question, along with fifty more:

"Where are you from?"

"Why aren't you in school?"

"Where are you going in Ireland?"

"How long are you staying here?"

"What family do you have here?"

"Are you going to work?"

And finally:

"What are you going to do for two months?"

I had come up with a list of things for my own sake before I came here. I wanted to read (I have a list about a page in length). I wanted to run. And I wanted to write. I knew I would probably spend a lot of time playing with my cousins, possibly babysitting, and I had looked into volunteering a bit.

But standing in front of the customs man--a stony-faced, skeptical-sounding person--after a half-day of traveling, I couldn't quite capture the hodge-podge assembly of "things I was going to do."

And so I picked the simplest answer: "I'm going to write."

He looked at me, as skeptical as ever:

"What are you going to write?"

Afterwards, I wondered what would have happened if I had pulled out some of my brainstorms and outlines, or if I had started to explain lists of characters and settings. Instead, I just said something vague about a thesis, a project, something for school next year.

He then asked how much money I had, what I would do if I got sick (I could almost hear his thoughts: idealistic college student going to Ireland to write? For two months? She's going to run out of money and stay here forever. Does she even know these family members she's talking about? This sounds like the worst plan ever) before finally stamping my passport and letting me through.

I felt a little silly afterwards, because I really don't know exactly what I'm going to do here for two months, and I have now told a complete stranger that I am planning to "write."

But so far things seem to be going fairly well.

My cousin met me at the airport, and though the plane was an hour late we made it into Waterford by 2:30am. I spent today catching up with family members, playing hide-and-seek with cousins, going to the library, going for a run, and now (true to my word!) writing. It's not a thesis, but I think it counts for something.

As for my plans for this blog, since I am still abroad, still traveling and thinking, I've decided to keep writing here. Or maybe to start writing again. Ideally, I will recount some of the stories I skipped over in Spain (okay, so the majority of my stay in Spain). But since I've been promising to do this (and failing) I'm really okay with writing anything. Maybe some trips in Ireland. Maybe just some thoughts about what I'm reading. I guess it depends what exactly I do end up doing "for two months."