at worst unethical and at best a bit creepy

Sunday afternoon I was at the train station waiting to take a dart into town. I walked to the platform and saw three women sitting and talking, two were wearing hijabs. There was a free seat near them. I wondered if they were speaking in Arabic and so I took it.

In retrospect that was at worst unethical and at best a bit creepy. In fairness, I didn’t really care what they were saying, just how they were saying it.

They were talking in Arabic. The first few seconds told me that much. But God is just, because I was horrified after about 43 more seconds to find that I had absolutely no idea what they were saying.

Oh, dear. I’m screwed. Egypt, here I come.

After my initial panic I calmed down a bit and started to make out words, unlock verbs. Clothes. They were talking about the best kinds of clothes to wear on holidays.

I’m still screwed, though.

Anyways. It has been really nice to be here, in Dublin. I am very comfortable here. When I walk, the ground feels natural beneath my feet. I remember the first time I came home from college I was surprised, thinking, “I can’t believe I am here. I can’t believe 15 hours ago I was in North Carolina and now I am here.” Everything was familiar but seemed vividly different from where I had spent the past few months. The size of the cars, the grey walls along the streets, the voices I heard.

This time everything was just familiar, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be suddenly back.

I am thinking of going into town this week to the immigration office, not for any legal purpose (I hear they aren’t responding too well these days to bribes or threats, so that won’t help my family’s visa situation…) but because I wrote about immigration in Ireland a lot this past semester in my poetry class. The office of immigration at Burgh Quay was my biggest source of material. I want to just go and sit (or stand, if there is no room), to take in everything. But I realize that I have never in my life gone somewhere just because I might want to write about it.

I don’t know how I feel about that. It seems sort of manipulative and sneaky, like sitting by women who look possibly Arab just so that I can listen into a conversation that they think is completely private.

Yikes.

And before I go, I finished reading a book by the quite controversial Ayaan Hirsi Ali this week. I was talking about the book and I brought up the fact that she is essentially completely anti-religion and against the idea of God. Perhaps a bit simplistic analysis, but my little sister Giz said incredudously, "She thinks God is bad? Well that completely goes against at least twenty popular religions!"

Well yes it does. At least twenty popular religions, Ayaan, think you can handle that?