Beautiful views and ever-present awkwardness

A few days ago I was down in Kilross and the woman at the hostel told me that on my way to the Cliffs of Moher that day I should stop by at the Kilkee cliffs, which (she claimed) were equally as beautiful. About 15 minutes outside of the town she said. She knew that I was cycling so I assumed this meant 15 minutes cycling, but apparently she forgot. It wasn't too long however that I began to get glimpses of the cliffs. They were absolutely stunning!

Since the cliffs near Kilkee aren't nearly as high as their much more famous neighbours, they were no tourists in sight (save myself). In fact, there weren't many people around except the occassional locals jogging and groups of fisherman clusetered on the edge of the dangerously high cliffs. I cycled along the road struggling to keep my bike upright against the wind and knowing that if I did indeed get blown off the wind would just blow me right back onto land. It would be incredibly difficult to commit suicide in this area of the world. I'm surprised it's not incredibly difficult to fish! But they do; they just toss a ridiculously long line off the cliff and, apparently, catch ridiculously large quantities of mackerel.

After cycling alongside these views for about half an hour with no prospect of them ever ceasing to fill me with a sense of awe, I decided that if I wanted to get to the Cliffs of Moher that day I was going to have to figure out where the road I was on went to or turn back the way I came. There was a couple of men packing up their fishing gear on the side of the road. The very same men in fact that advised me on picking up Irish men in bars based on their method of Guiness consumption, as I mentioned in my last post. They were incredibly nice and absolutely hilarious, to the point where we ended up talking for about an hour. One of them gave me a reflective vest to ensure my safety on Irish roads after I had told them I was cycling around the country and even gave me contact numbers for himself and his son up in Galway.

The reason I tell you this story today, beyond wanting to illustrate how incredibly sweet Irish people are, is to illustrate how incredibly awkward I can be. I'm in Galway now and I decided that it would be strange to call someone I didn't know and ask if they wanted to hang out with me, but, knowing myself, I would always wonder if I didn't do it. So I did.

I waited about 8 rings before his son picked up. Now, I realize that this should have been my first clue, but, you know, sometimes it takes a while to pick up your phone. When you've never seen the number before. And have no idea who could possibly be calling you. Anyway, he answered the phone eventually and I told him who I was. "Okay...?" Asked him if his father had mentioned me... Not so much. In fact, he's not even in Galway until late next week. The whole time I'm trying to make lame jokes about how 'funny' it is that he has no idea who I am, but he wasn't biting...just one word answers and an intense feeling of discomfort. You know when you can see someone cringing away from you solely by the sound of their voice. Yea... that was this phone call. I don't know why I put myself through this, it's not even the first time this has happened to me.

To be honest though, I don't really want to learn my lesson from this. I like spontaneously calling people I don't know very well and meeting them. It's fun and you meet some pretty cool people because, generally, only pretty cool people (I say subtly flattering myself) will actually go and meet you. I met another couple today that said I could come stay with them up in Northern Ireland, so maybe I'll give it another go...at least I've actually met these people.