Floods

21:42
83 bus, on my way home
Weather is dreadful, it´s been raining really bad all day long and there are floods everywhere in the city.
Have never seen Liffey so high ?? and trains have been stopped and in some streets there are cars almost under the water? Didn´t see them myself but the guy from 102 bus told me :)
And the first guy from the same bus told me about the trains that they can´t get through because it´s way too much water ?
So yeah, city is in chaos but fingers crossed that I´d make it home alright.
*
There is a really good song coming from radio, through my headphones... so good that I really feel like dancing, honestly ! Lol... I felt like dancing already before while standing in the bus stop. There was some music coming out from the shop :)
Yet, I had such a strange "up and down" day in general.
*
Today I realized that the worse I feel, the more I need to love and pamper myself. The healthier I need to eat and the more I need to take care of myself and the more I need to do things which I really like doing.
I mean...when I feel like crap and even though in addition to everything there is also a terrible rain outside, skipping my walk on the seaside (something which always cheers me up:) is the last thing I can afford to do.
Therefore, today, I took one of the big umbrella from the corner and went out, straight into the pouring rain. Me and the BIG colorful umbrella.
Next to the harbour, there was one more man walking and he gave me and my BIG umbrella a BIG smile and I answered in the same "language" Lol.
It is kind of sweet how extreme situations connect strangers much more than average circumstances ever would ?
I mean, the same thing happened in the evening when I decided not to take the umbrella because my bus was suppose to come any minute and I do have a very short walk and usually I don´t like carrying umbrella ... just don´t because I find it annoying to drag it along to the bus.
But the minute I had stepped out from the Railway house, it was as if somebody poured the water down from heaven.
Isn´t it funny, the rain in general I mean?
....well, I do know the things which we study at school how it all happens but when I was just standing there, looking into the sky and there is all this water coming down.
It makes me feel amazed ! The same way how it was amazing another day when I was walking and looking over the sea and very close to me there was a full-size and full-color :) RAINBOW - even though the sky was absolutely clear and there were even hardly any clouds whatsoever!?

Back when I was just standing, looking at this rainbow, and thinking to myself the same way as today: "Where do you come from and how do you get here?"
Anyway, I probably should stop this rain-rainbow thing now because I feel I´m loooooosing it :)
Why did I start to talk about it at first place? Aaa, I remember now, how the extreme situations connect people.
So, there I was, soaking wet, waiting to cross the road when one guy with a black umbrella, whose face I hardly I saw, was coming into my direction and joking: "Do you want to buy an umbrella, only 50 euro :)?"
"No thanks, I actually have an umbrella but I didn´t take it on purpose!" I replied, being almost soaking wet by the time.
"Yes, why to take an umbrella when it is raining like hell!" he was joking and asked
"Do you know is there any 42 bus coming soon because the trains are stopped for today?"
"Yes, there will be one within next 5 minutes" I told him before I crossed the road and after that I kind of lost him.
Because of the floods, the bus was running late and let´s say that it was more than once when I was thinking to myself: "Shit, shit, shit, why I was such an idiot and didn´t take this umbrella with me?"
Especially when my kind of waterproof (at least that´s what I thought until today:) coat started to let the rain through and there was some water dripping down along my spine??!!
"Damn, where was my common sense??? F...ck, where is this bus anyway??? Ooo, wait, here it comes. No, it is 102 ... why is it always like that when I need 102 , there are loads of 42-s coming and today, when I need to go through the centre, the 102 comes? Ooo my, I really should have taken this umbrella because this thing is not even remotely funny any more!!!"

Now, when I am typing all those lines, it is still the same evening and I am again on a bus, this time on 83.
It is already 10:24 pm and it will take another at least 10 minutes before I´ll get home. Yes, I know, I left the workplace more than 2 hours ago and should have been home long time ago but the city is in chaos today, it really is and I am fortunate to be able to get home at all.

I´m really glad I decided to take my laptop with me this morning. It has kept me busy and I have had even no time to notice that getting anywhere takes soooooo much longer than it usually would.
Well, actually I did notice that from the corner of the O´Connolly bridge to the Four Court, it took 20 minutes??
...only bad thing about using it here in the bus is that the same way as I very often can´t read on buses, especially if the bus is going through those small streets where are lot of ramps, because it makes me feel sick...it has made me feel sick by now.
So, long story short: I am hungry, I am cold because half of my clothes are wet, I am tired and I feel like throwing up.
How good is that for Monday evening at 22:29pm?
I think it`s a lovely way to start a new week, isn´t it? :)
Well, actually, it is not so bad at all because I had lot of fun before on 102 bus. Remember, I have started to talk twice about the fact how extreme ...ooooo my, it is my stop soon....can´t believe it ... I completely lost myself into this writing thing.

Alright, I gotta get back to this connecting thing later in the evening or some other day ....will close it for now.

11:47 pm
Had a lovely dinner, nice hot shower and am a completely new creation by now - even though still the tired one who is ready to go to sleep soon :)
So, this will be brief conclusion to sup up the topic I meant to talk about earlier, the third time during last couple of hours when I am trying to start the topic "Dreadful weather made strangers smiling to each other!" :)
*
There I was, finally the 102 bus came.
I was sitting on my regular seat - the first one on the second floor - I feel really annoyed when it is taken..lol.. only joking even though I really like this seat the best:).
Very carefully I tried to take off my coat because it was soaking wet and I didn´t want more water to get under my shirt because I think it was enough of it already there anyway.
There was a guy who came and sat to another front seat next to me and started to clean the window there. He used his umbrella to do that.
His really demonstrative and energetic moves were hard not to notice and all the situation made me laugh.
He looked at me and told: "You are the "without the umbrella" girl! You see how useful one umbrella can be, you could even use it to clean the window ;) Do you want to borrow my umbrella to clean your window as well?" he was asking me.
"No thank you!" I told him but couldn´t help laughing again because the way he was and the way he talked was genuinely funny, in the best possible way.
It is impossible to even describe, without trying to write precisely, what our dialogue for approximately next 30 minutes was all about ... all I can say was that I haven´t laughed so much for a while.
It took forever to get from Malahide to Coolock (he got off there) because the flooding had made some parts of the road difficult to get through but it sure was the fastest half an hour on a bus for me.
Most of the time I was just listening to him and sat there with surprise. I remember myself even asking from him: "Who are you anyway, some kind of comedian or something?" because it sure looked as if he had practised this kind of fluent funny conversation very often :)
It was great to follow his thoughts and we had a wonderful, even kind of theatrical, chat between us.
He is from Australia himself, he referred to Arvo Pärt as somebody he knows :D !?! and he sure knows how to make people laugh. I really think that the few rows of people behind us were laughing with me even though I never looked back to check if they did :)

Still, something in his being made be bit cautious ...why? Because he sure was kind of guy who fathers have in their mind when they are warning their daughters to watch out :)

Another thing floating in my mind at this very moment was something like
"Look at you girl, here you are, being such a sparkling and a wonderful person to be around and talk with, feeling so good and comfortable ... and there you were couple of days ago in a situation which was something you'd been looking forward for a while ...and what did you do?
Being completely out of place, not feeling as yourself at all ... no idea how to sit or what to talk about...being concerned if you are any good at all?
Kind of ironic, isn't it ?"
*
Heh, anyway, it is gone by now and there is no way to turn back time and do it all over again.
So, I better breathe in and out and let it go...
If it´s something which is meant to be, I might get another chance to BE more ME next time.
If not, then I suppose I need to accept the fact that all this story has been just one lesson (kind of important one though:) in my student book called "Life".
*
Still, it is weird how it is so much easier and more natural to talk with a complete stranger with who I have just met because there are no expectations nor emotions involved - no fears, no hopes, no anything.
*
After Coolock when I had just lost my conversation partner who had made me laugh for almost half an hour, there was another young man sitting into his place.
This guy was completely wet - well, like all of us on that bus really :) but by completely wet I mean that he had literally been on a water or something ... Lol. I mean it.
... and once again, the extreme situations really make it easier for people to connect to each other because after one minute when he was taking his shoes off to pour the water out he was smiling and telling that this is not a normal rain today.
He told me that his street was so flooded that the cars were under water and he had to walk on a water which came up to his knees to get to the bus stop.
I felt ashamed for being complained about the little bit of water which was coming through my coat earlier !? and the soaking wet got a new meaning because this guy really was SOAKING WET and while I was on my way to home, dreaming about warm shower and dry clothes and fireplace, he was on his way to work. Poor man, I really felt sorry for him.

And when I got home and we were checking the situation online, there were news how some people are being evacuated because their homes are under the water ? At it made me think that the situation of this guy wasn´t so bad after all. Everything is so relative and depends completely what we compare it with.
***
Thank You for getting me home safe and Thank You for keeping me in a good company along the journey :) !
Morning will show how the city looks tomorrow.