Travelogue: Dubliners

Via The Zman

On the plane ride into Dublin, I sat next to an older man, who was from Kilkenny. He consumed half of the flight boasting about his hometown and his country. The Irish are very proud of being Irish and they are not ashamed to boast about it. People with a strong culture are prone to this and I find it appealing. He was coming back early so he could watch his hurling team in a big match. This allowed him to tell me that the national game of Ireland was the greatest thing in the world. I feel the same way about baseball so I could relate.

The other half of the flight, the back half, he spent asking me about American politics. I got the impression that he wanted to talk politics from the first moment he saw that I was an American. The glories of Ireland stuff was just to butter me up. Of course, he wanted to know about Trump. My assumption was that he thought Trump was terrible, but he was going to be polite until I revealed my allegiances. There was an Ivy Day in the Committee Room quality to our conversation, when another person joined in the discussion of Trump.

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