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Live Your Life Newsletter - October 2005
Travel & Hostel Newsletter for Backpackers
Newsletters: October 2005 | All Archives
Catalyst For Adventure: The True Story of Best Friends Travelling Through Europe
This is an exciting feature of the “Live Your Life Newsletter”! Every month we will be featuring an extract of a fantastic new book entitled, “Catalyst for Adventure: The true story of best friends travelling through Europe” by Crystal Stanczak.
Among best friends, there is an invisible code of conduct. Rule number one: if a friend ever asks you, “Do I look fat?” you cannot, under any circumstance, tell her “Yes, you look like Mama Cass after thanksgiving turkey.” In that situation, the best thing to do is merely pick out another outfit for her, offer a little self-deprecation (example: “ I am so unhappy with my butt these days.”), and suggest for the both of you to go on a run. As tender as the “fat” subject is, there is one even more delicate—one that can shatter the tightest bond between girlfriends—men. Rule number two: If best friends are interested in the same man, both should avoid being alone with him.
So it was, on a crisp Irish morning, Summer and I met the ultimate test of the bonds of friendship—Patrick. Patrick, like most Irish men, was not the most aesthetically pleasing specimen. In fact, without a cool haircut and cute jeans, he might have been borderline homely. However, when he started talking, your attention, and your heart belonged to him.
Taking numerous suggestions from our fellow backpackers, Summer and I were about to venture on a six-day roving Irish bus tour. Patrick was our official tour guide, and the moment we boarded his bus, I saw his eyes lock on each girl like an arrogant honing device. His confidence was a force of nature, causing me to stop in my tracks while he blew me over like a trailer in a hurricane.
“That, over there is a fairy tree.” Patrick said, “The Irish are very superstitious.”
“As the story goes, a great farmer once forfeited his life in Ireland because he fell in love with a fairy. He joined the fairy in eternity and left the land to rot, thus causing the potato famine.” He told our group.
He had all kinds of information about Ireland. We hung on his every word, and now, thinking back, I understand that he could have been blabbering whatever came to his inventive mind—his perfectly messy hair indicated that he had a great imagination. The rhythm in his speech was precise, yet easy, and he used profanity in every sentence.
“You look like a regular Irish Colleen.” Patrick said as he flipped one of my tresses.
“Well,” I explained, “My great grandfather on my mom’s side was from Cork.”
“Lot’s of Americans come over here as if it is their mother land or something,” Patrick said, “We call them plastic Paddy’s. They cry when they get off of the plane and kiss the blarney stone and all of that, like.”
“Do you think all of us are like that?” I asked, hoping that he didn’t have a bad impression of me.
“Maybe not the lot of you.” He answered.
Our tour took us to splendid Irish countryside, where stone walls divided plots of land into long rows. Jaw-dropping cliffs lined the sea as a warning to enemies who tried to come to Ireland by the Atlantic. Quirky little towns were inhabited by generations of families a thousand cozy pubs. With a busload of instant friends and good Irish Stout, it was easy to get swept away. For six days, Ireland might as well have been the only country in existence, and Patrick, for that matter, might as well have been the only guy in existence. He’d take us to magnificent viewpoints by day and low-light music halls by night. He called every girl “baby” and commanded an invisible spotlight. It was special just to be near him.
Instead of flirting with Patrick, I always did my best to match his wit. He’d tell an interesting story, and I’d come up with a quick one-liner that made him chuckle, to which he’d respond with an even quicker retort that made me laugh uncontrollably. This silly, clever, walking pint of Guinness had me wrapped around his finger.
Each day I’d divide my time between basking in glorious landscapes, and thinking of things I could say to Patrick that might leave an impression. Simple arithmetic told me that I was one of a hundred cute girls he would meet that year alone, and to impress him the way he impressed me was quite a feat. It wasn’t long before I noticed that I was not the only girl hypnotized by Patrick.
Summer and I were seated right up front, asking each other silly questions.
“If you had to eat someone on the bus, who would it be?” Summer asked.
“I guess the girl from Austria,” I told Summer, “She looks like she could feed the entire bus for while. Alright, now my question, would you rather date a guy that had chronic diarrhea breath or a obscenely long back hair?
“I’m gonna go with back hair.” She replied, and then out of the blue she asked me, “Do you have a crush on Patrick?”
He was clearly in audible range. Did I admit it right there? My hands glistened. My throat lumped.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to be aloof, “Doesn’t everybody? Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” She replied.
Oh crap. She did too. My loyalties were torn between my own heart and my best friend. Throughout my life when this situation arose, I had always immediately retracted my feelings for the guy in question. Eighties girl power sitcoms propagated my deep-seeded conviction that guys should never come between friends. It had always been easier for me to swallow the bitter pill of unspoken attraction, than to loose a friend. This time would be no different. Summer and I stopped asking each other silly questions after that. We bumped along the front seat in silence. Patrick, though not directly involved in our conversation, kept silent as well.
At 7:00 p.m., the little youth hostel in Killarney was buzzing with activity. A cloud of hairspray choked the hallway as Summer and I searched through our clothes as if we were backstage at a beauty pageant. Patrick had arranged for the entire tour to watch live traditional music at a club in town, and everyone was primping up for the event. This was a red lipstick night.
My hair was ironed and chic, perfect for the gorgeous black heals on my feet. These heals were too beautiful not to buy, and also too beautiful to comfortably wear for more than an hour. As we walked into the club I forgot the nuisance of my feet, and the throbbing of my freshly plucked eyebrows. My mind was busy creating scenarios in which I would make Patrick notice me.
A bunch of the girls from our tour were already sitting around chatting. Summer and I were almost lost in the giggling when Patrick made his way right in between us.
“Hey baby.” He stated.
Who was he there to see? And did I really like him that much anyway? Had I spent an hour getting ready just to impress an Irish ladies man? At that moment it felt like Patrick was a white net, and girls were too often just a bunch of players volleying around him with tennis rackets. Summer was not my competition. She would never be. She was my friend during a hard breakup, a new life (when my gypsy parents moved us out of state again), and now, during my parent’s divorce. There, with Irish fiddles humming in my ears, I put my racket down, and left the club. Maybe Patrick liked me. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, I would not be a part of the competition. I expected Summer to follow suit, and went to sleep with a clear conscience.
The next day our tour bus curled around windy back-roads, which gave the large Austrian girl behind me extra incentive to discuss her throbbing hangover. More than the ever-present threat of being puked on, there was a strange tension in the air.
Summer stayed quiet for forty-five minutes until, with a half-smile she said, “I kissed Patrick last night.”
I wanted to crawl under my seat. Embarrassed by my crush or betrayed by my unreciprocated gesture of loyalty the night before, all I could muster was, “Oh . . . did you have fun?”
I didn’t want the details. Summer had broken rule number two of the unspoken girlfriend code of conduct and I couldn’t handle the details until my hurt feelings went away.
Knowing that I didn’t need to impress Patrick my attention was not divided that day. For the first time in Ireland, tumbling hills of green grass danced with me, tempting me to roll over them like a five-year-old. Charismatic old folks charmed me into taking their pictures. Brightly painted buildings had me comparing periwinkle and goldenrod as if I was picking out paint samples. Pasty children in catholic school uniforms led me to quaint trinket shops. Ireland had me all to itself, and I enjoyed its cheerful whims like never before.
A few hours later I got the details of Summer and Patrick’s kiss--uneventful, forced, and now, accompanied by awkwardness. It was an experience of which I was relieved to only be a third party. Then Summer told me something that caused me to melt for her in utter compassion.
“Patrick is the first guy I’ve kissed since I broke up with Sam last year.”
Any hard feelings in me were instantly replaced with sympathy. She needed say nothing more.
Order this book: You can order this book at Amazon.com
Read any other good travel books? Send your recommendations to submissions@st-christophers.co.uk
Newsletters: October 2005 | All Archives
