My posts are completely out of order at this point. Here are the places I’ve visited in order: Reykjavik, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Interlaken, Bern, Milan, Venice, Florence, Siena, Rome, Privas, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Dublin, Killarney, Galway, London and back to Reykjavik.

Ireland was getting lonely. At my first hostel in Dublin, I was thrilled that they didn’t put anyone else in my room. After three months of living in the equivalent of a college dormitory with complete strangers literally sleeping on top of you in a bunk bed, getting a room to yourself is the equivalent of winning the hostel lottery. Don’t mind me why I spread my stuff from corner to corner, play my music loudly, take long showers and have dance parties.

Then they put me in a room to myself in Killarney.

And then they put me in a room to myself in Galway.

It’s like when your college sibling moves to college, and you actually start missing them. I’m even nostalgic for the five men I lived with in Amsterdam who in between getting stoned, crunching on chips and watching episodes of South Park decided that rather than using a key would just bang on the door through out the night hoping that their stoned friend would rise from his drug-induced stupor to get the door. (He never did. But I did. On multiple occassions.)

Never to fear for anyone worrying that I haven’t made new friends in Ireland as I have perfected a certain art – being a third wheel. This skill comes in handy as the main way I am seeing Ireland is on bus tours with the fanny-pack brigade. This is the absolute worst way to see Ireland. People who really want to see Ireland should rent a car and drive along the coast and avoid bus tours as they would visiting their mother-in-law or the bubonic plague.

However, I can’t drive since not only are my driving skills lacking, but there also is the fact that someone in Firenze is now in possession of my driver’s license. A hundred thousand curses on you, purse thief!

Once I’ve narrowed it down to which couple I’d like to spend the day with, I usually strike with a line. “Here, let me take a picture of the two of you together!” The art to becoming someone’s third wheel is to seem helpful. Now I would normally seek out fellow backpackers to hang out with, but there are none to be found. I suspect they’re hitch hiking or getting drunk with the locals in traditional pubs. Or in Paris on a pub crawl. But they’re certainly not on bus tours in Ireland.

To be a third wheel, it’s also important for you to keep certain thoughts to yourself. Like perhaps, if you think someone from Minnesota is wearing the bus driver’s hat, you shouldn’t ask him why he is wearing the bus driver’s hat. Perhaps, it might actually be that he likes wearing chauffer-style hats and just happens to be sitting behind the bus driver. And he might be insulted that you’re insituating he is dressing as a bus driver would.

But most likely, before you’ll know it, it will seem like you’ve always been their third wheel. You’ll be teasing Claire about her photo montage. Or lamenting with Steve on why Americans only get two weeks of vacation a year. And before you know it, you won’t just be taking the photos, you’ll be in the photos. “Honey, go and take a picture with our new friend from Colorado!”

Fast forward a month from now, I suspect I’ll have a starring role in their slideshow on Facebook as “Ellen” or perhaps “Emily.”

It’s a special kind of friendship. The kind that lasts exactly between the tour times of 9 am to 5 pm. No more, no less.

Oh, and happy birthday to my new friend Christoper. Or Kevin. Or whatever it was. I hope you and what’s-her-face really make a good day of it!