The Train.

Me, Megan R., and Katt


Brendan and Meagan D.


The Train to Dublin is far more luxurious than I imagined it would be, especially with the ticket prices being as low as they are. The ride from Maynooth is about 25 minutes, and makes somewhere around 5 stops on the way to the city.

I usually bring some things to entertain myself during transit, but on our most recent trip I was fascinated by the interactions of a family next to us and watched them the whole time instead. They were speaking English, but with what sounded like Italian accents. A large man was sitting with his two sons, who were about 5 and 8 years old. The children were debating whether they were looking at the sun or the moon outside, and therefore whether it was night or day. (it was about noon, for the record). The younger of the two insisted that it must be nighttime because the moon was out. "It's not the sun, it doesn't have any of those sparkly things around it," he insisted. This was an interesting argument, as it was cloudy and all that could be seen was a ball of light, not as bright as the usual sun, brighter than the usual moon. I can understand his logic. The older said "The moon isn't out anymore, it's lunch time!" Touche.

They soon moved onto a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors that quickly turned into a game of Rock-Paper-Anything that beats Scissors.

"Rock, Paper, LAVA!" the older boy shouted triumphantly. "Nothing beats Lava!"
"Aw, you're right!" the younger agreed.

"Rock, Paper, SCISSORS!" the younger boy yelled, and was immediately reminded of the rules of the game and how scissors is never an acceptable answer anymore.

He tried again. "Rock, Paper, POOP!"
"Poop?"
"Yeah, Poop!"
"Poop doesn't beat scissors!"
"Yeah huh, it'd get all over everything!" he said in a disgusted voice.

This logic could not be beaten, obviously, so he was given the win that round by his brother, who seemed equally disgusted at the idea of poop everywhere.

During these debates, their father remained looking sternly forward. He was a large man - tall, broad shoulders, large arms and stomach, with huge hands that looked worn from labor. His seemingly-dangerous demeanor was handsome, with his very mysterious, dark features and rough exterior. His bushy black eyebrows cast a foreboding shadow over his eyes. However, every now and then, one of his sons would focus their attention on him for the moment, grabbing his arm and hugging him, and his entire body would relax. His eyes would crease deeply with his smile, and he would tap one of their noses, making them laugh briefly, and then they would return to their debate. Or he would momentarily pat his hand on the top of their heads, which he could easily palm, before going back to looking stone-faced. I thought the affection this brutish-looking man showed his children was incredibly masculine, and it captivated me. His outward tenderness toward them was fleeting, but always enough to give the boys what they needed before they went back to their discussions. It was clearly a minimal indicator of his obvious love for them.


On the ride back home, however, we didn't have cute families to watch, so for our own entertainment we practiced smiling like Brendan does when we take pictures of him:


Brendan argued that we smiled too much for our pictures, and this is his impression of our overly-enthusiastic smiles:


Therefore, that's the only way we smiled the rest of the trip: