Despite having been here for 14 months now, I still get surprised more than every once in awhile by the difference in cultures between Ireland and the U.S.
The most recent event happened just 3 days ago. I was on my way to a work conference in Dublin, driving up with a coworker. We stopped off in Midleton (a place where I do not live and hardly ever go) in part so I could load up on chocolatey, high calorie yumminess to tide me over for the drive. We all know that calories you take in on a roadtrip don't count, right?
I stopped in at a small greengrocer, one of those places that are just so Irish . . . a few shelves of fruit and veg, with the small selection of candy and sweets kept behind the counter because there just wasn't enough space otherwise. A stranger to the proprietress, the high-spirited Angela, I immediately got drawn into a conversation with her. That is until everything drew to a screeching halt for me when I realized that I hadn't gone to the ATM and was flat out of cash. No cards taken of course, so I was prepared to leave everything behind and go and find a cash machine when Angela pooh-poohed my plan, insisting that I just take the bag of goodies because "I'm sure you'll be coming back through" and "I trust you, no problem!" No disagreement on my part was allowed and I walked out of there with a bagful of candy and my mouth literally hanging open.
I want to say "Only in Ireland", but maybe it's more like "Never in America" or just something about this one person I lucked into meeting. Whatever the case, is it any wonder I love living here?!
Note: I did give my friend the money to repay the wonderful Angela for me. Anybody that generous deserves to be met with trustworthiness.
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4 comments:
What a wonderful heartwarmer! My faith in humanity has been restored. Thanks for sharing.
Isn't it great to run into people like this every once in awhile? It reminds you what people are truly capable of.
WOW! how wonderful - hopefully, we here in the USA will be able to share similar heartwarming stories in the future.
So true. Though I'm sure there are thousands of these random acts of kindnesses happening every day that we never hear about. Somehow, it's mostly the negative stories that we seem to hear about.
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