The whole ride was about half an hour to forty five minutes but it didn’t seem like it! This was my first time seeing Ireland after all. There was so much to see driving into Dublin. The country side was a magnificent shade of green that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Rolling valley after rolling valley of green was what I saw. As we entered the city the first thing that struck me was how condensed everything was. Coming from North America I was accustom to big buildings, wide spaces, and plenty of driving room. Here the buildings were a lot closer together, and some of the roads were just a little bigger than one lane on the highways in Toronto! But it was also quite beautiful. Certain roads were made of brick! BRICK!! You never see anything like that in Toronto! Some of the buildings were old but had this air of integrity to them – one look at them and you could tell that they were rich with history. It all seemed so…foreign. I was almost glad when we passed our first McDonald’s or Burger King – “finally a familiar site!” I thought to myself.
We pulled up to a plain looking building and were greeted right away by a short hair Chinese girl with glasses who seemed to be quite familiar with our group. We unloaded our luggage and followed her inside. It looked like a normal office. Kind of boring actually, I half expected to see cool movie props and posters all along the walls, but this looked no different than my mom’s work! (she’s an accountant by the way) I stood quietly in a corner out of the way while Jackie, Willie, Solon, and Dorothy riffled through some papers and talked to everyone there. Most of the people there were Chinese. But one shorter, well built, Caucasian man caught my eye immediately and approached Jackie. They spoke at length about something that I couldn’t hear, their relationship seemed more formal. I couldn’t help but watch and half listen in on their conversation…it took me a second, but…yes! That white guy was speaking mandarin! Jackie pointed at me and I quickly looked away.
“Allen come,” Jackie said quickly. I darted over there as if an army general had just ordered a private to come and meet the president.
“Allen, this is Allan, he’s one of my stunt guys,” Jackie said with a smile.
“Nice to meet you,” said this other Allan who had what I thought was a British accent. He spoke with a low voice and had a stern air of seriousness about him.
“Hi!” I said excitedly, “Nice to meet you too!” I was honored to meet a real live stuntman who has worked with Jackie and was excited at the prospect of what I could learn from him!
After about twenty more minutes more of talking and office stuff, Brad led us out to the parking lot where two mini SUV’s awaited for us. We loaded our luggage into the back. Jackie got into the driver seat of one along with Willie, Solon, and Dorothy. Brad climbed into the driver’s seat of the other and Exy and I loaded followed suit. This was my chance to get to know Brad a little!
“So your name’s Allan too! What a coincidence! What’s your last name?” I asked as we reversed and pulled out of the driveway.
“Actually Allan is my last name, my first name is Brad.”
“Then why does everyone call you Allan?”
“Its cause us Chinese people have a hard time saying ‘Brad’ – it sounds more like Bret – but Allan is easy!” Exy chimed in. I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, but it seemed like a good enough reason, I laughed, but Brad’s face remained stone cold.
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