RSS
 

Archive for May, 2009

Missed Trains and a Midnight Channel Crossing

29 May

Eiffel tower

The problem, of course, was that the train actually left at 8. After repacking all my gear, getting a ride to a local train station, and riding that into St. Pancras international in downtown London–at an hour before ten–I printed out my ticket to realize that the last train of the day had left at 8. Either I’d misread my ticket, or the website I’d booked with had misprinted it (two other American girls there had the same problem), but regardless, I was going to be in London for another night.

But first, the day. We left that morning for Oxford University, where we parked the car right in front of the Eagle and Child, the pub on the campus where J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and the other members of their group (the Inklings) used to meet to have a pint and discuss their writing. We were even lucky enough to get the table where they’d originally sat, old brick walls now adorned with pictures of the Inklings and tidbits of information about them. To top off the experience, I even got to have a pint of green Stonehenge ale, which is apparently only available in the area.

Oxford

After that, we walked around Oxford for a bit, commenting on the “ambient IQ” of the place–I overheard one girl discussing a series of essays she was writing on a specific field of semiotics–and then got back into the car to drive up to an English village called Bibury, a place that has realized the financial value of the word “quaint” and played it to the hilt. I wondered what it must be like to live here in one of these little stone cottages amongst the picturesque meadows and woods and streams, and to have herds of tourists snapping pictures of your front door every day from nine to five.

Bibury

Then back to the Lundys’ for some truly amazing Thai curry, courtesy of Mrs. Lundy, followed by the incident of the missed Eurostar train. After trying fruitlessly to get my money back (the problem with cheap tickets is that they’re usually non-refundable) I walked back to the Lundys’ in the dark, and knocked on the door around 10:30. They were surprised to see me, and quite kindly took me in for another night. I wasn’t actually too disappointed–I had wanted to be in London for an extra day anyway. Besides, that way I got to watch Dr. Who, which, if you haven’t experienced it, is a thing truly not to be missed.

After thoroughly enjoying the following day of laziness, as well as cooking dinner for my hosts (I owed it to them), I caught–on time this time–the overnight bus to Paris. I’d expected it to be a straightforward enough crossing through the Chunnel, but half an hour after passing customs we were rolling onto one of the big Channel-crossing ferries of Dover’s harbor. We could see them as we approached, a long array of stocky white ships waiting for their cargos of cars and motorcycles and busses and freight trucks, all lit brightly and shrouded with the low rolling mist that spread out over the bay.

As soon as we were on board, I made my way for the open deck of the ship, even though by now it was after midnight. As the ferry’s engines groaned and we pulled away I could see the pale shapes of the white cliffs of Dover falling away behind us, lit by the working lights of the harbor. I hardly remember any of the following bus ride; I think was unconscious before we left Calais.

And then awake in Paris, my first stop on the continent and in a non-native-English-speaking country. I spent the first fifteen minutes of this magical time trying to decipher a subway map. Paris is a big city, and not the most logically laid out. But soon enough I was riding the metro into the city, and then on foot near the river Seine. The clouds were low and gray–followed me from England and Scotland, I suppose–and, as I climbed a hill in the gardens to the east of the river, I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower thrusting up into the mist. Well, I thought, now it’s official.

Boats on the Seine

A good portion of the rest of the day I spent exploring. One or two hours passed while I looked for someplace to get online so I could contact my couchsurfing host for the night–a place I finally found in the form of a municipal library accessible to the street by a single door and elevator, but occupying two full floors a few stories above the ground. I called and we arranged to meet after he got off work, around 7. At one point as I waited I noticed a thick column of black smoke billowing up from the city center. Apparently some troublemakers had burned a huge stack of tires in the middle of the road only a few blocks from the park in front of the Eiffel tower. They’d also managed to coat nearly everything nearby with rectangular yellow stickers whose meanings escaped me, either because I’m not French or because I’m not a psychotic tire burner, or possibly both.

The Ravages of the sticker monster

Having wrapped it all up with the requisite Eiffle-tower-across-the-green shot, waiting semi-patiently for a herd of tourists on Segways (I know, it just keeps getting better) to get out of the way, I bought a map and headed for Marc’s (my couchsurfing host) house, out in the 18th arrondissement, with “a view on Sacre Couer” according to his couchsurfing profile. Sounded good to me.

Eiffel Tower

Turns out it was even better. I was shown up to Marc’s apartment on the fourth floor by his neighbor, an older gentleman who’d lived in this area for some twenty years, less four spent teaching university in Boston. I was greeted there by a fellow couchsurfer, an Australian girl called Cate, who was staying here in Paris to await her boyfriend’s arrival in a week before her own departure on a fashion industry job to Dubai, UAE. I helped her set up a blog–which I will link to from here as soon as it’s ready–before Marc got back. Then, good conversation and good wine ensued for the remainder of the evening. This really is quite an amazing place, overlooking the narrow streets of Paris and, up on the hill, the Sacre Couer basilica. More Paris exploration tomorrow; quite possibly the catacombs, quite possibly the Louvre. Only time will tell.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

Sun and Sleep Debt

25 May

A bagpipes player on a bridge over the river Thames

Things did not go exactly as planned. Fellow travelers will know of course that this can cause both unexpected joys and unexpected trouble–both of which, of course, lend to the continuing narrative of the story said traveler plans to repeat over and over again upon having grandchildren and acquiring Alzheimers. If they’re going to be hearing this thing twice a day until you die, it might as well be good.

Inverness in the evening

So. Enough filler. After finishing my last post I fully intended to walk around town until around dark and then head back to my hostel for a decent night’s rest and an early start. My plan went perfectly until, as the sun began to set and the light was fading, I sat down near the center of Inverness to write my journal entry for the day. As I was finishing, with the very phrase “heading back to the hostel to read write, and/or draw,” I struck up a conversation with a rather winded looking character who sat down beside me. His name was Moz, and it seemed he had his finger in a bit of everything–he’d done some website design, and the winded look was because he’d just gotten out of a Korean martial arts class, in which he is an instructor. A few other locals joined us and they decided to head to some of the local pubs, and asked if I’d like to come along. Needless to say, I didn’t need much convincing.

We went to a few of the normal (quite nice) local pubs in the center of Inverness, where I tried some local Scottish ale, and then headed to a smaller, somehow warmer, upstairs pub downtown. We joined up with a couple of local guys and fell to talking about everything from politics to religion to travel to television shows–with some rather serious discussion about how the great timelord Dr. Who is going to be resurrected after his thirteenth self. If you haven’t seen the show, don’t worry, neither have I, but apparently I’m going to have to.

After this we headed to a house a good twenty minutes drive outside of Inverness, where a good number of other young people from around the area were playing music and just generally having a good time. We talked for quite a while about Scotland, and what it’s like to live there–apparently Scotland has a significantly smaller population than does England (which includes Wales), but drinks more alcohol. Total, not per capita. Interesting.

At any rate, I got back shall we say rather late and dedicated the next day to lounging about Inverness, reading my new book (The Double, Jose Saramago–quite good) and buying my tickets to London. I’d had it on good authority that Hadrian’s Wall was worth seeing, so instead of buying a direct ticket I bout two overnight tickets, one to Newcastle, and one the next night to London. Maybe I was tired–it was only then that I realized I’d shaved an entire day off of my planned London stay. Unfortunately, the bus company didn’t allow reservation changes, so I decided to make the best of it.

I slept the best I could on the bus but still got in groggy very early in the morning of the 24th. Newcastle, it seems, is quite a party down, and the drunken dregs of the previous night’s club scene were still wandering the streets, a scene that might be similar to a Night of the Living Dead film where all the zombies wore trendy jeans or cocktail dresses.

Downtown Newcastle

But I was there to watch the city wake up and, like any hard partier, wash itself off and shake itself into motion. This being England and Sunday, nothing was open, and it was cold, so I bought a day rover pass on the local subway and bus system to do some exploring on my own. The sun came out in a gloriously clear day–my first since landing in Dublin–and I had an excellent lunch in a green park on the outskirts of town. Then back in to check the local tourism board for advice. They gave me the train and bus connections I needed to get out to the best-preserved parts of the wall, more or less centered between England’s east and west coasts (one end was actually there in Newcastle, which is on the east coast, in a district known appropriately enough as Wallsend).

Through some miracle of luck I was able to make connections with minutes to spare right from walking from the tourist center to the central rail station and taking that out to Hexham, where I was picked up by the AD 122 bus (get it? If not, you will in a few paragraphs) that runs the length of the wall. I rode that out to the ruins of Housesteads Fort, the remains of an old Roman fortress that now serves as a photo op and playground for tourist children. How, indeed, the mighty have fallen.

The ruins of Housesteads Fort

Back in the Roman Day, Housesteads Fort was known by the much more imposing moniker of Vercovicum. It was built in AD 124, just two years after construction was begun on the wall (in AD 122–now do you get it?), as a main defensive point against the Picts, the friendly devils who were ancestors of our modern Scots. Even the name is just what they were known as by the Romans, as we don’t know what they called themselves–the word “pict” is from the Latin word meaning “to paint,” and probably referred to a use of woad, or blue war paint, by the Picts in battle, in the custom of the Gauls Julius Caesar fought a few centuries earlier in the Gallic Wars. Whoever they were, they were apparently terrifying enough to cause the mighty Roman Empire to build a wall across the entire island of Britain just to keep them where they were.

I walked the wall from Housesteads east for six or seven miles across the rolling English countryside, nearly all sheep and cattle country except for a stand of woods here and there or a small village along the nearby road. Every mile are the ruins of what are appropriately called milecastles, some larger than others, which housed the soldiers that patrolled the wall, watching, presumably, for a flash of blue paint in the forest.

Hadrian's Wall

Having had my walking and historical needs met I headed back into Newcastle where I sat for a few (too long, according to my sleep-starved mind) hours and waited for the bus into London. It came, and I fell asleep instantly on boarding. I remember absolutely nothing of the trip until the point when I awoke as we were driving past Hyde Park–the trick to sleeping on busses, as it seems, is to simply be really tired.

Street performer beside the Thames

The family of one of my roommates back in the States lives here in London, and graciously allowed me to stay the night. So, following a few written directions based on a Google map check, I ventured into the London Underground and found, with surprisingly little difficulty, the station nearest their house. Another American family was staying with them, and I tagged along with several of them this afternoon down along the Thames waterfront where, because today is a bank holiday, there were massive crowds and street performers everywhere, and the air smelled like a carnival. I photographed Big Ben because, let’s face it, a first-time visit to London isn’t really complete without doing so, but what I found far more interesting were the people. Even I, in my paltry one and a half weeks so far on the road, have already seen my fair share of giant stone buildings. They lack what Whittaker Chambers called “the stench of life”–they may be pretty, poetry in stone even, but it’s the life that passes through and around them that gives them any meaning at all.

The street performer's audience

This exposition, I hope, will explain why we headed to Camden Market where I spent the next couple of hours photographing people. Said subjects were many and varied, from goths in black leather and chains to sweaty joggers in shorts and tank tops. By now I’d split from the rest and rode the metro back to where I was staying.

img_5792

Which is where I am now. While usually anything but a proponent of soft beds and easy living, I must say I’m enjoying them at the present. Oxford tomorrow, and then tomorrow evening I leave the land of the native English speaking populations behind with the Eurostar high speed train to Paris.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

By sea to the Island of Skye

22 May

The Old Man of Storr

After running from the cafe where the last post was written, I made it to the train to Mallaig with minutes to spare, buying my ticket and stepping on board just seconds before the train started to move. This leg of the west highland line was, if possible, even more spectacular than the trip from Glasgow to Fort William, with high craggy mountains sloping down first to the lochs and then, as we drew further north, to the sea itself. At one point the train passed over a curving stone bridge that towered over the valley and small farm far below. We caught a glimpse of forests and white beaches and then, as the train slowed, we pulled into the small harbor town of Mallaig.

Mallaig Docks

In Mallaig I caught the ferry north to the Island of Skye. I stood out on deck–something not possible on the ferry from Belfast–and talked with a man from Germany who planned to walk the length of the island, a 75 mile or so trek. As it started raining halfway across the bay and didn’t seriously let up until I left two days later (this morning), I sincerely hope the weather improves for the end of his journey at least.

The ferry docked in a cold, clinging rain and the other passengers and I hurried off with coats pulled tight. Most made for a nearby cafe to wait for the bus; I, on a tight budget, sat down in the bus station. I was soon joined by a young Russian couple who both worked in Scotland. The girl had been here longer, and worked in a hotel on Skye, while her friend worked as a professional chef south of the Isles in Scotland proper. He’d traveled around the world with this job, working at one point on a ship off the coast of Africa for around a hundred USD a month–which meant when he was offered the opportunity to come work here, he accepted without looking back.

They were headed only ten miles up the coast or so, so they caught a ride with a local while I waited for the bus and chatted with a couple of older Scottish ladies, both of whom smoked and informed me about the various Scottish whiskey traditions. As far as I can tell neither smoking or hard alcohol carries the same stigma here as it does in the U.S., which means that they are both mroe common as well as less likely to be used in an act of rebellion byy the younger generation.

Portree

Finally the bus arrived and carried us up to the island’s only serious town, Portree–pretty enough, but full of tourists, and raining. I looked around a bit before walking out of town to pitch camp, where I had a good dinner of wine, bread and cheese from the local supermarket and finished my book.

The next morning I became quickly acquainted with the infamous midges of the British Isles, and barely escaped with my sanity. Fortunately, they seemed restricted to my particular campsite (of course), and didn’t follow me when I walked into town. As the day had cleared up somewhat I bought the six pound day pass to the island’s busses and headed out of town to its most famous geographical feature, a finger of black volcanic rock called the Old Man of Storr. It was a steep climb, but short, breaking quickly out of dense, almost primeval forest onto a wide marshy meadow that sloped up to the black rocks of the mountain and the Old Man.

Forest on the path up to the Old Man of Storr

I climbed further up until I crested the ledge and from there up to a small lookout peak. From here I could see out in all directions, with the beautiful Scottish Isles laying out to sea and a single white sailboat tiny in the distance. This, I thought, this is definitely worth the midges.

img_5190

After climbing back down I took the bus again in a wide loop around the north section of the island, a bit over an hour all told. Because the human population here is so spread out, the tourist bus system doubles as a school bus system, so my bus was half full of tourists and half full of children, all in the local school uniforms. The girls were screaming about some sort of bee and huddled in the front while the boys, displaying their manliness to the girls, clustered in the back and thoughtfully surveyed the offending insect while discussing possible methods of doing away with it.

After this I made full use of my day pass to head south and just off the island to the adjacent Scottish coast at Kyle of Lochalsh. On the bus ride down I made what is certainly the most random acquaintances thus far this trip–a couple who not only live very near me in Northern Virginia, but where the wife also works at the legal institution affiliated (and located on the campus of) the college where I go to school. They kindly took me out to dinner, and we talked about history, travel, and the experience here in general. I gave them the address to this website–if you’re reading this, thanks again for the dinner, and I’ll quite possibly see you when I get back in August.

Inverness

I again made camp outside of town–fourth night in a row–and caught a train next morning to Inverness. Ready to sleep in a bed for a change and avoid the rain, I booked a hostel as soon as I arrived–predictably, the weather looks to have cleared up completely. So it goes. At any rate, I intend to explore this city some more tomorrow morning before starting south–I hope to be in London by the 24th, only two nights away. Where will I be tomorrow? Time will tell!

 
5 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

A Ride on the West Highland Line

20 May

The train to Fort William

Perhaps the most interesting thing about that night was a strangely friendly fox. That, for all you writers out there, is called in the trade a “hook.” You dangle a tasty tidbit of information in front of your readers and then go on without mentioning it again for several sentences, while your helpless reader is left thinking “fox? Did he say fox? I should keep reading, so I find out what he’s talking about!” That’s the theory behind the practice, at any rate. Use as you see fit.

So, fox. After leaving the library I headed west from Glasgow, looking for a place to spend the night. I considered the Scottish Youth Hostel Association, which is fairly cheap, but still, I’m trying to conserve funds. So instead I headed farther out, into the outskirts of the city, where I found a lot of woodlands among some new developments and pitched my poncho tent. I have to say, it was an excellent purchase – it works perfectly both as a poncho and an ultralight shelter.

As I set up camp, I heard some noise in the woods and turned to see a small red fox sitting and watching me curiously. It shied away as I took a step toward it, but didn’t run. I finished setting up my shelter and went to bed. When I awoke early the next morning I started to see it only a few feet from where I lay, watching me as if trying to find out what strange sort of trespasser in its territory I was.

I broke camp and walked back into the city. As I walked, a heavy rain began to fall, and I cut my further exploration of Glasgow short in favor of an earlier ticket into the Highlands on the famous West Highland Line. Twenty three pounds got me a ticket to Fort William, where I hoped to get a shot at climbing Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles. The train pulled out of Queen Street Station at about ten after nine in the morning, and went for some way in tracks braced on both sides by moss-covered stone walls. Then it was out through the suburbs of Glasgow and, before too long, along the shores of a misty loch. A light rain was falling, and the landscape was covered in mist, but the train was warm–a very comfortable change from the cold walk through the rain it’d taken to get me to the station.

A small lake in the Scottish highlands

Gradually thick hardwood forests replaced the human settlements closer to Glasgow, and the mountains became higher and rockier. Soon the rounded slopes had turned into high, rocky cliffs that disappeared into the clouds above, leaving low and misty valleys stretching out on either side of the train, through which one could catch the occasional glimpse of the gray water of another Scottish loch.

The Scottish Highlands

An hour and a half into the journey, the sun began to come out, and the highlands rolled out on either side of us with a sort of desolate beauty unlike anything I’ve seen back in the States. Wide open meadows sloping up to rocky dome-top mountains, low marshes, an occasional stone ruin blackened by centuries of exposure to the Scottish weather. To top it off, the Scottish names of the stations we called at along the way have a beauty of their own–Ardlui, Crianlarich, Bridge of Orchy, Rannoch, Corrour. As we neared the Bridge of Orchy, we came across a long hiking path that passed beside the track. This was the West Highland Way, a hundred mile or so walking path through the Highlands. One day, I tell myself, one day.

Another Scottish loch

As we finally near Fort William around one, the scenery becomes (if possible) even more spectacular, with the towering rocky slopes and cliffs of Ben Nevis ascending into the clouds on our left. The storm has more or less left us behind, but is still coursing around the high peak before turning south toward Glasgow. Regardless, I get off the train and start walking around the town, covering several miles of the West Highland Way as it passes along the river and through a nearby town. The air is fresh, the scenery is beautiful: I could live here one day, I think.

img_4970

By the time the storm clears Ben Nevis, it’s too late to start an ascent (it’s quite a long hike), but the sun is warm and the spring greenery is beautiful. I climb up from a road through an old cemetery now in the center of a sheep field. It’s lamb season, and dozens of them run around the field among the fading gravestones. Beyond the cemetery is a high hill with a bench atop it beside a stone memorial to Clan Donald and the Battle of Inverlochy, fought just below the hill in the early fifteenth century. I sit and read and eat my dinner of bread and cheese here. Then it’s into the woods for another night of camping.

My poncho shelter works beautifully this time. It rains most of the night and yet me and all of my equipment remain completely dry. When I wake up the next morning, it’s still raining, so I decide to call off the Ben Nevis attempt–next time. So I walk back into town, buy a few things, and stop in at the cafe Fired Art, which has wifi, and sit down to a truly amazing breakfast of eggs, bagel, and coffee. A few pounds is a small price to pay for a good breakfast and reliable internet access.

Inverlochy Castle

I’ll be heading down to the train station shortly to book a ticket north to Mallaig, and then on to the Isle of Skye. From there, it’s either north to some of the other Scottish Isles and the north Scottish coast, or east on the Kyle of Lochalsh line to Inverness.

Now, time to get that train.

The Train

 
4 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

Rail and Sail

18 May

The Goliath Shipbuilding Crane, Belfast

Well, it turns out you can only get the ferry and rail combination pass at seven in the morning and noon. So, Michael graciously hosted me for another night and I got a few more hours to explore Belfast. This time (at his suggestion) I walked down by the docks to expl0re the original construction site of the Titanic–Belfast’s main historical tourist attraction, it seems. The problem is that at the moment nearly that entire waterfront area is under intense development. This was a bit interesting in itself, just to see the grand plans on display–and if even half of them come true, Belfast will truly be one of the prettier cities of western Europe.

img_4671

The next morning Michael drove me to the ferry and dropped me off just before the first ferry of the morning departed. Unfortunately, they required booking half an hour in advance, so I sat and read and waited for the next ferry. It came soon enough and I boarded–Stena Lines uses something like a floating shopping center for it’s Belfast-Stranraer (Scotland) crossing, with three separate mid-sized movie cinemas, several restaurants, and an entire miniature shopping mall in the center. I made my way to the front and watched as the rounded shores of Ireland fell away behind us. In less than an hour’s time the Scottish coast was coming into view–dark hills sloping down to the rocky shores, glens of dense forest in the valleys, with only the occasional farmhouse to break the expanses of green. A much wilder scene than the developed farmland around Belfast. I liked it already.

I’d purchased the Rail and Sail ticket all the way to Glasgow, so immediately on docking I headed for the train station and found a seat. There was a brief wait as the train waited to pick up the rest of its passengers, and then we rolled out, through Strenraer, and into the Scottish countryside. At first, we were passing through green, rolling farmland, broken here and there by groves of trees or small farmhouses. Then, as we moved further along, the fields faded into stark sheep country, short-cropped hills yellowing under the gray sky. Old stone walls, most of them crumbling, crossed the fields, bolstered by modern barbed wire, and the occasional muddy jeep track cut across the landscape. Here and there dark forest filled the valleys, and through these I caught the occasional glimpse of human settlement, past and present: an old stone house, the broken remains of a castle and, in one case, an enormous stone mansion sequestered far from any other human habitation in the dark Scottish evergreen forest.

Then, suddenly, we were descending from the sheep country into a series of low villages. The coast opened up again on our left, rocky islands silhouettes out to sea. Before, train stations had been small and lonely affairs, usually a single run down building along a mud or decaying asphalt track. Now they were full towns, and we began to acquire new passengers. Two middle-aged Scotsmen seated themselves next to me and I spent the next half hour conversing–or trying to–with one of them. His accent was so thick I could catch only part of what he was saying. As far as I know, he started off by telling me the history of relations between the Scots and the Irish. This was followed by a series of either derogatory or complimentary remarks about both the English and the Irish, and then a description of the local golf courses, one of which he was going to visit now. He got off at the next stop, which was the first of no less than five separate golf courses in the forty-five minute ride the rest of the way to Glasgow–the Scots, it seems, are still fans of the sport.

Glasgow Central Train Station

Glasgow itself is beautiful, and seems very alive, though I’ve only been here a few hours. The train station is a cavernous construction which I’ll return to tomorrow to order my tickets to Fort William on the famous West Highland Line railway. The streets were alive with pedestrians, far more than Belfast and more even than Dublin–it had the fast-paced sense of human movement one gets in places like New York City, right down to the crowds gathering around street performers and cars driving too fast down narrow alleyways. I’ll be leaving tomorrow around noon, so I’ll have more time t0 explore tomorrow morning.

Glasgow City Center

For now, it’s time to find a place to sleep.

 
5 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

Rain and Random Happenstance

17 May

christ-church-cathedral

There’s always a change in the way you think before any adventure–the change that comes between the point where you’re planning to do something and the point when you know you’re going to do it. Tuesday night I was watching television shows online, passing the time. But on Wednesday I was saying my good byes and packing all of the next three months into my backpack.

And on thursday morning I was driving to the airport. I’d worked right up until the day before I left, and it felt a bit unreal to be suddenly on my way to a flight overseas and a few months of the nomadic life.

It felt even stranger to wake up two flights and a seven hour layover in Boston later as we were landing in Dublin at just after five in the morning local time. I caught the first bus to the city center and from there, walked. The skies were overcast, with a light rain, and it was still too dark to take out my camera, so I just walked the streets and watched the city wake up. I ended up in the center of the Trinity College campus as the first few people moved around there, getting it ready for the day. The cobblestone square shone with the rain, and the perfectly manicured cricket lawns (’keep off the grass’ printed in both English and Irish) were as green as all other plant life I’d seen here so far.

Trinity College Campus

As the day drew on the city came alive. Soon there were flocks of tourists descending on the sights, having their pictures taken with the statue of Molly Malone, following tour guides in tight little clusters (the word ‘herds’ being an obvious but perhaps too unkind alternative). I stopped in at the tourism office, a converted church, to buy a map and get my bearings.

I had reservations for the night at a Dublin Hosteling International, so I first found it on the map. Before I could go to it, though, there was something I had to see. I walked back into the Trinity College Campus and found the line to the Book of Kells and the famous Long Room of the college library (yes, you’ve seen it before; a clear example of the dangers of travel porn). The Book of Kells was first, and quite interesting if very touristy. The star of the show, though, was the Long Room. You enter the room to the strong musty smell of old books and a dark wood ceiling arching high overhead. Double stacks of books, two floors and full of old volumes, line the long corridor, with display cases along the center. Iron staircases spiral up from the corners (all behind ropes to prevent tourists climbing around), and, unfortunately, photography is banned. I sat for some time there, imagining a time when the place was full of scholars instead of sightseers.

A dangerous example of travel porn.

(Not my picture--but you can still be jealous)

After I left Trinity College I found my hostel and checked in. One thing I noticed immediately was that it was not all young people–in fact, a fair percentage of those staying there were around retirement age, and there was one couple with two children. Most hostels these days rent smaller rooms out to private groups (like families) and aren’t at all party oriented–this one didn’t even allow alcohol on the premises–so they provide a good, low budget alternative to expensive hotel rooms.

former-richmond-hospital

I walked around Dublin a bit more that evening and the following morning–after discovering that the hostel computers didn’t allow image uploads and thus, no post last night–and bought a bus ticket to Belfast. The drive was several hours, but pleasant, through the impossibly green Irish countryside. When I finally arrived in Belfast the first thing I saw on leaving the bus station was an enormous wall mural proclaiming the presence and, presumably, supremacy of the loyalist party of Northern Ireland. I’d come to know more about this issue here, but for the moment I just took a few pictures and walked toward the river to find the ferry to Scotland.

bladed-wire

I hit the river and followed it down toward the bay where, according to the map I’d seen on the bus station wll, the ferry would be. I passed some interesting sights (”See the place where the Titanic was built–it was still fine when it left here!”). Graffiti covered the walls anywhere out of sight of the main roads, and construction sites were surrounded by some of the wickedest bladed wire I’ve seen anywhere. Even so, cranes towered in the sky all across the city, and teenagers laughed and skateboarded around as if not even noticing. Belfast is clearly in a state of change, and it will be interesting to see what the next few years bring.

belfast-young-couple

As I was approaching the ferry I met a man carrying a tray of sandwiches through an empty parking lot and asked him for directions to the ferry. We got to talking, and it turned out he was a couchsurfing host already having a few people over. He invited me to stay and I accepted–the best spot of luck I’ve had on my trip yet. That night several people from all over–Holland, Germany, Italy–descended on the apartment for a Eurovision party. If you haven’t heard of it (being American, I hadn’t), it’s essentially singers and musicians from different countries all around Europe competing on television–with a somewhat biting BBC voiceover narration throughout. Mostly I talked. One Irishman named Christo had recently visited both Turkey and Syria, and so promised to give me some good advice on both regions for when I get there in a month and a half or so. Two others were alternative energy engineers working on a system for harnessing tidal energy, while another (a girl from Holland) was an anthropologist studying the political and social situation here in Northern Ireland. My host, Michael, handed out the sandwiches (they were convention leftovers–turns out he’s in the web development business too), and a good time was generally had by all.

I woke up the next morning to have an enormous Irish breakfast of sausages, eggs, fried mushrooms, potato bread, soda bread and tomato, with a steaming mug of coffee (a “heart attack on a plate” as Michael’s roommate had it)–now this, I thought, was how days should start. After we cleared the plates we talked (I mostly listened) about the situation Northern Ireland’s in–a conversation sparked by a loyalist marching band passing by the apartment building in the street below that morning. For those as uninitiated as I was, the two strong parties are the Catholic nationalists and the Protestant loyalists, with a number of other smaller parties holding seats in various positions between the two. Though things have generally been peaceful since “the bad old days,” old wounds are by no means yet fully healed. My earlier impression that Northern Ireland will be an interesting place to watch over the next few years was confirmed.

belfast-loyalist-sign

I’m sitting now in Michael’s apartment, using his computer to upload this post and its accompanying pictures. Later today I hope to catch a ferry to the Scottish coast and then on to Glasgow.  Next time (hopefully): Scotland, the West Highland Line, and, weather permitting, the mountain of Ben Nevis.

 
3 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized

 

Waiting

08 May

Clock

Every great adventure is prefaced by boredom. If it weren’t, of course, you wouldn’t need the adventure. The purists out there like to say it’s not boredom exactly (when you live a full and fulfilled lifestyle every second is an adventure!), and justify it by calling it “restlessness.” Maybe that’s right. I’m generally a content person, but I do know this: when the wind starts blowing, my feet start itching.

This effect is compounded when there’s a specific date and time. Let’s pick next Thursday, say, as a completely hypothetical example. At 10:15 in the morning, let us say, from Dulles International Airport. Let us suppose also that it is now May 8, at around eleven at night. First, we try to bring the event closer (maybe I should leave for the airport at six, even though it’s only a half hour drive away … security might be tight, after all, and then there’s traffic …), which only can go so far.

So we try to make the time spent seem more manageable, to feel like we’ve achieved something at each marker. By setting one’s goal at halfway there, and then halfway again, etc., so that the distance of the goal gets exponentially closer with each victory of patience. But then, hypothetically, we still have to wait exactly two days, seventeen hours, thirty-seven minutes, and thirty seconds. A long time. Hmmmm.

We next turn to mindless occupation, the conduction of that ancient exercise of mankind’s, “taking one’s mind off it.” Work is great for this, of course, assuming you’re doing something somewhat engaging. And it had better be, because the moment your attention wavers, you start wondering about what sort of snacks they’ll be serving on your flight, and how exactly to get from the airport at your destination to wherever you’ll be spending the night (except that in our hypothetical situation we’ll be landing in Dubl–our destination at 5:20 in the morning, GMT).

But now we approach the weekend, which is a much larger obstacle. Fortunately for us, there are a number of blockbuster movies available in theaters at the moment. Unfortunately for us, the extent of the damage this trip will be doing to our budget is beginning to sink in, and we are quickly becoming misers. So instead we sit at home, perhaps trying to read a book. That of course takes more attention than we have at the moment, so we substitute mindless visual entertainment, one of our country’s chief exports.

After yet another hilarious episode of some show about … something, we look at the clock again, and for the first time ever regret that internet-streamed television broadcasts don’t have more commercials.

So we write a blog post. As we finish up and get ready to publish, we look up at the clock. Eleven ten.

Next time, we think, we’re going to have to type slower.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Summer 09, Uncategorized