I Should Have Written This Days Ago

I really should have!

But getting back was busy (of course), and then being back was - well, I wont' get ahead of myself.

So those first two days in Dublin, I took one of those hop-on, hop-off tour buses, as I'd mentioned in my last post. Ultimately, though, I've concluded that after the first go-around, they are a monumental waste of time. Next time, I'll take the bus once around to get a glimpse of everything, maybe, but other than that, I much more enjoy myself and the city on my own.

On the third day, I just started walking. I had only a vague itinerary - Christchurch, Dublin Castle, and St. Patrick's, right?



Mission accomplished! Mostly!

I went to St. Patrick's first - sort of. Actually, I went to Grafton Street first, and got a fun time getting lost. This was the place that reminded me of different spots in Barcelona the most, if only because of all the shops - but I liked it better because Grafton Street is a relatively short street, with lots of other little walk-only streets crossing it, so it's like a little network of pedestrian fun. There were lots of streets like these in Dublin, and I adored that - I love the walk-only street. They're so much nicer, and I feel like they make you really get into the nooks and crannies of a place.

So anyway, after I did a little shopping and discovered that I'd missed a walking tour on the 1916 revolution (which made me sad), I struck off on my own; I visited St. Patrick's, which is beautiful. There's a park next to it that's just gorgeous, and in the back of it, they have memorials to various Irish writers:



So after I went inside and took a million pictures of the gorgeous stained glass, I went to Christchurch for probably my favorite historical moment of the trip - this exhibition they were doing on the Vikings!!! :D

It was so interesting to learn about them, and everything was interactive - and they had these great replicas of places and people:


Hehehe... he's on the turlet!

They also had a medieval village/market - but that floor was beset on all sides by hordes of Spanish teenagers, gumming up the works and just making me want to get out of there. Though I did talk to some of them, and they were actually really cute and sweet. I just didn't want to be taking pictures and trying to get my learn on with them wandering around, getting in the way, and yammering the whole time. LOLOL. But they were nice. One of them asked me where I was from, and I told him the U.S., and he asked me how I spoke Castillian so well (YAY! :D) and I told him my mom is Cuban, and then he was like, "Ah, yes, -that's- your accent!" LOLOL YAAAY!

So anyway, after Christchurch, I wandered around a bit more, and found Dublin Castle.

Sadly, they were done with tours for the day, so I wandered over to the Beatty Library, had a little lunch, looked at some things, and tried Turkish delight for the first time.

As I wrote in a text that many of you received:

"You know, it's not bad, but I find it hard to believe that Turkish delight was ultimately responsible for the betrayal of Aslan and Narnia."

And I agree with Alexis' assessment; respect has been lost for Edmund. LOLOL.

Okay, enough nerd humor.

So after the library, it started pissing rain - it was crazy! It had been blue-skied and sunny, gorgeous, and then all of a sudden - deluge! My cute little sheep umbrella that I got from the airport immediately succumbed to the wind, and I went to the library/museum gift shop to see if they had any umbrellas for sale.

They didn't, but they just gave me one they had back there! So sweet!

So after the library, I wandered back another way toward St. Stephen's Green, and stumbled upon this:



What a neat little market! I found a CD store that was playing what sounded like The Knife - so I went in and asked. The Irish hipster at the tiny counter looked at me with impressive disdain and disgust as soon as he heard my American accent - but when I asked if what was playing was The Knife, he looked at me again, less suspiciously this time. He informed me that actually, it was the chick from the Knife's solo project - I was like, "Oh, really? I didn't know about that! Cool!" And then he actually seemed to kind of warm up (well, relatively speaking), and told me that yeah, it'd only just come out a few weeks ago. So I was like, "Awesome," and asked for it, and I bought it, and I am excited because it's pretty cool, but I also actually bought a physical CD that just came out - I don't know if this has happened to me since before 1998. LOLOL.

Anyway, I also got a nice banana nut bread, and then took a walk through St. Stephen's Green. I'd been planning to go to the National Gallery, but I was pretty beat, and my feets were hurting from walking all day! So I went back to my inn instead!

Sadface!

But anyway, it was a lovely day. I wish I could have had just one or two more - but c'est la vie! :D

In Which I Write Because I Don't Wanna; In Which I Write Because I Don't Wanna Forget..

I missed being surrounded by people speaking Spanish.

That was the first thing.

I stumbled and forgot sometimes what language to speak; people addressed me in English, and I felt like there was a mental emergency braked pulled before I responded in Spanish.

That was really strange, because it didn't happen like that in Spain at all with English.



But I'm screwing up the time line - the truth is, that wasn't the first thing. The first thing, probably, is that I took an evening (for Spain - 10:15) flight out of Barcelona to Dublin. But that's not the first thing, either. Before that came my last day in Spain, which I spent contentedly packing; after I'd had most of that done, I went for one last look at the Mediterranean, and some sun. Thus energized, I finished up my business, cleaned the apartment, and got ready to go.

What struck me in the airport, which hadn't before in other contexts, was how many people travel to other countries without speaking the language of the country they're visiting.

I was hungry - I got a little sandwich at a little airport sandwich place, and sat at the counter, watching the other customers come up. It was really surprising, how much pointing went on, how many fingers held up. This seemed like such a vulnerable position to be in - of course, communication eventually happened, the message was sent and received - but that was in the airport, where things can generally be counted upon to go a certain way. But how does it work elsewhere?

Even Italy seems a little intimidating to me, and there have been times when I've been able to understand whole conversations in Italian because of my knowledge of Spanish. But these Germans, these Russians (whom I've noticed seem to comprise the majority of non-Romance-language or English-speaking travelers), they're all up in it, traveling with their families, with their friends, and getting by. Sometimes they don't really speak that much English, either, but they get by.

I think there's something to that. Maybe - I don't know. Despite the fact that I've spent this trip very focused on elements and objects (sun, sand, sky, architecture, art, history), and not really been spending the majority of my time with other people, I've still really enjoyed being able to talk to the people hosting me, as it were.

(Though contrary to rumor, -not- everyone in Dublin is immediately warm and friendly - at least not as far as I've seen. Most, definitely. But then, I've looked very much the tourist the past few days with my backpack and my hat - in Spain, I blended much better. LOLOL. Even so, in general I've found Dubliners to be kind, helpful, and funny.)

In any case, the overwhelming majority of the natives I've met - in Barcelona, in Mallorca, in Dublin - have been nothing but helpful, fun, engaging, interesting and interested. I've enjoyed talking to them, learning the character of the citizens of these cities and comparing them to the cities themselves - wondering how they influence each other. I certainly plan to travel in the future, and I hope to have the opportunity to learn a little of the languages of the places I'll be going when I do. I don't anticipate much trouble with French or Italian - maybe Portuguese for Portugal or Brazil. But I think I would like to visit Germany someday, or North Africa or the Middle East.

(I don't know that I've given up hope on Arabic, but it's not an effort I'm particularly willing to exert at this point in time.)

Anyway, this has become a pretty major digression. I don't know how I feel about the idea of seeing places without being able to communicate with the people who inhabit them. I certainly think that many of the works of art I've seen could be appreciated in any language, but for example, I visited Kilmainham Gaol today in Dublin - and there, in the museum section, everything was in Gaelic and English, and the tour was given only in English. I don't know if historical sites are of any interest to people who don't share the strange sort of cultural commonalities we of the formerly-English-occupied world do, but I was interested in the historical aspects of Spain I was exposed to - but then, I have a hereditary stake there, too - especially in Barcelona, where my grandfather's family was from originally. (Maybe his grandparents and up, I think.)

But then, I'm a history nerd. I don't know why other people travel. Architecture speaks for itself; art does, nature does. Beaches certainly do. I don't think every vacation necessarily needs to be an anthropological excursion. So I guess those things draw other people, too; landmarks, food, music, climate. Those can say a lot, too, about a people, about a place.

I'm interested. But I still want to learn another language.

I just have to decide between French and Italian next.

Travel Foibles – or, reminders from the Universe to expect the unexpected

written in part in my hotel room in Dublin at some ungodly hour on June 23, in part on the plane to Nottingham, also June 23

So I adore Dublin, but I haven’t had the opportunity to see nearly as much of it as I’d hoped. Despite my grand plans to sleep on the plane, and to compensate for this failure by taking a nap, my “nap” was actually four hours long, and then I had to spend another hour and a half or so dealing with business back home. All in all, I didn’t make it out of my hotel until about five (I think? My cell doesn’t like this time zone, and isn’t keeping time properly at all). So I got to walk around the immediate area and take a few pictures of the loveliness that surrounded me.


More on facebook... blogspot is slow!

I also had a really, really, really delicious dinner at a really cool restaurant called Church (it’s actually in a converted church):



(Also, I got to sample real Irish draught Guinness, and let me confirm that the rumors are true. It’s a different beer entirely in Ireland, and where I’ve never liked it when I’ve tried it in the States, I could drink gallons of what they served me here in Dublin.)

But then there was some drama.

So, I came back from the restaurant, full as a tick (again) and wholly content, and decided to take it easy, since I was still exhausted (I was falling asleep at the restaurant). While chatting with buddies and enjoying the intarwebs, I got a call from my “Check-In Manager,” Ahmed – who was neither of the women with whom I had corresponded via e-mail about the arrangements for this apartment. I hadn’t thought anything of it when I was given his name and information as a contact in Barcelona – I figured he’d be a super, or a property manager, or whatever. Well, whatever he was, he called me and told me, at about 11:00 PM or so Dublin time (which means about midnight Barcelona time), that the apartment I had booked and confirmed by making an initial payment of $600+, was having a “water problem,” and that it wouldn’t be available for a few days – but that they were going to put me somewhere in the “city center.” When I asked him for the address of the new apartment, he told me he’d tell me when I got to the airport tomorrow.

Hmm.

Now, this whole situation really bothered me – but whatever, I needed to go to bed, I needed to sleep, I needed to get up the next day (today) at 5:30 to make my flight. So I went to sleep.

And woke up at about 2:45 Dublin time.

I couldn’t get back to sleep – I didn’t want to. I didn’t like that he hadn’t told me the address of the apartment, and I tried calling him – to no avail, of course. Beyond that, when I’d first booked the apartment, I’d arranged to stay in one spot, and after I’d booked it, they wrote me to tell me that the landlady had booked it – and they offered me several other options at higher prices. I told them that I was on a budget, and that I needed to pay what I had originally been going to. They then offered me the apartment that many of my friends have heard about – an adorable little studio in La Barceloneta, perfect for my needs, a two minute (seriously, Google Maps said so) walk to the beach, ten minutes into the heart of Ciudad Vella, an area of the city densely packed with many of the things I want to see there. It was originally priced at about 700 Euro more than I’d booked the other room for, but they cut it down to only about 100 Euro more – which was awesome for the location and space.

At the time, I’d thought I’d just lucked out – but upon receiving that call from the “Check-In Manager,” I began to see it in a different light entirely. I’d been warned by a friend that I ought to just stay in a hostel for a few days when I got into town, so I could actually see the apartments I was considering, meet with landlords, and ensure that the situation was legit.

Of course, I didn’t listen; I was worried about staying in a hostel, I didn’t want to schlep, I just wanted to be settled as quickly as possible. I figured since I’d found the place in the comments of the NYT travel section’s article on staying Barcelona, it must be okay. (This was a naïve mistake on my part – the age of the Common Man Internet has made me forget the extreme paranoia I had back in the days, when it was only nerds, freaks, and liars on the ‘Net [remember when we actually called it that? HA!].) Of course, it never occurred to me that someone from the company itself may have written a bogus recommendation. I don’t know if that’s the case, but really, a little more info should have been considered.

In any case, (oh, look, there’s England! :D), when I woke in the middle of the night, my stomach clenched, my teeth grinding, about this situation, and I didn’t hear back from Ahmed, I wrote an e-mail to Alba, the woman I’d been corresponding with. I told her I was very distressed about the situation, and wanted the address of the place. But the more I thought about it, the less comfortable I was. I felt more than a little stupid, naïve, and helpless. Here I was, not even at home so that I had some kind of recourse, so that I could just say, “Well fuck you then,” or at least feel like I had resources at my disposal to fix this somehow. I was across an ocean, in a hotel room, in a place where everything is more expensive and my money is worth less than at home. The idea of being adrift – of having no place to stay, of having to spend hundreds of dollars on hotel rooms and losing the money I’d already put down – had me near hyperventilating.

This was why people had been so impressed that I’d gone by myself; or at least, it was what they should have been thinking about. Loneliness, okay – make a new friend, or make a phone call, or get drunk. Being in a foreign place when shit goes south, all by yourself? It’s strange – when someone else is with you, you’re in together. Whatever goes wrong, you have each other – to blame, to reassure, to talk and figure it out. There was no one to blame or reassure but me.

Well, that’s not exactly true – granted, there was no one to blame but myself (and maybe Ahmed), but there was reassurance to be had.

Now one lesson here is this – if you’re going far away, to another country, on vacation, make sure you either have a plan B or enough backup capital to make one on the fly. Also, a netbook and making sure wherever you stay has internet access is immensely helpful. With the help (and invaluable moral support) of my dear and infinitely smart and practical friend Leez, I researched hotels in Barcelona, checked them against my Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, and booked a room at a four-star hotel at an insanely cheap rate until Friday. When Ahmed called this morning, I went with my gut and told him I wasn’t going to be taking the apartment, and that I wanted my deposit back. He said that was impossible, and I told him that I was not going to pay for goods and services I had not been received – that since I wasn’t going to be provided with the apartment agreed upon when I paid, I was not going to let the charges stand. He said there was nothing he could do, so I told him that I had family in Barcelona (I did not mention that they’ve been dead for hundreds of years, and that my nearest live relative is in Mallorca), and that I was sure they could have their lawyer handle the situation, if that was what he wanted – but that I’d prefer not to have to go through the trouble.

Anyway, writing this entry has become exhausting - I'm in Nottingham now, and they're letting me into the departure area. YAAAAAY!

Dublin - 2995 Miles (June 21-22)

About 6:00 PM – Logan Airport, Boston
Dublin - 2995 Miles

Packing today was no big deal. I mean, granted, my room looked as though a clothes and garbage bomb went off in it – I didn’t have anything packed as of about 12:30 or so – maybe even 1:00 P.M. But I feel like I’ve been preparing to pack for weeks; making lists, printing out itineraries, studying websites, considering what I’ll need – everything I needed to pack was within a ten foot radius of me, there was just no organization to it than any other human might be able to identify.

I’m only bringing two pieces of luggage; my new messenger bag (purchased in the prep frenzy), and my little roll-y suitcase – both carry-on. I can’t emphasize how grateful I am for all the websites I consulted – especially Rick Steves’ (though the instructor of the summer travel writing class at Emerson hates him, according to what everyone I know in that class has told me). It was helpful to keep in mind to travel light; it made packing less traumatic, list-making easier and more organized, and it kept me from being overwhelmed by what the hell I need to bring for a month away from home. I feel prepared for anything, but not overburdened.

(Though I’ll probably buy a cute purse in Spain – it’s the one thing I left out that made me a little sadface.)

People in general seem impressed by or encouraging of my decision to travel light, like I’m some kind of clever, practical creature for having thought of it. LOL – I’ll take it. Anyway, despite my love of surrounding myself with crap, I’ve found I really don’t need that much. I think this may result in a large-scale expunging of belongings upon my return.

Anyway, another thing people seem in some way impressed by is by the fact that I’m doing this by myself; like it’s some brave thing, or some big thing. I don’t know! Nothing about going alone freaked me out – it didn’t even occur to me to freak out – until people started saying these things to me. Even so, I’m pretty much not freaked out. I don’t doubt that I’ll get homesick, and miss the people I love. But I think a lot of people have the experience of going off somewhere alone, but they don’t remember, because once you’ve done it, it seems so easy . Going away to college, going away to grad school, moving to take a job – these are all long-term moves that a lot of people make, often very far from home. Granted, I’m going to another country across the ocean, but Dublin is 2995 miles away from Boston – I don’t think that’s farther than California. Barcelona’s a little farther, but what are a few hundred miles? Maybe a thousand?

I don’t know. I spend a lot of time by myself, and I enjoy it a lot. I look very much forward to having my own space, to being on my own near the beach, to setting my schedule as I see fit; to meeting new people and seeing all the beautiful places that are in Barcelona, and taking pictures of them and writing about them to share with my friends, and to keep for my own sake. I can’t tell if people think it’s a special thing because it could be dangerous or because it could be lonely, but I haven’t read anything to indicate that it’s any more dangerous than any other major city. I’ve taken precautions, I think I’m pretty aware, and I’m fortunate to be in a position to be able to take the safe ways when possible.

Beyond that, as far as loneliness is concerned, I’m lonely often enough in my own home, you know? Everybody gets lonely, or so say all the songs and poems and art, and while it may seem more acute abroad, there are also so many things to do to make myself not feel lonely. So much to think about, so much to see. We’re all alone, no matter how close to other people we become – and learning about other people, immersing myself in another culture, and recognizing the things that stay the same even in the face of so much difference, I think, will only serve to make me feel less lonely.

We’ll see – for now, we’re going to be boarding soon. :D

7:30 GMT, 2:30 EDT – Somewhere between Shannon and Dublin

LOLOL – I didn’t sleep much on the plane at all. My seatmate for the flight was a thoughtful, interesting, Pisces filmmaking student named Jory. Jory is from Cincinnati, and won points right off the bat by, upon learning of my land of origin, telling me he’s never met a bad person from Jersey. (It’s nice to know we’re out there properly representing. :D) From there, conversation went from photography to cinematography to film, to the ways that poetry and film mirror each other as languages, to magazines and media and art. He gave me a few simple tips to help me take better pictures – a fact about which I am very excited. Jory goes to Northwestern, is a Jewish American Indian Greek (or a Greek American Indian Jew?) who speaks Spanish like an Argentine. Serious, smart, but funny, he smiles more in Spanish.


It's Jory! He's pretty deep.

Conversation kept me awake for the first half of the flight, and then I slept for maybe an hour or two – I can’t be sure. Either way, when our plane landed, I was so excited, I jumped right off – not realizing that I was not at my final destination, but in Shannon, Ireland, rather than Dublin.

The Shannon Airport is a modest one, and under construction. Accustomed as I am to the megamall airports as I’ve experienced them in the States, I was somewhat surprised that the International airport for such a prominent city was so famous and prominent as Dublin (a capital, no less!) would have such a humble little airport – and yet I was charmed by it, thinking to myself, “You know, if there’s a bottle of water in that coke machine and some trail mix in that vending machine, I’m straight.”

After walking from the gate (and going back for my jacket – still never realizing I was in Shannon), I found a little Hudson-Newsy kind of convenience store, where I bought a bottle of water; then, I was shaking so badly from fatigue and jetlag, I bought a pack of cigarettes. Being in such a different place was more disconcerting than I’d anticipated, and cigarettes were the most immediately available familiar thing. Oh, and they are such a comfort.

Lucky for me, I had forgotten my jacket, and had had to walk quite a ways back to the gate from the little nexus of buying stuff in the terminal, and then, once my stuff was bought, decided to transfer the water I’d bought into my trusty Sigg before I went out into Ireland to smoke a cigarette and find a cab. Because of my terminal tendency to lollygag (and certainly some credit must be given to CPT), I heard when they called my name over the loudspeaker, and I went back, utterly confused. It took a moment to realize that at the gate, flight 132 from Shannon to Dublin was being announced – LOLOL.

They quite kindly ushered me back onto the plane, and one of the flight attendants, in that lilting accent with which I’ve already fallen completely in love, called me a “naughty girl,” then asked me how I’d enjoyed Shannon. LOLOL! Sheepish and laughing, I apologized and went back to my seat. And now, I’m on a plane, and in the time it’s taken me to write this, I think we’ve made it to Dublin – or very nearly.

I should add here that Ireland is already beautiful, as staggeringly green as promised, even from the window of a plane.

10:07 AM – Lobby of the Jury’s Inn, Parnell Street, Dublin

Well, the ambition was to tool around Dublin while I waited for check-in to start. The very courteous staff at the Jury’s Inn took my bag for me, which was lovely of them, but sweet Jesus, not only have slept only an hour in the last twenty-four, I have a mean case of the 'itis.

It all started at the Dublin airport, which was much more the Dublin airport that I expected. We had to wait on line (in queue!) to get our passports stamped, but I’d been warned, so it was just a matter of people-watching, at that point. And realizing, at some point, that I, myself, was being people-watched.

I don’t really have a good idea of what I look like sometimes – at least as far as demographics are concerned. I’ve said before that I look ambiguously ethnic, and that’s about as far as it goes. I don’t know exactly what to think when people look at me; I’m wearing my trusty straw fedora (which has become an obvious staple of the summer of 2009), some jeans, ballet flats, and my peach swirly CK shirt. (Maybe I’ll attach a picture I take with the tricks that Jory taught me.) So I don’t know – I’m accessorizing more than the rest of the people on the plane, so that might be a thing. I thought I’d get to Europe and everybody would be skinny, and I’d be the fat American, but as it happens, I haven’t noticed a difference in body-type ratios. (They’re playing Latin music in the lobby of this hotel. This amuses me.)


I love that damn hat.

So anyway, I was people-watching, noticing that there were a lot of funny Americans on my flight, including two Southern couples traveling together, probably somewhere in their sixties, and they were freakin’ adorable, talking about needing to recover from the flight and get a drink. There were some line whiners (one dude went up to the lady and asked if he had to get his passport stamped even if he was on his way somewhere else), and a couple of restless kids (which, even though I wanted to give them the stinkeye, I couldn’t really blame them for not wanting to wait in line after eight hours on a plane – I think they were just acting out how we were all feeling, the way kids sometimes do).

Anyway, everyone in Dublin has been, so far, just as nice and friendly and smiling as everyone told me they would be, from the passport agent to my cabbie to the folks at the hotel. My cabbie was a damn riot, and kept me laughing all the way to my hotel. He told me I should stay in Dublin, and told me a little about spots near my hotel I could check out while I’m here today. Lovely man!


Delightful!

After I dropped my bags off, I asked the clerk at the hotel to direct me to some breakfast – which was across the street. Real Irish breakfast! Now let me tell you, the Irish breakfast is not concerned with your health, your cholesterol, nor a balanced diet. The Irish breakfast is a protein fiesta concerned with meat, meat, some beans, meat meat, an egg, and oh, MEAT. I had a piece of blood sausage (called black pudding, but I wiki’d it, you wily Irish scamps!), and white pudding (which I think also has gross stuff in it), but both were tasty. (I liked the white pudding better, but only because the texture of the black pudding was kind of weird and liver-like. Maybe because it’s made of, oh, BLOOD). There was also big ole thick slice of ham or bacon or some kind of delicious pink salty pig meat, and two regular, diner-style breakfast sausages. Oh, and some damn tasty toast with the butteriest butter I’ve ever seen or had. Included in this breakfast was not a cup, but a whole POT of tea (which was also very nice!) all for the low, low price of 8.50 Euro! (which is less than $12.50.) All this in the middle of the Dublin city centre (as they call it!). The portions were not the monstrous affair you’d find at an American diner, but I didn’t need a doggy bag, and I am, as some would say, full as a tick!

As an aside, the waitresses were these freaking beautiful - beautiful - Eastern European or Russian girls. Sweet Jesus, I’m talking beautiful. I had to make myself not stare. But having breakfast at this place (an trying not to stare at the waitresses) also me the opportunity to people-watch out the window of the restaurant – so I should inform you that all Irishmen in Dublin 35 and under appear to be at least cute, if not hot. Which is almost unfair, considering they already have the accent going for them.

11:08 AM – My room at Jury’s Inn, Parnell Street, Dublin

This hotel is pretty swank! The room is comfty, and mine, and nice and dark. I’m about to take a nap so I can go out and explore Dublin. I’ve bought a map. And an umbrella with sheep on it! :D It’s great! And it was cheap! :D Nap!

:MWAH: