off again

onwards and eastwards

On my last (awwww, sad) day in Ireland I walked around the city from 7:45am until my feet basically fell off. I went to to a West side suburb...neighborhood...whatever called Kilmainham which is the site of the highly historically important Krusty's Sandwich Bar.

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Wait, did I say Krusty's? I meant Kilmainham Gaol, where a lot of Irish political prisoners were held and hanged for like 200 years.

I thought the neighborhood itself was interesting, too, for being completely un-touristy and giving an idea what everyday life might be like for some Dubliners.

Tons of these houses in long rows, like a block long or even going around corners, where it's all really one building.

I also walked around some more in more upscale, shopping-y, monument-heavy areas of Dublin.

I tried to get Natan to go into this fancy store and ask for gold-encrusted sweatpants but he wouldn't bite.

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I didn't really get snaps of the big shopping street or of Trinity College, or for that matter national museums, though I also hit those up. I was kind of sick of taking pictures of huge gray stone buildings from the 1800s, besides I assume there are already postcards of those things, you know? I did see the book of Kells which cracked me up because all the people in it looked so Irish to me now. They just had that look about them. I never noticed before.

I read a whole newspaper while sitting in a cafe this afternoon resting my poor aching joints, which turned out to be like 50% sports and 50% stories about Irish people killing each other in all kinds of brutal ways. Poisoned by their nurse! Hacked up with a breadknife! Frozen to death! Beaten with a pipe! I mean, what the hell?? A little too much graphic detail perhaps.

Also in a cafe I heard two old Irish men complaining about how the Americans ruined Valentine's Day. Did we? Oooops.

In the end, although I had a great time here, I would not say that Dublin is a beautiful city, really. I think it's partially that the styles of architecture don't really appeal to me, partially that it's been so rainy and dirty, and partially that I now hold an enormous grudge against the impossible bus system. But every time I got outside of the city limits it suddenly was astoundingly gorgeous. Huh.

I wish I had more time here - even a week would have been better - but there's a flight to catch tomorrow morning, so tomorrow night, I should be posting from Rome. Wish me luck!

monastic moss city

Good morning Dublin!

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OK...so I went a little crazy with the picture-taking today. I need to slow down or this battery habit will bankrupt me.

Last night Natan and I went to Temple Bar area, which has a thousand restaurants/pubs/clubs, and ten thousand tourists to fill them, and had dinner at a real restaurant - our first GOOD meal on this trip so far. Then we went to a pub called "The Auld Dubliner" where I drank a quart of Guinness (because I am the man) and he drank 2 sips (because he is not.)

Natan, who has been reading too much Chuck Klosterman, asked me if I thought that tourists seek out an authentic experience and mostly just fail to find it, or whether they (we) want inauthenticity because it makes them (us) more comfortable. I said mostly neither - for a lot of visitors, they want what they think of as "Irish experience" and whether that's what real Irish people's lives are like or not is irrelevant to them. We talked about how a place like this, while having not much to do with the experience of everyday life in Dublin, still is authentic in the sense that it could not exist anywhere else - unlike our hostel which could be transplanted anywhere in Europe without much difference.

Then we watched a bunch of 50 year old tourists dudes sing American songs to each other at the top of their lungs in a real, fake, real Irish pub before stumbling off along the cobblestones to sleep in the hostel.

This morning we walked around St. Stephen's Green, a boring-ass park, the only highlight of which was that it is home to regulation size Mallard ducks. Whew.

After that it was time for a bus trip to Glendalough, a valley about an hour out of Dublin which has some old ruins from 10th century and a lot of beautiful nature views. The bus ride passed a lot of interesting countryside and towns, which I unfortunately didn't enjoy much because I was utterly car-sick and miserable. Glendalough itself, though, was incredible. The whole color palette out there is different and amazing. Everything was in shades of green, purple, and red-orange, and so vivid and chromatic, even through the mist & rain. There was moss all over and that combined with the heavy fog made everything there seem a different color than you might expect - trees with green trunks and purple leaves, purple and orange mountains rising out of green mist. Anyway, here are some inadequate pictures.

 
There was also an early and inferior precursor to the world-famous Wisconsin Badgers Diseased Corn Penis.

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Tomorrow is my last full day in Dublin - there's so much I want to do, including exploring more stuff on the outskirts of town, but I'm just not sure I can stomach another bus ride. Plus, I twisted my ankle on a slippery path in Glendalough so I'm walking with a slight limp. This traveling stuff is not for wimps.

Love and miss you all!

windier city

Good news: only one of our roommates snores. Bad news: he snores really loud.

Today we took a city bus to Howth, which is a touristy-but-not-today fishing village at the North end of Dublin, where we were practically killed by falling into the ocean at least twenty times. Seriously, it was windy. It was so windy the seagulls were literally flying backward. Taking pictures was nearly impossible because I couldn't hold the camera steady. Chicago needs to stop bragging.

I believe this sign indicates a real danger.

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For all that it was incredibly gorgeous, and worth the havoc it wreaked on my hair. These pictures don't really do the view justice, but it's the best I could get. During the summer, this must be a hot spot - there's icecream parlors everywhere.

Natan thinks Howth resembles Haifa a little.

The good ship "Arctic Breeze," which must be named ironically. Hah hah. hah.

 

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This crazy fucking duck - if that's what it is, it's more like some kind of duck/fish hybrid, about as long as a mallard and 1/3 as wide - kept going underwater for like FIVE MINUTES and we would think it had drowned and I'd start getting worried and then it came up again. Don't scare me like that, aquaduck!

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Due to ongoing confusion about what time it is here (honestly, you would not think this would be hard to figure out, BUT IT IS) we had to wait a while for a bus next to two Irish guys drinking beer out of water bottles at 2:30pm (as I found out later.)

Random things about Dublin: All the pedestrian stop/walk buttons at intersections beep constantly for "don't walk" and then squeal electronically for "walk" which must be good for blind people but makes me feel like I'm in Super Mario Brothers every time I cross a street.

From the bus, I saw lots of trees that look like something from Dr. Seuss, and also lots of duplex houses which are painted half-and-half different colors. Awesome. I'll try to get pics tomorrow.

There is not a bus route map to be found in the entire city which makes going anywhere an adventure...a confusing adventure.

Tomorrow the plan is to try to locate some countryside and view it, then Tuesday, to wander the city some more and be annoying tourists in people's way. I'll keep you posted. There's more photos on my flickr! http://www.flickr.com/photos/23698397@N00/

night flight

Friday morning, woke up to blizzard snow chaos (that's what I get for complaining I would miss the first big snow, Katie) and a lot of hysteria about O'Hare being shut down, Van Galder buses not running, etc. But it actually ended up being like magically fine - by 11:30am, we were on the road, and it was clear, zero traffic, and blue skies all the way to Chicago. Then Natan and I got grabbed by some airline employees out of the main baggage check line and whisked through security ahead of everyone else for no apparent reason - our flight didn't leave for hours - but hey, no arguments here. It was all kind of incredible.

Then came the four hour wait in O'Hare.

 

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After a while my hands started shaking from the awesome combo of no sleep and plenty of caffeine.

 

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The plane was basically empty because of all the missed connections from the storm, it was like me and Natan, a frazzled looking couple with four little kids, an old woman in a bright pink coat, and a young woman in an identical coat. It was kind of nice.

Then after a quick thing in the Dublin airport, we got on a doubledecker bus which was conviently designed with no route map, no calling out of stops, and no visible street signs from the windows. It just mysteriously stopped every few blocks and people shoved on and off and we had no fucking clue where we were. Fortunately, I asked another passenger who turned out to be both nice and well-informed about bus stops, so we got off and found our hostel with no problems.

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It was a perfect day here to walk around, cool but sunny and and beautiful, but unfortunately, Natan and I were both having lots of trouble keeping our eyes propped open so after a walk around a big shopping street and some tea & eggs & toast it was naptime.

 

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Now I'm off to find some cheap food - love to everyone at home, write me at mlisalomon@yahoo.com and keep me updated on what's happening in Wisconsin! Check out the rest of the pictures if you want too - more coming, but now my hour is up. Later!