Preface: At least 2/5 of my family are in love with Rick Steves. The consequences of this can range from the disturbing (those pictures are still plastered to the walls on my sister's side of the bedroom, I believe) to the shockingly convenient (want to navigate the London's National Gallery without buying a floor plan? Just flip to the appropriate page of his guidebook). But Rick Steves has absolutely no appreciation for Cork. He doesn't even mention the city in his Ireland guidebook, except to brutally bash the Blarney Stone and opine that the Jameson distillery nearby is better than the one in Dublin. Well, he's missing out. Nor is he the only one; when we visited Dublin, people seemed to think we must get really bored in Cork as there was obviously nothing to do here. False. And lest you followers of mine (hmm, makes me feel uncomfortably like a cult leader) think that my only interesting experiences are happening elsewhere, I thought I should sandwich a Cork-centric post between my epic foreign adventures.
It's true that a typical day for me doesn't involve anything incredibly exciting. I go to class, run errands, and spend time with friends, which often just involves making/eating food, watching movies, and hanging out, just like at home. But I've also been to plays (the aforementioned Lady Windermere and a combo performance of three Samuel Beckett one-acts, which lived up to Beckett's reputation for being next to incomprehensible), seen bands (the wittily vulgar and eccentric RubberBandits, who performed for a very enthusiastic crowd at UCC, and the alt rock group Fight Like Apes, who brought down the house--for free--at one of our favorite pubs), gotten a taste of the local pub culture, attempted archery, experienced Saint Patrick's Day, and just generally soaked up my distinctive surroundings.
Last night some friends and I went to a pub to listen to a trad session (traditional Irish music); the trio of ordinary-looking guys, whose ages ranged from thirties-ish to sixties-ish, plays at that place every Sunday evening, and it was clear from their rapport with the patrons that they've established a fan base. I really like this kind of pub atmosphere--warm, relaxed, and calm without being dull. The livelier places, which draw a younger and wilder crowd, are certainly fun for a night out, but it's really nice to be able to just sit and listen to music and people-watch. We probably went a little overboard on the people-watching; the group sitting in front of us doubtless would've been mortified to know that we were extrapolating their pasts, futures, and personalities based on the interactions we were witnessing. (Blue-Shirt was a sleaze and a fake who thought he was way cooler than he actually was; Guitar-Playing-Boy was painfully awkward but adorable, and fully deserving of our sympathy as it became more and more obvious that the girl he was serenading during the intermission was going to soul-crushingly reject him...Siren-Girl was too much under Blue-Shirt's thumb to behave decently to her earnest suitor, because Blue-Shirt was obviously sitting back and watching Guitar-Boy's implosion with amusement, and rubbing salt in the wound by suavely chatting up Pink-Dress-Girl just to prove he could, and Siren-Girl cared more about what he and Pink-Dress-Girl thought of her than about the heartache of Guitar-Playing-Boy...etc.) Anyway, the music was wonderful. There's something about traditional Irish music that always makes me feel as if it's taking you on a journey--sometimes a happy journey, sometimes a sad journey. Either way, it moves you. It's not music that would ever lull you to sleep, even when it's quiet and slow and mournful. It always engages you fully and makes you want to follow it wherever it's going.
So that was a nice night. Nothing dramatic happened (except at the neighboring table, and even that owed most of its drama to our imaginations). Blue-Shirt did decide to talk to us on the way out, though we'd all conceived such a strong, possibly unfounded, dislike for him that we were practically oozing go-away vibes. So we didn't even come away with any good flirting stories, as sometimes happens (not to me, alas) on more eventful nights. Even so, it was a night I'll remember--one that could never be duplicated in the States.
Ditto with Saint Patrick's Day. I'm sure Dublin was a madhouse last Thursday, but Cork achieved just the right level of mayhem, without being overwhelming. The parade (which our Cork friends assured us would bore us to death) actually really impressed me, as much for its diversity (so many ethnic groups that I never would've expected to find here--Hungarians? Congolese? Bagpipers?) as for its creativity (a giant chicken float? Dancing eggs? Aliens of various shapes and sizes? All the extras from the opening scene of The Lion King?)...and although the streets were crowded, we managed to stop off at our favorite pub for green pints and to make a few memorable purchases from street vendors (a leprechaun beer-belly for Jessie...don't ask) without being trampled by hordes of drunken Irish people or, worse, tourists. We spent the rest of the day making and consuming food (and beverages), watching The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Maren, you did forewarn me; I was prepared), and celebrating Ian's birthday. (He turned 27--yes, that's not a typo, 27--that day. Did you know it was possible to buy packages of letter candles that spell "You're Old"? Handy.) Again, nothing outrageous--which will doubtless disappoint a few people who expected me to suddenly turn a corner into epic territory on this day...but it was still a great experience. It was especially nice to see how Cork's citizens approached the festivities. Paddy's Day (as most of them call it) isn't nearly as big a deal in Ireland as it is in, say, Chicago. It's a bank holiday, a day off of work and school, a chance to sleep in, an excuse to wear silly green hats (which we saw in abundance), a treat for little kids who like parades (and we saw tons of them, as spectators and participants, all exponentially cuter than any American child I've ever seen), and an occasion to meet up with friends for a pint a few hours earlier than usual. It's not the leprechaun apocalypse, and I appreciate that.
I also appreciate that Cork isn't heavily frequented by tourists. Apparently Rick Steves has scared them all away--steering them to Dublin, where performers and vendors attract crowds of wide-eyed visitors on every major street, and where you'll see hotels and restaurants with names like "Blarney" simply because the owners know that'll ring a bell with foreigners, even though Blarney is four hours away in freaking CORK. Which is not to say that Dublin isn't a lovely city, because it is. But Cork is just as lovely and is free of much of that hype. Here, a street performer causes no more of a stir than a roving dog (of which there are plenty). On my way from my flat to the supermarket, for instance, I regularly pass at least three people playing instruments or singing (or at least attempting to do so). Some days there's a middle-aged guy with a pseudo-operatic voice. Some days there's a woman with a banjo singing folksy stuff. Some days there's a cute guy with an accordion. My favorite is the guy who'll sometimes be on the bridge with a tin whistle, playing wistful old ballads that I remember from my toddlerhood. Passersby occasionally drop change into their hats, but there's nothing ostentatious about these people.
Nor, by the way, is there anything ostentatious about those who choose to just sit cross-legged with the hat in front of them or a Styrofoam cup in their hands. I usually see them on bridges, less frequently along the side of the street (where they're more likely to be shooed away by the garda, as I saw happen once). Sometimes one will say, "Got any spare change, love?" or something to that effect, but more often they just sit. It's a subtle but powerful contrast to my memories of Chicago, where panhandlers are apt to shake their cups of coins or hold signs explaining their predicament or just generally be more aggressive about getting your attention. Here they make themselves very small--as if they'd really rather not be noticed.
Now might be a good time to note that Ireland is in the middle of a massive recession. I don't get too many daily reminders of that, aside from those unobtrusive presences and the occasional political flyer taped to a traffic post. One day, though, I happened to be in Tesco when an employee brought a whole cart of food over to the "reduced to clear" shelves. While she was sticking new price tags on each item, a crowd quickly gathered around her, waiting for a chance to peruse the marked-down offerings. Over the course of the next ten minutes, the crowd kept growing, and a couple of other employees drifted over to keep an eye on things and--I assume--make sure the waiting customers didn't get out of hand. They didn't; most of them were older people, standing motionless and grim-faced. When the girl finally finished relabeling the items and setting them out on the shelves, the onlookers silently swarmed in. By the time I drifted over a minute or so later, only a handful of items were left. Everyone had been quiet and orderly, but there was no mistaking that they meant business. While I'd been idly thinking, "Oh, hey, it'd be nice to get some cheap deals," they were thinking, "What can I afford to buy for dinner tonight?"
That's something I wouldn't have witnessed if I'd just been visiting Cork for a day or two. And there are so many other moments--some sobering like that one, but most just interesting--that add to my overall sense of what this place is like. Of course I don't presume to say that I'm having a more "authentic" experience in Cork than I would if I were in Dublin or Galway. I hate the word "authentic"--and yes, Mom, Rick Steves occasionally uses it too--because really, how does one measure what's "authentic"? I can't claim I'm having an "authentic" Irish experience because the fact is that I'm not Irish and am only here for a few months...but have I even had an "authentic" Indiana experience? I was born there and lived there for 18 years but I never had any close encounters with a cornstalk. I never watched the Indy 500. I never voted Republican. Sooo...am I an authentic Hoosier? It's a moot question. I'm me, and I see the world around me through my own eyes, and my experiences are mine. My experiences in Cork have been meaningful and memorable for me (even though I haven't documented each and every one of them). Cork itself is fun and beautiful and special, and I'm glad I came here. I honestly think that, given a chance to make the decision again, I wouldn't choose to study abroad anywhere else.
That said, I do plan to resume my Belfast recap shortly, because Belfast was fantastic and fully deserving of two more blog-chapters. (They really are more like chapters than posts, aren't they? Dear me.)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
"An old long walk of a day-i-ay-i-ay": Belfast, Part One of Three
First, a note on the title: One of the many great things I discovered in Belfast this past weekend was the song "Galway Girl," which is apparently wildly popular in Northern Ireland. As someone who prides herself on having known Irish drinking songs from the cradle, I was dismayed to come across one I'd never heard...till I realized it was actually an American country song from, like, 2000. Still insanely catchy, though. I am, in fact, listening to it as I type.
Moving on. So yeah, I went to Belfast. This involved about seven hours of bus travel, beginning around seven on Thursday evening when we boarded the "magical blue bus" (as Jessie called it) from Cork to Dublin. We'd all brought snacks with us, some of which were more favorably received than others. My aging bananas were dismissed as "sketchy," and few of us were brave enough to try Kelsie's salt-and-vinegar flavored rice cakes, aka "death cakes," purchased in error and regarded with great skepticism ever since.
We got to Dublin circa midnight and had to switch buses. As we "waddled" through the cold, I couldn't help grinning at the familiar sights--the statue of Daniel O'Connor on his namesake street, the train overpass, the River Liffey..."Good memories here," remarked Emilie. "Yeah!" I beamed. "Isn't that cool? We have memories here!"
The bus to Belfast, which prudently bore no trace of a "Bus Eireann" logo ("Eire" being a somewhat charged word to put on a bus bound for Northern Ireland), dropped us off at our destination around 2:30 a.m. Our plan had been to walk to the hostel, which was only about ten minutes away, but this seemed less appealing now that we were here, exhausted and shivering violently (having forgotten how much farther north Belfast is and consequently how much colder it would be). The minute we stepped off the bus we were accosted by a cabbie offering us a taxi, and although each of us had turned him down independently as we disembarked, we decided about thirty seconds later to take him up on it. This time, Claudia had the address written down and I actually had it memorized, but the driver had no idea where it was and had to radio for directions. After a couple of U-turns, he delivered us to the right spot (and proceeded to upbraid the Australian staffer for the lack of a sign on the hostel door), giving us an entertainingly colorful first taste of the Northern Irish accent. (Side note: our Irish friends swoon over Northern Irish accents the way we Americans love all accents from these isles.)
In the morning (i.e., six hours later), we started off our visit with a Black Taxi tour. Background: During the "Troubles," buses were being bombed left and right, so the IRA (Irish Republican Army = militant Catholic nationalists in favor of breaking off from Britain to join the rest of Ireland) set up a taxi service as an alternate, safer means of transportation. Later on, this taxi service morphed into a tourism service that now takes visitors to various parts of the city, mainly the "contested" areas (neighborhoods that are still predominantly either Catholic/nationalist or Protestant/unionist...sectarian neighborhoods, if you will). Our driver, Walter, had been driving Black Taxis since 1984. When we told him we were studying in Cork, he did a spot-on imitation of the Cork accent, which made the difference between that accent and his own accent much more apparent to me.
Walter drove us around for almost two hours, starting off with an innocent photo-op stop at Queen's University, a lovely campus just down the block from our hostel. Then we moved into more serious territory, literally and figuratively. A few minutes after leaving Queen's, we pulled over in front of a mural that informed us, "You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row, Heartland of South Belfast." Just in case we weren't sure what that meant, the statement was accompanied by an image of a masked gunman--a member of the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters = militant Protestant/unionist group). Welcome to Northern Ireland. Though Walter was happy to take pictures of us every time we stopped, I didn't feel comfortable posing for a smiley photo in front of this or any of the other murals. And there were a LOT of other murals.
Much of Belfast is divided into Catholic and Protestant sections, separated by the infamous "Peace Wall" and by various gates that are open during the day and closed each night. In both areas, the residents' backgrounds and loyalties are represented by murals painted on the sides of buildings. In a Catholic neighborhood, we saw long wall full of images paying homage to other separatist movements throughout the world. (Northern Irish nationalists tend to identify with pretty much any other "resistance" movement they can think of. They're big fans of Che Guevara, Palestinians, Basques, and so on.) In a Protestant neighborhood, we saw an almost suburban layout of houses that sported elaborate paintings of Oliver Cromwell--complete with Cromwellian quotes about the need to "crush" the Catholic Church--and the Red Hand of Ulster, a symbol used by both sides and rooted in Irish mythology. (One version of its origin goes like this: The ancient kingdom of Ulster--which roughly corresponds to present-day Northern Ireland--had no heir to the throne, so a boat race took place to determine the next ruler, based on a prophecy that whoever's hand first touched Ulster soil would become king. The guy who was losing decided to chop of his own hand and throw it onto the rocks, thus fulfilling the prophecy and winning the kingdom. Good story, tell it at parties.) In both areas, murals paid tribute to people who had sacrificed for their beliefs, whether it was women who had smuggled guns through the city in baby prams, hunger strikers who had died in prison, or victims of street violence. Some of the murals are chilling; others--like the one that proclaimed "Every child has the right to..." (insert images of playing, learning, growing up)--are touching in their appeal for a positive future.
The struggles in Northern Ireland were/are incredibly complicated, and I'm only just beginning to get a sense of them myself, but I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that both sides have enacted and suffered from terrible violence. We stopped briefly at a Catholic memorial for fallen IRA members--some of whom were only kids in their early teens who'd joined the youth arm of the organization--and it included a mini-wall listing the names and ages of civilians who'd died when they got caught in the crossfire. When Emilie asked me, "What is 'civilian'?" I was almost too choked up to answer.
The culmination of the tour was the "Peace Wall," which includes one section where visitors can write their own messages. The wall has been in place since the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969, but in recent years they're muralistic (not a real word) content has been overhauled to reflect more, well, peacelike sentiments. A quote from Bill Clinton--who brokered the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that helped bring an end to the Troubles--was featured prominently in very expensive 3D metal lettering. People are encouraged to write uplifting messages on this part of the wall; Walter gave us each a marker so that we could write something. I spent about ten minutes holding my marker and looking at what other people had written--their names and the dates of their visits, along with platitudes about the merits of peace or song lyrics to the same effect...and then the occasional random comment, like, "Belfast is sexy! Lovin' the accent!" The others managed to think of good things to write, but I kept drawing a blank. I just stood there holding my marker and feeling small. But that in itself was probably valuable.
Walter dropped us off in the city center, where we got a good look at the Europa Hotel (still going strong despite being the world's most-bombed hotel) and the elegant Crown Liquor Saloon (built in 1849 and still at the height of fashion) before catching a free tour of City Hall. Observation: Irish city halls, much like Irish post offices, are actually quite beautiful buildings, rather than the drab, functional structures I'm used to encountering in the states. Belfast's city hall was breathtaking. There was a wedding going on there when we arrived, and we couldn't help thinking that getting married at city hall would be a much classier affair here than it is at home. Highlights of our tour--aside from the gorgeous architecture--included Queen Victoria's original 1888 charter upgrading Belfast from a town to a city; a statue of the last Earl of Belfast (Kelsie: "He was hot!!") whose early death prompted his mother to deal with her grief proactively by commissioning several memorials for him; a Titanic-themed chess set on display (with each piece in the shape of a person who'd been involved with the ship--Captain Smith as the king, little children in life jackets as the pawns); and the Lord Mayor of Belfast. Yeah, he just walked by, sporting his absurdly heavy official gold amulet thingy, and obligingly stood still while everyone took pictures of him. (He even removed his coat to provide a better photo-op.)
Backtracking a bit: after the Black Taxi tour ended, I got a text from my very own Belfast contact, the fabulous Natalie Pavlatos, letting me know that she'd be done with work at her internship around 3 and would try to meet us afterward. The city hall tour started at 3, so I let her know where we were and figured she could come meet us by the time it was over. 3:45 rolled around and Natalie was still en route to city center, having been driven all the way home by her program coordinator (the famous Nigel) rather than dropped off at city hall as she'd been hoping. While we waited for her to show up, I perused the historical exhibit on Belfast's development as a city, which was conveniently located in (of all places) the city hall coffee shop. Apparently Belfast linen conquered the world in the early 1800s, and Jim Larkin was "one of the most effective union organizers in Ireland or the UK." Note the diplomatically ambiguous use of the word "or." Belfast in a nutshell right there.
By this time Claudia finished her tea, the others were dozing off, and Natalie was still MIA, so we wandered over to the Linen Hall Library, which has a fascinating (and sobering) collection of political posters on display. At last, around 5:00, just as the others were poised to give up and go back to the hostel (we were literally standing on the doorstep of the library, umbrellas at the ready) Natalie appeared on the rain-drenched horizon. I must say one of the weekend's best moments was when we tackled each other for one of our classic biffle (derived from BFFL) hugs. And since the rest of this post has been so somber, I think I'll end on that cheerful note. Tune in next time for an account of Saturday's adventures and more long-winded musings on Important Matters Beyond My Grasp.
Moving on. So yeah, I went to Belfast. This involved about seven hours of bus travel, beginning around seven on Thursday evening when we boarded the "magical blue bus" (as Jessie called it) from Cork to Dublin. We'd all brought snacks with us, some of which were more favorably received than others. My aging bananas were dismissed as "sketchy," and few of us were brave enough to try Kelsie's salt-and-vinegar flavored rice cakes, aka "death cakes," purchased in error and regarded with great skepticism ever since.
We got to Dublin circa midnight and had to switch buses. As we "waddled" through the cold, I couldn't help grinning at the familiar sights--the statue of Daniel O'Connor on his namesake street, the train overpass, the River Liffey..."Good memories here," remarked Emilie. "Yeah!" I beamed. "Isn't that cool? We have memories here!"
The bus to Belfast, which prudently bore no trace of a "Bus Eireann" logo ("Eire" being a somewhat charged word to put on a bus bound for Northern Ireland), dropped us off at our destination around 2:30 a.m. Our plan had been to walk to the hostel, which was only about ten minutes away, but this seemed less appealing now that we were here, exhausted and shivering violently (having forgotten how much farther north Belfast is and consequently how much colder it would be). The minute we stepped off the bus we were accosted by a cabbie offering us a taxi, and although each of us had turned him down independently as we disembarked, we decided about thirty seconds later to take him up on it. This time, Claudia had the address written down and I actually had it memorized, but the driver had no idea where it was and had to radio for directions. After a couple of U-turns, he delivered us to the right spot (and proceeded to upbraid the Australian staffer for the lack of a sign on the hostel door), giving us an entertainingly colorful first taste of the Northern Irish accent. (Side note: our Irish friends swoon over Northern Irish accents the way we Americans love all accents from these isles.)
In the morning (i.e., six hours later), we started off our visit with a Black Taxi tour. Background: During the "Troubles," buses were being bombed left and right, so the IRA (Irish Republican Army = militant Catholic nationalists in favor of breaking off from Britain to join the rest of Ireland) set up a taxi service as an alternate, safer means of transportation. Later on, this taxi service morphed into a tourism service that now takes visitors to various parts of the city, mainly the "contested" areas (neighborhoods that are still predominantly either Catholic/nationalist or Protestant/unionist...sectarian neighborhoods, if you will). Our driver, Walter, had been driving Black Taxis since 1984. When we told him we were studying in Cork, he did a spot-on imitation of the Cork accent, which made the difference between that accent and his own accent much more apparent to me.
Walter drove us around for almost two hours, starting off with an innocent photo-op stop at Queen's University, a lovely campus just down the block from our hostel. Then we moved into more serious territory, literally and figuratively. A few minutes after leaving Queen's, we pulled over in front of a mural that informed us, "You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row, Heartland of South Belfast." Just in case we weren't sure what that meant, the statement was accompanied by an image of a masked gunman--a member of the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters = militant Protestant/unionist group). Welcome to Northern Ireland. Though Walter was happy to take pictures of us every time we stopped, I didn't feel comfortable posing for a smiley photo in front of this or any of the other murals. And there were a LOT of other murals.
Much of Belfast is divided into Catholic and Protestant sections, separated by the infamous "Peace Wall" and by various gates that are open during the day and closed each night. In both areas, the residents' backgrounds and loyalties are represented by murals painted on the sides of buildings. In a Catholic neighborhood, we saw long wall full of images paying homage to other separatist movements throughout the world. (Northern Irish nationalists tend to identify with pretty much any other "resistance" movement they can think of. They're big fans of Che Guevara, Palestinians, Basques, and so on.) In a Protestant neighborhood, we saw an almost suburban layout of houses that sported elaborate paintings of Oliver Cromwell--complete with Cromwellian quotes about the need to "crush" the Catholic Church--and the Red Hand of Ulster, a symbol used by both sides and rooted in Irish mythology. (One version of its origin goes like this: The ancient kingdom of Ulster--which roughly corresponds to present-day Northern Ireland--had no heir to the throne, so a boat race took place to determine the next ruler, based on a prophecy that whoever's hand first touched Ulster soil would become king. The guy who was losing decided to chop of his own hand and throw it onto the rocks, thus fulfilling the prophecy and winning the kingdom. Good story, tell it at parties.) In both areas, murals paid tribute to people who had sacrificed for their beliefs, whether it was women who had smuggled guns through the city in baby prams, hunger strikers who had died in prison, or victims of street violence. Some of the murals are chilling; others--like the one that proclaimed "Every child has the right to..." (insert images of playing, learning, growing up)--are touching in their appeal for a positive future.
The struggles in Northern Ireland were/are incredibly complicated, and I'm only just beginning to get a sense of them myself, but I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that both sides have enacted and suffered from terrible violence. We stopped briefly at a Catholic memorial for fallen IRA members--some of whom were only kids in their early teens who'd joined the youth arm of the organization--and it included a mini-wall listing the names and ages of civilians who'd died when they got caught in the crossfire. When Emilie asked me, "What is 'civilian'?" I was almost too choked up to answer.
The culmination of the tour was the "Peace Wall," which includes one section where visitors can write their own messages. The wall has been in place since the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969, but in recent years they're muralistic (not a real word) content has been overhauled to reflect more, well, peacelike sentiments. A quote from Bill Clinton--who brokered the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that helped bring an end to the Troubles--was featured prominently in very expensive 3D metal lettering. People are encouraged to write uplifting messages on this part of the wall; Walter gave us each a marker so that we could write something. I spent about ten minutes holding my marker and looking at what other people had written--their names and the dates of their visits, along with platitudes about the merits of peace or song lyrics to the same effect...and then the occasional random comment, like, "Belfast is sexy! Lovin' the accent!" The others managed to think of good things to write, but I kept drawing a blank. I just stood there holding my marker and feeling small. But that in itself was probably valuable.
Walter dropped us off in the city center, where we got a good look at the Europa Hotel (still going strong despite being the world's most-bombed hotel) and the elegant Crown Liquor Saloon (built in 1849 and still at the height of fashion) before catching a free tour of City Hall. Observation: Irish city halls, much like Irish post offices, are actually quite beautiful buildings, rather than the drab, functional structures I'm used to encountering in the states. Belfast's city hall was breathtaking. There was a wedding going on there when we arrived, and we couldn't help thinking that getting married at city hall would be a much classier affair here than it is at home. Highlights of our tour--aside from the gorgeous architecture--included Queen Victoria's original 1888 charter upgrading Belfast from a town to a city; a statue of the last Earl of Belfast (Kelsie: "He was hot!!") whose early death prompted his mother to deal with her grief proactively by commissioning several memorials for him; a Titanic-themed chess set on display (with each piece in the shape of a person who'd been involved with the ship--Captain Smith as the king, little children in life jackets as the pawns); and the Lord Mayor of Belfast. Yeah, he just walked by, sporting his absurdly heavy official gold amulet thingy, and obligingly stood still while everyone took pictures of him. (He even removed his coat to provide a better photo-op.)
Backtracking a bit: after the Black Taxi tour ended, I got a text from my very own Belfast contact, the fabulous Natalie Pavlatos, letting me know that she'd be done with work at her internship around 3 and would try to meet us afterward. The city hall tour started at 3, so I let her know where we were and figured she could come meet us by the time it was over. 3:45 rolled around and Natalie was still en route to city center, having been driven all the way home by her program coordinator (the famous Nigel) rather than dropped off at city hall as she'd been hoping. While we waited for her to show up, I perused the historical exhibit on Belfast's development as a city, which was conveniently located in (of all places) the city hall coffee shop. Apparently Belfast linen conquered the world in the early 1800s, and Jim Larkin was "one of the most effective union organizers in Ireland or the UK." Note the diplomatically ambiguous use of the word "or." Belfast in a nutshell right there.
By this time Claudia finished her tea, the others were dozing off, and Natalie was still MIA, so we wandered over to the Linen Hall Library, which has a fascinating (and sobering) collection of political posters on display. At last, around 5:00, just as the others were poised to give up and go back to the hostel (we were literally standing on the doorstep of the library, umbrellas at the ready) Natalie appeared on the rain-drenched horizon. I must say one of the weekend's best moments was when we tackled each other for one of our classic biffle (derived from BFFL) hugs. And since the rest of this post has been so somber, I think I'll end on that cheerful note. Tune in next time for an account of Saturday's adventures and more long-winded musings on Important Matters Beyond My Grasp.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Bi-winning (or even multi-winning!) in London
Here begins the long-awaited, hotly anticipated London post. It shall begin with a timeline and then devolve into chronologically sketchy highlights.
5:30. Woke up. Already packed (including liberal supply of sandwiches, cereal bars, and oranges). Win.
6:40. Caught bus to airport. Did not get off one stop early as a friend apparently did the previous weekend, thus adding significant walking time and confusion to this leg of the trip. Instead got off at the right spot and checked in without mishaps. Another win.
7:30. Me: "People are lining up..."
Kelsie: "Queuing up."
Me: "Oh, right. Do we not have boarding groups?"
Claudia: "It's like Southwest, they just have a free for all."
Me: "Ahh....Should we queue, then?"
Claudia: "That requires moving."
7:40. Claudia: "They're supposed to be boarding now, aren't they?"
Me: "Yeah...I don't see a plane, though."
Claudia: "Damn it. We're gonna get delayed."
Me: "Should we at least get in line? Queue?"
Claudia: "Mehhhhhh...."
We queued.
7:45. A little boy--three years old, max--in the line ahead of us said to his mother in his adorable accent, "Do we have luggage?" Who knew the word "luggage" could sound so cute!?!
7:50. Yup, the flight was delayed. Queue dispersed. Everyone sat down.
8:00. Claudia: "Oranges, anyone?"
8:15. I got up to go to the bathroom. Walked into the wrong bathroom. Never done that before; most instructive.
9:00. We boarded.
9:15. We took off.
9:16. Claudia fell asleep.
10:30. Landed. Got cash. Got really excited about British money. "Look, they have the queen on their money! Oh and wait, who's this? Adam Smith!? No way!!"
10:45. Dashed out to catch the bus that was about to leave and snagged the last seats available.
10:46. Claudia fell asleep.
the next 1.5 hours: Looked out the window at England. Not as scenic as Ireland. But I saw a castle tower just chilling in the middle of an otherwise nondescript town, and a kite flying off in the distance, and the faraway figures of a mother and child holding hands while they walked across an open field...not all in the same place, but I can condense a little bit.
Noonish. Arrived in London. Got out booking confirmation printout from the hostel only to discover that it included neither the address nor a phone number. Fail. All we remembered was that it was by the northwest corner of Hyde Park. So we took the tube to that general area and found ourselves in a neighborhood full of hotels. The first street we walked down was dominated by a block-long white pillared building that looked like the summer home of an obscure member of the royal family. Concluding that this wasn't nearly shabby enough for the price we'd paid, we proceeded to wander around for the next hour and a half, inquiring at the reception desks of no less than four different hotels about the whereabouts of our hostel.
Concierge #1: "It's either on [insert street name] or the next one over..."
Concierge #2: (having drawn us a map) "Hyde Park, yes. Hyde Park."
Concierge #3: "Uh, it's probably on Leinster Street. There are loads of hostels there."
Me: "Ohhkayyy..." [receives weird look; Claudia cracks up] You have to understand, this is the third place we've tried and we still haven't found it, so we're just a bit trepidatious..." [yes, I used the word trepidatious]
Concierge #3: "I understand, ma'am," [I suddenly became a ma'am...scary] "but I'm ninety percent sure it's on that street..." [He was wrong.]
But concierge #4 came through for us after I asked her to just Google the hostel, click on the first link she saw, and see if it showed an address. So will call this, ultimately, a win, because we did find it. And yes, it was in the massive elegant building we'd passed up about five minutes after we got off the Tube. This settled, the visit commenced "proper."
And now for the best parts.
The usual suspects. Big Ben was smaller than I expected. Westminster was bigger and more beautiful than I'd envisioned. Buckingham Palace, dutifully flying the Union Jack, was surrounded by about as many people as will be watching William and Kate's wedding. The Tower was just really cool (it kept being expanded outward over the years, so the oldest part is the 12th-century "white tower" at the center, which isn't actually white anymore because it hasn't been painted in centuries). Trafalgar Square was lovely, especially at night with the big fountain lit up.
Hyde Park was lovely too, full of trees that (I like to think) might've been saplings back in 1536 when Henry VIII made it his hunting grounds. Now, instead of royal game animals, the place is teeming with adorable dogs whose owners all wielded ball launchers (hooked staffs that I swear I've never seen before; reminded me of shepherds' crooks).
The reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe (which is a tad off-target from the original location; they found this out after they'd built it) has the distinction of being the only building in London with a thatched roof. (After the 1666 fire, folks decided thatch wasn't really the way to go.) The London Eye makes so much money from hosting weddings (!!?!?wtf!?!?) that we figured it didn't need a donation from us, and besides, we got to see quite a bit of London by other means. Specifically...
Ghost-themed walking tour. Our guide was a gregarious middle-aged man about as tall as Daniel Radcliffe, who said "innit" a lot. He showed us, among other things, the house where the famous diarist Samuel Pepys (Jana, are you listening?) once lived and where his ghost is said to occasionally look out the window chuckling to himself (doubtless in hopes of spying the specter of the naked lady who resides next door); Saint-Dunstan-in-the-West Church, which is referenced briefly in A Christmas Carol (quite a stretch from the "haunted" standpoint but still a little bit of nerds-and-fuzzies for me, thanks to my force-fed intimacy with that book); and the alleged location of the alleged bloody deeds of the alleged Sweeney Todd and his alleged lover the alleged Mrs. Lovett. We also randomly passed by the house where Ben Franklin lived during his time as envoy to London. It's now a small museum, and the young staffers were just closing up as we walked by. Our guide said, "Hello, ladies, are you in charge of running this lovely little place?" And they reolied with radiant enthusiasm, "Someone's got to do it." (I WOULD DO IT. Just pay me under the table since I don't have a visa....)
River cruise. We got to go on the Thames. On. The. Thames. Okay, either you vicariously feel the excitement, or you don't. I have this cruise to thank for the chance to sail under London Bridge (freshly repainted in a sprightly baby blue pattern), a fantastic view of the city, and a hokey scripted narration. (At least I hope it was scripted. I'd be concerned if both that guy and the guide on the bus independently came up with the same Big Ben joke--"Queen Victoria thought about naming it after Sir Benjamin Hall's younger brother, Richard, but...")
Museums. We spent several hours apiece in both the British Museum (Mummies! Headless statues! Jewelry! Small countries...well, no, but there was enough room to fit a few...) and the National Gallery. I think I've admitted before that I know essentially nothing about art and have very little appreciation for a lot of what are apparently the greatest works ever. But seeing things like Monet's water lily painting up close turned out to be very impressive. You can see the layers of paint. Paint that was put on that canvas a hundred or two hundred or five hundred years ago and is still there and still shows the same image. How amazing is that? Claudia's life was complete as soon as she saw Van Gogh's sunflower painting, but my real geek-out moment didn't come until we'd already progressed to the gift shop and I saw a postcard-version of this portrait:
Meet Christina of Milan. Based on this portrait, she was strongly considered as a candidate for Henry VIII's fourth wife. He was really into her, but he already had a bad rep thanks to his first two wives. Sixteen-year-old Christina allegedly told the English envoy that if she had two heads, one of them would be at King Henry's disposal...aka, he should back off. He ended up married Anne of Cleves instead, which turned out marvelously. Good story, tell it at parties.
Anyway, I dashed back into the museum, into an area we hadn't been through, to look at this portrait. Hans Holbein the Younger (aka the rockstar of portraiture at Henry's court) painted it after a three-hour sitting. How did he do that? How did he capture the folds of the skirt and the black threads on the edges of her sleeve ruffles? (This is the kind of stuff you notice up close.) It's, like, wow.
Anyway, we estimated that we got through about one wing of the gallery (out of about half a dozen) and I don't even want to guess at what tiny fraction of the British Museum we covered. You could literally spend weeks in there. (Entry's free, after all.) But we had other things to do....
The not-so-usual suspects. Raise your hand if you knew there was a Sherlock Holmes museum at 221 Baker Street. That's right. It's a house furnished and decorated to look as if the great detective lived there--full of items that were featured in the stories themselves. Hardcore Sherlockians (and believe me, there were people there who were unabashedly wearing deerstalker hats and matching coats) can smoke Holmes's pipe, examine his laboratory equipment, poke through his correspondence, and get friendly with some rather freaky wax figures of his clients and adversaries. (Moriarty should really blow his nose more often.) Okay, now raise your hand if you've ever eaten a pot pie. Keep your hand up if you've eaten it in London. Keep it up if you've bought it at the Borough Market from a cute English guy manning a stall that specializes in them. HA.
Best lunch ever, and possibly the coolest market ever. Pictures do not even hint at its size and vibrancy and crowdedness and aromas...ah, food.
And now raise your hand if you've heard of Grosvenor Square and if you know that the U.S. embassy is there (along with a small, understated, moving September 11 memorial and a random statue of FDR) and if you care that John Adams once lived in a house right next to this square, as did his wife when she joined him for the last few years of his ambassadorship, as did Thomas Jefferson's younger daughter when she stayed with the Adamses for two weeks en route to France after her father had her kidnapped. K, I think that just leaves me with my hand up, again. But here's why I was so keen to see this spot: London is a modern, dynamic city that, like most cities, is constantly changing with the times. So there aren't a whole lot of places where you can stand and say, "So and so stood where I'm standing and saw what I'm seeing now." Everything burned down in the London Fire, so there goes a lot of continuity with the pre-17th century...and things get replaced or rebuilt or or lost all the time...and even the path of the river has shifted...so despite the rich history of the city, going there isn't an automatic trip back in time. If you want to really place yourself in the past (which, being a dork, I do), you have to make an effort. So I wanted to go to Grosvenor Square--not because I thought it would be the same as it was back when the Adamses and Polly Jefferson knew it--but because it was at least still there, and still a square, not a supermarket or an apartment complex, and not something that costs money to see, like a castle. Hence, my quest. We planned to swing by there on Saturday, and at one point I even had the foresight to remark, "You know, we might want to go before it gets dark so we can actually see to look around," but of course this part of the plan was a fail. We ended up walking there after sunset, with me squinting at the map to make sure we wouldn't get lost. Once we arrived, Kelsie used the light from her phone to illuminate the inscriptions and informational plaques of the memorials, and I used my imagination to picture this little green patch of a glorified courtyard in daylight 230 years ago. So we'll call that an overall win.
And of course, the visit itself was a big win--despite several memorable and (in hindsight) amusing mishaps, of which some of you know more than others...and I think we'll leave it that way. Suffice it to say that everything turned out fine in the end, and I shall always remember, among other things, the sound of a little English toddler saying "luggage."
Concierge #1: "It's either on [insert street name] or the next one over..."
Concierge #2: (having drawn us a map) "Hyde Park, yes. Hyde Park."
Concierge #3: "Uh, it's probably on Leinster Street. There are loads of hostels there."
Me: "Ohhkayyy..." [receives weird look; Claudia cracks up] You have to understand, this is the third place we've tried and we still haven't found it, so we're just a bit trepidatious..." [yes, I used the word trepidatious]
Concierge #3: "I understand, ma'am," [I suddenly became a ma'am...scary] "but I'm ninety percent sure it's on that street..." [He was wrong.]
But concierge #4 came through for us after I asked her to just Google the hostel, click on the first link she saw, and see if it showed an address. So will call this, ultimately, a win, because we did find it. And yes, it was in the massive elegant building we'd passed up about five minutes after we got off the Tube. This settled, the visit commenced "proper."
And now for the best parts.
The usual suspects. Big Ben was smaller than I expected. Westminster was bigger and more beautiful than I'd envisioned. Buckingham Palace, dutifully flying the Union Jack, was surrounded by about as many people as will be watching William and Kate's wedding. The Tower was just really cool (it kept being expanded outward over the years, so the oldest part is the 12th-century "white tower" at the center, which isn't actually white anymore because it hasn't been painted in centuries). Trafalgar Square was lovely, especially at night with the big fountain lit up.
Hyde Park was lovely too, full of trees that (I like to think) might've been saplings back in 1536 when Henry VIII made it his hunting grounds. Now, instead of royal game animals, the place is teeming with adorable dogs whose owners all wielded ball launchers (hooked staffs that I swear I've never seen before; reminded me of shepherds' crooks).
The reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe (which is a tad off-target from the original location; they found this out after they'd built it) has the distinction of being the only building in London with a thatched roof. (After the 1666 fire, folks decided thatch wasn't really the way to go.) The London Eye makes so much money from hosting weddings (!!?!?wtf!?!?) that we figured it didn't need a donation from us, and besides, we got to see quite a bit of London by other means. Specifically...
Ghost-themed walking tour. Our guide was a gregarious middle-aged man about as tall as Daniel Radcliffe, who said "innit" a lot. He showed us, among other things, the house where the famous diarist Samuel Pepys (Jana, are you listening?) once lived and where his ghost is said to occasionally look out the window chuckling to himself (doubtless in hopes of spying the specter of the naked lady who resides next door); Saint-Dunstan-in-the-West Church, which is referenced briefly in A Christmas Carol (quite a stretch from the "haunted" standpoint but still a little bit of nerds-and-fuzzies for me, thanks to my force-fed intimacy with that book); and the alleged location of the alleged bloody deeds of the alleged Sweeney Todd and his alleged lover the alleged Mrs. Lovett. We also randomly passed by the house where Ben Franklin lived during his time as envoy to London. It's now a small museum, and the young staffers were just closing up as we walked by. Our guide said, "Hello, ladies, are you in charge of running this lovely little place?" And they reolied with radiant enthusiasm, "Someone's got to do it." (I WOULD DO IT. Just pay me under the table since I don't have a visa....)
River cruise. We got to go on the Thames. On. The. Thames. Okay, either you vicariously feel the excitement, or you don't. I have this cruise to thank for the chance to sail under London Bridge (freshly repainted in a sprightly baby blue pattern), a fantastic view of the city, and a hokey scripted narration. (At least I hope it was scripted. I'd be concerned if both that guy and the guide on the bus independently came up with the same Big Ben joke--"Queen Victoria thought about naming it after Sir Benjamin Hall's younger brother, Richard, but...")
Museums. We spent several hours apiece in both the British Museum (Mummies! Headless statues! Jewelry! Small countries...well, no, but there was enough room to fit a few...) and the National Gallery. I think I've admitted before that I know essentially nothing about art and have very little appreciation for a lot of what are apparently the greatest works ever. But seeing things like Monet's water lily painting up close turned out to be very impressive. You can see the layers of paint. Paint that was put on that canvas a hundred or two hundred or five hundred years ago and is still there and still shows the same image. How amazing is that? Claudia's life was complete as soon as she saw Van Gogh's sunflower painting, but my real geek-out moment didn't come until we'd already progressed to the gift shop and I saw a postcard-version of this portrait:
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Anyway, I dashed back into the museum, into an area we hadn't been through, to look at this portrait. Hans Holbein the Younger (aka the rockstar of portraiture at Henry's court) painted it after a three-hour sitting. How did he do that? How did he capture the folds of the skirt and the black threads on the edges of her sleeve ruffles? (This is the kind of stuff you notice up close.) It's, like, wow.
Anyway, we estimated that we got through about one wing of the gallery (out of about half a dozen) and I don't even want to guess at what tiny fraction of the British Museum we covered. You could literally spend weeks in there. (Entry's free, after all.) But we had other things to do....
The not-so-usual suspects. Raise your hand if you knew there was a Sherlock Holmes museum at 221 Baker Street. That's right. It's a house furnished and decorated to look as if the great detective lived there--full of items that were featured in the stories themselves. Hardcore Sherlockians (and believe me, there were people there who were unabashedly wearing deerstalker hats and matching coats) can smoke Holmes's pipe, examine his laboratory equipment, poke through his correspondence, and get friendly with some rather freaky wax figures of his clients and adversaries. (Moriarty should really blow his nose more often.) Okay, now raise your hand if you've ever eaten a pot pie. Keep your hand up if you've eaten it in London. Keep it up if you've bought it at the Borough Market from a cute English guy manning a stall that specializes in them. HA.
Best lunch ever, and possibly the coolest market ever. Pictures do not even hint at its size and vibrancy and crowdedness and aromas...ah, food.
And now raise your hand if you've heard of Grosvenor Square and if you know that the U.S. embassy is there (along with a small, understated, moving September 11 memorial and a random statue of FDR) and if you care that John Adams once lived in a house right next to this square, as did his wife when she joined him for the last few years of his ambassadorship, as did Thomas Jefferson's younger daughter when she stayed with the Adamses for two weeks en route to France after her father had her kidnapped. K, I think that just leaves me with my hand up, again. But here's why I was so keen to see this spot: London is a modern, dynamic city that, like most cities, is constantly changing with the times. So there aren't a whole lot of places where you can stand and say, "So and so stood where I'm standing and saw what I'm seeing now." Everything burned down in the London Fire, so there goes a lot of continuity with the pre-17th century...and things get replaced or rebuilt or or lost all the time...and even the path of the river has shifted...so despite the rich history of the city, going there isn't an automatic trip back in time. If you want to really place yourself in the past (which, being a dork, I do), you have to make an effort. So I wanted to go to Grosvenor Square--not because I thought it would be the same as it was back when the Adamses and Polly Jefferson knew it--but because it was at least still there, and still a square, not a supermarket or an apartment complex, and not something that costs money to see, like a castle. Hence, my quest. We planned to swing by there on Saturday, and at one point I even had the foresight to remark, "You know, we might want to go before it gets dark so we can actually see to look around," but of course this part of the plan was a fail. We ended up walking there after sunset, with me squinting at the map to make sure we wouldn't get lost. Once we arrived, Kelsie used the light from her phone to illuminate the inscriptions and informational plaques of the memorials, and I used my imagination to picture this little green patch of a glorified courtyard in daylight 230 years ago. So we'll call that an overall win.
And of course, the visit itself was a big win--despite several memorable and (in hindsight) amusing mishaps, of which some of you know more than others...and I think we'll leave it that way. Suffice it to say that everything turned out fine in the end, and I shall always remember, among other things, the sound of a little English toddler saying "luggage."
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