Katherine in Ireland Part I (or, it rained a lot and was cold)
for some reason, and there's really no good excuse for this, I didn't consider the idea of rain when planning my trip. let's gloss over the dumness of that, and just get to the part where my requesting a window seat on my flight from Heathrow to Dublin was really, really pointless. because not only was it absolutely cloudy, but i slept that entire 50 minutes. the bus ride from the airport marked the first of many times i've asked random people what was going on: a businessman from Chicago explained what stop I'd want to leave the bus at so as not to end up somewhere far away and confusing with my two backpacks and two suitcases. i should mention at this point that three of those bags are filled with my winter clothes and a comforter that i'm going to need in Berlin. I should also mention that i'd advise against tacking a 2-week backpacking trip on to the front of moving to a foreign city for two months. but anyway.
i met up with rachel (hi rachel!!) at a cafe that Let's Go very rightly recommends, and i think, totally freaked her out by not being able to stop talking, after spending my 12 hours of traveling only saying things like "two weeks" and "for vacation" and "no i don't have bird flu." rachel took most of my baggage back to her place for me (rachel is awesome!) and i saw dublin in the rain. it was nice, and very clean, but probably because of the rain. i saw the book of kells, which was calligrariffic, and had my first of three so far bacon-tomato-cheese panini. i'm pretty sure the irish did not invent the panini (panino?), but i haven't NOT seen it offered in any place i've been so far, and therefore have not not ordered it to this point. in the national portrait gallery i saw lots of pictures of old men in wigs, and a bunch of leading ladies of London society whose descriptions made it pretty clear, as Rachel and I realized, that they had the wealthy heiress gig all figured out centuries before Paris Hilton came on the scene.
I bussed up to Belfast yesterday, and wandered around a little bit without seeing much significant. This morning I took a Black Cab tour, which was both fun and sad, not unexpectedly. The Peace Wall between the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods has been helpful, I guess, in reducing the violence, but it really just reminded me of the early stages of the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier' in Berlin. Not that it's going toward that in Belfast, but it's a much more depressing and complicated deal than I really realized. On the way to the Shankill neighborhood, our driver pointed out the place where a car had been burnt last night, and where a bus shelter had been burnt - there was a crew rebuilding it as we drove by. (Don't worry, Mom - I'm staying safe, only going out with groups after dark, and I'm nowhere near West Belfast. And Black Cab drivers have agreements with the community that their tour groups won't be targeted, because even political paramilitary realize that it's stupid to scare away tourism).
I keep getting excessive amounts of help from charming locals... a lady who works on Lagan Weir basically planned out the timetables I'd need to take a trip out to the Folk and Transport museums (much cooler than they sound... the latter has a Delorean and locomotives that you can get in and pull levers and all that, as well as a huge Titanic exhibit, and the former had demonstrations of roof-thatching and blacksmithing and wood turning. And luckily, I am interested in dorky things like that.), and at both museums people offered to call up the bus companies to make sure I would make the bus back to town. I seriously had to insist that they not do that the second time. Near the transport museum is a miniature railroad, with this tiny bench that you sit on, and an engine that comes up to maybe calf-height. The ticket seller, upon hearing my accent, insisted that Boston was basically the same as Philly, and told me a story about a concert he went to when he was 5 (?) in Philly, and hated. He made me guess who played the concert... I was unable to come up with the correct answer, which was Elvis. This was 1971, i guess, so understandable maybe that the concert wasn't the greatest. But the mini railroad was fun, and I got to pet a cat that lived in the ticket booth. Oh, and irish kids love trains, apparently.
the kids here are all pretty adorable, with their tiny accents and total lack of shyness. dogs here are also excessively attractive... I don't know why, but all the dogs I've seen so far, and there have been many, are very good looking dogs. The only exception to the small creatures on this island being cute was the baby held by the woman sitting in front of me on the mini train. it kept looking back at me, and the only way I can describe it is like a tiny, angry Verne Troyer. and it's not like i could make a quick escape from it if it lunged at me or something, because i mean, i was on a train. albeit a train going 5mph on a 8'' gauge track.
so in conclusion, i would recommend the irish dogs, panini, and folk museums. i would not recommend the weather, political violence, and frightening babies. unless the baby was a tourist too, in which case it's not really Ireland's fault.
oh, and basically everone here thinks the proper response to "i'm from boston" is to rail on Bush. not that I disagree with them. but the backpacker and irish tour industry demographics are definitely united against the american government. i wouldn't be scared of that either.
and now i've hogged this computer for much too long, so you probably won't hear from me in a while. as i said to some of you, if you email me your address, i'll send a postcard. and as per ansel's suggestion, it will be appropriate to you as a person.
i met up with rachel (hi rachel!!) at a cafe that Let's Go very rightly recommends, and i think, totally freaked her out by not being able to stop talking, after spending my 12 hours of traveling only saying things like "two weeks" and "for vacation" and "no i don't have bird flu." rachel took most of my baggage back to her place for me (rachel is awesome!) and i saw dublin in the rain. it was nice, and very clean, but probably because of the rain. i saw the book of kells, which was calligrariffic, and had my first of three so far bacon-tomato-cheese panini. i'm pretty sure the irish did not invent the panini (panino?), but i haven't NOT seen it offered in any place i've been so far, and therefore have not not ordered it to this point. in the national portrait gallery i saw lots of pictures of old men in wigs, and a bunch of leading ladies of London society whose descriptions made it pretty clear, as Rachel and I realized, that they had the wealthy heiress gig all figured out centuries before Paris Hilton came on the scene.
I bussed up to Belfast yesterday, and wandered around a little bit without seeing much significant. This morning I took a Black Cab tour, which was both fun and sad, not unexpectedly. The Peace Wall between the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods has been helpful, I guess, in reducing the violence, but it really just reminded me of the early stages of the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier' in Berlin. Not that it's going toward that in Belfast, but it's a much more depressing and complicated deal than I really realized. On the way to the Shankill neighborhood, our driver pointed out the place where a car had been burnt last night, and where a bus shelter had been burnt - there was a crew rebuilding it as we drove by. (Don't worry, Mom - I'm staying safe, only going out with groups after dark, and I'm nowhere near West Belfast. And Black Cab drivers have agreements with the community that their tour groups won't be targeted, because even political paramilitary realize that it's stupid to scare away tourism).
I keep getting excessive amounts of help from charming locals... a lady who works on Lagan Weir basically planned out the timetables I'd need to take a trip out to the Folk and Transport museums (much cooler than they sound... the latter has a Delorean and locomotives that you can get in and pull levers and all that, as well as a huge Titanic exhibit, and the former had demonstrations of roof-thatching and blacksmithing and wood turning. And luckily, I am interested in dorky things like that.), and at both museums people offered to call up the bus companies to make sure I would make the bus back to town. I seriously had to insist that they not do that the second time. Near the transport museum is a miniature railroad, with this tiny bench that you sit on, and an engine that comes up to maybe calf-height. The ticket seller, upon hearing my accent, insisted that Boston was basically the same as Philly, and told me a story about a concert he went to when he was 5 (?) in Philly, and hated. He made me guess who played the concert... I was unable to come up with the correct answer, which was Elvis. This was 1971, i guess, so understandable maybe that the concert wasn't the greatest. But the mini railroad was fun, and I got to pet a cat that lived in the ticket booth. Oh, and irish kids love trains, apparently.
the kids here are all pretty adorable, with their tiny accents and total lack of shyness. dogs here are also excessively attractive... I don't know why, but all the dogs I've seen so far, and there have been many, are very good looking dogs. The only exception to the small creatures on this island being cute was the baby held by the woman sitting in front of me on the mini train. it kept looking back at me, and the only way I can describe it is like a tiny, angry Verne Troyer. and it's not like i could make a quick escape from it if it lunged at me or something, because i mean, i was on a train. albeit a train going 5mph on a 8'' gauge track.
so in conclusion, i would recommend the irish dogs, panini, and folk museums. i would not recommend the weather, political violence, and frightening babies. unless the baby was a tourist too, in which case it's not really Ireland's fault.
oh, and basically everone here thinks the proper response to "i'm from boston" is to rail on Bush. not that I disagree with them. but the backpacker and irish tour industry demographics are definitely united against the american government. i wouldn't be scared of that either.
and now i've hogged this computer for much too long, so you probably won't hear from me in a while. as i said to some of you, if you email me your address, i'll send a postcard. and as per ansel's suggestion, it will be appropriate to you as a person.
posted by Katherine at 1:38 PM
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