Little country, big love

The best has been saved for last. This one is about Ireland.

My companion and I almost didn’t make it. Our obstacles on the way to the airport included delayed buses, a pink and purple metro stop in the middle of nowhere, the slowest revolving door ever made, stalled conveyor belts, etc. But the struggle made me that much happier to have finally made it.

The greatest thing about Dublin is that you can walk around aimlessly and come across delicious cafes, used bookstores, old churches, rustic pubs, and Viking ruins within a few blocks of each other. We never had to take public transportation and whenever we got lost, nice Irish people helped us. They actually volunteered their help when they us with a map. You wouldn’t find that anywhere else. 

I found a café called Caffe Shannon, where there were delicious baked goods and a brochure for a production of Jane Eyre. It was fate.  Then we went to Coral Evensong at St. Patricks cathedral, which looks exactly as it did 1,000 years ago. It has so far been my favorite church in Europe. 

I found to my great disappointment that many of the things I love about Irish culture are dead, clichés, or both. When I asked where I could find Irish dancing, people told me to go to Galway. The only celtic knots I saw and the only bagpipes and accordions I heard were in the souvenir shops. I began to feel like a walking cliché. Shannon: former Irish dancer, addicted to accordions, in search of claddaugh ring, soda bread, and Irish coffee. I didn’t even both to claim my heritage, because a half-Irish-American doesn’t count. I learned that Dublin, while awesome, is not a truly Irish city. If that’s what you’re looking for, you go to Galway, Galway, Galway.

So I went to Galway….for 45 minutes. I took a bus ride (5 hours one way, 5 hours back), in which we stopped at a fairy fort, which really exists, a 3,000 year old tomb that looked like Stonehenge, and the Cliffs of Moher. We waited in Galway for those 45 minutes and went to a Christmas market, where I wanted to eat everything, and I certainly didn’t want to leave. But back to Dublin I went, and that was good, too.

I almost wish I didn’t like Ireland as much as I do, because everyone else seems to love it too. People come back glowing. But no one loves Ireland more than the Irish. My hypothesis is that, having struggled as much as they have for their country, they have to love it. They love their Guinness, their music, their tall tales (which are real). I once made a joke that I didn’t like Ireland, and it was not received well. The Irish are probably the funniest people in the world, but there are some things you just don’t joke about.

 Every time an Irishman opened his mouth, I burst out laughing. Once I cried from laughing so hard. I’ve never had my leg pulled as much as I did in those four days, to the point that I stopped believing anything anyone said.  I tried to keep up, but I fear I’ve left my wit in America I think they liked me anyway. I learned plenty of slang and my vocabulary is now more colorful than ever:

Wagon- annoying girl

Craic- fun

Lashed- drunk, like, really drunk

Hunny-bunny- term of endearment

That’s all, until next time.

Por fin

 I try to think of words to describe this trip, but there aren’t any. Here are some I have thought of: wotcher, cheers, wagon, quite good. But those are simply my favorite colloquialisms, and mean nothing to you. Just know that it is always a challenge to not use British speak in my daily life without sounding pretentious, and it was even harder when I was there. 

But really, I went to England and Ireland. My Meccas. Life is complete. I have been so homesick for so long for those places, and yet had dreamt about them for so long that they seemed about as real as Narnia and Hogwarts. It hurt to leave. Sure, I’m coming back for a long time in a few years, but years are long. The bright side is that every time I regretted not being able to see or do something, I was able to tell myself “next time, but better,” and actually believe it. 

First I flew into Bristol in order to see a smaller British city. There I saw the Sound of Music and ate fish and chips. On the bus ride into London, I had every intention of staying awake to see the countryside I have been pining for, but promptly fell asleep. 

People say Londoners are mean.  I don’t know who they were comparing them to, but I didn’t find that to be true in the least. Yes, two or three people were rude to me, and their rudeness was among the worst I have experienced, but the majority were quite nice. I think people got a little confused- yes, the rude people are ruder in London, but they are also fewer. I was called “my love” and winked at (in a friendly, not creepy way). People were noticeably polite, certainly more so than Americans, with their “sorrys,” “pleases,” and “cheers.”  It was strange after being so long in Spain, were such niceties are not used.  Even British children are well-behaved and cultured. 

One of the greatest things about London is that it is a city with history, like Rome, but it is still very much alive. In Rome, you see the Vatican, the Coliseum, and the Trevi Fountain.  In Paris, you see the Eiffel Tower. In London, however, the list of things to do and see is never-ending. There are quiet places and loud places, historical and modern, magically next to and on top of each other. Considering the size of the country, the amount of history packed in is incredible and condensed. I certainly walked in the same footsteps of almost all of my heroes. 

I went to the British Library, were I saw the original manuscript of Jane Eyre, a collection of stories written by Jane Austen, as well as her writing desk, hand-written poems by Wordsworth and Oscar Wilde, among others. Also, I saw the original copies of Beatles songs such as Help, I Want to Hold Your Hand, etc. and original copies of the Magna Carta. There’s nothing like a good original. Other sites- Platform 9 ¾ (under construction, lame), the obvious Big Ben, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Globe Theatre, Tower of London, the Imperial War Museum, and a service at Westminster Abbey.  St. James and Hyde Park really are enormous parks right in the middle of the city. (Nature!) The London Bridge is the most anti-climactic site ever. It's at least as bad as it sounds. Don’t bother going. Much more exciting is a few blocks down, where the bridge that was destroyed in Harry Potter 6 is located.  

I enjoyed dispelling the myths of my companions. I didn’t realize how much I knew about England until I got there. Yes, there is a difference between Big Ben and the Tower of London. No, Boxing Day has nothing to do with boxing. No, there is no meat in mincemeat pie (which I will have you know is delicious). 

It is important to note that the best men are in England. After slimy, skinny Spanish men, the tall, pea-coated, bespectacled, well-read, and polite Brits were a pleasant surprise. There’s nothing like seeing a well-dressed man reading in a pub. 

I got to spend a day alone in London, one of the greatest cities to be alone in. I hunted down bookstores, which was harder than I thought it would be considering it is pretty much the most literary city in the world, visited Dickens’ house, and saw Les Miserables, which made me bawl like a baby. 

At the end, my only comfort was that in leaving England I would be going to Ireland. England is the home of my mind, but Ireland is the home of my blood. I was going home in a different way.

There is no neatly developed and wrapped-up theme for this blog, which I usually attempt in order to keep the attention and respect of my readers (or shall I say reader?). But for this one I have none. Just know that I love England probably more than anyone else, or at least as much as anyone could. Ireland is different; with its people, beer, and underdog status, it is easy to love. England is a bit harder, but that only makes it all the more mine. 

Dirty, dirty Spain

Only when I went to Madrid, Segovia, and Toledo for a glorified field trip did I start feeling like I wanted to feel about being here. I have tried very hard, I have forced myself to enjoy my time here, despite jet leg, heat exhaustion, ugly Americans and uglier Spaniards, and the constant feeling of discomfort I face by living in a stranger’s home in a strange country. And I succeeded.

But I got deep into it this weekend. The immense stress that comes with travel (the taxi to bus to airport to metro to bus-ness) was lifted off my shoulders. I had no idea what was in Toledo and Segovia, and only a vague idea about Madrid. I let Mark and Maria, the group directors, load me on a bus with the others and take me to unknown locations. Not having control over where I was going was strangely liberating.

I saw Guernica for the first time. Then I saw Goya and Velazquez for the second time. (Goya will always be my favorite because of his morbid honesty.) I went to El Escorial, a Renaissance palace outside of Madrid, and saw the altar in the church where the king who built it (Felipe or Carlos or something) lived when he was too sick to walk and later died. There were crypts in which almost all the leaders of Spain are interred. These things were good, but not my favorite part of the trip.

In Segovia, there is a castle, the Alcazar, which was supposedly the basis for one of the Disney castles. It is perched on top of a cliff overlooking a forest with a river. There is also something like the second-oldest church in Europe, which I accidently stole a piece of for my collection of rocks and ruins. Castles and churches are all very good, but Segovia was the first time I had seen nature (besides olive trees) in Spain. And it was fall. Actually, it was Halloween. I imagine that there is no better time to be in Segovia than on Halloween. The leaves were all bittersweet colors and so was the air. Being farther north than Andalucía, it was cold, green, and rainy- the best weather. The castle was creepy in the best way possible. There were more happy trees like the ones I found in Portugal. We took a hike and got pleasantly lost, although the castle was never out of sight. For the first time in Spain, I strangely felt like I belonged.

In Toledo I went to mass in the gothic cathedral. I think I have never seen a town with such a high religious building to population ratio. Everywhere I went there were synagogues, chapels, churches, cathedrals. I ventured off on my own and ended up possibly trespassing, scaling down a cliff to look at some bird-infested ruins, and walk along the river. I think it was the first time in two months that there wasn’t a person within fifty feet of me.

I realized that I don’t just like nature, I need nature. When there is nature, you can forget about people, which is essential sometimes. The feeling of discomfort I had been feeling in all the places I’d visited and in Granada as well, was mainly a result of the lack of nature.

Having crawled in the mud and dirt of Segovia and Toledo, I gladly ruined some of my clothes. I breathed in the freshness of the air, and I felt the oldness. I could have been wandering the Spanish moors and forests 500 years ago. It is important, not only to find old things, but to find things untouched by time. I want to feel like I have a time machine.

This trip was possibly the most essential one I had in my time here. I established an inner-independence which I had lacked previously and caused me to make resolutions for the rest of my trip. I refuse to be idle when there is opportunity. I refuse to follow a crowd, even if it means I get lost sometimes. Walls and roofs do very little for me, and companionship, although beyond wonderful when provided by some, is a nuisance when provided by others. Those are the lessons that have defined my November and December.