Airports in the middle of the night are strange. You stumble off this rumbling machine into a pile of glass and metal that looks an awful lot like the pile of glass and metal you left. Your mouth is dry and tastes off. You feel hazy, half in a dream, unsure of where you are. You're in a new place, but it doesn't feel like a new place. It doesn't feel like the old place either. It's an odd in-between.
It's especially strange if the airport is in Iceland at the end of the summer. It's 5:30 in the morning and bright like it's 10. You're surrounded by people whose chatter sounds like singing. Everything smells like herring. So you take your bag and wander through the halls to a bathroom, then make your way to a service desk to ask about changing from window to aisle.
A slight man with close-shaved head stands in front of you speaking with a familiar accent. He doesn't have a boarding pass and needs one to get to London for work. The clerk steps away from the desk for a moment and he asks you if you're going to London. No, you say: Berlin, then Spain.
He smiles. As his accent suggested, he is from Zaragoza. You brace for the obvious question and the pitying answer. Oh, Palencia? But why? I'm sorry. It will be interesting for you, but it's such a small city.
You are mentally putting on your "no, this year will be wonderful" armor. He asks the usual clarifying question. "Palencia! With a P? Not Valencia?"
No. Not Valencia. Except:
He breaks into a grin. His face lights up. "Now that is the real Spain! Palencia is beautiful! I mean, really. Have you ever wanted to live across from a Romanesque Cathedral? Now you can! Just make sure it's the kind that stops chiming between 12 am and 8 am... they usually do these days."
He takes a breath. "Oh, you're from Boston? I guess you're used to living near the sea. Well, this is different, but you still have the river. Very beautiful! Anyway, Zaragoza is inland, too. You'll see -- the people! They're so nice, so friendly. Maybe not as open as those in the south, but they are loyal, kind, and respectful. Good friends. My mother grew up in Soria, and I can tell you: inland people were wheat farmers for a long time. They are used to hard work, and they respect education."
The clerk returns. You listen to them discuss the boarding pass for a moment, then turn to leave. From the receding desk you hear him introduce himself.
"Good luck in Palencia! I am Jose Major Domo! E-mail me if you need anything." He gives his e-mail address.
A few minutes later, you board another plane, one step closer. A little bit less in a haze; a little bit more at ease. On the flight, the Icelandic women are wide awake, chattering, buying duty-free items, joking with the flight attendant. It's like a giant, strange party in the sky. It's like it's already mid-morning, instead of 3 am by your biological clock. It's like they don't know what you're heading toward.
Showing posts with label airplane flights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airplane flights. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Butterfly in the sky... I can fly twice as high*
I am happy to report that I have successfully left for Mexico. I know that doesn't seem like an accomplishment, but it surely is. First of all, I had a towering pre-departure to-do list, but an inveterate procrastinator such as myself has no problem polishing off one of those.
No, the problem came yesterday. After an only slightly rushed arrival and check-in process, I had some time to wander around the terminal before my flight to Atlanta (with continuing service to Guadalajara) boarded. About 10 minutes before boarding time I eased my way over to the gate, only to find a giant red CANCELED sign and a mob of angry travelers trying desperately to rebook on a day following some of the worst weather of the entire winter.
Here is where I did something smart and also stupid. The line for rebooking was miles long, and a woman came on the PA to announce another place where those of us unfortunate enough to be in the back of the line could also rebook. Of course, since this was a standard airport PA system, it came out as "Those passengers waiting in the back of the line sldkfjsldkfjslkdfjowiejfwoiejflskcm might consider slkdfjslkdfjslkdfjosidjfslkdfj sguy clop."
Come to find out that she had directed the hapless hoards to a travel center down the hall (called the "something drop"). But it sounded an awful lot to me like she had said "Sky Club," which is the Delta first class lounge. Everyone else was heading in a different direction, but I accidentally-on-purpose ended up in Sky Club asking if I could be rebooked there, and they were very kind and helpful. The woman sat with me for a full 45 minutes looking for any city in the whole US through which I might be able to travel to Mexico that day. But in vain. The nationwide snowpocalypes (as the cool kids apparently call it) had snarled traffic even into a decent late winter day that would normally be free of trouble.
And so I went home, frustrated and exhausted, only to have to get up obscenely early this morning to catch a 6:50 AM flight. That I did successfully. A layover in Atlanta brought me southern-style breakfast (eggs and toast! grits!) courtesy of Delta's meal voucher ("sorry we ruined your day/all your plans!") And now as I type I am 30,000 feet over the bayous of Louisiana. I splurged on in-flight internet and am enjoying high-altitude blogging and the prospect of landing in yet another undiscovered country. I should be in Guadalajara by dinnertime (Mashallah, as the Turks say-- something like "knock on wood.")
*I am neither rich nor is this blog prestigious, but I promise some sort of prize or at least an internet hug to any reader who can tell me the source of this post's title
No, the problem came yesterday. After an only slightly rushed arrival and check-in process, I had some time to wander around the terminal before my flight to Atlanta (with continuing service to Guadalajara) boarded. About 10 minutes before boarding time I eased my way over to the gate, only to find a giant red CANCELED sign and a mob of angry travelers trying desperately to rebook on a day following some of the worst weather of the entire winter.
Here is where I did something smart and also stupid. The line for rebooking was miles long, and a woman came on the PA to announce another place where those of us unfortunate enough to be in the back of the line could also rebook. Of course, since this was a standard airport PA system, it came out as "Those passengers waiting in the back of the line sldkfjsldkfjslkdfjowiejfwoiejflskcm might consider slkdfjslkdfjslkdfjosidjfslkdfj sguy clop."
Come to find out that she had directed the hapless hoards to a travel center down the hall (called the "something drop"). But it sounded an awful lot to me like she had said "Sky Club," which is the Delta first class lounge. Everyone else was heading in a different direction, but I accidentally-on-purpose ended up in Sky Club asking if I could be rebooked there, and they were very kind and helpful. The woman sat with me for a full 45 minutes looking for any city in the whole US through which I might be able to travel to Mexico that day. But in vain. The nationwide snowpocalypes (as the cool kids apparently call it) had snarled traffic even into a decent late winter day that would normally be free of trouble.
And so I went home, frustrated and exhausted, only to have to get up obscenely early this morning to catch a 6:50 AM flight. That I did successfully. A layover in Atlanta brought me southern-style breakfast (eggs and toast! grits!) courtesy of Delta's meal voucher ("sorry we ruined your day/all your plans!") And now as I type I am 30,000 feet over the bayous of Louisiana. I splurged on in-flight internet and am enjoying high-altitude blogging and the prospect of landing in yet another undiscovered country. I should be in Guadalajara by dinnertime (Mashallah, as the Turks say-- something like "knock on wood.")
*I am neither rich nor is this blog prestigious, but I promise some sort of prize or at least an internet hug to any reader who can tell me the source of this post's title
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Marigolds and a tricycle: Delhi first impressions
When I arrived in Delhi last night a little before 8 PM the back-of-seat screens in the airplane said the outside air temperature was 37 C, or about 98 F. It is the height of the hot seasons here. The plane was filled with saris, salwar, turbans. I counted three other Caucasians, which was interesting because the "foreign passport holders" line was quite long. We all stumbled off the plane together, through security and an H1N1 check. I waited 45 minutes for my bag, which had been (thoughtfully, I guess) taken off the plane as a "priority" and placed to the side without my knowledge.
"Trying to confuse you as pleasantly as possible--that's India," said Faith, an old friend I'm staying with here in Delhi. She didn't say this until an hour after I'd landed, though, when we had gotten into a cab that looked like it had been produced around 1968--all rusting navy body and rounded bumpers. I had emerged from the baggage claim to a forest of waving "WELCOME _____" name cards, but there were no blonde curls to be seen. I panicked: Faith and I hadn't set up a meeting plan because the airlines were jerking me around until only an hour before I left for the Hong Kong airport. What's more, I somehow also had neither her phone number nor her address. It was all my fears about arrival in India come to life, but I managed to hold my cool. I got some money; I borrowed a cab driver's cell phone and shamefacedly called the mother of a good friend of mine, who lives in Delhi. But before I had to slink, deeply embarassed, to her house for the night, I saw Faith waving her pale arms out one of the exits. She had sent me an e-mail, too late, telling me that you have to pay to greet guests inside the airport.
We drove for a half hour through the hot, dusty night to south Delhi, "where all the film stars and politicians keep homes." Faith and her boyfriend, Alim, live there, in a one-room apartment with terrace and open kitchen, simple and small but comfortable. He prepared a late dinner and we drifted off to sleep to the hum of the air cooler, a machine that uses hay, water, and fans to cool the air in a room.
The walk to work this morning, an anti-AIDs/drugs NGO, was a revelation in itself. Everything was new. The women, almost every one in bright saris, taking a morning constitutional or collecting mud in baskets on their heads. The children, playing in the streets-- one particularly bright image a small boy, thin and lithe, on a dustry tricycle with a chain of marigolds around his neck. A cow, as big is our rickshaw, trotting between cars. A pony cart carrying farmers and produce into the city.
We've spent the morning at the NGO office, drinking chai and trying to plan what has become a distressingly short trip here (what was originally planned between 25-30 days now has to be 18 because of my visa expiration.) For lunch we went upstairs to the rehab, where the patients (all men) greeted Faith genially or slept on their cots in the heat, and ate dahl and rice with our hands. (Okay, they gave me a spoon. One step at a time.) It's only 2 PM, but this morning has already been plenty of education. And this afternoon: Old Delhi.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Kashgar
After bidding smoggy, huge, and oh-so-very-Chinese Beijing adieu, my parents and I boarded a flight for Xinjiang. Xinjiang (which means "New Land" in Mandarin) is an enormous province in the very northwest of China that borders Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia and is inhabited largely by the Uighur minority, a Eurasian Muslim group, as well as minorities of Kazakhs, Kurds, and Mongolians. We connected through Urumqi to Kashgar, about 400 km (200 miles) away from the Pakistani border. Kashgar was completely absent the China I've come to know and love. It was much more Central Asian (for good reason), closer to a Middle Eastern feel than an Asian vibe. Also: the landscape was spectacular. Even flying in I couldn't keep my eyes off the view.
Pictures from the Plane
Silly bureaucratic/stubborn Chinese government decision #902348092348: the whole country, despite being geographically larger than the US, functions as one time zone. This means that Kashgar, something like 2500 miles west of Beijing, is supposed to be on the same time. This also means that in Kashgar the sun comes up around 9:00 and sets around 11:30. Locally, people use an informal "Xinjiang time," which sets everything two hours early. Therefore, when we landed, we were greeted with the following sight (it reminded me a little of Alaska):
Kashgar, 10:30 PM
Our second surprise was our hotel, which was housed in the former Russian Embassy. I guess Russian tastes at the time of building ran along the lines of somebody who ate a bunch of potpourri and Art Deco text books and then threw up all over the place? It was entertaining, to say the least.
Our Kashgar hotel
The next morning we got up bright and early (which in Kashgar is 9:30, the sun hasn't even risen completely yet)and went to a millenia-long tradition in Kashgar: the Sunday animal market. I think that was where we really started to understand how much this Wasn't China Anymore, Toto. The hustle and bustle was that of any Chinese market, but the faces were so very different than the ones we were used to seeing, the smells, the sounds of people talking, bickering, joking. The signs of Islam everywhere (head coverings on the men, various degrees of veil-ing on the women), the Uighur bread (round and pitalike), the Uighur music (sort of a mix of sugary-sweet Chinese pop and the Arabic twang of Middle Eastern music). It was like being transported to a completely different country. This was a China I had never imagined.
My time in Xinjiang in general really made me rethink my definition of "who is Chinese," and my idea of "what a Chinese person looks like." People who looked like me, with brown hair, blue eyes, and hips spouted Mother-Tongue Mandarin. People who appeared 100% Han Chinese looked puzzled when I addressed them in Mandarin and then turned to their friends and continued a conversation in Kazakh. I guess when you get to the border of things this way, the lines blur. And in a world made of so many strong, bold lines, that experience is always the most powerful and moving.
Unfortunately, the pictures I'm posting don't do the experience justice. If you enjoy them, request further viewing when I get back(in 6 days!)
Scenes from the Kashgar Animal Market
Shave and a Haircut (two bits) at the Animal Market
The rest of the day was spent touring around Kashgar seeing the sights, and there were many. The first stop was the largest mosque in Kashgar. When, out of respect, I covered my arms and head with a scarf we'd brought for that purpose, some nearby worshippers asked our guide if I was Uighur (that wouldn't be the last time I'd be mistaken for a Chinese person... but that story comes later, during my Turpan experience.) The mosque was beautiful, really peaceful and spacious. No one was praying there at the moment-- it's only open to visitors when no prayer is happening, and as the holiest place in Kashgar it is only used for that purpose on Fridays.
The largest mosque in Kashgar
Inside the mosque (the first mosque I've ever been inside)
We also visited a tomb nearby the mosque. It's the thickest structure of its type, possibly in the world (or at least in Asia, I know that) and houses something like 9 generations of the same family, whose surname I am unfortunately currently forgetting. While we were walking around with our guide, an American man joined our group, asking if he could tag along. He introduced himself as the former CEO of eLong, which is the Chinese version of Expedia. Very odd to meet a big-wig like that in such an odd situation. He was quite a character, and he gave me his email, in case I ever need help in the .com world.
The tomb
For lunch, we ate at a traditional Uighur restaurant. Among Uighur's preferred foods are pilaf (a creamy mix of rice, egg, spices, and lamb), chuanr (shish kebabs, essentially), and lamian or hand-stretched noodles. They put heavy-duty spices on everything, so we were constantly having to ask for special orders. I found the food delicious, however (there was always fresh fruit juice, pomegranate or peach, to go with it)my mother's stomach didn't agree so much.
That evening, our guide took us exploring Kashgar's Old City, which was essentially like going back 2 or 300 years. The whole structure is that old, and its winding streets and stucco walls reminded me strongly of Jerusalem's Old City. Apparently, the Chinese government has built brand new apartments outside the city and is trying to get the Old City inhabitants to move into them because the old buildings are so vulnerable to earthquakes (which Xinjiang gets fairly often), but no one has moved there yet. Being there, I understood. Just walking through the streets I felt such a palpable connection to the past, to an old way of life almost lost. If my ancestors had lived there, I wouldn't want to leave either.
We walked the winding alleys, followed by adorable Uighur children begging us to take their pictures, peeking into ajar doorways, discovering tiny neighborhood mosques (in one a call to prayer was being chanted. It was incredibly haunting in the fading light). At one point, a Uighur woman approached us and asked us if we would like to see her house. It turns out she was running a homemade crafts business out of her bare, traditional living room, but that's always the kind of endeavor my parents and I like to support. And getting to see the inside of a Uighur house (there was a tree, inside! And so many beautiful carpets!) was incredible. Again, these pictures don't do the place justice. If you'd like to see more, I'll be happy to oblige.
Scenes from Kashgar's Old City
(The writing on the sign is Uighur script, a modified Arabic alphabet)
Said adorable Uighur children
Next time: Time to break out the White Russians-- Urumqi
Pictures from the Plane
Silly bureaucratic/stubborn Chinese government decision #902348092348: the whole country, despite being geographically larger than the US, functions as one time zone. This means that Kashgar, something like 2500 miles west of Beijing, is supposed to be on the same time. This also means that in Kashgar the sun comes up around 9:00 and sets around 11:30. Locally, people use an informal "Xinjiang time," which sets everything two hours early. Therefore, when we landed, we were greeted with the following sight (it reminded me a little of Alaska):
Kashgar, 10:30 PM
Our second surprise was our hotel, which was housed in the former Russian Embassy. I guess Russian tastes at the time of building ran along the lines of somebody who ate a bunch of potpourri and Art Deco text books and then threw up all over the place? It was entertaining, to say the least.
Our Kashgar hotel
The next morning we got up bright and early (which in Kashgar is 9:30, the sun hasn't even risen completely yet)and went to a millenia-long tradition in Kashgar: the Sunday animal market. I think that was where we really started to understand how much this Wasn't China Anymore, Toto. The hustle and bustle was that of any Chinese market, but the faces were so very different than the ones we were used to seeing, the smells, the sounds of people talking, bickering, joking. The signs of Islam everywhere (head coverings on the men, various degrees of veil-ing on the women), the Uighur bread (round and pitalike), the Uighur music (sort of a mix of sugary-sweet Chinese pop and the Arabic twang of Middle Eastern music). It was like being transported to a completely different country. This was a China I had never imagined.
My time in Xinjiang in general really made me rethink my definition of "who is Chinese," and my idea of "what a Chinese person looks like." People who looked like me, with brown hair, blue eyes, and hips spouted Mother-Tongue Mandarin. People who appeared 100% Han Chinese looked puzzled when I addressed them in Mandarin and then turned to their friends and continued a conversation in Kazakh. I guess when you get to the border of things this way, the lines blur. And in a world made of so many strong, bold lines, that experience is always the most powerful and moving.
Unfortunately, the pictures I'm posting don't do the experience justice. If you enjoy them, request further viewing when I get back(in 6 days!)
Scenes from the Kashgar Animal Market
Shave and a Haircut (two bits) at the Animal Market
The rest of the day was spent touring around Kashgar seeing the sights, and there were many. The first stop was the largest mosque in Kashgar. When, out of respect, I covered my arms and head with a scarf we'd brought for that purpose, some nearby worshippers asked our guide if I was Uighur (that wouldn't be the last time I'd be mistaken for a Chinese person... but that story comes later, during my Turpan experience.) The mosque was beautiful, really peaceful and spacious. No one was praying there at the moment-- it's only open to visitors when no prayer is happening, and as the holiest place in Kashgar it is only used for that purpose on Fridays.
The largest mosque in Kashgar
Inside the mosque (the first mosque I've ever been inside)
We also visited a tomb nearby the mosque. It's the thickest structure of its type, possibly in the world (or at least in Asia, I know that) and houses something like 9 generations of the same family, whose surname I am unfortunately currently forgetting. While we were walking around with our guide, an American man joined our group, asking if he could tag along. He introduced himself as the former CEO of eLong, which is the Chinese version of Expedia. Very odd to meet a big-wig like that in such an odd situation. He was quite a character, and he gave me his email, in case I ever need help in the .com world.
The tomb
For lunch, we ate at a traditional Uighur restaurant. Among Uighur's preferred foods are pilaf (a creamy mix of rice, egg, spices, and lamb), chuanr (shish kebabs, essentially), and lamian or hand-stretched noodles. They put heavy-duty spices on everything, so we were constantly having to ask for special orders. I found the food delicious, however (there was always fresh fruit juice, pomegranate or peach, to go with it)my mother's stomach didn't agree so much.
That evening, our guide took us exploring Kashgar's Old City, which was essentially like going back 2 or 300 years. The whole structure is that old, and its winding streets and stucco walls reminded me strongly of Jerusalem's Old City. Apparently, the Chinese government has built brand new apartments outside the city and is trying to get the Old City inhabitants to move into them because the old buildings are so vulnerable to earthquakes (which Xinjiang gets fairly often), but no one has moved there yet. Being there, I understood. Just walking through the streets I felt such a palpable connection to the past, to an old way of life almost lost. If my ancestors had lived there, I wouldn't want to leave either.
We walked the winding alleys, followed by adorable Uighur children begging us to take their pictures, peeking into ajar doorways, discovering tiny neighborhood mosques (in one a call to prayer was being chanted. It was incredibly haunting in the fading light). At one point, a Uighur woman approached us and asked us if we would like to see her house. It turns out she was running a homemade crafts business out of her bare, traditional living room, but that's always the kind of endeavor my parents and I like to support. And getting to see the inside of a Uighur house (there was a tree, inside! And so many beautiful carpets!) was incredible. Again, these pictures don't do the place justice. If you'd like to see more, I'll be happy to oblige.
Scenes from Kashgar's Old City
(The writing on the sign is Uighur script, a modified Arabic alphabet)
Said adorable Uighur children
Next time: Time to break out the White Russians-- Urumqi
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Right Way to Drink a Guinness
Lesson #1 of my Ireland trip: If you ever go to Ireland, be aware-- the Irish are watching how you drink your Guinness, and they are judging you for it.
Day 1 of my Irish Extravaganza was one of the longest days of my life, both literally (it kind of stretched on for 48 hours) and figuratively. My mother put me in the security line at Logan Airport around 3:00 PM EST on Friday and my histamines promptly revved to life, for no reason I could understand. Benadryl didn't seem to help, and I spent all of the flight to New York and much of the flight to Dublin sneezing uncontrollably. After a couple of hours my nose was raw and red, and even after I stopped sneezing it continued to run, so I had the good fortune of entering Ireland continually wiping my red, raw nose and looking much like a cocaine addict. Other than allergies, my flight went swimmingly. Waiting to board in JFK I chatted with an Irish woman waiting to go home and see family, my first encounter with the famous Irish friendliness. The over-sea flight was nowhere near full, so I had my own two-seat row and was able to stretch out a little and get a few hours of sleep.
I'm not sure why, but I had somehow expected that it would be at least a little bit light when we arrived in Dublin. However, we arrived around 6:30 AM GMT (half an hour early after leaving 45 minutes late...huh?) and it was finally beginning to get light as I emerged from customs an hour and a half later. There I encountered my first bout of culture shock. I had agreed to call Emily to let her know I would be catching the train to the Trinity gates, but I had no idea how many of the digits from the number I dialed in the states would apply in country. It took me a full four tries staring down the public phone before she sleepily answered, and then I set out to find the AirCoach, another confusing feat.
I met Emily in front of the Trinity University gates, and we walked the fifteen minutes to her flat, which is in the famous area of Merrion Square. It's quite remarkable that Emily's program placed her in this area, which is all Georgian townhouses, very posh (pictures will follow once I am stateside.) We ate some (homemade!) banana bread and got me coffee and then set out into the Dublin morning, wandering around the city for what turned out to be almost 4 hours. I barely noticed-- I was too busy the accents, the mix of more modern and older architecture, local and internatioanl flavors, just all the difference around me. We walked around Trinity, down Grafton Street (a pedestrian shopping district,) and up to Dublin Castle, then stopped for a brunch-like meal at The Queen of Tarts, a positively adorable coffee shop across from the castle where everything was red. At one point I was telling Emily about the bevy of drug issues that seem to crop up in Belmont and the chatter in the cafe got quiet as I uttered the words "underage prostitution and cocaine ring." The couple sitting next to us and who had been shooting us curious looks dissolved into laughter. It was awkwardly hilarious.
At about this time my body gave out for the first time (it had been 36 hours since I got any decent sleep), and so we went back to the house until Emmalee came into the city from Dublin City University, where she and Katrina are studying, about 4 km away. We got a lunch/dinner type meal and went on a quest to Tesco, a grocery store, where many Brits and Janie had gone before me. Although I had just intended to get snacks and breakfast food, we ended up doing a full investigative mission, as I've always heard you can learn a lot about a place from its grocery stores. What we found was: the Busty Cake (picture forthcoming). Yes, a cake shaped like breasts. I'm not sure what this product's availabity in family supermarkets says about modern Irish society.
We met up with Emily and Katrina and spent our night in the city-- first at a lovely Italian restaurant, then Stag's Head Pub, where there happened to be live traditional Irish music. The Pub was everything you could ever want a pub to be. Dimly lit with shiny wood finishing and a map from before the USSR broke up. Busy, bustling, crowded. Getting to the bar required a great deal of physical force and elbows, but we managed to get drinks and, after a bit of good luck, a table right next to the performers. The live music was just wonderful and rollicking, featuring an Irish flute, a strange drum whose name unfortunately escapes me, and Irish guitar. The group performed covers (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon) and more traditional pieces, a Mummer's dance and a lot of old folk songs that involved drinking, lost women, and love for Old Eire. As time went on, and the crowd got drunker and drunker, the bar started to fill with people singing along. Once we past the 11:30 mark, some started to dance, too-- traditional step dancing, which was wonderful to watch and looks like a lot of fun.
Spirits were especially high because of a very important rugby match between Ireland and France that was to go on the next day. An especially vocal bunch of drunk Frenchmen in French colors took a liking to Emmalee, insisting that she dance with them and asking her to sit on their laps. While we looked on, amused, an Irish woman who looked like she couldn't have been much older than us, maybe 26, introduced herself. We talked to her, her boyfriend, and his friends for the rest of the night. It was she who taught me the Guinness lesson. When a particularly intoxicated girl was starting to act disorderly, we were speculating as to her nationality, and Allison claimed that she could not be Irish because Irish people don't let Guinness "go stale"-- when it loses its head and instead gets sort of soap bubble foam on the top. Lesson# 1: completed.
We stayed at the Stag's Head for more than three hours, but I, for one, was completely content. Surrounded by the sweet music, happily singing drunks, and free flowing talk (an Irish man found out Emily was from Maryland and couldn't stop talking about Chesapeake Bay), we learned the choruses to knee-slapping songs, nursed our drinks (I am partial to Bulmer's hard cider, I have discovered) and soaked in the strength of pub camraderie. I felt completely high on all the difference. That's really the only way to describe the soaring feeling in my chest, just purely thrilled at being allowed to experience this slice of life. I couldn't help thinking as I looked around at the packed pub-- why would I want to spend money on anything but this feeling? This is why I travel.
Day 1 of my Irish Extravaganza was one of the longest days of my life, both literally (it kind of stretched on for 48 hours) and figuratively. My mother put me in the security line at Logan Airport around 3:00 PM EST on Friday and my histamines promptly revved to life, for no reason I could understand. Benadryl didn't seem to help, and I spent all of the flight to New York and much of the flight to Dublin sneezing uncontrollably. After a couple of hours my nose was raw and red, and even after I stopped sneezing it continued to run, so I had the good fortune of entering Ireland continually wiping my red, raw nose and looking much like a cocaine addict. Other than allergies, my flight went swimmingly. Waiting to board in JFK I chatted with an Irish woman waiting to go home and see family, my first encounter with the famous Irish friendliness. The over-sea flight was nowhere near full, so I had my own two-seat row and was able to stretch out a little and get a few hours of sleep.
I'm not sure why, but I had somehow expected that it would be at least a little bit light when we arrived in Dublin. However, we arrived around 6:30 AM GMT (half an hour early after leaving 45 minutes late...huh?) and it was finally beginning to get light as I emerged from customs an hour and a half later. There I encountered my first bout of culture shock. I had agreed to call Emily to let her know I would be catching the train to the Trinity gates, but I had no idea how many of the digits from the number I dialed in the states would apply in country. It took me a full four tries staring down the public phone before she sleepily answered, and then I set out to find the AirCoach, another confusing feat.
I met Emily in front of the Trinity University gates, and we walked the fifteen minutes to her flat, which is in the famous area of Merrion Square. It's quite remarkable that Emily's program placed her in this area, which is all Georgian townhouses, very posh (pictures will follow once I am stateside.) We ate some (homemade!) banana bread and got me coffee and then set out into the Dublin morning, wandering around the city for what turned out to be almost 4 hours. I barely noticed-- I was too busy the accents, the mix of more modern and older architecture, local and internatioanl flavors, just all the difference around me. We walked around Trinity, down Grafton Street (a pedestrian shopping district,) and up to Dublin Castle, then stopped for a brunch-like meal at The Queen of Tarts, a positively adorable coffee shop across from the castle where everything was red. At one point I was telling Emily about the bevy of drug issues that seem to crop up in Belmont and the chatter in the cafe got quiet as I uttered the words "underage prostitution and cocaine ring." The couple sitting next to us and who had been shooting us curious looks dissolved into laughter. It was awkwardly hilarious.
At about this time my body gave out for the first time (it had been 36 hours since I got any decent sleep), and so we went back to the house until Emmalee came into the city from Dublin City University, where she and Katrina are studying, about 4 km away. We got a lunch/dinner type meal and went on a quest to Tesco, a grocery store, where many Brits and Janie had gone before me. Although I had just intended to get snacks and breakfast food, we ended up doing a full investigative mission, as I've always heard you can learn a lot about a place from its grocery stores. What we found was: the Busty Cake (picture forthcoming). Yes, a cake shaped like breasts. I'm not sure what this product's availabity in family supermarkets says about modern Irish society.
We met up with Emily and Katrina and spent our night in the city-- first at a lovely Italian restaurant, then Stag's Head Pub, where there happened to be live traditional Irish music. The Pub was everything you could ever want a pub to be. Dimly lit with shiny wood finishing and a map from before the USSR broke up. Busy, bustling, crowded. Getting to the bar required a great deal of physical force and elbows, but we managed to get drinks and, after a bit of good luck, a table right next to the performers. The live music was just wonderful and rollicking, featuring an Irish flute, a strange drum whose name unfortunately escapes me, and Irish guitar. The group performed covers (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon) and more traditional pieces, a Mummer's dance and a lot of old folk songs that involved drinking, lost women, and love for Old Eire. As time went on, and the crowd got drunker and drunker, the bar started to fill with people singing along. Once we past the 11:30 mark, some started to dance, too-- traditional step dancing, which was wonderful to watch and looks like a lot of fun.
Spirits were especially high because of a very important rugby match between Ireland and France that was to go on the next day. An especially vocal bunch of drunk Frenchmen in French colors took a liking to Emmalee, insisting that she dance with them and asking her to sit on their laps. While we looked on, amused, an Irish woman who looked like she couldn't have been much older than us, maybe 26, introduced herself. We talked to her, her boyfriend, and his friends for the rest of the night. It was she who taught me the Guinness lesson. When a particularly intoxicated girl was starting to act disorderly, we were speculating as to her nationality, and Allison claimed that she could not be Irish because Irish people don't let Guinness "go stale"-- when it loses its head and instead gets sort of soap bubble foam on the top. Lesson# 1: completed.
We stayed at the Stag's Head for more than three hours, but I, for one, was completely content. Surrounded by the sweet music, happily singing drunks, and free flowing talk (an Irish man found out Emily was from Maryland and couldn't stop talking about Chesapeake Bay), we learned the choruses to knee-slapping songs, nursed our drinks (I am partial to Bulmer's hard cider, I have discovered) and soaked in the strength of pub camraderie. I felt completely high on all the difference. That's really the only way to describe the soaring feeling in my chest, just purely thrilled at being allowed to experience this slice of life. I couldn't help thinking as I looked around at the packed pub-- why would I want to spend money on anything but this feeling? This is why I travel.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
In Which I Reach the Emerald Isle in One Piece
After a long flight during which, due to unfortunate circumstances (largely the allergy attack from hell), I was unable to sleep more than two hours, I reached Ireland. I had a wonderfully fantastically exhausting day that started with wandering around Dublin for 4.5 hours and ended bonding with drunken Irish people singing enthusiastically to traditional music in a Pub.
Emmalee, Katrina, and I are off for a DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) adventure tomorrow using all-day passes for E8.20, so I need to go to bed, because it's late (contrary to the time stamp on this entry, it's actually in the 3:30 AM vicinity) and I still only got about 4 hours of sleep in the past 36 or whatever hours. A long, exhaustive entry will come soon and once I get home, so will pictures.
Emmalee, Katrina, and I are off for a DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) adventure tomorrow using all-day passes for E8.20, so I need to go to bed, because it's late (contrary to the time stamp on this entry, it's actually in the 3:30 AM vicinity) and I still only got about 4 hours of sleep in the past 36 or whatever hours. A long, exhaustive entry will come soon and once I get home, so will pictures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
