 |
Music •
Biography •
Press Kit •
Randomness •
Lyrics Gigs • Photos • Writing • Fun Stuff • Links • Contact |
Thursday, October 01, 2009 Highlights from Ireland   Labels: Belfast, Dublin, Ireland, travel ^ Top | 12:56 AM | | | 
Thursday, September 10, 2009 Of Giants and Heroes I booked the tour through Northern Ireland for two reasons: Giant's Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. One is a series of natural formations that almost look like they were built by man, and the other brought all my Indiana Jones fantasies to life. -779798.JPG) The story is that the Irish giant Finn McCool built a bridge so that he could reach his rival, the Scottish giant Benandonner, and challenge him to a battle. However, when Finn crossed the bridge and saw the other giant, he discovered that Benandonner was much larger than he'd thought and ran home, afraid, without giving the challenge. Benandonner saw the bridge and decided on his own to challenge his Irish rival, but Finn saw him coming and panicked. Finn's wife disguised him as a baby and told him to hide in a cradle and pretend to be their son. When Benandonner knocked on the door, Finn's wife told him that Finn was not home - the only other person in their house was their son. Benandonner took one look at Finn-as-son and said, "If this huge child is Finn's son, Finn must be huge!" He was afraid and ran home, destroying the bridge in the process. The reality is less exciting, involving lava and volcanic eruptions, but there is a similar rock formation in Scotland. The day we visited, it had rained for hours in the morning so that the rocks were slippery and the wind was so strong it was sometimes an effort to remain upright, but it made for an adventure. I would have loved to spend the entire afternoon there instead of the hour and a half we got on the tour. -780998.JPG) With the weather, we were lucky that Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge was open - the National Trust closes the bridge when the weather is uncooperative (it's generally a good policy to keep the tourists alive). The bridge was built by fishermen so that they could reach an area that would allow them to catch more salmon, but to see it from a distance you can picture Indiana Jones running across in order to escape Nazis or tribal natives who want to kill him. Up close, it's actually quite sturdy, even though it does sway and bounce with strong wind - given that thousands of visitors cross the bridge each year, the fact that you walk across on wide, wood planks (instead of whatever I was imagining) makes sense. That said, it's still narrow - you have to cross the bridge in single file - and only eight people are allowed on it at once.
^ Top | 8:00 PM | | |
Wednesday, September 09, 2009 Monasterboice, Drogheda, and Derry "Do we have any Australians?" Cheers. "Do we have any Canadians?" Cheers. "New Zealand? Germany? Israel?" Cheers for each. And then: "Americans?" Muted acknowledgment. Apparently all of us have traveled enough to be a little afraid of Americans' reputation when traveling overseas. But on this tour, the Americans were quiet and it was a handful of Australian girls who won the prize for being loud and uninformed (and for giving too much detail about their backpacking exploits). -712187.JPG) Aussies and Kiwis dominated our bus of 55 as we left Dublin to explore Northern Ireland - and by the end of three days, we'd made lots of new friends. Our first stop was Drogheda and St. Peter's Church, which houses the head of St. Oliver Plunkett. I'm not kidding. Our tour guide thought we should see the 400-year-old mummified head-turned-relic and take photos. I passed on the photos and wondered if the parishioners, who were at the church for mass, were annoyed at the large group of tourists that had descended upon them. The church itself is beautiful - everywhere you look in Ireland, you stumble into gorgeous, centuries-old cathedrals - and when we weren't wandering around looking at heads in the middle of a service, the town was an interesting stop for an hour. We grabbed fresh scones and wandered over to St. Laurence Gate, which, according to the plaque nearby, is the oldest barbican still standing.Nearby Monasterboice is home to three high Celtic crosses, originally used by monks to tell Bible stories, a round tower, two churches, and a Celtic cemetery that's still being used - the newest grave I saw was placed in the last five years. -788551.JPG) From there we headed to Derry, our stop for the night. While our guide/bus driver was primarily useful for transportation and jokes, our guide for the walking tour of Derry was intense and clearly wanted to make the most of the opportunity to give his perspective on the Troubles. The name of the town itself is a statement of allegiance - those loyal to England, who controlled the town until the last 30 years or so, call the town Londonderry, while the majority Catholic population (and most of Ireland) call the town Derry. Newscasters dubbed the town Slash City since they usually say "Derry/Londonderry" as to seem neutral. According to our guide, who was born and raised in Derry, the conflict was not about religion - it was about Irish civil rights and whether the town would be controlled by the Irish or the English. Derry is the site of Bloody Sunday, where 27 unarmed civilians were shot by British armed forces - the British are still investigating the incident, and the families of the 13 (or 14, if you count the man who died later from related injuries) are still seeking justice. There's a memorial to those who died on that day, and it lists their ages - many of those shot were only 17 years old. After that sobering look at history, we lightened things up with dinner at Ice Wharf, where a drunk Irishman approached our eight-person table asking, "Are any of you Americans?" Carolyn and I didn't say a word, but the Australians and New Zealanders who made up the rest of the table all pointed at us. Outed! It turned out that he had a pint of Guinness for "the Americans," which he ended up leaving with me. Apparently we're loved after all. After dinner, we made our way over to Peadar O'Donnells, which made the best night we've had in Ireland so far. A trio of musicians (bodhran/vocals, flutes, and acoustic guitar) played fantastic sets of traditional music, and the locals danced (and sometimes sang) with them. Pub musicians here tend to be fairly casual - instead of standing on a stage, they often sit down around a table with a pint of beer. I found out afterward at Derry is apparently known for music, and with good reason. Even though I was exhausted - every night I'd gotten less than six hours of sleep and I essentially pulled an all-nighter with the flight to Dublin because of the time change and staying awake through the day - I didn't leave until the musicians stopped playing and closed out the bar. Labels: Derry, Ireland, musicians, travel ^ Top | 7:22 AM | | |
Monday, September 07, 2009 A Primer in Luring Tourists Phase 1: Mention Vikings. Phase 3: Profit! But what's Phase 2? -731769.JPG) Dublinia would have been much better if we were in elementary school. But even then, some placards had grammatical errors, one needed updating (2007 was in the future), and enough paint had worn off others that letters from multiple words were missing. The verdict? Half interesting history lesson and half boring. However, the building itself is beautiful, and it's worth walking around the entire exterior.Speaking of Vikings, the oldest of Dublin's two medieval cathedrals was built by a Viking king. Most of Christ Church Cathedral was built and rebuilt centuries after the original, so it's not terribly different from other cathedrals, but the crypt is still medieval. We heard the choir rehearsing for evensong while we were there, and they sounded amazing. Interesting find: the crypt has a mummified cat and mouse on display - apparently they were running through the organ pipes and got stuck. They're famous: James Joyce references the cat and mouse in Finnegan's Wake. After much walking, we were hungry. Leo Burdock's Traditional Fish and Chips has nowhere to sit, so we ordered food and walked a few blocks down the road to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which has a large garden (with an homage to Ireland's writers). We sat down and noticed the people on the bench next to us were also carrying paper bags from the same chippie. And so were the people near the fountain. Great minds think alike. To finish the day, we decided to look for some music. Arlington Hotel Bar was recommended on Couchsurfing Zone Dublin (which is run by locals) as a good place for Irish music and dancing. Why it was recommended, I have no idea, because the bar was packed with tourists, the music consisted of boring covers backed up by synthesizer and guitar (to be fair, they did play two traditional Irish songs), and two of the four dancers looked like they hated their lives. The dancing was fine, but the men looked like they wanted to be anywhere but on stage for a crowd of tourists - who didn't notice, and cheered and hooted anyway. Labels: Dublin, Ireland, travel ^ Top | 1:56 PM | | |
Sunday, September 06, 2009 Greetings from Dublin I love wandering through cities on foot - it's the best way to get a sense of a new place, and it's always fun to discover interesting shops and architecture. On a map, Dublin's city center looks much larger than it is - everything is just a few minutes' walk, and it's much more tightly condensed than Chicago (even if you were to limit yourself to the Loop). All day, I stumbled across places that I'd read about in articles or seen photos of, completely unintentionally.  Carolyn, a fellow swing dancer and friend from my Michigan days, and I arrived in the center around 8:00am, and much to our surprise, the streets were empty and most of the cafes were closed. Apparently Dublin wakes up late on the weekend. For breakfast, we wandered over to the Temple Bar Food Market, where everything looked amazing - it's actually not a very large outdoor market, but I could have eaten there all week. Unfortunately they're only open on Saturdays. After much deliberation, we both decided on Guinness steak pies, which we ate while listening to the musician in the photo on the left play flamenco guitar. The pies were crisp, with a fluffy crust, and full of flavor. Grafton Street felt familiar, even though this was my first trip to Dublin. After watching a marionette dancing to Macy Gray, a giant leprechaun, a "coin-operated" man, living statues, and scores of musicians, I realized that Once must have been filmed on Grafton. (When I returned later to my computer, I discovered that Glen Hansard, the actor/musician from the film, and Damien Rice both used to busk there - which makes some sense, since the quality of the performers today was surprisingly high). -720603.JPG) The River Liffey is Dublin's equivalent of the Seine - it's similar to Paris in that the river divides portions of the city and its banks are walled in by stone. A few artists have booths along the north side, and I bought a black and white print there for my brother, an amateur photographer. With our accents, Dubliners can immediately tell that Carolyn and I are from the States, and they all ask where we're from. When I mentioned Chicago, the photographer exclaimed, "Obama's from Chicago!" He was relieved that Bush is no longer in office. Almost everyone we talk to mentions Obama, and a man selling scarves from a small storefront even knew our mayor: "You know the Irish, your mayor's name is Daley." Dinner was at the restaurant of the first chef in Ireland to earn two Michelin stars, Kevin Thornton. They're running a special pre-theatre menu that effectively is a way to eat three courses (plus a chef's choice starter) at Thornton's for the price of an entree from their a la carte menu. While our meal was good, I have to say that I wasn't blown away. Across the board, the presentation was beautiful - I've never seen anyone else serve tea the way that they do - but the dishes themselves did not amaze me. In spite of this, it was fun to meet Thornton himself, who popped out of the kitchen for a few minutes to greet all of the guests who were seated before the main dinner rush. All in all, it was an excellent first day. Labels: Dublin, food, Ireland, travel ^ Top | 2:10 AM | | |
Saturday, September 05, 2009 Flying to Dublin I can't remember the last time I used the in-flight entertainment system on an American carrier - on a recent (long) flight, the TV screen in the aisle was flickering and the larger one for our entire section wasn't working. Flying to Dublin yesterday on Aer Lingus, which is considered a discount carrier, I got a large, personal touchscreen that allowed me to choose from video games, TV shows, movies, and music. And they gave us headphones (which most US airlines charge for these days). To add to all of that, we made excellent time and arrived in Dublin early. An hour early. If this is "behaving like a discount carrier," the US airlines need to take note. Labels: Dublin, flights, Ireland, travel ^ Top | 2:32 PM | | |
|
