Ireland Day 6 and 7

We arrived in Clifden at around 1pm after a beautiful bus ride through the western Irish countryside during which I spent most of my time chatting with the two Australian girls sitting behind me. When we got there I began my quest for the perfect Irish wool sweater, which I eventually acquired the next morning (see below).

After checking into our hostel with a man who was exceptionally strange we decided to begin what turned out to be a 15 mile walk around the irish coast. 

We started out along the Clifden harbor and progressively ventured closer to the Atlantic

As we went along and got farther away we eventually got so far that it made more sense to make a loop back to Clifden instead of turning around. 

We had originally been searching for this, what seemed at times mythical, viewing area where I eventually sat down for a few minutes before continuing onwards along the coast. 

After a long bit of walking and a few shortcuts, which had me really questioning whether or not I knew where I was, we made it back into Clifden. Upon arrival I got what was one of the tastiest seafood meals I've had in years at this great restaurant called Mitchell's where most of the other diners seemed to be french for some reason. I carefully devoured the haddock and mussels trying not to let my hunger, the cold, or how tired I was from walking ruin the quality of the meal that was in front of me. 

We ended the evening in a nice pub in Clifden (after leaving the first place we walked into where someone was playing a Green Day cover to a mostly empty bar). There were a few teenage guys playing an irish drum, a fiddle, and this strange accordion like instrument that you had to blow into. The music was great and there was this excellent old fellow who on various occasions stopped the music to give a speech about the glory of Guinness or to begin dancing. 

The next morning we woke up and had a traditional Irish breakfast at Walsh's cafe next door to the hostel. The view was incredible and the black pudding wasn't too bad either. 

After breakfast and perusing a few art galleries (it was the week of the Clifden arts festival) we bid Clifden farewell and got on a bus back to Galway. In Galway we got a chance to go to the Galway museum and grab a last sandwich for the road at McCambridges before catching our train to Dublin. 

By the time we got off the train at Hueston station Dublin was starting to feel familiar. We rode the tram back to the Globetrotters hostel where we had been a week before. After depositing our bags we wandered our way down south of Temple Bar to a pub called the Stags Head. I had a really lively and fun conversation about Irish history with the bartender and he also gave me some recommendations for clubs in London. 

After a last pint of Guinness in Ireland we wandered through the Dublin twilight one last time back to the hostel. 

Ireland Day 5

At 5:45am I rose quietly trying not to disturb our israeli roommates in the hostel and took a shower. After leaving our payment for the hostel under a the tea kettle in the kitchen we caught the 7:15 am bus to Galway.

 

The drive was beautiful.

Galway is a smaller and more personel and a very Irish city. The streets were lively and colorful and it was beautiful to explore. The museum (which was closed on Sunday when we arrived but we did get to see later) details it's long history of trade and how that has defined its identity (Christopher Columbus visited at one point). We walked all around the city and surrounding area along the coast (the promenade on the way to Salt Hill is great). 

After a bit of wandering we watched the All Ireland Gaelic Football final in a pub. Gaelic Football seems to be some sort of American football/soccer-esque game that involves no padding and a lot of yelling. It was great to be in the bar even though I didn't really have any idea what was going on. 

For dinner I cooked pasta with a few people in the hostel so I got to know this lovely Argentine couple, an Australian girl, and this canadian guy. We had a fun time talking after dinner and I got into a long debate about what "barbecue" was. 

We hung around Galway for a bit the next morning and got some sandwiches at this great place called McCambridges that we took on the bus to Clifden. 

Ireland Day 4

We got on a bus to Derry after confusingly realizing that the train line between Belfast and Derry was being repaired. Derry is this marvelous walled city on the banks of the River Foyle.

 It was rocked by decades of violent conflict between Catholic residents and the protestant police/military personnel. We visited the Free Derry museum which commemorates the Catholic struggle in Derry and the Bloody Sunday massacre where British Paratroopers opened fire with live rounds on civilians.

The sign above is from when the Catholics erected barricades in an area known as the bogside and effectively seperated themselves from British government control for months on end. 

A number of murals (one above) were done to commemorate the Free Derry movement. After walking around this area we also went on a much happier historical tour of the walled inner city and talked about the history of the founding of Derry and the 108 day siege that took place there during the English Civil War. 

We ended the evening in a pub chatting with this old guy who told us he'd been in the IRA and promptly started pointing out other people in the pub who had been in prison for killing people during the Troubles. He was quite the interesting fellow and actually bought us beers while we were talking to him. The pub was lively and it was a very nice evening though we went back to the hostel to sleep earlier than usual because we were planning on catching a 7:15 bus the next morning. 

Ireland day 3: Belfast

We boarded a train at Connolly station at around 9 am in Dublin en route to Belfast. The trip was quite scenic and I enjoyed it. The group of American and Canadian college students were a pretty entertaining contrast to Noah and I who were sitting quietly reading guide books and novels. The best part was probably that the American girl with them was from southern Illinois and gave a long diatribe on how she really hated Chicago even though she'd never been there. This was grandest about 10 minutes later when while chatting with me I told her that I went to UChicago. At this point she twisted her face a bit and her friends chuckled.

The train was also delayed for 45 minutes while we waited for an engineer to drive in from a few towns over to check a bridge that had seemingly been struck by a car. The Irish Rail people were constantly assuring us that we'd be fine and that "they were just trying to get home also" but regardless we arrived in Belfast.

After dropping our stuff at the hostel we found a walking tour at the Belfast tourist center. It became quite quickly evident that Noah and I would be the only people on the walking tour. Our guide was this motherly old woman from Belfast who was absolutely excellent and toured us all over the city.

Belfast, like seemingly everywhere else in Ireland, was beautiful.

I liked this public square a lot. Especially the statue. Across the way is the modern art museum. We actually came back to this square to listen to some guys play guitar later that evening. 

Still not sure of the actual importance of this fish but it was impressive.

This was the old Customs House that now since the advent of the European Union doesn't really get used. 

This tile map sort of depicts where we were throughout the walk. Most of the walking tour focused on the older history of Belfast. It was interesting to hear about how the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion sent many people from Belfast to the United States because of my own Scots Irish heritage. 

After that very happy and nice tour we went back to the hostel where our exceptionally excited hostel director Gerard set us up with a Black Taxi tour of West Belfast. We rode along in a taxi with another girl from the hostel while a taxi driver who had grown up in Catholic West Belfast during The Troubles took us around and talked about the history of the Protestant and Catholic tensions in Belfast.  

This is the 'peace wall' which separates Catholic and Protestant West Belfast.

These are Republican (Catholic) murals in West Belfast that depict various parts of the Troubles

Noah and I in front of part of the Peace Wall on the Protestant side

After we got back from the Black Taxi Tour (which was really informative and interesting) we ended up going out to a Burrito place (think Irish Chipotle) because the guy running the hostel was extremely adamant that it "get it done" and we were pretty interested in what an Irish burrito place would be. The only thing that was really interesting about it was that the line was backed up out the door with excited Irish folks. The burrito was exceptionally mediocre so we walked downtown. 

It was Culture Night in Belfast so we hit J. Hewitt's pub for some good live music and a Belfast Lager before we wandered outside only to be enveloped in a crazy street parade. Then we ended  up watching two guys play guitar outside for a while before eventually making our way to the Crown Bar( which was a beautiful Victorian bar with gorgeous stained glass and wood carvings. Noah and I were feeling pretty hard hit on our bar bills by now because of how expensive just one pint is so we split a beer and enjoyed the scenery before walking back to the hostel. 

Irish adventures: day 2 dublin

After trying to sleep off some jet lag we mosied our way out of the hostel to get lunch around 11 at this superb deli/grocery store called Fallon and Byrne. After eating a delicious sandwich and having my obligatory coffee we took a, what seemed at times endless and harrowing, walk to the the Kilmeonen Gaol (jail) in west Dublin.

One of the really great things about Dublin was that you could pretty much walk anywhere. Even this walk which felt long compared to the rest Dublin wasn't particularly bad when compared to how far I go in Chicago. There's also a tram system that I took later that makes it easier to get farther west in the city if you need to.

The jail had housed a number of important political figures throughout it's history including Eamon de Valera (longest serving President of Ireland) and James Conolly (leader of the Easter Rising). The jail made uchicago me keep thinking about Foucault but I don't even want to get started on that. The main room of the jail looked cool (and was in the movie In the Name of the Father with Danial Day Lewis)

After we left the jail we walked back down the road to the Guinness Storehouse where they brew the Guinness. While the experience there was rather touristy and at times felt somewhat like disneyland of beer, the top of the place had a great view of Dublin and I also got to pour my own pint of Guinness.

While the place is a must see for a strange set of reasons it is also not the best thing to see in Dublin. After that we went and got a snack at this place called the Cake Cafe. The cafe seemingly could only be found by go down an alley or through a parchment store. I had quite the brownie whilst there which was great preparation for our walk up through St. Stephens Green before coming back down to dinner at Green 19. They did an interesting modern take on traditional irish food, which made for some lovely and unique corned beef and cabbage.

Eight days across Ireland: 1

I arrived in Ireland on September 19 exceptionally tired on a Ryan Air (the cheapest and most terrible airline known to man which actually was able to make me feel for the first time that the airline company was some sort of mortal enemy of mine who at any point was out to get me) flight from London groggy from the 4.5 hours of sleep I'd had beforehand but exceptionally excited to see Dublin.

After checking into our hostel Noah and I walked over to the General Post Office which I was keen to see because it was the main site of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin when Irish Republicans attempted (but eventually failed and were executed) to seize Dublin from the British.

From there we got fish and chips and ate on the stairs of a theatre that was currently showing an Oscar Wilde play before making our way to the Dublin Writers Museum. The museum provided a lovely and deep history of literary Dublin and had a very nice collection of antique books and playbills (though not as many as I was hoping). It was really enjoyable until a loud group of German schoolchildren arrived but I persisted and eventually found this very nice portrait of James Joyce hanging in a stairwell. 

I especially enjoyed all the sculptures, paintings, and other references to Joyce throughout Dublin because he figured prominently in A Moveable Feast by Hemingway which I was reading along the way (mostly on buses, trains and planes). After that we went on a walking tour that was led by a history Phd from Trinity College in Dublin that led us all over the city and discussed the rich history of Dublin and Ireland as a whole. It started at Trinity (which seemed to be having a huge student fair at the time) 

We progressed our way around the city (which had wonderfully beautiful streets)

South of Temple bar in an alley (or was it a road? I could never tell in Dublin) there was this cool mural of this guy. I've no idea of the significance but I really liked the colors. 

On the tour we also went past Dublin Castle which was the seat of British power in colonial Ireland. The picture below shows that at Dublin Castle Lady Justice was not blind. 

We also ended up in what I think was at some point Dublin's town hall which had this really neat mosaic of the city's seal. The burning castles on the seal while not particularly understood are possibly related to Dublin's trade with the city of Briton in England.

After the walking tour we got dinner at a carvery and had a glass of water because we were committed to making the first pint of a guinness a memorable experience. After a pleasant (but in my opinion not particularly excellent dinner of lamb and potatoes) we ventured to The Library Bar, which was a bar filled with victorian furniture and bookshelves on the second floor of a nice hotel in central Dublin. That first pint of Guinness was excellent and it really does taste better in Ireland and best in Dublin. After relaxing and enjoying our pints there we moved on to John Mulligans Pub back towards our hostel. There I watched some soccer highlights had another pint of Guinness and repeatedly almost knocked this ancient looking painting off of the wall. At that point I was too tired to do much more than drag myself into my bed in my hostel (which seemed to alarm the french girls who were in the 12 bunk bed room we were staying in) and sleep for a good many hours due to a combination of exhaustion and jet lag. 

Arriving in London

On the morning of the September 18th I arrived on my british airways flight (on which I managed to consume 4 cups of coffee and somehow sleep) to meet my good friend Noah Weiland in a coffee shop at Heathrow airport in London. From there we set off on the tube to meet my friend Noah's cousin Paula who we were staying with. Getting our huge bags up the steps in the tube station was quite the adventure in itself but we caught the bus and arrived at our home for the evening. Paula and Ben's place I learned was actually a barge floating at dock on the Thames. It was a beautiful place and they made us a great meal that evening.

 It was an exceptionally nice barge.

I ended up sleeping on that black couch in the last photo (which was exceptionally comfy) for about 4 hours until I woke up to catch a bus a train and another bus to Gatwick airport north of London for our flight to Dublin. 

In Virginia

Virginia is an aged place. A lot of buildings in town have stood since the civil war. Change seems to come slowly. There are people who have never left the county I grew up in during the entirety of their natural lives.

Fauquier county is a place of very distinct possibilities. They are not endless. They are very real and finite. If you want endless then you better get out like I did. I can say with faith that Chicago is a place with unlimited potential. I can't say that about Warrenton, Virginia. I can say that things progress on a very linear and slow moving line that is often held up by the County Board of Supervisors.

It's not that nothing changes and I live in some terrifying place that hasn't changed since Reconstruction. The real truth of the matter is that it feels like nothing has changed because this is the place I grew up. There is nothing new to learn, no surprises to this place. So when I come home it consistently feels like time has stood still. The fact that the same bag of trail mix I left there last August is still sitting on the coffee table in my basement does not provide a strong argument against this. The people and things I left behind do not seem to make any radical changes in the time that I spend elsewhere.

I love Virginia. I love how familiar things are, the weather, the restaurant menus, the mountains and all of the people that come up and hug me because they've known me since I was born. At the same time whenever I come back I know I cannot stay because it is so stiflingly recognizable. If I come to close to home I feel like I'm falling back into the ruts of a road that I do not particularly want to go down in which I will watch my children's adolescent soccer games alongside people I hated in high school.

Virginia is beautiful but Europe will be here soon enough.