3-8-14

Not much to report today, except for one curious incident.

Struck out walking to downtown today, feeling pretty confident that I know the way. A lot of the aged, brick or stone buildings look similar, but there are enough landmarks that it is easy once you are used to it. Did a lot of walking around, venturing into unknown places to broaden my horizons. Had been feeling very much the stranger yesterday, but today felt more like I could do this, like a visitor who belongs. Maybe a good night’s sleep made a difference.

Last time I was in Ireland, the 5 Nations Rugby tournament was happening. Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and France were duking it out to see who had put up the best team. I seem to recall Wales won in 2003, if memory serves. Well, it’s on this time as well – must be a March thing. Only now, it’s 6 Nations because Italy has joined the party.

Today was Ireland versus Italy. As you may imagine, this is serious business. The pubs were pretty full down in Temple Bar, including The Quays where I had been before. I looked in and spotted a very slim opening at the bar and made for it before it closed up. Ordered a Guiness and watched the game, already more than half over.

Ireland was beating the snot out of Italy, really embarrassing them. I recalled the recent one-sided Super Bowl in the states, where the Seahawks pretty much manhandled the Broncos. Most Americans stopped paying attention to the game by the halftime show. But here, right up to the end of the game the crowd was fiercely into the game, cheering every time Ireland scored as if it mattered. Even when it was like 40 -7 with very few minutes left to play. (It was later explained to me that it actually DID matter in the overall tournament, where all the points that a team scores figure in to the championship.) Also of note in rugby is that scoring is called a “try.” To me, it seems an odd thing to call it when someone actually succeeds…

The curious incident was the lady next to me at the bar. Caught up in the frenzy (and however much she’d had to drink), she took to beating me on the back every time Ireland scored. And I mean hard. As in, I am bruised. She also grabbed my ass a couple of times. I may be bruised there as well. She was very friendly, but I don’t really know if she was flirting or what. Talk about your mixed signals. Anyway, I have now been both beaten and molested in an Irish pub – all by the same woman, who claimed to be from Tyrone in “the north.”

3-6&3-7

3-6-14:

The first few days here have been an odyssey of jetlag. I sleep late, or get up and go back to bed, get a late start on the day. Then I fall asleep for about an hour around 9:00 pm, then I am awake until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.

Yesterday, I got out to explore a cemetery with my cousin. As a professional genealogist, he catalogues the graves, does research, and puts the information on line. For me, I enjoy them on another level. So both of us were having a good time for different reasons. We went to one that was over 1,000 years old. The oldest headstone in there dates to about the 1700s, though. Vern says there are about 4,000 buried in this little cemetery – and that’s only since they started keeping records! No doubt I walked over the mortal remains of people who wouldn't understand a thing they saw if they were to rise today. Even more creepy: apparently in older times during great economic troubles, when people couldn't afford plots, they would have a funeral procession along the outside of the cemetery, then heave their dead up over the cemetery walls, dropping them into the cemetery unburied.  At least they used caskets… sometimes.

Came back home and booked a trip to Galway for next week. Also booked a hostel. So we’ll see how that all turns out.

Later, I felt it was time to strike out on my own for a bit and try out the public transport. A nice girl at the bus stop helped me count out the proper change for the bus and told me to get off where she did. It got me where I thought I wanted to go, even though that turned out not to be where I actually wanted to go. I wanted shopping; what I got were pubs and restaurants. Which turned out fine…

I strolled around a bit, having a hard time deciding which pub in Temple Bar I wanted to frequent. I decided on The Quays when I spied a single open seat at the bar – something I wasn't seeing any place. Sat next to four Frenchmen, tried to listen in and see if I could understand any words. Got a couple, maybe. Enjoyed a Guiness or two and listened to some live music. Was totally stoked they were playing Irish songs I knew, and everyone was singing along. Then the band busted out with Kenny Rogers' The Gamber, and I about fell off my barstool. I didn't see that one coming, but apparently country music has a following in Ireland.

After a couple of pints, I managed to find my way home after dark, in the rain, in a semi-foreign city.

3-7-14:

Today I slept almost to noon! Probably because I was on Skype with NeCole for the first time last night til about 3:00 a.m. Got up, got ready, and dragged Vern downtown. I still had shopping to do. Vern is 70, and says he has a harder time keeping up with me than he used to. He doesn't seem 70 to me, in my mind. He shows me where the shopping is, so very close to where I was, and we have lunch. He heads for home, and I head for the stores on O'Connell and Henry streets. 

Passed a group of guys dragging their friend out of a bar, trying to hold him up and aim his feet into his shoes which had fallen off. He had all the steadiness of a wet noodle. Clearly he was boiled.

The subtle differences are most obvious when shopping. An Asian market here isn't necessarily Chinese or Thai – it's more likely to be Middle Eastern. Food isn't take-out here; it's take-away. They have lots of local stores and chains, but you can also find Starbucks, Tower Records (I was excited to see), Penneys, and several other businesses you can find in the States.

O'Connell Street

Grand Post Office on O'Connell.

Spire on O'Connell. This thing is tall!

I stopped into a local cell provider called O2. The girl there got me set up with a cheap phone and pay-as-you-go service so I have something for local calls if needed. She was grinning the whole time – either at my “accent,” my idiocy, or something else. Or some combination. She was amused for whatever reason, but it was fun.

For dinner, Neal brought in fish n' chips from a place they said was even better than Burdock's. And it was! Lord, why can't fish n' chips be this good back home? There’s nothing even close to this good.

Sunset on the Liffey River (runs through the center of Dublin)

It was a gorgeous, sunny day. While out walking, it hit me that I will soon be doing this in more foreign places, alone, not knowing the language. And I again questioned my own sanity. This may prove harder than I thought – and I never thought it would be easy.

3-5

3-5-14

My cousin woke me at midnight, or what they call 8:00 am here in Ireland. (The jetlag was still kicking in…) Got up, had breakfast, went back to bed. (I had been on fb messenger til 4:00 am local time. Didn't feel as if I were up all night until the local morning got here.) Awakened again at noon. Time to get it together and do something with the day!

Vern pointed me in the direction of Kilmainham Gaol – a mere two blocks away. I strolled down there, looking like someone who knew where he was going, but feeling like anything but. I know on this trip that I am the stranger, the foreigner – I know nothing, I cannot be right in these places because I am not of these places. It’s a feeling I will have to become comfortable with.

Found the historic site with no problem. Didn't look as menacing on the outside as I expected, but then, I wasn't going in for a very long stay against my will, either. There was no crowd, and I wandered in to be told there was no admission charge today. Works for me – I prefer there are no charges when I walk into a prison, even one not in use.

Entry into Kilmainham Gaol

The prison was opened in 1796, meant to be a more humane place of incarceration where some level of reformation could take place. One inmate to a cell was the plan, plus segregation between male and female inmates (not normally prison practices at the time). It reached serious overcrowding conditions by the mid 1800s during the great famine and wound up with five or six inmates to a cell designed to hold just one, segregation going out the window. Children as young as seven years old were incarcerated for such crimes as stealing food or merely begging.

Cell door

The bulk of the history seems to be focused on the Easter Uprising of 1916. The Irish declared independence, and England got a good laugh out of that, came in militarily, blew stuff up, about 500 people were killed, and the ringleaders of the rebellion were rounded up, most of them winding up in Kilmainham. Several of them were executed, including James Connolly, a man so badly wounded that he wasn't even held there but was at a hospital. When they brought him to Kilmainham to execute, they had to tie him upright in a chair so the firing squad could shoot him. (I guess no one would volunteer to hold him up. Cowards.) One of the ringleaders, the one who read out the proclamation of independence, was also married in his cell the night before his execution. There were a couple of colorful characters who were not executed, including a countess and one Eamon de Valera. Valera held a U.S. citizenship and would later be a president of Ireland.

The entire incident actually helped garner sympathy for the rebellion. That led to the Ireland split – free in the south, still under British rule in the north, as it is to this day. Some Irish rejected the split, resulting in the Irish Civil War. Around 1921 to 1923, Irish were imprisoned at Kilmainham by Irish, not English. The prison was closed for good after that, and not re-opened until the 1960s, then only as the historic attraction it is today. You've seen it in films such as the Daniel Day-Lewis pic In The Name of The Father.

After the grim tour, it seemed that I saw this pain in the faces of people I passed on the street, almost an inherent sorrow in their eyes. What is it like to have struggled for independence so recently? To have had such violence, even in more recent times? Is there a tendency to expect trouble, maybe a lingering disappointment in the split nation? I also learned that the Irish flag is symbolic – the green represents free southern Ireland, the orange represents “loyalist” northern Ireland, and the white strip in the middle is to represent peace between the two. Let's always hope.

I needed to pause for a bit, so I stopped in a pub on the way home for a beer and soup. The waitress had just enough of a stronger accent that it took me a minute to be sure I understood her before I responded. She probably thought I was slow. It will almost be easier where I don't speak the language – I’ll just be gesturing and pointing.

Everyone looks different here. Do they look Irish, or just not American? I can't be sure. It's a subtle difference. And it's not just in people. I stopped in a store on the way back, and all of the products are different, even when they're the same. For instance, there are Doritos, but not Nacho Cheese favor – here, it's “Tangy Cheese.” (Which, to an American ear, sounds like it could be referring to something you don't want to put in your mouth.) But the similarities with subtle differences? It's almost like traveling to another dimension, just one removed from our own. I'm sure the dimensional variation will increase once I get to the nations on the continent…

3-4

3-4-14

Amazed that I arrived this morning in Dublin, sober and conscious – not the way I usually fly. It was nice for a change. Got off the plane, came through customs trying to explain what it is I’m attempting to do. Work out of Ireland, cross the continent... He wasn't interested. He just asked how long I'd be in Ireland, stamped my passport and wished me a nice day. Picked up my luggage without incident. I must be the most non-suspicious guy who ever showed up in Ireland.

In the airport, I was lost. We’d arrived an hour early, so I didn't expect my cousin Vern for a while. I found a girl at one of the shops to help me get my iphone to pick up a signal in the airport and sent my cousin a note via facebook messenger. When I looked up from sending it, there he already was.

We fumbled our way onto a series of buses and trains, all the while trying to hear each other. I’d been on two flights in the last several hours and my ears were plugged. His excuse was he is 70.

Got back to Vern & Neal’s place, and the dog – Freddy – didn't seem too happy to see me. This did not concern me – I have never met a dog or a kid I couldn't win over. I got the grand tour… it’s a very nice place, not only decorated in the familiar style of my cousin, but with many familiar items I recall from his place back in the states.

We went out. He had to stop at this big, old post office that had been blown up once or twice in the past (apparently, a lot of things have been blown up at one time or another in Ireland). We also passed a building where some guy was once hanged and/or beheaded (I guess that is about as common as blown-up things).

I recalled some terrific fish n chips from Burdock’s, so we wandered through the Temple Bar area (which I recalled being filled with drunks on St Pat’s Day of 2003. Yeah, also pretty common…) and eventually got to Burdock’s. One old white-haired guy and two younger guys were working it, all three grooving to some modern pop (especially the old guy). Got our fish n chips and wandered around for a place to eat it. Christchurch is a religious structure that dates back to the 1100s – what could be better? We enjoyed our fish n chips, even shared a little with a pair of pigeons.

After we ate, we wandered home through a small park/cemetery containing a few headstones, several so old you could barely read them if at all. A man was walking through with his little dog. The dog came to me and wanted me to throw sticks for him, so I did. He chased them, but didn't bring them back.

Jetlag must have taken over at some point, ‘cause I can’t recall much else from my first day here.