My parents left the UK today. Thus I woke up this morning when the alarm went off at 9 AM in fear. I get up everyday at 9 AM, because there are no weekends for a kid with no job and classes only on monday afternoons. But I woke up and realized that if I got up, I would have to figure out what to do with myself for the morning.
Days are easy when you sleep in. Before you know it, it's lunchtime! Then by the time you've finished cleaning yourself, accomplishing things, etc it's almost time for dinner! Can you tell I really like the structure that meals! give me?
Everyday that I'm busy I say, No, can't write today, I'll just spend all tomorrow doing that when I've got nothing planned. Then tomorrow comes and I plan things so that I can structure myself, and then before I know it, it's the next tomorrow.
I never thought I would think "Boy, I wish I had less time on my hands."
Today began with a trip to The Dumb Waiter with Meg for fried potatoes, beans, veg sausage, oj, espresso. My favorite. I met up with my parents who are staying right on the English channel. I've wanted to swim here since I came, but the waiting for and riding on a bus soaking wet in English winter never seemed to work out.
Wearing a towel around my waist and my winter coat, I walked across the highway and headed for the beach. The water was not the problem at all. It was the winter winds whipping my skinny ass and the cold damp stones on the sandless beach that really hurt.
A little while in the hotel sauna cleared me up and cleaned me out. I would spend the rest of the day in that post-sauna daze where you begin to worry if your brain is a little dehydrated.
For Thanksgiving dinner we had Thai food.
Now that was a lot of fun. All week I've been running into closet Americans talking about how to make stuffing without stovetop or where to get the best Turkey. It's great because you'll be in a bookstore and someone will drop a baby carriage and run after someone screaming "Wait! Wait! Where did you say you found cranberry sauce??"
We had desert at Wai Kika Mu Kau Cafe, and my mother ordered a dish called "Spotted Dick." Most kids stress about what they are going to do with their aging parents when left in charge of them, and I do too. Of course I forgot how easy it is to entertain them. After reading roughly ever single Rosemund Pilcher book, my mom would have been happy to spend all day in every Boots Pharmacy in Brighton. On their first day here we spent an hour combing the grocery store for silly British things like tea biscuits and granary bread.
We had an uproarious public hour of conversation that went like this: "How's your desert, ma?" "Oh, it's fine, I think that I really like dick." "Yeah?" "Yeah, but I think I might be getting stuffed. Yep, definately filled with dick."
"Mom do you think that [name of close friend who happens to be a homosexual] would like this place?" "Nah, I don't think she likes dick."
And then, when all else failed: "So, how's the dick?"
Goodbyes are as necessary as they are terrible. Add to this all of the problems as hassels of air travel and you can understand why airports are the worst places. Thanks to Donald Rumsfeld trying to stem box cutter weilding travellers, you can no longer wait at the gate, kiss someone goodbye and watch them take off safely.
So in Turkey Amanda and I began making an arbitrary departure point. In Istanbul airport we checked me in, found the passport, and said our goodbyes at the top of a down escalator. It makes a good clean moment because one of you can stand there waving and the other can get swept away by public machinery.
But since Heathrow is the second worst airport in the world, you can't do this because they don't have escalators, you have to go to an elevator. So once we had checked in and whatnot, we walked over to ye old elevator and hugged and loved eachother until an empty elevator opened and I decided to take it down.
This is it. It's ok, I thought. It's only 4 weeks until I see her. It's the least amount of time we've had to go between seeing eachother so far. Everything will be fine. I press my floor and the doors close. I wave and hold up 4 fingers. One for every week I'll miss you. We both move with the door so we can peer through the gap and smile and look at eachother for those final seconds.
It's a nice moment of closure until Jackass McBussinessclass nearly knocks Amanda over with his carry on and sticks his hand through the sensor, openning the elevator door as he runs from the arrivals area.
There I stand, caught, red faced, standing in the middle of the elevator for no reason. He ruined my nice peaceful goodbye, but now I'm in his way.
He chooses his floor and the doors begin to shut again. Again I go for closure and we wave and make hand gestures that make no sense but we know mean I love you, I miss you, my life is meaningless without you. For me this included outstretching my hand, reaching for her.
Which of course tripped the elevator door, just before it was fully closed. It paused, locked, and then slowly opened one last time. I hid in the corner by the buttons and waited for it to just go down.
Remember when I said that Amanda's impending arrival became all consuming? I realized this when we walked into a lunch spot here in England together and the cafe's proprietor comes out and goes, "Oh, so you're the girl from Turkey, it's nice to finally meet you."
Amanda isn't my boss, the dumb girl across the hall from me in England, or anyone else I regularly shit talk about, so I'm having trouble writing about her visit. It's hard to think of ways to publicly discuss someone you love.
But having her come see me became all consuming. Worse than Christmas, I found myself doing things just to kill time in the two days before she arrived. And I don't mean going to bed early even. I mean like taking the long way home on the bus, or cooking meals that would involve simmering just to make days end faster.
If you've read more than three posts on this website you should know that I am incapable of operating a clock. Then add to that British military time and you'll understand why I got to Heathrow International Arrivals gate and she had already picked out Christmas cards and some candy for her friends in Turkey.
Seeing her again was not weird or hard, it was just great. Everything felt fine and in its place. We went to Brighton.
Today at the thrift store here in England, I found a Hartford Whalers jersey. How odd is that? I felt like in the book Seven Years in Tibet, when Heinrich finds his friend's engraved gold watch in a bazaar in India 600 miles from where his friend sold it so they could buy food. Only it was a jersey, and Brad Pitt didn't star in the movie version.
I came clean today. Granted, not to everyone. Actually, now that I write it down I pretty much only reduced my greatest security risk.
I'll explain: as you may know, for the longest time I hadn't made any friends here in England. To compound the problem, I also allowed people to create their own little worlds for me. The result is that I left my little Connecticut suburb two months ago, and when I got here I became known--due in some small way to breakdancing and good taste in film--as Brendan from Brooklyn.
But the fact is that as antisocial as I can be, the lying prohibited me from making any friends. Meg, my archetypal lesbian friend is from Northampton, and--realizing that I would probably see her again as my girlfriend is from there--today at breakfast I explained the misconception, my stupid reasons for allowing it to go on, etc. So far I've only come out to her that yes, I am from suburban Connecticut.
Later, when telling the story about when Ben and I went as Parcel and Duncan to the open mic poetry, Meg noted that I am a little too into lying.
I explained that a hazard of writing non-fiction is that you can never reappropriate your thoughts. If you have a stupid explaination for something, a dumb idea, or a bad joke, you can't write a story where there is a bumbling character who makes your mistakes. You can't even pretend your stupid friend said these things. They're yours. So as a release I've created this fictional life.
Actually, sidenote, last night I wrote a story where I finally organized all of my thoughts about growing up in the suburbs. I felt so good about it in the end that I swelled with suburban pride.
Whenever I go anywhere, I always go to their Irish store. There's one in Hartford, West Hartford, several in New Port, and hundreds in New York. It's a staple to any family vacation. The question we always wonder is "Does Ireland have Irish stores?" I mean, America has crap merchandizing, of course. But the question gnawed at me enough that it might have been the whole reason I went there.
The answer is, yes. They do have Irish stores. But they are still only for the benefit of lame ass Americans who want an excuse for either their drinking problem or why they won't own up to the civil war. The little man stage right of Paddy McInfocus has an answer to that.
Oh, and they are sevel times more degrading in the motherland.
If you ever feel bad about yourself for not speaking French, I reccommend the following book: Guide Practique ANGLAIS: Angleterre / Etats-Unis DE CONVERSATION
It's a little book you can get for two euros and its written for French people who wish to learn English. It's real easy to work backwords with and as long as you can figure out the pronounciation yourself its great.
The nice part is that when you hate yourself for being an ignorant, wanna-be class warrior, you can flip check a pronounciation guide or laugh at the spelling. The point of this book, it seems, is to teach the reader how to talk like the Frenchman from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
En situation:
"Is there a bank nearby where I can change some money?" [Iz zair e'bannk nierbai wair ai kann tcheindj sAm mAni?]
"What time does the underground (Us: Subway) close?" [Watt taim dAz ze Anndeugraound (Us: sAbwei) klOz.]
Somethings are just innocent or amusing misspellings.
"Waiter, a wine for my friend an a bear for me please."
It really helps dull the pain from when you bid good day to the man in the cafe with a hearty "Bon nuit." ("Have a nice day in paris." "Thanks, sleep tight.")
Today I stayed in for much of the morning under the guise of reading until they turned the water back on.
I don't know why, but for some reason they shut the water off everyday from 9:30-2 PM. I would ask, but they put a letter under my door with a clip art picture of a bathtub saying that they did not have water during the day. "Merci, pour vous comprehension." it says, and then for the benefit of English speaking guests it translates that sentence. "Thank you for your comprehension."
At 4, there was still no shower, but I had finally finished Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and caught up with my notebook, etc.
I went out to Le Deux Moulins for my afternoon of pretending to be French.
When I came back, still no shower. Begrudgingly, I began my day at 5 PM.
For petite dejourner each morning, the hotel serves jelly, french bread, coffee and oj. It's the perfect meal to put in your pocket for later.
This morning a french kid my age named Fredrique helped me with a little pronounciation becuase, invariably, he can speak fairly good English. We became friends as soon as I mentioned that I wanted to see some of the places from the movie Amelie and see what they were like since the movie came out.
He asked tenatively what I thought of the film--the same way American boys do infact, afraid to admit a love for it if such an admission might lead to a sexual identity. It's pathetic and international. When I told him what I thought, he lit up and pulled out an MP3 player with delight and played several songs from the soundtrack for me.
Odd that before he was able to admit that he loved the movie, he tested the water with music. As if to give himself a way out "oh yeah, i mean it was just like so fake, but the music was well done."
So I went off.
The movie Amelie was filmed by a Belgian director who had recently emigrated to Paris about a girl who had recently moved to Paris. It is therefore useful because it sets up so many things for the neophytes such as myself.
It takes place in Monmartre, the Lower East Side NYC of Paris: traditionally a poorer area, but also responsible for the arts. But almost every seen takes place within a block of the others. Film fans should know that the strip of porno shops where Amelie's love interest works is actually less than a block from the cafe where she works, and a 3 minute walk from Colignon's grocery store, and park where he first sees her in the binoculars.
The film made the place out to be neighborhoodly with a working persons sensibilities. I figured that such would be destroyed by now and it would have become a mega tourist attraction like the Seinfeld Restaurant.
Like most Paris cafes, I found out, things are half as expensive if you stand at the bar. I brought john there and we had espresso at a table for €3.80, then I came back the next day and got on for €1 because I stood. This makes me wonder about class issues with whatshisface sitting at the same table and the failed writer sticking to the bar.
It seems that the restaurant may have a at one time been milking the movie, because they have three posters up, but since it came out over two years ago in Paris, things must have calmed down a bit. The fun part was listening to American tourists talk about "Oh mygawd, this is just like in the movie!" while standing at the counter and pretending to be unassailably French.
Here is a picture of their bathroom. Oh, and they had Turkish Toilets. You know, the hole in the floor squat kind.
Today, my best Paris friend John exclaimed that I needed to get my shit together so we could go to a party. But--this is fucking nerdy, and I love it--he said "Brendan, Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, we gotta go."
"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. "-Hemmingway.
(Another passage kids like me write down to explain why we go to Paris when we want to write in English.)
Although, very true. Tonight we went to a soup kitchen in Paris and had dinner for 75 cents. It was depressing in all the wrong ways.
1) France has social services, so the other people there had shelters and health care, etc.
2) I've just gotten off of the most advance transit line in the world. the Metro 12. It has no drivers, and saves money on heating by having sliding glass doors open up onto the track. The nice part is that you can sit in the very front of the train like you're on space mountain. The soup kitchen is therefore at the end of the line in the basement of one of the larger financial complexes. Can you imagine Charles Scwab opening the stock exchange cafeteria to the people they're screwing over. Me neither.
3) As I stumble through my phrasebook, homeless french people are practicing their English with me. "Allo, my American friends. Where are you from? Ah, I see, were you there on 9/11? Counting tomorrow how many days shall you have been in Paris?" That's right, past, present, and future perfect tense. It was a stretch for me to answer with "Oui"
4) Although I never consider myself of superior breeding, I became suddenly conscious of so many things: the napkin in my lap, the number of utensils I operated at once.
Later we all went back to Hellen's apartment, just the 8 of us. Two German kids showed up (I know two German sentences, I said each at least 5 times. "Vas is das?" and "Vas is ___ auf Deutch?" Inevitably, they can answer in any number of English tenses.)
Typical travellers, we emptied backpacks and made a party out of spare french bread, jelly from another, and my pistachios.
I left among cries of Parisians telling me that there was no reason I shouldn't stay over at their studio apartment sleep over. I felt like Max leading the Land Where the Wild Things Are.
I made friends. Earth shattering? No. Faithful readers will recall that I came to Europe under the promises of thousands of adults who promised that I would make hundreds of lifetime friends simply by rolling into liminal housing with a large backpack. So far this has failed in London, Brighton, Liverpool, and Dublin.
Then I got to Paris. Let's not pretend I'm some little snowflake, ok? I did what any lame wanna be writer did: I walked into the American bookstore Shakespeare & Company and let myself into a conversation about books.
The reason that lame asses like me come to Paris is that between world wars, and before many of them had careers it was very fashionable and affordable for the likes of Hemingway, James Joyce, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc to bum around the city. There is a collective phallacy among my people that if we just sit in the right cafe with a notebook The Great Gatsby will just fall out of our ass.
Shakes &Co. was a English book rental store owned by Sylvia Beach and it is how the above met, actually. When the Germans invaded and occupied the city for four years they burned the entire collection of books. Thus the current incarnation of the bookstore is a recreation, but the owner George is both toothless and 90 years old. He's been working the desk since Hemingway came in to check out a copy of Peter Pan.
(Also, during the occupation the Germans rationed the soap only to themselves, thus the smell to this day.)
When you're a vegetarian you spend a lot of time in restaurants guessing what items are in a foreign language without the benefit of a waiter who can answer questions for you. Every vegetarian I have ever met has a precise knowledge as to the difference in an Indian restaurant between, say, Dal Makuny and Nan.
The difference between pad thai and red curry? They've got it covered.
I mention this because people often ask me if it's hard to travel when you're a vegetarian. No, it's just like ordering Indian food: you're pretty sure of what you're getting, you and the waitperson share a common language that stops after "I would like", you stammer through the rest, and at the end of the meal you get the bill and you still can't figure out what you got.
There is something so perfectly gratifying about speaking another language, especially when it involves getting what we want. Inside all of us is a crying child who can be imediately pacified by the acquisition of a desired object.
For the hour long busride from the airport into Paris I practiced how to ask for a one week rail card. Je vous drais carte orange, trois zone, pour un semaine. This involved my best single phrase, two familiar words and the stipulation of un semaine, one week. And it worked. I even corrected the man through the aide of holding up fingers and bought it for one week, not one month.
Then I got to my hotel for the night. I make no excuses about this: I am still recovering from being ejected socially from the London hostel. It was just for the night and I found cheaper accomondations the next night.
To get my room I used all of the phraserie in the back of the Let's Go Guide To Paris. It involved getting directions, or rather: pointing, looking confused and butchering the pronounciation of streets and metro stops.
"Good night, friend, one room for one, if you please." He went to say something, so I pronounced "reservation" with a french accent and shoved the name on my passport accross the desk.
You know how everyone says don't worry, they all speak English over there? Of course they are lying.
"Uh, if you please, do you speak english?"
He couldn't even tell me no in my native tongue. He could be telling me right now that "I'm sorry, I speak English very well, but the thing is that I have no idea how to convey to you that I only know a few choice phrases. Among those I do not know are how to explain my own limitations in some areas such as this." Bad start. He picked up the passport.
"Sullivan? Sullivan? Oui, coppie machine?"
"Pardon? uh, uh, coffee machine? Yes." one of my favorite things in private accomodation is the ability to make and dispense coffee and tea at will. Was he asking me if I wanted a room with a coffee machine?
"Coppie machine?"
"Oui, coffee machine."
For the entirety of this mans life, he has lived in a country that concessionarily translated things and objects into English. Somewhere along the way, perhaps in his former student days, he must have sat watching the lights of a photocopie machine as he xeroxed printouts. This is my best guess because the next minute, he opened the drawer and held up an anonymous print out. "Copy machine? Copy machine?"
For the lenght and breadth of my life, I have always never wanted to go to Paris. Everything about the country always seemed to pretentious and phony.
When it came time to choose a language to learn in Junior High, I took Spanish because the only people who chose French were plump over dramatic girls with a Harnequinn sense of romance.
Even the off hand use of "tres", "merci", or "oui" annoyed the piss out of me. Especially when those plump little girls would tell me to "ferme la Bouche."
For this reason I remained supremely ignorant of so many things. I never saw a French movie until I was 19 ("Girl on a Bridge"). I was 20 before I could sift out the silent caboose-nants in "nas plu tard."
Twenty years of only referring to the french as they pertained to fries, toast, and kisses. I avoided the others and boycotted restaurants that served anything ala carte or had a "matri di" (hell, the word menu was suspect.)
Whenever the French words eeked into my suburb, I made fastideous use of Anglicized consonants. There was a French named store in the mall at home and my friend Ben dated the kind of girl who would pronounce "Au bon Pain" without any resonance with wincing or pain of any sort. I hated her and anyone who spoke in italics. Nortre Dam (like the team), Paris (like the plaster, rhymes with "ferris"), and France ("pants").
Of course this did not supercede my northern aggression. I still laugehd at the southern acquisitions of formerly french places such as Versailles, KY ("four sales").
In part, I can trace it to my seventeen year old epiphany that my life wasn't getting me very far away from home. My french aversion forced me to be ignorant of too many things including the arts, Jazz age lit, entire interactions in Hemingway novels, and coffee cups under 16 oz. So I'm here now to catch up.
There's a reason you are supposed to get to the airport 2 and half hours before you flight. That reason is me.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" I said to the archetypally evil flight attendent at the ticket desk of Ryan Air.
She looked at me through taught eyes, which fought her tighly pulled, Elsa Lancaster Bride of Frankenstein hairdo for her eyebrows. "No, we close the gates half an hour before departure."
"Oh, I understand," I said putting on my best and most helpless look. I leafed through my passport. "I'm not asking you to delay the plane for me." I gave a nod to the man next to me who sincerely was. "But can't you do anything to help me? I wasn't running later. There was an accident on the road and my bus was delayed.
A lie, a pock faced lie. But one I have used successfully before. The truth: I had already paid for an unlimited bus ticket for the week and it was beyond me not to over use it. Hell, I even overslept my train out of Cork this morning, PLUS, I stopped for the aforementioned $10 lunch (no, not to go, I ate it there and had desert). My thinking was something like this: rather than buy the $6 bus directly from the train station to the airport, I could ride on the city busses for free. Hell, there was even a direct bus from next to the restaurant, but why spend the 6Euros on busses when you can buy cake and filter coffee?
Don't blame me, blame the excessively cheap and daily changed menu at Cornucopia in Dublin.
"Sixty Euros? It costs sixty euros for you to put me on the next flight? The ticket only cost me 35."
"Not today it won't. Tickets to Paris today are 135."
I attempted to cajole her into doing an override of sorts.
"Sir, the sixty euro fee is for people like you who are running late or can't get to the airport for some reason."
Johnathon Livinston Traveller next to me butted in again, "look, just let me go, I can run there from here it will take me five minutes. The plane doesn't even leave for another 20!"
His method clearly wasn't getting either of us anywhere. "Look, ma'am, obviously it's not your fault I was late. Neither one of us can control the bus system, and I shouldn't blame you. But isn't there anything you can do to help me out in this situation? It's not your fault that that car crashed into my bus, but since this is sort of a different situation isn't there anything you can do?" I'd like to thank the academy.
When she said no again, I asked to see the manager with my best we-can-do-this-here-or-we-can-do-this-down-at-the-station look.
The manager came out in the same degrading flight attendent uniform. She was distinguishable only because her hair was pulled tight into a bun instead. Honestly, her fucking ears were poweless against the bun's strength.
"Look, the girls at the counter know the rules. They can't go delaying flights just because you two can't get to the airport on time."
"Just give me five minutes, I can run right to the gate, you won't---" the Mr. Livingston continued.
"I'm not asking for a delay," I reasoned. "I am just looking to see if you could waive the fee in this case beacuse of the circumstances. I mean, a car crashed into my bus, and since neither of us are in control of the situation, maybe you could help me out."
She booked me on the next flight to Paris four hours from now--for sixty euros.
"Anything else?"
"Yes, can I have the address of your home office. I want to write them a letter about this." Such was my final move. It would involve a sweaty and nervous shuffle for the correct paper work and all the other tellers knowing what she was doing ("Is Georgette getting the address? Wow, no one ever asks for the address. A small, no frills, no coffee or meal service airline like ours, which doesn't even assign seats--buslike--won't take that letter from a 20 year old." they'd say.)
She handed me the pamplet directly in front of me. "You can check into your flight at 5:30."
It was a long walk past the desk. My head hung low thinking, "what the hell is wrong with me? I'm 20 years old and I have no responsibilities, and I still rely on bambi eyes to get me out of trouble. Why can't I just be on time for things?"
Emotion and self loathing overcame me. I reminded myself that while I was not above crying, I was old enough to do so at the bar in this country. I headed for the next bus to Dublin to try and make something out of my wasted day when I heard:
"Paging passenger Sullivan." On this island that could be anyone. "Passenger Sullivan travelling to Paris, please report to the Ryan air counter."
What the? A delay? There must be a delay and they want to help old bambi eyes out. Another flight! That must be it. There's another flight and they really want to get me on it. Did they suddenly realize the error of their greivous hedgonemy? Maybe the boss showed up and counter the complaint cards. They must feel terrible. Maybe I'll get a first class ticket to ammend the injustice.
At the desk there was a very long line, possibly from two Americans who occupied both tellers for a insurmountable time. "Passenger Sullivan?" the ticket woman called out to me and motioned for me to come to the front of the line. "Brendan Sullivan? From Connecicut?"
"Yes?"
She reached through the masses and stretched out an envelope for me. A ticket? I though, No, a voucher. A ticket and an apology voucher! Hush money maybe?
"Passenger Sullivan," she handing me the blue envelope "You had left your passport on the counter."
Rushing from train to bus to lunch, I came to a point I dread on every trip: traveler's agoraphobia. This is the time when suddenly there are just too many people in your life. It usually follows a couple bad nights of sleep and waking up cold to a bad shower. It sneaks up on me usually when I plan on enjoying myself. Today it came in the middle of a $10 meal. That's alot for me.
I just want to be in a place where I don't see big fat american tourists bumbling about and wheeling, fucking wheeling, luggage in the middle of walkways. I hate this problem, because I suddenly become the people I hate. You know those people who get personally offended when you bump into them? Or who, rather than asking you to move, will just stand infront of you tossing dirty looks until you read their mind and decide this person wants some room to get by? That was me, I did that to you and I am sorry.
Part of this is due to travelling alone. I walk everywhere all day and I have no one to make snide comments to. Rather than enjoying myself with someone else and our collective superiority over a third party, I just stow them all away until someone walks through a turnstile and says "Oh, I hate these things," they laugh to their American friends. "They never give you enough room." and I explode in my head: "Wow, Jerry Seinfeld, that's fucking stimulating. Thank you for the precise and cutting look at our modern society.
But then, I have no one to make fun of that silly American in line, and they do.
On the whole, I like Cork much better. It really was everything I wanted out of Dublin. They had actual Irish people, pubs, human waste in the river. I could walk into any store and have trouble figuring out which products were which because they were so alien to me. In the bus station, I had to wait for the directions to be given in Irish before they would play the English recording, very nice.
The myth of the Blarney stone is that everyone who kisses it will be blest with the give to eloquence.
Of course, I am reverse superstitious. That is to say that I am afraid to kiss the rock, because I fear I will go blind.
But still, I was in Cork and I parted with $4 to get to Blarney castle and back. I thought I had missed the 1:15 by four minutes, so I waited for the next one. But when the 2:00 pulled away at 2:24, I knew that maybe I was in a whole new place philosophically.
In America we have Greyhound bus. The symbol on the side is of racing dog. It symbolizes speed, reliability, and abover all, leaving exactly one time.
In Ireland they have Bus Eireann, each one is emblazoned with a golden retreiver who looks as though he is fixated on a stick. It's a perfect icon. They are unreliable, fickle, and you never know when they will come back to you.
Sorry, back to the rock
The actual story of the Blarney stone goes something like this. It's a rock on top of the castle and a man up there is employed to lower you down to it. You can't just bend down and kiss it because it is perpendicular to and adjacent to the floor. The stone was given to Cormac McCarthy by Robert the Bruce in 1314 in return for his support in the Battle of Bannockburn.
Queen Elizabeth I whad her hands in every Irish pot and had cheifs in every county, or so she thought. Really they all just took the money and lived well in England. Cormac Teige McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney, handled every Royal request with subtle diplomacy, promising loyalty to the Queen without "giving in." Elizabeth proclaimed that McCarthy was giving her "a lot of Blarney", thus giving rise to the legend.---That is the end of the education and fortification portion of this webpage.
"So this is the Blarneystone, eh?" I said to the employed man.
"__" The man grumbled.
"Which one is it?" I said, staring at a set of hand rails ending up at a single oddball rock.
"The shiny one." he shat, pointing to the smoothish one with definate chapstick scounge. You know how floors develope wax build up?
"Wow, where is it from?"
"The holy land," he said, which made it sound like a single city and not just a region of middle east 9 times the size of this island.
"Oh, from the holylands, wow, how did it get all the way up here, it took me all morning and I was just in cork!" Whenever I forget my umbrella, I make up for it with exclaimation marks.
"It was a gift." From Osama Bin Laden?
"Oh, a gift, how nice. Who was it a gift from?
"The scots." According to my reverse-calculations, this man must kiss the stone everyday hoping that eventually the day will come when he can produce more than eight words. Of course it must get tiring explaining the same thing to American tourists day after day but: this is a tourist attract, it's your fucking job to be our tourguide. I've had alot of jobs I hated or got sick up, but you didn't see me at the counter refusing to press espresso.
The real problem with Dublin is that it is only a teenager. Twenty years ago this was a third world country with a second world capital. Now, they've both moved up a notch.
Problematically, this place is free of many things I like to get away from. There are no Starbuckses, no chain family restaurants, no TGI Fridays, no parking lots. No hierarchical transit (busses for all, at least). But at the same time, it is selling itself to the world. It barely exports anything anymore, unless you could the millions of demoralizing leprechaun souveniers.
The archetypal colonial problem is when the colony produces everything, but has to buy it all back from the colonizer. A Cork man at the airport told me that in 1970 it cost more to Fly to London that it did to fly from London to New York. This isolation made the Irish sea seem somehow wider, but atleast it kept some money on the mainland.
Now that is has become the emerald city of the isle, it is forced to import the encomerances of a cosmopolitan capital. Cadbury chocolate, Busch's baked beans, Carlesburg lager. And the laws of supply and demand also jack up the prices of the local goods like Guiness and wool sweaters due to tourism. In three days I will go to Paris and discover that the city everyone talks about as the most expensive on earth is actually cheaper than my second world origin (shhh, don't tell me yet if you see me. I want it to be a surprise.) Prices used to hide behind the Irish Pound, but now that we have the euro I can tell for sure that my Paris hotel and lunch cost more than they did in Dublin.
Great city, really, but it is time to get away. I spent most of my weekend with Pete Horan from Kenyon. I imparted upon him the fine art of getting free breakfast at hotels you're not staying at, he taught me a little Irish, etc. His girlfriend is a complete peice of shit, however. She's definately a drama kid. Not self centered the way that I am self centered, but in that hypoglycemic way that kids who are allergic to alot of things think the world should be nut free.
When enjoying a nice meal she will finish unappetizingly gobbling her plate and clank her silverware down, 'We're going to have to go somplace else after this, that isn't going to be enough for me.' We ened up at McCafe. A starbucks kind of place run by McDonalds. Odd. She got a chocolate donut and a brownie (both presented on a ceramic plate and garnished with powdered sugar, wicked classy). She would not speak to us until she had been fulfilled.
Sometimes I wish that we lived in rougher times so that people like her would not make it to 20.
"How was it?" I said, intended joke about her not actually tasting her $6 snack.
"Ah, the donut was better than the brownie." She picked up her bag and decided that since she was done, we could all go now.
UPDATE: She apparently decided that it was just too much to have both school and a relationship that costs $35 to see her boyfriend. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders because a nice guy like Peter is free at last. Don't tell him I said any of this.
Behold Modern Dublin: While walking around the Guiness factory in the city center, I ran into a man who was waiting outside the gates to deliver hops.
He was literally covered in shit, with a smattering of hay on his collar. The horse who drew the carriage into the city sported the "shag" look. We got to talking for a few minutes, and I quickly discovered that I have no chance of ever speaking Irish. The only thing I could make out was the it was raining. Thanks for the Irish barometer.
'Can I take a picture of your horse?'
'Tew earo.'
'Yes?' Does that mean yes?
'Give tew earo and you take picture.' From his pocket he pulled out a two euro coin to demostrate how he would like his payment.
'Sorry, but no.' I said. The thing is that in 1916 when the Irish Republican Brotherhood forged their declairation of independence, they called for it in the name of 'Irishmen and Irishwomen,' in Ireland, 'and her exiled children in America' that they may return someday. The thing is that since 1960 they have be returning in big, embarassing American and Australian droves.
They've turned a third world country into a country that now can list things as 'Authentic Irish Fare' instead of 'Beer and Beef.' Even the little man with few teeth knew that his lifestyle was somehow commodified. He spoke firstly Irish, a language that has no verb 'to have' and instead learned English if only to increase his utilization of that verb.
Do you remember in Back to the Future 2, when you first recognize that the glass edifice in the town is actually the clock tower? Today I dodged a Burger King and became dumbstruck by the cite of bullet scarred columns as I faced The Dublin General Post Office, the fortress and ultimate surrender site of the 1916 Easter Uprising against British colonial rule in Ireland.
I walked inside expecting to have to pay admission and tour the history, and I ended up in a line to buy stamps. How could such a historical sight be allowed to serve it's intended fuction? I mean, that makes sense and all: You wouldn't expect the White house to be a War of 1812 museum, would you?
Instead I found myself at this pivotal historic cite. It was here where the British army, deep into the trenches of World War 1, arrested for execution the 7 leaders of the rebellion and spared the lives of two men.
Michael Collins was allowed to live because no one listened to him anyway. He later went on to win the war of Independence and ushered in the first treaty that kicked the British out.
Eamon DeValera should have died as well, but he was born in America and the Brits didn't want anything to interfere with convincing the Americans to fight with them in World War I. He later served as president for 40 years all together. The history, the moment, the holyshit-that-was-here! hit me all at once and then I realized was I still blocking the line for stamps.
My arrival to Ireland did not have half of the confetti I expected.
Customs went like this: one desk says 'EU Members' the other 'Non EU.' I waited inline for a stamp while the fatman behind the other counter goes 'nationality?nationality?nationality?nationality?nationality?' People cruise through and spout out any country they like and the terrorists have already won.
Remember the liberation of currency in the last post? Well, it could have helped one thing: getting me the hell into town two miles away.
I was £1.10 short of full fare and so I asked the woman at the bus desk where the ATM was. 'There isn't a cash machine on the docks.' An international gateway that goes directly from one currency to another, and they don't have a cash machine. Fucking great.
Before leaving everyone always promised that you don't need travellers checks because you can just get money wherever you need from an ATM. So far this has not worked in England, Turkey, and Ireland. The only three countries I've ever seen.
Do you know how things get produced? I do, because I smelled them as I walked the two miles from the docks. Somewhere between the oil refinery and the factory that--from the smell of it--seemed only to produce rotting Doritoes, I developed a cancerous cough.
Somehow I figured that as a port city, the ferry would come right into the city center and unload us right into some historic site. Instead I walked over a cast iron bridge where teenage boys lobbied rocks at me and actually wore scally caps.
Aboard the Ferry to Ireland, I liberated myself from the weighty and soon to be worthless British Pounds in my pocket with a cup of instant coffee, a plate of beans and potatoes, and 5 rounds of the international waters slot machines.
I have so many questions for Ireland. When Ben came back from Paris he explained that they do have French Bread, French Onion Soup, and French Kissing, but the nationality prefix is redundant. So I wonder:
If you're following along on the map below, we're in Liverpool now.
I woke up at 9:20 in the warm and surprisingly freshsmelling bed of a YMCA and realized that this was probably my 200th consecutive day of non compulsary wake up time. Not since last springs classes have I had a time to be up in the morning according to anyone else's watch. Even in the summer no one gives a shit if I show up to the office at three in the afternoon. It's not as fabulous as it sounds, trust me.
Preparing myself for a light vending machine breakfast of Starburst brand Orange Juice and Nescafe (35p each, roughly 22 cents), I decided that just to give my day some structure I would call the ferry and reserve my passage to Dublin for the evening.
'The last firey to Dublin is 10:30.'
'Are there any tickets left for the 5:30?'
'5:30? You know it's almost 10.'
Fucking military time. Look--I want to say everytime--Hilter's dead, for the love of god return to normalcy already, will you? 'Sorry, 17:30, then.'
'Las firey today closes at 10 hundred.' she said. 'That's AM for you.' I hung up on her and ran to the shower.
Then I ran back because I didn't have a towel. For the first time since I arrived, I started singing the YMCA song. Apparently they left out the part about not providing towels.
Minutes later I scampered down the hall with a pillowcase tied around my waist.
For all my 20 years and my very breif tenure in New York City, I have only ridden in a cab with Ben when we were 14 and going to the Met with his complete-waste-of-brain-material girlfriend and with Amanda in Turkey (see directly below).
British cabs are legendary in their quality, price, and sheer volume of leg room. With a milk bottle of orange juice and a McVities in hand, I talked to Jim, and tried to convince myself that the whole endeavor wasn't a complete fucking failure. (To stop for a minute: doesn't a glass quart of orange juice sound nice? I mean, really nice, right? It was shit caliber, but I really enjoyed drinking it.)
'Yer Arish American are ye?' Jim said. 'like the Kennities.' Yes, and proud we are of old Jack. 'You have an Arish surname?' I still detest the word 'surname' it essentially asks 'What is your fathers'/husbands name, you otherwise immaterial person.'
'Yes, Sullivan, Brendan Sullivan.'
'That's a nice name.'
'Thanks, my mother made it rhyme so it'd be easier to remember.' For £2.60 I got a ride across town, a list of things to do if I miss the boat, and the history of the bombing in Liverpool during WWII. There were so many things I had imagined myself doing that day. The museum of the Middle Passage that chronologued the slave trade, the irish coffin ships, and the export of criminals to Australia, wow. I made it onto the ferry and waved goodbye to Liverpool, go bragh.
Liverpool is England's Detroit. A complete shithole responsible for impeccable sports teams and era-spawning music (The Beatles, of course, but also Flock of Seaguls, & Echo and the Bunnymen.) It is legendary all over Europe for their soccer team, who were in the top of their league until tonight, when they lost.
Of course, no one knew they were going to lose, and thus fans came over from all over the islands and subsequently took up every conceivable level of hotel in town.
Signs were taped to the doors of innkeepers sick of turning people away, "No Further Accomodations Whatsoever."
Sitting in the YMCA, which was also full up, I borrowed the yellow pages and began calling for hotels further outside of town. My own slowness had caused me to miss the 7 PM train out of London, and thus I didn't even get to Liverpool until 11. Returning the directory to the managers, I resigned to finding the diner that stayed open the latest, and then wandering the docks until 6 am when the first ferry openned.
'Ewe luken forself?' the man with few teeth said from across the bullet proof glass. Of all the accents in the Irish sea, I cannot for the life of me understand this perversted Gallic/Scottish/Cockey slur. To add insult, they have a city wide impediment of owning very few teeth.
'Yeah, just for me.' I said, pretending the glass was what slowed my response.
The man explained to me that a party of five people hadn't shown up yet and that if I waited until 1 AM I could have their room. He sent me to the TV lounge in the cafeteria and offered that I could sleep in there for the night if I wished.
I enjoyed the movie Interview with the Vampire with three people who had seven teeth and two bottles of liquer between them. Being a generous person and savior of all human kind, I opened my bag of pistachios and offered them around.
Perhaps, however, I could have gone down the street to the parapalegics ward and offered to take them rollerskating. They all declined sadly, except one woman in a tracksuit, who spent nearly twenty minutes gumming down the legume.
At 1:12, I was ushered into a single room for £16 by a man named Leif.
'Here we ah,' he said opening the door. 'Ewe gought your own double bed. So, you getta b'ey bring her back,' he smiled. 'Bring two for us.'
I don't know what that means. We'll assume it's something like 'babe' or 'baby,' but he honestly could have meant 'pizza.' ('You get a pizza, bring two for us, we don't like to share.')
The idea of personal accomodations pleased me very much and I plopped down on my bed and read my book for a while before deciding that Dublin could wait another day and Liverpool would be where I would stay at least until tomorrow evening. The ferries left as late as 5:30 and I shut my eyes thinking that that would be good enough.
Upon embarkment, I readied myself for the journey across England to Liverpool, which I figured was somewhere on the other side of London. Of course you know better because you're a Beatles fan, but when you look at a train map, Liverpool is only a dot at the end of a short line leading away from London.
I got on the bus from my unniversity with intentions of getting a good meal in me and taking the next train. Two busses cut themselves out of the schedule and thus 3 stoploads of people crammed into a double decker and fogged up the windows with their humanity. I was the one crammed next to the unattractive French couple who demonstrated the french manner of kissing at least once per stop.
It hadn't even been a full day since I left Amanda in Turkey, and all I wanted was to be confused and hopeless without the use of verbs again. It was all I could do to force myself not to thank the bus driver in Turkish.
Bad Britfast, bad omen
Thoughout my time in England, nothing has been able to cheer me up than a good hot Britfast. At the dumbwaiter I always order fried potatoes, beans, vegan sausage, orange juice and a double espresso. Not a single item I ordered failed to set the lowest possible standard by which each was measured. With my mouth defiled by espresso that tasted like pipe cleaner I headed for the train.
It was at the station that I discovered this: nothing makes me feel quite so happy and American as a hypothetical value. My plan is to go to London, then Liverpool, then Dublin, then Paris. But getting a free round trip ticket from Liverpool to Brighton--good for one month, no less--was all I needed to buck up.
