Patriot's Day 2013

I’ve lived in Boston for most of my adult life.  I love Boston.  For me, it’s the nexus of what makes sense about America.

It’s crazy.  The politics.  The sports. The bizarre vocabulary.  Tonic?  Spa?  And don’t get me started about the accent.

But when I moved here, from my own well-beloved hometown, I knew I had found something special.  I love the history and the weavings and re-weavings of all we know about ourselves.  I love the savory accumulation of generations of intelligentsia.  I love the eternal scrappiness of every new set of immigrants. 

I love the dogged determinedness of people who live with their people, and celebrate saints and poetry readings and marathons.

And it’s so small.  And intimate. And knowable. Boston is a city we should all love.  Or at least, that’s what I feel.  Yes, I know I’m a chauvinist.  But honestly, shouldn’t we all love the steadfastness of the pre-2004 Red Sox?  Isn’t that insane determination what America is all about?

I feel savaged by this horrific event.  I’m shocked. I’m outraged.  I’m grief stricken.  The pain is visceral.  When tragedy struck New York, I felt outraged that such a huge strong city could be dealt such a deadly blow.  Now that it’s my own town, I feel protective.  I wish I could collect each wounded soul and help it back to soundness.

I happen to be out of town for a few days, and I feel awful to be so far away from my adopted city while it’s undergoing such a cruel experience.

Boston, I love you.  I have faith in you.

Last day in Ireland

The wet, cold, windy weather of the previous day made the cold and cloudy day that followed seem perfectly sublime.  No rain!  What could be better?  (And don’t suggest sun or warm weather … it just wasn’t going to happen.)

Since we’d been scuttling place to place yesterday, always hurrying to get out of the rain, we decided to walk through St. Stephen’s Park today. Apart from the flooded sections, it was very nice.  We headed over to Marsh’s library, a completely lovely and fascinating institution.  It was the first “public” library in Dublin (admitting only gentlemen, not the general public), and it currently houses 25,000 volumes.  There are always some books from the collection on display, so we got to see some 16th-, 17^th-, and 18^th-century volumes on various branches of science, including early editions of works by Tycho Brahe and Descartes.  Of even more interest were the “cages” that the gentlemen had to sit in, while reading the books that were chained to the shelves.  As Emma pointed out, this isn’t really so different from the modern practice of having our bags searched every time we exit a library.  No photographs were allowed, but the docent quite happily told us he would go and investigate the other parts of the library while we did our business discreetly.  I love appropriate respect for authority.

from http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/st-michans-church

Another destination was St. Michan’s church, yet another church in Dublin founded in the 11^th century.  This one boasted crypts which—due to limestone walls and the methane gas seeping up through the ground—had mummified the people interred there.  Most of the “cells” (how similar they looked to the prison cells at Kilmainham …) were still officially active: the families that had purchased them are still permitted to use them, if they choose.  For the most part, we could see dimly lit stacks of coffins from several past centuries, some decorated with velvet and some quite plain.  There were also several mummified corpses on display, including one that’s 800 years old and is supposed to be a crusader.  Like generations of vistors before us, we made our way over to the crusader and “shook his hand,” that is, touched his mummified hand. For good luck, of course.

One of the things I set out to prove with this trip is that a one-week vacation to a moderately distant locale would be satisfying and worthwhile.  I do feel I’ve made that case to myself (and to Emma).  I don’t feel by any means that we’ve “seen” Ireland, or even any of the places we visted—Cork, Kerry, and Dublin.  But we saw a lot, and did a lot, and enjoyed ourselves. A lot.

On the last day, the exhaustion kicked in.

By the end of the day, Emma was feeling a bit under the weather, so we returned to our room for a nap and a rest—something we hadn’t needed to do before then.  And once we were so comfy (and warm), we found it hard to leave again.  So a few other evening items dropped off the itinerary, leaving only dinner.

And a very nice dinner it was.  My contention is that anywhere you travel, pizza (the food of the gods) is a safe thing to eat, and the pizza we had on our last nite in Ireland was no exception.  We didn’t go for anything as obscure as the “Pronto Cheese Party” pizza Emma had in Iceland, with cream cheese and jam.  But it was yummy, and the rolls with Nutella that Emma had for dessert were the perfect end to the evening—and to our stay in Ireland.

Wet day in Dublin

More photos from Dublin here.

“Cold, rain, and wind.  If you had to pick two out of three, which would you pick?”  “Hmm.  Probably cold and windy.” “Really?  I’d pick cold and wet, because the wind is what’s making my entire body wet and therefore making me miserable.” “Yeah, but if it weren’t for the rain, you wouldn’t be wet at all.”

That was some of yesterday’s conversation.  But in fact, we couldn’t pick and got all 3 at once.  But that didn’t stop us!

First we went to 2 incredible museums. The Museum of Natural History is my favorite kind of museum: dusty and incredibly out of date.  This one feels like the sister museum to the Museum of Natural History at Harvard, with all sorts of dead things arranged in glass cabinets and covering every bit of wall and ceiling.  Unfortunately, no coelacanth—but they did have the requisite whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling on the top floor.  They also had a collection of sea slugs, etc. modeled in glass by the same Blaschka brothers who did the glass flowers at Harvard; I think we got the better deal.  The very charming thing about this museum is that they recognize how obsolete it is—some of the exhibit cards are the originals, but others include commentary explaining the origin and popularity of that particular type of display.

We also went to the Museum of History and Achaeology, which has an incredible collection of Celtic metalworking from the bronze age through the medieval period, including the Tara brooch. 

We popped over to Trinity College, where we got to see the Book of Kells.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too crowded, so we didn’t get rushed along, as the guidebooks warn.  (There are some advantages to visiting on a cold, wet, windy day in March, it seems.)

We also saw Christ Church Cathedral—where as a special bonus we encountered a mummified rat and cat, which had been stuck in one of the organ pipes. 

And Kilmainham Gaol, which gave us another opportunity to learn about human suffering and cruelty.  We also got to hear a good deal about recent Irish history, as leaders of rebellions were held (and executed) there.

We rode around on our hop-on-hop-off bus a bit.  And then finished the events of the day at the Jameson distillery, where we got a very nice tour and a very nice sample.  I finally learned what malted barley is!  The tour guide made a big deal out of the fact that Jameson’s is triple distilled, pointing out how much harsher Jack Daniel’s (single distilled) or Johnny Walker Black (double distilled) is.  But I think it’s ironic that Jameson’s owes much of its taste to the U.S. alcohol industry:  their whiskey is aged bourbon barrels.

We’ve learned to be resourceful in finding good vegetarian food while travelling; on this trip, we’re relying on “ethnic” cuisine. So far in Dublin we’ve had Asian fusion, Spanish, and Indian, and they’ve all been good.  (We also tried to order vegetarian “nachos” at lunch today, but unfortunately they were made with Doritos and contained celery, which Emma is allergic too.  Celery in nachos??)  However, we haven’t been skimping on Irish victuals either—we’ve also visited a couple of lovely pubs while here in Dublin, Kehoe’s and O’Donoghue’s, and enjoyed a bit of Guinness.

Put us on the Paddy Wagon

More pix of Blarney and Cobh here.
More pix of Ring of Kerry here.

That’s the name of the tour company that we used twice, first to Blarney and Cobh, and then the next day, for the Ring of Kerry.

I like a good tour—I’m confident I’m seeing the standard highlights in the area, someone else is driving, and I know I’ll be pointed in the direction of food at the appropriate time. On the down side, there are other people, and as Emma pointed out, other people on tours tend to be annoying.  These are the categories of annoying we encountered:

1. 1  Late people.  The driver says to get back to the bus by 1pm, so we’re back at 12:55, of course.  But there are always some other people who meander back at around 1:12.  And that in turn usually results in some racist joking by the tour guide, so that’s just fun all around.
2. 2  People with peculiar seating habits.   Like the woman who insisted on sitting in the aisle seat next to my window seat, so Emma had to sit elsewhere.  No tragedy.  Just odd.
3. 3  People who talk over the tour guide.  Usually, people who don’t speak the same language as the tour guide, so I’m sure they can’t understand what’s being said, so I have some sympathy.  But not much.
4.      People who are from your hometown but who don’t want to talk to you.  I finally forced them to make conversation with me because I didn’t want to listen to them be annoyed at the late people as we were standing in line.
5. 5  People chewing gum loudly or making disgusting mouth sounds.  Enough said. And by the way, these were the same people as #4.  Real winners.

Unnecessary Selfie

And then, of course, there’s the possibility that your tour guide will tell racist, sexist, or otherwise offensive jokes/stories.  The amazing part is when they persist even though no one is laughing.

Line on the right to kiss the stone (center)

ANYWAY … our tours were good, nonetheless. On Tuesday we poked around Cork a bit in the morning, then took a tour to Blarney Castle and to Cobh, a quaint little town that was also the last port of call for the Titanic.  Blarney Castle had long lines to get at the stone (I wouldn’t kiss and tell); the spiral staircase we had to climb up was impressive in its own right … especially as it got narrower and narrower.  (I wondered if they pull some people out of line and tell them that they won’t be able to squeeze through at the top.) The castle grounds were also lovely and had the only “poison garden” I’ve ever seen—wolfbane, nightshade, tea were all there.

In Cobh we spent most of our time at an exhibit called “The Titanic Experience,” which was housed in the actual former offices of the White Star Line.  We learned something new—the price of the tickets, which was quite reasonable for steerage and quite amazing for first class—and it was interesting to see re-created versions of 3^rd class and 1^st class accommodations. They assign each visitor an identity, based on a real person on the Titanic; fortunately, both Emma’s and my person survived (and my person even got to ride 2^nd class). You get to read some real life details about your person, and it turns out both Emma's and mine had clothing issues:  Emma's person got out of a lifeboat to go back and get her hat (obviously, she got into another lifeboat), and mine was delayed because she was having trouble with her corset.  I made myself a promise then and there that I would never miss a lifeboat because of a corset.

Really cute dog in Cobh

Emma by a model of her favorite shipwreck

Yesterday we took another tour around the Ring of Kerry, an incredibly scenic drive.  We had great good fortune in enjoying a bright sunny day, as we drove up and down mountains, along the seaside, and around lakes.  My favorite was perhaps the Torc waterfall, where every tree and rock was covered with a coat of green moss.  As Emma said, they do green well here.

A really good picture because I look tall

Our full complement of backpacks--the plaid one is new

We stayed last night in Killarney, where the first thing we did was buy a new backpack:  sometime around midday, Emma’s trusty blue backpack had decided to graduate from having questionable zippers to having completely nonfunctional ones.  Then we checked in to our lovely inn, had dinner in a tourist joint that featured live trad music, and—exhausted by our long day of sitting on a bus—headed home to bath and bed.   

Cork: Ogam, Boole, Gaol

More pix of Cork here.

Our feet are so tired.

Amazingly, the flight to Dublin from Boston is only about 6 hours—and since there’s a 4 hour time difference, that means … well, it means our bodies were hopelessly confused when we arrived here at 5:30am local time. 

University College Cork

We took a bus with a gaggle of college-age people who looked like they’d been out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day all night and got to Cork around 10am.  At our B&B, we were ushered in to the dining room to enjoy a bit of breakfast, first thing—such delicious porridge!—then we were handed a key, told to leave our bags, and pretty much pushed out the door.  That’s what we get for arriving early.

Fortunately, the University College Cork campus is right nearby, and that seemed a nice area to walk through.  First unexpected discovery was a collection of stones carved with Ogam, the ancient writing system of Ireland.  How strange to learn about yet another way of writing.

University College Cork, Ogam Stones

A nice walk along the River Lee (Emma stopping occasionally to take photos of orange things on the ground, a photo project …) led us to the next unexpected discovery when we found the ruined house of George Boole, the mathematician who invented Boolean algebra (hence, Boolean search operators).

River Lee

By the house of George Boole

When you hear a place has a museum devoted to butter, how can you not visit it? In addition to finding out about origins of the Kerrygold brand in the 1970s, we learned all sorts of gruesome and interesting things about the production of butter and the importance of cattle raiding to the ancient Irish.  “The people of medieval Ireland elevated cattle raiding to the level of a national pastime.  Almost as much time appears to have been spent in tending the cattle as in conducting expeditions to steal them.”

What an amazingly generous town! There’s a church tower where you can not only climb the bell tower, but ring the bells. We thought that surely they must restrict people to hitting a button at a predetermined moment, but as we approached and heard random bells sounding at a random time, we realized they’ll just let you ring out whatever you want.  Emma and I serenaded the town to a rousing rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Just as cool was being able to see the innards of the clock and the mechanism for the automated ringing of the bells to mark the time.  Every quarter of an hour, a spiked cylinder turns and causes the bells to sound, essentially an enormous version of the familiar mechanism inside of music boxes.

Emma serenading Cork

Mechanism for ringing the bells on the quarter hour

After watching a great magician/comedian/sword swallower in the street fair (last gasp of the national holiday) and visiting the historic gaol, we returned to our B&B to find that they’d given our room to someone else—so we got an even nicer one.  Naps, baths, supper … and now to bed.

Cork Gaol

Cork Gaol

Leaving Las Vegas

Emma and I are about to start our next adventure ... A quick one-week trip to Ireland.

In preparation, I'm doing everything I possibly can to confuse my senses.  As I write this, I'm on a plane flying from Pacific time to Eastern.  Tomorrow, we'll hop on a plane that will get us to Dublin by Monday morning.  What time will my body clock think it is?  I have no idea.  But I know I'm going to be tired.  And happy.

It's the disorientation of travel that's half the fun.  That moment when I realize I've just stepped through the looking glass into a world that is familiar but strange.  And that I have to look closely at not only the new things, but also the things that I might otherwise take for granted.  ("Paint what you see, not what you think you see," said Mom.)  Good travel means not taking anything for granted.  Re-learning to see is the ethical boon.

The Venetian

I'm leaving Las Vegas right now, but that was an exercise in disorientation of a different kind.  Not only the bizarreness of gambling machines around every corner, the endless mirrored surfaces, and over-the-topness of every kind.  But also the theme park world travel.

I went out to dinner with colleagues at The Venetian, one of the hotel / casino / resort / mall / amusement parks that seem to be the specialty of the town.  It's a world within a world. My favorite part was the faux Venetian canal, complete with gondolas, blue skies, cafes, and interesting shops.  The skies are amazing.  At one point, it feels like afternoon, the perfect time to do some shopping. Then you go through an archway and the sky tells you it's evening, just around sunset--time to eat dinner at one of the charming Italian restaurants that have conveniently just appeared.  (Outdoor seating or in?  We didn't want to be chilly so we ate inside, but thankfully the windows were open.)

After the apocalypse, when we are all living in underground bunkers, this is what it will be like.  The ceilings will be painted like skies, and we'll create mini versions of our favorite pre-catastrophe cities, so our children won't be deprived of our cultural splendor ...

Despite knowing full well that it was a simulacrum, some part of me felt I was really in Venice--and a better Venice than usual.  It was convenient and relatively cheap, the canals didn't smell, the gondoliers sang in tune, there were no language barriers or pick pockets.

There must be many people who experience Venice or Paris or Tokyo first and foremost through an amusement park.  How strange to actually then travel to one of those cities.  Do they feel they've seen it all before?  Does Venice not live up to their expectations, because of The Venetian?  

Venice

And then I began to wonder, why is the "real" Venice any more real than this?  The gondolas in Venice are just as much a fiction; the charming architecture is funded every bit as much by tourism.  

And really, am I likely to travel to any destination that isn't an artfully constructed illusion, intended to part me from my touristic money? The cynical, overeducated part of me knows it's all fake; the pursuit of authenticity through travel is doomed.

But the part of me that felt happy to be in Venice last night is looking forward even more to being in Dublin.