The Pig Under Your Arm

Berlin from, you know, a while ago

2008-05-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, still clogged with snot (mmm...) yet desperately wanting to use up every cent I have in my bank account--and, durh, to see a reputedly bitchin' city--Christine and I took a 10-hour train ride to Berlin....

Berlin itself is a really interesting city. Because, naturally, so much of it was destroyed during the war, it feels a lot more modern than any city I've been to--including Warsaw, because Warsawians so meticulously rebuilt their Old Town again. I think it's the first European city that I've been to that doesn't feel like it's "looking back." Even pretty modern cities like London value their long histories and seem to be straddling the line between progress for the future and relishing in the past. Berlin felt like it was only looking forward. In many ways, it felt like an American city--a blissful combination of Chicago and New York--which I'm sure didn't help with my desires to get on home. It seemed like one of those places I wouldn't want to just go visit--I'd want to live there for a couple months before I could really say, "Yes, I've been to Berlin and I actually understand it." JFK didn't know shit.

Christine and I saw a whole bunch of the city, too. We walked through the government district, saw the distinctive spherical radio tower in Alexanderplatz, wandered through the Baroque gardens of a reconstructed summer palace of Frederick III, and meandered around the museum district. We also went to many an ice cream place (the weather was gorgeous).

The highlight, however, has to be the Berlin Zoo. The animals there were seriously the most active zoo animals I've ever seen. The Germans must provide them with all the bratwurst they want or something because they're 1) super super super active but 2) also, super, erm, violent. Whilst there, I saw the following animals get in fights: 2 spring hares, 2 extremely adamant geese vs an okapi that trampled at least one of them, a BROWN BEAR and TWO WHITE WOLVES (AMAZING), two ducks--one of whom was seriously eating the other alive-- Christine had to look away, it was so violent--and three male egrets fighting over a dead fish. Oh, and I saw a Canadian goose get beat up by another, smaller white goose, which, as a serious hater of Canadian geese, I found oddly satisfying.

All in all, a good trip. Sorry for the silence.

Below are pictures. You'll find a lot more repetition in this bunch than in stuff I've posted before. That's because I basically posted every picture I took of Berlin and then, as I attempted to go through and delete some of the repeats, Picasa crashed on me. FOUR times. So, sorry for the photographic redundancy at times.

Berlin

Flu & the City

2008-04-22T08:22:00.001-07:00

I always thought I'd get sick this semester, with all of the traveling I've been doing and the bizarre food (fried blood sausage, anyone?) I've been eating. So far, I've been super lucky.

However, all that has changed over the last couple of days. I woke up Monday morning with, well, one of the nastier head colds in history--runny nose, stuffy nose, swollen nose, clogged sinuses, headache, general ache, the chills, a fever--plus terrible, terrible food poisoning-type symptoms. Fan-tastic.

Being sick in college for the first time was hard enough--where was my mother? Where was the carefully buttered toast and the TV remote?--but here, it's a whole different story.

Not only do I literally live on top of two other people, one of whom--Thanks, Christine!--gave me the cold (she, presumably, caught it from our third roommate), but on top of that, Monday was to be the day I got things done--grocery shopping, a little day trip out to an old hunting lodge castle, some writing on my Field Research Project. Instead, I found myself lying on my back, moaning till noon, craving applesauce, baby carrots, and toast--all of which are totally foreign here--and downloading episode after episode of "Sex & the City."

This shallow yet addictive show (movie to be released May 30th! Exciting!), really, has been the crux of my life for the past few days.

That, of course, got me thinking about sex, marriage, babies, and drinking too much at posh New York City clubs.

It also, however, got me thinking about how I want to lead my life once I get back home. I have no answers. I do know, however, that it will NOT consist of a pasta-and-rice diet, like mine has been here (being that, save meat, which I don't trust, and gouda cheese, that's all I can find here to cook) and it will, certainly, involve a fair amount of biking, swimming, reading, smiling, and general happiness (and hopefully my body weight in Chipotle chicken burrito bowls. My GOD.).

This semester has been something of an exercise in self-denial. Sure, as declared to me by my now beyond obnoxious residence director, Beata, Poland "is a civilization!", but still, I've missed a lot about back home. And perhaps, more than I've gained. I'm not sure yet--I haven't exactly been doing anything academic over here, and my math skills, save converting Polish zloty into the ever-plummeting dollar, have most likely suffered. What I'm attempting to ask myself is this: Has study abroad been worth it?

That I can't seem to answer, either. I have now just over three weeks left in Europe. Over the course of the last three and a half months, I've seen a lot: I've been on sixteen different flights and eight train rides, and have traveled to twelve countries, ten major European cities, and probably about two dozen villages. I've wandered through world-class museums, gotten lost in a field in Ireland, eaten thousands of calories of wonderful pastries, had dozens of glasses of beer (most with juice, which is how I like to drink it here in Poland--they put a shot of ginger or raspberry or cherry flavoring in it, and you drink it with a straw. It's truly fantastic), taken about 20 gigs' worth of pictures, and set foot in at least a half doezen UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
I've watched the sunset on a ferry with dolphins chasing us away from the Aran Islands, on waves crashing against the westernmost point of continental Europe, on a train track in Amsterdam, on a dusty park in Poland.

It's been unbelievable, truly. Why do I feel the need to complain? It seems that this semester has held for me a life of extremes. Never have I seen more and done more, but never have I cried more, and never have I been more lonely, more afraid and anxious and, frankly, more broke.

Throughout the semester, I've tried to tell myself to "live in the moment," and relish each and every experience as it comes. This has been more difficult than I would have imagined--one, because it sounds like a fuckin' Hallmark card, and I have trouble taking myself seriously, but two--because of a lack-of-resources--people. With only four people in my program, and barely any way to meet people I actually, truly, find interesting (and who find me likewise--I am one fuckin' boring individual to many people, I've found. No, seriously. I. Am. LAME. MAN, I need to incorporate binge drinking back into my list of favorites, me thinks.--what a hit on the self-esteem that discovery was.), it has been an awfully lonely and dejecting semester.

Never have I valued people more than now, when I've been oh-so-cut-off from them. I mean, of course, I miss my family and my friends...and my dog...terribly. But it's not even that--I miss people I don't even know very well. I miss my acquaintainces--those people that I should be friends with, but have never had the time to really get to know. I miss those ones just as much as my friends back home, perhaps even more, because I haven't--and how could I?--kept in touch with them. I miss being able to walk up to someone I've met twice in class and have an actual conversation with him/her. In English. And it being, oh, I don't know--interesting. engaging. intelligent. I haven't had a conversation like that in so long.

Maybe that's it: Maybe that's what I want to do this summer--just...talk to people. Hopefully, a pair of four hundred dollar shoes can be incorporated into this plan, but, Ms. Bradshaw, I'm not holding my breath for that one.

Park Wodny, Poland's #1 Waterpark!

2008-04-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Me: So, the water park today was, in a word, amazing. It had SO MUCH TO DO!

Me: And I'm happy to say Christine and I did it all. So, it had a CLIMBING WALL in the water! and EIGHT saline jacuzzis and at least SEVEN water slides--all of which were, surprisingly, super, super intense (and amazing)

Me: and, at one point, I got kinda...stuck...in one of the slides.

Mersa: hahaahahahahahahaha

Me: ...

Mersa: please tell me someone had to come get you out?

Me: thankfully, no.

Me: it wasn't that I was too large...it was that I didn't have enough momentum to, ergh, finish the whole slide.

Mersa: ahahahahaha oh my god!

Me: basically, it was slides that you spin around and around in a dark tube, getting centripetal force built up...and then, you get dumped into this big bowl thing

Mersa: ooooh

Me: and what the momentum is supposed to do is carry you around the diameter of the bowl (kinda like one of those things at the zoo, where you put a penny at the top and watch it spin-spin-spin-spin around until it falls down in the center) and dump you down a slide in the middle.

Me: anyway, so, all of that was good and fine...and that WOULD HAVE happened, except...well...the slide spun me around and around, and then I got dumped into the bowl and....stopped.

Mersa: that's awesome! were you just...sitting there, then?

Me: and, since I'd closed my eyes (contacts in, and all) about mid-way through the slide, I opened them to find myself in a large orange bowl, with no visible exit.

Mersa: ahahahaahahaha

Me: (because I couldn't see the one in the middle--it was around on the other side of the big platform in the center)

Me: so, I sat there for a second, a little stunned that I hadn't, well, completed the journey, and even more stunned that I could see no way out of this bowl.

Me: so what did I do? You ask

Mersa: what! what!

Me: (nice audience participation. you're getting a bit too sassy over there in that United Kingdom, me thinks)

Me: I stood up.

Me: In the middle of the slide.

Mersa: ahahahaahahahahaha

Me: and started, um, well, wandering around, looking to see if I could get out.

Mersa: oh my GOD

Me: eventually, after feeling thoroughly like a hamster in a Habitrail cage, I found the little slide and--whoopf!--down I went, the most anti-climatic of anti-climatic endings to a waterslide ever.

Mersa: jesus christ! That's fucking AWESOME, megs

Me: I had no idea how it was SUPPOSED to work until I saw these big Polish guys fly on down after me...and then had to suffer through them verbally poking fun of me (like I understood any of it. Pfft. JOKE'S ON THEM!).

Me: So that was my adventure in Poland for the day. And tomorrow, I’m going to a Medieval castle.

More Transylvania...

2008-04-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

As promised:

Transylvania, ctd

A few pictures (of many to come) from Transylvania

2008-04-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

So it's been an atrocious amount of time, but, basically, I haven't had internet access since my last post, because it has crashed, twice now, in my dorm, and I've been elsewhere. Where? you ask.

Well, since last posting, I've taken a tour of Auschwitz, biked around Amsterdam, spent about 8 hours in the Vienna airport, taken a terrifying taxi ride (wrong way on a one-way, anyone?) through Budapest, and spent six amazing, exhausting and exhilarating days on a bus winding through the mountains and valleys of Transylvania.

That's where you come in...

Since I still NO internet access again, I'm posting this from [yet another] cafe in Krakow, and have already been here for a time. So...these are only a few snapshots from my travels through Transylvania, but I promise, promise, PROMISE I'll post many more as soon as I can. Prepare yourself.

What follows are, essentially, from the first day of the trip, March 27th, after we (and by "we," I mean me and about twenty other Lexia students, who are studying in Krakow, Berlin and Budapest, along with several Hungarian guides) had crossed the Hungary-Romanian border (another stamp in my passport--yesss!), and after I'd gotten felt uber-motion sick. Bring. It. On.

(Oh, and a couple random ones from my half-day in Budapest made it in, too (I spent a couple hours there after the trip, too, so you might get a better glimpse of it post-Trans trip).)

Here goes:

My first day of Transylvania

Tyniec

2008-03-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

Whaddup, folks?

Last week--on a Tuesday, in fact--I took a little day trip to the lovely nowhere town of Tyniec. Its real--and, I think only--attraction is the Benedictine Abbey, which dates back to the 11th century. It. Was. Lovely. And totally worth the $1 of bus fare (amazing...!).

Tyniec

Terrific Tarnow

2008-03-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

Ahem, before we cover anything else, it's actually pronounced "Tarnov," but I'm attempting to be all Polish and shit, and am thus spelling it "en polski," to blend both French and Polish.

So, here are my pictures from Tarnow. It's a small town outside of Krakow by about an hour train ride. It's, in a word, adorable. Christine and I escaped there a couple weekends ago (Warsaw pictures are forthcoming, by the way), and it was completely worth it. Well, mostly. I mean, every museum we went to was closed--February=the huge off-season, apparently...--and I managed to have a minor allergic reaction from some salad dressing. Still, it was lovely to get out and about and away from the big city.

Here are my pictures--enjoy:

Tarnow

The Wieliczka Salt Mine

2008-02-27T11:25:00.001-08:00

Sorry, folks, for the temporary silence. Classes started last week and it's been chaos here in Krakow ever since. Also, the internet in my dorm building is now oh-so-defunct, so each and every word you're reading here is now costing me a pretty zloty, thank you very much.

So, here are some pictures from the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the self-proclaimed "Wonder of Poland." We--and by "we," I mean me and the three other folks in my Lexia program--a couple weekends ago, on February 16th. Enjoy!

Wieliczka Salt Mine

Forgotten, from London

2008-02-15T05:32:00.000-08:00

The days between Portugal and Poland I weathered in London. The two main adventures I had in those four or five days involved cooking and attempting to navigate through London without a map (it was a challenge, okay?). The cooking went rather well; the navigation experiment not-as-well. Translation: I got ridiculously lost, wearing terrible shoes, while trying to find the British Museum and what resulted was a cranky and bitter museum-goer, who only saw the ancient artifacts as stolen property, and not as, perhaps, more properly preserved.

So, take a look:

A trip to the British Museum and other tales

St. Valentinegrotzkci...

2008-02-15T04:52:00.001-08:00

So, for Valentine's Day, I had the most active of days. Below is a pictorial play-by-play, although I missed about half a dozen churches, which I poked into in the afternoon. Poland continues to surprise me with its devote Catholicism. Well, frankly, I knew the country was extremely Catholic before coming here, of course, but it was curious that in each church I went into yesterday, there were at least half a dozen people praying--of various ages (including some of my peers!) and genders--in each church. It struck me as such an extreme difference between the States and this country. I mean, if one even attends church in the U.S. it seems to be a strictly mass-oriented practice. Here, it seems like people pray--and pray frequently--at any point of the day, mass or no mass.

Valentine's Day seemed to be no different here than in the U.S. There were still hearts pasted up EVERYWHERE and more than one shop was cashing in on the marketing ploy that is February 14th. There also was a market set up in the main market square, complete with a stage where couples competed for prizes, like a limo ride and romantic dinner. The competitions were really ridiculous--the one we watched involved three men being dressed up as women by their lady companions. It was basically three men prancing around holding purses and wearing scarves and talking in high-pitched voices--rather painful, certainly, but what was more painful was the audience's reaction. While a fair number of people were crowded around the stage and watching, no one really seemed to be into it. So, when the announcer tried to get people to cheer for, say, "Lulu," virtually no one would react. I'm not sure if it was because everyone else openly acknowledged how stupid the competitions were, or because the audiences here are less-vested in their participants or what have you, but all I can say is it certainly wasn't a romantic experience. Nor was the music--Lionel Richie and Celine Dion, primarily--that they played post-game show anything that would get me in a lovey-dovey mood. I'm just happy to say I spent my time doing a few things more than the tacky, heart-covered bliss I could have been partaking in.

Valentine's Day in Krakow

The first pictures from Poland

2008-02-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

Krakow, the first few days.

Portugal and Poland and all things nice

2008-02-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

Hello, ladies and gentlemen,

Greetings, first, from Poland. I arrived in my "homeland" (I use this only because it is now my home, at least for the next three months or so. I actually have 0% Polish blood running through these fine Ritchie veins, so the term is, uh, slightly misleading) on Friday, promptly freaked out because--I. was. here. at last! Whoa.--and have now settled down and settled in more. Krakow is a lovely city lined with Baroque buildings and greenery. The weather here is apparently freakishly warm for this time of year, and there is no snow--also, freakish, according to the folks at my program--but it's been treating me well so far. I'll keep you all updated as much as possible on the events that unfold as my semester, at last, begins.

But first--stories from Portugal!
Last weekend, Mieke, my homeslice from London, and I took a weekend-long jaunt to Lisbon. It truly is the most underrated country in Europe, Portugal, because it's amazingly cheap and just as beautiful as anything I've seen in Italy (the jury is still out on Spain, which it, of course, closely resembles, as I have yet to go there.).

So, we landed in Portugal late on Thursday night, and had quite the little adventure attempting to get to our hostel. It goes like this:

So, once we finally made it to Portugal (our flight was, naturally, delayed by over an hour), the bus we were supposed to take had stopped running at 10 pm (it was nearly 11) and the woman at the tourist information desk, after a judging looking or two, strongly, STRONGLY recommended that we take a cab. This we did, and several events unfolded as a result:

So, we walk out of the airport and I hand the sheet of paper with the hostel address to the taxi driver, an older man who had to put on his glasses to read it and clearly spoke not a word of English. So, the cab driver takes the piece of paper, looks at the address for quite a long time, then nods twice, slowly, and we hop in. He drives (more like speeds at breakneck rates...ahhhh! rather terrifying) through Lisbon highways, stopping, just barely, at red lights to check the map he's pulled out of his side door (but, of course, cannot read without putting on his reading glasses, which he does. This bring on more complications, because he misses when the light turns green again, and the drivers behind him start to kind of go before he's even realized the light has chaned....yikes.) The roads in Lisbon are definitely wider than those in Rome, so it wasn't nearly as jarring as a high-speed taxi chase through Rome would have been. However, we turned down a tiny alley, and then there we were, on just as narrow as many a street around the blessed Hotel Grifo, where Wade and I stayed in Rome. Our driver's speed, of course, is hardly deterred, and we continue through a well-graffiti'd area packed with people and what appeared to be very seedy bars. Eventually, we hit something of a dead-end--a car is parked in front of us, and people are busy unloading quite a few items from the trunk. So, the taxi driver turns around to face us and holds out his hand for the fair, without saying a word to either of us. I hand him the 10 euros, and begin to get out of my door (I'm on the left). He tells me crossly in Portuguese to get out on the other side and, without so much as an "obrigado" (that's "thank you" in Portuguese) zooms away.

Mieke and I look around at the various seedy drinking establishments by which we are now surrounded. We see nothing that has anything to do with a hostel. The house # is 26A. 26A on this street is a door with a metal chain gate over it--a storefront, closed down for the night. We start to get, um, a little apprehensive. We poke down a few streets, and the foot traffic begins to thin. This, if anything, makes me more nervous, so we head back to our original street corner. After consulting our printed off directions for a few moments, we both realize the cab driver totally misread the sheet, and dropped us off at a street called something like Rua da Attilla, instead of Rua da Arilta--probably as a result of his reading glasses. What. A. Feeb. (Only joking, Pops, I really do love YOUR reading glasses and don't think you're feeble in the least for losing your vision.) So, we're kinda, well, fucked, and begin looking around for, um, anyone who will help us. I suggest to Mieke that she call the hostel, since she still has her cell phone. So, she takes out her phone and begins to dial, and, as the call connects, several things happen. One, someone picks up the phone, and she says, "Hi, I'm looking for you. How do we find you?" and the man on the other end of the line responds with a "You're looking for me??" As this confusion unfolds, a man, clearly an employee, walks out of the bar of our fateful street corner. He's dressed as a conquistador--complete with tights, and a three-cornered hat plus poufy white feather. He lights up a cigarette, and glances, bored, in our direction.

My eyes got huge.

We found the hostel about three minutes later; it was five blocks away, and someone from the hostel walked up to us, inquired if we were looking for the hostel (it sounds much shadier than it felt at the time. At the time, it was like the least shady thing about the whole situation) and led us there.

Right.

------

So, Portugal was fantastic. On Friday, we went to Sintra, which is something of a touristy village outside of Lisbon. There, we explored two of several palaces (there are palaces EVERYWHERE in Portugal, it seems, and we only had time for two): the Sintra National Palace and an old Moorish castle. You can see pictures of those down below. After Sintra, we took a bus to Cabo, which is the westernmost point of continental Europe. And, gazing out onto the Atlantic, we watched the sunset. It was devastatingly romantic, and Mieke and I may or may not have held hands (may not have, in fact, as Mieke was drugged up on anti-motion sickness meds by this point, and completely out of it, and I was more caffeinated than I've been in years, having had half a coffee and a bottle of Coke that day).

The next day, Saturday the second, we explored Lisbon itself. We went to the Castello St. Jorge--a huge castle in the city that offers an amazing panoramic view. The weather was fantastic--in the high sixties and sunny--and I am happy to say that I totally whipped out my sunglasses. We also explored some of the market squares, too, and I picked up quite the cute little piece of street art. Later that afternoon, we took a train out to Belen, which is basically just a train stop, in fact, along the main river that runs through Lisbon. I desperately wanted to see the Tower of Belen (I'm quickly getting a thing for towers, and this one, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was supposed to be a beaut.), and there are, also, reputedly the best pastries in the universe in Belen as well. They weren't lying--about either tower nor pastries. The pastries (also pictures below) were to die for, tasting something like a crumbly yet custardy mini-donut from the state fair (I know, right? Am I super classy or what?), and we, once again, treated ourselves to an amazing sunset view, with the tower in the foreground, and various ships and boats dancing across the river as the sunset. Gorgeous.

Oh, and for dinner that night, we went to a chain restaurant in Portugal that serves typical Portuguese food (and was recommended to Mieke by one of her co-workers, who is from Porto, in Portugal). It was called "Portugalia," and mid-way through the meal, my traveling companion pointed out to me that, yes, this was definitely the equivalent of Red Lobster. Too true (see pictures, below, for some serious proof).

The next day, Sunday and our last in Lisbon, was not quite so fortuitous. It rained. Not just a slight little April shower (well, okay, February shower, but you get the point). It DOWNPOURED. In-tense. We went to a church--the Cathedral of St. Vincent, which had a very impressive museum to it, too. It seems like the Portuguese are obsessed with hand-painted tiles, and this church, with its hefty bounty of blue-and-white tiles dating from the 18th century and before, did not disappoint. So, after we slopped through the rain, we headed back to our hostel, grabbed our cute little backpacks, and began the long trek back to London.

Lisbon in many ways reminds me of San Francisco, which is impressive, considering I've never been to San Fran before. Okay, fine, it reminds me of the San Francisco that I saw in "Full House" when growing up, and for that reason, among many, I loved the city. It's very hilly, and winding, because it dates back to the medieval times and before. It uses a system of trams as its main form of city-wide transport (hence the San Francisco thoughts, with the street trolleys, right? Or did the Tanner family deceive me all along?). To add to that, it even has its own Golden Gate Bridge, of sorts: a suspension bridge of a deep red hue that looks just like the one from the "Everywhere You Look" credits. Yep, everywhere I looked, Lisboa confirmed that it is the San Francisco of Europe. And it was good.

Sintra & Cabo

Lisbon

When in Rome.../Fickle in Firenze

2008-02-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

Photo dump #2: (haha...dump...#2....)

Rome

Florence

London photos!

2008-02-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

At last--technology and time are in my favor.

Here we go, from a month or so ago (sorry for the delay, folks):

Amusement in London

Ireland, fo' realz

2008-01-28T02:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, sorry about the excited and abstract post from Thursday. Here's something real:

I just got back from a long weekend backpacking extravaganza to Western Ireland. My friend, who's studying in Cork for the semester, and I decided, on a whim, to head up to Galway, which is about a four and a half hour bus ride from Cork. Buses, which I have never been fond of, are no longer my friend, or weren't for that ride up anyway. The roads are narrower here, and not as well maintained, which basically means it felt like we were on a coach bus and/or wooden rollercoaster, bumping up and down for hours on end. I ended up taking Sea Legs (my new favorite drug!) for the trip down, and was completely fine, though. Whew.

Moving on.

Galway is a lovely city, and we used it as our homebase for Thursday through Saturday. It has a fantastic green space at its heart, called Eyre Square, which is about a 2 block by 2 block square (I know, that part is blowing your mind, right?), and has a children's playground, benches, etc. and is surrounded by pubs, hotels, restaurants, a bank or two, and a fair amount of traffic. It was a nice concept--I know, I know, it's not all that original to have a village green in the middle of a city, but it was refreshing, okay?--and the grass, even in the end of January was a vibrant green. I've been told before that Ireland is certainly not lacking in chlorophyll, but there have been times so far that the greenery around here (mostly the grass at the time of year) borders on Technicolor.

The first full day of our weekend trip we took a bus (another bus! gah!) out to a small village in Connemara--a boggy region in Ireland--called Oughterard. We were going to visit a series of mines that we'd discovered on a tourist pamphlet, but when we got off the bus, we were informed that they were, of course, closed until March. Bummer. So, instead, we went for a hike through the Irish countryside, the first of many throughout the weekend. See below for--you gots it!--pictures of our adventure in Oughterard. The primary adventure, as you'll soon see, was attempting to still follow the trail we were set on taking (we'd gotten a kinda shitty map from the ever-friendly Oughterard tourist information), even though it was very, VERY flooded out (The rain in Ireland this year, I guess, has been prolific, although, miraculously, it didn't rain the entire weekend up in the Western Ireland, and we even got some sun yesterday.). Hilarity ensued as we began to off-road via a pasture that ran parallel to the trail that was presumably drier. It wasn't.

The next day, we went to the Aran Islands and biked around Inishmore, the largest of the three. It's covered with walls upon walls upon walls--all built in stone, and all used, at one point, to house livestock. Today, there are few animals there, and all of them seem to have a slightly bored, yet observant, manner toward any who, say, bike past them huffing and puffing up a hill. We visited the remains of an absolutely astounding fort dating back to the Bronze Age called Dun Aonghasa. It was built on the top of a massive hill (we had to ditch the bikes and hike up to it), and has enormous cliffs on one side that drop at least 40 feet down to the ocean below. Of course, being Europe, there are no safety fences or anything, so you can walk right up to the edge of the cliffs (and man, was it windy) and peer down at what is sure to be your last view before a long and painful fall/death. It's awesome.

The following day, after quite the adventure to find a bed the previous night, we awoke in a charming little bed and breakfast in Gort, hometown of poet William Butler Yeats. We--and by "we," I mean "I" at this point--decided to go see his old home, which is, incidentally, a Norman tower and adjoining cottage he purchased in 1916 and renovated. Yes, that's right, a tower, as in the tower, as in The Tower, his famous collection of poems. And yes, it's the very same on--it's even on the cover of the book! I almost peed, at least twice, in excitement. I mean, the very same tower! Too awesome.

Well, getting to said tower was a little trickier than we initially imagined. The friendly woman who ran the Woodley B&B, Dierdre, said it was about a mile and a half walk, but she also said this after widening her eyes in disbelief when we informed her we were going to walk there. It wasn't a mile and a half, we soon learned, after walking nearly 45 minutes, and bumping into a sign that said, "Yeats' Tower 5km" with an arrow pointing us forward. Eventually, we made it--we made it, dammit!--after walking at least 5 miles and It. Was. AWESOME. All that I imagined and more, baby.

Next stop on our Gort adventure was going to visit Coole Park, a nature reserve and the former estate of Lady Gregory, a close friend of Yeats'. This was also a place where Yeats chizzled a lot, and he commemorated it in many a poem (see: W.B. Yeats' The Tower for more info). Getting to Coole Park did, of course, involve a fair amount of walking, but we'd made it this far, and it was a gorgeous day, so we started our trek once again. Well, the road was flooded out. And I mean flooded out. Anything we'd encountered in Oughterard quickly became pocket change compared to the great lake we were now peering out upon. We attempted to go around it, but the thing was endless. So, perturbed but not completely dissuaded, we went back to the Ballylee Tower (its Christian name, not everyone calls it Yeats' Tower; I know, I found this hard to believe, too), and asked a local for directions. That's the thing about Ireland, though: It seems like everyone who doesn't live here gets lost and everyone who does loves to give directions.

So, we ended up taking the long way to Coole Park--only another 6 miles or so winding along a country road, another country road, ANOTHER country road, a highway, and then another country road and then...Coole Park! Awesome! They have great trails for hiking, among other things, but by that point, we had already walked about a dozen miles (with heavy backpacks on, mind you), so we weren't all that keen on the idea of hiking. So, we sat, ate an orange, and enjoyed the day instead. It was lovely, but the lake, famous for its swans throughout the year, was, shockingly enough, flooded out, so we mostly spent our time in the old walled garden. The walled garden houses a very unusual copper beech tree, called the Autograph Tree. In its bark, a group of friends carved their initials long ago. Among these friends are--here's a curveball in the day, I'm sure--William Butler Yeats, and, even more impressive, George Bernard Shaw. And thus ended our Gort adventure, and our adventure throughout Western Ireland. Cool, huh? No? Well, whatever, for this book nerd, it really, really was.

Click on the church to go to the album:

Western Ireland

Ireland

2008-01-24T03:50:00.001-08:00

Some travel thoughts OR Yeah, yeah, I'm posting again...Happy now?

2008-01-21T08:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'll work on finishing up on my London adventures with Wade...but first: In response to several complaints re: this here blog. Hmph. Thank you, kind readers, for all of your concerns, but I frankly am doing the best I can as far as updates, font sizes, etc. Pictures have yet to appear, this I realize, but when one is terribly busy gallivanting around the world, it gets damn hard to post nearly a thousand pictures up here for your viewing pleasure (which, of course, won't be happening, because no one has the time nor, well, the motivation, to sift through some of the drivel I've shot over here).

Also, incidentally, I've noticed that time (i.e. individual days) seem to pass both more quickly and much more slowly over here. Maybe it's the time change, which I, of course, weeks later, have completely mastered (God, I'm awesome). But, to follow-up on such an elusive thought, it seems like, without a set schedule or any sort of forced habits, mornings can easily be spent a-snooze, while days can still be packed with, say, a stroll or two around a major world metropolis, including spotting a world-famous fountain, sampling some of the local vendors' products, stopping by a fruit market, poking into a couple of small, "modest" Baroque churches and exploring a two thousand-year old temple. Sorry, that was just last Thursday, and yes, that day started at about noon.

It's an odd concept: to be surrounded by so much human history, and artistic beauty, when it feels like our country has so little of it. As we were heading from the main train station in Rome, Roma Termini, and to the Rome's airport, via the cornily-dubbed "Leonardo Express" this past Saturday (2 days ago now, and I'm attempting to keep things chronological, but I just don't think it's going to happen), the tracks were just lined with old ruins. There's no marble or anything around there, mind you, but there were crumbling walls of the thin, deep red Ancient Roman bricks. Wade and I began discussing (which forced us to put on pause our heated talk about the glory that was hit pop singles of the mid to late '90s. Prominently discussed were diddies from really talented artists like Britney Spears, *NSYNC, BSB, etc. Somehow, this made the discussion, how do you say?, a bit shallow. Still, later on, as we picked up the topic again, we both felt the need to provide our own musical renditions of these tunes, a capella no less, in order to to fully reminisce, so the chat became a little bit more dynamic at that point. --I'm sure we drove the thirtysomething Italian guy sitting behind us, eating potato chips, just nuts for that half-hour train ride. Moving on...) how odd it would be if the US treated its ruins in the same way. As Wade put it, rather correctly, I think (My God, he's so brilliant, isn't he? (That one was for you, Joe)), if there were ruins like that in the US, there'd be a national park around them--in Rome, there are train tracks, a few patches of graffiti and a Fanta can or two strewn about. I'm not saying the Italian government treats its history disrespectfully; on the whole, it's far from that, but God, there's just so much of it.

What's more, it's really damn exhausting to try to go see all--or hell, any--of it. After about 2 days of sight-seeing, all I really wanted to do was take 'er easy (and, as a Ritchie, I've quickly come to realize and appreciate how inherently lazy I really am. Sigh...doing nothing: it sure feels good). Both Wade and I have realized the value of downtime so much more, when you really don't have the time or space to have it--this is among many revelations we've had in Italy, which I'll detail later. A few other lessons learned are, as a preview: the Collesium is a nasty place in which to weather a thunderstorm and, from our friends, the ever-cautious Italian drivers, if the car looks too big for a parking space/alley/main thoroughfare, chances are, it'll still fit.

End thoughts, back to the regularly scheduled programming...

Actually.

Okay, I lied. I'm going to try to post pictures up, and I can explain some of what I've seen from those, because, well, I think I've already typed about a thousand words...and that whole picture=1k words equation just popped into my head. I'll post the above blog entry, and then see what I can manage in a moment. Patience, please.

A bit about London

2008-01-10T02:18:00.000-08:00

Hello, hello, my happy little blog readers (thus far, I think there are two of you),

Greetings from London.

Wade and I landed Sunday, tired yet oddly awake (I had watched Scarlett Johansson's newest masterpiece, The Nanny Diaries on the plane, and was invigorated from the experience). We met up with my friend, Mieke (who for anonymity's sake, and because I like to think of her as my own personal Madonna, shall remain last-name-less), who has been so kind as to let us invade her guest room in posh, posssssh "Hello, Hugh Grant, is that you?" Chelsea. That day was spent, utterly wasted, really, with a three-hour nap--well, more like four, but man, we were tired!--and some four-cheese pizza.

The next morning, I woke with a migraine--something I've only experienced once before in my life--and was utterly miserable. Poor Wade, after dragging his own jet lagged body around a 3-mile loop a few times on the bank of the Thames, had to tolerate my pain and/or laziness before we finally made it out of the flat--at last!--at about 1 pm. We headed to the Tower of London, and took a tour with a beefeater. He told absolutely terrible jokes--my favorite being "Now, let's head off!" as he ushered us to the next stop on the tour, after just telling a few stories about decapitation--and was definitely the most entertaining part of the Tower, which cost a whopping thirteen pounds (ahem, that's twenty-six dollars--I've stopped converting, because it's just too painful) to get in to as students. We wandered around the Thames and then across the extremely windy Tower Bridge (not to be confused with London Bridge, although, with its distinctive blue suspension and Victorian-esque towers, it often is.).

Tuesday was spent first at Covent Garden, where Wade and I wandered around, taking obnoxious pictures--mostly of ourselves, in terrible poses, near things like a red garbage can that proclaimed "Litter" on its side--before we headed over to Trafalgar Square. Now, hate me if you must, but, despite its overwhelmingly touristy nature, Trafalgar is really fun. The square, for those of you unfamiliar with it at home, is dominated by an impressive monument with four huge iron--or are they bronze?--lions. You have to climb up (the ever-chivalrous Wade hoisted me...awww) to get anywhere near the statue, but once you scramble (and/or are hoisted) up, it has quite the view. In front of the lions spans the National Gallery and behind us, lit up like in Peter Pan, is everyone's favorite clock tower, Big Ben.

So, as any two nerds would do, we salivated in the direction of the National Gallery, and went and checked out the art. The National Gallery, besides being one of my favorite words--free--is chock full of paintings, portraits, etc., from 1250 to 1900. We saw works from Boticelli, Da Vinci, Van Gogh...you name it, it's there.

Hm, well, looks like we're off to the Tate Modern, to see the second installment of Britain's collection of paintings--anything post-1900, before exploring the Globe, perhaps, or St. Paul's Cathedral. Next time, I'll try to update you on Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and cute little St. Alban's, all of which we saw yesterday. Yeah, whatever.

Oh, and pictures will get up here eventually, too, worry not, friends.

Welcome & Happy New Year

2008-01-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the journal of my European adventures. Be sure to check back here in the coming weeks and months to get updates on all of my tomfoolery in the Old World.

For those of you following along at home...
Departure date from MSP: January 5, 2008
Arrival back home: June 1, 2008

And if you want a postcard sometime in the next six months (as if you aren't already getting one...), e-mail me your address. I'm at mritchie@macalester.edu. Oh, what fun!

Happy 2008!