Week 6 | Recap

levitra Getting to Ireland was no easy feat.

I am practiced in the art of woo woo. I understand impermanence and positive thinking and finding joy in the small things. But honestly? The whole experience was soul sucking. Even now, with the benefit of time, I remain steadfast in my initial diagnosis. There’s no way around it. It sucked.

We left Hackney Central on Friday morning at 11:33 am en route for a 12:40 pm National Rail arrival at Luton station. Flight time 2:15 pm.

Here’s what I estimated:

• Shuttle from rail station to airport: 10 minutes
• Print tickets: 5 minutes
• Drop bags: 10 minutes
• Security: 25 minutes

Arrive at gate: 1:30 pm [plenty of time in my book #lastminutemama]

I was off. Like, way off.

Though it surely did begin well. Look how posh they are, these seasoned travellers.

Alas, ease was not our fate.

A series of tiny delays and miscues would lie ahead.

The Thameslink train from West Hampstead left late. We just missed the shuttle bus at the Luton station [thanks to spending a mere minute trying to find the lift] and waited 15 minutes for the next one to arrive. There are no kiosks to print boarding passes at the airport. Search through phone to find email that can’t be retrieved because you no longer have cell service. Pull out laptop and find PDF of boarding passes as proof of online check in or suffer $25 printing fee – for each. Heave bags onto scale only to discover each is grossly overweight [per Ryan Air standards]. Go into that line over there to pay baggage fee [we’re talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars]. Select the longest security line [of course]. Leave full size toiletries [Joe, Grace] and large water bottle [Kelly] in your carry on bags necessitating painstaking rescreening and lecture on future proper packing of said carry on bags. Gate information provided only after passing through security [wtf?]. Stand mouth agape at the single monitor supplying the critical piece of information needed to make your plane, alongside throngs of people, each trying in vain to remember what the hell their flight number is. See FINAL BOARDING next to yours. Sprint through an airport clearly designed for triathletes [which you are not]. As you round the corner, panting and sweating and audibly swearing, see that GATE CLOSED now flashes next to FR 338.

We missed the flight by less than two minutes.

 

After angry outbursts, rude, uncaring staff, tears, a personal escort through customs, reunification with luggage, paperwork, an obscene amount of money and a grand total of seven hours waiting, we squeeze into the second to last row on the 8:35 pm flight to Dublin [not even complimentary beverages and peanuts mind you – which we discovered only after consumption began and learning our credit cards didn’t work mid-air].

 

Arriving at the Europcar counter at nearly 11 pm we discover that why yes, indeed you do need to carry car insurance, increasing the outlay for a 16 day rental from a tidy £138.70 to nearly quadruple the cost.

And that the car I rented won’t fit our stuff.

Or Joe.

Welcome to Ireland.

 

Dublin | 10.02.15 – 10.06.15

drink from the well of yourself and begin again. – Charles Bukowski

We begin again. Fresh start in a new land. We sleep in, skip the SATs, drink pots of tea.

Renewed.

Let’s jump back in with something simple, like driving.

With the steering wheel on the right, stick shift on the left. Toddling along on the opposite side of the road.

Not so simple.

In the first 18 hours I managed to hit a car in a parking garage, drive down a pedestrian-only street that dead ended at a construction site and use a road reserved for the electric train.

Nerves frayed, we survived. And managed to get a solid footing of what this city has to offer, after the requisite first stop in any new country: the Vodafone store for a new SIM card. Priorities people.

We eat at Jo’Burger. We wander.

After London, Dublin feels downright small, familiar. The people are friendly, prices a bit better. The Liffey is hardly the Thames and the bridges that cross it quaint by comparison. Museums are still free, though the Book of Kells at Trinity College is not. But it had been recommended by a few people, so I’d booked online fast track tickets to avoid the queue.

Considered Ireland’s greatest cultural treasure, the Book of Kells is a lavishly decorated copy of the four Gospels of the New Testament. It’s without question a beautiful, complex, vibrant work of art, painstakingly created by monks in the 9th century [though there are at least five competing theories about the manuscript’s place of origin and time of completion]. The exhibition leading into the display room was well done and informative but it was crowded. It felt like people were simply checking a box on their Dublin to-do list.

I felt rushed, uninspired.

And the main topic of inquiry when I finally got to view the book itself [now divided into four separate volumes, only two of which are on display at any one time] in the next room was a question posed from a young boy to his mother: when was Star Wars VII coming out?

Americans.

The saving grace was getting access to the Long Room of the Old Library. This was my temple. 

 

We stopped in the quad looking for a place that Grace could study and take a test.

 

She settled on a coffee shop called Fixx and set to work. Joe and I walked down to the National Gallery of Ireland [very small], up to the National Library for the William Butler Yeats exhibit and then just across the square to National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology. We took a stroll through St. Stephens Green as weather began to turn and the sky darken.

 

 

Monday was spent largely at the hotel, catching up on work, writing last week’s blog post, drinking tea and trying to avoid Americans. That turned out to be an impossible task.

They’re everywhere. 

 

Belfast | Day 1 | 10.06.15

As a young adult I thought Northern Ireland was as dangerous as Beirut. At times, a fair comparison. Though why it was so, I didn’t have a clue. I certainly never guessed I’d find myself in Belfast and that this city would capture my heart as it has.

Getting here was easy. An hour and forty-five minutes up the M1, where our car maintained an average speed of 130 km/hr. Freedom! Before we left I was unsure of the border situation and had everyone keep passports handy. We were going from Ireland to the UK after all. I was surprised when about an hour into our trip an unassuming white sign welcomed us to Northern Ireland. I didn’t even get the chance to snap a photo.

We skipped Airbnb in Ireland in favor of hotels and serviced apartments. Apple apartments didn’t disappointment, as you can see for our view from the 9th floor.

A guy came to fix the hob [stove] and we asked him a million questions about the city. He gave us tips on where to eat and what to see in Northern Ireland, pulling out his cell phone to show us personal pictures, spelling words that were unfamiliar on our tongues.

This is a common characteristic of the Irish. Kind, helpful, eager, friendly.

He told us about a restaurant just a few blocks from our apartment we should try. Later we would drink our first Guinness and eat steaks cooked right at our table on a 450 degree volcanic rock at McHughs. Dating back to 1711, it’s the oldest surviving building in Belfast.

First, we set off for the Cathedral Quarter, which takes its name from St Anne’s Cathedral. Street art is conspicuous, often telling the visual story of Irish independence and the time more recently known as The Troubles.

Belfast | Day 2 | 10.07.15

Joe went off to learn more about the history of The Troubles at a small museum with an Irish Nationalist perspective.

Grace and I started the day by walking the mile from our apartment to the Titanic Belfast.

 

Who here knew that Belfast was the birthplace of the Titanic?

Anyone?

I certainly didn’t.

 

I was prepared for Disney-style kitsch. It was anything but [no offense Bernadette #noteurope].

Fittingly, the attraction is located in the Titanic Quarter, on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard. The company is still involved with ship building today [with the enormous, bright yellow cranes known as Samson and Goliath visible in the background], though three-quarters of its business is now focused on large-scale renewable energy projects.

There are nine interactive galleries that set the Titanic in historical and social context. Belfast was an economic boomtown at the start of the 20th century, with over 99% of Irish linen exported from these docks. There is a ride through a shipyard, providing a glimpse into the arduous work of shipbuilding [3 million rivets used in its construction].

In the Launch gallery, you stand at a window which overlooks the exact spot on the slipway where Titanic was launched into Belfast Lough on May 31, 1911. The launch was attended by 100,000 people, including White Star owner JP Morgan.

 

Joe picked us up around 2:30 pm and we drove over to the Botanic Gardens and the Ulster Museum.

 

 

 

My love for Belfast was unexpected.

There was something familiar in its grittiness, its industrial legacy, the rougher accent, the less crowded streets.

There was a palpable sadness, even anger and defiance reflected through the street art. The Troubles are felt and seen everywhere.

But alongside its history of tension, violence, hunger strikes was something else, equally as powerful.

The possibility of rebirth.

Redemption. Forgiveness. Peace. Hope.

It’s not a city I will soon forget.

And one I will long to return.

 

Road Tripping | until next time

It’s just too much, the effort to describe our road trip that began this week.

The love affair that is Ireland deepened. It pulled on something inside me, unnamed, quiet, nearly forgotten.

Until I’m able to sit and write again, I’ll leave you with the words of Irish poet Seamus Heaney.

I returned to a long strand,

the hammered curve of a bay,

and found only the secular

powers of the Atlantic thundering.

A morsel to be sure. Even still, it satisfies.