In the chaos of the last couple weeks, I haven’t found a moment to write. Sorry, Mom. Now I’m here in sleepy Zafra with all the time in the world.
Barcelona was wonderful, aside from the beach robbery incident. We met some great people in the hostel and spent a week in noisy expat bars. One night Lindsey and I and a British friend went to an aggressively English pub to watch a soccer match. We ate paella, drank coffee and wine, and explored the enormous plazas, parks, and avenues that make up this lovely city. One this we found a to be a bit of a turn-off was the general attitude of the people. It’s the case in every big city, and I suppose you have to live in a place for a long while before you’re able to dig past those hard urban exteriors to the rational human beings within. It was frustrating though, to encounter such hostility. Waiters were rude to us, shopkeepers ignored us, and one barista refused to serve us for twenty minutes. It seems that the massive swarms of tourists that occupy every block of the city have fostered a general animosity towards outsiders, a logical but nonetheless discouraging fact of life here.
Deciding we had had our fill of the Mediterranean (an impressive feat in such an unendingly beautiful region) and acting not a little impulsively at the suggestion of our hostel’s manager, Lindsey and I decide to skip Valencia and head inland to Sevilla, a gorgeous little city in the southwestern part of the country. It’s my favorite stop on my journey with Lindsey and although it doesn’t offer the wild fun of Dublin, it easily surpasses it in beauty. It’s a bustling tourist hub at its center, where tapas bars and cafes line an ancient, uneven cobblestone road. Our hostel is at the center of this charming madness, and Lindsey and I spend most of our three days here drinking Spanish beer (not the best) in these fun little places.
On our second day, we venture beyond the center to the “tourist sites” our hostel has recommended. The tourist map they give us, which advertises a series of “impressive monuments,” turns out to be a terribly proportioned, cartoonish insult to cartography that leads us in circles through unmarked streets to decidedly unimpressive churches and monasteries. By the time we reach the fifth single-story, run-of-the-mill chapel, we’re rolling with laughter and go for a beer instead, deciding to stick to the center from now on.
Lindsey’s caught the cold that had me down for a while in France, and she seems to have been simultaneously hit with a vicious sinus infection. For my part, I’m dangerously low on money and beginning to panic a bit at the prospect of an apartment security deposit. So we pass on the long nights out and the €6 beers we splurged on in Barcelona. There’s a cute little café/pub right next door to our place with €1 beers (although we’re soon to discover that a Spanish beer is an American sip) so we settle into a booth. Lindsey and I stand out in Spain—blondes and redheads aren’t exactly common sights here—and the all-male bar staff immediately takes notice. After a couple beers we’re in a noisy political debate (a common occurrence throughout the course of our four-year friendship) and they’re laughing to each other, unaware of the conversation topic but clearly amused by our volume and obvious passion. They start bringing drinks before we request them, each time insisting that we stay after close to hang out. Our ‘maybes’ seem to give them confidence, and they keep them coming. At midnight we’re tired and drunk and Lindsey’s illness is starting to drag her down, so we split. Irritated, the bartenders charge us for every “free” beer they bought us.
The money situation is gradually turning into a crisis. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars more than I had budgeted, since Couchsurfing failed to come through (people are hesitant to host two people at once) and we’ve had to pay for hostels every night. Regretfully, I decide to leave Sevilla two days early and skip Madrid altogether, instead going straight on to Zafra to start the apartment hunt and hopefully save some cash. So Lindsey and I part ways and I take a slow, mostly-empty train through the unpopulated countryside to Zafra, my new home in the untouched reaches of western Spain.
When I first read about Zafra, I was terrified. It’s a tiny place, 15,000 inhabitants and a dot on only the most detailed of maps. There’s a train station, but none of the main rail companies bother to go through it. It attracts tourism for its classic Spanish beauty, but it’s mostly tourists from its own province, and only because it’s the only town of reasonable size for miles. I’ve lived in a state capitol, an overcrowded college town, and a sprawling metropolis of nine million people; nothing in my experience has prepared me to live in a place where the year’s most exciting event is a cattle expo.
But, as I should have known, Wikipedia is not a reasonable source for the formulation of an opinion. This town is lovely. At its center is a complex of two stone plazas, one large and one small, surrounded in which stucco buildings boasting dozens of balconies and lined with surprisingly large palm trees. A graceful, quiet fountain serves as the centerpiece of the Plaza Grande and the two combined have enough bars, cafes and restaurants to keep Levi and I busy for eight months. There’s a beautiful park, a dangerously tempting shopping street, and a movie theater. The people are friendly and welcoming and slightly less apt to stare at my hair than they were in Sevilla. This is a good place.
Trying to avoid more hostel fees and hoping to meet someone in my new town, I find Remedios on Couchsurfing. She’s a veterinarian in her mid-thirties who was born and raised here, and is just an incredibly sweet person. I couldn’t have found anyone better. She picks me up at the train station, offers me a comfy bed in her lovely house, shows me around town, and takes me out with her wonderful friends. One of those friends happens to be the owner of an apartment on the Plaza Grande. Because I am a friend of his friend, he promises to hold off leasing it to an interested party until I see the place.
As soon as I walk into the place, I know it was ours. It’s two steps from the Plaza Grande, with two balconies that overlook the plaza and a small street that leads to it. There’s a terrace in the back, open to the stars. A spare bedroom (everyone come visit!!), a nice kitchen (that I’m unlikely to use at all but where I’m sure Levi will make some magic), and fully furnished with surprisingly nice pieces, all for €350 a month. Unbelievable find. Jose Carlos even lets me sign the lease before I manage to come up with the money (“No worries, you’re a friend of Reme’s”). He brings over a big plant as a housewarming gift when I sign. Later on he comes by with a friend and a bottle of wine and welcomes me to the neighborhood. (After an evening of comparing travel stories, I discover I’m dying to go to Cuba)
I spend the next two days cleaning and organizing the place and just relaxing in it—after a month on the road I’m relieved to have a place to call home. I spend hours lazing in the living room with the balcony doors flung open, listening to the shouts of the Italian family at the pizzeria and the cheerful chatter of patrons at the café. As lovely and cozy as the place is, it feels a bit empty—it’s five weeks to the day since I’ve seen Levi, and I’m more than ready for him to arrive. This separation has been good, in a way; about a week into it we realized it simply couldn’t be permanent or indefinite, and a week after that we made the leap—he bought a plane ticket and I started searching for an apartment for two. We’ve both had a month of self-exploration and experiences to call our own, and that’s great etc etc but now it’s time. He gets here a week from tomorrow and I couldn’t be happier! Staying true to her role as my fairy godmother, Reme has been suggesting to all her friends that their children would benefit from the English lessons of an American boy, so once he’s settled in here the prospect of work is bright. I really can’t believe our luck.
Photo uploads are tedious on this site, and my connection is weak. Check my facebook for photos, coming soon!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Addendum
I love Europe except for its thieves.
Lindsey and I are having a perfectly lovely day on the beach in Barcelona—sea air, sunshine, a good book etc. etc. We both doze off for a bit and when we wake up, Lindsey’s bag, which contained her camera, some cash, our subway pass and our room keys, is history. After a few conversations with the sunbathers around us, we piece together what happened.
The beach is swarmed with vendors. Women offer massages and hair braiding and men peddle cheap beer, snacks, and gaudy sarongs. One of them notices that neither of us have moved for a while, and a couple of them begin circling us, making sure we’re asleep. Once they’re certain we’re both out, three men come by with sarongs, waving them in the faces of the people sitting around. One of the “masseuses” slips Lindsey’s purse into her bag while everyone’s vision is blocked. Lindsey’s carrying a small purse, but I have a large tote—not so easy to snag. So she kicks Lindsey, shouting that her purse has been stolen, waking both of us up. She and another woman are pointing across the beach, insisting that Lindsey chase down the culprit. Once Lindsey has taken off, the woman starts screaming at me to go help my friend. When it becomes clear that I am not leaving my bag alone with these people, they suddenly dissipate, completely gone from sight.
Luckily, nothing irreplaceable was taken, and Lindsey had wisely left her passport, credit cards, and the bulk of her cash back at the hostel. The irksome part is not what they got, but that they got it. I’m also highly irritated that none of the people in our vicinity thought to mention something, since they all admitted afterward to noticing the suspicious behavior.
After walking around two and a half miles back to the hostel (no subway card, no cash) we discover that two other girls staying here have been robbed today.
Lindsey and I are having a perfectly lovely day on the beach in Barcelona—sea air, sunshine, a good book etc. etc. We both doze off for a bit and when we wake up, Lindsey’s bag, which contained her camera, some cash, our subway pass and our room keys, is history. After a few conversations with the sunbathers around us, we piece together what happened.
The beach is swarmed with vendors. Women offer massages and hair braiding and men peddle cheap beer, snacks, and gaudy sarongs. One of them notices that neither of us have moved for a while, and a couple of them begin circling us, making sure we’re asleep. Once they’re certain we’re both out, three men come by with sarongs, waving them in the faces of the people sitting around. One of the “masseuses” slips Lindsey’s purse into her bag while everyone’s vision is blocked. Lindsey’s carrying a small purse, but I have a large tote—not so easy to snag. So she kicks Lindsey, shouting that her purse has been stolen, waking both of us up. She and another woman are pointing across the beach, insisting that Lindsey chase down the culprit. Once Lindsey has taken off, the woman starts screaming at me to go help my friend. When it becomes clear that I am not leaving my bag alone with these people, they suddenly dissipate, completely gone from sight.
Luckily, nothing irreplaceable was taken, and Lindsey had wisely left her passport, credit cards, and the bulk of her cash back at the hostel. The irksome part is not what they got, but that they got it. I’m also highly irritated that none of the people in our vicinity thought to mention something, since they all admitted afterward to noticing the suspicious behavior.
After walking around two and a half miles back to the hostel (no subway card, no cash) we discover that two other girls staying here have been robbed today.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Country #3
After adding a day on to our stay in idyllic Nice, Lindsey and I have finally decided it’s time to move on to Spain. We’ve spent an incredible four days wandering beaches, shopping districts, and historic sites and now Barcelona, the centerpiece of our month-long journey, is waiting for us. We spend four hours on a train from Nice to Montpellier, an hour in a station, then another four on a rickety, battered, poorly-matched collection of railcars that pulls us slowly along the tracks to Barcelona. At the border, we wait for half an hour while the police forces of two nations search the car, checking passports, and confronting a series of dark-haired guys about our age, before finally discovering the Spanish twenty-something they’ve been seeking. He gathers his fedora and guitar and calmly exits the train, an officer on either flank. Lindsey and I spend the rest of the ride speculating.
Over the last week, we’ve been subjected to a never-ending stream of horror stories about the masterful pickpockets in Barcelona. They’ll distract you on your left and grab your money from your right, we’ve been told. They’ll create a diversion on the street and slip cameras away from all the tourists naïve enough to look, we’ve heard. So as the train rolls into the dark station, the sun setting, all of our worldly possessions on our backs, we’re a little nervous. We find no comfort in the station; there is no tourism desk, just an enormous map on which we can’t locate our hostel and an incredibly unhelpful staff who respond only grudgingly to my Spanish questions. Catalán, a bizarre soup of all the Romance languages, is the unofficial but overwhelmingly dominant tongue here, and these people are loath to be considered Spanish, let alone to use the cursed language of the kingdom. Conversation proves a fruitless effort, and we instead dedicate a half hour to scouring the map and wading through shoddy wifi to track down more info on the hostel. True to form and despite lessons supposedly learned, we’ve written down nothing more than an address—no phone number or directions. Seeing no other options, we dip into the subway and head in what seems the most likely correct direction. Every minute we’re looking behind us, around us, keeping an eye on each other’s packs and refusing distraction. Stress and scary stories have made us jumpy.
When we reach the somewhat arbitrarily selected metro stop, we discover that pickpockets are no longer the greatest of our concerns. We are nowhere near where we’re supposed to be and, predictably, have not considered researching bus lines. So we walk. Twelve blocks. In one giant freaking circle.
Long story short, I bumble us through some very strange Portuguese/Spanish/Catalán conversations, none of which I’m sure I fully understand, while Lindsey keeps us on track with the map. See, they don’t exactly believe in street signs in Europe, so you sometimes have to walk blocks before discovering what road you’re on. Makes using a map a decidedly more complicated process than it is in the rigidly gridded and marked streets of Indiana. At one point, we desperately ring the doorbell of a building at the correct address (wrong street), only to hear a confused “Uhh, nooo…?” when I ask her if she’s a hostel. We take a long break to contemplate our conundrum before finding a shopkeeper who steers us in the right direction. When we reach the hostel, we throw down our things and barrel for the nearest café, where we devour a pizza and some questionable lasagna and learn never to ask a Catalonian for the baño.
I wake up early Wednesday morning to skype Levi, a ritual that has been an indispensible comfort during our weeks apart. We’re eight hours apart, so the bulk of our conversations are carried on while I’m groggily watching the sunrise and he’s losing consciousness over his keyboard after hours of lectures. Sometimes we can’t make it work—there are days when the Mediterranean wine or miles of walking have me sleeping late. It’s a delicate balance, keeping in daily contact with a love in Denver while living a surreal existence scattered across Europe. There’s a constant struggle to keep your head in the winding streets and stony beaches while a part of you keeps flitting back across the Atlantic. But we’ve done what I feel to be an impressive job, maintaining separate lives while remaining integral to one another. He’ll be in Zafra with me in three weeks, and sleepy mornings will certainly prove worth the trouble.
We spend Wednesday exploring the city, walking the Ramblas, photographing the port. I love this city. There’s a spirit, a vibrancy to it that I’ve only ever felt in the Latin world, where trilling Rs and rolling laughter convey an impression of homey comfort even as trains and buses fly by. We make a ridiculous but yummy meal of salad, mashed potatoes, and pan-friend turkey lunch meat (don’t scoff until you’ve tried!) We’re headed tonight for a club on the beach, where a password whispered to us by our trendy hostel host will save us from the pricey cover charge. I love Europe.
Over the last week, we’ve been subjected to a never-ending stream of horror stories about the masterful pickpockets in Barcelona. They’ll distract you on your left and grab your money from your right, we’ve been told. They’ll create a diversion on the street and slip cameras away from all the tourists naïve enough to look, we’ve heard. So as the train rolls into the dark station, the sun setting, all of our worldly possessions on our backs, we’re a little nervous. We find no comfort in the station; there is no tourism desk, just an enormous map on which we can’t locate our hostel and an incredibly unhelpful staff who respond only grudgingly to my Spanish questions. Catalán, a bizarre soup of all the Romance languages, is the unofficial but overwhelmingly dominant tongue here, and these people are loath to be considered Spanish, let alone to use the cursed language of the kingdom. Conversation proves a fruitless effort, and we instead dedicate a half hour to scouring the map and wading through shoddy wifi to track down more info on the hostel. True to form and despite lessons supposedly learned, we’ve written down nothing more than an address—no phone number or directions. Seeing no other options, we dip into the subway and head in what seems the most likely correct direction. Every minute we’re looking behind us, around us, keeping an eye on each other’s packs and refusing distraction. Stress and scary stories have made us jumpy.
When we reach the somewhat arbitrarily selected metro stop, we discover that pickpockets are no longer the greatest of our concerns. We are nowhere near where we’re supposed to be and, predictably, have not considered researching bus lines. So we walk. Twelve blocks. In one giant freaking circle.
Long story short, I bumble us through some very strange Portuguese/Spanish/Catalán conversations, none of which I’m sure I fully understand, while Lindsey keeps us on track with the map. See, they don’t exactly believe in street signs in Europe, so you sometimes have to walk blocks before discovering what road you’re on. Makes using a map a decidedly more complicated process than it is in the rigidly gridded and marked streets of Indiana. At one point, we desperately ring the doorbell of a building at the correct address (wrong street), only to hear a confused “Uhh, nooo…?” when I ask her if she’s a hostel. We take a long break to contemplate our conundrum before finding a shopkeeper who steers us in the right direction. When we reach the hostel, we throw down our things and barrel for the nearest café, where we devour a pizza and some questionable lasagna and learn never to ask a Catalonian for the baño.
I wake up early Wednesday morning to skype Levi, a ritual that has been an indispensible comfort during our weeks apart. We’re eight hours apart, so the bulk of our conversations are carried on while I’m groggily watching the sunrise and he’s losing consciousness over his keyboard after hours of lectures. Sometimes we can’t make it work—there are days when the Mediterranean wine or miles of walking have me sleeping late. It’s a delicate balance, keeping in daily contact with a love in Denver while living a surreal existence scattered across Europe. There’s a constant struggle to keep your head in the winding streets and stony beaches while a part of you keeps flitting back across the Atlantic. But we’ve done what I feel to be an impressive job, maintaining separate lives while remaining integral to one another. He’ll be in Zafra with me in three weeks, and sleepy mornings will certainly prove worth the trouble.
We spend Wednesday exploring the city, walking the Ramblas, photographing the port. I love this city. There’s a spirit, a vibrancy to it that I’ve only ever felt in the Latin world, where trilling Rs and rolling laughter convey an impression of homey comfort even as trains and buses fly by. We make a ridiculous but yummy meal of salad, mashed potatoes, and pan-friend turkey lunch meat (don’t scoff until you’ve tried!) We’re headed tonight for a club on the beach, where a password whispered to us by our trendy hostel host will save us from the pricey cover charge. I love Europe.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Bumps in the road
“Maybe we don’t need an itinerary,” I yawn as Lindsey pours over the hundredth Barcelona tourism website. After all, we’ve been at it for hours and are still unable to decide what we want to do with ourselves during our three weeks together in Europe.
“We could just get there and see how we feel,” she answers, a sympathy yawn drawing out her syllables. I mean, The Hangover is on TV, and really, all this planning is just starting to seem obsessive.
“We’ll have fun whatever we do, right? Maybe we should just let the road take us where it will.”
She puts the computer aside and rises from the couch. “You’re right, it’ll be fine,” she says with a wave of the hand. “Want a beer?”
The story I’m about to tell is long and convoluted but it has one very simple moral: PLAN AHEAD.
Tuesday
Six hours spent fighting sleep in the Dublin airport. The French transportation workers are on strike, and there aren’t enough air traffic controllers to keep watch on the sky. A very limited number of planes are allowed in the nation’s airspace at any given time. All flights are delayed, many cancelled. I feel lucky to get on the plane 3 hours late. I arrive in Marseilles and find my hostel largely due to the kindness of strangers. They seem to take pity on me and my 10-word French vocabulary, which sounds suspiciously Portuguese.
I check my e-mail and discover that Lindsey won’t be arriving until tomorrow. We’ve booked for two at this hostel tonight. She had suggested another Skype date for finalizing plans. “It’ll be fine,” I had responded nonchalantly with a wave of the hand.
I spend an hour arguing with a confused French twenty-something at the front desk. It’s out of sheer irritation and exhaustion that he finally cancels Lindsey’s booking without charging her.
I take a walk around the city. It’s beautiful, unlike any place I’ve ever seen. We’re right off the Vieux Port, a gorgeous harbor full of glittering sailboats and lined with cafes, restaurants and bars. A fish market occupies its end, offering some of the largest and strangest specimens I’ve ever seen, and a towering fortress looms over its mouth, bearing a WWII monument and stunning views of the Mediterranean. I’m standing at a corner of the port, admiring a huge yacht, when a tiny dark-haired man starts jabbering at me in French. “Je ne….français,” I mumble. He switches to a broken English. “Are you from America?” He’s beside himself as he begins listing off things I have to see in Marseilles. His name is Magid, a remnant of the Arabic influence here. He was born here and sees himself as an ambassador of sorts. He grabs my arm and drags me into a tourism office, demands a map from the clerk, and starts frantically circling his favorite spots and marking huge Xs on the dodgy areas.
“I’m going to be late for work,” he says, laughing as he glances as a diamond-encrusted watch. “Oh well, I’ll show you around.”
For the next hour we’re racing around the port, darting through traffic and weaving through pedestrians as he rattles off his surprisingly extensive knowledge of Marseille’s history, gesticulating wildly to the buildings and monuments that correspond to his stories. He’s checking his watch every five minutes, muttering desperately that he’s going to be late for work. He flags down a five-car, open-air sightseeing trolley, driven by a friend. The guy’s on his way to lunch, so he has no passengers. My friend offers me the first seat and hops into the cab with his buddy. It’s just me and twenty rows of empty seats as we wind through the bustling streets, Magid narrating the scenery through the loudspeaker. Pedestrians laugh and point, men whistle from passing cars.
The trolley takes us to the mouth of the port, where the tide crashes against huge boulders and fort walls. Across the water an enormous palace overlooks to horizon. Napoleon III built it for his wife, who had demanded a seaside home but never actually moved in. “Such is the caprice of a woman,” Magid says, the most well-constructed and cringe-worthy English sentence I’ve heard him utter.
We’re racing back to the port’s end as his phone rings. Suddenly he’s in a shouting match. “They want to fire me,” he laughs as he hangs up. “I suppose I should get back.” He kisses me on both cheeks and disappears into a subway station, leaving me on the crowded street wondering what the hell just happened.
An hour later I remember that we’ve only booked the hostel for one night.
“You’ll have to switch rooms,” the poor reception guy says, literally pulling his hair as he tries to understand the messy calendar before him. His eyes are a bit bloodshot. “You’ll sleep in Room 4 tonight, then bring your bags back downstairs at 10am, then put them back upstairs in Room 3 at noon.” I decide not to tell him that my bags weigh as much as I do; I’m concerned any objections may cause an aneurism.
Wednesday
I relax on the port most of the day, taking in the sunshine and fresh, salty air. Lindsey arrives on schedule after nearly 24 hours of travel, impressively conscious but visibly exhausted. Her eyes are starting to droop as it’s dawning on me that we have no place to stay tomorrow, and no plans whatsoever about the next three weeks. Our CouchSurf requests have all been rejected or ignored, since we’re newbies to the site and people are hesitant to host us. The hostels are all booked since the weekend is approaching. I ask Lindsey if she wants to go talk to the reception desk.
“In the morning.” She stretches, collects her things, and starts for the stairs. “It’ll be fine.”
Thursday
“Sorry, we just can’t make room for you,” the stoned receptionist mumbles, turning away from the computer screen and rubbing his eyes.
We’re starting to panic. It’s 10am and we have no idea where we’ll be sleeping tonight, or any night for the next three weeks, for that matter. We send out about ten frantic CouchSurfing pleas and investigate every hostel in a 100-mile radius. Nothing. Two hours later we meet the miracle that is Remy, the gorgeous gay man who takes over when the confused wreck goes home. He seems amused by our utter lack of organization and is eager to take care of us, probably because it’s embarrassingly clear that we’re in need of rescuing. He makes a half dozen phone calls, rearranges beds and bookings, and voila! We have a home for one more blessed night.
“But what about tomorrow?” Lindsey asks. But the city is out there! There’s a cathedral on a hill with 360 degree views of the city! There is a cheap bus ride to the end of town where huge cliffs and hills bear long, beautiful trails to one of the world’s top beaches! We can’t waste a day in this wonderful place hunched over our laptops. I take a deep breath, steady my nerves, and push the lodging predicament from my thoughts. “It’ll be fine.”
It’s a perfect day—gorgeous scenery, friendly people, a long rest on a stunning beach. Lindsey sketches the cliffs and the water it as I try to capture them in words. On the bus home a bunch of teenagers stumble through their English textbook phrases to tell us how much they love Obama. By sunset we’ve forgotten all about the issue at hand.
In return, we spend the next five hours in blind panic. Nothing’s available. None of the cities we’ve wanted to see are options any longer. We’ve just waited too long, at this point we would have to get a hotel, an option far outside our budget. There are no trains, no buses, no hostels, no Couchsurfers available, and nowhere to go in Marseilles. We’re investigating places miles out of our chosen path, far from our interests and desires, just a bed, anything, anywhere will do. We ask Remy if we can sleep on the couch. His generosity doesn’t extend quite that far.
“We just really aren’t allowed to do that,” he says awkwardly when he realizes we aren’t kidding.
The beacon of hope comes from Nice, the playground of wealthy Europeans on the French Riviera. There’s a famous hostel there, a party spot in the hills overlooking the city, with miraculously low rates. It’s the wrong direction, the city is reported to be grossly touristy and overpriced, and neither of us is looking for a party. But it’s midnight and we’ve hiked miles of hills today. We take it, planning to catch the 9:30 train.
Friday
We oversleep. We have planned to get to the station an hour early to deal with what we assumed to be a minor problem. When we ordered our rail passes, a glitch in the online ordering system caused them to be delivered both bearing Lindsey’s name. “It’ll be fine,” I insisted. The pass is just a piece of paper, not even an official-looking card. They’ll just print a new one. No worries. But now we’re running late and have minimal time to handle the situation.
We find an English-speaking teller at the ticket office. She takes a look at the passes and our passports, nods in understanding, then shakes her head in apology. There’s nothing she can do. We’ll have to buy another pass. We insist she investigate further. Thirty minutes, three employees, and an exhausting language-blocked conversation later, the conclusion is the same and the train is long gone. Lindsey can use the pass, but I’ll have to buy a ticket to Nice, and the next train’s not till noon. I eat the €22 to make the day easier and we wait, deciding to deal with this in Nice.
The ride is lovely. We pass vineyards and castles, mountains and beaches. It’s the first chance we’ve had to just sit down and catch up, and I’m relishing the fact that I finally have a travel companion.
The station at Nice, however, is a damn nightmare. Tiny, cramped, and bursting at the seams with tourists shoving, yelling, chattering in a dozen languages. We go to a ticket desk to try to sort out our pass issue. This woman is far less willing to help. She grabs our tickets, waves them in the air, and declares to the line of waiting customers that we are idiots for having made such a mistake, despite our insistence that the error was on their end. “This pass—stupid. Waste. Your travel agent should have told you.” We inform her that we didn’t have a travel agent, and she shouts down our objection, accusing us again of stupidity. We have should have had a travel agent, or we should have booked tickets individually because this pass is hard to deal with. Can’t afford that? Well, then we shouldn’t have come. We are idiot Americans and she won’t help us. As we’ve dealt with two days worth of wonderful, friendly, helpful people in this country, we decide that this woman is sole reason the French have a reputation for rudeness. We abandon the hope of solving this problem and head for the hostel.
We get off at the tram stop the (very sweet) girl at the tourism desk showed us. We’re at a roundabout where six streets meet. We’re looking for Gravier. Two are labeled Baudelaire and four are unmarked. We choose the wrong one twice before meeting a sweet old man who steers us in the right direction. “Up the hill, take a left, then to the summit.”
We look at the 100lb bags we’re carrying on our already weary backs.
Summit?
There’s no other way to describe what we’re faced with after we take that dreaded left. It is indeed a hike to a summit. It’s a winding path curving up a hill at a 45 degree angle. We sit on our packs for a minute, just looking up at the horrible journey we’re about to take. It takes us thirty minutes, three breaks, and the encouragement of a half dozen laughing strangers on their way down the hill, but we make it. We’re panting, sweating, triumphantly throwing our packs to the ground as we approach the reception desk. The staff stares, shocked smiles. A couple of them laugh. One of the guys buys us two waters from the vending machine.
“You two are brave,” he says as we gulp down the water. “Most people just take the shuttle up that hill.”
I turn in time to see Lindsey’s jaw drop to the floor.
Saturday
Nice, it turns out, is wonderful. It is, without a doubt, a tourist spot. But the beaches are gorgeous, the city is clean and lively, and we feel safer after dark than we did in Marseilles. We spent today just walking, and the stress of the week melted away. We'll deal with the rail passes later. It'll be fine.
**Pictures to follow, my wifi here is too weak for uploads
“We could just get there and see how we feel,” she answers, a sympathy yawn drawing out her syllables. I mean, The Hangover is on TV, and really, all this planning is just starting to seem obsessive.
“We’ll have fun whatever we do, right? Maybe we should just let the road take us where it will.”
She puts the computer aside and rises from the couch. “You’re right, it’ll be fine,” she says with a wave of the hand. “Want a beer?”
The story I’m about to tell is long and convoluted but it has one very simple moral: PLAN AHEAD.
Tuesday
Six hours spent fighting sleep in the Dublin airport. The French transportation workers are on strike, and there aren’t enough air traffic controllers to keep watch on the sky. A very limited number of planes are allowed in the nation’s airspace at any given time. All flights are delayed, many cancelled. I feel lucky to get on the plane 3 hours late. I arrive in Marseilles and find my hostel largely due to the kindness of strangers. They seem to take pity on me and my 10-word French vocabulary, which sounds suspiciously Portuguese.
I check my e-mail and discover that Lindsey won’t be arriving until tomorrow. We’ve booked for two at this hostel tonight. She had suggested another Skype date for finalizing plans. “It’ll be fine,” I had responded nonchalantly with a wave of the hand.
I spend an hour arguing with a confused French twenty-something at the front desk. It’s out of sheer irritation and exhaustion that he finally cancels Lindsey’s booking without charging her.
I take a walk around the city. It’s beautiful, unlike any place I’ve ever seen. We’re right off the Vieux Port, a gorgeous harbor full of glittering sailboats and lined with cafes, restaurants and bars. A fish market occupies its end, offering some of the largest and strangest specimens I’ve ever seen, and a towering fortress looms over its mouth, bearing a WWII monument and stunning views of the Mediterranean. I’m standing at a corner of the port, admiring a huge yacht, when a tiny dark-haired man starts jabbering at me in French. “Je ne….français,” I mumble. He switches to a broken English. “Are you from America?” He’s beside himself as he begins listing off things I have to see in Marseilles. His name is Magid, a remnant of the Arabic influence here. He was born here and sees himself as an ambassador of sorts. He grabs my arm and drags me into a tourism office, demands a map from the clerk, and starts frantically circling his favorite spots and marking huge Xs on the dodgy areas.
“I’m going to be late for work,” he says, laughing as he glances as a diamond-encrusted watch. “Oh well, I’ll show you around.”
For the next hour we’re racing around the port, darting through traffic and weaving through pedestrians as he rattles off his surprisingly extensive knowledge of Marseille’s history, gesticulating wildly to the buildings and monuments that correspond to his stories. He’s checking his watch every five minutes, muttering desperately that he’s going to be late for work. He flags down a five-car, open-air sightseeing trolley, driven by a friend. The guy’s on his way to lunch, so he has no passengers. My friend offers me the first seat and hops into the cab with his buddy. It’s just me and twenty rows of empty seats as we wind through the bustling streets, Magid narrating the scenery through the loudspeaker. Pedestrians laugh and point, men whistle from passing cars.
The trolley takes us to the mouth of the port, where the tide crashes against huge boulders and fort walls. Across the water an enormous palace overlooks to horizon. Napoleon III built it for his wife, who had demanded a seaside home but never actually moved in. “Such is the caprice of a woman,” Magid says, the most well-constructed and cringe-worthy English sentence I’ve heard him utter.
We’re racing back to the port’s end as his phone rings. Suddenly he’s in a shouting match. “They want to fire me,” he laughs as he hangs up. “I suppose I should get back.” He kisses me on both cheeks and disappears into a subway station, leaving me on the crowded street wondering what the hell just happened.
An hour later I remember that we’ve only booked the hostel for one night.
“You’ll have to switch rooms,” the poor reception guy says, literally pulling his hair as he tries to understand the messy calendar before him. His eyes are a bit bloodshot. “You’ll sleep in Room 4 tonight, then bring your bags back downstairs at 10am, then put them back upstairs in Room 3 at noon.” I decide not to tell him that my bags weigh as much as I do; I’m concerned any objections may cause an aneurism.
Wednesday
I relax on the port most of the day, taking in the sunshine and fresh, salty air. Lindsey arrives on schedule after nearly 24 hours of travel, impressively conscious but visibly exhausted. Her eyes are starting to droop as it’s dawning on me that we have no place to stay tomorrow, and no plans whatsoever about the next three weeks. Our CouchSurf requests have all been rejected or ignored, since we’re newbies to the site and people are hesitant to host us. The hostels are all booked since the weekend is approaching. I ask Lindsey if she wants to go talk to the reception desk.
“In the morning.” She stretches, collects her things, and starts for the stairs. “It’ll be fine.”
Thursday
“Sorry, we just can’t make room for you,” the stoned receptionist mumbles, turning away from the computer screen and rubbing his eyes.
We’re starting to panic. It’s 10am and we have no idea where we’ll be sleeping tonight, or any night for the next three weeks, for that matter. We send out about ten frantic CouchSurfing pleas and investigate every hostel in a 100-mile radius. Nothing. Two hours later we meet the miracle that is Remy, the gorgeous gay man who takes over when the confused wreck goes home. He seems amused by our utter lack of organization and is eager to take care of us, probably because it’s embarrassingly clear that we’re in need of rescuing. He makes a half dozen phone calls, rearranges beds and bookings, and voila! We have a home for one more blessed night.
“But what about tomorrow?” Lindsey asks. But the city is out there! There’s a cathedral on a hill with 360 degree views of the city! There is a cheap bus ride to the end of town where huge cliffs and hills bear long, beautiful trails to one of the world’s top beaches! We can’t waste a day in this wonderful place hunched over our laptops. I take a deep breath, steady my nerves, and push the lodging predicament from my thoughts. “It’ll be fine.”
It’s a perfect day—gorgeous scenery, friendly people, a long rest on a stunning beach. Lindsey sketches the cliffs and the water it as I try to capture them in words. On the bus home a bunch of teenagers stumble through their English textbook phrases to tell us how much they love Obama. By sunset we’ve forgotten all about the issue at hand.
In return, we spend the next five hours in blind panic. Nothing’s available. None of the cities we’ve wanted to see are options any longer. We’ve just waited too long, at this point we would have to get a hotel, an option far outside our budget. There are no trains, no buses, no hostels, no Couchsurfers available, and nowhere to go in Marseilles. We’re investigating places miles out of our chosen path, far from our interests and desires, just a bed, anything, anywhere will do. We ask Remy if we can sleep on the couch. His generosity doesn’t extend quite that far.
“We just really aren’t allowed to do that,” he says awkwardly when he realizes we aren’t kidding.
The beacon of hope comes from Nice, the playground of wealthy Europeans on the French Riviera. There’s a famous hostel there, a party spot in the hills overlooking the city, with miraculously low rates. It’s the wrong direction, the city is reported to be grossly touristy and overpriced, and neither of us is looking for a party. But it’s midnight and we’ve hiked miles of hills today. We take it, planning to catch the 9:30 train.
Friday
We oversleep. We have planned to get to the station an hour early to deal with what we assumed to be a minor problem. When we ordered our rail passes, a glitch in the online ordering system caused them to be delivered both bearing Lindsey’s name. “It’ll be fine,” I insisted. The pass is just a piece of paper, not even an official-looking card. They’ll just print a new one. No worries. But now we’re running late and have minimal time to handle the situation.
We find an English-speaking teller at the ticket office. She takes a look at the passes and our passports, nods in understanding, then shakes her head in apology. There’s nothing she can do. We’ll have to buy another pass. We insist she investigate further. Thirty minutes, three employees, and an exhausting language-blocked conversation later, the conclusion is the same and the train is long gone. Lindsey can use the pass, but I’ll have to buy a ticket to Nice, and the next train’s not till noon. I eat the €22 to make the day easier and we wait, deciding to deal with this in Nice.
The ride is lovely. We pass vineyards and castles, mountains and beaches. It’s the first chance we’ve had to just sit down and catch up, and I’m relishing the fact that I finally have a travel companion.
The station at Nice, however, is a damn nightmare. Tiny, cramped, and bursting at the seams with tourists shoving, yelling, chattering in a dozen languages. We go to a ticket desk to try to sort out our pass issue. This woman is far less willing to help. She grabs our tickets, waves them in the air, and declares to the line of waiting customers that we are idiots for having made such a mistake, despite our insistence that the error was on their end. “This pass—stupid. Waste. Your travel agent should have told you.” We inform her that we didn’t have a travel agent, and she shouts down our objection, accusing us again of stupidity. We have should have had a travel agent, or we should have booked tickets individually because this pass is hard to deal with. Can’t afford that? Well, then we shouldn’t have come. We are idiot Americans and she won’t help us. As we’ve dealt with two days worth of wonderful, friendly, helpful people in this country, we decide that this woman is sole reason the French have a reputation for rudeness. We abandon the hope of solving this problem and head for the hostel.
We get off at the tram stop the (very sweet) girl at the tourism desk showed us. We’re at a roundabout where six streets meet. We’re looking for Gravier. Two are labeled Baudelaire and four are unmarked. We choose the wrong one twice before meeting a sweet old man who steers us in the right direction. “Up the hill, take a left, then to the summit.”
We look at the 100lb bags we’re carrying on our already weary backs.
Summit?
There’s no other way to describe what we’re faced with after we take that dreaded left. It is indeed a hike to a summit. It’s a winding path curving up a hill at a 45 degree angle. We sit on our packs for a minute, just looking up at the horrible journey we’re about to take. It takes us thirty minutes, three breaks, and the encouragement of a half dozen laughing strangers on their way down the hill, but we make it. We’re panting, sweating, triumphantly throwing our packs to the ground as we approach the reception desk. The staff stares, shocked smiles. A couple of them laugh. One of the guys buys us two waters from the vending machine.
“You two are brave,” he says as we gulp down the water. “Most people just take the shuttle up that hill.”
I turn in time to see Lindsey’s jaw drop to the floor.
Saturday
Nice, it turns out, is wonderful. It is, without a doubt, a tourist spot. But the beaches are gorgeous, the city is clean and lively, and we feel safer after dark than we did in Marseilles. We spent today just walking, and the stress of the week melted away. We'll deal with the rail passes later. It'll be fine.
**Pictures to follow, my wifi here is too weak for uploads
Monday, September 6, 2010
On lonely journeys
Yesterday the loneliness of solitary travel started to get to me a bit. I was tired from the outset and couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with my day. Honestly, the most appealing option was to sit in the hostel or a pub all day. But that seems a waste, and Levi had met someone who recommended a bar in the northern suburbs, so I hopped on a train, feeling proud of my willpower.
I get off at Malahide, among the northernmost stops on the line. I’ve read about a great castle there and I’m eager to get that medieval chill I felt in this country eight years ago. The town itself is beautiful, bustling and quaint. Up the road from the city center is the castle, an enormous, imposing affair on a few acres of immaculately kept lawns and woods. Stone-lines paths wind through the deep green forest, which occasionally gives way to perfectly manicured playgrounds and soccer fields. Nature here exists at the end of the short lease of the Irish tourism department.
The castle itself is lovely, an ivy-covered stone masterpiece with turrets and ramparts straight out of a fairy tale. I take dozen of photos from outside, but pass on the €8 tour through the inside, which was constantly updated until the family left in the 19th century, leaving it more a Victorian mansion than a castle.
I walk back through the town to a rocky, foreboding beach. They’ve left it in its natural state—high grass, moss-covered boulders, and a craggy, unswimable shoreline. It’s uninviting, almost creepy, but gorgeous in a stark, dramatic sort of way. I take some photographs of the crabs, barnacles, and clams inhabiting the tide pools. It should be a wonderful afternoon, but my spirits are low. I’m feeling lonely for Levi, wishing I had a companion in this harsh, beautiful place.
Headed still further out on the train, I find myself in the midst of an Irish postcard. Miles of hilly farmland roll out in front of the station platform, a breathtaking patchwork of a hundred shades of green. A block from the train station, two enormous medieval windmills come into view. They overlook miles of hilly neighborhoods and church steeples in the distance.
When I arrive at the bar that was recommended to me, I find it to be a strange, glittery, would-be posh lounge with mirrored bead curtains and a sparkly red bar. It’s very unusual but great people-watching; I have a pint of cider and spend a few minutes listening to two guys down the bar hurling insults at each other and laughing uproariously at the particularly biting ones. But the cider fails to improve my mood and I get back on the train.
Back in Dublin, I check out of the hostel and lug my stuff to the house of a guy I found on Couchsurf.com. He and his roommates are all Brazilian, here in Ireland to learn English (which has been hard, since I can barely even understand the English here). They’re also hosting two girls from Germany who begged to be squeezed in when they were unable to find other lodging. These are great people. We spend the entire night sitting around drinking beer and comparing our three vastly different countries. Anne, who bears a shocking likeness to the St. Pauli girl, tells me about the candlelight schnitzel dinner she had with a boy she’s been seeing. Bruno teaches me some Brazilian drinking games, and Gabriel forces me to practice some Portuguese, shy as I am about it. Freya, who speaks gorgeous Portuguese, spends the evening translating the confusing bits of this trilingual conversation for anyone having trouble. Not the night you’d expect from an Irish vacation, but a great one. I’m feeling happy again as I climb into bed in the early hours of the morning.
I get off at Malahide, among the northernmost stops on the line. I’ve read about a great castle there and I’m eager to get that medieval chill I felt in this country eight years ago. The town itself is beautiful, bustling and quaint. Up the road from the city center is the castle, an enormous, imposing affair on a few acres of immaculately kept lawns and woods. Stone-lines paths wind through the deep green forest, which occasionally gives way to perfectly manicured playgrounds and soccer fields. Nature here exists at the end of the short lease of the Irish tourism department.
The castle itself is lovely, an ivy-covered stone masterpiece with turrets and ramparts straight out of a fairy tale. I take dozen of photos from outside, but pass on the €8 tour through the inside, which was constantly updated until the family left in the 19th century, leaving it more a Victorian mansion than a castle.
I walk back through the town to a rocky, foreboding beach. They’ve left it in its natural state—high grass, moss-covered boulders, and a craggy, unswimable shoreline. It’s uninviting, almost creepy, but gorgeous in a stark, dramatic sort of way. I take some photographs of the crabs, barnacles, and clams inhabiting the tide pools. It should be a wonderful afternoon, but my spirits are low. I’m feeling lonely for Levi, wishing I had a companion in this harsh, beautiful place.
Headed still further out on the train, I find myself in the midst of an Irish postcard. Miles of hilly farmland roll out in front of the station platform, a breathtaking patchwork of a hundred shades of green. A block from the train station, two enormous medieval windmills come into view. They overlook miles of hilly neighborhoods and church steeples in the distance.
When I arrive at the bar that was recommended to me, I find it to be a strange, glittery, would-be posh lounge with mirrored bead curtains and a sparkly red bar. It’s very unusual but great people-watching; I have a pint of cider and spend a few minutes listening to two guys down the bar hurling insults at each other and laughing uproariously at the particularly biting ones. But the cider fails to improve my mood and I get back on the train.
Back in Dublin, I check out of the hostel and lug my stuff to the house of a guy I found on Couchsurf.com. He and his roommates are all Brazilian, here in Ireland to learn English (which has been hard, since I can barely even understand the English here). They’re also hosting two girls from Germany who begged to be squeezed in when they were unable to find other lodging. These are great people. We spend the entire night sitting around drinking beer and comparing our three vastly different countries. Anne, who bears a shocking likeness to the St. Pauli girl, tells me about the candlelight schnitzel dinner she had with a boy she’s been seeing. Bruno teaches me some Brazilian drinking games, and Gabriel forces me to practice some Portuguese, shy as I am about it. Freya, who speaks gorgeous Portuguese, spends the evening translating the confusing bits of this trilingual conversation for anyone having trouble. Not the night you’d expect from an Irish vacation, but a great one. I’m feeling happy again as I climb into bed in the early hours of the morning.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Sea Air
I wake up Thursday morning to the vicious revenge of a night of the Guinness. I stay up long enough to call Levi, who is just finishing up an evening of pints himself, then crawl back into bed to sleep off the headache. I wake in the late morning and, feeling that it would be silly to waste a day in bed, get on a train to visit Dublin’s seaside suburbs. Once the train is beyond the ugly urban sprawl and miles of muddy marshland that surround the city, I find myself in a different world, one entirely unlike the dusty, crowded Dublin. The train meets with the coast, winding around mountains and over cliffs and beaches. Despite the cool air, dozens of people are lying on every beach, soaking up some rare Irish sun. One fat, middle-aged mad is lying, in full view of the tracks, buck-naked on a cliff. I’m sure that’s the tannest ass in Ireland.
At the suggestion of my friends from the pub, I get off at the Bray station and find a breathtaking seaside village. Shops and restaurants line the beach just beyond a pristine boardwalk and rows of modest but beautiful houses wind up into the huge cliff that overlooks the town. I walk along the beach for a while then begin the six-kilometer hike up, around, and down the cliff to the neighboring town of Greystones. It’s an unbelievably beautiful, serene place, and I find myself more at peace than I’ve been in the past few weeks. All that frantic, stressful planning and travel was entirely worth it for this walk. One turn offers a dazzling view of the sparkling sea and the next reveals the vine-entangled ruin of an ancient stone house. I initially take pictures every few feet, but eventually surrender to the fact that a photo simply can’t capture this.
At the end of the trail I find a rocky, deserted beach and settle onto a boulder to write. Two older women arrive with two dogs, and I spend a few minutes sitting with the ladies as we watch the ecstatic creatures chase each other up and down the beach. They wrestle in the surf and swim in aimless circles in the shallows, thrilled to be in this unbelievable playground.
I take the train back to Bray, finding Greystones to be less pleasant, and eat a huge order of vinegar-doused fish and chips on the beach. On the way back to Dublin I stop to see a castle I’d heard about in Dalkey, a quaint, immaculate little place full of expensive cars and impeccably-dressed yuppies. I step off the train in Dublin just as the sun in setting behind the eleven-story obelisk at the city center. Lovely day.
A Very Irish Evening
Yesterday I went on a free walking tour of the city and met a few people my age, travelers from all over the world. The tour was interesting, informative and all that. As we’re crossing the rod-iron bridge that spans the Liffey, we hear an explosion of electric guitar. We all race to the edge of the bridge, as does everyone on all the bridges and all the river walls, and there they are—Guns ‘N Roses on a boat. “Welcome to the Jungle” is blaring across downtown Dublin from a big yacht cruising down the river. People are dancing and singing in the streets and all the traffic is stopped. It’s Axl Rose, wearing his trademark (terrible) headband and, for some inexplicable reason, red spandex short. He’s accompanied by a bunch of much younger guys he’s paid to dress up like his former bandmates. After a few songs, the guitarist from YES paddles out in a little rowboat and hops onboard for a solo. I’ve never seen anything quite so hilarious. About ten of us completely lost the tour in our eagerness to photograph every glorious moment of it. Realizing that these were clearly good people, I made plans with a few of them to hit the bars later.
I have some time to kill before meeting them so I grab my notebook and head to a little pub near my hostel. I’m the only woman and the only person under 50. I sit at the bar and order a Guinness, which the bartender carefully pours for three of four minutes. A man a few stools down asks me what I’m writing. He’s in his sixties, gray and balding with a round, red face and crooked teeth, which he exposes in an enormous grin when I reveal my nationality. The man sitting next to him is wearing huge, thick glasses that obscure most of his face. He occasionally echoes a few key words of his friend’s monologues, but he’s otherwise silent. I’m telling them both about my travel plans when we hear a crash in the back room.
A man comes flying through the saloon doors, thrown to the floor by two burly grandfathers. He’s shouting threats and curses as he pulls himself to his feet.
“Yeh fuckin cunt, I’ll fuckin kill yeh, I hate yeh, yeh queer basterd, go ahead and get yer queer little bat, I’ll tie a hand behind me back and I’ll still have yer guts on the floor! Get over here yeh coward!” He’s swaying where he stands as he raises his fists in a way that reminds me irresistibly of the Notre Dame leprechaun. Realizing that this rage is directed at him, the bartender emerges from the bar, baseball bat indeed in hand.
“Get da fuck out, yeh drunk basterd!” They exchange some shoves before the unfortunate patron stumbles over his feet, trips into a barstool, and falls through the front door, screaming profanities the whole way down.
My friend down the bar shakes his head sadly, takes a long sip off his pint, and says, “It’s a bleedin shame, just tryin to enjoy a pint here. Yeh come in for a drink, just trying to have a nice pint and write in yer book. He’s been drinkin all day, that one has (‘All day,’ echoes his friend). Bleedin shame. That sorta thing doesn’t happen here often. Good people, generally speaking (‘Generally speaking,’ Glasses says with a nod). Shame fer a nice young girl like you to see something like that.” I insist that it’s fine, that I’ve seen worse in Indiana, but he’s truly upset. When he reaches the bottom of his pint, he’s apologizing on behalf of all of Ireland for the man’s behavior.
We order another round.
Another man in his sixties walks in, greets my friends and the bartender, and takes the seat beside me. “She’s American, Jack,” the red-faced man tells He looks at me in surprise. “What the hell are yeh doin all the way over here?” he asks. I tell him about my travel plans and my job in Spain. “Amazin,” he sighs, shaking his head. “What I wouldn’t give to be in yer shoes.”
“Yeh must be no more than 22,” says Red from down the bar. “22,” echoes his friend. I tell him he’s dead on and he’s so pleased that he raises his glass to me and downs half of it.
“My daughter’s studying in Spain,” Jack tells me. The only word to describe him is grizzly. He’s got long, raggedy gray curls stuffed under a tattered hat, a few missing teeth, and a scar that intersects with his lower lip and makes his mouth go a bit crooked on certain vowels. His voice is a low, gravely smoker’s growl. But he has kind eyes and a reassuring albeit strange smile. “She’s in Alicante,” he continues, “And lemme tell yeh, she’s puttin me feckin broke.” He shakes his head. “Bleedin expensive it is over there. Seems to me we all have to use this damn Euro, so every place should cost the same. Four euro for a bottle of lager here, and she’s payin €8. Can yeh believe it? Eight euro fer a feckin drink? Once she paid €40 to get into a disco. She won’t do that again. Puttin me feckin broke, she is. Still though, great experience, lovely to do that while yer young.”
“It’s a different world then it used to be,” Red says. (“Different world,” says the echo.) “In our day women never traveled on their own. Brave thing yer doin—real courageous. Cheers to yeh.” He raises his glass and downs what’s left of it.
“Another Guinness for the lady, on me,” says Jack to the old barman. “That’s just grand, yeh trying new things, drinkin Irish stout. What I wouldn’t give to be 22 and travel the world. Just lovely. Can’t even get meself a passport, I’ve gotten into so much trouble.” I imagine that trouble is related to that terrible scar, but I don’t dare ask. “Stuck right here in Dublin. Six kids and a husky to take care of. Fair play to yeh, love, gettin out to see the world, gettin paid to live in Spain. Lovely that someone’s playin the game right, working the system. Fair play to yeh, just grand.”
Red grabs his attention and starts regaling him with the story of the drunk man from earlier on. The bartender asks if I like soccer, and is visibly excited when I tell him I followed the last World Cup. He reaches under the bar and pulls out a ticket stub from the last Dublin game and a light and dark blue-checkered flag. “It’s the Dublin team flag. You keep that, to remind you of Dublin.”
Red rises to leave, stumbling a bit. “Well, yer a lovely girl, just grand talkin to yeh,” he slurs, hugging me. “Hope to see yeh here again.”
“Get the girl a Beamish, barman,” Jack shouts, waving goodbye to Red.
At this point I’m nearly an hour late to meet my friends from the tour, but it just seems wrong and un-Irish to refuse free drinks. When I finally leave, promising to return, I’m stumbling a bit myself and long overdue for my plans. Outside the bar a man approaches me. He’s about my age, wearing an expensive suit and sporting an almost frighteningly white smile. He tells me he’s from South Africa, here studying English, and would like to take me out. When I politely decline, he just shrugs and insists that I at least let him pay my cab fare. He writes down his number, despite my protests, and presses it into my hand with a €20 bill. “The cab should only cost you €5, but buy yourself a drink.” He hails a cab and shakes my hand before disappearing into a bar across the street.
I overtip the cabbie to repay the universe for its strange generosity this evening and find my German tour buddy at a pub in the trendy, touristy district of Temple Bar. He’s met some other travelers, an Italian couple and another German man, and after buying me a pint he invites me to join them. We’re exchanging travel stories when I hear from behind me, in a lazy southern drawl, “What, that’s an American accent, isn’t it?” I turn around and find myself face to face with a massive woman with huge, hairsprayed, bottle-blond hair and hot pink lipstick. She’s wearing a shirt that reads “I Love Texas.” “Where ya from, darlin?” She’s clearly disappointed with my response (too far north, I assume), but nonetheless insists that I let her buy me a shot. She’s celebrating her 50th birthday and wants to do it “Irish style,” so she orders some hideous Bailey’s concoction and I suck it down against my better judgement.
I’ve had enough
I say goodnight to my friends and head toward the hostel, stopping for some fries at a greasy little place along the way. I’m planning on grabbing a cab once my path becomes deserted, but it never does. The city is alive. Every block in packed with young people, chattering and laughing as they move in herds from bar to bar. To the very door of my hostel, it feels as though I’ve never left the party. I settle into a couch in the lobby to enjoy my fries and call Levi, who is taking in the first pint of the evening in Denver. It’s been a great night.
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