gypsy tracks

a new home

2009-03-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

with my recent relocation to china comes my blog's relocation to my more permanent home on the web: http://www.meganeaves.com. from now on, you can read about my brand new life in china (again) at the brand new gypsytracks.

"wrong on so many levels"

2008-12-02T13:45:00.000-08:00

i must admit it. i LOVE anthony bourdain. lately i have been spending all my free, waking hours (of which there are surprisingly few) watching chopped up episodes of 'no reservations' on youtube. i fucking love it.

the man is slowly making his way up my list of heroes and people i would like to sit down with over a beer and a meal. he just has the right outlook on life, and beyond that, a fantastic turn of phrase. and well, let's face it - the man knows food.

in truth, i basically envy his job. he writes. he travels. he eats. and he gets paid to do all of those in an unendingly sarcastic tone and with a helluvalotta humour. where do i sign up? i've eaten weird stuff! remember all that bamboo back in anji? or how about the pork brain hot pot. or the scorpions!

the more episodes i watch, the more difficult i find it to choose a favourite. what about the one in japan where he eats himself out of house and home with twin comics that force him to do karaoke? or the one where he takes a boat into the jungles of borneo and is greeted with an axe for slaughtering a pig? the one i watched today was pretty good - he was running around uzbekistan with zamir, the crazy russian, and that brings me to the romania episode, in which zamir also featured, and also included a rather amusing incident with a bad tourist castle on halloween night.

bourdain just knows. he'll tell you to eat without fear, something that all people have trouble doing on some level. he approaches each culture he visits with a clean slate - no preconceived notions or tales of "well when i was in hong kong, they did it THIS way. screw you uzbekistanis."

so i will leave you with a quote and a link and encourage you all, if you haven't experienced the wonder of 'no reservations' to immediately drop what you are doing and spend the rest of your day on youtube.

and remember, if you're ever in iceland, "when packing a picnic, keep the booze on your person."

"Rachael Ray does to food what Hitler did to Poland." - AB

mom, me and 10 counties

2008-11-21T02:24:00.000-08:00

it seems like all the recent freelance writing i've been doing has begun to suck me dry of any possible topics to write about for this blog. i do tend to have these moments of inspiration where i come up with these great ideas that just have to be blogged about. but unfortunately, said moments generally occur at three possible times:

1) whilst riding dublin bus
2) whilst walking down o'connell st.
3) whilst grocery shopping

needless to say, not so conducive to pulling out the ole laptop and word-vomiting right then and there. i know i know, if i were a real writer, i would carry some sort of nerdy miniature notepad, into which i would quickly jot all of my ideas as they come to me, or worse yet, write the entire blog then and there. no, not me. i am too addicted to my technology for that.

it has gotten cold lately, as the dawn of my second winter in ireland finds me curiously satisfied and ill-at-ease, at the same time. one last moment of autumnal bliss was to be had while roaming around the country with my mom, when she visited for my graduation ceremony not two weeks ago (that's right folks, i'm degreed).

we managed to cross through 10 counties in 5 days - a feat that would have most irish people reeling. but we americans? we are drivers.

let's see, there was kildare, where we stopped to see the irish stud and ogle some handsome stallions.

then there was laois, which we passed through on the way to tipperary, where we stopped to admire the rock of cashel and buy cups of tea from middle-aged twins.

after that came cork, an overnight stop that proved heinous because of the bucketing rain, which led us to eat soup and dink pints in our hotel (not too bad).

next day, we set off through the rest of cork (with a brief stop at the ballymaloe house, where mom and the family visited in 1983 when i was nigh but two years of age) and around the ring of kerry before sidling into killarney for a night of bad tourist food, followed by a very good trad session in buckley's pub.

day three we left kerry and ravaged our way across county limerick as quickly as we could, with only a brief stop to get lost (and heebed out) in limerick city. not my favorite place. onward to clare where high winds greeted us at the cliffs of moher, while twilight fell over the burren. that night, we found out that doolin is more or less a crock of shit - no real irish music to be had there, but the hostel in lisdoonvarna was sublime anyway.

day four, we left clare and headed to galway where, as regular readers of this blog will note, my favorite part of all of ireland lies - connemara. after a brief stop for irish coffee and wool sweaters near killary fjord, we journeyed onward to kylemore abbey and clifden, after which a very shrill wind brought in dusk and eerie, magical colours over the rocky coast.

day five, i was hitting the roof, ready to be back in dublin (and out of the damn car). guess i'm turning a little irish after all.

click here for pictures of the mother-daughter journey:

Ireland with Mom

and here are a few long overdue photos from belgium:

Belgium 2008

and the pendulum swings...

2008-11-05T12:55:00.000-08:00

after emailing my vote in yesterday morning (irish time) and staying up 'til 1:30 am over a glass of wine to watch the states turn colours on CNN.com with bill, i woke this morning happy to see that we have a new president-elect, and it's not john mccain.

herein lies the end of my political dialogue. i have thought a lot about this today and decided that, although i have oft been loathful of my americanness in the past, there is no reason why today should be any different from any other day. the fact is that the united states is a divided country, and i stand one one side of the divide. this year, and for the succeeding 4, we will have a president and a state who lead the way i want them to lead (more or less). but there is no less history in any election before this one, as the pendulum swings left, so shall it again swing right sometime down the road. from kennedy to nixon and ford to reagan to bush, to clinton to bush to obama. every four or eight years, the same pattern has repeated itself since april 30, 1789, when george washington took office as the first president of the united states of america.

phew. it feels good to know we're not really making history, doesn't it? anyway, i think obama's cool and his name is fun to say and he doesn't have a personal collection of oil companies and bombs. plus!

in other news, bill and i recently embarked on a new life together as roommates in a very small basement apartment in rathmines. it's going very well. we also went to brussels (and bruges), despite the fact that we are actually poor.

for more news on my career as a groovy travel writer and high powered intercultural trainer, check out my real website...

http://www.meganeaves.com (the "lowdown" tab gets you news)

money or life?

2008-10-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

it's 6:47 pm. i am sitting in havana tapas bar on georges st. eating a spanish omlette and dousing myself with a glass of chilean cabernet, my third this evening. i've spent the greater part of the afternoon here, drinking wine and working on writing projects and generally pondering my recent decision to do freelance writing full-time. i am too broke to afford this meal; in fact, the mere buying of this meal may actually mean that i can't pay my rent on october 16, but i am not unhappy.

my latest forays into finding a "real" job in dublin have been unsuccessful three times over. the lowest point of recent times was actually applying as a checkout girl at Lidl. for those unfamiliar, Lidl is the european grocery equivalent of wal-mart - dirty, crowded and cheap with bad, VERY bad lighting. i actually become ill whenever i go into Lidl (which i do a lot recently to buy the cheap bread and €1 frozen pizzas that i'm currently living off of, spanish omlette aside) from the crowds and "ethnic smells" and general mayhem inside. (i can get away with saying "ethnic smells" because i am a degreed interculturalist now). what's worse? Lidl hasn't even called me back. i can't even get hired for Shit-Checkout-at-Bad-Immigrant-Grocery-Store-Job.

i love freelance writing. if i was really honest with myself, that is what i would want to do full-time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (okay maybe 8 hours a day, 5 days a week).

i do not love being broke. first of all, i am a wine drinker. i need wine to function (that might be a stretch) and my boyfriend is also a wine drinker. a good 13% of our conversations actually revolve around wine, and it's a good thing he actually has a paying salary because we like to go to wine bars and buy nice bottles of wine. often. being a wine drinker in dublin is not cheap, mind you. ireland is not a wine culture - people here prefer the pints. so, we spend a lot more money on wine than one would in italy or france or napa or even new mexico. but we like our wine.

i am also a traveler. the better part of my writing skill and inspiration come from traveling. being broke does not lend itself to traveling, either. i would kill to be in spain eating an actual spanish omlette right now, rather than the dublin, havana bar version of it (which is actually quite decent), but alas, i am not. at the moment, i could not afford a plane ticket off this rainy island if i wanted to. here again, i am lucky to have a boyfriend with a real salary who will gladly foot the bill to places like brussels, to where we are going in 2 weeks time.

there is also that pesky business of a residence-or-work visa hanging over my head. the other day, i spent nine (count them 9!) hours at the immigration bureau along with loads of africans and indian families with crying babies trying to get my student visa changed into an "i'm a desperate american looking for work" visa. after 9 hours, my number wasn't even called, so i gave up and went back 2 days later. now i've got 6 months until march 19 when i will be unceremoniously kicked to the fuckin' irish curb, if you get what i'm sayin'.

so, i'm optimistic! these things work out, right? seriously people - if you ever want a reality check and a blow to your dignity (not that you would???), i've got one word for ya: emigrate.

leprechaun in alabama?

2008-09-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

this really deserves it's own post.

i'm really not sure what my favourite part of this video was. the "amateur sketch" was certainly a highlight. i had to concur that the lady's conspiracy theory that the alleged leprechaun was actually just a misguided crackhead was probably pretty accurate, given that the event took place in the hood. but probably the best part was the guy in fatigues showing off his magic flute, passed down through 1000's of years from his great granddad.

"i want da gold. gimme da gold. i want da gold!"

excellent tv. excellent.

meganeaves.com

2008-09-13T00:59:00.000-07:00

who'd've thunk it, but i went and got a website.

http://www.meganeaves.com

what say you?

dissertation drain

2008-09-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

it's official. i now know more than anyone else that has ever lived on the subject of irish public discourse about the beijing olympics. i know statistics. i know numbers. i know opinions. i even know media coverage. obviously, i really could not have been happier to watch that thing take its short fall into the project drop box next to the main office in the school of applied languages and intercultural studies at dcu last monday afternoon.

in the week and a half since i submitted my dissertation, i have done several things. the first thing was to begin sorting out the end of my book, which i am still working on with hopes of having it to my publisher by the end of the month. if i haven't yet blogged about getting a publisher, apologies. like i said... dissertation drain, and all that.

the second thing i did was drink heavily, which was really no change from any given day during the writing of the dissertation except that the small nagging feeling of procrastinatory guilt had finally disappeared. it was replaced by pure emptiness, which was both relieving and slightly disconcerting.

the third thing i did was commence the inevitable freak out over being 27, jobless, penniless and threatened with deportation if i don't somehow come up with a brilliant, all-encompassing plan that will earn me at least enough money to pay my rent, buy bill dinner and a pint for ...well... everything, and last but not least, allow me to stay in this country. no small feat, let me tell you.

what have i done to try and counter this unending feeling of total fear and despair, you ask? hm. well, first i drank heavily and did that a few more times and kept doing it all the way up until, well, now. i also sent out about 3,486 CVs to just about any job i could see listed and several that weren't (so if i end up frying cod in the chipper or peddling chewing gum at the local SPAR, don't be surprised). i also had several very good sob sessions with just about anyone that would listen, including a very scared nigerian man on a bus in glasnevin. finally, just to edge up my confidence once more, i emailed "please take me under your wing" schpeels to at least 6 different phd programmes in the hopes that one might take pity on the poor yankee girl and let her stay.

where does all of this leave me? .... i have no bloody clue! if anyone knows of a job opening or possible phd programme or a pyramid scheme i might undertake or a militia i could join, just email me at desperatepostgraduate@noprospects.ie

to sum up: it is pouring down rain on this southside dublin day - a day in which bill and myself had planned to drive to the "sunny" southeast for a day of beach 'n' beer in waterford. shaping up to be more like brolly 'n' bed with wine at the guesthouse, instead.

2008-08-21T05:16:00.000-07:00

my wordle widget. these words are me.

what's wrong with america

2008-08-12T23:39:00.000-07:00

what's wrong with america? would you like to know... i bet you would. just watch this video - a perfect, perfect example of everything that is wrong with america and everything that keeps america's wrongness going...

(i know i know i know, it's been ages. i've been to the states and back since my last post.

Florida!

i've also been to the isle of man.

Isle of Man

and completed 1/3 of my dissertation, which is due next week. sometime soon, i will keep up with this thing. who knows, maybe i'll start now?)

sunshine! rainbows!

2008-06-04T08:14:00.001-07:00

like my cynical mood, the rain has been pleasantly absent from ireland recently. the past couple of weeks have been all sunshine, rainbows and tan lines. school is out which means the dissertation has begun, supposedly. in actuality, steaks, weekend drives and afternoon cheap cocktails in the backyard have been taking up most time.

the other day, bill and i were driving down the m50, dublin's largest motorway, on the way to powerscourt waterfall in wicklow. (see photo)

the m50 is kind of a physical incarnation of ireland itself. well, post-celtic tiger ireland, that is. brand spanking new, completely uneven, always under construction. it is the narrowest, most terrifying highway ever. potholes and road works barriers greet you at every bend. and there are a lot of bends. additionally, irish drivers love to speed and late-brake, and given that i'm already a terrible backseat driver, it's all i can do to keep my mouth shut when we are driving on this thing. the m50 doesn't really take you anywhere, and it does that in (perhaps slightly) less time than it would've taken to just drive through the city centre, and also with no guarantees that you will have any hair left at the end, or a beating heart for that matter. as the swearing lady aptly said, only in ireland could you have a motorway that goes nowhere.

i have also been thinking a lot (read: bitching) about grafton street. grafton street is dublin's major shopping district and it is a soley pedestrian thoroughfare, save for the flower carts and delivery trucks that arrive in early mornings.

i HATE grafton street.

there are never less than 200,000 people on that thing at any given time. the pedestrian congestion is worsened by the existence of street performers that set up shop all along the length of the road, sometimes drawing crowds of hundreds to watch them stand on pedestals made up like james joyce erected in cement or scary silvery clown guys, or to perform stupid human tricks to badly amplified music. i really hate this place.

grafton st.

the worst part about grafton street, though, is that no one knows where they are going. it's like where's waldo just to keep track of the friend walking next to you, thanks largely to the numerous clans of europeans that can't find their way, or irish teens that insist on walking twelve abreast while shouting at one another. my urban word of the day gave me one brilliant entry about a year ago that describes these people perfectly: meanderthals. and that is what they are.

but even my hatred of grafton street and death-defying experiences on the motorway can't damper my happiness in ireland. the country is fickle - on the days you think you are in love with ireland, the weather beats you to a pulp or you get inexplicably trapped between a busker crowd and HMV on grafton street... little reminders that you can have most of ireland, but you can't have it all.

hiberno-whata?

2008-05-08T05:20:00.000-07:00

the other day before we went to the cinema, i put my [insert word for bag that women carry here] into the [insert word for the storage compartment located at the back of the car], but took out my [insert word for a small foldable container for money, credit cards, and the like ] so that i would have cash and an ID on me to get the movie tickets. later, the following conversation ensued:

bill: it's a good thing you didn't forget your purse in the cinema.
me: but, how could i forget my purse in the cinema when i left it in the trunk of the car?
bill: no, you left your handbag in the boot and took your purse inside.
me: no, i left my purse in the trunk and took my wallet inside.
both of us: fits of giggle

the craziest part about dating someone that is not of your cultural background is the language barrier. it's totally unexpected. it's not like bill is some crazy culchie (read: country boy) from the backwoods of county cavan. he is a posh rathfarnhamer with a corresponding posh south dublin accent. but we seem to have developed an ongoing dialogue about what things are called and how they are pronounced and which one is better.

not to mention that, ever since china, i have been completely confused about the english language altogether. first i stopped saying bathrooms and particularly restrooms (that's SO american) in favour of wc, an antiquated phrase that chinese students love because it's so easy to remember. now i have given up wc in favour of toilets and generally save bathrooms for the times when i am actually going into a room that has a bath or shower in it.

and i still waffle between saying "tomAto" and "tomAHto" which totally gives away my confusion on the subject of irish vowels. and the real kicker is 'water'. i don't think i'll ever be able to give up the vocalised /d/ that americans are so fond of using in the middle of that word. it's such a giveaway. i drink wahder, that's all there is to it.

i was trying to explain to ann marie a few weeks ago how, in some ways, i feel like i'm on MORE of an upwards climb here in terms of language adaptation, only in that i am a) pigeon-holed into an accent, where non-native speakers would be able to alter their pronunciation more readily (i have a finnish classmate who's been in dublin for 7 years and sounds like she's from here) and b) i am stereotyped for my accent - it's just obvious where i'm from.

there have been a few incidents that upped my general feeling of linguistic competence. a taxi driver here and there who has been unable to pinpoint my heritage. an american friend visiting said i 'sounded irish' which i took as a big compliment, even though i know it's not true. i suppose the problem isn't sounding one way or the other, it's just simply that i can't decide WHAT i should sound like. i would hate to be that yank poser who 'went native' with the accent. *cringe*

it is a much longer process to realise the deep-seated cultural differences between myself and bill or ann marie (of which there are many, indeed), than it was to realise them in china. for obvious reasons. but at least more than occasionally now, i can be heard slinging around phrases like 'yer man' and 'what's the craic' and 'deadly' with some skill and ease. not to mention that all of my dry goods go in the press, not the cabinet. my mobile (not my cell) is charging on the nightstand, and guinness isn't beer, and that's an important distinction to make.

in belfast, fair city?

2008-04-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

it was for want of seeing one of my favourite american singer-songwriters, jonatha brooke, that i went to belfast for the second time in my life. even after the fact, i'm not sure why she played in the dark, hazy northern capital when she could've performed for an audience thrice the size (at least) in dublin, fair city... but i digress. (bear with me, as i'm currently working on my 3rd corona and lime whilst typing this).

i don't know if belfast has a catchy slogan or city motto, although it probably should from the way the city tour guide blatantly exaggerated it's economic boom during her bus-ride speech. it was the morning after bill & i listened to jonatha croon in the upstairs room of a local haunt-come-superpub on the ormeau road in one of belfast's southern-most nationalist neighborhoods (which becomes important in a minute).

here, it would be an apt time to interject that i've, occasionally, been asked by friends and acquaintances back in the U.S. of A. , whether ireland is a safe country. i always felt that was a question to be scoffed at, for even at the time when i first came to ireland (2003) it was never an issue, and locals in the "sunny south"ern republic would be the first to admit that (mostly) they've never been privy to much, if any of the violence that plagued the country for most of the mid-20th century, and divided the island in two.

i never do tour buses. but i was glad i did this one because, admittedly, it would still be difficult to get from one end of belfast to another unless you really knew where you were going. and running around with "southern" license plates certainly wouldn't make you any close friends in certain of belfast's neighborhoods (although it would probably beget blood brothers in others).

most telling are how close the streets are to one another. the shankhill road and the falls road, which run parallel to one another, were the primary sites of violence and sectarianism during the notorious Troubles. and i use the word "were" loosely here, as not much has really changed, aside from the erection of 20 foot tall corrugated fencing (running through literal backyards), unaptly named a "peace line," that keep the two areas visibly separated. evenings and weekends, the intersecting roads that bring the two together are forcefully cut off by locked gates, making it literally impossible for the two sides to interact in any way. if they can't see each other, they can't shoot each other, joked our tour guide. sure looks that way to me.

beyond that, murals depicting various levels of violence and clannish dogma (read riflers in black masks) still fill the peripheral views on each side of each of these roads - all empty wall space is overtaken by the so-called artwork of sectarian zealots. the tour guide was often unintentionally humorous, at one point scorning we naughty tourists for thinking this was a "religious war" and warning us to spread the word back home that "this was a conflict about politics", then resuming her memorised schpeel about protestant vs. catholic neighborhoods. i was unaware the catholic flag flew in green and orange and white.

nothing about this seemed peaceful to me. at best, it seemed frigid and sectarian. at worst, it seemed swept under the rug. how, after SO long and so little news media and such lack of violence, HOW can these so-called "peace lines" of bordered fence blocking still exist? it was enough to move me to furtive tears, mostly out of fear and shock that each day, people still wake up and take their morning coffee to views of green two-storey fences, quick reminders not to pull out the rifle and shoot across the street. and just 60 miles north of my home, no less.

i am so glad to live in dublin, fair city (times two), but i can't help feeling overwhelmed and quite simply scared for belfasters. if having a 24-hour supermarket marks the city's entrance to civility, perhaps we are all doomed on some level...

i didn't take photos in belfast.

spain fulfilled

2008-03-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

when i was 11 years old, a postcard came in the mail. it was from my cousin who, at that time, was travelling the world working as a dancer on a cruise ship (where can i get a gig like that?) which had apparently taken port in barcelona. for some reason, my cousin felt like spending her meandering day in barcelona by writing and sending me a postcard - addressed only to me, not my parents or anyone else.

dear megan,
barcelona is the most beautiful city ever...

it began.

i can trace my wanderlust back to the moment i laid eyes on the colourful overhanging plants that fell invitingly into the narrow laneway depicted on the front of that postcard. for me at that time, it was the most exotic place in the world. i swore in the days and years thereafter that spain would be the first on my list of international destinations to visit, which of course it wasn't.

so when i finally de-planed at girona airport about 40 miles north of barcelona a few weeks ago, it was like waking into a dream. a place i'd always thought i'd go and never had. a place i'd held in my collective imagining for so long.

trouncing around barcelona for 2 days in mid-march should be on anyone's list of things to do when spare time presents itself. relatively speaking, it's not an expensive country and barcelona is one of the more chic, artsy, relaxed cities i've ever been to. besides, who could resist those narrow, winding almost-roads that snake around through the ancient brick buildings in the oldest part of the city centre. not to mention, the mediterranean sea which, even in late winter, was inviting in it's demurity.

from barcelona, i hopped an overnight train to madrid, hoping to find a bit more spanish culture at it's purest. that's exactly what madrid is. although filled with tourists (mostly french and other western europeans), the city never seems ungenuine. the grand facades of bygone eras, grey and white and redbrick rise above wide avenidas, displaying statues of important historical figures on horseback that command passers-by from above.

the best thing to do in madrid is sit idly at cafes and drink sangria and bottles of regional white wine. really most of spain is good for that, but madrid's centralised climate lends itself to warmth and sunshine, though summertime must be a sweat-fest. it's a city with mountainous backdrops, tapas galore, glorious food, and lively spanish culture. all of that, and it still manages not to be a cliche.

a final stopover in frankfurt, designed mostly to take advantage of ryanair's 1cent flights, proved a shock to the system. not only was it snowing a blizzard when we touched down, but easter sunday in central germany is fairly closed-up. i did manage to get myself an original frankfurter sausage and some apfelwein, which i had to enjoy in the literally freezing weather. note to self and readers: germany is best enjoyed in the summer.

spain 2008

frankfurt 2008

look, ruins!!

2008-03-14T03:17:00.000-07:00

americans are obsessed with ruins. particularly the ruins of castles or churches or cemeteries, but really the ruins of anything will do. i discovered this over the weekend, when i rented a car with my crazy irish friend, ann marie, and our crazy american friend lamika. although it wasn't my first time driving through ireland, there was an air of freshness about this trip.

there are ruins dotted across ireland, so you can't really change gears without coming across some sort of delapidated castle or rotted out church. i find this to be a lovely and novel phenomenon and apparently i am not the only one. lamika, too, was fascinated by the ruins, much too ann marie's chagrin. she pointed out that americans are obsessed with ruins and that even her american cousins went nuts over them during their visit. americans lack the sense of historical grounding in our culture that other nationalities take for granted, which probably explains why we are so interested in things like ruins and old buildings and architecture that is more than 100 years old. the irish certainly take their ruins for granted.

the trip to galway was a not-altogether-impromptu girls weekend away - a much needed break from dublin and the chance to get out on the "open road" (aka small 2 lane highway with roundabouts every few kilometres) with some good tunes and lovely scenery. spending saturday winding about the tiny backwater byways of connemara only further confirmed what i have long suspected - connemara is my favourite place on earth. the silence and wind and bareness are striking in a warm way and, although you never feel particularly welcome in connemara, there is a still a lingering sense of belonging. along the way, we got sidetracked from the "main" tiny backwater byway which served as a lovely detour. stopping into the only grocery we'd seen for ages, we heard nothing but irish being spoken by the patrons and proprietor. a few minutes later, we halted the car on the roadside for the perfect sheep photo-op (an ireland must-do). the sheep must have thought lamika was christ returned because they came stampeding across the field toward her at top speed, barely stopping short of the low stone wall (which they could easily have jumped) and bah'ing at her with ears pricked.

the whole affair has got me wanting to learn irish. all public signs (including road signage) in ireland are bilingual in english and irish, so places (and people) all have two names. as the weekend wore on, i annoyed ann marie with a constant string of "how do you say that?" or trying my hand at pronunciation and failing miserably. it's a fairly fucked up language, but i am hooked.

other tidbits from my life of late:

- singing on stage in costume at dublin's largest gay club with my friend who does an alter-ego singing act called mr. moneypenny. i was liberty dollar. we were sandwiched between an ongoing bingo game and a drag show, so we had to change costumes and makeup with the drag queens bitching about their corsets.

- booking a holiday to spain (with a night in germany). i couldn't stand the idea of being in dublin for st. patrick's day madness (read: drunkeness, tourists, vomit, tourists, chip bags, parade, vomit). so, off i am to barcelona & madrid for 6 days during reading week.

- work on school projects (definitely a lesser part of my life hah), including a group project analysing how irish pub culture might be an important key for new immigrants to feel more cross-culturally adapted in ireland. aka, a reason to go out and drink guinness!

- work on chinese newspaper stuff, including some limited success selling advertisements (which i have fondly taken to calling adverts, it's just so english when you say it that way).

i think that is all for now, folks. check back next week for spain stuff. (SPAIN!)

february 2008

galway

windy and wet

2008-02-29T07:55:00.000-08:00

ireland is kind of a weird place. there seems to be a prevailing sense of time and arrangement in this country that makes everything just a little bit chaotic. punctuality is not a word that translates into hiberno-english and organisation doesn't roll off the irish tongue too often. a lot exists just under the surface of irish culture that is not readily visible until you spend a good enough amount of time here to see how things kind of ... don't work. except for that they do and that is the ultimate paradox about ireland

let's take the public transport system, for instance. ok way back in the 1800s, dublin had a rather high-tech, ahead-of-its-time tram system that went throughout the city. just at the time when most of the other countries in europe were beginning to develop their high-tech public transport systems, someone in ireland had the great idea that this tram was a waste of space and money. so they let the thing go and ceased to use it. now, 150 years later, they have reinstalled this high-tech tram which we fondly call the luas. unfortunately, the luas does not go anywhere that is at all necessary for me to ever even think of going, so i never take it.

there is also dublin bus, which is the biggest farse of public transport to hit the modern world. at almost every bus stop, there is a "timetable" (aka graffiti stand) listing the schedules of when each bus is meant to leave it's terminus and how long it takes between stops. what happens, in actuality, is that all the busses leave their termini at the exact same time, so that you are left standing with one shoulder to the wind and rain for at least 30 minutes until the time when ALL SEVEN BUSSES arrive to your stop.

oh, and we can't forget the so-called port tunnel disaster, wherein a bunch of dublin officials decided it would be a grand idea to build an under-harbour tunnel from the north to the south port dock areas in the interest of diverting excess industrial traffic and large tonne trucks away from the city centre. really a very good idea, as many irish ideas seem to be - in theory. the thing is, no one thought to measure the tunnel's width and height during the design OR construction process. so the result was an industrial traffic tunnel which was not physically large enough to accommodate the trucks it was purposely built to divert.

on a final note, i would like to share today's weather forecast with you. this forecast comes directly from met eireann, also known as the irish meteorological service.

Dublin
29 February 2008- updated at 13:00

Today

Windy and wet.

Tonight

Very windy early tonight, winds moderating later. Occasional showers.

Tomorrow

Becoming wet again during Saturday and windy later also.

and that, my friends, is ireland in a nutshell.

the long-awaited results

2008-02-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

it is 2:47 on the afternoon of thursday, february 14. valentine's day. SAINT valentine's day, as it were. i have just received my marks for semester 1, as DCU apparently keeps grades hostage for weeks, causing agony, insanity, and near rioting amongst most of its student body.

i passed all of my modules. my lowest grade was a 62% (60% is the pass mark) and my highest grade was a 70% - 70% is the pass mark for graduating with 1st class honours - aka top honors, summa cum laude, whatever you're familiar with. i still can't quite get my head around the irish grading system, but the point is that i passed, and even EXCELLED in one of my modules (definitely the best out of the three essays i wrote in the end, anyway).

additionally, i just sold my first booking of chinese ad space after 2 labourious months toiling away in this office, sending thousands of emails to limited or no response. finally, one has come through. now the chinese have reason to keep me working here for another while, thank god. although i am not making any money at this job (really), i am treating it as a very instructive intercultural internship. and it's a lead in to the marketing world, in which i am most interested.

finally, i have a date tonight. on valentine's day! shocking, to say the least. it is with a very nice handsome chap from south dublin that i've been out with a few times before. i can't believe how cliche i am.

films about joyce, 70% assessment marks, chinese adspace... i love ireland.

get your vote on

2008-02-04T06:29:00.000-08:00

i seem to be one of those people that manages to become part of very small, very unusual niche groups, probably due in large part to my rather unconventional upbringing and generally strange set of interests.

of course, the number of americans living abroad is not small. it's really rather massive, when you think about it. and ireland certainly is not a wasteland devoid of US citizens. i'd wager to bet (without having even the vaguest notion) that there are thousands of americans in dublin alone. even still, sometimes it feels like we are an invisible minority. where the chinese and polish and italian groups in ireland are obvious (mostly due to their culinary additions to irish culture), americans don't really tend to cluster. once, my chinese boss asked me where the "american bars" are in dublin... he wanted to know where americans go to socialise with other americans. i had to tell him honestly that i didn't know of such a place. the general mass of americans that you do see around ireland are drunken pub-crawlers on holiday. aside from about 4 friends i know at DCU, i rarely meet other americans who are actually living here.

there are all sorts of interesting considerations for people living abroad - usually just stuff you have to do that you would never even think of until you're in the midst of the situation itself. trying to open an aluminum can with a knife and chopsticks was one such activity when i was in china. in ireland, i've spent a lot of time sorting out bus routes, learning to drink heavily on tuesdays, always asking for "no mayo" on everything, and figuring out how to drive a right-hand drive car on the backroads of county clare.

this week's citizens abroad consideration: absentee voting. the more experienced expats who have weathered an election year abroad before already know the drill. but for those of us first-timers, they don't make it easy. thanks to votefromabroad.org, there is a lot of consolidated information available about how to vote and when the deadlines are, and they even provide you with a voter registration wizard. as for me, i have been abroad so long, i wasn't even sure where or IF i was registered to vote... so it has been a long and arduous task of figuring out how to register from abroad, how to request the absentee ballot, and when all these crazy deadlines are.

as it turns out, a group called 'americans abroad' are hosting global primaries with voting centres for all citizens. i suppose they are split into party groups, because it is with democrats abroad that i will be voting tomorrow for super tuesday. apparently, this method actually puts voters abroad into our own kind of state category, so that in the end, we may have more swing than our original home states would. of course, for the general election in november, we have to mail in the absentee ballot to our home states to be counted as part of the election.

what i find really cool is that, for the first time since i've been here, i will get to be out and about with some really well-informed, cultured americans who are living abroad. democrats who (hopefully) will be giving their support to obama - grin. i've never been part of something like this, but the weight of this election year combined with being out of the country makes it a special feeling. in all honesty, the irish seem to be more well-informed about the election than the american population at large probably is - a sad fact, really.

so tomorrow i get to cast my super tuesday vote for obama in o'neills pub on suffolk street in dublin, and i think that's really cool.

christmas, new years, and the little road trip that could

2008-01-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

christmas is over and we are well into a new year that promises to be at least as good as the last one. it's not starting out badly - christmas in the perfect irish home of a sweet dublin family, the lynches; plus new years spent with my best friend and roommates - a quiet evening in over champagne from france, twinkle lights, and soft conversation.

i am still not much closer to finishing my essays, which are about half done at the moment. i'm not worried, despite that all my classmates seem to be freaking out. i'm sure i can write a damn good enough essay in just a few days. as they say here... it'll be grand.

with kenneth here for some weeks, it seemed a good idea to rent a car and go for a little excursion out of the city. it would be well cheaper to simply rent a car than to bother with train or even bus tickets for two, and we both wanted a chance to get our hands on a little right-hand drive car anyway. much to ken's dismay, we got a hyundai getz - CLASSY to say the least - but it was small and maneuverable. actually, it had the worst turning radius of any car i've ever driven, including my grandfather's 1986 cadillac deville. but luckily we didn't have to flip a bitch to often, so we were good.

my first real experience on the road was trying to exit dublin on the M50, which is a "big" loop highway that encircles dublin, and missing the turn off for galway amongst the construction cones and lack of signage. we had to turn around and i kept telling kenneth not to talk to me and turn down the radio and look for signs, and getting confused as to where the turn signal was located.

finally, we made our way out onto the open road and all was well. driving in ireland is more or less a piece of cake if you can get used to the fact that the intersections are called junctions and they're all roundabouts that go the wrong way and every other vehicle you pass in oncoming traffic is a tractor. the number of tractors on irish highways is staggering. (HIGHWAYS people, not just little back roads, huge national highways). i could not get used to the seatbelt coming from the right and ken kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal, but otherwise we were more or less competent on the road.

the first stop was the cliffs of moher in county clare. we drove all the way across the country in about 4 hours, with stops and mostly along TINY county roads that were barely paved and definitely not big enough for two cars to pass each other. mostly i kept driving down the middle of the road and there were several exciting incidents where i nearly sideswept other vehicles on the RIGHT side for fear of hitting little stone walls or folliage or general mud on the left. it's still incredible to me that one can drive from the irish sea to the atlantic ocean coast to coast in less than the time it takes to watch all three of the back to the future movies. still, people here think it takes AGES and they get back aches and sciatica and any number of other ailments from being in a car for that long. ah, culture. by the end of the day, kenneth had named the car "gort" after a small town in county clare that we'd passed through earlier.

the cliffs are stoic and beautiful. i had visited them once before the first time i came to ireland, but nowadays things have changed. back then, there was a little ledge where you could get right up and crawl on your belly and look over. now they have installed this whole visitors centre and railings and all manner of "security measures" to keep the wind from blowing people right off the ledge. we took photos and jumped a fence to climb to the very top of the cliffs and watch the sun set. definitely one for the books.

we stayed the night in galway, one of my favourite irish towns for it's bohemian flair and laid back attitude. unfortunately, we got stuck in a hostel dorm room with Snoring Guy. and i swear, this guy snored ALL NIGHT. ken and i kept giggling and throwing things at him to no avail - another couple in the room tried unsuccessfully to shush him, and a third guy just laughed the entire night. when i saw him get up the next morning he was totally what you would expect a Snoring Guy to look like - long gross hair and a big nose and carrying a huge camera. he was like Gross Greasy European Snoring Photographer Guy. at one stage in the middle of the night, kenneth forced me to go down to the common room and play a game of chess (i had never played chess before but i learned that chess could put you to sleep in the most dire of circumstances, even if you are sharing a room with Gross Greasy European Snoring Photographer Guy).

day two was connemara and i am still never more convinced that connemara is like my favourite place on earth. it is so stark and barren and beautiful, and its beauty was that day compounded by a gentle overnight snow that blanketed the bare, brown hills in a fine layer of white icing. still, there is a warmth to connemara, even when it's frosty.

we drove right up the coast road, through clifden and up the centre of connemara to kylemore abbey, a gorgeous benedictine abbey situated on the edge of a tranquil lake, right below some of the most fantastically beautiful mountains in connemara. although the abbey was closed, we managed to get a few photos in the waning winter sunlight.

our overnight was spent at this hostel on killary fjord, a place i actually stayed once before when i was in ireland in 2006. although then the hostel was buzzing, this time around it was nearly vacant - we were two of 5 guests plus one attendant/caretaker/receptionist. the others were a swiss-french guy learning english and a couple - canadian girl and irish guy. we sat beside the fire in the hostel's bar and listened to the wind from the rough western water beat on the windows, and drank ciders and played guitar until we all more or less fell asleep in a lull through the night.

day three, kenneth decided he wanted to see belfast. now, i have always wanted to visit belfast, so i agreed thinking it would be a longish drive (all of FOUR WHOPPING HOURS OH MY GOD), but we pressed on anyway, up through the southerly part of county mayo and past sligo, into northern ireland. we stopped along the way to get a whole chicken from the supermarket and had a picnic overlooking these amazing green hills in sligo. it was more or less perfect, although the whole chicken made gort smell a little funny.

passing into northern ireland was strange. there were no markers or signage or ANYTHING to signal the change. it was little things like how the road became smoother and the asphalt was different and the font on the signs was slightly bigger and they said "give way" instead of "yield." and up until we got into belfast proper, everything seemed wealthier. i guess it is that lovely pound sterling, but it's amazing how you can just be driving and suddenly using one currency or another without warning! northern ireland did feel a lot more like britain, which is fitting since it IS britain. i don't know what i expected, but i just always had this dark, war-torn, poverty stricken image of the north, which was DULY changed once we got into n. ireland. there were these gorgeous manor homes which sat on rolling green hillsides and upmarket country towns with glittery twinkling lights and expensive shops lining well-groomed streets.

all of that lasted right up until we got into belfast. it turns out, belfast is crap. we arrived after dark (it gets dark at like 4:15 this time of year) and everything was closed. well, let's rewind. first, kenneth scoured the lonely planet for a place to stay, as we had not pre-booked anything. so, he finds this place called "the linen hostel" which is supposed to be decent enough and has parking and blah blah blah. so lonely planet says. lonely planet also said that belfast was a bustling town with trendy shops and a noisy nightlife. i ALWAYS KNEW that lonely planet was not to be trusted. china taught me that.

LONELY PLANET YOU LIE. belfast is NOT FUN. all the shops were closed. we drove right through the city centre and got lost like 4 times trying to find the street on which "linen hostel" was located. first of all, we should've known better. for one, the street was dark and dank and quiet and small. it was made seedier by a pub with a CAGE AROUND THE DOOR located JUST ACROSS from the "linen hostel", but we decided to press on since we had been driving around looking for the place for at least 30 minutes.

the first thing ken said inside the hostel was "hm, it smells like... chinese food." the room was gonna cost £13 for two people, reasonable enough. once again, we should have been tipped off by the fact that they were advertising rooms as "6 bed dorm" "8 bed dorm" "12 bed dorm" and then "large dorm." the vagueness of the phrase "large dorm" should've easily been an indication for things to come, but no. we just paid for it and went upstairs where we discovered about 300 beds, most of them looked like they were being LIVED IN, not just occupied for a few nights. laundry was hanging about. there was an old woman wearing a scarf on her head on one of the beds. she looked like she was about 82 and probably from romania or belgrade and she was coughing and wheezing. so we just threw our stuff down and left because the room smelled like feet and the rest of the place smelled like chinese food and eggs and we really did want to explore.

getting out into the streets, it was insane. NOTHING was open. there were no restaurants. no people. no life. just closed up shops and empty, wet streets. the city centre houses a beautiful city hall building and a ferris wheel which, juxtaposed, make for a stunning view right in the middle of belfast. too bad NO ONE WAS THERE to enjoy it. we walked for at least half an hour before we found ANY restaurant and we managed to get a good dinner for £22 which is insanely expensive, and later we both decided the food made us feel ill anyway.

we pondered our existence and shitness of belfast on the way back to the hostel in the rain. it was then that ken got up the gumption to say "hm, i mean... we could just.. go......." and trailed off like it was going to hurt my feelings. i was like "well, that is ok with me except you paid for the hostel and i don't want to waste the money."

please don't make me go back to the egg hostel, peg. i don't want to get tuberculosis!

we arrived back in dublin before 11 pm. i nearly cried for the sheer joy of seeing the lights of the beautiful, living city as it came into view over the horizon.

and that was the little road trip that could.

stay tuned for the continuing episodes... peg & ken do denmark.

road trip photos

dublin photos

sick sick sick

2007-12-18T01:50:00.000-08:00

in every place i've been, there are different accepted remedies for a cold. i've started to wonder if these remedies don't somehow reflect the cultures from which they originate. for instance, in the united states, we always say to eat chicken soup and drink orange juice. and its funny because, having grown up with this idea that chicken soup is a cure all - that is really all i want to eat when i'm sick. it's like this weird pavlovian craving.

in china, you're advised to avoid fish and eat more fruits and cold things. this is because, if you have a cold and you eat HOT things, it's too much of a shock to your system. also, it is completely normal to go and get an IV of fluids for the common cold. in fact, you will even see people roaming around on the streets holding up their IV bags with an umbrella!

i'm sure you can only guess what they recommend for a cold in ireland. just go on... take a guess. did you say alcohol? YES. hot whiskey. this is the single most commonly "prescribed" (by friends, relatives, and know-it-alls) remedy for a cold or the flu. since i've been sick (about a week now), i have had hot whiskey recommended to me about 5 times. i have also seen people taking hot whiskey for their colds!

so, i decided to give it a try. the problem is, i really really don't like whiskey. so, i've opted for irish coffees, which are coffee, whiskey, and cream. granted, the coffee probably undoes all the good that the whiskey is supposed to be doing, but at least i am getting the whiskey in the process right?

maybe not.

i really wish this illness would just GO. i've 3 massive essays to finish (2 not yet even started) and christmas is on the way. and then after that, kenneth coming to visit! wooooot!

someone pleeeeeease bring me some soup.

爱尔兰，我爱你

2007-12-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

ai er lan - wo ai ni. i love you ireland. it's a nice alliteration in chinese and i finally feel settled and homey here. like i'm not "abroad" anymore, but at home now. it's lovely. just lovely.

the weather is cold. even with rain, which normally warms things up, it's frigid. today is the first time it really feels like winter - mostly it's just been kind of a rainy extended autumn. not that i mind. but no, today the sun is out (for a grand total of 7 hours or so!) and the air is still and cold and icy. i love it when there's no wind. wind is the devil. it makes the rain come from the side and underneath.

i was hired by the chinese newspaper, which is awesome and terrifying. i am supposed to be the marketing manager, which means i have to sell ad space and sponsorship for events and everything else. i'm terrible at selling and i'm also terrifying of using the phone in ireland because i can't fucking understand people on the phone. i'm so amazed at these chinese people around me in work who use the phone all day to call up random strangers to do articles or sell things. it's crazy! how do they understand!

anyway, i love the work, although it's a bit strange. when i am in the office, it's like being in china. all the computers are a weird mishmash of random monitors and unmatched keyboards. a whiteboard with chinese characters scrawled messily in red and blue is on the door, and a huge display of gold lettered icons splays "shining emerald group" with characters across one wall. smells of the hot pot restaurant float up from the ground floor. everyone speaks mandarin and i am the only white person in the building.

so, when i walk outside at lunchtime, it's this very strange feeling of bombardment and confusion. suddenly everyone has an irish accent or speaks polish or french and they are all white and carrying huge bouquets of shopping bags. mariah carey belts out christmas songs from a nearby shopping centre and i can walk across the street for a shepherd's pie and a guinness at lunch. it's literally like a miniature, 45 second culture shock everyday and i love it.

school is winding down. i am writing a paper on mainland chinese people immigrating into hong kong and facing discrimination from hong kongers. i'll be writing another essay on being raised as a white minority in hispanic culture ("growing up gringa" is my kitchy title), and a third one on the intercultural workplace... no ideas for that yet, but maybe something about my new occupation as a minority in a chinese workplace.

that's more or less the news, friends. sorry, no photos this time 'round.

the saudi arabian, thanksgiving, and open mic night

2007-11-30T03:25:00.000-08:00

some weeks ago, we were given an assignment for our 'intercultural workplace' module, which was to choose a culture not our own and then act as someone from that culture in a mock human resources meeting. i choose to be a saudi arabian man named mr. aziz bin abdullah al-said. i went so far as to dress up in a saudi throbe with the head-gear and used a "middle eastern" accent the whole night. it was terribly fun and we all had a good laugh. most hilarious was seeing our demure, delicate moldovan classmate try to act mexican, our burly irishman from county clare trying to be korean, and cristina the spaniard attempting to be from australia.

i feel like i have passed a rite of passage this year, because i actually managed to host (successfully) a thanksgiving dinner at MY HOUSE. that is right people - i cooked! well, not all of it... i did set it up as a potluck, so some of the other friends brought dishes. however, I MADE THE TURKEY, and supervised the making of the mashed potatoes and the dressing. it was a little bit of a riot to try and do all of this in ireland, where turkey dinners are only eaten during christmas. but, i got a 14.5 lb turkey and actually cooked it with some "skill" (luck is more like it). in the end, about 10 people came over (mostly americans, a couple canadians, and one stray italian) and we all shared a lovely, far-away from home, college student thanksgiving meal.

pictures of the role play and thanksgiving:

thanksgiving

on another note, i've gotten involved with the music society at dcu, which runs a weekly open mic night at the campus bar (the "nubar"). the nubar is usually crammed with 18 year olds who can't hold their drink, mostly girls wearing daisy dukes (yes even in winter!) and ugg boots, and they constantly spill their drinks all over the place so that the floor remains sticky all the time.

however, on thursday nights, the nubar is transformed into a virtual livingroom where about 10 people show up, sometimes with guitars, and utilise the little stage to give impromptu performances. i met a chap named ciaran there the first night i went, and he turns out to be a singer with no instrument - perfect match! we started working some songs out together, mostly funny covers of boy bands and pop songs done kinda folksy - but it's been a real blast to be playing again.

this week, the music soc hosted a day-long songwriting workshop with some guys from balbriggan (that is a town to the north of dublin) who run a kind of music school. the dudes were good fun and brought in loads of gear. i was teamed up with a young girl called eleanor to write, arrange, and record a song in the span of about three hours. let me tell you, it is a little strange to meet someone, shake their hand, and go off and try to write a song together, knowing nothing about each other! we managed to pull it off and the song didn't even turn out half-bad. luckily, eleanor is a super soulful singer, and we even performed our little ditty (still nameless) at the open mic night afterwards.

pictures of open mic:

open mic nite

well, i have a job interview at a chinese newspaper later today, so wish me luck. i would be an advertising manager - essentially trying to get ads for the paper. it would certainly be different, but a great chance to work in a chinese environment and maybe brush up on my chinese skills, and also do some networking. here's hoping!!

(i fucking love living here.)

austria, hungary, and slovakia oh my!

2007-11-25T13:59:00.000-08:00

i'm a terrible blogger. it's true. last year in china, i had so much time on my hands. plus, it seems like weird shit was just a common occurrence in the prc. here in ireland, well, there is a lot of weird shit, too, but it's less obvious, more understated weird shit.

the trip to austria and hungary and slovakia was amazing. (warning, this is long)

AUSTRIA
in austria, i stayed with claudia, a fellow anji-er that i got to be friends with last year. believe me, a year together in anji will turn anybody into friends... but luckily claudia is an amazing person and loads of fun. it was a bit strange to see her "out of context"... we had spent so many odd, lonely nights getting drunk and making crepes with chinese ingredients and smoking cigarettes in the anji school, talking about all the things back home we missed. and suddenly, there she was, standing on the train platform in amstetten to greet me. talk about out of context.

i flew into salzburg and spent two days there. the thing was, it turns out that the day after halloween is all saints day, a fact i'm sure i'd always sort of vaguely known in some remote part of my trivia brain. however, in austria, all saints day is a proper bank holiday, and i happened to be flying in on that very day, which meant that salzburg was more or less a ghost town. but it was beautiful anyway, with autumn in full bloom - leaves in huge, golden piles around the parks, shadowy early evenings setting in over classical stone churches. pretty much exactly what you expect mozart's hometown to look like at the beginning of november. there was an unfortunate vomiting incident in the hostel during the night (not me, but a very very sad drunken australian), but otherwise i loved salzburg.

claudia lives halfway between salzburg and vienna, smack in the middle of northern central austria, in what is known as upper austria. she drove me (drove!) to vienna, where we stayed two nights with her very best friend and company in an amazing flat on the northwest side of the city. vienna was unspeakably beautiful and i fell in love there instantly, with the waning autumn and winter being ushered in by the setting up of christmas markets and holiday lights over karntnerstrasse. even full of tourists, the hofburg was beautiful and not overstated in it's grandiose. the morning was monopolised at the spanish riding school, where i managed to get a last-minute ticket to the morning exercises (though missed out on the tour of the stables, as it was all booked). don't get me wrong, these exercises are definitely staged for the audience - baroque viennese music is played and the riders are fully dressed in the SRS riding school attire. but the horses aren't faultless and neither are the riders, and it was amazing to see that even the world's finest horsemen have their bad days. my favorite part of the morning was the very end of the performance (after most of the less horsey-minded audience-goers lost their patience and left), when the riders brought out the youngsters, many still black or dark grey in youth... bright eyed and swat-tailed... nickering and spooking when illegal camera flashes glinted off the huge crystal chandeliers that hang above the school.

the rest of the austria trip was chilling with claudia in and around her hometown. we took one day to drive up and down the danube, stopping at castle ruins and heurigen (wine pubs run by individual family wineries). it was perfect, if not a little cold... one of the highlights was poking around a little village above which sits a castle ruin where, legend has it, king richard the lionheart was held prisoner and fought a hungry lion in the torture chamber, hence the nickname that stuck with him throughout history. i also spent one day wandering around linz, where claudia works, and got to meet her sister!

basically, i loved austria. the food was fantastic... claudia cooked and/or ordered me all manner of beautiful, heavy wintery foods like wienerschnitzel (this is NOT a hotdog people), würstel, leberkäse, and knödel... along with lovely austrian lagers... it was all a bit too good.

pictures of austria:

austria

HUNGARY

when i say hungary, i mean budapest. i didn't go anywhere else. time and money didn't permit. it's not far to get from vienna to budapest by train - only about 2.5 hours, and also not terribly expensive, considering you are crossing national boundaries. in addition to loving austria, i LOVED budapest. definitely did not spend enough time there, and it seems like a city i could live in if i really wanted to. it's this fascinating combination of old and new, east and west. for those of you that don't know much about budapest (as i certainly didn't before i went), it's broken into two halves by the danube river - one side is called buda (the old side where the government palaces are located) and one is called pest (the newer side where the fancy shopping districts are, etc). i stayed on the pest side in a fantastic little hostel located on the 3rd floor of a corner apartment building. the lofty ceilings and massive baroque windows were worth the walk from the other side of town.

i did a lot of cool things during the few days in budapest... met some girls from norway, a guy from england and another from australia... meandered through the palace (which is set on a hill overlooking the whole city) and down through the old parts of buda, walked around the hungarian parliament (one of the most fantastically ornate buildings i've ever seen in my life), ate goulash and indian food, and sampled hungarian wine. but, by far the most amazing thing i did in budapest was try a turkish bath house. now, there are a LOT of bath houses in budapest because the city is situated along a fault line with natural mineral springs. i wasn't really sure which one to try... so i just opted for the one that seemed cheap and easy-to-find. sometimes being a cheap, poor student has it's benefits, because i'm quite sure i never would have found this place if it weren't for those factors.

this bathhouse was built in the 1540s. and i'm pretty sure the insides had not been cleaned since then. basically, i went inside and tried to make myself known to the woman at the ticket counter, who understood very little english. i speak no hungarian. there were also no signs in english (always a good sign). i was equipped with a bathing suit and flip flops and money enough... what i wasn't equipped with was a towel. so... i had to "rent" a towel, finally making myself understood to the lady what i wanted by miming a towel drying motion on myself until she got it. i was led upstairs into a VERY old, dingy changing room that housed long rows of small changing stalls down each side. it was ladies only day, which meant i was immediately confronted by about 10 semi-obese old hungarian women wandering around stark naked and i suddenly felt VERY uncomfortable about the fact that i was covered up. strange. after "securely" locking my valuables and clothing in the "safe" changing stall, i went through several back corridors and down a darkened stairwell and found the baths.

as i said, i am pretty sure this bathhouse hadn't been cleaned since the 1540s when the turks first opened it. no no no... it's hot mineral water... it's "self sterilizing." the bathhouse is basically one large, circular domed room with two small side rooms - one containing a showering area and one containing a cold pool and sauna. the main pool was a large round pool in the middle, and there was an additional hot soak pool at 40 degrees centigrade off to one end. let me reiterate... this place was dank, dark... there was mold growing so thickly on the roof of this place that you could hardly glean any light trying to peek through the small lighting holes in the dome. the lamps situated around the length of the circular room were covered in mossy moldy greenish black goo. just as you found yourself relaxed in the pool, eyes closed, head leaned back against the side and drifting into relaxed bliss... a drip of moldy slimy dome-rain would descend from above and pelt you directly in the forehead, running in a slime trail down your scalp.

ok it wasn't that bad. but this place had serious character, something i actively seek out in my travel adventures, although it always seems to find you at times when you're just on about your merry way not LOOKING for odd things.

the bath was gorgeous and budapest was gorgeous too. when you walk down the street, you'll one minute be passing a huge old stone building, something very eastern ... abandoned and cracked windows with graffiti along one wall and a large gate overgrown with weeds... and right next to it will be a swanky wine bar with posh seats and low reddened lighting and jazz flowing into the street. it's fucking brilliant.

pictures of hungary:

hungary

SLOVAK REPUBLIC

as a grand finale, i hopped another train to bratislava, capital of the slovak republic - just 2 hours from budapest and only a short 60 minutes from vienna. what can you say about bratislava? well, first of all, it does not have the best reputation. for one, those slasher teen horror movies "hostel" were set in bratislava. also, the city was the sight of another teen movie, "eurotrip" where the gang accidentally get on the wrong bus trying to arrive in berlin, and inadvertently end up in bratislava, terrified about being in the dreaded "eastern europe!!"

there isn't MUCH in bratislava. i really convinced myself i might get there and find this great, eastern undiscovered gem... but no, there is really a reason no one has heard of bratislava. ain't nuthin there. the city has it's interesting charms... there is a nice, if not touristy, "old town" that has been well-restored. there is the danube (that freaking thing goes everywhere). and there are little side streets and places tourists don't go, where you can get a sense of life as it is in a re-burgeoning ex-soviet capital. but it's small and it's relatively poor. and you can seriously walk the entire circumference of the city in less than an afternoon. which is precisely what i did.

photos of slovak republic:

slovak republic

LONDON

on the way back, i was already flying through london via ryanair, so i stopped off for a couple days and stayed with a friend of mine from dublin who is temporarily working in london at the moment. he has a sweet company apartment and graciously put me up (and put up with me) for a couple days. it'd been a good few years since i was in london last, so i spent the first day (before meeting aidan) wandering around... i sat for several hours in trafalgar square and just took pictures and people-watched... probably the best people-watching spot in the whole world (besides tiananmen square). the next day, we went to hyde park hoping to see some cool shit going on at speaker's corner, but the best we got was some dude standing on a red lunchbox saying nothing at all. ah well. in the evening, i got to experience my first metal gig... the former members of black sabbath (minus ozzy) are now called heaven & hell... and aidan's a metalhead so he dragged me along to see the show, which i was pleasantly surprised to really really enjoy.

photos of london:

london

HOME

after all that, you cannot imagine how i nearly wept when the plane landed in dublin and i arrived to my lovely little house on carlingford road. i am so happy to live in this amazing place. this cheese brought to you by megan the wanderer, who maybe wants to settle down for awhile. good lord.

howth! (and all the pints thereafter)

2007-10-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

i am busy. i am a graduate student. i am an international student. i am the postgraduate, international class representative to the union council for the master of intercultural studies, and i'm also making room for a social life. this leaves very little room for sleep or outside activities, such as resting one's feet or shopping for food. i've taken to eating once per day. it's just logistical really - my courses are 5-8 pm, during the dinner hour, followed by pints (always) and then sleep. my waking hour is somewhere around 10 or half 10 (that's irish for 10:30), so basically the only meal i eat is lunch. actually, it turns out this isn't bad practice, because when you are talking about guinness, you really have to choose between eating a large dinner or having several pints. generally i am choosing a big lunch, a muffin or roll for dinner, followed by pints (especially on tuesdays, when they are cheap).

last week i had to give a presentation on "the culture of the united states." you can imagine how daunting that was, but it actually came off alright, and i did learn a lot. mostly i learned how much crap i actually do know about the united states, despite how much i may loathe or simply ignore it these days. and in the end, it was fun to teach everyone about road-tripping and tailgaiting and happy hour.

this week, i met up with two new friends - dasha from latvia and olga from moldova - for an outing in howth, which is a kind of island/peninsula/thing on the north east coast of dublin. it's really beautiful and quiet and upmarket, and there are pretty hills and cliffs and small roads that wind through the hills, which make you feel like you are out somewhere in rural western ireland, rather than a 20 minute train ride from the city centre. dasha works in a chippie and so got us some lovely cod & chips for lunch, and we spent the day walking and photographing and talking about our class and cultures and what we are going to do for the upcoming role play.

the upcoming role play is for our intercultural workplace module. we each chose a culture not our own to represent in a mock human resources meeting for a fake multi-national corporation in two weeks time. the idea is that we research the business practices and cultures of the country we'll be representing, and do our best to adhere to the cultural norms and ideals. i chose saudi arabia, and i'll have to be playing a man, because a saudi woman wouldn't be representing a large multinational human resources meeting. we even have to go so far as to dress in traditional garb! i am really excited.

i also took the girls to a chinese restaurant on parnell street, which is developing into dublin's chinatown, as it were. but we found a rather nice little quaint restaurant that, incidentally, has the same name as my favourite bar in anji - hao wan jiao. anyway, olga & dasha had never tried much chinese before, so we ordered the lot, and i found out they even have real chinese eggplant! the manager/owner was surprised and excited to find out i spoke chinese, and then gave me his namecard and insisted on showing me his downstairs area with private dining rooms and karaoke space. plans for a class outing rolling through the brain...

karine, my housemate, had two friends visiting from france this week. they were lovely girls (despite the fact that they accidentally locked me INSIDE the house one day, which was very confusing and i couldn't figure out how one could get locked IN, but apparently in ireland you can, and i ended up climbing out the window, which was also a very strange thing to be doing and i was quite sure some little old man would be walking by with his yorkie and call the gardaí, but i got lucky...), so on their last night in dublin, karine and i took them out to see some traditional irish music in one of the best pubs in dublin for music. it's one of those places i don't want to tell the name of, because it's already really well-known by the locals, and if it got overrun by tourists, it would be better off just closing shop altogether. anyway, it's one of those few pubs still in existence in dublin where the bartenders are family and the musicians don't use amplifiers and everyone crowds in and there are photos on the wall of everyone that's ever played there. and when the place gets crammed, you can't even hear the musicians unless you make an effort to stand RIGHT up front next to them (and they are just sitting on stools around a table anyway).... it's feckin brilliant and i intend to go back on a sunday afternoon, just so i can actually HEAR the music next time.

well, it feels like loads has happened, but actually hasn't come out that way - aside from the crawling out the window incident, which was quite an adventure. tomorrow evening i'm hosting an all-american halloween "fancy dress" (aka costume) party, and thursday i leave for austria/hungary/slovakia!

howth

the ghetto tesco

2007-10-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

i am sitting in my bedroom, working on a bottle of the world's worst malbec/shiraz mix (why did i buy that?) and thinking about how it's getting cold outside. there is a predicted frost tonight... the irish like to muse and predict and make plans with no follow through. or so it seems. and such will be the case with tonight's aforementioned supposed frost. 2 days ago i was in a t-shirt.

there is a grocery store just down the road from where i live - it's "tesco" which is the main grocery chain in ireland. but this has got to be, to borrow an americanism, the MOST GHETTO tesco in dublin! and by that, i mean it is the most ghetto tesco on EARTH. first of all, the tesco is small... as in, tiny. as in, always strapped for spaces with queues (lines) at all 4 registers. additionally, this tesco is NEVER stocked. whenever i have gone in, they are always restocking. every single time. boxes strewn about, half open, and grimy disgruntled workers ambling around without purpose. it's horrifying. also, the produce in this tesco is unspeakable. even the ORANGES are frightening and i find myself wanting to buy frozen vegetables in lieu of getting some horrific strain of mold or god-knows-what off the "fresh" produce. never buy Ghetto Tesco Fresh Produce.

this tesco also sells chilled, pre-packaged meats and goods... things like pre-prepared stuffed chicken kiev or tandoori or bake-at-home pizzas. the thing is, i swear these are like "seconds" of the products they sell at normal tescos. these are the chicken kievs that didn't sell in the main store on henry street and they have sent them out, past date, to the ghetto drumcondra tesco because they know the st. patricks college and dcu students will buy ANYTHING for €3.99, particularly something pre-prepared.

i have been shopping at this tesco for the simple reason that it is close by and i am lazy. i do not feel like taking a damn bus into town and hauling my groceries home from fucking o'connell street... that is a long-ass hike. the ghetto tesco is absurdly convenient, which explains why it is constantly restocking and why it is so ghetto to begin with.

but i have begun to notice some things. now, i can't tell you exactly if this has to do with irish culture in general or just the ghetto tesco, and i will have to do further research to examine the real cultural norms behind this. but here are some observations i have made about grocery shopping based on my experience over the past month.

*take your own, reusable, enviro-friendly shopping bags, because they ain't no friggin bags!. yes, it's good. people are conscientious. they don't waste. plastic bags are a waste. it's easy to bring your own.

*don't look for pickles. there are no pickles. if you are lucky and happen into ghetto tesco on a not-too-busy-stocking day, you might find ONE jar of sandwich slice dills. but don't go looking for pickles, they ain't none.

*there seems to be a need for mayonnaise. i am talking every kind, type, genre, brand, and size possible. they have got LOADS of mayonnaise here. imagine what the salsa section of your average albuquerque smith's looks like... yeah, THAT'S how much mayo they have. no, scratch that -- they have replaced all the fucking pickles with mayonnaise. i would kill for a pickle right now.

*beef is ex.pen.sive. also, if you are looking for "ground beef" it will be labeled "minced beef" and so will every other type of "ground" anything.

*chips/crisps/chips - now this is only peripherally related to the ghetto tesco. but, generally in ireland, french fries are chips and chips are crisps and cookies are biscuits, except in the case of tortilla chips, which are in fact called tortilla chips. except that you can't find them anywhere, especially at the ghetto tesco.

*there is this BRILLIANT cheese called "wexford cheese"-- i think it's made in WEXFORD ha! -- that is the best cheese i've found in ireland. it's hard and crumbling white cheddar with those little crunchy bits every-so-often. there is a man on the front of the package wearing a wool beanie cap and a big gap-toothed smile that makes me believe this cheese is more authentic. ghetto tesco sells this cheese for 2-for-1. i love this.

*bread. people in ireland eat WHITE BREAD. correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think anyone has eaten white bread in the united states since like 1983! but seriously, the amount of white bread available in the ghetto tesco compared with other types of bread available... it's just staggering.

*speaking of other types of bread, the irish have this stuff called soda bread. i have no idea how it's made exactly, but it's thick and mealy and the loaves are flat and short and thick. it's kind of dark and wheatish and it's so amazing to eat with butter and jam in the mornings. except that the bread is too short and gets lost in the toaster and you have to fish it out with a knife, which is dangerous.

*you also have to store your bread in the refrigerator because, apparently in wet climates, bread gets mold in like 2 days!

to close, i would like to tell a story. the other day, i was visiting my local off-license, aka liquor store. i like this off-license because the man who owns it is irish and he obviously has owned it for ages and he knows a lot about wine, and i often pick his brain about the bottles of wine before i buy them. he also has a good selection and good prices, and i like to support that, rather than ghetto tesco which gets wine packaged especially for tesco and marked "TESCO MERLOT" which scares the bejesus out of me. anyway... ...... the other day, as i was leaving, i noticed on the door of the off-license a sign advertising sunday mass at the local drumcondra parish church. so i thought to myself...

only in ireland would you meet the prime minister in a pub and find church ads on liquor store windows.