Off We Went to London Town

Much time has gone by between last post and this! Where have I been, you may ask?

Indeed, Jimmy. Indeed.

I have (or, rather, had) gone to England.

This harebrained scheme grew out of a late-night facebook conversation with my dear friend Sarah, who came to visit me for twelve whole days over the past couple of weeks. We were plotting our itinerary for said twelve days when I made mention of the Sherlock Holmes museum in London (both of us are pitifully fanatical about Sherlock Holmes) and no more than an hour later I had plane tickets booked, hostels in the queue, and was preparing for five days of tally ho, jolly good show Britishness.

Since a mere five days to absorb all that one of the world’s capitols has to offer is not what I would call ample time, we tried our best to cram ALL THE THINGS into our trip with limited success. While we accomplished much and saw enough to leave me awestruck, there’s so much to tell that I can only do so effectively by listing my top ten London observations.

 

They are as follows:

1.      One thing that is ubiquitous in London is history- ergo, I was pretty much having a field day the whole time. We made it to any number of museums and galleries and saw dozens more from the outside. Just looking at the buildings in almost every part of London proper gave me the gaping gasps in a big way, as almost every one is covered with columns, engraving, loggias and porticoes that tickle my love of grand architecture. There is (again) a fabulous mix of stately old palaces and offices of state alongside such minimalist wonders as the glass-plated Gherkin and Shard skyscrapers. Old churches next to modern apartment complexes- delightful. You can bet your britches that every single prominent house, street, church, or palace has been written about by some notable person. Tower Bridge and the Tower of London were our most touristy outings of a historical nature. The Bridge was breathtaking, and did not fall down. 

Wouldn't be the Tower of London without fatty crows.

      The Tower, however, was downright disappointing, for its historical nature was almost entirely obliterated by the droves of tourists ambling through and the concessions made to suit them. One easily forgets that this Tower was home to scores of prisoners, the site of various executions and political intrigues, when these facts are presented in terms befitting a class of second graders and not a pair of academic, empirically-inclined twenty-somethings. The Sherlock Holmes museum was, alas, much the same. We expected an informative homage to the greatest serialized adventure of all time and instead were greeted by a Victorian house populated by frightening mannequins and the presumed possessions of two Victorian bachelors. The museum crowded tableaux of Sherlock’s greatest hits (usually villains in death throes) into rooms already full of objects that might have belonged to the Great Detective, and offered little to no fascination for two passionate Sherlockians. The best parts were the gift shop (which was quite breathtaking, actually) and the handsome constable man who took tickets at the door. His accent was impeccable.  

Truly shameless

2.      Something that the city of London pioneered and still does well by today are its parks. 

      They are positively lovely and afford the perfect place to have a sit and drink Ribenas after a long walk, or further take a constitutional walk, or hunt out cool statues hidden in the trees, or people-watch. I got to see Regent’s and Hyde park and Kensington Gardens, all of which were shown off particularly well by the splendid weather that smiled down upon our visit. They are all brilliant places to take a rest from the rush of the rest of London, and much appreciated by this weary traveler.

3.      One awesome highlight of this trip was meeting my wonderful third cousin Ami, who Sarah and I met for lunch and cupcakes in Covent garden. She not only gave us some welcome pointers for the London experience but also gave me exceedingly wise advice on studying abroad- notably, take risks! You, blog readers, must now hold me to this vow of risk-taking bold-making adventure. 

4.      My favorite attraction in all of London was the National Gallery, which was so nice we saw it twice. Located in Trafalgar square and fronted by a gorgeous row of Corinthian columns (my favorites), it’s the gallery that houses pretty much every famous painting you might care to think of (except those in the Louvre, which is most of them, but I digress. Simply put, if it’s old and famous and not in the Louvre, or in Florence, it’s most likely in the National Gallery). Monet’s Waterlillies? Got it. Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Wedding? Check. Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks? Yup. Madonnas by just about everybody who ever got paid to hold a paintbrush? Uh-huh. It’s got Holbein, Hogarth, and Stubbs and his ridiculous life-size horse swag portrait. My favorite was the entire room devoted to spectacular Turners, Gainsboroughs, and Constables, all landscapes painted on a grand scale. My favorite happens to be the Fighting Temeraire, for obvious reasons (other than the awe-inspiring quality of the light. Don’t get me started on that. I loaded up with a preposterous amount of Fighting Temeraire swag from the gift shop). Consequently, in the latest James Bond movie (Skyfall!), which we happened to see in Leicester square to rest our weary feet, Bond receives his gadgets from Q during a stealthy handoff in front of- you guessed it- the Fighting Temeraire. They even have a barbed discussion of its merits. At the time of our Skyfall-watching, I had literally been ogling that same painting no more than two hours before.

I am James Bond.

  

5.      This being London, there was a ridiculous amount of shopping to be had. We got to experience both highs (see: Harrod’s) and lows (Portobello Road!) of buying and selling and, while I can count on one hand the number of things I bought, I will freely admit to loving the experience of it all. Usually I’m about as tightfisted as a Puritan spinster, but haggling with a snaggletoothed peddler of antique jewelry in Notting Hill or being waited upon like a duchess by the assistants in Harrod’s just makes shopping so much better. Furthermore, London really knows how to put on a show; its window displays and interior store design alone blow every other place to buy things out of the water.

6.      I have had limited experience with mass public transit in my young life, and London marked my first time singlehandedly navigating a subway. Despite some rough patches locating the far-flung locality of Finsbury Park, I eventually got the hang of the city’s network of tubes and buses, and enjoyed the challenge of finding my way from one end of London to the other on a budget. Travel passes, it should be noted, are indispensible.

So majestic

7.      In Cork, there’s at least one pub on every corner. The London equivalent of Corkonian pubs are monuments. The things are every bloomin’ where. 

At first I was extremely excited whenever I saw a monument and photographed it at length, but soon discovered that they’re a dime a dozen. Heck, even George Washington, great enemy of the British crown, has a statue on St. Martin’s place. This being said, when one monument stands out among the rest, you know that it’s special. Take Trafalgar square, which is one massive memorial to the incomparable Vice Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson. The man revolutionized naval warfare and died an epic death for his country, and this country has, in eternal thanks, placed him on a pillar to nobly survey the land he saved from French invasion (if you read the sensationalist sources). This pillar is surrounded by iron friezes of his most dashing moments, and these moments are surrounded by massive metal lions, which guard an even more massive fountain. THAT, my friends, is a monument.  

"With Nelson, you felt your heart glow" NAME THAT MOVIE

8.      London is such a prominent facet of popular and cultured culture that it gave me pleasant thrills to recognize certain buildings, streets, and squares that crop up everywhere from the painfully nineties music videos played nonstop in the hostel’s common room to my favorite books by G.K. Chesterton. Around every corner was something familiar, even though it was my first time getting anywhere near London town, and it was immensely gratifying to be able to recognize places where I had been myself during and after the trip. London is such a fixture of modern life that it was almost familiar in spite of its twisty streets and immense network of buses and trains and taxis. Tres cool.  

9.      While it was not one of the most fascinating bits of London we saw, I will put in a good word for the Arsenal Tavern Hostel and, by association, hostels in general. It was my first time staying at such a place of repose, and despite its faults I give this hostel a solid recommendation. The staff was above and beyond the necessary level of friendliness, most of the other tenants were lovely people, and sleeping in a shared dorm wasn’t bad at all- in fact, most everything about the hostel reminded me (somewhat comfortingly) of a fraternity house. I have now had a solid four nights’ rest in a hostel setting and have not only lived to tell the tale but am quite ready to do it again. Our part of town (Finsbury park/Arsenal) was regrettably seedy, but there is a time and a place for the underbelly and this was apparently it.

10.  I could quote at you with passages from any number of wise sources proclaiming that travel is the most effective of panaceas (<you thought that word was ‘Pancreas’ when you first read it, didn’t you?), that experiencing the new and the fresh and the diverse is a balm for the soul and clear lens for the eyes. I could do this, but I won’t, and instead breathe a big sigh (having nearly finished this verbose summary of events) and say this: London was overwhelmingly splendid. Our five-ish days provided just the right amount of crowds, monuments, tubes, and spectacular sights to make this girl a London fan. I’m already making plans for a return trip in April!

Other random highlights are as follows:

- Having lunch in a crypt, as seen above.

- Actually finding a memorial to the souls of a thousand drowned sailors (or twenty-four thousand, in this case, as seen below), hearkening back to last post's experience of "Undertow:"

        -Being told by the hostel front desk man that I look English and act British-Canadian (?)

       (of all the random nationalities to be mistaken for, I really can't fathom where this one came from)

 

- Seeing the City (capitalized) with an awesome friend and being photographed by random passersby

- And, lastly, experiencing so many people and cultures and languages and manners of walking all over the sidewalk and on both sides of staircases and food and sight and sounds and sdf;hga;gh'aishf'h I'm done. Can't write no more on London. 

Until next post then, I remain,

You humble servant,

KB  

Back on the Wagon

Another post so soon (you might ask yourself)? Yes, yes indeed, for there is nothing so conducive to blog-writing as the presence of four papers on my desktop that are only collectively 55% written. Next week all four of them are due, and procrastinating their conclusion is now my chief pastime during writing hours. Alackaday.

I shall procrastinate, therefore, with a summary of this past weekend, one that I will admit did not even come close to equaling the beauty of the last one. But I feel that it is important to have mediocre weekends every now and again to put into perspective just how amazing the great ones really are. If every weekend was sunny and splendid and full of nice adventures that did not make one ill, I would become suspicious and be ever waiting for some calamity to smite me to balance things out.

This Saturday was spent on an excursion to the Dingle peninsula with four of my friends. Sounds utterly brilliant, right?

There was (of course) a catch, and that catch was… a PADDYWAGON.

Now if you are at all familiar with the Irish tourism industry you will be cringing, saying to yourself, “Self, I thought that Kaylie Borden had too much pride to take a Paddywagon!” If you are not so familiar with the Irish tourism industry, you will be looking at your screen, bemused, asking yourself, “Self, what is a Paddywagon?”

A Paddywagon, for those of you unaware, is a large, green eyesore of a bus, shockingly bright with the logo of a laughing leprechaun and/or sheep emblazoned upon the side, a logo that offends my (completely non-Irish) heritage and sensibilities; these buses are notoriously touristy, the sort of vehicle that will elicit judgmental stares from any locals/students/discerning tourists in its vicinity. Paddywagons are objects of scorn, the sort of moneymaking enterprise that even cash-strapped Ireland is not super enthused about.

These buses take groups of photo-snapping, thoroughfare-blocking, jaywalking tourists around the Emerald Isle’s highways and byways, bringing both liquid capital and an opportunity to laugh at a spectacle to the towns through which they pass. On the upside, they’re a fairly affordable way to see the country.

“Affordable” was the key word when my friends and I were looking for a one-day diversion, one that would allow us ample weekend time to write papers (of which, I have mentioned, I have four). While the humiliation of being seen on a Paddywagon was not attractive, a cheap trip to the Dingle peninsula was, so we took the lime-green air-freshened horn-hooting bait.

We met at the tourism office in Cork at the crack of dawn and proceeded to board the wagon and go cruising off for Killarney, which you may remember being briefly mentioned in previous posts. Killarney is a tourist’s paradise, and we were given an hour to peruse its merchandise. I successfully found both a cup of coffee so strong that it was practically viscous and a sale on Aran sweaters, one of which I have always pined for. They typically run anywhere from eighty to four hundred euro, presumably based on the temperament of the sheep they were cut from. Mine was a clearance item and I got it for peanuts. While it is technically a man’s sweater, I think it is dashing, so

We then switched from the full-size Paddywagon to a smaller model; as the driver said, “We’ve just a little van, like, we can go nipping ‘round so.” Have I yet mentioned that one of the hallmarks of Cork lingo is to add “so” to the end of every sentence? I find it endlessly endearing, and have started using it myself subconsciously so. This van-driver man was a great fist for using “so,” which made his depressing history spiel sound nicer than it would normally. “There was a great famine and one million people died, so” sounds far better than “There was a great famine and one million people died;” the ‘so’ makes it sounds like they’re breaking it to you easy, making things gentle and kind where they would be rather harsh otherwise.

This van went nipping on to the town of Dingle so, after a stop to see a parasailer at Inch Beach, and we got some smashing views of misty ocean and peaceful seaside villages. Dingle is known for two things, these being A) The fact that it was the setting for the recent rom-com “Leap Year” and B) Its famous dolphin, Fungie. Besides that, a February day finds it quiet and gray and smelling (not unpleasantly) of fish. Fungie the dolphin wasn’t out and about on account of a drizzle, but we were able to walk around, see the town, and get some delicious sandwiches and tea at a cute little pub. It had tall ships in its stained glass windows and a roaring fire. Delightful.

As a consolation prize for those who are not granted the pleasure of seeing Fungie the Dingle dolphin during their visit, a statue of Fungie has been built so that tourists can get their picture riding a dolphin. So I rode Fungie for a picture.

We ride at dawn

There was also a slightly more macabre statue titled simply “Undertow;” no explanation was given. I have decided that it is a monument to the souls of a thousand drowned sailors.

And besides lunch and Fungie and Undertow, we didn’t have time to see or do anything else in Dingle. The bus driver waited for the scattered Paddywagoners to assemble and then we went tearing off once more.

Now it is time for me to complain. If you are having a brilliant day and would not like to hear whining, do proceed on a few paragraphs.

The next four hours were spent careening around tight bends and one-lane motorways, with five-minute photo stops at various promontories. This would not have been so bad but for my poor stomach, which rebelled against the idea of sitting in a windowless van and being pitched from side to side with no horizon line to follow. The sensation was much like being below the waterline on a boat out at sea- one’s body has no idea what is going on and thus it does the only logical thing: it rejects what was last put into it.

Every photo stop saw me bolting from the Paddywagon like a bat out of hell, already inhaling huge gulps of cold ocean air and staggering around like Michael Russell himself. I would snap a few halfhearted photos and try to set my inner gyroscope to rights before being hustled back on the wagon to resume our journey.

It was unpleasant.

To make matters alternately better and worse, the driver played a selection of contemporary Irish songs for the passengers. Most were the sort that any American with a St. Patrick’s Day Pandora station would have a passing acquaintance with, with the more famous Pogues, Flogging Molly, and Cranberries songs featuring prominently. This was just fine; in fact, I adore the Pogues to no end. The problem arose when the driver consistently stopped each song halfway through to deliver some banal factoid about the EU’s road-building policies or generational draining from the countryside. After delivering his information he would skip around on his ipod for a minute or two before deciding on another song. It would be played halfway through before he stopped it again, never to finish “Dirty Old Town” or “Black Velvet Band” or whatever had been previously distracting my poor, nauseous mind.

What worried and angered me the most was the fact that he only let the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” widely known as the most famous ballad to come out of Ireland, get a few bars in before cutting in with an ill-timed leprechaun joke, never to return to find out what the old man in the drunk tank sang.

The bus driver interrupted Shane MacGowan, lead singer of the Pogues, for a leprechaun joke.

A leprechaun joke, for the love of all that is good.

I would never do that, not because of my love for the Pogues, or my love for “Fairytale of New York,” or even for my aversion to leprechaun jokes. No, the reason I would at all costs avoid interrupting “Fairytale of New York” would be fear. The Pogues are a hard-core, intense, punks-with-accordions boot-wearing fifth-swigging band of rogues with rap sheets and a history of minor felonies. I would fear for my safety if Shane MacGowan ever found out that I would be so bold as to interrupt one of his songs… for a leprechaun joke. What if tried to bite you? 

Dangerous teeth on a dangerous man

(this was what was running through my woozy mind as we tore around the Dingle peninsula).

At any rate, I was able to hold out until Killarney without losing my lunch, although I will freely admit that it was a struggle. We had a good half hour to remedy our various ills in Killarney (I bought myself some mineral water and mint gum, to calm my nerves) before trading back to the full-sized bus and making the final push for Cork.

I realized as we drove that I had accomplished a few things that day:

1.      I bought a man sweater

2.      I rode a dolphin… statue

3.      I did not throw up

4.      …?

This is not, in my opinion, the idea of a weekend well spent. Being rushed from one Irish town to the next in a deathtrap Paddywagon van, and having to pay for it, is not necessarily my idea of fun. When I thought of all the cool things I might have done instead with those twelve hours, my blood boiled just a touch.      

At last we made it home and stumbled back to Leeside in a lovely, cool rainstorm. In summary, I do not regret my ride on the Paddywagon, per se, but most likely would not do it again, unless pressed to do so.  

Further Explorations of Kerryland

The time has come to speak of the second half of the expedition to Kerry!

I will begin just where I left off, which was up at the top of Valentia island.

I was pretty much euphoric the entire time. In hindsight, some of it probably had to do with the amount of sun I was being exposed to. We have sun in Cork in fleeting patches, but it’s usually not particularly dependable or warming. On the one mild, sunny day we’ve had so far I went on a five-mile run in the sketchy part of the city and was high on life from start to finish. I thought that everything was wonderful and charming and brilliant and quaint, but when I was gushing about how cute West Sunday’s Well was to some locals they were aghast and warned me to never run there again unaccompanied by a burly man for protection. I submit that they exaggerate. But I digress. Basically, my sudden vitamin D exposure last Saturday was like a double shot of espresso and rainbows and shiny things and all that is good.   

Just like that picture on the last post, but this time in shirtsleeves!

We took a detour from the main trail to see the Fogher cliffs (not to be confused with the (slightly) more famous Cliffs of Moher), which included an informational plaque telling of how John Paul Jones, Father of the American Navy, was anchored off Valentia during a calm with some impressed (and by this the plaque refers to sailors being forcibly Shanghaied into the Navy, not being filled with a sense of admiration, for that is the other sort of impressed) Irish sailors aboard. Jones ordered a boatload of men to attempt to tow his ship, the Bonhomme Richard, from where they were becalmed off the Skelligs until wind could be found. The clever Irish press gang volunteered to row but, under cover of darkness, cut the hawser (hawser = rope) and made for Valentia in a thick fog. They also took some gold with them and lived happily ever after, and Jones and the Bonhomme Richard went on to win an astonishing naval battle against a brand-spankin’-new British ship and Jones uttered the immortal quote I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT. Which was said as his ship was sinking beneath him. And that is just awesome.

So the story had a happy ending for everyone, except the Bonhomme Richard, but I suppose it lives on in legend and all that.

Unfortunately Jones died abroad after serving in the Russian navy and his body was pickled for the long voyage back to America, and was transported there on a ship called… the Pickle. I do not lie. You can’t make this stuff up.*

But again I digress.

At any rate, all of this John Paul Jones business made me even more excited about everything, because JOHN PAUL JONES and that is why. By the time we got to the bottom of the (quote, unquote) mountain I was having simply the best. Day. Ever.

Now, you’ve been hearing about the Skelligs for quite some time without having a proper explanation from me. Now is the time for that explanation which you are owed because on our way back to the hotel for lunch we stopped at the Skellig Experience, an interpretive center with a peet bog roof.

Called colloquially Big Skellig and Little Skellig, the entities to which I refer are the two large monoliths visible in a fair percentage of my photos in the last post. They are pictured again here for your convenience:

These two rocks lie approximately twelve miles out in the Atlantic ocean. Little Skellig is the second most populous breeding ground for Gannets, which are fascinating seabirds that double-team with pods of dolphins to catch fish (more on that later). Big Skellig is crowned with the remains of a sixth-century monastery hewn from solid rock by a group that must have been made of the most intrepid monks in all of human memory.

This monastery, Skellig Michael (the proper name for Big Skellig), is what caught my attention. Imagine a group of no more than a dozen monks rowing twelve miles into a stormy sea to chip three (count ‘em, THREE) winding stone staircases from a massive rock sticking up out of the ocean, up to its barren top where they somehow eked out a living in succession for six hundred years. If the monks wanted further seclusion, they somehow managed to climb to the highest peak on the rock where they could seek hermitude and absolute isolation.

That, good readers, is inspiring.

In the summer months (those being April, May, and June here in Ireland), if the weather is clement, one can charter a boat out to Skellig Michael for a reasonable fee and climb up the hand-hewn stairs for themselves. This is something I am keeping in mind.

Our last stop before lunch was the small town of Ballinskelligs and its consequent beach and castle ruins. The day was still perfect, and the tide was out, making Ballinskelligs beach a perfect mirror.

The castle ruins, we were informed, were only mildly dangerous and could be scaled if we wished. Since I had my aforementioned adventure boots, I was in the first group to lead the charge across stream and bog to climb the castle before it was entirely overrun with Americans. At the base of its hill, though, an excited woman jogged up to us and began causing a ruckus about a bird.

“It’s big! It’s dead! It’s fresh!” she cried, gesticulating at the castle in general. “You must get a picture of it!”

"fresh"

Curious, we tiptoed into Ballinskelligs castle and there, prone at the base of the largest window, was a dead cormorant, fresh as fresh could be. It was rather beautiful, and so the poor thing was photographed to death (again?) by every one of the fifty Americans to cycle through. And that is the cormorant story. The end. On another note the castle was fantastic, and you could walk all the way round its perimeter on the crumbling battlements. I could have spent all day running around Ballinskelligs.

 

After being blown quite away by the Skelligs and Ballinskelligs and a dead bird, and being fed vast quantities of good food back at the hotel, we again set off for antiquity. This time the group headed to the Round Forts just outside of Cahirsiveen, which are nice round… forts, of about the same vintage as Skellig Michael. However, these forts are simply round walls of stone, neatly terraced I will admit, but generally not half so interesting as gnarly monolith monasteries. For a historian in the making I have little to no interest in the particulars of such structures, and that is shameful.

Whooooooooooooooooo

A couple of friends and I persuaded Tommy the bus driver to let us off outside of town and we walked in, taking in some Cahirsiveen sights such as this fancy army barracks and that nice gated estate, on which I could readily see myself living. We made our way back through town to the hotel and sooner rather than later I bundled up and trundled back into town, off to mass at the Daniel O’Connell memorial cathedral.

Fun fact: this barracks was supposed to be built in India, but the plans were switched by mistake. The same thing happened with my college, only our plans got switched with a school in California. And they were not barracks plans. 

Daniel O’Connell was one amazing human being, and this is why he is the only non-saint or –deity to have a Catholic church named for him. Long story short, he was the inspiration for the civil disobedience movements of Ghandi and MLK, successfully campaigned for Catholic emancipation in Ireland, opposed slavery and the disenfranchisement of women long before doing so was cool, and procured better rights for racial minorities in Ireland… all the way back ‘round the end of the eighteenth century. He also fought duels of honor (which I believe I spoke of a few posts back). He was called The Emancipator and The Liberator and was born in Cahirsiveen. Read up on him on Wikipedia, 'cause that's how we do!

Mass at the Daniel O’Connell was accompanied by a lovely choir and an accordion. I dearly love accordions. ‘Twas a beautiful service.

I have allowed too many historical interludes in this blog post and it is getting tiresomely lengthy, so I will summarize the rest of our trip right quick:

Tour of a slate quarry! Quiz night at the hotel bar! Further exploration of Cahirsiveen! Sleep! Baby lambs in the morning! Killarney National Park! Waterfalls! Muckross House and Gardens (and lovely people dancing polkas in the road in honor of St. Brigit’s day)! Killarney once more! Then… home to Corcaigh at last.

And THAT was my brilliant weekend.

*This anecdote is probably not even true but my really cool sister told it to me, so I shall include it nonetheless. If you are into historical accuracy, Jones’ remains were not returned to the US until the early twentieth century, and then on a battle cruiser, and it was in fact the news of Horatio, Lord Nelson’s death at Trafalgar that was conveyed on a boat called the Pickle. Nelson was later pickled himself, as all eminent naval men seem to be, but that is a story for another