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.
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