Drinking the black stuff in Ireland

I resolved not to travel as much in 2012 as I did in 2011 (over 150K air miles), but I am not off to an auspicious start: by January 17th, I already had just over 9,000 miles and I am booked for another British/European tour in March,  but I can say for a fact that 2012 has started off with much sweeter miles,  My J-O-B sent me to England and Ireland for 8 days and my sweet little wife, Stamps-With-Foot, got to tag along for the first time in years.  I can’t tell you how great it was to have her the with me!  I slept great, I didn’t miss her when I saw some new or interesting site since she was right there.  I had a dinner date every night and it was guaranteed that would be invited back to her place…

We had a day off in London and a night out in Dublin and we made the most of our time seeing old friends, visiting the V&A, taking the Globe Theatre tour, wandering through the Sherlock Homes “Museum”, visiting favorite shops, drinking Guinness, ogling the floor at Christchurch, more Guinness, and listening to Irish trad music on the top floor of Gogarty’s in Temple Bar.  It was a really nice mid-winter diversion for us, though there were some tears shed over Brodie, my wife’s puppy/fur-baby, not being there to snuggle her to sleep…

Dublin and County Down

My J-O-B sent me once again to Northern Ireland to address a possible issue. I REALLY didn’t want to fly into & stay in Belfast again (shiver) and make the daily hour drive through sheep country every morning.  Instead, we flew into Dublin, drove north an hour & 20 minutes, and stayed in the seaside town of Newcastle – a mere 10 minute morning commute each day from our intended work site. I was accompanied this time by two coworkers that had never been to the UK or Europe and it was great seeing it all new again through their eyes. I have noticed that I can be blind to a new experience or site in a place that I have been to for work more than a couple of times. They pointed out some really cool stuff and some mannerisms of the local population that I just had never noticed.

It wasn’t 100% work/sleep/work. We got an afternoon to explore Newcastle and spent the evening before we flew out in Dublin – great city! That last night, we stopped by Christ Church to marvel at the floors and spent 2+ hours (them not me) souvenir hunting/buying at Carroll’s, before I took them down to Temple Bar for dinner and so they could see the crowds and sights. After dinner and a little walking to work off the desert, we sat at a high table on Gogarty’s second floor, right next to the musicians bench, watched Irish dancing and listened to irish ballads as we put a few pints of the black stuff away.

Spring in Belfast, Northern Ireland

One of the reasons my J-O-B pays me the medium bucks is because I will travel anywhere in the world with little to zero notice.  I again proved that last week when, with two hours notice, I hopped on a plane from Seattle to Northern Ireland two days before the Memorial Day weekend.  Stamps-With-Foot was none too happy.  I bought her shiny objects while there to quell the violence in her heart.  Man, she really likes shinny stuff because I haven’t heard one more cross word from her about my trip and I am starting to wonder if she relishes when I travel so that she can display annoyance and mock anger to receive sparkly bobbles and guilt-heavy jewelry.

Some rough initial, unedited opinions of Belfast:

  1. Strong northern winds blowing when I arrived brought in the smell of cattle and pastures – the sweet decay of manure and decomposing grass.
  2. Road right-of-way here is on the left side of the road.  This makes me a hazard to curbs, rental cars and living beings.  I also noticed after repeatedly walking against the flow of foot traffic on the street that people here walk on the left of sidewalk and escalators are left-flow as well.  It’s the little things one notices.
  3. There exists a weird pocket version of adolescence rebellion Northern Ireland: lily-white 12-18 year old boys who are overly groomed, cell phone to ear with hip-hop blaring, trying to look tough – Impossible when one is wearing his collar popped and has his feet shod in white leather slip-ons.
  4. I went on a hop-on hop-off city tour that included drives down the Falls Road and Shankill Road areas of town were 40’ high barriers, blast walls, bullet scarred bricks, and where victims’ and martyrs’ murals take up the entire sides of buildings and.  There is not an inch of street in those neighborhoods that doesn’t hold some palpable sad memory for some.  It was spooky and sad and made me say a prayer of thanks for my lower-middle class childhood.  Growing up in Belfast during The Troubles, in a constant state of fear and vengeance would have probably led me to a very angry and short life.
  5. This land is a sea of red hair. Most of it real, some from a bottle, one 20-something lass walked into view with natural ginger roots and pink/red tips. An Asian teen and a black girl with red dos also strolled by my people-watching perch – Were they red-headed just to blend…?
  6. I happened to stop in at a mass at St. Mary’s (walked out of Kelly’s Bar and there was a church, what do you do?) and police had to be called because of drunk/high/ crazy lady (maybe she was all three) interrupted mass and tried to take over the microphone at the pulpit.  – High drama.
  7. Traveling without my wife is lonely and sucky.  The sharing of things and people seen, food eaten, and the smell of the flower and grocery markets is a thing not to be trivialized.
  8. Every third word I here is “fock” or “focking.”  Spoken with gusto by men, women, teens and kids (one lad with spiky hair, maybe ten, at an international food market said today: “Ah fock this ma, I wanta go home”). It seems that the Northern Irish have such a great affinity for this word and use it as much as possible in an apparent attempt to claim it as their own.
  9. I went to Madden’s Bar to drink a pint and listen to the advertised Irish trad music. Walked in for the last 30 minutes of the Champions League final between FC Barcelona and Manchester United. As I sat down, Barcelona scored (final was 3-1 Barcelona) and the crowd cheered.  Apparently, I was in a Nationalist/Republican Pub…  I kept my United love to my focking self and drank my focking Guinness as focking quietly as focking possible. Music was great though.
  10. For some reason biking in Belfast is not wide spread. It can’t be due to a northern Irish aversion to 2 wheels:  I arrived on a Thursday afternoon and the roadways between villages were packed with road bikers all kitted up in multi-colored spandex.  Really, hundreds of them, but in the city it seems like almost no one rides.  I went out walking on a mostly sunny afternoon in the central part of downtown and saw maybe 15 people riding all day.  There was only one fixed speed wonder and only 1 guy on a trials bike (Danny MacAskill fan I would bet) out hopping on to park benches, walls, and planters.  It is not the weather – London and Hamburg are full of bikes. The Belfast streets are broad and flat.  It must be something left over from The Troubles, I don’t know and didn’t get a chance to ask.
  11. As discovered when Stamps-With-Foot and I were in Dublin – Guinness is better in Ireland!

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