Miscellarikneous

We got a late start because we had to move hotels. We packed up our stuff (again) and the porter came up and took it across the street to their "sister" hotel. Fortunately, it was the same price, and more nicely decorated. I would describe it as high-class seventies style. Maybe that was the last time they redecorated-- but it was in good shape. It also had WiFi, so not bad overall.

We got in touch with Cory and arranged to meet in Trafalgar square so he could see it. There were a lot of people, and I don't think we actually ran into too many pigeons. Naomi commented on how small the lions look now compared to when she was little. Then she climbed up onto one and pose for pictures. No problem with the climbing, but it turns out it was higher than she thought.

We then walked down Whitehall to (look, kids!) Big Ben, Parliament. We then walked along the river until we saw a cool bridge. Someone asked us where the Millenium Bridge was, and we said, "I think that's it," pointing to the cool bridge. They went up and took a bunch of pictures, then we crossed it and discovered that it was actually the Waterloo Bridge.

We had coffee before continuing to walk along the south bank before coming to the Millenium Bridge. We crossed it when we came to it. This is the suspension footbridge that was designed and built for the Millenium celebration, and then had to be re-designed because the wind was causing resonant oscillations. You'd think they'd have that covered in bridge construction since the Tacoma Narrows disaster (btw, what's the deal with that VW bug in the bridge when it failed?)

We walked across, and it was windy, but no twisting, or oscillating. Cory refrained from exaggeratedly marching in unison (with me), despite my encouragement. I think Naomi walked far away from us.

We snapped a few photos of St. Paul's and then continued walking east along the North Bank. There is a riverbank trail that is fairly continuous, but it spends a lot of time darting around, between, and under things so you don't always see the river. Occasionally there is a sign for a bathroom. Being in need, we tried following one of these, which led us off into commercial London, with no bathroom in sight. A little while later, we tried again, and this time it led us around a building, past a loading dock, to another sign pointing back toward the river, around the same building until we were back where we started. It was funny, but laughter is not so good when you have to pee.

Eventually we made it to the Tower of London area and found a restroom. Cory passed on entering the tower, and even though it's one of Naomi's favorite sites, we did too... it was getting dark and Naomi still had work to do that night. We also pointed out the 2000 year-old Roman wall to Cory. It's not much to look at, but my first time in London I looked for it for about an hour before finding it, so I'm still trying to make the most of that.

We jumped on the Tube and went back to our hotel. Naomi started working on her project that had been sprung on her. Pat still hadn't called us to arrange for dinner. Eventually, Naomi was swamped and we were Hungry, so Cory and I met and went to Veeryswarma on Regent Street, an Indian restaurant that was recommended in the Inside Out guide. While it was technically on Regent Street, it wasn't actually on Regent Street. I suppose it gets a better rep if it can say it's on Regent Street, but the entrance was on Swallow Street, but the window did have a nice view of the decorated street. We'll call it a wash.

For some reason, when we walked into the restaurant, I got the notion that "wouldn't it be funny if they thought we were a couple." So, the rest of the night, I watched all of the reactions of the wait staff to try to see if they thought we were or not. I think we made a pretty good couple, aside from being brothers and all.

Dinner was good, but pricey! I had chicken korma dish and a beer. I think Cory had Chicken Tikka Masala, and both were excellent. But it was pricey! I had forgotten my wallet, and come to think of it, I still owe Cory £40. Did I mention it was expensive?

Regent Street was decorated with lots of festive lights, in mostly red, blue and white. Big, white light-orbs hanging across the street. Large sheets of lights depicting Incredibles characters (and therefore Cory should be able to write-off the trip, working as he does at Disney). It was pretty even with the Disneyesquity, and if you ignored the product tie-ins, it was fabulous.

We split up, and I went back to the hotel to find Naomi still plugging away at her work, but about ready to quit for the night.

We woke up to what we finally expected in Dublin: rain.

Naomi and I had some business, some Red Shoe business to take care of at her place of employment, and we also had to check out of the Mighty Maid Merrion, so the result was that Cory was off on his own and we were getting out of our hotel just about an hour after we were supposed to have been out.

Which is just about average for us. You see, we really can mess up a hotel room in a really small amount of time. Our first half hour will make it look like 5 days. So, it takes a while to check out.

Anyway, in spite of the rain, we headed à pied over to the Gordon House, only getting a little soaked along the way, and when we got there they let me in this time. And so we got to work, and about an hour later, we were done. We had a nice deli-buffet style lunch at their cafeteria, and then I started chatting with Hurricane Jake Bastard:

[06:43] jake: first, Merry Christmas to you and your lovely wife
[06:43] jake: second, run over to number 8 Poolbeg Street to Mulligan's Pub
[06:43] jake: best pint in town
[06:43] jake: sweet jesus I'd join you for twelve right now if I could

[06:44] arik: I will go get one right now.

And a little while later, my Bro met up with me and we drank the best pint in town. (He had been out on a 5 mile bracing cliff walk from Bray to Greystones.) When I got there, there were two gents in front of the door, and we had the following conversation, which fairly well exemplifies one thing I really like about Dublin.

Gent (stepping out of the way): You headin' in there?
Me: Yes, sir!
Gent: Good lad.

As the sun was setting down around 4:30, we then set out for one last sightseeing trek. We headed east, toward the harbor, past the "docklands" area. It wasn't very lively, but it looks as if it's in the middle of urban renewal that should leave it pretty swank in a few years.

Travelling by air when the US is involved is pretty easy. So, when we arrived with only 30 minutes before boarding on our flight back to London, it was NO BIG DEAL. We even had time for some duty-free shopping. Also, I managed to reach Pat to arrange to meet the following night for a curry, so altogether a positive airport experience. The plane was full this time, but the hop over the Irish Sea was without incident.

You might remember that entering Ireland from England, we went through customs and passport control. Entering England from Ireland, though, we strolled right through and grabbed our bags. Hello, Your Majesty! Ireland has been independent since 1921. It is a different country.

Anyway, we arrived at Gatwick and grabbed the train to Victoria station, and there we split up--Cory was picked up by a friend with whom he would be staying, and Naomi and I got a taxi to our hotel. The cabbie took the long way. They're required to learn all the London streets before they get their license, but I don't think that necessarily means they retain it. We didn't mind, since we got to go through Leicester Square, Picadilly Circus, Covent Garden, before spiraling into Bloomsbury.

When we checked in, we got the standard "hi, welcome to the Radisson Edwardian Marlborough. We're happy to check you in tonight, but the hotel is closing tomorrow." Standard for England, anyway. (I'll never forget our train from Paddington to Taunton a few years ago, "Delayed due to: Miscellaneous Delays".) They checked us in, but we refrained from doing our usual hotel-destroying, knowing we would have to shift across the street to their sister hotel the next day. Instead, we went down to the bar for a quick pint before shuffling off to bed.

Woke up early again. Also, the cold is mostly gone, thanks to crashing around 10 pm last night. Has this trip turned me into a morning person? Great weather yet again.

Met up with Cory again, this time across the River Liffey from Custom House. I don't really know what it's for, but it was a nice building. I wanted to see O'Connell street, mostly because of the song by the Clancy Brothers that told how they blew up Lord Nelson's statue in protest. I found out that it was true, the IRA did really do that, and that Nelson's head is still on display in a museum nearby (the stone one, not his real head).

We saw the Spire, the world's tallest sculpture. It is a giant knitting needle about 150m tall. I wondered if anyone had ever tried to impale themselves on the end. Sorry, couldn't help it. The spire is not bad as monuments go-- I like it when they build things that no one thinks are a good idea. They usually turn out pretty well. We then walked down Henry street, which is a short stretch north of the Liffey with a lot of B-tier shops and street vendors, but it is still very picturesque and quaint. Walked back over Ha'penny bridge, which I didn't really take in, I think, because I don't remember it at all.

Since it was now about 11:30, we thought it was about time for a pint, so we went to the Porterhouse across from Cory's hotel, where he had enjoyed a good pint his first night there. I had a pint of Oyster Stout, and that, my friends, was much closer to the best pint I'd ever had than the Guinness at the Storehouse (sorry, Jake). The Porterhouse claims to be the largest Irish brewery by some complicated formula that eliminates Guinness due to international corporations or somethingerother. To be honest, I couldn't be bothered to read the whole schpiel, but I include the factoid here for the sake of, I dunno, full disclosure?

After the beer, we met Naomi for lunch on Grafton St. The first place we tried turned out to have stopped serving food about 3 weeks before, so the InsideOut people have at least one thing to update. After lunch, the plan was to check out Phoenix Park, the largest park in Europe. I found that hard to believe, but I was willing to wait and see. Cory was walking over and I was going to take a cab there after going with Naomi back to the hotel for tea.

They grew, harvests, dried, and cut the tea leaves there on the premises. They also dug a well and pumped up fresh water. At least, that's what it seemed like, since it took forever to get our tea-- which ended up costing about the same as lunch for 3 people did. Anyway, by the time we finished lunch and tea, the daylight had almost gone. I set off to join Cory. I thought about taking a cab, but every time I did I found I was on the wrong side of the street, so I just kept walking, almost all the way across town. I neared the park entrance as it was getting dark, SMS'ed Cory only to find he had just returned to his hotel. The Park looked okay, but I didn't see much because of the fading light. Also, itwas divided by a good number of roads, so I don't know if that should really count as Europe's largest park.

After my brisk walk over there trying to reach the park before dark fell, I was pretty tired and I trudged sluggishly back towards Cory's hotel in Temple Bar. We met outside and looked for a place to get a pint. We settled on the Auld Dubliner, a place the guidebooks describe as touristy and overpriced.

We had our expensive Guinnesses and were joined by two gray-haired Irish gents. They greeted us and then had an almost totally incomprehensible* conversation for about 15 minutes before saying farewell, and leaving. (*except for the word "fuckin'")

After fuckin' off, we headed to the hotel and then to Google where we were going to meet Naomi for dinner. There was no nearby train stop on our map, but when we got there we discovered there now is one, almost right across from her office. Well, a little walking never hurt ya...

Anyway, we hadn't yet had fish 'n' chips in Dublin, so that was the plan. We went to Kitty Oshea near Google. After we sat down Naomi told us that her co-workers said it was a pretty crap pub, but it was too late. Naomi and I ordered the worst fish and chips I'd ever had. The batter was slimy & underdone. The fish was bland, and the chips were dry. But the Guinness was AOK. Cory's Thai Curry Chicken, the pillar of traditional Irish Cuisine, was much better.

That was about enough for one day. Cory caught the train, and I went to hang out in Naomi's office while she finished up. The problem was that they wouldn't let guests up after a certain time, so I rushed to catch Cory and ride the train back. The dude at the counter didn't have any change, so he told me I'd have to buy a ticket at the other end.

Dublin has a very labor-intensive fare collection system. You can buy tickets at machines, and you put the ticket into a machine to get in, but unlike other mass transit, they have people at the other end checking your ticket when you get off. So, when I got to the other end of my trip, I explained to the two guys that I needed to buy a ticket. Turns out they didn't have any change either, so they let me go free. Must be a union thing.

Naomi walked back from work at around 11:30, cos you can do that in Dublin, at least in the part of town we were in. I was nigh-passed-out by then.

I met up with Cory in the sitting room downstairs, although almost not since I couldn't send text messages only receive them. I got a series of messages a few minutes apart as I was getting ready. "Coming over", "In the sitting room", and a while later: "OK then. Daylight's wasting, catch ya later." Finally I got one out just in time to stop him from buggering off. (Text messaging in general has come in pretty handy, though I have no idea what it's costing me!)

We didn't really have a plan for the day, but we had a first goal. We had heard of a quaint fishing village at the end of the DART. We got tickets to the end of the line and ended up in Howth, a quaint fishing village at the end of the line. Although it seemed fairly well-off and probably a little touristy in better weather. It was chilly, but nice, and Cory and I explored the docks and took some photos. We wandered up and down the streets, found a lingerie shop called "Rocco", got lost a few times, told a few stray dogs to piss off, explored an old church cemetary, and almost made it to the transport museum before we decided we'd better head back if we were going to meet up with Naomi at the appointed time.

We stopped at the restaurant below the train station to pee, and it was forebodingly called "The Bloody Stream." But fortunately, the peeing was normal, and we even made our train.

We met Naomi and hoofed it to the Guinness Storehouse, a multi-floored glorification of the black stuff. The tour included history of Arthur Guinness, and details on the brewing process. Along the way you could smell the hops at various stages of the process. This worked a lot better if you sniffed the opening that led to where the hops were stored, rather than the speaker, as Cory was kind enough to point out.

As we wound our way through the displays, I was getting hungrier and hungrier, as I didn't really plan my eating very well. The tour is supposed to end with a free pint of Guinness "the best pint you'll ever drink." But we wanted to enjoy it, and so we ducked in to a cafe just before it closed for some really good Beef & Guinness stew with mashed potatoes and roasted carrots and spuds. This was the best stew I'd had in years, and I went from famished to stuffed before finishing off the last of it.

Now, we could properly enjoy our free Guinness on the top floor. The room had windows all around and great viewed of Dublin at dusk. It reminded me of a beer commercial because everyone was young and we were all drinking the same thing. The decor was slick, modern art deco. The pint was not the best I'd ever had--a little too warm, I think--but it was enjoyable all the same.

We walked back along the river and stopped by and got to see Cory's teeny room in his hotel. I told Naomi about our trip that morning: "We went to Howth!" I said. "Really? How Wath it?"

Still very full from the Guinness Stew, I didn't need much for dinner. We spent a bit of time poking into various shops looking for a hat for me. Naomi lured us into Brown Thomas and with a devious smile disappeared upstairs, leaving us to hunt for a warm lid. Didn't find much, so we moved on from shop to shop until we gave up for the night.

I was fading fast, and so went back to the hotel for an early night, another night of asleep before the head hit the pillow.

I woke up at two, and didn't really go back to sleep before the alarm went off at three. We got ready and went down to catch the 4am shuttle. The same cute desk clerk was working as when we checked in-- we really weren't there very long, but the Travelodge Gatwick had served its purpose.

Which was to get us a few hours sleep before our flight to Dublin at the butt crack o' dawn. As it turned out, it was well before dawn, dawn coming around 9 am as we approached the solstice. I felt like an Amazing Race'r arriving at the airport and queueing up before anyone had opened. Double that when we found we were standing in the wrong line (but I think it says something about British denial that Ireland is considered a domestc flight).

The flight was so empty that Cory and I were 25% of the passengers. We went to take our assigned seat in 6A and 6C, which was already taken by an older fellow who had slid over from 6B. So we took 7A & 7C, only to immediately find that the people boarding behind us had those seats (and apparently wanted them). There were 30 other rows to choose from, so this was not a problem. But we were moved one more time, because they needed someone to man the exit rows. We each got our own row. I was looking forward to mimicking the cartoon figure tossing the door out the window in case of an emergency, but I didn't get a chance to practice.

Still feeling perky, I SMS'ed Naomi regularly to let her know our location. We got a cab to the very fancy Merrion Hotel where she was staying. The chatty cabby gave us a few things to do while we were there before dropping us off. We were barely out of the car before well-dressed porters had whisked our bags inside faster than we could say, "we're not guests..." No one even questioned the fact that we arrived with all those bags & they started lugging them up to 153. I explained that my wife was there and where she was and the concierge escorted us up. On the way, she asked, "do you think we should call her to let her know?" Yeah, good idea, since she's probably still asleep. We called her from the phone across the hall.

Cory went out and explored a bit, and a hungover Naomi gradually got herself together-- it was a Sunday morning after all. We all set out to walk around Dublin a bit.

We drew an ace with the weather. First stop was St. Stephen's Green, where sunbeams slanted in through the branches of the hibernating trees. I was struck by the real-ness of the park... paths through grassy areas and well-contained woodsiness. Not the (keep-off-the-) lawns and conical trees of Paris, that's for sure.

We wandered and quickly ended up in the center of the trendy parts of town-- Grafton St., Temple Bar, South of Dame Street (irkingly referred to in guide books as SoDa). Even at noon, the sun was no more than about 30 degrees up in the sky, but it made the brick buildings and cobbled streets that much more festive. And something about thin winter sunshine makes you feel like you're cheating the weather Gods by even having any. Ra!

For brunch, we lucked into the Stone Wall cafe, which turned out to be pretty popular and pretty tasty. And the coffee was really good. After brunch, we walked around some more and then went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. That was for sure the most Kells I'd seen in one place. I did like the Long Room at Trinity college, which is a long room, with books stacked up to both ceilings. I still want to know how they get to those books on the second level.

In the gift shop afterwards I felt the first effects of jet lag, in the form of a massive, discombobulating bonk. I became lexically and physically impaired, and barely made it back to the hotel before crashing for a 2.5 hour nap. Cory went and checked into his hotel, a room no wider than a king size bed, with a bed no wider than a crib. But he liked it, it was cheap, and it was right near Temple Bar.

After our respective naps it was now dark, being winter at a northern latitude. And I had come down with a sore throat which was really flaring up after the nap. But we still went out walking again from pub to pub, looking for one still serving food. We didn't find any, though most of them looked like the kind of place you would want to spend an evening drinking, just no eating. We finally found a little Italian restaurant where we all shared pizzas, mine including as a topping: the ubiquitous potato. We were still really tired, so that was about all we could handle for the night. aside from finding a pharmacy and buy some strepsils. Crashed early.

After a hectic week without my mainsqueeze, I'm finally packed and prepped and on my way to Ireland, where Naomi is travelling for business. Brian and Dan picked me up around eight. I frantically was finishing up some last minute preparations...

Naomi's ipod had finally arrived the day before, and I'd been trying to get it to work right with the computer for several hours before finally it did. Aside from a few albums that were already stored on the computer, I managed to finish ripping all of ONE cd. Started with the A's, so Naomi is stuck listening to Under the Pink if she wants to try it out.

The flight was uneventful, which is to say, cramped. I'm a pretty short guy, and I can't imagine being able to survive the 5 hour flight to New York with much less space. Plus, I had forgotten rule #1 of travel survival, for me anyway, which was to always have some food handy. And the mother and daughter next to me were well-tuned to the airplanal behavioral cues, and dutifully went to sleep as soon as the "food" service was over (it consistent of a weird combination of milano cookies, wheat crackers and not-quite-firm not-quite-butter cheese). The short of it is that they kept me and my bladder separated from the wonderful world of clif bars (in my bag in the overhead bin) and bladder relief (hopefully not in my water bottle).

Arrived at JFK and met Cory at my gate. Cory! We haven't travelled together since 1992, when we made it as far as New York. Picking up where we left off, we boarded the plane to London.

The captain had a really hot date waiting at Heathrow, so our flying time would be just under 6 hours. I kept thinking to myself-- that can't be right. It takes 11 hours to fly direct. But when they posted the ground speed on the screen, sho'nuff, we were nigh-sonic.

Cory and I didn't get to travel next to each other, though, because when I had checked-in in San Jose, the gate clerk told me that he and I had ended up with the seats in the back of the plane, right in front of the bathroom. "It's ass," she told me. Well, not really, but she did tell me several times how stinky it would be. So I accepted the upgrade on behalf of both of us. This resulted in us being in the very front of coach, with lots of leg room, but seperated by the aisle-seat. I kept trying to catch the eye of the dude between us to ask him if he would swap, but he was feigning (or really a-) sleep pretty convincingly, so I didn't disturb him. We tried plan B, talking across him, for a while, but he didn't seem interested in acknowledging us, so we had to be content with only intermittent conversation.

Which was a shame, because I had no one to snigger with when they mentioned that we were required to use the lavatory during our flight (before awkwardly wrapping the sentence back around to explain that they meant the one in our cabin, as opposed to the other cabins, should we need it).

The movies were crap, so I slept, read, and worked a little on my paper for school. We arrived on time at Heathrow, despite leaving an hour late, thanks to the horny pilot, and made our was through customs. We got our bags, walked a mile underground to the other side of the airport, then found the bus to Gatwick, which stopped first at the terminal we had just spent 20 minutes walking away from. Made it to Gatwick an hour later, found a cab, then checked into our cheap (50-quid) hotel for a beer and a 2-hour snooze before the next morning's flight to Dublin). My fourth 2-hour snooze in the last two days en lieu of real sleep. My new theory of jet-lag: get your body so screwed up that it has no idea what the schedule is, making it perfectly prepped for receiving whatever new one you impose on it. I was off to a good start.