diet coke: ireland

i can't believe i forgot to post this before now!

ok, so the tragic has happened, that i honestly don't know if i remember what the real diet coke tastes like anymore, if i remember the nuances of that liquid joy, to be able to describe why, precisely, this isn't it. but it's not, quite.

well, first, good on ireland for ousting the 'coca cola light' crap, because if greece taught us anything, it's that light =/= diet.

as far as i can tell, though, the diet coke of ireland - all of which i have had from a fountain, by the way - is like a less carbonated, less flavorful, less potent version of the real thing. not watered down, mind you, just like real american diet coke had been like, turned into a shade version of itself.

but it's been months and months, and the thing is, this diet coke is eminently drinkable. it's not the real thing (like the 'burrito' i had in galway was really just mexicanISH) but at this point, i take what i can get.

farewell ireland

Today was my last day in Galway, and I've spent it mostly wandering about. I went on a lovely coastal walk from Galway to the resort suburb of Salthill on the wonderful bike/walking promenade they have right on the sea, and while it would have been an even prettier walk if it had been, say, sunny like it has been most of the week, I can't begrudge the super-Irish rainy cloudy weather I did have. It was still lovely.

I don't quite know why I like Ireland so much; it's not just difficult to put into words, but it's hard for me to even tell. Part of what I like are the same things I liked so much about New Zealand - friendly people, lovely countryside, ease of travel, charming scenery, lots to see and do, but a really easygoing feel as well. Cute little towns, liveable cities, a climate that I weirdly really like, a great accent to boot. But somehow it's more than that.

Maybe it's just that Ireland takes what I already liked - the quaint Britishness that appeals to me on a very basic level (I've long since had this weird fascination with living in London, which I credit mostly to reading too much British chick lit. So really, it's not that I want to live in London, I want to live in British chick lit. Sort of how I loved living in New York, but I REALLY wanted to live in 1940s film noir New York. I would have made a stupendous dame.) - and combines it with an approachability and an ease that I have grown to appreciate. Recent years and my travels have given me a newfound like of coutnryside and population sparsity, so Ireland is a good combination of the urban and the twee widdle village worlds. So far, Cork is probably the favorite city that I've seen in Ireland, and I would go back there in a heartbeat. But really, what I would love to do is come back some day when I have a valid driver's license and go explore the parts of the country (read: most of it) that you can't get to via public transit or bus tours.

There is something about the Irish, though, that I just don't fit in with. Primarily, it is that I don't drink beer. I would like to think that this is not a problem, but let's be honest: all the shops and everything closes at 5 or 6. People eat dinner at 6. It stays light in the summer until like 10. What is there to do in between? Judging by the storefronts, there's lots of pubs, smoking, and bookmaking. The Irish like their vice, clearly, but it's not MY vice. It's a mix of the old Catholic values and the listless urban ones, and somehow I fit in with neither.

Even so, as far as it goes, there is little better than biking along the Irish countryside. Can't beat that.

irish countryside

Well, my plan worked.

Even though the Celtic ruins here are the most impressive thing to see and do on the island, I didn't do them when I got here. Instead, I waited a day, and took off early this morning. My theory was to get there before the first ferry arrived from the mainland, and before the subsequent tour buses and fleets of rental bikes could make it to the road. It worked great.

First, can I just say that I am really lucky Inishmor is so small? I mean, clearly there are not exactly gridworks of roads here, right, for the 800 inhabitants? There are essentially two roads, both unnamed: the main road and the coast road. You can tell if you veer from one of those because it is no longer paved. Fair enough. I found the coast road easy enough, but was unable to find the main road yesterday. I got directions, but still couldn't find it heading out of town, but there was the sea right there, so how could I complain? On the way back yesterday, though, I did find a different road, much more suburban, so I could safely say I had found the two roads on the island.

Yeah, no. They were the same road. But the fog had come in yesterday afternoon to such an extent that I couldn't see the sea right there, so the entire place suddenly looks very different. I am very directionally challenged. Also, it turns out that those two roads were both the main road; only today did I successfully hang a right and find the coast road.

And this cool, foggy, overcast morning was a lovely one to be tooling down the coast road in the Irish countryside. I passed the seal colony and rock walls and old stone ruins and loved it all. And when I got to Dun Aengus, I was literally the only one there. It is perched at the top of some cliffs, these Celtic stone semicircle that drop off on one end to these sheer, sheer rock walls to the water below. It's oddly quiet up there, and the wind sort of stops once you are inside, and being all alone meant that it became sort of otherworldly quiet and solitary. It was a magnificent morning.

days of beauty

On the one hand, now that my time is my own again and internet is cheap and supah-fast, one would think that I would be more diligent about updating my blog. One would THINK. But a lot of places I am staying just give free internet, but only for a short while, so I have fallen a bit behind. Whoops!

Anyway, on Friday morning, I hopped on a bus and headed from Cork to Galway, all the way on the west coast. Its a small town, even smaller than Cork, but just as adorable and cute and loveable, so of course I am charmed and just as happy as I have been the whole time in Ireland. All Irish cities (perhaps by law? I am not sure) are on a river -Dublin is on the Liffey, Cork on the Lee and Galway is no exception, on the Corrib, and do not ask me how to pronounce that. But it's also on the Atlantic, and has this fantastic park with a bike and running path along a marshy coastline that may be permanently overcast and grey, to preserve the awesome, broody moorish quality to the place.


Yesterday, though, I left Galway and did a day tour to Connemara. Despite my awesome tour experience, I am still not a huge fan of day tours in general, with the herding off the bus and the chatty tour guides and the spoonfed scenery, but seeing the countryside was also totally worth it. Connemara is totally rural, a glacier landscape of peat bogs and lakes (or 'loughs' here, adorably) and teeny little villages where people still peak Irish. I loved it. It was like seeing the Ireland out of Brigadoon, only with blissfully 100% less singing. We also saw the most beautiful nunnery/castle/boarding school on the planet, Kylemore Abbey, that was completely breathtaking. I didn't go in, because I am honestly feeling a little impressive-religious-sited out, but wandering the grounds was enough.

And that brings us to today, with more pretty. I think the only thing better than a clear, beautiful, sunny, blue-sky day in Ireland is one coming on the middle day of a three-day weekend. Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday Monday (no actual holiday that I can see, bank are just closed? I don't know. It's a three-day weekend.) and today was spectacular weather - welcome June! So I, along with many Galway-ians took a bus along the coast (which, I stand corrected, today was so blue and white it could pass for tropical, and not broody at all) to the ferry terminal, and then took a ferry across to Inishmor, the largest of the Aran Islands. A lot of people come for day trips, but I am here for a couple of days, so I hope the weather holds.

In case, though, I rented a bike for both days, and I decided to take in the island. It's gorgous here, but in a different way even than Connemara - I don't even know if I can describe it, really. There are so few who live here, and the islands are pretty removed, so it just feels isolated, even when I am not on my own on a wonky bike on a non-road. The landscape is pretty barren in parts,covered with some short grass but that's about it. And the hillsides in one direction fall in sheer cliffs to the ocean. Add to that the fact that the countryside is divided by low rock walls into an uneven grid shape every where I look, even though nothing is actually in most of the pens. It feels a little eerie and otherworldy, and I haven't even seen the ancient Celtic ruins yet - that's for tomorrow.

On the north end of the island - the remote part; I actually almost feel like that's the part where the folks in the 'town' look at at and say, wow, that's really out there - there's this little road that goes up and up, wit fields on either side. Even though it was warm and sunny today, there was a mist coming in from the north that was actually pretty chilly, and it was blowing in to block off the view pretty quickly - it was actually really cool.


Of course, this was also naturally where my wonky bike opted to drop its chain for the third time, and get horribly wedged between the frame, so I spent about 20 minutes trying to free it, and only got mot of it, until a couple stopped and he spent another 10 and finally got it free. Of course it happens on the remote partof the remote island. But at least it wasn't dark.

Anyhow, tomorrow I am going to go some more around the island, see some ruins, and soak in old Cletic culture. I may end up with an Aran sweater to boot. We'll see.

bit of the irish!

I will amend my earlier post, only to add that I seem to love Ireland in general, not just Dublin.

After my one full day in the big city, I trotted over to the bus station to head south. Though I generally love train travel, i decided to take the buses here, one because trains don't do part of the route I am taking, and also because te Irish rail network is generally preceded in all conversation by the phrase "questionably reliable." So bus won, and for the better - turned out the rail networks are all on strike, so there are extra buses running the routes. Hah.

The bus ride was unremarkable, and after we got out of the icky city traffic, it was picturesque countryside and charming wee villages. The countryside looks a lot like New Zealand - complete with sheep - but with fewer mountains, and if possible, even greener. Or rather, just as green, but even less that is not green. Plus, it's older, so we could be driving along and pass random medieval ruins.

I arrived in Cork and proceeded to be really dramatic - I did LAUNDRY. It may not sound exciting to you, but everything I owned was covered in a think layer of the Middle East, so it was worth every extortion-level penny I paid for it (the only laundry here is for more of an industrial crowd, so their rated don't start low enough to make my one load a practical purchase. But it was fast, and also worth it). I also went out for a pint (not of beer, once was enough) and some traditional Irish music with some girls in my dorm, and if anything will make you love Ireland more, it's a local pub. We have dive bars in the States, which I love, but it's really not the same at all, is it?

Yesterday was wander-Cork day. It's a walkable town, and I went all over - the local cathedrals, the butter museum, the hills overlooking town, up and down the little side streets. But it's not a very big place, so that pretty much covered it. It's a charming city, on two sides of a river (actually three, but most of the stuff is in the middle and on one bank), and I had to stop myself from taking too many pictures. Also, even though it's Ireland and it never really gets bright, it also doesn't get dark until like 10:30. Not quite Patagonia unnerving, but certainly a change.

Today, I got a bit out of town, and went to the Blarney Castle. It was hyper-touristy, sure, but the castle grounds are also stunningly pretty. I did kiss the Blarney Stone, too, so if you find this and future posts to be unusually eloquent, well, you will at least know why. But just wandering the lush green lands were enough to make me feel so peaceful; even when it started to drizzle (of course) it wasn't enough to push me inside.
Tomorrow I am off to Galway, which I am really looking forward to. Most people say it's the best city in Ireland, so my hopes are up.

I still haven't found a good sweater or hoodie to buy Despite current weather to the complete contrary, most stores are selling bikinis and gauzy skirts, and there are actually surprisingly few tourist shops, but even fewer with anything good. There were a bunch today, of course, in Blarney, but nothing I actually want to wear, or want to spend tourist-level kinds of money on, so I will just count on finding something later. Or, you know, getting an aran sweater on the Aran Islands. For now I can just keep wearing the same two longsleeved shirts I own...

And for those keeping score, I am STILL not caught up on my pictures from Egypt, despite many hours' worth of online effort. I finished Jordan, and am keeping Ireland up-to-date ( I now deeply know the perils of falling behind...) but have like 150 more to label in Egypt. Sigh. Tomorrow, maybe.

a whole new world

I. Love. Dublin.

It;s like London, but smaller and cuter and easier to navigate. Everyone here is so young, too, with basically the entire population looking like they are in their 20s and 30s.

I just walked around yesterday, touring the city and going to St Stephen's Green, the Photography Archive, Trinity College, the shopping streets, the Liffey, all of it. It was so pleasant to walk about, even if I was wearing my long-sleeved shirt, my fleece and was still cold when the wind blew.

I also went out with a girl I had met in Bangkok, and I tired,I really did, but I just can't drink Guinness. Euch.

Today it's rainy, but I am spending the day on the bus anyhow, heading southwest to Cork. I am really excited to see more of Ireland, because so far, so good.

gear shift

I am all out of the Middle East. It was a brutally long day of travel yesterday, but everything went smoothly, so I have gone from Jordan to just about as opposite I can get. Today, I take on Dublin!

It was surprisingly difficult to leave the tour. I was lucky and ended up with a really cohesive group who genuinely got along and enjoyed spending time together, which was lovely, so as with any goodbye it was hard to say goodbye and all go our separate ways. But even more than that, I was pretty hard-hit by how much I was going to miss the fact of my tour mates. It was such a welcome relief to have people to travel with for three weeks. For the first part, to have someone so competent to take care of all of our details and travel concerns for us so we didn't even have to think about it. When things went wrong, an 8 hour ferry wait or an abysmal accommodation in Petra, we were in it together and would joke about it and get through, rather than me having to take it all on my shoulders alone.

I've had to remind myself the last couple of days that not only CAN I do this solo travel thing (remember, self? That's how you've been doing it almost this WHOLE TIME), but also that I would even want to. Today, though, after a good night's sleep under a comfy duvet, with a nice hot shower and a rainy, overcast Dublin through the window, I am much more excited about exploring. Besides, I am on the way downward end of my trip, so I need to make the most of it - love it or hate it, it won't last long.

Anyway, to wrap up Jordan: Meh.

I mean, Jordan was good - Petra was incredible, and of course I loved floating in the Dead Sea and getting covered by mud.

But overall, Jordan was just kind of all right. The food was the same sort as Egypt, but not as good; everything was easier and more Western, in terms of the bargaining and the baksheesh (tipping) and the like, but it was also less interesting and more sterilized. I just felt like I was there because the things I wanted to see were in Jordan, as opposed to any desire at all to see Jordan itself.

All right, enough rehash. I am in a place with lightening-quick internet, so I hope to have the rest of my pictures up later on, and get them labeled and ready to view. After that, my mind is 100% on pretty green Ireland!