Ireland: Craic'in me up

Well, it’s almost 1 AM and I still haven’t begun packing for my weekend trip to Copenhagen, for which I leave on Thursday. I just got back yesterday from Dublin, and may I just say this: the Irish are the friendliest people I’ve met, and DAYUM can they cook.

We arrived last Thursday night to Abigail’s Hostel, which is located right on the River Liffey and about a block from the heart of Temple Bar, an area full of restaurants, bars and clubs. We explored a bit that night, but we crashed a couple hours after arrival. The next day, we checked out Trinity College, Ireland’s oldest university (if I’m remembering correctly.) It was only a few blocks from our hostel; Dublin isn’t a huge city, so most of the major sights were within walking distance. We snapped photos, wandered around Parliament and the Museum of Ireland, then grabbed some of the best food I’ve had so far at a pub called O’Neill’s, which a guy at our hostel had recommended. The pub itself was really interesting; vintage Guiness ads and old photos hung all over the wall, and the dark wood floors and walls added to the old-world feel. It was set up buffet-style, so we glanced at a menu and ordered. I got Sheppard’s pie and did not regret it; the corned beef was obviously excellent, too. One of my favorite things about travelling is eating the traditional/local food, so this lunch was a dream come true…although we all immediately headed back to the hostel for a nap, thanks to a food coma.

We awoke and headed back out to Temple Bar, to a bar with a live Irish band and way too many guys in matching plaid shirts. We danced, chatted with Irishmen, and Spain successfully avoided a creepy German in a scarf.

The next day we checked out Christchurch Cathedral (absolutely beautiful) and went to the underwhelming and overpriced Guiness Factory. It’s less of a factory (I was expecting something akin to the Budweiser factory in St. Louis, where you actually go through the areas where the beer is made) and more of a museum, and since I’m not that into the history of brewing (sorry Matt) I wasn’t totally into it. But the Sky bar at the top of the factory gives spectators a view of Dublin and the mountains for miles, so that made it worth it.

The part of the trip that made me utterly fall in love with Ireland came on Sunday, when we took a paddywagon tour to Wicklow, the county just south of Dublin. The six of us piled into a small bus, along with about 7 others and our tour guide/driver, Ed. Ed, a surprisingly mobile at least 80-year-old, knew his shit and was hilarious. Since it was foggy that day, he delayed our venture into the mountains, hoping the fog would clear off. (It didn’t.) He drove us around the coast near Dublin (oldish—and obviously badass—men were swimming in the Irish Sea) and around Dalkey. The view, even on the cloudy, misty day, was absolutely stunning. Ed pointed out Bono’s house and the bar he frequents when he’s home, Enya’s mock castle, and Van Morrison’s residence. Then we continued into the mountains and, throughout the day, went to Glendalough (which used to be a Catholic monastery until Henry VIII ordered it destroyed when he broke from Rome) and the two lakes it’s named for (“Glendalough” means “place of two lakes”, and they are serene and breathtaking.) It made me want to visit Ireland in April, when blooming heather makes the mountains purple. The Craic will undoubtedly, certainly be seeing my face again.

VDay: Eye on the Prize

...I’m really not a hopeless romantic.

It’s just that I’ve always kind of liked Valentine’s Day. It isn’t that I love the commercialization of it, or the roses or sappy cards; in fact, I generally find roses pretty insincere. (I also don’t like the fact that so many couples seem to make a big deal of the occasion but then in everyday existence, they don’t treat each other particularly well…ahem, that’s a topic for a non-travel blog.)

But despite all the cliché declarations of love, I adore the traditional wearing of red, the eating of chocolates, the celebration of amore, and the romantic ride on the London Eye. Wait, you didn’t do that for V-Day? Sorry ‘bout your luck.

My Valentine’s Day agenda began with a train ride to Oxford to meet up with my brother Matt’s friend Nikki, who goes to Denison and is studying at Oxford for the term. Since I didn’t have much time, she showed me the main attraction (Oxford’s Christ Church, the cathedral and surrounding grounds…they were absolutely BEAUTIFUL), and we enjoyed sandwiches (mine was a bacon, Brie and basil panini), Cadbury caramel milkshakes, and Bailey’s lattes. It was the perfect rainy afternoon for a foodie like me, and I definitely intend on going back for more exploring.

Then I headed back into London and, seeing as I don’t exactly have a Valentine, met up with my friends Spain and Hilary at the London Eye. I was running late thanks to a very crowded Bakerloo line, and I told them when I got there that I’d felt like the London version of Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle: It was raining, and I was wearing a (in my mind, very chic) scarf over my hair and running toward the huge, brightly-lit, pulsating wheel that is the Eye, toward my true loves.

A ride in the Eye lasts about 30 minutes, and those who have paid clamber into one of 32 glass capsules, each of which could hold at least a dozen people. The view is really beautiful, especially at night. We took some pictures (the picture included in this post is a very blurry one, taken from the top), took in the amazing scene, and theorized as to whether any of the boyfriends who had rented a private capsule for themselves and their girlfriends had done so with the intention of getting busy 135 meters above London. (We decided that it would be possible but pretty difficult to pull off…so to speak.)

After our pseudo-romantic ride, we walked on the bank of the Thames and discussed our upcoming trip to Dublin over hearty dinners of chicken dumplings, prawn and chicken fried rice, and chocolate cake. It's interesting, though: if a guy had made V-Day plans that included the Eye and a walk by the Thames, I may have declined based on cheesiness. But for the three of us, it was the perfect date.

ADvantageous (ha! ...what a terrible attempt at a joke.)

The way companies advertise to countries tells a lot about the countries themselves, and I’ve seen enough ads in the last few weeks to recognize that British consumers and American consumers appreciate and respond to very different kinds of advertising.
It’s the example I see almost daily that’s my favo(u)rite. eHarmony advertises substantially on the Tube, and theirs is the particular ad that I read each time with fascination and/or disgust. The photo of the successfully-matched couple isn’t bad; an attractive, green-eyed woman leans over a dark-haired, not great- but okay-looking guy. But then there’s the blurb below the picture: “Every day I consider myself so lucky to have joined eHarmony and to have been matched with Matt. I truly believe he is the only man for me and that we will have a long and wonderful life together.”

….excuse me, but have I been launched into some starry-eyed and horribly written Nicolas Sparks novel? Do people actually talk like this in real life? Even if they believe sentiments like this when they themselves are in love, would British singles be convinced to use eHarmony thanks to this kind of rhetoric? Cynicism is a characteristic commonly associated with the Brits, so why have advertisers decided to use this kind of sappy language to lure them into using eHarmony? Maybe I’m speaking too broadly, but I think if something similarly trite was printed on an ad in New York or Chicago, it would warrant constant eye-rolls at the very least. (Then again, maybe the same can’t necessarily be said of middle America.)

Then there’s another ad that I didn’t see directly, but I saw on my British friend Ashley’s Facebook: "It’s the smaller things in life that I love. Like having strawberries and cream with my family in the sunshine. But unfortunately, strawberries have small pips in them that get under my dentures and it can be painful.”

1. There’s absolutely no way that ad can actually be helping boost sales of whatever denture glue it’s trying to sell.
2. I looked up ‘pips’ online and found nothing. This company is just making words up.
3. That was such a pathetic attempt at advertising, I literally can’t think of a way to end this post.

A rant about Americans and how little we know

There are days when it is utterly humiliating to be American.

I’m not really talking about those times when you’re being a tourist and you can’t figure out if this Circle Line train is going to take you to Hammersmith or Edgeware Road and you have to ask the locals. I rather enjoy those moments because I love meeting locals and hearing their stories; they serve as a constant reminder of Londoners’ friendliness.

I’m more referring to the situations in which we, as Americans, know less about our own country than most of Europe. I’m in an International Journalism class, so of course the class would be made up of many news-oriented people; this particular class has students from Greece, Somalia, Wales, Brazil, China, and pretty much every other area of the world. But when we discuss the issue of Israel and Palestine, and a girl from Norway knows the entirety of the U.S.’s position on the conflict (the details of which none of the Americans in the class, myself included, can really identify), I am once again reminded of Americans’ ignorance. I read the news quite a bit, and have done even more now that I’m in a class where it is (rightfully) assumed that students are well-informed.

But even with this increase in my own reading, I know virtually nothing about the political system of Brazil; China’s transition to capitalism; or the whole reason the Greeks caused the value of the Euro to plunge. We hardly know what’s going on in our own neighborhoods, and what news we do get is from a partisan news source; it’s the take on the news we want to hear.

(I’m not intending to take a stand about American versus British journalism, because (as we discussed today in International Journalism), American newspapers like the New York Times are held to higher standards regarding multiple credible sources, whereas many British papers—excepting outlets like the Guardian –don’t hold themselves to those standards. I’m just saying that we Americans form our opinions based on the little news we’ve heard, then seek out additional news that backs up our opinion. Hell, many of us probably don't read or watch the news at all.)

This has become more of my rant about American ignorance (mine as much as anyone else’s.) Please, somebody, just scan BBC, and I’ll be happy as a clam.