Scotland is Also Cold

I made it to Glasgow, though if I’d started out earlier in the day like I was supposed to (thanks a lot, soft ocean sounds outside my window lulling me back to sleep!) I could have made it to Inverness, but as it stood I didn’t have reservations there until Friday anyway, and I figured I’d go to Glasgow and either stay there or see where I could go from there.

Glasgow is ok. It’s not spectacular or anything. I think I’m getting used to all these old cities. The architecture’s pretty great, but honestly it's not far off from being in New Haven, with Yale's old-style buildings up against the modern stuff. It’s a city and it has lots of stores and about 50 McDonalds just like every other city. I blame America.

Also, for the record, the McNuggets and fries taste exactly the same out here. Also, there are no McNuggets on the Pound Menu (yes, they have a Pound Menu). Actually, their entire menu has much less selection than back home; I can only get a 6 piece McNugget. This annoys me.

So I wandered around Glasgow for quite a while. I figured it would be a good town to get lost in, so I set off in the right general direction and tried to find Queen Street, since that’s where the trains out north depart from. Well, guess what? Glasgow defeated me, but it didn’t play fair. Like many British cities, they don’t have street signs on corner poles like in the States. They have signs on the sides of buildings or fences on the corners. In London, they’re pretty big. But in Glasgow, they are literally like the size of a piece of paper. 8½ x 11. Placed conveniently about 2 stories high. And I now officially need glasses for distance. I was hoping it wouldn’t bite me while I was out here, but it did. So thank you tiny Glasgow street signs for making me get lost and not actually finding the station.

As a side note, I have had to ditch my scarf again in Glasgow. There are a lot of Catholic/Protestant problems here, centered mostly around the city's two football teams, Celtic and Rangers. The also have things called "orange parades" which frequently turn ugly when Rangers fans bust them up. My scarf is orange. It's staying in the bag.

I did get to Queen Street Station eventually, by finding my way back to Central Station where I’d come from (I was never 100% lost, I always knew how to get back to my start point. That’s Rule #1 of not getting hopelessly lost; I don't travel thousands of miles from home on my own so I can have some Glaswegian punter bash my head in bec ause I got really lost) and taking a taxi. The driver was the first grumpy guy I’ve met. He didn’t want to talk or anything. So I found a train to Edinburgh and got on. I thought I might make it to Inverness by midnight, though I wasn’t crazy about the idea. I have no reservations until Friday night, and I’d have to find some random place. Inverness is pretty far up to have a lot of decent choices.

The problem with my train was that I had gotten on the wrong one, sort of. Once it got moving, they announced the stops and the line ended at Stirling. Now, Stirling is a fine town, I’m sure, but seriously, Stirling? So, I start rationalizing, I figure I can stay in Stirling, whatever. The goal is to get as far north as possible, to make tomorrow’s trip to Inverness as short as necessary. Stirling is some progress. I guess. But then they stopped at Croy, where they announced a connection to Edinburgh. So I could indeed get to Edinburgh! So I got off and waited half an hour at some godforsaken, freezing cold train station at Croy for the train to Edinburgh. I arrived at Waverly Station in Edinburgh thinking that maybe this was it, I’d have to get a room…wait…no, there was a train in half an hour going out to Aberdeen! Hooray! And I’d be in Aberdeen by midnight! Wonderful. So here I sit, in a lovely hotel room in Scotland’s biggest industrial port city early Friday morning, where The Scottish Animals Board has apparently replaced all the sheep with seagulls and I feel like my room is in the aviary from Jurassic Park 3. It’s a nice room, though. Here is a picture of Aberdeen from my hotel window:Aberdeen is also the coldest place I've been so far, by the way. Colder than Croy!

The Trouble With Scotland is It's Full of Awesome

Note: Due to there being a general lack of readily available internet access in the Highlands region (in Drumnadrochit I didn't even have a phone in my room!), it has taken me a while to put up some new posts. This post is up to date to Thursday. I'll get the blog back up to date tomorrow.

So I took the train to Belfast. On this train I saw many sheep. Similar to Wales. Sheep every place. Upon arriving at Belfast, I got a taxi to the harbour. The driver and I discussed the economy. There’s a lot of building going on in Belfast, lots of skyscrapers going up, and the driver told me that all that was started before the downturn, so Belfast looks to weather the economic storm at least until the buildings are up. It looked like a cool town to hang out in; maybe next time.

I picked up the ferry and once again, it was as well-appointed as a cruise ship. I got a bit of sleep and checked Facebook (yes, you can get the internet even on a ferry in the Irish Sea), changed my euros for pounds for an exorbitant fee at the bureau de change JUST IN CASE, and landed in Stranraer.

The taxi ride to the Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel was 100% dark (zero streetlights and only unilluminated fields of green along the roads will do that) and the road was a winding, one-lane affair that my driver was only too happy to take at top speed. The Lighthouse was a pretty great place to stay at, but since I’d spent the last two days hanging out with cool human beings, I kind of missed not having other people around. Also, it was the kind of place my grandparents would have liked, and that thought left me a bit down as well. The dinner at the lighthouse was amazing, (though I'm amazed how much lamb these people make without using garlic. They have garlic around here, they just don't seem to use it with lamb at all...still good, though) but then it was off to bed.

The best thing about the room I was in was the view from the window in the morning. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that? After a splendid breakfast, it was back to the rails again. The taxi ride back illuminated all the scenery I’d missed the night before. And the sheep. Again, sheep and beautiful green hills everywhere. Although, my driver warned, people from London are selling their pricey houses down in England and buying big plots of land up here in southern Scotland for cheap. It’s the same everywhere.

So here I am, typing this missive at the rather spartan train station here in Stranraer, waiting for my train to Glasgow or Inverness.

Paul Sarah Dublin

After an uneventful journey on the ferry from Fishguard Harbour (I was just a bit seasick; not nearly enough to get physically ill, mind you, just enough to prevent me from wanting to eat anything), I arrived at Rosslare Europort with absolutely no itinerary. I knew there MUST be a train to Dublin after the ferry arrived, though I couldn’t find anything on the train tables. Because of this, I had no reservations anywhere, but I had a Lonely Planet book for reference if I needed to find something.

I walked over to the Rosslare train station, and there was a couple standing around waiting. I took this as a good sign. I knew that if I got to Enniscorthy, I could get a connecting train to Dublin, so I managed to ask them if the train went to Enniscorthy. It did, and we started talking. The train came, and they invited me to sit with them.

We talked for a while about stuff, then the guy asked me what religion I was. When I told him, he laughed and said he knew I was either that or a Mormon. The girl was also very pleased, since one of her best friends is a Witness. After that, we got on like a house on fire. Paul and Sarah were their names, and they had decided on the spur of the moment to head off to Dublin from Wales. Paul was in home renovation and joked endlessly about how he, like all good Welshmen, was in love with his sheep; Sarah was allergic to work and very, very witty; and they were both looking to get their minds off their troubles for a few days.One thing Rosslare didn’t have, which I found both amazing and alarming, was a cash machine. I could have used the bureau de change on the ferry, but their commissions are insane. What this meant was that I was on a train with no way to pay for it (my railpass is not valid in Ireland and they only take euros). Paul traded me some pounds for euros and I was good to go. Thank you, Paul!

We made the transfer at Enniscorthy, where we learned that due to a rockfall, the line was closed between Greystones and Bray. We would have to take a connecting bus between the stations. This extended our trip by probably half an hour, but it was cool to see a random Irish town. It looked pretty much exactly like you’d think it would, just like the pictures.

We got into Dublin pretty late, around 10:30, and I was immediately glad to be with some people. Right from the train station, you can tell that Dublin is insane. There were kids jumping the till, driving the stationkeepers crazy. Dudes and ladies running around, laughing, being slightly drunk or more than slightly drunk. What you might expect from Dublin. Paul and Sarah told me that their hotel was pretty cheap and I should stay there if there were any rooms available there. So we caught a cab to their hotel. Their hotel was actually full (on a Monday night!), but I was directed to another one down the street that was much less of a deal but actually had rooms available.

On my way to this hotel someone yelled “BASTARDS!” and threw an egg at me. Not sure if it was meant for me (I was alone at the time, and the yelling of “bastards” was clearly plural), but I got a bit on my shoe and a bit on my suitcase. It came off pretty easy, no harm done. But still. It could have been worse, I suppose. Paul said maybe they threw stuff at me because I looked like such a tourist. Unfortunately, he’s right. What he doesn’t realize is that this is how I dress every day. It’s sort of like walking into Texas dressed like Jeff Goldblum in Buckaroo Banzai. Well, it’s not that bad. I have seen some locals dressed like me. Old guys walking around with pipes in their mouths and newspapers under their arms, maybe walking a well-behaved Jack Russell terrier. It’s typical, I suppose, that I would regularly dress like an old man from another country. So I toned it down a bit for the rest of my Dublin stay.

The next day I slept late enough to miss breakfast, at which point I realized it had been more than 24 hours since I last ate. I was so hungry my stomach had given up trying to send me signals and was too busy gnawing away at its lining to worry about anything else. I met up with Paul and Sarah again and we walked around Dublin for a while.Dublin is a beautiful city, with the river Liffey bisecting it. There is a lot of tourism there, though. Once again, not many service industry people spoke English as their native language, and I didn’t hear anyone speaking Gaelic except occasionally on the radio. A lot of the city is old, or at least made to look old, but there are new buildings going up all the time as well. We took a walk through St. Stephens Park, which was beautiful. There were swans and tourists and park benches and grass you weren’t allowed to trod on. We got some lunch. I got an overpriced steak that was pretty good for my first meal in 28 hours. We did a bit of shopping. I got some seasick pills for the ferry ride to Stranraer, just in case. At around 4:00, we went to the Temple Bar section of town for our first pub. (Temple Bar is referred to in my Lonely Planet book as Temple Barf.) I’d had a Guinness with lunch, and it did not taste any different from the norm. So at the pub, I switched to Murphy’s, which was pretty great. After a couple of those, we switched pubs to The Temple Bar, which had an indoor smoking section for Paul and adequate seating for Sarah, and we planted ourselves there for the balance of the evening. It was my intention to try a lot of different beers, but I think I stuck to just Guinness or Murphy’s. I had meant to try the Smithwick’s but I’d overheard someone complain that the line needed to be rinsed. No thank you. Paul was disappointed that every time he tried to chat up a girl she didn’t speak English. Maybe they did?

I was very disappointed to see that Budweiser is readily available in even the most Irish of pubs. American culture’s existence here in general kind of irks me, but to go to the drinking capital of the world and see the most mediocre beer in the world as one of the major choices is annoying at best.

Had an Irish whiskey to top it off, then off to bed to sleep it all off. Paul was pretty drunk, Sarah was ready to get some sleep, so we promised to meet in the morning and I went back to my room and posted the previous blog entry. Then I got some sleep.

Next morning I had a hearty breakfast, checked out of the hotel, met up with Paul and Sarah again and we did some more walking around. We found Connolly Station, where I would be heading out to Belfast from, and we stopped off at one more pub for one last pint. The Celtic was one of those real local Irish pubs, not a tourist attraction like in Temple Barf. Out in Temple Bar, every pub seems to have an even bigger gift shop attached to it. This place out by Connolly actually gave me a Guinness with a Perfect Pour, something apparently the tourists in Temple Bar are not ready to wait for. So after one last pint came some sad goodbyes and I left Paul, Sarah, and Dublin behind.

Things I learned: Dublin is full of tourists, it is crazy at night, it is probably the last place in the world you’d want to get in a barfight with someone, and it is quite possibly the best place to party in the world. Also, Radiohead was right even if they were being sarcastic; Meeting People Is Easy.

Things I saw: lots of pretty girls (possibly more than I’ve ever seen in one place); shamrocks (definitely more than I’ve ever seen in one place); old guys dressed exactly like me; lots of Garda everywhere to keep things safe, especially in Temple Bar; a street sign that said Disc Machine, though I know not why (I think it's something to do with parking discs).

If it's Ddyd Llun, it must be Cymru

Note: Local terms are in parentheses.

So I spent Sunday night at Craig Y Nos Castle. It was pretty neat. I spent most of the time I was there at the hotel bar, knocking back Guinnesses (the best of the castle’s draft (draught) selection; Carling isn’t fooling anyone and I don’t mind cider but if I have to choose between Strongbow and Guinness…) and taking advantage of their free wifi. Free wifi in a castle! Will wonders never cease? It’s not a castle like you would think of a castle; no battles were fought there or anything, and it’s really more like a mansion than anything else. The interior is all done up modern, with wood floors and what not. It’s a really nice place, but it’s not like there’s shields on the walls everywhere and knights’ armor mounted on stands at every corner.Anyway, the castle (like all castles in Britain) is supposed to be haunted. I took this with a grain of salt, since they make a lot of their money with the haunted house schtick. But I think it might actually be possible that there’s some messed up stuff going on there. There was some weird looking knick-knack on the dresser in my room that I wasn’t at all comfortable with, so I put it on a table in the hall. I tried to take a picture of it with every possible camera setting and it always came out blurry.SPOOOOOKY

Also, at about 5 in the morning, there were footsteps running up and down the hall. Now, the lights in the hallway were on all night, and I didn’t see any shadows running past. Also, the only other people there that night were two older couples, and I made it to breakfast before them, so unless they like to run around castle hallways like children I don’t think it was them. Who was it? I DON'T KNOW.

But all of this was worth putting up with because I got to accomplish two of my lifelong goals – to spend the night in a castle and take a bath in one of those really big bathtubs. It was pretty great. Nice to relax a bit after all that running about in London. It’s all running about from here on in, at least for a while.

In the morning my taxi took a while in arriving, so I had to go with my backup rail itinerary. This means that I was unable to return to Cardiff (Caerdydd) to find out what the deal was with BRAINS. But I found out anyways. It has to do with beer. Of course.

The cab driver (who charged an obscene amount, by the way) was apparently a really big fan of wrestling. He likes the Undertaker the best. I was unable to get involved in an in-depth discussion of the intricacies of the WWE (nee WWF) though, since much of my knowledge of wrestling deals with the Hogan/Piper/Andre the Giant era, and he seemed to have not even heard of any of them. The dude was in his 50s, it wasn’t like he wasn’t around, right? I dunno. Whatever. He was cool, and he got me to Neath (Castell-nedd) Station. That is the point.

Anyway, I left Neath (Castell-nedd) and headed to Swansea (Abertawe), then Llanelli (Llanelli), then finally to Fishguard Harbour (Porthladd Abergwaun), where I picked up the ferry. That’s where the above paragraphs were typed. I am currently crossing the Irish Sea in a ferry that is appointed almost as well as a cruise ship. Hopefully, I will not get seasick. They have stabilizers and etc., but who knows. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, just in case!

Note: This post was written Monday afternoon. I can't be bothered to post my Dublin adventures yet since they are still happening and also I have more important things to do. Like tipping the glass.

On Mass Transit and the Benefits of Urban Reconnaissance

I'm a big fan of mass transit in general. I think it's a much better way of getting around than everyone owning a vehicle, but the way things are set up here in the States it's tough to get around without a car unless you live in a huge metropolitan area, and most citizens of the US do not. I could get into a whole discussion of how stupid it is that I lived next to a train station for five years and never used it because it was either too expensive or the lines never went where I needed them to, but that is neither here nor there.

That said, one of my goals on this upcoming trip is to use mass transit as much as possible, since 1) the UK is well set up for it when compared to America's infrastructure, and 2) I will kill someone if I had to rent a car, what with the whole "other side of the road" situation.

Even the first leg of my journey - the trip to the airport - will be mass transit intensive (to the extent possible in the US). To that end, while checking rail times on the MTA website, I came across this handy-dandy tool.

Trip Planner allows you to enter in your start point and destination within the five boroughs, and it will find you the best route. It gives you a few different choices so you don't have to go near Pelham Bay Park if you don't want to, just in case Robert Shaw and Martin Balsam try to hijack your train.

We'll see how well it works when I do a test run for the purposes of timing and making myself familiar with the route - I rarely go to Queens; I think I went to JFK once when I was a kid and I went to a Mets game, and I've never actually taken the subway out there. What's worse than getting lost on the way to the airport? Who wants to deal with that hassle? In my opinion, a quick recce just makes sense. Adventures in Urban Reconnaisance are most likely forthcoming.

Maybe I'll even take some pictures, who knows...