On the Road Again

I’M BAAACKK!!!

Hey everyone, I hope you’re all doing well, and welcome back to To Valencia and Beyond, the continuing adventures of the fun travel things I’m doing.

My excuse for travel this summer is a study abroad program in Germany during the month of June, but there will also be Ireland, Croatia, France, Belgium, and Scotland, because once you’re over here, you might as well do as much as you can.

This missive is brought to you by the 6 hour layover I’m currently experiencing in the Frankfurt airport, because that’s when the magic happens. And by magic I mean that I have enough time on my hands to ramble onto a keyboard for a while.

SO it’s day… umm… well it depends on how you count. So let’s just start from the beginning:

May 20^th!

I got on a plane from Greenville, SC to Charlotte, SC. I then got on another plane to Dublin, Ireland. I watched movies, I didn’t sleep, I ate subpar airplane food and drank horribly overbrewed tea. It was a transatlantic flight.

But I did get to watch the new version of Annie and The Imitation Game, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

May 21^st!

I got off the plane at 06:35 Dublin time, which is approximately 1 in the morning Eastern Standard Time, and the fun began. I got on a shuttle and headed to my hostel. I wound up chatting with a bunch of people in line for the shuttle and on the way to the hostel. Apparently I give off an air of knowing what I’m doing during travel, so I had a number of people ask me for directions or advice, which is kind of a strange feeling, but also a really great compliment, and I tried to help the best I could.

The hostel I was staying at was the same one I stayed at last summer in Dublin, which was really nice, because I knew what landmarks to look for when I got off the shuttle and how to get most important places from there. The first thing I did after I dumped my luggage was go shopping. Because the one thing I forgot back home was a jacket, and it was like 40 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) in Dublin. And I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans. So I bought a nice bright purple jacket and went back to the hostel to take the free walking tour at the hostel, because I needed something to keep me on my feet and occupied.

And the tour was great for that. I don’t think I did a tour last time I was in Dublin, so it was really great to get to hear some of the history of the city and see some of the sights. Being in Ireland also really helps me appreciate how terrible the English were to the Irish for a long time, because even the symbolism in the government buildings is just… awful. For example, there is a statue of Justice on top of an arch, but this Justice isn’t blindfolded, because Justice was NOT blind when it came to the Irish. Justice watches and remembers. Shudder

But tragic history aside, we saw a bunch of cool stuff, and I had a great time. I met an Australian guy and we discussed the merits of traveling alone, and I managed to shock everyone by not liking beer, chocolate, and cheese.  It was hilarious. 

After the tour I went and ate an absolutely delicious meat pie before heading back to the hostel.  I checked in, read, and tried desperately not to go to sleep. I had been falling asleep standing up by the end of the walking tour. I was trying to get through the day on caffine and sheer force of will, but it was HARD. So I made myself get up and do things. I went to the Oscar Wilde memorial, which is just one of my favorite memorials for anyone ever. I probably wrote about it in my blogs for my trip to Dublin last time, but it really struck me again this time. 

Because what the Oscar Wilde memorial makes me realize is how impersonal most memorials are. They tend to be big blocks of stone, and the most personal touch is a quote or a statue, but I always go to the Oscar Wilde memorial and think that the people who designed it understood Oscar Wilde. There’s the terribly gaudy mutl-colored marble statue of him, which I would hate in any other context, but Oscar Wilde is not a plain, classy white marble kind of guy. And this statue is reclining on a giant rock, smoking a pipe, and looking like he’s judging you. 

Which he probably is, let's be real. And then there are the pillars. There are two of them, each with a statue on top: one male and one female. The pillars themselves are black and covered in quotes from Oscar Wilde. 

And actually, there was a special adornment on the memorial when I was there because on Friday Ireland had a referendum on whether or not to allow same-sex couples to marry. There were posters all over the city, most featuring either the word "YES" very large or "NO" very large. And on Thursday when I visited the Oscar Wilde Memorial, someone had done this 

I think Oscar would have approved. And that's really the thing. I feel like this whole memorial really captures the spirit of the man its dedicated to, and it really shows how Oscar Wilde would have liked to be remembered. 

So then I went and wandered a little bit. I did a little shopping, sat in St. Stephen's Green and read, wandered, and got take out samosas from an Indian restaurant on my way to the Anglican Cathedral of Dublin. I went and listened to evensong service, which was beautiful. Sung services are absolutely my favorite kind. Unfortunately, the sitting listening to beautiful music in a prayerful attitude made me very sleepy indeed, and I may have dozed off slightly, but I'm glad I went nonetheless. After that I  headed back to my hostel, took a much-needed shower, and hit the hay. 

Even as tired as I was my first day in Ireland, it was really good to be back here. Ireland is one of my favorite places on Earth and it felt like coming home to be back in Dublin. I missed the way things felt in Europe: the atmosphere, the pace of life, the ubiquity of churches, the different accents and multiple languages. Coming back to Dublin was great, because I knew my way around, I knew landmarks, and, more esoterically, I knew the sights and smells and rhythms of the city. I'm really glad that I chose to fly into Dublin, and I'm even more glad that I'm back on my proper content. 

Next time on Katie's Blog 2.0....

the non-jetlagged day in Ireland. 

The Beginnings of an Adventure (around 6pm, 6 January, 2014)

aka, Katie is bored in an airport and a wild internet appeared so she captured it and wrote a long, boring email including musings on the nature of modern technology as it applies to her life.

Dear Family, Friends, Random Acquaintances, and other sentient lifeforms,

I am sihaptshmmmm hours into my glorious European adventure, and currently camped out in front of gate E6 at the Boston airport. For those of you who are curious, it is actually 7 hours since I walked out the door this morning, and I have successfully completed the first leg of my trip.

            Despite the Delta people being disappointingly unhelpful about my attempts to change my flight and seat, the day has been going rather well. I did discover that my kindle cord was pretty badly messed up, but they have these cool little Best Buy vending machines in the airport, so I was able to replace it before I left territory controlled by the USA. The flight was very quick, we had a tailwind that cut 30 minutes off the flight, but made for one of the most unpleasant and turbulent landings I have ever experienced. Before this however, the flight was generally pleasant. I started reading Good Omens, did a bit of a crossword, and Delta was generous enough to show Shark Tank on the screen and feed my frankly unhealthy addiction to a reality show about investors. Oh well, it’s not as bad as the shows Nicole watches.  My only other complaint was that I was seated next to a couple that had an infant in arms, but the child (and the infant in front of me! I swear!) were both practically saintly and did not make the flight noticeably more miserable.

            Upon my arrival in Boston I learned that the.... kind and highly intelligent beings... who constructed this airport made it impossible to get from the regular terminal to the international terminal without exiting through baggage claim and returning through security. However I got a hot pretzel, which sort of made everything better.

            Fortunately my flight arrived early, and I walked to the international terminal with plenty of time to spare. This is especially true since (unsupririsingly considering the drama that’s been going on up here lately) my flight has been delayed. Last I checked my flight was pushed back half an hour, and I hope it won’t be more considering it is noticeably warmer here than it was in Atlanta. Oh well, there’s a Starbucks in this terminal, so if all fails I can go get tea.

            I know that this is probably waaaaayyyyy tmi, but normally I would just text my parents about my adventures, however, sadly, My Preciousssss (the official name of the iPhone I am so seldomly seen without) was left behind today. The tech people have to do some jigglty-pokery to it to make it work in Europe and I have sacrificed it for the next 72 hours in order to be able to use it for the rest of my time in Europe.

            The downside of course, is that I am currently phoneless. I know that most of you think that I am probably too attached to that thing, and you might be right, based on how I am feeling right now, but this separation (currently at almost 5 hours) is actually quite tough. I mean, my phone functions as a lot of things in my life. I have games, reading material, directions, photos, and much more on that phone. In addition, I use(d) it as my watch, leaving me totally dependent on clocks to get the time, which, on a travel day, is kind of frustrating. It has also occurred to me that I have no way to set an alarm, thus ensuring, for example, that I do not oversleep on Wednesday morning and miss my train. I don’t think I’ll do that, but the inability to set an alarm is worrying nonetheless.

            I know it’ll all be fine. I, like many others, have survived without a phone before and will do it again. I have a kindle stocked with awesome books, a computer on which I can write emails to you on Microsoft word while I don’t have internet, and on the next flight there will be a screen that I can play with. It’s just interesting, because last time I went abroad I didn’t have use of the phone functions of My Precioussss, but I still had the phone with all its games and information and contacts and pictures, and now I lack all that too. This summer, not being able to call people was frustrating of course, but not too difficult. I don’t actually talk on my phone that often. This total separation, however, is much harder.

All my love, besos y abrazos, and I’ll try to get back to y’all later!