Ho Chi Minh City, day one

Travel Truth #2: It pays to have friends. 

The light in which you first see a city is important. No unfamiliar metropolis looks attractive under grey, cloudy skies. Maybe some of the towns in Western Europe could pull it off, but definitely not Asia. 

I first saw Ho Chi Minh City (which from hereon I shall interchangeably refer to as either "HCMC" or "Saigon") under the pale pink light of dawn, and it was already bustling. Scooters—even more numerous than they'd been in Hanoi—warred for room on the roads with trucks and cars and taxicabs. Shopkeepers, fruit sellers, noodle-mongers, and other vendors were just opening their doors. The city was stretching and yawning wakefully under the warm, steamy, slanting light of the morning sun, which leaped above the horizon with equatorial swiftness. I observed all this as I rode in a cab from the Saigon Railway Station in District 3 to Cong Quynh Street in District 1 (which, I believe, was named after a popular scholar who lived during the Le-Trinh dynasty). 

It was barely six-thirty. Check-in time wasn't for another nine hours. But my road had been paved ahead of me. A Geordie friend whom I knew from my Geoje days, Adam, knew the morning receptionist at Green Suites. He'd greased a few wheels for me, and she admitted me to the hotel for no extra charge. Pays to have friends, see?

I had to wait a couple of hours for a room to be cleaned and prepared for me, but hey—no extra charge! 

Green Suites was infinitely better than the Asia Star in Hanoi—bigger, brighter, cleaner rooms, an enormous bathroom, a double bed whose mattress eschewed the usual Asian adamance, and more tasteful interior décor. Gratefully I flung my baggage down and took a long shower. I considered a nap, but I was too excited. I hadn't seen Adam, Jeff, or Jenn in something like six months, and now here we were in an entirely new city in an entirely new country and about to go exploring. Hell yeah. Just you try to sit still, mister. 

Adam showed up to get me at half-past noon, and we walked through a crooked series of shade- and sun-drenched alleys to Jeff and Jenn's hotel. They'd had a hell of a time getting to Vietnam from Indonesia; their Tiger Air flight had delivered them safely but their baggage was still stuck in Singapore. To mend their stressed souls we wended our way through the twisting alleys to a nearby café and had us some Vietnamese coffee. 

Now perhaps you haven't heard about Vietnamese iced coffee, or cà phê đá in the local lingo. To quote Wikipedia, it's "coarse-ground Vietnamese-grown dark roast coffee individually brewed with a small metal French drip filter into a cup containing about a quarter to a half as much sweetened condensed milk, stirred and poured over ice." 

And that's about all you need to know, really. Aside from the fact that it's freaking delicious.

And you know what else is freaking delicious? Bacon sandwiches. 

This place was called The Hungry Pig, started by a wet-behind-the-ears English university grad who obeyed the call to "Go east, young man, go east" and, like so many of his British peers, became an entrepreneur in the Orient. This little grub shop at 144 Cong Quynh was the flagship store for what is hoped will be a country- (and perhaps continent-) spanning enterprise someday. If they keep making sandwiches that good, they'll do it just fine. You could order any fixed item on the menu or even customize ingredients to create your own Frankenstein of a sandwich. I had maple bacon and chorizo on whole grain bread with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, and red onion, plus cheddar cheese and HP ("brown") Sauce. And a little Saigon beer, of course. Fantastic.

But who can be satisfied with only one breakfast? This was HCMC and we were all on vacation. We walked down Cong Quynh, crossed Nguyen Cu Trinh, and had some cơm tấm Sài Gòn—Saigon-style broken rice, a signature dish. I got shredded pork on top of my rice and some kind of soft tofu ball with meat inside. We had 333 Beer and some excellent conversation with Stacey, Adam's girlfriend. 

By and by Stacey had to leave to do lesson plans and Adam had to go to work, so that left Jeff, Jenn, and me free to do some exploring. We wandered through District 1's notable areas, including Twenty-Three September Park and Bến Thành Market. 

Bến Thành Market, one of Saigon's oldest buildings, is that building with the clock in the left background. 

There were some pretty cool T-shirts that I wanted to buy, including one with a silhouette of a B-52 and that famous quote by General Curtis LeMay—"They've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression, or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age"—but as usual, nothing fit me properly. Even the XXL shirts fit me like a tailored vest, with my ample stomach sticking out by a mile. So I had to quit on the business. Jeff and I wandered through the vast shopping arcade with its lofty French colonial ceiling, humid air, overworked oscillating fans, its overflowing shopping stalls stuck way too close together, and the stumpy saleswomen who kept plucking at our elbows and sleeves as we walked by. To escape these personal intrusions Jeff and I went across the road and waited for Stacey at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (yes, they have those in Vietnam) to sample what Westernized commercialism has done to indigenous culture. Then we went back to our hotels for a rest.

At 5:45 we met Stacey at a place called L'Usine on Dong Khoi. It was a French-style wine and cheese sort of place, with faux-stucco walls, iron rails, potted plants, and strange realist paintings of geared devices on the walls. ("L'Usine" apparently means "Factory" in French.) We drank wine (house red and house white) and ate baguettes, cheese, figs, quince jam, marinated olives, frites, and calamari. The prices were exorbitant—for Southeast Asia. For foreigners like us it was dirt cheap. Leave it to the Brits to sniff out French wine-and-cheese joints while they're on holiday. I added L'Usine to my mental list of "places to take Miss H later" and enjoyed myself to the fullest. 

Then it was time for another break. Walking around in the hot streets and still, humid air of Southeast Asian megacities really takes it outta ya. 

We met Adam (finally off work) at 10 p.m. near my hotel. Green Suites occupies an alleyway just off the main thoroughfare of Cong Quynh, and said alleyway happens to be full of streetside eateries. One of these, Oc Trang, seats its customers on little blue plastic lawn chairs and stubby metal tables beside a cracked, crumbling, white-plastered cinderblock wall. Then it gives 'em as much phở and Bia Saigon (83 cents a bottle) as they can eat. The four of us sat around, staring out at the brightly-lit street behind us, tucking in our elbows and knees whenever a scooter roared down the alley, enduring the stares of the old women and young boys skulking in corners, watching geckos crawl across the cinderblock wall to eat gnats attracted by the floodlights, while the patrons of Oc Trang ate gaily-colored snails, prawns, and frog legs. I think that's what I'll remember most about my time in southern Vietnam, besides the cheap beer, dirty streets, and hordes of honking scooters—those geckos. They were everywhere in Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, sitting under the eaves near light sources and gobbling bugs by the bushel. 

Stop by next time if you want to hear about the Cu Chi tunnels. 

upcoming jaunts in 2014

Good morning, hangers-on! And ain't it a fine April day? The sun is shining, the kkachi (magpies) are screeching love songs, the yellow dust is nearly gone, one of my students told me I've lost weight and I'm almost over the 24-hour bug I caught. Time to plan some trips.



So I went through the Korean calendar and I found out that 2014 is the year of three-day weekends. Here's a list I compiled of holidays (and the potential trips which might accompany them). I might not be traveling overseas for every little break I've got here, but it's intoxicating to contemplate the possibilities. So here you go:

1. May 3-7 (Children’s Day, Buddha’s Birthday): nothing planned, as it's probably too late; though I might see if there's a last-minute deal for Taiwan or something, just for me. I have five days, but Miss H and Miss J have four. Ha-ha. [blows raspberry]

2. June 6-8 (Memorial Day): Miss H and I were thinking about Jeju Island. We need to jump on the web tonight and book tickets NOW, though.

3. July 12-August 10 (my summer vacation): my big trip. I've shelved Mongolia for the moment, as it seems all the good stuff there is really far apart and requires guides and prepaid tours to access. I'll have to save that for later. But I'm still going to do Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and whatever country Miss H and I decide to visit for...

4. August 2-10 (Miss H's summer vacation): she and I still need to work this out. And fast. Hong Kong might be too small to sustain a week-long trip, so we're thinking Japan—Kyushu and southern Honshu. We could see Miyajima (its sacred torii gate which seems to float upon the water at high tide); Kyoto; Nara (Japan's ancient capital); Hiroshima; Nagasaki; Kagoshima (known as "the Naples of Japan" for its smoking volcano, tropical climate and hot-tempered locals) and other stuff. Yeah, I like that idea. Maybe we could even visit a hot spring and Miss H could sample her first capsule hotel. It'll be my third trip to Japan, but there's still so much I haven't seen.

5. August 15-17 (Liberation Day): another three-day weekend. Might have to be used for a rest period, understandably. But if Miss J's summer vacation lines up with it...that's a different story. Hong Kong anyone?

6. September 6-9 (Chuseok): four days. Always tricky to travel over Chuseok, as that's precisely what the other umpteen million Koreans (and a lot of Chinese folks as well) are doing. But we'll figure it out. Someplace tropical, we're thinking.

7. October 3-5 (National Foundation Day): another three-day weekend.

8. February 18-22 (Seolnar): a full five days! We gotta do something! 

After February 2015, of course, Miss H and I will head back to the U.S.A. (most likely Las Vegas or Tuscon), settle down, and embark upon our careers and family lives. I won't hang up my travelin' boots, though. I hope to pull in enough money from my writing to take time off and globe-trot some more. Miss H and I still haven't seen Europe, and I've got some trekking in South America and some safariing in Africa to do yet. I still need to ride trains through Canada and Australia and Russia and India, too.

But this'll do for right now.

how a Californian (like me) sees the world

WARNING: What follows is exceedingly general and perhaps a bit non-PC. I don't care, and neither should you. Au contraire, you should laud me for admitting my ignorance rather than disguising it. Consider this a list of what I don't know about the world (and hope to learn someday).

DISCLAIMER: You'll notice that I said a Californian like me. You can no more judge all Californians to be the same than you can judge all Dubliners or all Tokyoites to be the same. We're a mixed lot. But even among them, I am an outlier. I was born in Northern California, for one thing. I've lived in the capital, the Midwest, the American South, and the Great Plains, so I know a bit more about the rest of America than the average Californian does. My political views don't exactly match up with a lot of other Californians', either. I'm a white middle-class twenty-something, and proud of it.

Ready? Then let's begin:

THE REST OF AMERICA:

• OREGON: Best known for portraying that forested planet in The Return of the Jedi. And being mispronounced by Midwesterners and foreigners alike.
• WASHINGTON STATE: Coffee. Rain. Pine trees. Killer whales. Reggie Watts. Legal marijuana. Sententious living.
• IDAHO: Potatoes.
• MONTANA: Looks really good on a postcard.
• NEVADA: Vegas, baby. And machine guns. The rest of it's desert. And Reno.
• UTAH: Mormons! Who doesn't like Mormons? And saltwater?
• ARIZONA: Simply marvelous gun laws. Cacti which are the envy of the civilized world. Gila monsters. Fatuous Nicolas Cage movies. Mountains that look like Indians.
• NEW MEXICO: Are the rocks supposed to be red like that?
• COLORADO: Best place to raise abducted children.
• WYOMING: Fewer people than a single suburb of Los Angeles. Seriously, the antelopes outnumber the humans. Scary thought.
• NORTH DAKOTA: I felt like a celebrity there.
• SOUTH DAKOTA: Big stone heads. The Black Hills (yeah, baby). Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.
• NEBRASKA: What the guy who thought of the phrase "middle of nowhere" was thinking of.
• KANSAS: You're not there anymore, Toto.
• OKLAHOMA: Bombs. Musicals. The Dust Bowl. Tornadoes.
• TEXAS: If it weren't for them, Mexico would have invaded long ago.
• MINNESOTA: So, like, let's go to the lake, eh?
• IOWA: The Minnesotans are right. The best thing coming out of Iowa is I-29.
• MISSOURI: My dad went to college there. Considers himself more Missourian than Ohioan. They've got an arch. That's the limit of my knowledge.
• ARKANSAS: Most direct route between Tennessee and Oklahoma.
• LOUISIANA: Bayous, swamps, Cajun food, levies, Mardi Gras, and hurricanes. Especially hurricanes.
• WISCONSIN: Cheese.
• ILLINOIS: Abraham Lincoln.
• INDIANA: No friggin' idea. Maybe basketball?
• KENTUCKY: Is the grass really blue, or is that just a figure of speech?
• TENNESSEE: Too many mullets for my taste.
• MISSISSIPPI: Hard to spell.
• ALABAMA: Probably has the most likeable/least unpleasant Southern accent, depending on where you stand on Southern accents.
• GEORGIA: Good peaches.
• FLORIDA: Can't think of it without thinking of the auto-tuning rapper. Thanks a bunch. Before Flo Rida was a thing, I associated Florida with Scarface, my grandmother's house with the orange trees in the backyard, the one billion percent humidity, and the white-sand beaches.
• MICHIGAN: They make cars there, don't they? And awesome music?
• OHIO: Hot in summer, rainy in spring, miserable in winter, the most beautiful place on the planet in autumn.
• WEST VIRGINIA: Coal. The Civil War. Trout fishing. Caves. Chuck Yeager.
• VIRGINIA: This may sound weird, but I can't help but think of Virginia in terms of the famous people who were born there: Ella Fitzgerald, George C. Scott, Sam Houston, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (yes, that Lewis & Clark), Patrick Henry, Robert E. Lee, Tom Wolfe, Booker T. Washington, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and, like, twenty U.S. presidents. 
• NORTH/SOUTH CAROLINA: What's the difference? 
• WASHINGTON, D.C.: Crazy homeless people in the streets, crazy people in the government.
• MARYLAND: You need to put on some weight, you're too skinny.
• DELAWARE: Sounds like a seldom-used word you'd find in a dictionary.
• NEW JERSEY: Just as all myths have some basis in fact, the moniker "Armpit of America" must on some level be well-deserved. 
• CONNECTICUT: Pretty. And filthy rich.
• PENNSYLVANIA: The birthplace of liberty and independence. Looks nice in autumn, too.
• NEW YORK: California's biggest competitor in terms of culture and coolness. They've got some pretty country, too; and heck, they even have their own version of the San Andreas Fault. We'll get you yet, you buggers.
• RHODE ISLAND: Too small for my Californian mind to encapsulate.
• MASSACHUSETTS: Baseball. Football. Clam chowder. Cod. Moby-Dick. Cheers (the TV show).
• NEW HAMPSHIRE: The last stop before Maine.
• VERMONT: The second-to-last stop before Maine.
• MAINE: The last stop before New Brunswick. Also, Stephen King is from there; I do know that much. A lot of his books are set around those parts.
• ALASKA: I know as much as everyone else does. Grizzly bears, gold, the Inuit, glaciers, the tallest mountain in North America, savage cold, bush pilots, hunting, cruises, trains, oil, fishing, formerly Russian, real men and real women. Oh, and I'd give my right arm and two or three toes to live there.
• HAWAII: Palm trees. White-sand beaches. Turquoise water. Tropical fish. Sunshine. Ukeleles, luaus and leis. Volcanoes. Surfing. Pearl Harbor. The U.S.S. Arizona. Paradise on Earth. California's biggest competitor in terms of fun in the sun and water sports. Not bad if we can take on New York and Hawaii and still compete, eh?

THE REST OF THE WORLD:

• MEXICO: Lovely beaches, great food, incredible culture, marvelous natural beauty, and good booze...but a corrupt government and a few too many all-powerful drug cartels. Oh wait, that's California.
• CANADA: A dichotomy. On the one hand: nigh-socialism, a Governor General, and a certain amount of cultural snobbery (though that might just be the folks from Toronto). On the other hand: maple syrup, the Yukon, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, the Canadian Rockies, ice hockey, Shania Twain, William Shatner, Dan Aykroyd, Kim Cattrall, Stana Katic, Nathan Fillion (whom I hear is from Edmonton), Rick Moranis, Leslie Nielsen, Donald Sutherland, Alexander Graham Bell, Elijah McCoy (the real McCoy), James Howlett (better known as Wolverine), Anne Shirley (a.k.a. Anne of Green Gables), Chris Hadfield (the astronaut), Rush, Barenaked Ladies, Great Big Sea, dinosaurs, Black Velvet whisky, the Devil's Brigade, lentils, Swedish Fish, and some of the friendliest, politest people on the face of the Earth.
• BRAZIL: Great barbecue, oddly-named mountains, and the best jungles and parties (and jungle parties) anywhere.
• BOLIVIA: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid got zonked down there, didn't they?
• URUGUAY: It's all about the tango.
• KENYA: I know Tanzania, Mozambique, and some of the other countries have amazing biodiversity, natural beauty and safaris, but whenever I think "East Africa," my mind just leaps to Kenya. Craters, rhinoceroses, the Serengeti, poaching problems, and now some election brouhaha. And a spectacular John Wayne movie.
• SOUTH AFRICA: Let's move past the bit with the apartheid and get into Sharlto Copley, J.R.R. Tolkien, Basil Rathbone, Manfred Mann, Candice Swanepoel, and that sweet movie Zulu with Michael Caine. Just please don't mention Dave Mathews. We don't mention Dave Mathews on this blog.  
• LESOTHO: See RHODE ISLAND above.
• EGYPT: Revolutions. Pyramids. Rivers. Desert. Camels. Political turmoil. And they have their own version of The Daily Show.
• MOROCCO: I only know where it is 'cause I watch Bogart films. 
• CROATIA: It gave the world Serious Sam, so it can't be all bad, can it?
• RUSSIA: I was born five years before the Berlin Wall fell, but I'd venture to guess that my generation's the first one that doesn't think "Commie bastards" whenever we hear the word "Russia." That doesn't mean I trust Putin or the KGB, but I sure would like to visit the country, ride their trains, drink their vodka, walk over their bridges, and so forth. Oh, and see St. Petersburg in the wintertime.
• FRANCE: The other place an aspiring artist or writer might go besides California.
• ICELAND: All of the wintry fun of Canada or Alaska with none of the urban sprawl.  
• ENGLAND: Sorry, did I say Canada was guilty of cultural snobbery?! Though that could just be Londoners. Seriously, some of my best friends are from England. I wouldn't mind retiring to Newcastle someday, having fish and chips down by the quayside, a pint in the Turk's Head, then a walk 'round the priory and a pipe-smoke on the point. Geordies rock.
• SCOTLAND: It gave us Scotch whisky, haggis, Robert Burns, Ian Anderson, and some of the world's finest and hardiest soldiers. I think a good many wars would have been lost without a few good Scotsmen.
• IRELAND: The setting of another rather good John Wayne movie. If you don't think about the Troubles, you can get lost in the whiskey, the beer, the corned beef and cabbage, the stew, the River Liffey, James Joyce and the wild Irish countryside. Gotta love Chloë Agnew and Liam Neeson, too.
• GERMANY: Efficiency. And cake. And philosophy. And awe-inspiring classical music.
• SPAIN: Sunshine. And beautiful horses. Architecture to die for. Paella. Soccer. Bulls, and a lot of sports that shouldn't be combined with bulls. And tomato-chucking. 
• SWITZERLAND: Americans voted it the best place to go if you're trying to escape from a German prison camp. I've heard they make pretty good watches and toys, too. 
• INDIA: Outsourcing. Overpopulation. Sacred cows. Fascinating religions. Fantastic architecture. Pollution. Garbage in the streets. People pooping in public. The Ganges River, which I wouldn't dunk my worst enemy in.
• VIETNAM: The site of a rather nasty and unconventional war. Now home to gorgeous waterfalls, delectable cuisine, a generation of suspiciously blond-haired Vietnamese, and tons of unexploded ordnance.
• CHINA: Big. Really big. Filled with people. Controlled by a Communist government. Mao's noggin is everywhere. Still, even though fat guys go topless in public and toddlers poop in the streets, the trains run on time and the countryside is undeniably gorgeous.
• JAPAN: My knowledge beforehand was mostly limited to World War II, anime and manga. Now I see the country through the Korean lens, and that colors my perception a bit. It's definitely one of Asia's bright stars, a broad, clean, polite and user-friendly country. But its foreign-relations record is a black mark in its ledger.
• SOUTH KOREA: Before I came to live here, I knew the name of the capital and that the country got snow in winter. That's it. Now I know that, despite the bali bali culture that grinds students and salarymen into the ground, Korea has elevated itself from a smoking crater to one of the most prosperous, bright, advanced and innovative nations on the planet. The people, though bound by millennia of tradition and rigid societal and behavioral mores, are some of the most friendly and unconditionally kind folks I've ever encountered.
• NORTH KOREA: If you're ever in need of a good laugh, just look up some of their propaganda.
• AUSTRALIA: Deserts, mountains, jungles, forests, beaches, great music, good actors, some fantastic sports (and sports players), architectural wonders, storied history, a charming accent and some of the weirdest animals to be found.
• NEW ZEALAND: Like some weird mix of England, Iceland, and Hawaii. But it did give us Peter Jackson, Lucy Lawless, Karl Urban and Bruce Spence, and some lovely glaciers.
• ANTARCTICA:  Snow. Ice. More snow. More ice. Mountains. Volcanoes. Rocks. More snow. More ice. Frigid seas. Storms. Penguins. Blubber. Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and every other adventure or horror writer who ever needed a remote, bleak, barren, ice-blasted place to set a secret base or an eldritch abomination.

I hate that feeling

...but I suppose I'd better get used to it. I've had it before and I'll have it again. It stings, though. Smartly.

You know that feeling you get when people you know are doing something really cool but you can't go along with them because of your job or your family and you get to watch from afar as they have the time of their lives?

Yeah, that's the one. That's what I've got right now.

A couple of my friends from Canada and the U.S. have signed up for the Mongol Rally.

Don't know what the Mongol Rally is?

I'll tell you what the Mongol Rally is.

It's this:

                                                                                                                    from The Life of Adventure

...a 6,000 mile race across Europe and Asia, hosted by the Adventurists, a Britain-based adventure club and charitable organization.

Here's the idea: you start in London, sometime in July. You buy a piece-of-crap car with a 1000-cubic-centimeter-or-less engine. You, and as many friends as you can pack into this pathetic machine, drive said pathetic machine from London to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.

The team name is up to you. The car's paint scheme is up to you. The car itself is up to you. The equipment and supplies are up to you. The route and timing are up to you. All you have to do is acquire a conveyance and get it and yourselves to Mongolia before August is over.

The point, as you might have guessed, is the journey. Voyage of exploration, connecting with buddies, reaching deep inside yourself for survival (and mechanical) skills, challenging the raw forces of nature and all that hogwash.

Sounds lovely. Just the kind of quest I would like to undertake.

But I can't. June 2013 would be midway through my second year's contract. I could re-up in February for just a few more months, but then Miss H would have to find a new apartment. It's in my name. I would also have to go home and restart the whole finding-a-job-in-Korea-and-getting-the-requisite-documents nightmare that I've already delineated to you.

It's just not possible. I can't do it.

So off my friends go, doing this amazing thing without me.

It's not a fun feeling.

Ah well. I was never one for sour grapes. (I see what you did there, Aesop.)

Good luck, Mr. E and Mr. S. I wish you the best of luck. I hope you have the time of your lives and I'm behind you all the way. Send me some pictures and bring back some weird-ass souvenirs.

And I hope scraping up the requisite $8,000 for entry fees, charitable donations, vehicles, gas, food and airline tickets doesn't take too long.

Bah. Suddenly I feel like some cheese...and wine.

between Blandford Street and Mars

You remember Andrea, right? The lovely Londoner who knocked around with us in Newcastle the first day or two? Yes, her. She was to be my salvation. I had no place to sleep that final night before my flight out. Andrea had graciously offered me her apartment for that evening, and I decided to take her up on the offer.

It didn't quite work out that way, though. Jeff was in town. You know, my Canuck buddy? He had come straight back to London after Edinburgh and had been bumping things off his "must-see" list. He'd be taking a train through the Chunnel and into France in a few days. For now, however, we were briefly reunited: Andrea, Jeff and I. And how did we celebrate? Like any red-blooded Londoner would after the sun went down: at the pub, with copious amounts of beer.  

I took the Underground from the train station into some dark, crooked, half-remembered borough of London; Gloucester Road, maybe. It's dim in my memory. The twilight was still dark blue. The canopies of the trees lining the sidewalks ('scuse me, pavement) were black silhouettes against it. My brain was in that "wow-did-I-really-just-do-all-that-and-am-I-really-doing-what-I'm-doing-right-now?" fugue. It hits me like clockwork, immediately after an adventure begins and right before it ends. We were nearing the ending, and the bittersweet taste of the moment was on the tip of my tongue. Try as I might with cider and ale, I could not dispel it.

Jeff, Andrea and I sat in some pub or other (I was done scribbling in my little red notebook) and had our last, desperate chat. I was vacillating between total exhaustion and homesickness and the desire to get back to the patch of sand I called home...and hiding out in Andrea's attic for a year and attempting to garner British citizenship. Over Jeff's half-finished plate of fish and chips, we discussed life, travel, careers, and the charming nature of Northeast England.

After a couple of hours, we said our final goodbyes to Jeff and caught a double-decker to Andrea's neighborhood. It was, by now, well after midnight. I was torn between staying at Andrea's and just going right to the airport and sleeping on the floor. I didn't want to impose myself upon her, and could not bear to see her charming flat; it would make leaving England too painful. So I begged off, and requested to be led to Heathrow. Andrea cheerfully complied, and after a whirl of tangled streets, glaring lampposts, foreigners from all nations, brightly-lit storefronts and crowds of drunken merry-makers, during which we switched buses at least twice, Andrea escorted me safely through the sliding doors of Heathrow Airport and said her goodbyes.

This was it. I was on the threshold. This building would take me home. Well, not literally, of course. But inside this building were the means to take me home: airplanes and other stuff that flew through the air at incredible speeds. That was my train of thought. My mindset was not the most lucid, as I've already pointed out.

And then came the most unpleasant night of any I had spent thus far in England: those six miserable hours I attempted to snatch some sleep in the main terminal of Heathrow. There were no couches, no chairs, no lounge, no quiet rooms, nothing. Even the benches had these bloody metal armrests between each seat. After wandering blearily about the ticket counters and closed shops for an hour, I gave up. I bent myself around the armrests as best I could, propped my head on my elbow, snugged my baggage as tightly to me as possible, and tried to catch some Z's. At this I failed, almost universally. The unfortunate S-position into which I was forced to contort my body was extremely uncomfortable. Compounding the matter were my bulky clothes, the unpleasant warmth and stuffiness of the terminal building, and the unforgiving hardness of the wooden seats. Sleep remained a lofty goal. I flip-flopped between unsatisfying catnaps and stints at the Internet consoles (which cost me more pounds than I care to remember).

It was with some base form of relief that six o'clock finally rolled around and with it, the opening of the ticket counter. I grabbed my boarding passes, negotiated security, and found my gate ("When you get a minute, your belt!" harped the security agent at the X-ray machines). Two hours later I was aboard the jetliner and ready to pass out.

There remains little to tell, dear reader. I disembarked at Ontario Airport in the good old US of A eleven hours later. Mom and Pop met me at baggage claim, practically carried me to the car, and trucked my limp carcass 50 miles through the Cajon Pass and back into the High Desert. I got home, slept for five hours, showered, dressed, sat down at the computer, and began to wonder how I was going to write about all of it.

And now, here I am. The drama's done. The tale is finished. The story's ended, two weeks shy of one year after it happened.

Whadja think?

the Great Edinburgh Pub Crawl

Five hundred yards from our hostel, wedged onto the corner of Queensferry Street and Shandwick Place, a half-mile from the Haymarket Rail Station, lies a little bar named Mathers.

It's an unassuming place: stony façade, brass lettering, long wooden bar with an oblong room in front of it. Standing room only, unless you grab a bench in the corner. High ceiling. Some television sets. Flags from all the soccer-playing nations strung up across the walls. Regular patrons having a sip of ale or cider. Two hooch-mongers meandering slowly up and down behind the bar, like ducks at a shooting gallery.

It was here at Mathers that Jeff and I decided to start our Great Pub Crawl on the evening of June 20, 2010. Showered, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we waltzed into the establishment at about five o'clock to start our pregame warm-up. As the sun set slowly over the New Town, Jeff and I sipped some Strongbow and watched the World Cup, omnipresent as always, twinkling away on every TV screen in every pub in the U.K.

We only stuck around for a little sip, though. We gulped down our glasses and gave a satisfying burp apiece. When we felt the first blurry tendrils of the alcohol begin to tickle our brains, we adjourned across the street to Ryan's Bar, a distinctly larger and more energetic establishment.

And more touristy. Billing itself as "Edinburgh's Busiest West End Bar, Cellar Bar and Coffee Shop," Ryan's was situated quite conveniently on the opposite corner of Queensferry and Shandwick, right where Shandwick met Princes Street. Simply put, the place was on the outskirts of the largest tourist trap in Scotland. It was only later that we found out that Ryan's was also a "tied house," and thereby required to buy at least some of its beer from the breweries which owned it. The general feeling in the U.K. is that a tied house can never be superior to a "free house" which, as the name suggests, is allowed to buy its beer from anywhere. Selection, as you may guess, is generally better at a free house. Free houses also preserve more of the character of an "authentic" British pub. The atmosphere at Ryan's, I noticed, was almost akin to a grill or a classy fast-food joint.

Ryan's was, indeed, a gastropub. That was something of a consolation. Undaunted, Jeff and I sat down, ordered some Tennent's, a roast for Jeff and some nachos for yours truly, and watched as Brazil literally kicked the crap out of the Ivory Coast on the numerous TV screens.

I should point out that Ryan's was our second and last stop. (Some pub crawl, eh?) Certain events transpired which prevented us from leaving. Number one, they were late in bringing Jeff's roast. I got my nachos on time, and they were incredible. They didn't have quite the same flavor as (finger quotes) authentic nachos. I'd say they were lacking in certain irreplaceable spices, unique to the Mexican culinary hemisphere. But nonetheless they were tasty, with adequate amounts of salsa and sour cream to go around.

But Jeff's roast had gotten lost in the shuffle. When we called this to the attention of the barmaid, she apologized, took the offending item off the bill, and brought a sizzling, delectable beef roast to our table and set it down in front of Jeff, lickety-split.

Now that's service.

Number two, we wanted to see how the Ivory Coast-Brazil game ended. That was a foregone conclusion. We should've known better. The Africans are renowned for their expertise in the sport (as they would prove a few days later, when I was back in Newcastle); but the Brazilians are among the top five on the planet, consistently making it into the final rounds of every championship. It was still a pretty good game, though. So Jeff and I waited it out and watched the rest of it. That's what we had come to the U.K. for, after all. 

And number three...

There was a rather pretty girl standing up at the bar.

(Try and guess where this is going. I think you can figure it out.)

I noticed her about halfway through my nachos. She was of medium height, neither skinny nor plump, with a tactical stockpile of curves. Her skin was fair, and lightly freckled. Her nose was assertive and lent an angular sort of seriousness to her otherwise round and innocent face. Her hair was bobbed short, and either dirty-blonde or brown with golden highlights. Her wardrobe was modest, a top and jacket over jeans and tennis shoes. A woolen scarf completed the ensemble. I perceived her charms at a glance; the effect only grew with each successive look.

After a little thought, some more beer, and a few more Brazilian goals, I made up my mind.

"Jeff," I said, "I do believe I'm going to go talk to that girl at the bar."

Jeff gave me his blessing. That is to say, he knocked back another Scotch ale, and I took the gesture to mean "Go to it, buddy." It seemed like a favorable sign. I was a bit sozzled by now and everything was suddenly open to interpretation.

I swung myself out of my chair, sauntered up to the bar, and planted my elbows down upon it. I looked the bartender squarely in his two foreheads, and asked for a whisky. I chose the ten-year-old Springbank, distilled in the Campbeltown region—the only one I had yet to sample. Then I casually turned to the lady.

"Evening," I said, or something equally eloquent. (At least I managed to refrain from the cheesier pick-up lines, like "Is it hot in here, or is it just you?" or "Do you know karate? 'Cause your body's kickin'.")

"Evening," she replied, in heavily accented English. I couldn't quite place it. She introduced herself as Karla, a German student on holiday in the U.K. She was quite fluent in English (though with the noisy pub, her soft-spoken nature, and my own thick-headedness I sometimes found her hard to understand). Jeff joined the two of us at the bar and we whiled away a happy few hours laughing and joking. In between glances at the TV (which helped fill up the occasional awkward pause), we discussed everything from the number of fouls Côte d'Ivoire had committed against Brazil, to the demographics of Germany, to the general hostility felt toward the German people by most European nations. (I believed Karla when she said there was a lot of it still around.)

I enjoyed the conversation and the whisky immensely. I found the former to be rewarding, refreshing, just the ticket after a couple of days spent solely in the company of my erstwhile travel buddy; and the latter I thought very light, the lightest I had thus far sampled among single-malt Scotches. It had a sort of dry sweetness that was rife with vanilla, easy and mellow. The effects, however, crept up on me. If I'd had more money and the booze had cost less than four pounds a sip, then I probably would've had to be carried back to the hostel.

Our three-person party broke up around 11 or so, when Karla said she was getting tired. The poor woman had likely had enough of the rowdy foreigners badgering her. We parted on good terms, settled up at the till, and made our way home through the mild Scottish twilight.

Back at the hostel, I was on my way to the john when I spotted an attractive American brunette peering gingerly through the open door of the ladies' room.
"Oh, God," she groaned.
"What's up? I asked.
"There's no toilet paper."
I winced. "Oof. They forgot that, huh?"
"Yeah."
Being the chivalrous man I am, I went to the front desk. 
"Is he not here?" I asked the night watch, referring to the janitor.
"He's out smoking a cigarette."
"Well," I said, after explaining the problem, "let's go get 'im."
I poked my head outside.
"Need something?" he asked, between puffs. He was a short, dark-complected fellow with spiky black hair and a goatee.
"Looks like there's no toilet paper."
"Oh."
He came cheerfully inside, twirling his keys around his finger. The paper was refilled in minutes.
"Thanks," the brunette said to me. "I've been holding it for two hours."

Bedtime came, but not sleep. I lay in my bunk and stared for hours at the high vaulted ceiling, limned by the lights in the roofless hallways. The sky outside was not black, but purplish; I found it oddly comforting that the sun was not on the other side of the world, but merely hovering below the horizon and not far off. I gazed over the wooden buttresses and arched windows as a dying man might look upon his final sunset. I couldn't get enough. All was magic and wonder and Heaven itself. I was living high, in the midst of a dream, but I knew it wouldn't last. I used that last night in Edinburgh to soak up as much as I possibly could before the daily grind came back into my life. I strove to confine some shred of the marvels of my environment to memory, and carry it away with me into years and travels unknown. Drunkenness be damned. I was seeing with remembering eyes.

When sleep finally did come, it didn't last. Between the sagging mattress, the alcohol in my veins, the titanic snores of my fellow tenants, and my own tendency to rasp, I didn't get much rest.

But there was adventure even in that. On the morrow Jeff and I would go our separate ways: I back to Newcastle, and thence to California; and Jeff across the Channel into France, bound for all the major European capitals, and North Africa beyond.

For the moment, however, I threw myself onto my side, shut my eyes, rubbed my congested nose, and slept.

in the National Museum

Fresh off our artisanal Edinburgh pizza, Jeff and I ducked up Chambers Street for a peek inside the Scottish National Museum.

Now, you must understand this beforehand: the whole time we were traipsing through these galleries, Jethro Tull songs and random snatches of the movie Trainspotting (my understanding of Caledonian contributions to world culture, in other words) kept flitting through my head. It was with that prejudice that I entered the Scottish National Museum and beheld a pivotal chunk of the Declaration of Arbroath writ upon the wall there:

"For we fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but for Freedom alone,
which no good man gives up except with his life."

The Declaration of Arbroath was essentially a declaration of independence, written up in 1320. Three were originally written, one by the Scottish nobles, one by the King of Scots, and a third (the sole survivor) by Bernard of Kilwinning, Abbot of Arbroath. This letter was addressed to Pope John XXII and was intended to set the record straight: Scotland was, basically, its own country, and had every right to beat the tobacco juice out of every foreign invader (i.e., England) who came calling. The Scots hoped that the Pope would read their letter, decide that he'd made a boner in recognizing Norman sovereignty over Scotland, de-excommunicate Robert the Bruce, and recognize Scotland as a legitimately independent kingdom.

It's unclear how much effect the letter had on John Twenty-Two. Some guess that he did pitch for Scotland by helping arrange for the Treaty of Northampton. Though short-lived, the treaty formally renounced all English claims to Scotland.

But eventually the Scottish and the English started goin' at it again. The first floor of the museum contained displays mostly martial in nature—swords, spears, and even the odd arquebus. Cannons, too. It was something else. Had I not already been inured to the wow-factor of cannons by the Mons Meg, I'd likely have jumped right out of my skin. I'd love to show you pictures, but (a) you people really need to get up off your duffs and go see this for yourselves, and (b) I've been kind of conditioned against taking pictures in museums. Particularly national ones. I sorta get the feeling I'm stealing the soul of the country away in my camera.

If the War Museum hadn't hammered the point home, the National Museum sure did: the Scots have a military background. Heck, these guys have been scrapping it out with their neighbors from Day One, long before Israel made it cool. Seems like every major European power has, at some point, had designs on Scotland. As if that weren't enough, the men of that land don't seem content to just sit around and wait for a foreign power to invade; lots of 'em joined the British Army and went and fought in wars all over the world, from India to North America. (I've got a buddy from Edinburgh who's in the British Army right now, in fact.) Even disregarding how much brawling went on in prehistory and the Middle Ages, the Scots have fought in the Napoleonic Wars, both World Wars, and virtually every colonial conflict that Great Britain's been involved in. (There were Scots on both sides during the American Revolution and the American Civil War; let us not forget my favorite 18th-century badass, John Paul Jones.)

But just because the Scots were at the forefront of like, every major war in world history doesn't necessarily mean that warfare was the limit of those aforementioned contributions to world culture. Hell no. The Scottish invented two of the most important things to human civilization: steam engines and whisky. Extrapolating from this, we can conclude that the Scots simultaneously empowered humanity by mechanizing industry and economy, thereby allowing us to conquer heaven and earth, while simultaneously bestowing upon us the booze we needed to cope with the long-ass workweeks.

Thank you, Scotland. Thank you.

All kidding aside, I could really begin to see how Scotland had made a meritorious donation to the quality of life on Earth. In every arena—engineering, architecture, literature—the Scots have been on the cutting edge. Take James Watt, for example. An engineer by trade, Watt, who was working at the University of Glasgow fabricating instruments, started thinking about steam engines. He realized that contemporary models wasted a lot of energy continuously cooling and reheating the cylinder. After a bit of tinkering, he thunk up a solution: a separate condenser which would let the cylinder stay hot and boost the power output tremendously. He had a working model by 1765, and his design single-handedly turned the steam engine from a Model T into a 1969 Mustang. (Speaking of 1969 Mustangs, Watt was the the guy who came up with the idea of horsepower as a way to gauge engine output. The watt, an SI unit of power, is named after him.)

On the second floor of the museum there was a massive steam locomotive, coal in the scuttle and pistons as spit-shiny as the day they came from the factory. It might as well have been James Watts's tombstone. Fittingly, a there was a whisky still behind it.

As we strolled onward, Jeff and I learned that the Scots had played a vital role in the formation and development of the United States, as well as Canada, Australia and many other far-flung nations. Scots influential to American history include notables like John Witherspoon (who reprsented New Jersey at the Second Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence); the aforementioned John Paul Jones; and Andrew Carnegie, the industrialist and steel magnate who simultaneously proved that (a) the American dream wasn't just a dream, (b) that somebody could be filthy rich and still put their money to good use by establishing a pension fund for their employees, as well as endowing libraries, schools and universities all over the world, and (c) labor unions can't be put down with violence.

[cough]

The Scottish diaspora is one of the most impressive in the world (there was a video about it on the second floor of the museum). All around the world, in every major British colony and elsewhere, Scots have tirelessly labored, dreamed, created, sweated, and built, and upon their labor the weight of empires has stood for ages. Their shipbuilding capabilities are second to none; they supplied a great many to the Allies during World War II. Oh, and during that great war, a little-known Scotsman named Robert Watson-Watt—a descendant of James Watt—invented a little thing they call radar. This radical invention caused the bad guys a world of hurt and royally saved Britain's arse by allowing it to know when the Nazis were sending bombers to un-stiffen the upper lips of its citizenry. And in the present day, writers like Irvine Welsh (who wrote the book Trainspotting, as well as several other influential works on drug culture and Scotland's urban underbelly) are keeping the cultural reputation of the nation alive and well. And we can't forget my favorite flautist, Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull fame), or my homeboys Bon Scott and the Young brothers (better known as AC/DC) who, even though they emigrated to Australia, have created and are still creating some of the most phenomenal rock 'n' roll in the history of human civilization.

All of this was in the museum. Good museum, in other words. Informative. Told me stuff I'd never known, nor even suspected, before I went in. (You have no idea how intricate the kilt creation process is. Did you know that the specific patterns and colors of the tartan in a Scots' kilt indicates which clan they belong to? I didn't! I could recognize a MacLeod a mile off now!)

But dang, the museum's layout was confusing as all get-out. The floor plan appeared to have been designed by an epileptic mouse on carbon monoxide. Staircases, narrow, large, mid-size, were scattered everywhere; floors ran in vaguely rectangular patterns, except where they ran in triangular or circular ones; and pocket hallways and narrow corridors were stuck in the oddest places. It was the hardest thing for Jeff and me to decide whether we'd already been to a particular section of the museum, or merely missed it because we'd taken one of three alternate routes and bypassed it entirely. The gift shop, when we found it, was identical to every other gift shop in the history of the Universe: generic souvenirs, cheap games and puzzles, some postcards, the preserved skulls of six teenagers who were caught vandalizing the bathrooms on Level 3, and Museum-scented cologne. You know, in case you want to smell like James Watt, Greyfriars Bobby, the Monarch of the Glen or the Battle of Camperdown, or whatever.

Nah, I'm just kidding. They didn't have Museum-scented cologne.

Just outside the museum doors, Jeff and I passed a curly-haired man sitting cross-legged in the middle of the sidewalk. He was hunched over as though unconscious, his head on his ankles, hands limp on the pavement. He looked like a pilgrim from some distant land, paying obeisance to the gods of historical and cultural significance; except he was facing into the street, and was utterly motionless. A nearby woman was calling the police on her cell phone.

One last thing.

Our aim, as I mentioned earlier, was to hasten our demise with artery-clogging comestibles. Departing the National Museum of Scotland, Jeff and I were on a cultural high and felt the need to perpetuate it with something to stick in our mouths.

Well, that left only one thing for us to do: march back to the High Street district, to Clam Shell, a tiny fish 'n 'chip shop, and have ourselves a deep-fried Mars Bar.

Mars Bars, just so's you know, are candy bars ("chocolate bar" if you want to be particular) manufactured in Great Britain by Mars, Incorporated. You've heard of them. They make Milky Way Bars, too. But the Scottish people, it seems, are not content with the healthiness of chocolate, and have decided to dip Mars Bars (and a whole host of other foods, like pizza slices) into boiling oil and deep-fry them. The result looks something like this:

And by God, it tastes delicious. Never mind the look on Jeff's face as he sampled one. He looks like that all the time.

How can I describe it? Shall I say that the greasy, salty shell created a near-perfect complement to the mostly-melted candy bar it encased? That the two proud Titans, Sweet and Savory, melded with almost unbelievable harmony and created a combined Flavor so decadently rich and mouth-watering that one could feel the brain melting and arteries hardening as the treat was masticated and swallowed? That the temptation to go back and purchase five more of these sinful confections had to be resisted in much the same manner as a heroin addiction or a gentle stroke about one's genitalia?

Even that doesn't quite cover it.

It was yummy. Let's leave it at that.

Then it was back to Belford Street for a much-deserved break. We had a need to digest our fancy pizza and fried candy bars before the evening pub crawl. Rest came easily in the warm, golden sunlight streaming onto my bunk from the huge west window. I pulled my hat over my eyes and dozed contentedly.

NEXT TIME: The Grand Pub Crawl. Cider and ale. The Scottish take on nachos. Free houses and brew houses. Jeff's roast. Brazilian soccer vs. Communism. "Jeff, I do believe I'm going to go talk to that German girl at the bar." A conspicuous lack of toilet paper. Hard times in Belford Street.

Stay tuned...

dancing with the Australians

[pant, wheeze]

Welcome to the sixth consecutive day of posts regarding my recent trip to the U.K. and Ireland. For those of you who are just joining the party, here's a recap:

My Canadian friend Jeff and I, who were visiting some English friends in Newcastle, England, slid west into Dublin for a day or three. We'd survived the first night, and were now onto the second: a pub crawl chaperoned by the city tour guides. It was due to start at 7:00 at the Purty Kitchen, in Temple Bar (the touristy-party district of southern Dublin).

Jeff and I washed, waxed and dried (figuratively speaking) at the hostel, then sauntered out into the slowly darkening day. I say "slowly darkening" because, as has been mentioned previously, night comes extremely slowly to the northern regions in summer. It takes the sun about three hours to set, and even then it doesn't get completely dark. Evening goes on forever. (You can get a good idea of what I mean by watching the movie Gregory's Girl, which takes place in Scotland.) It's probably the most charming temporal thing I've ever experienced.

It also meant that Jeff and I had plenty of time (and light) to get to the Purty Kitchen. We almost ran out of the former, if not the latter. We couldn't quite remember where the danged place was. Cillian (our tour guide) had only shown it to us once, and Temple Bar, though composed of only two or three streets running east-west (south of the River Liffey), was a nightmare of byways, alleys, and cobblestone cross-streets. We didn't remember whether the Kitchen was over to the west, closer to the cathedral; or east, towards Westmoreland Street.

After a few disagreements about cardinal directions and a lot of guessing, Jeff and I managed to muster up a whole brain between us. We located the rendezvous point with minutes to spare. It was blatantly obvious. The Purty Kitchen was just on the other side of the New Theater (where U2 was first discovered, remember?). Plus there was a whole line of people outside, waiting for happy hour to hit. Most of them had been on the tour with us, including a couple of the Americans (Oklahomans, fresh out of college and having a fling before settling down).

So we queued up. When seven o'clock struck an erratic sort of relay race began. We'd snatch a ticket for a free beer (eight-ounce cups of Foster's, a severe gyp to the palate, but better than nothing). We'd dash inside, get served up, chug the brew as soon as possible, dash back outside and repeat the process. The beers were only free until eight. The chaperones doled out the beer stubs like they were candy, and the rest of us nabbed what bits of conversation we could between slugs of beer and increasingly haphazard runs for the door. Jeff surrounded himself with several Canucks of various sexes; a boy and girl from Montreal, another man from Toronto. I stood at a high table with a couple of Australians: a man from Queensland and a girl from New South Wales. (To make things even more ironic, she was from Newcastle, New South Wales.) Her name was Angela. She had been around with us on the tour. She was, if I may say (platonically), rather cute. About 5'5", petite figure, short dirty-blond hair, fair skin. Positively charming eyes, and her accent wasn't bad either. She was a student at the University of Newcastle and was taking a summer break abroad.

I was rather enthused. This was precisely what I'd been hoping for all along: to meet some young, good-looking, free-spirited foreign girl while overseas. Just to talk with her, honest. If anything else happened...well, that would be an added bonus.

Don't bother tuning up. Nothing happened. Neither of us went to each other's hostel room and engaged in a wild romantic encounter. (Good thing, too...she was staying at a rather shifty hostel. Wouldn't have wanted to leave my pants lying around there.) I'm simply mentioning Angela here, now, because she will be an important player later in the drama—when we all began to dance.

In the meantime, I was in a rather special place, chugging beer with an attractive Australian. I must admit, her male companion was rather good company as well, funny as hell and just as opinionated as me. The World Cup, my constant companion wherever I went, was on the TV. South Africa was losing tragically to Uruguay. Jeff was scintillating and chafing beautifully with his companions over at the bar. I was working up a good buzz and feeling fine.

Eight o'clock struck. Duly fraternized (and moistened), we moved en masse from the Purty Kitchen to the next venue, Peadar Kearney's. The place was claustrophobic up top and spacious down below, the bar barely having room to swing a cat in, but the downstairs (with plentiful pool tables) darkly lit and cavernous.

Angela, Jeff and I ordered up some drinks. How we managed to push and shove our way through the wall-to-wall crowd remains a mystery. Word of a beer pong tournament swept the room shortly thereafter, and Jeff and I dove down the narrow staircase and into the basement to take on the Oklahomans. We lost, miserably. Those Okies know their business. It was my first time ever playing, but still, I would have though a Canuck and a Californian would have been able to hold up their end better.

I was just about lit by this time. I wandered back upstairs to refill my glass and join the Australians in a rousing chorus of "Waltzing Matilda." The Irish guitarist on the tiny stage crammed in the corner strummed and hummed, and the rest of us filled in the words. At the bar was a blond, bearded fellow from Manchester, England. What his name was I've long since forgotten. Solid bloke, though. The two of us sat and discussed the broader issues of life and world travel until it was time to switch pubs. Like a horde of thirsty locusts, we tourists swarmed the door and hung a left up Dame Street to Sweeney's.

This last was just a long, low room with several levels, each decked out with tables and chairs. Tequila shots were one euro apiece. The Montrealese and the Torontan had joined us, as had Angela. We'd lost Angela at Kearney's, but I (despite weaving a good deal) ran back down the sidewalk, rounded up all the stragglers, and herded them back to Sweeney's. Thought it was a gallant sort of thing to do, go back for the damsel left behind. Jeff and I sipped beer, shot tequila and talked with the other three until...well, until none of us were in any shape to talk anymore. I remember the Montreal-man just sort of keeling over slowly, like a ship foundering, until he was prostrate on the bench. I don't remember where the Toronto fellow disappeared to. I wasn't sure what kind of shape Jeff was in. Angela was taking things quite easy; she was still in good shape. I was feeling no pain. I was about to go ask the owner if he could stop the bar and let me get off.

But we weren't quite finished yet. There was one thing we had to do before calling it a night: clubbing. As it happened, our starting point, the Purty Kitchen, was in possession of an upstairs club. So back (and up) we went.

The remainder of the night passed in a blaze of strobes, pop music, and gut-shaking rhythms. The Canadians, the Mancunian, Angela and I all formed a sort of hectic six-square on one side of the dance floor and cut loose. I haven't gone that crazy in a while. All of us were soaked through in a matter of minutes. We kept imbibing, too: Smirnoff Ices were going like hotcakes at the downstairs bar. Jeff wound up jaw-to-jaw with a pretty girl from Wisconsin as the Mancunian and I hosted a dance-off in the corner.

I'd love to be able to show you pictures of some of this, but I left my camera in my room at the hostel. I knew I'd be getting soused, and didn't trust myself to hang onto valuables. I'd like to give you a more coherent rundown of the night's events, but as has previously been mentioned, I was soused. You should see the notes I took while out on this pub crawl. My writing, as it moves down the page, gets progressively more illegible until it fades finally to gibberish. Much the same is true of my memory. Angela disappeared sometime shortly after my memory fades away. I believe she, the Mancunian and I exchanged Facebook info, but I was never able to locate them. Such is life. Ships that pass in the night. Freak-dances in Dublin. Se la vi.
I vaguely recall stumbling away from the Kitchen with Jeff in the black of night, which had finally arrived; stopping off in some convenience store for a (large) bottle of water; traipsing back into the hostel, doffing my shoes and collapsing onto the upper bunk. It was as well that our flight out of Dublin back to Newcastle left in the early afternoon; we were going to need a serious lie-in.

But that's a story for next time. Next up on the Sententious Vaunter, bog bodies: the final day in Dublin.

random travel destinations - Canada

At the urging of a fellow blogger, I've revived this serial sooner than expected. (The original second-release date was 2059.) I've picked a place that not many people have heard of, and even the ones who have find hard to pronounce...unless they're an Inuit or a Canadian. It's called Nunavut. That's how I heard about the place, by the way. Canadians. I got a free geography lesson just for mentioning the Northwest Territories within earshot of my Ottawa-born friend Jeff. We were sauntering down a back alley in Korea one day with our English friend Adam and our English-speaking friend, Charles. These four steadfast gourmands were on their way to try a little sannakji (live baby octopus, eaten while it's still wriggling). Somehow or other we got to talking about places we'd all like to visit someday, and I mentioned that the Northwest Territories sounded like an interesting sort of place. Jeff promptly informed me that, well, the Northwest Territories had been split up a few years back. I believe it had something to do with Inuit tribal claims to the area, which the Canadian government decided to honor. The western portion retained the same name, but the rest of it, including Baffin Island (pictured above), became Nunavut. It's officially its own place now. Got some representatives in Canadian Parliament, its own postal code, even its own official territorial bird (the rock ptarmigan, sweet!). The place still covers three time zones, even though it's half the size of the former Northwest Territories. It's pretty much a lot of coastline and Arctic islands. Looks pretty wild, doesn't it? And now it has the significant distinction of being the newest Canadian territory: double the reason for checking the place out.