Hello. I've been gone a while. You might have noticed some ch-ch-ch-changes since I was here last. First, take a look up there in the location bar. You might notice that the Vaunter finally got himself his own URL. Yep. The Sententious Vaunter isn't just a smug moniker anymore, it's a web domain. I've got my own webpage now. Bought it from Google for $12 a year. This is part of my attempt to clean this blog up, pare it down, develop it into something useful and timely, and (perhaps) make it more profitable. I want a travel blog that'll pay me to travel, not just a corner of the web where I bloviate. As soon as I figure out HTML (I got an account with one of those free web design sites, but it was so long ago that I don't even remember which one), I'll revamp TSV, give it a shiny new overhaul, and it'll actually be its own webpage instead of a Blogger template. Time to hit the big leagues. Time I actually started a travel/sci-fi writing blog in earnest. Speaking of travel... If you've been with this blog from the beginning, you probably remember Jeff and Jenn, the Canadian/English couple I've bummed around with on two or three continents. They're getting married in July. In England. In a castle. Miss H and I were invited. We're going. And we're making it a three-week tour of the British Isles. Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London, and Dublin. With long layovers in Miami and Boston. It's gonna be epic. I'm so excited, not just because this will be Miss H's first venture onto European soil, but because it's a chance for me to redeem myself. I saw Edinburgh and London and Dublin for the first time (with Jeff at my side, actually) but only for the briefest of moments. I was in London for an overnight layover and I had a scant 72 hours in Edinburgh and Dublin, respectively. This time around we'll have as much as five to six days in each location. Maybe not enough to explore their every nook and cranny, but enough to see the major sights, get to know more than one neighborhood, and drink as much beer and cider in pubs as I can hold (and then some). And did I mention that the bachelor party is in Edinburgh, Scotland? The whisky capital of the world? Hell yes it is. And you'll hear every gory detail here on TSV. Stay tuned...
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.
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.
Our stomachs filled with the English breakfast, our hearts buoyed up by a tour of the old priory, and our bodies purified by the frigid waters of the North Sea, we were sitting pretty. There we were, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on the afternoon of June 14th, in Tynemouth, Newcastle, England, fresh off a tour of the priory and a dip in the North Sea. Now to head south along the coast, turn west at the mouth of the River Tyne, and head down to Fish Quay.
"Quay" is an archaic word for dock or wharf, and it's pronounced like the word "key," in case you didn't know.
So how does one get from the priory to Fish Quay, you ask?
Hadrian's Cycleway, of course.
You've heard of Hadrian's Wall, right? Well, this is Hadrian's Cycleway. Same principle. Keeps the marauding Picts at bay by making them run themselves silly just trying to find something to pillage.
The breeze from the North Sea sprang up as we strolled to the cycleway. It whipped my fedora off my head just as a car was driving by. The trusty Stetson blew into the middle of the street and was caught under the front tire. The driver never even stopped. I was frozen in place. It was as though my best friend had been struck down by a hit-and-run. Jeff valiantly ran into the street and snatched the crushed piece of headgear before further harm came to it. Heart in my mouth, I inspected it. Except for a few grease stains, it was perfectly fine. I whacked it into shape and stuck it back on my head, my heart filling with the warm bubble bath of relief.
That fedora is quite precious to me. It's my Indiana Jones hat. My mother bought it for me in Wyoming from the "thirds" section of an outdoor clothing store. It was third-quality, a throwaway, something someone hadn't wanted and had returned. I loved it from the moment I saw it. That hat and I have gone places. Together we've braved the blizzards of North Dakota; staved off the hellish suns of the Mojave Desert; plundered the blue skies over California; navigated the mean streets and leafy trails of South Korea. Now we were in England together, and in a moment's carelessness I'd nearly lost my faithful companion.
It pays to invest in crushable hats.
We took a right-hand turn once we got on the cycleway, and went up a grassy hill to snatch a peek at the Collingwood Monument.
Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, as I've explained previously, is a god among Geordies, Lord Nelson's second-in-command at the Battle of Trafalgar, who took over after Nelson was killed. Did a darn fine job of it, too.
His statue stands eternal sentinel at the mouth of the Tyne, keeping an eye on the North Sea and any naughty Vikings, Spaniards, Franks or Huns that might try to sneak over and get up to their old tricks. A couple of "radgie lasses" were helping Collingwood out that particular afternoon.
Then we strolled on another mile or two and found ourselves in Fish Quay. Though the fishing industry in Newcastle has long since passed by the wayside, the neighborhood still smells predominantly of icthyoids.
Adam directed us to the second-best shop in Tynemouth, Waterfront Fish and Chips. It was voted the best in the region by some newspaper or other, but Adam insisted that there was another place elsewhere in the city that was a lot better. It wasn't in walking distance, though.
Besides, who could argue with this?
(Smithy, this is strictly NSFW.)
Even though we were still stuffed to the gills with breakfast, we ordered up the largest helping of cod we could get. And it was delivered to our table promptly thereafter, with mushy peas, a heaping pile of chips, and enough curry sauce and malt vinegar to drown Moby Dick.
Couldn't hardly fit it and Jeff's head in the picture frame together.
Man, it was good. Real English fish 'n' chips. I'd finally tasted 'em, with mushy peas and everything (think creamed corn, but it's peas...with just a tiny hint of sugar). Suddenly my list of things to eat before I die was one item shorter. (Next up is scorpion on a stick.)
Then it was up the hill back toward Tynemouth centre, passing by some of the quaintest house fronts you could hope for in a seaside town. Mom, if you could've only seen them...
Our final stop was the Cumberland Arms, in Front Street, where Jay and Elaine eventually joined us. We made a jolly night of it. The Paraguay-Italy match was on. We each had at least one glass of every single beer and cider on tap, excitedly recounting what we'd seen and done that day, laughing and jibing when Jeff accidentally spit up a gobful of beer, getting languorously buzzed as the sun outside refused to set. Three or four hours we were there, and it was still twilight when we left. The Land of the Eternal Sunset saw fit to bless us with one more heavenly tapestry, one more long evening to take pleasure in each other's company before Jeff and I departed for Ireland the next morning.
Good times to be had in the far north of England. The best of times, in fact.
How is it possible that the world throws an amazing party every four years and I, so far, have been missing out?
And not just a party, either. It's a sports party. A soccer party. (Okay, fine, I'll even be multicultural and call it "football" if you want.)
It's the World Cup!
Football's my game. I played soccer for five years before high school, and was a referee two more years after that. (Which means that, yes, at one point in my life, I understood the offside rule. Bow in the presence of greatness, peasant.)
But I never dug watching it so much as playing it. Playing it was a blast, once I got myself into shape. I even scored a goal once. I was playing right forward on a glorious California afternoon, charging down the field, defenders left in the dust, goalie looking pale and scared and totally not up to our level of awesomeness—and the center passed, and BAM, I booted it right in. I reacted modestly, as I recall; now I'd like to erect a temple to myself.
Football was hard work, to be sure. Playing in Tennessee was humid, and often rainy. Playing in the desert was hot and dry. I worked with some prima donnas that would've put Beckham to shame, both coaches and players. And thanks to the precise orientation of some of the blood vessels in my right nostril, I got nosebleeds all the freakin' time. Every game I played, somebody would give that ball a kick three feet in front of me and it'd come soaring up in slow motion and conk me right on the snout, followed by a copious flood of vermillion.
Watching football was just...bleh. A bunch of tiny little men running around a big green field with white stripes, booting a ball back and forth. Whoop-de-doo.
Then I went to England. I was already aware that the World Cup was up and going. Heck, that was my purported reason for going to England in the first place, to watch the World Cup in the pub with my English friends. That was how I pitched it to my editor, anyway. I said, "Hey, I'm going to be rambling around Scotland, Ireland and northern England for two weeks in June, watching the World Cup in the pubs surrounded by a pack of ravening England fans [or, in Ireland's case, a pack of ravening Brazil supporters]. I'll be your war correspondent behind enemy lines, sir. I shall infiltrate the enemy's ranks and observe their football-related operations in intimate detail, if you please. How'd you like some dispatches from the front?"
At the time, I was speaking facetiously. Little did I realize how prophetic my levity would prove to be.
I rode the bus with Andrea up to Stansted Airport. It was a beautiful ride through picturesque English countryside, all fields, hedgerows, and woods that Robin Hood wouldn't have felt like a complete idiot hiding out in. Andrea, who (bless her heart) had treated me to a beer before we got on, got all caught with me during the ride, and I her. She'd been teaching university students in West London, but it was driving her mad: Western children aren't quite as industrious as our old Korean gang had been. I advised her to get out of the teaching business and go live by the seaside somewhere and write, all the while grinning inside. Somehow I always thought English kids were too smart to ask their professors to bump grades...
We made Stansted, checked in, and went through security. That was the only place where I was searched: dinky little Stansted Airport, about to board a domestic flight to Newcastle. I'd traveled thousands of miles over oceans and mountains and foreign lands, through international airports like McCarran and George W. Bush and Heathrow, and Stansted is where the curly-haired safety official pulled my bag off the scanner and rifled through it, chatting at me all the while with her nigh-incoherent English accent. Weird.
Anyway, we had a lovely 45-minute flight to Newcastle. I say "lovely," not because the flight itself was lovely, but because the views were lovely. I was sitting next to a lovely, slim, doe-eyed brunette, for one thing. Her name was Nicola and she was coming up from London to visit her Geordie boyfriend in Newcastle. So of course I said "Hey, Nicola baby, why settle for that bucolic bumpkin? Tag along with me and I'll show you what an old-fashioned home-grown grade-A American man is. I'll pierce the secret depths of your sorceress soul with my Longbow of Love, darling angel-pie."
Well, I didn't say that, exactly, but some version of it was running through my head as I chatted her up. She was quite friendly and open, and pointed out some of the sights as we came down for a landing—making a dramatic sweep out over the North Sea and then lancing back over the jagged coast. The orange sun was just kissing the horizon, lighting the rolling green lands beneath with a slanting, golden divinity. The waves crashed against the sands and rocks as we thundered over.
It was an auspicious start. This was "the Toon," and man, it looked beautiful. Andrea and I disembarked and met Adam and Elaine, our friends and local guides, in the terminal. We stepped out into the still-setting sun (I was about to learn how long-lasting and late the sunsets are in Newcastle in summer) and hailed a taxi. It was sure something seeing A & E again. It had been almost exactly a year since we parted in South Korea. Being near them, hearing that lovable Geordie accent tumbling around in my ears, observing the two of them again in their natural environment...it was almost unreal. I was overjoyed to be reunited with them and thrilled that I'd now get to play around on their home turf. Within the span of two minutes it was just like old times: we were laughing, talking, joking, jibing, doing all the myriad things we used to do together on those narrow streets and tiny restaurants in K-Land.
But this wasn't K-Land. I could tell that immediately. England flags were everywhere. St. George's Cross flew proudly from every upper-story window, every shopfront, even from the antennas of cars. This was football territory, and it was World Cup time. It came home to me then. I would be spending the next two weeks in a land utterly obsessed with football, during the most well-known international football competition in the world, in which both my country and England were competing. And, abruptly, I was transformed.
Think of the most fanatical, die-hard, sycophantic sports fan you know. He doesn't necessarily have to slather himself in his team's colors and leap up and down in the stands like a trained ape; he may not even own any memorabilia. But his soul, his essence, his life-force seems inextricably linked to the performance of his team. He'll scream and yell and holler when points are scored; rant and roar when an unfair call is (rightfully or wrongfully) perceived; become insufferably exuberant for hours after winning a game (or days, in the case of playoffs or championships); and likewise sulk for a full-length mourning period on the heels of a loss. Take that man, soak him in three pints of beer and dust him with a packet of pork rinds, and you have an English football fan. These guys are nucking futs. I was infected with this excitement, this ardor, this enthusiasm, this pandemic zeal within minutes of getting off the airplane in Newcastle. Suddenly I was pumped. I was raring to go. I was ready for some football. I wanted my team to win, more desperately than I wanted my own seaplane or a bootlegged copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Some hitherto inactive and unsuspected gland had been activated, galvanized by the competitive pheromones in the English air, and was feverishly flooding my body with footballmoxytocin and ballsinourcortisol, twenty-four years' worth of backlogged fan-pheromones. The chrysalis of apathy had come off, as had the gloves. I had been transfigured from a lackadaisical observer to a dyed-in-the-wool football nut in less time than it took László Kiss to score a hat-trick against El Salvador in 1982.
This was going to be sweet.
The first night was thankfully uneventful. I was exhausted by my travels, and by my long night of debauchery in Las Vegas some twenty-four hours before. Except for a few cat-naps here and there, I'd been awake for close to forty-eight hours. I was ferried to Adam's mum's house in a taxi, where I was fed, watered, and cleansed. Elaine's friend M came over and the four of us stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, sitting in Adam's mum's tiny conservatory, listening to AC/DC and Curtis Mayfield and just getting caught up.
I was floored. I was in England. I was sitting in the conservatory of an English house, looking out on the prim and proper English garden, surrounded by an English red-brick neighborhood, under a sky that refused to go completely dark in these northern latitudes. My soul boiled with excitement. My head swam with anticipation, happiness, and travel-induced delirium. I was out on the road again, back amongst friends, in for a hell of a time, and loving every second of it.
We'd originally resolved to stay up all night waiting for Jeff, but we figured since we'd be shouting and screaming and hollering and jumping up and down and drinking copious amounts of beer and watching the World Cup match the next day, we should probably get some rest. I was put to bed on a marvelously soft queen-size in an upstairs room. The view from the window looked like this (in the morning):
Adam warned me that I would likely be awakened in the middle of the night by Jeff, our Canadian friend, who was was also coming to the Korean reunion (from Korea, actually) and who was taking the night bus up from London. He and I would be splitting a bunk. If he did wake me up, I don't remember it. I was out like a light.
Well enough for me that I got my rest, for the next day was a momentous one: England's first game of the World Cup...versus none other than the USA. Time to explore the Toon first. We commenced with the Quayside, where the bridges which Newcastle is famous for spanned the mighty River Tyne.
We took a nice little stroll down by the waterfront, crossing the Millennium Bridge over to Gateshead, taking the elevator up and admiring the view.
We also stopped in at Greggs for a snack. Greggs is something like the Geordie McDonald's: only instead of burgers and stuff, it's pasties and pies. The steak bake was delicious. Check this mother out:
Then we stopped in at our first pub (yippee!). Bob Trollops, just off the Quay.
Lovely little place. I'd been dying to try some English cider. I'd had some Old Rosie at Adam's the night before, and liked it a lot. Had something of a sulfuric overtone to it, but was very equable otherwise. I saw no reason to quit there, however, so I procured some Strongbow. Named after the Norman who made the first official British expedition to Ireland back in medieval times, Strongbow is your basic English cider: apple-tasting, fizzy, and roughly as alcoholic as beer. It makes a nice change from beer, though, and gets the same job done.
And there I was, sitting in a tiny, dark, woody, brass-laden English pub with a couple of mates and some cider.
You know that feeling you get when you realize one of your lifelong dreams? Yeah, I was getting that feeling about then.
We exited Trollops and headed up the rather steep Dean Street....
...which became Grey Street, if I remember correctly...
...which led us to Grey's Monument, smack dab in the middle of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne city center. It was built to honor Charles Grey, one of the architects who designed most of modern Newcastle.
That's Charles, Earl Grey to you. Yes, the guy the tea is named after. Cool, huh? You didn't think Newcastle was all meat pies and bridges and Brian Johnson, did you?
The place was hopping at mid-Saturday. There are about three different shopping centers clustered around Monument Square; Newcastle University ain't far away, either, and there are enough pizza joints, pubs, and book stores to choke a horse.
We wandered up Northumberland Street, checking out Fenwick's Food Halls. They sell boatloads of candy, booze and deli-style pies, pasties, sandwiches, and Indian food. I was full up on Greggs and drooling anyway. Angelic Elaine let me try some of her chicken tikka masala sandwich.
We kept on, and hung a right at St. Mary's Place (at Newcastle University, where Princess Eugenie Victoria Helena Mountbatten-Windsor of York—insert loving sigh here—is doing the equivalent of her master's degree).
A few hundred yards brought us to Luckies Corner Bar. Like every other pub I was to visit in the U.K. and Ireland, they had a big projector set up inside, already spreading some World Cup pregame love over the spacious interior.
We met up with some more of A & E's friends at Luckies: Nathan, Aaron, and Michael, all solid lads. Bets were going around, being hotly debated and finally placed with the aid of Michael's iPhone. I hadn't realized what a roaring betting culture England has going, especially where football matches are concerned. There were betting houses on every street corner. The Brits'll put 50 pence down on anything: who'll win, how much they'll win by, the final score, the fastest goal, the highest-scoring player...even how many corner kicks there'll be.
Me being the only Yank surrounded by a cadre of English people, the badinage began to fly. They were "taking the piss" out of me, as they say up there. Several rather disparaging remarks were made about the United States' chances against England, which got my red-blooded American dander up. So I hauled out a "chunk" (one British pound coin; thick little buggers, they are) and put it down on the US to beat England 2-1.
There remained but to sit, drink, and wait.
The game came on. The action began. I sat there, watching my friends both old and new unanimously yell at the projector screen, feeling a curious sort of nervousness. It wasn't concern for my chunk, oh no. It was the football-mania again. I folded my arms so no one would see my hands shaking. I kept up a bold front, giving as much lip as I got. Inside, I was pulled tighter than a guitar string. My homeland's manly pride—not to mention $1.40—was on the line.
England scored in three minutes. My forehead hit the table as the pub erupted. A cacophony of hoarse screams and yells resounded through the enclosed space, bedlam on the ears, needles in the pincushion of prestige. Suddenly all the world was gray and lightless, void of cheer, or even the promise of it. This, I thought, was what it must be like to be a football fan.
I recovered with difficulty. I sat up, withstood the laughing jibes of my so-called friends, took a commiserating sip of beer, and took my life in my hands by chalking the English goal up to luck. The next thirty-six minutes inched by, spurred on by my gritted teeth and clenched fists. My eyes were locked onto the projector screen in a death-grip. I didn't even know that my eyes could grip anything before then. If an earthquake had struck the pub at that moment, the projector screen would've held rock steady, so intently were my eyeballs gripping it. The fingers of my very soul were crossed.
And it happened. Just as I was up at the bar ordering another pitcher of Fosters, the ball slid between Robert Green's fingers and rolled into the net.
My brain immediately clamped down on the rest of my body to prevent it from leaping into the air. My eyebrows seesawed. My arms jumped and wavered about, threatening to shoot skyward, like rockets on tethers. Half-strangled cheers and yells of approbation clawed their way up my neck and died, suffocating behind mumbling lips. I settled for giving the barman a friendly wink as I handed him £7.50.
We'd equalized. The US was tied, 1-1. My prediction might still come true. We might win.
The rest of the game was no less tense. All of us leaned forward in our chairs (or back, depending on which way we were sitting). Hearts pounded. Eyes dared to blink. Tongues danced over dry lips. Fingers drummed on tables and knees. Disgusted shouts rang out now and then. The noise in the pub fell to a whisper, rising to crescendo when England got a run on the American goal. But no further goals were scored. And suddenly it was over. A 1-1 draw. My pound was lost, but my national dignity and my life were intact. We celebrated that night with beer, dancing, and a trip to the Pink Triangle, the gay area of Newcastle, whence the gay bars and Goths traditionally were located. Adam danced with an enormous, smiling fat guy as we all got drunk and laughed. We went out for Greek food after and ate in the shadow of the solemn stone keep wall that surrounded the city in medieval times. We somehow made our way back home in the wee hours of the morning, beer-soaked, exhausted, sweaty, stuffed to the gills, and happy as we'd been in a long, long time.
