have katzenjammer, will travel

It seemed poetically just that we should enter the city of Dublin with a hangover.

Remember how I said we made a jolly night of it on the evening of the 14th? The Cumberland Arms? Every beer and cider on tap?

Well, we sure did a number on ourselves. For A & E it wasn't such a big deal, but for Jeff and I, well...we had to get up early, heft some luggage into a cab, endure the swift, swerving ride to Newcastle Airport, and board a plane for a flight across the sea.

As previously mentioned, we were hung over.

I've traveled hung over before—by land, sea, and air—and it ain't pretty.

The morning of June 15th was calm, cool, moist, and blessedly sunny. As harmful as sunlight is to bloodshot eyes, I welcome the sun on the morning after a bender. The last thing I need after staying out all night, lapsing into a chemically-induced coma, and waking up feeling like hammered shit is gray skies and drizzle outside my window. Then I'll never snap out of it. I'll spend the whole day stumbling about the house like a reanimated corpse, head pounding, mouth cottony, body resisting the bacon, eggs, beans, toast, ibuprofen, and six gallons of cold water I've poured into myself.

The sun didn't help much that morning, though. We groggily paid the cabbie and stumped across the parking lot. Not much was said between us. Our appearance was undoubtedly ghastly. George Romero would've run screaming. Somehow Jeff had the presence of mind to remember to get our boarding passes stamped by Ryanair authorities, 'cause we were foreign nationals. I love being a foreigner. Everyone's suspicious of you, and for good reason. To justify the transportation officials' worst fears I should take to wearing an eyepatch and a wooden leg and growling at fellow passengers, "Arrr! Have ye seen a hand grenade lyin' around anywhere? I have the pin in me pocket."

Then we had to sit around the terminal for about 30 minutes to find out what gate we'd board at. Apparently the cheapo airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet are so low down on the totem pole that they don't even have appointed gates for their arrivals and departures; they have to sneak in like thieves in the night. Gates aren't announced until moments before boarding begins. And if you miss the last boarding call, you're SOL. We were assiduous in listening to the PA system, rest assured.

We boarded and the plane took off on schedule. Jeff promptly passed out. I had the window seat, and felt somehow obligated to look out the window, even in spite of my condition. When would I get a chance to see England, Ireland and the Irish Sea again? And it was quite a good view, even despite that monstrous engine.
 


We touched down and got off the plane, feeling, if possible, even worse than when we left. Air travel does little to improve physical maladies. Solid ground and fresh air helped a great deal, however. The first thing we noticed were the signs, and the unpronounceable words (festooned with accent marks) which covered them.

It was a long, long, long walk to Irish customs. The bloody concourse seemed to go on forever. When we finally did pass (and got our passports stamped—in green) it was already afternoon. We boarded the bus to Dublin proper and were soon debarking at Westmoreland Street, just south of the River Liffey. 

Now, don't laugh, but it took Jeff and me a little while to find our hostel...400 feet from the bus stop. All we had to do was go south down Westmoreland, hang a left on College Street, and walk a few paces down the curving sidewalks ('scuse me, pavement), stopping just before Doyle's Pub.

What we wound up doing was going south down Westmoreland, passing College Street, and wandering aimlessly around down Grafton and Nassau Streets south of Trinity College.

I shouldn't attempt to cast blame on anyone but ourselves. We were, after all, attempting to navigate our way through a city we'd never been to with some piece-of-shit souvenir map we couldn't read—while zombified and squinting in the bright sunlight. And I certainly don't wish to express displeasure with anything Irish, either. There can't be much wrong with a country that came up with Jameson whiskey, Maureen O'Hara, Irish whistles, Connemara ponies, and (in an indirect sort of way) Bill O'Reilly. Not to mention an airline that sounds like some kind of perverted-but-awesome sexual practice. 

But all that aside, the roadsigns in Dublin (and in most cities in England and Scotland, too) are DANGED hard to find, let alone see.

After a half hour or so, Jeff and I finally located the College Street sign at the corner of College and Westmoreland (how were we to tell, coming from the Liffey like that, standing outside the Bank of Ireland, which street was which? We could only see the sign approaching from the south, on the Trinity College side) and found our hostel without further delay.

We were rather hot and bothered by our long stroll through crowded streets. The weather was quite clement: high 70s, with a brilliant sun and slightly muggy air. I wasn't complaining at all. Dublin was chock full of pretty girls. Everywhere you looked there were stunners, jaw-droppers, lookers, eye-candy, babes, hotties, goddesses, all of the most delightedly Celtic persuasion. I mean, like, everywhere. Herds of them, all decked out in their summer clothes: short skirts, charming shoes and even a long, slinky dress or two.  

I began to be somewhat enthused about the 48 hours we'd be in town.

Any notions that I had about learning Irish culture (as in "meeting Irish chicks") in Dublin began to dissolve as soon as I stepped over the threshold of our hostel, however.

The concierge was an Australian girl.

So was our roommate. Well, he wasn't a girl, but he was Australian, I mean. We met him upon getting our room keys and heading up to the fourth floor. Harry, he called himself. Our rooms, by the way, were immaculate:

So was Harry. Well, he wasn't a room, but he was immaculate. Pressed shirt, waistcoat, dress pants, black socks, the works. If he'd put his leather shoes back on and grabbed a bowtie and some rimless spectacles, he could've passed for a college don on his day off. He had a bit of black stubble on his cheeks, a tanned complexion, and a sort of refined Australian accent. He said he was a backpacker.

For a moment Jeff and I attempted to picture Harry hacking his way through the Brazilian jungle with a machete, sweat pouring down his face and neck, his pressed shirt and waistcoat slowly turning to sodden rags, and then gave up. We couldn't do it. We let ourselves toy with the idea that he was so dandily dressed just because he was back in civilization. That seemed to work better. Our rough-and-ready North American minds would not coutenance the notion of an "urban backpacker." This dapper lad didn't fit into our backpacking paradigm, so to speak. And so we assumed he must merely be taking a few days' furlough before hitting the trail again. Neither of us even considered that he might just be traveling through Europe with stuff in a backpack, and calling it "backpacking." That was impossible.

Whatever his occupation or his motives, Harry was an apt roommate. He was quiet, mostly working on his computer (yes, he called it "work"). That left Jeff and I to our own devices. We threw down our heavy loads gratefully (why had I bothered to bring my computer? Why? The hostel didn't even have wi-fi), showered, and changed clothes. Then it was time to head out and see what we could see of Dublin before we lost the light—which, at this latitude, wasn't going to be an issue for a good few hours yet.

I'll tell you about that later, though.

Don't miss the next installment, where've all the Irish gone? a.k.a. "THE FIRST EVENING IN DUBLIN," coming up soon on the Sententious Vaunter!

down by the quayside

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.