Portugal 2017; Day 2

Day 6, March 28^th, 2017

I got up and I got after it. My plan was to attempt to get to eight or nine different sites that require twelve miles of hiking to get to in the shortest route.  There’s not a lot to say other than that I ended up walking maybe half of that and taking buses, subway and a taxi to get to seven of them.  

It was a big day, to the point that when I got back to the hostel at 6:30pm, I cracked open a few beers and spent time contemplating my throbbing feet and wondering if they hurt because of the leg injury from a couple years ago, the weight I’ve carried the past couple years after the injury, or that I’m just getting old and the miles are piling up.  I suspect all three.

No fado for me. I crawled into my bunk relatively early and sleep, blessed sleep

Portugal 2017; Day 1

Day 5 of trip: March 27^th, 2017

Ireland was literally cool.  I land in Faro, in the south of Portugal, and it is warm. Not as warm as Charleston, but nice.  I pick up the cherry red hatchback from the car rental place and I’m off.

This is country 34.  This is the largest of the western countries that I’ve not been to (other than Scandinavia).  I became sorta fascinated with Portugal years ago.  Even started reading their epic poem Os Lusiadas, about De Gama’s voyage to India.  I’d heard that Portuguese has a verb tense that doesn’t exist in English (the future subjunctive, whereby you say what you will do if something happens, but it might not).

But that was all back before I got on the ground and into a car and got right into the middle of it. I know some Spanish, Italian, French and German.  I have a damn degree in Latin. I have no idea what’s going on with Portuguese. 

Portuguese is what happens when Spanish and Gibberish have a baby with down syndrome and then that down syndrome baby has a stroke. 

My little rental car is a Renault, which I figured would be crap, but it’s surprisingly peppy and it’s got all the amenities save for leather seats.  I Bluetooth music from my phone as I barrel along the A2 highway.  Driving in Portugal is easy; even if I don’t know what the words are. Street signs are the same all over Europe.

And then I get to Lisbon and Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.  There’s construction everywhere and the roads are one way and the ones that aren’t don’t necessarily have hard and fast lanes and pedestrians do whatever they want and streets change names every few feet and everything curves and it’s all on hills and I have no idea where I’m going and Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.

     (Yes, I'm filming and driving; I waited until it wasn't bad to even try)

I finally pull over and wander around with my phone out, hoping to find some fool’s open wi-fi.  I have a 15 year old Lonely Planet Guidebook that has a couple of useless maps of Lisbon in it. I’m trying to find the main thoroughfare, the Avenida de Liberdade and I have no idea where I am.  I can’t get the wifi to work.  I get back in the car, trusting that I’ll somehow get a vibe and miraculously find my way.

But before I trust my instinct, I hit the nav button on the car.  I didn’t pay for GPS when they offered it to me, so I figure it won’t work, but I’ve learned my lesson after tahat Carrick on Shannon screw-up.  Low and behold, they tried to sell me a GPS when the car had nav built in.  Boom! I enter the address I’m trying to get to and I’m there in under five minutes.

I was looking for a hostel from an old guidebook, so when I saw a different hostel in the same area and the guy working the counter told me the price, I said, “Sold!”

I could stay at a hotel; I’ve got the money for it (sorta; I have much less after my Irish mistake). But I didn’t come to Lisbon to see the four walls of a hotel room. I plan on being out and about for 12 to 14 hours each day. It’s getting late by the time I get all my stuff put up and then out I go.

I talked to an Australian girl and an English girl in the hostel kitchen and they said that a place called The Pink Road is where the night life is supposedly.  I’ve seen my fair share of night life at this point, but I don’t feel like staying in the hostel. I want to explore.  I plug Rua Rosa into my phone and off I go.

Lisbon is enchanting. The sidewalks are mosaic tile.  The street lights bounce a warm glow off of the stone buildings.  The streets are wonderful as a pedestrian, though, having driven, I’m wary of some silly tourist running me over.

I say it’s enchanting, and it is, but I also am wary about these tight, windy corridors. I feel like here, I might fall in love or get mugged and stabbed and left in some corner somewhere.  It’s hard to tell which feeling is stronger.

I find The Pink Road and it’s a tiny walking street they literally painted pink. It’s got a strip club and an assortment of bars.  I go into one called Espumantaria and order some sort of wine/liquor drink that’s their specialty.

My friend Jason shoots me a message about a hidden gem of a Fado music place that I absolutely must go to.  I ditch the Pink Road to find it.  After a mile’s winding walk through the narrow corridors of the old city, I find it and discover it’s closed until Thursday.  Alas.

However, along the walk back, I hear Fado playing in another restaurant.  If I want to enter, I have to spend 15 euro. Fine.

Fado music is fantastic.

I could get rowdy, but I have a full day of hiking and sightseeing tomorrow, so I get back to the hostel and crawl into my bunk and sleep, blessed sleep.

Ireland 2017; Day 4

Day 4, March 26^th, 2017

I wake up, pained and angry, to the smell of sausages cooking. I glance at my phone to get the time. Why the hell is she cooking breakfast an hour early? I try to go back to sleep, but somewhere in the lizard part of my brain, the only one that is working at all (the higher functions being ruined from alcohol and getting to bed at 4:45am), reminds me we went through European Daylight Savings time last night so I’m actually late for breakfast. I cuss for the full amount of time it gets me to get up and get dressed.

I try to put a good face on things down at breakfast, but it’s clear to Margaret, as well as the other guests, that I’m in a bad way. They quickly depart the dining room.  I eat, angry, and mostly skip the coffee in hopes that I can perhaps go back to sleep for a couple hours before I must check out.

But there’s too much to do.  I clean up the catastrophe of a room and pack up.  I get in touch with my friends, who had said they were heading to Galway today in their rental car and they’d be glad to give me a ride.

Unions can go to hell.  I’m a Southerner, so that position is no great surprise.  I doubly hate unions whilst traveling.  Years ago, the damn Italian museum workers struck while I was there.  I didn’t go to Italy for the gelato, dammit.

Two days ago, the damn Irish bus union struck.  My entire plan of not driving and figuring out movement was based on having access to all public transportation.  Still, if Rob and Kristina can get me to Galway, I can get myself to Shannon.  I had already looked to get an idea and even if I had to uber/rideshare the entire way from Westport, it would be 128 Euro.  That’s far worse than the 27 euro the buses cost, but so be it.

I arrive at their B&B and they are in a worse way.  Not that they drank more nor went to bed later. They’re reasonable people who don’t have experience with that level of next-morning misery.  I basically know the moment I lay eyes on them that they aren’t going anywhere.  I start looking up train information.

Sure enough, they can’t go to Galway in their condition. I unceremoniously leave them and start walking for the train station.  There’s no train direct from Westport to Shannon.  When I plugged it in the Irish Rail website, I go from Westport to Dublin to Carrick on Shannon. So, to go two hours south, I have to head three hours east and then three hours southwest.  The train alone to Dublin is 43 Euro.  Fine.

I try to nap in the station.  I finally get on board at 1pm.  This entire journey is supposed to take until 9pm.  This is going to be a long, unpleasant day.

I’d been told 100 school children were going to be in cars D and E, so I go to A.  I avoid the 100 school children but get the 30 month old boy in a porkpie hat whose parents allow him to scream and run up and down the aisle for several hours.  Had I any ability whatsoever, I may have committed infanticide.

At Dublin, I have to take the local tram to another train station to get to Carrick on Shannon.  I am irked that the Irish can’t just get on board with one damn name for things.  Everything’s labeled in English and Gaelga (Irish Gaelic).  I type in Shannon on the Irish Rail website and Carrick on Shannon comes up. Why can’t they just stick with the obvious one? No one flies into Carrick on Shannon airport. It’s Shannon. Sheesh.

I have a couple hour wait at the other station so, after I buy a 37 euro ticket to CoS, I go in the station pub and browse the internet and drink a couple of beers.  I have about an hour to go when I have a horrible realization.

I look up Carrick on Shannon, just to be sure.  In my beleaguered state, I accepted that it was the same thing as Shannon. Nope. Completely different part of the country.  The rail doesn’t go direct to Shannon, so the website filled in the closest thing to what I was searching for.  I’m now on the other side of the country from where I need to be.

I’d love to tell you I got mad or upset. I’ve been doing this a long time though, so being stupid isn’t a novel experience.  I resign myself and engage the new plan.  I go to refund the train ticket (we’ll see if they approve my request) and hop on the airport “express” (which stopped every forty feet in Dublin).  When I arrive, I head to Budget Car Rental. I pay for the extra insurance and then I’m hungover, exhausted, and driving a wrong-sided car in the dying light of day in damnable Ireland.

The buses from Westport to Shannon were 27 euro.  Taking an uber, which would have been ridiculous, would have been 128 euro The trains, tram, airport shuttle, car rental (with a 90 euro refundable fuel reserve fee), and then fuel top-off is about 250 euro.  You have to pay for real experiences.

Having destroyed any semblance of a budget, when I arrive at 10:30pm, I say hell with it and pay 85 euro to stay at the hotel across from the airport.   I don’t have an adapter and all my electronics die right before I go to sleep, blessed sleep.

Ireland 2017; Day 3

Day 3; March 25^th, 2017

I’m writing this from the future. In this future, it’s after the wedding and I’m going to die. This isn’t a hangover. It’s a trauma. It’s a medical concern. A catastrophe, really.  I feel all the miles of my veins and arteries and capillaries. This is how I end; I know it.

But Day 3 was lovely. Probably too much so. Definitely too much so. 

We were taken to the venue, a hotel overlooking the inlet and it was spectacular. 

And then there was Rob and Breege’s wedding, and it was as it should be.

 I’ve been to dozens of weddings at this point and I remain impressed. There are literally millions of them a year, if not hundreds of millions of them, and they’re still miracles.

My parents had each been married twice by my age.

The longest I’ve dated a girl has been two months.

Seven billion people. How on earth do you find the one you’re going to get along with and want to marry? It’s a miracle, I tell you.

The speeches were lovely and heartfelt and not overdone.

And then there was food.

And then there was dancing.

Obviously, by fact I’m going to die while typing this, there was drinking.

We were not shuttled home until past four in the morning. I can’t do this anymore, I told myself. It will kill me.

I was right. 

When we left, the father of the bride was still on the dance floor, crushing it.

And daylight savings time, Ireland version, hit us, so I get/got to lose an hour sleep and that’s not helping my dying either.

That was a perfect Irish wedding.

May I never see another.

May I live to see another.

Ireland 2017; Day 2

Day 2, March 24^th, 2017:

Margaret, the B&B wife, is preparing breakfast.  I come down to the dining room from my bedroom and she asks me if I want a traditional Irish breakfast. I’m tempted to tell her it’s too early to drink whiskey, but instead I say, “Sure. What’s Irish breakfast?”

Out comes ham, sausages, fried cherry tomatoes, and an egg on top of a potato waffle. Hmm. Okay. Also, I have wheatabix for the first time in thirty years. So that’s something.  Then we chat as I drink coffee and she gets around to asking me about Trump.

Then we get talking about refugees and whatnot and whothehellknows and howdidIgetropedintotalkingaboutthis?  It’s chilly but sunny and she tells me that there’s a nice greenway walk that will take me down to the harbor.  Perfect, I say.

My friends are getting into town roundabout three and the greenway is a short walk so I take my time being lazy in the morning. Then I head to the greenway. 

It is fully paved the entire way, though, yes, there’s plenty of green all around and the 2^nd half of the mile and a half walk is next to meadows and reeks of sheep and cow poop, which, unexpectedly, is perfect. 

At a little playground built along the path, a mother is feeding her toddler and I am unaware until that exact moment that an Irish child, with that sing-songy little lilt, saying “banana” is somehow the cutest thing that’s ever been said out loud.  But I look a vagabond so I say nothing and smile to myself and keep on my way.

I’m deposited at the harbor and I understand now when Margaret finds my question earlier, about the port being open still, as strange.  The tide is so low that I’d be concerned with running a skiff through there.  But it’s very scenic, the water with hills and an honest-to-goodness mountain around it.  

I find a beer garden next to the water, and though it’s  53 degrees, in the sun it’s warm, so I order a beer or two and drink in the sunshine and life is not so bad sometimes.

It’s time to get back into town finally, so I take a different route back and discover that every other building in the area is a B&B.  Westport has about 5000 people. If the tourists stop coming, this place will implode. The buildings that aren’t B&Bs are mostly bars.  The very few places that aren’t B&Bs or bars are weird hybrid shops, like the taxi and mortuary service shop and the grocer and ironmonger.  

I look into the supermarché and their cheese area is called “cheesemonger.” I believe there have been points in my life when I could be described as one of those.

I have a light lunch and meet up with my friends back on the greenway, because they were told that’s a nice thing to do. So I repeat my day. Down the greenway, sheep-poop in the air, beer in the sun, past all the B&Bs and bars and taxi/mortuary and grocery ironmonger and then it’s dinner time.

And we go to an Indian restaurant inside a desanctified former church and the waitress is insane and sassy, so I match her and she’s perplexed and my friends are shaking their heads.

Waitress: For here or takeaway?
Friend: Here.
Waitress (smiling): You want a table, you gotta pay for it.

Me (smiling): I have a knife.

Waitress: In that case, no charge. Follow me, please.

Friends: Um.

And then we’re to meet other friends so we head to Matt Molloy’s again because, apparently, I’m in some sort of cycle where I do what I’ve done again and we wait to meet up and the other friends say they have to eat so they say they’re going to find food but will be back and we wait for them and drink beer and recite poems at each other and locals ask to take pictures wearing my poncho and hat and buy me a beer because I’m such a great guy for letting them take photos with my poncho and hat and then our friends who were supposed to meet up have been waiting at a different bar to get food for over two hours and I’m tired and I don’t feel like being out all night if we’re going to be at a 12 hour wedding celebration the next day so I wander back to the B&B  and sleep, blessed sleep.

Ireland 2017; Day 1ish

Day 1(ish) March 22nd/23rd, 2017:

Do you know what’s awesome about international travel at age 37?

Nothing. It’s expensive and uncomfortable.

I got flagged for an explosives search at the Charleston airport on my way out.  The bag I’m taking is one I got in Afghanistan.  I’ve flown with it with no problem before, but I can’t say for certain there isn’t explosives residue on it.

I should mention here at the start, that I purposely look like a vagabond.  Beat-to-hell boat shoes, cargo pants, a Peruvian poncho, and an Australian-model cowboy hat.  I also haven’t touched up the facial hair in a week.

Of course I got flagged for an explosives check. 

No, officer. I don’t have anything sharp or weapon-like in the bag (as I do the mental check to make sure that I didn’t leave a pair of scissors in my dop-kit). I have a compass in there.

Turns out the machine didn’t like my lonely planet guidebook. Officer says it shows up as excessive “organic material” in the machine.

And I’m off.

What is there to say about a flight from Charleston, SC to New York?  Nothing. It’s uncomfortable. I told you.

I’m 6’2”(ish; probably shrinking after a lifetime of mashing on knee cartilage).  I got put in a window seat. I’m squished.

I get to JFK and discover that the gate I exited is the gate I’ll enter in 7 hours.  I lug my stuff over to a charging station they have set up that includes free iPads to use.  Then I discover that I can have food and beer delivered to me at the charging station.  I get a beer and a burger and with the delivery fee and tip, it costs $34.  For NYC, I consider that a steal. Plus, I didn’t have to move.  Once that’s done with, I have four hours to go.

Eventually, I realize the concession stand next to me isn’t just slinging soft-drinks.  Up starts the tab and by the time I’m fairly well toasted, they’re seating for my flight to Ireland and I’ve just bought 4 large beers for $60 (and then a tip on top of that).  I pour myself into the plane and my window seat. There’s a lovely Irish housewife seated next to me (by which I mean she’s a nice person, not sexy one).

The back-of-the-seat entertainment panel has movies. I turn on Fight Club, wondering how they’ll edit it since movies that have plane crashes in them get replacement scenes shot so that airlines will buy them.  Not Fight Club. I watch Edward Norton fantasize about being ripped from his seat and flung out into the great beyond.

What is there to say about a flight from New York to Shannon, Ireland? Nothing. I’m uncomfortable. I sleep maybe an hour, but I’m awake to watch a deep orange sunrise just before we land.  It’s three in the morning US time and it’s 4 hours ahead in Ireland.

Customs is a joke.

Me (worried): “They didn’t give me a landing card.”

Customs lady: “No worries. We Irish are the modern-day masters of white terrorism. We’d smell you a mile away.”

Okay, she didn’t say that. She just smiles at me, glances at my passport, asks how long I’m here for, and then says “have fun.” 

I’m here for friends’ wedding in Mulranney, just outside of Westport. To get to Westport, I could drive, but hell no.  When I came to Ireland in ’03, driving was so terrifying I said I’d never do it again.  It’s not the wrong side of the road thing; it’s the small back roads that were barely big enough for two cars to pass by each other, let alone the massive tour buses that came roaring along.  And many of those back roads are effectively in ditches, so when you try to get as far over as you can, your side mirror scrapes grass on the slope of the ditch. 

So my plan is buses or trains.  I say “plan”, but there is no plan. I haven’t researched squat.  I don’t believe in it. The stress of planning is more than the stress of trusting that I’ll figure things out. I used to plan. Now I don’t. My method is only effective because I’m traveling solo and can handle if things don’t go well.  

But everything goes well, other than the fact that I’ve been awake twenty hours and sobered back up and I’m exhausted. 

What is there to say about a bus ride from Shannon Airport to Galway? Quite a bit, actually.

A bus that will take me to Galway comes very quickly.  I’m quite pleased with my figuring things out.  The bus has power for charging computers and phones and free wifi. I’m pleased as punch.

Then we head off.

This is when I realize I have made a crucial error.

It was scary when I drove in Ireland 14 years ago.  It’s scarier when the Irish bus driver drives. 

I should have known when I got on board. What the hell kind of bus has seatbelts?

Then it’s all: OMIGOD! HE’S LITERALLY CUTTING CORNERS AND TAKING TURNS 5-10MPH FASTER THAN HE SHOULD! THE BUS IS LEANING!

I’m having to put my hand on a grip whenever we turn to keep from being slung out of my seat.  The driver is disinterested in his mayhem.  He’s wearing sunglasses on an overcast morning and mostly seems annoyed he’s having to drive folks anywhere.  He spends his time fidgeting with his headphones and whatever’s in the bag next to him. What’s happening on the road seems incidental. We swerve all over our lane and the bus’ automated system beeps at him constantly to warn him he’s too close to the edge of the road; he looks up from his bag and jerks the wheel to get us back straight.

The only thing worse than being on this bus is if I happened to be a car in the other lane with this damn thing careening towards me. 

On their version of the interstate, even though there’s an unbroken median wall that’s gone on for miles, I see a sign on the other side of the wall telling drivers they’re on the wrong side of the road.  I can’t decide if that sign is for confused Europeans and Americans or for drunken Irishmen.

I escape the bus in Galway and have a layover for a few hours. I try to sleep and do, in fits and starts, but it’s not great, sleeping whilst sitting.  It’s cold; under forty degrees. A pigeon has found his way into the waiting room and has placed him/herself next to the radiator. 

I don’t try to shoo him/her out.  Eventually, a very annoyed employee comes in and does it for me.

What is there to say about a bus ride from Galway to Westport? Nothing, thankfully.

I arrive and my plan has been that wifi is everywhere so I’ll just use my phone or computer when needed. I use the tablet at the local corner store to call the B&B owners (Google Voice is massively useful. Cost me $0.02/minute.).  The husband arrives and gets me all set up. 

I facebook chat my friends who are elsewhere in Ireland to figure out when they’re coming in town and get their advice that I should, as I feared, power through and not take a nap.  The B&B husband (no idea his name since he never introduced himself even when I introduced myself) tells me which pub to head to so off I go.

What is there to say about an Irish pub? It’s lovely. Quaint. Perfect, really. Matt Molloy’s pub. 

I drink beer. My plan is to write. I’m hoping I can make serious headway on a novel while I’m traveling. It’s to be a nasty, mean-spirited thing. I have Thus Spake Zarathustra with me.  

I’m reading the introduction and sipping a Guinness when an Irishman walks by me with a book in his wool-coat pocket.

I ask him about the book and it turns out he’s not Irish at all. He’s a twenty-five-year-old from Buffalo who is pleased as punch that I mistook him for a native.  He’s a self-admitted lazy drunk on vacation with his family. I tell him that’s not so bad.  We chat. It turns out, while he’s impressively astute with his self-analysis, he’s not very bright. I fear most of my words are large and scare him.  Still, he seems to enjoy being confused and it’s warm in here and there’s beer after all, so why not keep chatting?

Eventually, he wanders off to find his family, and then, an hour later, his sisters and mother and brother-in-law arrive and shake their heads when I say he’d been in here for hours and went to look for them. The mom says he’s pretty much a lazy drunk but that he usually can fend for himself, so, oh well, she hopes they find him before they leave tomorrow. I confuse the family for a bit and then I’ve had my fun and I’m exhausted and I’m ready to go to bed. It’s still daylight, but barely.

But instead of walking straight back, I’m in Ireland, dammit. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk down a street full of pubs and only go into the one I was recommended to. So I wander in one and there’s a poor bartender who’s an Irishman who’s just returned from 25 years in NYC and can’t handle the lack of stimulus. Westport is too small. He moved back because his wife wanted the kids to have an Irish childhood. He’s miserable yet resigned.

If I wanted to think about being miserable and resigned, I’d ponder my own life. No one tells you, but your thirties are a bridge between the no-responsibility of your twenties and the eventual success and financial stability (hopefully) of your forties. In between is a blech time of having to put your nose to the grindstone and crank it out and pay off debt.  Sorry, kids. That’s just how it is. Unless you inherit early, of course.

So I wander to a different pub and have a fun time insulting American beer with an older bartender.  So far, every pub has had Budweiser on tap. Two of the three have had Coors Light. Must we Americans infect everything?

By the time I get back to the B&B it’s 9pm and I’ve only had a couple hours of sporadic sitting-up sleep and I’m into my cups and I’m warm and sleep, blessed sleep.