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La Défense & Seattle: Predictions of Our Future(s).

I went to La Défense this evening. It’s all glass and the future out there and one straight line from one arch to another.

For me, living in Paris is kind of like having been invited to a celebrity party, by some mistake or by virtue of knowing some minor person (a chef or something) who got me on the list somehow, and I’m kind of in awe and I don’t quite know why I’m there but am not going to question it, and in each room there’s a new flock fancy this-or-that, hors d’oeuvres or something, and it’s just overwhelming, but next to the overly-decadent cocktails in Murano glasses, there’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp chatting genteelly with Oprah and they stop talking about Hunter S. Thompson and the wild days, and smile at me and offer me one of the fancy Murano glasses with an overly-decadent cocktail and some kind of caviar hors d’oeuvre and I don’t even like caviar, but I take it anyway because it’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp and Oprah offering it me. Then Tom Hiddleston dances into the parlor. I’ve never lived in a big city and Paris might be the big city.

  I had a picnic of cheese, grapes, baguette and avocado in the park in Levallois and read L’Enchanteur. It was cold, so I decided to walk to La Défense and see the buildings I had been seeing from the train each day to Saint Lazare. On my way towards Courbevoie, I looked down a street, really kind of an alley, with Queen Anne roofs and those brick chimneys with four or five pipe chimneys, and perfectly framed and aligned, there’s the Eiffel Tower. Paris. A surprise behind every corner. Two husky-wolves on a roof behind a FranPrix. Flowers that smell like honey.

  La Défense made me feel like I had never been to a city. Simultaneously, it reminded me of (what) Seattle (could have/wanted to be). I entered by way of le parc Diderot. And it was the park of the future. Part park and part art-installment—which I think is the nature of the whole of La Défense—between the two stairways, which rolled like gentle waves, was a representation of perhaps a river running down a mountain or a steep course of rapids that salmon would try to swim up. I watched some young boys play with a soccer ball in the sunken courtyard. The youngest looked up and said bonjour.

  Seattle is the future we lost. It’s a future as seen from 1961 when they built the Space Needle and the monorails for the World’s Fair and we still thought that in 2001, we’d be space odyssey’ing and things on earth would be better, too, full of world peace and understanding. In the middle of the Cold War and a national fear/hope of technology, we had the Space Needle and Seattle. Now the monorail is not novel, and the Space Needle is retro and kind of campy. Seattle is the future’s past. La Défense is the future’s present. It’s us 50 years later, setting up a predicted utopia of how things could be if we really got it right. Fifty years from now, La Défense will be the future’s past.

  I took the Esplanade. I went into a building. It was darkened glass and I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be there. The doors were open and lead to a courtyard centered around a mosaic statue that reminded me of fountains. Encouraged and delighted, I followed the some people to the other side, which continued the elevated esplanade. The initial object of my wandering was immediately to my right: a glass tower with a metal trellis, vaguely reminiscent of Faberge eggs. I thought, I’ll go to the top of this bridge and go home. I went to the top of the bridge, and again, casually, between two planters of Japanese-lotus looking trees, was the Eiffel Tower traced in dark steel grey, monument to and of the 19th century. How could I go home now.

  There were picnic tables that seemed to be in and overlooking a swimming pool and swirling rods topped with different colors of shapes were in the field of water, like 20-foot flowers. I was initially excited about the picnic tables, and I looked over the water, and it’s Haussman’s doing and it’s a straight line down Avenue Charles de Gaulle and a perfect view of the Arc de Triomphe.

  How do people deal with this? How do people really wake up everyday and see these things just like that? I mean, sure, New York has a lot of famous buildings and spots and Washington D.C. has the White House and the Smithsonians and the Obelisk and so does Boston, and I have fetishized the Space Needle, but I don’t know how anyone gets used to this in Paris. This is Hemmingway and the Lost Generation’s town. This is the land that fought for liberty. This town is the darling of the silver screen, and here’s looking at you, we will, truly, always have Paris. People come here to live and die and be buried next to Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison and Heloïse and Abelard. This is the capital of the 19th century and I haven’t even mentioned the Medieval significance. Maybe I’m too sentimental. Or maybe Woody Allen was right that “in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe”. Maybe Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

  I sat and watched evening come from the steps of the window of the world. I watched the people from the top of the steps and watched a photographer taking pictures. I listened to the French and English and other languages I didn’t know being spoken around me. I saw businessmen and businesswomen going home from their businessdays. I saw baguettes and bicycles and somewhere farther off, I heard a violin. I thought about how lucky I am to be young and be living in Paris, and how I’m really living a life now, and how pretty and pink  the Arc de Triomphe was as the sunset. This was the future we always wanted.

 I sat, and I watched, and I listened, and when I was too cold, I took the train back to Asnières.

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I thought fondly of Bloomington. The thought came to me in the smoking-forbidden lavatory, probably a mile over the middle of the of north Atlantic at midnight. It wasn’t really Bloomington about which I thought fondly, but the road that cuts across Martinsville on the way to the Indianapolis Airport. I thought about and I felt the road in between the crop fields when they were covered in snow in December and when the snow had melted in the spring. It was just for a moment and it was just a glance. But I was there. Then I went back to my seat and slept for another four hours. I woke up in Oslo. Then I woke up in Paris. As the taxi took me from the Paris-Orly Airport, I saw the Eiffel Tower from the Périphérique. As the taxi took me from the Paris-Orly Airport, a French man on a motorcycle peered into my window, waved, winked, and accelerated down the Périphérique. As the taxi took me from the Paris-Orly Airport, the taxi driver got lost when he got off the Périphérique. I found myself repeating the same phrase I had used before I knew French, when Jon and I were lost trying to find the lavender and Avignon and were instructed to go to God (a homonym with Gaurdes). “Nous sommes perdus.” After a tour of Asnières, Colombes, Clichy, and Courbevoies, we were found. My room is yellow and my view is pleasant and northward facing. I see the tops of roofs that Emile Zola wrote about in Le paradis des chats. There are trees and ivy and 18th century looking stonework. We are flanked by train tracks, but I don’t mind. Yesterday, I saw the Eiffel Tower, got a little bit lost, got a French phone, got cheese and other necessities, made some friends, made my way around town. It was a pretty full day. It’s Sunday today and there’s not much happening. I’m going to go be what I’ve wanted to be since I read about how Paris was the capital of the 19th century… a flâneur.

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Places I am going, Places I have been.

You can add up the number of hours I’ve slept this week and it doesn’t break 20. Not that I regret anything. This was a big week for me. I only regret that I booked a flight from Indianapolis to Orlando at 7.10 in the morning, that I’m on a 4.30am shuttle which seems to be moseying at an unproductive speed. Even that is not among my cheifest regrets. I’ll be home in Florida by noon. From Florida, I’m going to New York later in the week. The last time I was in New York, I made some BIG DECISIONS, but this was before big decisions were made for me and I knew that I was going to end up in Indiana. The last time I was in New York, I spent most of my time in the Museum of Natural History. Days. A day and a half. I napped in the Hall of Biodiversity. I was overwhelmed by science and physics and the size of the universe. I have a soft spot for Natural History, for Evolution, for Long Extinct Animals and for Atavism and for Othered Cultures and for Weird Wax Statues. This time, I am going to the Museum of Natural History, and I will not nap in the Hall of Biodiversity. This time, I am going to go to the Russian Tea Room and Prospect Park and maybe see Bill Murray. When I was little, I was in New York all the time. It’s my Dad’s favorite city and my great-uncle—who may have been involved with the Jewish mafia—lived in the Bronx. One morning, around 4.30 am, looking out from large window of our room at the Crowne Plaza at the perpetual and whirring lights of the city, my dad said that he felt like he owned the city. Like it was his. Like he belonged to it and it belonged to him. I was probably 7 or 8 then, and probably thought him silly. But I still remember it, so maybe not. There was a flea market near the Natural History Museum. There was the 20th year anniversary of John Lennon’s killing and my mom asked if I was going to smile in any of these photos and I left a note for John Lennon in Strawberry Fields. There was the time that my mom ordered caviar at $150 a spoonful. There was the time my parents were members of Royal Geography Club, or some like, and we hung out with Neil Armstrong and the fellows who went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. What a different life I used to live. When I was little, I was too scared to eat at the Frankenstein dinner theatre in Greenwich Village, where my dad told about Bob Dylan (mostly he sang Mr. Bojangles and Tamborine Man). At some point in my youth, he pointed out the Chelsea Hotel and told me about Janis Joplin (“very talented woman, wasted it on drugs”). In 2010, I heard Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel, and I applied it to everyone ever since. I don’t mean to suggest that I loved you the best. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, but that’s all, I don’t even think of you that often. In 2012, I saw the Chelsea Hotel and I remembered you all well in all the hotels and all the balconies and all the dirty corners of hipster bars. Then I heard Fairytale of New York when I was in Dublin that year. And I could have been someone. Well, so could anyone. You took my dreams from me when I first met you, babe. I remember when I arrived at Penn Station and I came up the escalators and there it was. All full of immigrant experience, lost dreams, Stock Market victories, personal struggles, WorldWide Drama. Everything. No, this time, it will be all the same, but I will be alldifferent. Got it dialed in now. I’m going home to see my parents, I’m going to the University of Florida to see one of the professors who most loves me—I’m his surrogate daughter. Then I’ll go to New York and see my best friend for his 24th birthday. And then I’ll come back to Bloomington and Spring will (finally and truly perhaps) be here. It’s been a long winter. And as I was leaving Bloomington, I received an email from France. It was brief and concluded, “votre dossier est complet”. I’m going to live in Paris in August. What a life I live.

#New York #NYC #Paris #Travel #Travel Writing #Gainesville #Florida

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This is how I saw Gainesville, one time and another:

These are photos of Gainesville that I took over the course of a few years. There are more to come, but I've not had time to upload them. There are also some pictures of clouds that I took outside of airplane windows on the way to places like Boston, Dublin and Seattle.

There are also excerpts from my novella about Gainesville, or other remarks, attached to each photo.

'i saw gainesville for what it really was'

#Gainesville #Florida #photography #clouds

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Gainesville, Revisited.

My friend went to Wales for a year and a half. He came back to Florida and he said it was as if Wales was a far away, long ago dream. Almost like it wasn’t real. Not in a dismissive way, but in a resuming-real-life way. I did not understand what he meant.

I went to Indiana for four months. I came back to Florida and it’s as if Indiana was a far away, long ago dream. Almost like it wasn’t real. It’s as if the time that passed hadn’t happened. I just stepped out of the room for a minute. I just drifted into sleep for a second and had the most fantastic, realistic flash of a dream. The part where I left in August and the part where I came back in November suture up and the rest is far away and long ago. Like two spheres that I can’t make come together. It’s like two separate narratives that I’m trying to interpolate with each other, but they’re really not connected. [Now that I'm back, I feel the same far away feeling about Gainesville.]

I wanted to come back and have it either be “not my Gainesville” or entirely the way I left it. It was neither. Gainesville has gone on with out me and I’ve gone on without Gainesville, and neither of us has any great feelings about this. Mobilis in mobile. Immobilis in immobile.

Some things have changed. But I can’t write about those things. That’s a novel(la). And that’s something I’ve already written. But so is this.

            Gainesville as a Tourist: It’s impossible to find postcards. In the Reitz Union, you have the selection of about five images, three of which depict either the football stadium or the Tim Tebow. So, I went to the Chevron station on University Ave, where the fellow behind the counter tried to charge me $6 for four postcards, despite the price on the rack reading 75 cents each.

Gainesville as a Tourist: I did not get to The Top. I will forever rue not having had a Mastadon or Widowmaker black bean burger with sweet potato fries. One of those involves crispy onions, gouda, house-made barbeque sauce and seitan. The other involves much the same, but with a chili-rubbed black bean burger. It’s been too long.

Or Satchel’s Pizza. Burnt down last year, but now it’s up and running. The owner put the pizza culpable for the burning under polyurethane and now it’s a table for special parties. But, man, that crust. Those toppings. To sit in the hippie van again and eat that pizza outside in the breeze, in the hot or in the cold.

I whizzed into Karma Cream for the dairy Early Grey Tea ice cream (if you’re not into dairy they have an equal selection of vegan ice ‘cream’ options.)

Video Rodeo is still rodeo-ing videos. [They beat out Blockbuster as the last video-rental store standing; a bittersweet victory.] Farah’s Hookah Lounge has gone the way of the Boom Boom Room (as in under). Some skanky club downtown put up some awnings, and the Palomino is the same, much the same. They got a new jukebox. It’s all fancy and digital and I miss being there on a Friday night. Hell, if I could have it back, Malibu Nights in the hot, sweaty Backyard, I might even dance once or twice.

Gainesville as a Tourist: My senses—of nostalgia and of aesthetics—are still overwhelmed by the Hippodrome.

Gainesville as a Tourist: My parents and I took Professor Calin to dinner last night at the Paramount Grill. Jump back to March 1st, 2013. I got into Indiana University. I successfully defended my thesis and became Master Emerson Richards. I went to dinner with Professor Calin and Walton and my parents and we drank 2006 Dom Perignon and thought about the future and how wonderfully things were unfolding for me. I wore my homecoming dress from senior year in high school (dark teal and fancy) and Walton wore the suit I found him at the thrift store (made in Bulgaria). Everything I could have ever wanted, in one day. “A moment is all you can ever expect from perfection”. And I got at least a week and a day in Gainesville.

As the sun set, I walked down University Avenue as if I still owned this town. And there was a time... (There was never a time.)

How could I ever be a tourist in Gainesville.

#Gainesville #Florida #University of Florida

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Torn between staying and returning back to the South

[Author's note: It is perhaps ironic that the impetus for my return to travel writing is a travel to Florida/home. I am going to try to write about Florida as I have written about the other places to which I have traveled.]

Sometimes, I almost feel tenderly about the South. Not all of it and not all of the time. But I miss the Spanish moss. I miss catching lizards and I may even miss the white sand and the foamy blue Atlantic Ocean and Gulf coast. I want to feel like Hemmingway felt, like Faulkner felt, like Padgett Powell feels about the South. Maybe Florida and I are coming to terms with one another. Whatever that means. Or maybe revisionist history and a natural inclination for nostalgia are catching up with me.

I miss doing archeology with my parents in Melbourne in the summer when the air was humid and salty and there was a lone caiman in the retention pond. I miss the alligators in Lake Jessup. 

I miss wading out into the ocean off of Key Largo where you can wade way out and the clear and blue water only comes up to your waist and the waves are gentle and the horizon flashes green if you look at it at the right time in the evening and the fish and jellyfish float around you as you float facedown face covered by a snorkeling mask. I miss the polydactal cats in the Hemmingway house and the trained cats on Mallory Square. I miss Sushi the drag queen who rang in the New Year in one giant stiletto. I miss the time my parents and I went to Tampa and took Jake to dinner at Berns Steakhouse. The senior waiters will take you on a tour of the kitchen where you can see the tanks of fish. Fresh fish. I miss fresh fish. And I miss the flamenco dancers at the Columbia in Ybor City. I do not miss them personally, of course. I miss the mundane drive to school through the country and the deer and sandhill cranes. I miss the scrub habitat of scraggly small oaks and saw palmetto, spartina and bear grass. Resurrection fern and bromeliads growing on brown branches. I miss the mangroves and the banyan trees in South Florida. I miss the old Border’s Bookstore in my hometown, long since gone under and when it closed, so did a chapter of my childhood. My young adulthood?

I miss the drive to Gainesville. I miss the hill and valley that looks just like Tuscany. I miss the cow pasture on the right (if you’re driving north), all rolling green expansive with one barbed wire fence and one oak tree. I always notice that oak tree. I do not yet know how I feel about Gainesville itself. I did not intend to return like this.

God help me, I even miss the retention ponds and the superficiality of Orlando which has no culture of its own. I miss hating the stripmalls, built solely to sell phones and tacky things to the tourists. I miss the giant Merlyn-shaped tourist gift shop near the Medieval Times Dinner Theatre. 

            I’ve never visited Florida as a tourist, or in a capacity where my visit to Florida was just that: a visit from which I would return to elsewhere. I know I will never live there again and I know that it’s only a visit, but that rings strange and discordant. I’ve worked so hard to try to divorce myself from feeling like Florida is home, but maybe that’s a struggle that is useless. Maybe it’s ingrained in me now, like something primal and necessary. My dad was born in Florida, and so was I. I’m given to understand that that’s more rare than it seems—be truly from Florida, to be Floridian, to be a cracker. My dad’s dad, Catholic, born in Minnesota, worked as an engineer for Disney after he got back from the Pacific theatre in WWII, married a Jew from Brooklyn, New York. One of my uncles was a Marine correspondent in Viet Nam, three Purple Hearts and awards in journalism. Told me that Hunter S. Thompson was a strung-out hack and if he’s why I was in journalism, I should get out. Our kin danced with Jesse James in the then-wild west. We came over on the Mayflower and stayed in Massachusetts and Maine, died in the Holocaust, flew Hurricane planes over the Pacific in WWII, we were tailors for the fashion runway in NYC, we were rabbis in the Ukraine and/or Russia and Poland and we were copper miners in the Rhineland near where I studied abroad that one summer. Austria, Switzerland, France. Irish Catholics, taught to read under the bushes. Or maybe they did the teaching? Scottish highlands. I bet at one point, we spoke Irish and Scots-Gaelic. (“We’re Scotch-Irish”, my granddad used to insist.) The rocky, rugged, snowy coasts of Maine (lighthouses and lobsters) and the woods of Massachusetts as Boston grew up into a town and a city and the home of my failed dreams. All those languages and cultures and stories, lost and boiled down into one little girl from Florida, discontent with her poor, Southern hometown and striving to be something more.

             So, now I’m going home or back to Florida. I have complicated feelings about this and other matters pertaining to the worldly world—about how much has changed in the past 70-25 years, the things that would have been or not been less than 100 years ago. It's a weird unheimlich set of thoughts. I never featured myself in the Midwest, and I still don’t. I’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan, who was also born in Minnesota. I think I’m glad that I’m here right now. It makes me feel like the 1950s and like the train-hoppers of Great Depression and like Bob Dylan when he was into folkmusic. That’s an ok feeling for right now. In Turlington Hall of the University of Florida—linoleum and florescent lights, reminds me of the early 1960s—a friend told me “You’ll get there someday, kid. You’ll get somewhere.” Somewhere’s exactly where I want to get.  

#Florida #Indiana #travel #Gainesville

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Sheep. [Backdated from Dec.]

I told Julie that if I didn't see sheep in Ireland that I was just going to tell everyone back at home that my flight had been cancelled and I had spent the past two weeks in the Atlanta airport. 

Luckily, the Wicklow Mountains, Avoca and Glendalough tour did not let me down. In fact, because we had such a small group, and Edmund, our tour guide, was the best, we went on a hunt to find all the sheep I could ever wish to see. We saw white ones with white faces, white ones with black faces. Black ones with black faces. White ones with brown spots and white faces. Big rams. Ewes. Fluffy ones, shorn ones. All of Ireland's sheep, on display for me. 

In addition to the sheep, the tour itself was excellent. After almost two weeks in Dublin, I sympathised with the characters in Joyce's Dubliners. I understood the Pogues' 'Dirty Old Town'. Etc., etc. The first time that I felt breathtaken in Ireland was coming out of the tunnel on the way to Bré. The beach leading up to that is nice. It's pretty. Then a series of tunnels. And then... I was all a prickle. This was what I expected of Ireland. That was it. Mist, cliffs, sea, green and all. After two weeks in Dublin, the excursion to the mountains was more than welcome. 

From Connolly station, we took the train to Arklow, in Co. Wicklow. We boarded a bus right off the train, and went to Avoca, of Avoca fame. (Or perhaps Avoca of Avoca fame? Anyway, of all the things I ate in Ireland the salads at the Dublin Avoca store were among the best things. Ever.) Avoca, the town, is famous for handweaving and for its local, textile industry. Because it's the middle of winter, at two days before Christmas, the handweavers had gone home.

It's funny how fast people bond on trips like this. Being alone, and looking probably like someone's orphan of a 15-year-old, the ladies of the trip all took care of me and talked to me. One couple even bought me a coke. (Remember, poor graduate student here. A coke in Europe is a big deal.) 

Edmund kept teasing about finding me sheep. But he did. We pulled over in the middle of the road, somewhere in rural Ireland, I hopped off the tour bus and took my pictures of sheep and was content. They were some special splotchy kind. 

Saint Kevin stood in freezing cold water while saying his prayers. This was a miracle. Later, Saint Catherine tried to put the moves on him. He pushed her in to the upper lake at Glendalough. You can still see her waving her arms around in the lake on certain nights of the year. 

We arrived at Glendalough and it was one of the first Medieval experiences I had in Ireland. And I was awash. The tower with a single entrance about ten feet off the ground where the monks would pull a ladder up for safety. The roofless, grey, stone chapel. The ancient headstones and Celtic crosses all splotched with white lichen. And there was mist. 

#Avoca #Wicklow #Dublin #Ireland #Glendalough #Sheep

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A Hundred Ways to Die in Howth

Howth (Hoe-th, not How?-th or Who-th) is a seaside village on a peninsula that juts out, just north of Dublin, about a 30 minute DART ride from the city centre. 

Howth seems to be inhabited almost primarily by spirit guide dogs. But I'm getting ahead of myself, and like on the narrow footpath that winds around Howth's sea cliffs, we must go slowly, paying attention to detail with this story. 

Julie and I dropped my bags at Alice's, packed a picnic and went to the DART station to wait for the train to Howth. Since I've been here, it seems that a train to Howth comes through about every .05 seconds. That is a hyperbole. More like every 10-15 minutes. Something reasonable. On that chilly morning, shortly after I boasted "Yeah, Gainesville's probably this cold right now", two things happened.  1. I realised I was very wrong, and again, I remembered that I had chosen northern Europe as my winter vacation destination and 2. the next train to Howth was 40 minutes away. 

So we waited. And ate our picnic in the train station. I'm pretty sure I almost got frostbitten fingers. Way no. 1 to die on the way to Howth on a Sunday: Frostbite and exposure. The train came a few minutes early, and I lept, actually lept in, in to the warmth. 

Though the view from the DART is more scenic if you take the line to Bré, it doesn't suck going to Howth. And Howthtown consists of seaside shops and restaurants which circle the harbour. I found a dinghy for sale, and I wanted it. On the way up the hill, we stopped in the ruined monastery, founded in the 11th c., restored in the 13th c., and the remnants of which were constructed in the 14th c. 

The first dog to follow us was only with us a short while. He came, he crawled along the wall, and then scampered off. 

The second dog, a stocky golden retriever thing which we named "The Hound of Ulster", and called "Cú Chulainn", "Hound", or "Cú", stuck with us for a while. Behind a fence, a giant, silent great dane puppy named Macy, jumped around and threatened Cú, but that did not discourage our Hound from our sides. 

Way no. 2 to die in Howth: Dog. 

The footpaths that follow the cliffs are on par with terrifying. The path itself is about 2.5 feet across, then there's a shoulder ranging from "none" to "a half step to death", and the slope of the cliff ranges from "straight down" to "you'll have a nice tumble before you hit the sea". Understated signs are posted every so often which read "Warning. Dangerous Cliffs." 

Cú followed us, walking ahead, falling behind. Trampling too close to the edge. At one point, I told him, "Look, Hound, today is not the day for death-defying doggy rescues, so if you fall over, I'm not going after you." He seemed to heed this threat. Julie and I stopped for tea on one of the many benches which overlook scenic, green and rocky cliffs. Cú found this terrifically bourgeoisie and went ahead. He watched us from the turn in the road. Then went on with the next group of hikers. We never saw him again.

There’s a memorial up there, for Alan, who will be sorely missed. I would really like to think that poor Alan did not tumble to his death, but really, what other explanation is there? 

The sun was threatening to set, so we decided to take the Tramline path back to Howthtown. Way no. 3 to die in Howth: the Tramline path is actually just a road. With cars. And only some of it has a sidewalk. So whoever designed this "trail" has visitors wandering down the middle of the road as the gloaming is upon them. Julie was wearing black; I was in dark grey. 

We picked up another pooch, who insisted on dodging in front of the oncoming traffic in front of us. I was certain was going to get hit by a car on this functional street. It did not. We did not. The sun set.

The next dog to join us was a slightly arthritic King Charles Spaniel looking thing. It came with us all of five steps and saw us on our way. 

An arthritic spaniel journeyed with us as far as it could muster—about three steps.

The functional road, "The Tramline", curves at an almost 90 degree angle, with a steepness that is unparalleled in Florida. Yep. Way # Whatever To Die in Howth: being hit by a car in the evening coming down the hill in the middle of the road. 

We descended back into Howthtown around dark. We wandered the harbour. We saw the fresh, fresh seafood. We had superb seafood chowder at The Oarhouse Restaurant. Christmas crackers were cracked and fake mustaches were had. Then we took the DART back to Dublin. 

In the end, Howth was lovely. I’d’ve been ok had a perished in Howth. There are worse places to go.

If I had died in Howth, I can only hope my memorial marker would have read "Emerson: much missed (her step)."

#Ireland #Howth #Cú Chulainn #Dublin

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Glendalough. 

#Glendalough #Ireland #County Wicklow #St. Kevin

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Some scenes from Howth, Ireland.

#Howth #Ireland #coast #travel #county dublin #dublin

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Exhilarating self-realisation and international understanding: Emerson reflects on the nature of travel

I’m back in sunny, muggy, grossy Florida. It’s Christmas, but it doesn’t feel like it. Not like on Grafton Street. It’s almost the end of the year, and it does feel like that. I’ve spent a month out of the country—in Ireland, England, France and Germany. I’ve spent another month out of the state of Florida on various expeditions—in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and South Carolina. Mostly, I travelled to see my now-dispersed friends or go to conferences.

And now, I’m tired of travelling. Just for now. It’s exhausting. Financially, Ireland and I are very much the same now: broke. Dublin is wicked expensive, and my foray has left me with just enough USD to pay my rent and one more application fee till I get paid next in January.

For now, I think I am content just to be in Gainesville for the time I have left in this town. I’ve got three tentative, short trips on the docket for the Spring (Boston, Toronto and Kalamazoo), but barring Kalamazoo, I’d not be unhappy if they fell through.

The more I travel the world and the US, the more I fall in love with other places. The Rhine Valley feels like a comfortable nest to me. One day, I will live in France, I know it. As for the British Isles (or the Germanico-Celtic Isles, if you will), I’ve got unfinished business there. I’m not even comfortable publically expressing the overwhelming sentiments I feel for Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula and the desert outside of Las Vegas. But for all these places, despite my grumbles and disenchantment with Florida, Gainesville’s really where it’s at. I’ll move away at the end of this academic year. It might be a long, long time before I come back to Gainesville. Soon, all my friends will have moved away from Gainesville as well—most of them already have. There’s not much left for me in Gainesville. And even after all my friends have gone, I will still be the person who goes to X world class city and says, “Oh, yea? Well, that’s like this correlative thing in Gainesville.”

Perhaps it’s because my parents are geographers, and I had traveled around the world by the time I was 12. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had some really excellent history and literature professors and teachers who alighted my international interests. But traveling has molded me and the way I think. This has been heavily influenced by the way my dad taught me how to engage with different cultures—don’t stay on the guided tour. If the tour guide tells you not to go up the monastery steps in China, but the monks descend and take you and your dad up those stairs, go (true story). Always talk to the locals about their culture and heritage. The old people have their stories about the way things were, and the young people have their opinions about the way things are. What a strange experience—watching my Jewish dad escort a former Nazi Youth elderly man across the street. Or having a teenage boy tell my then-affluent family that we were not rich enough to live in Sweden because we couldn’t afford the taxes. Even seeing Belfast in 2004, during a so-called peacetime, when the tour guide told us that because the gate between the Protestant and Catholic section was up, that it was a good day, even though someone had been found murdered in a church around the corner. Culture can be studied, but in the end, it must be experienced.

Yeah. I’ll sit around Gainesville for the next few months. I’ll stew in my beloved town. I’ll make some memories and some marks. I’ll rest and recuperate from all of this exhilarating self-realisation and international understanding that has come upon me since I went to Germany in 2009.

Then it will be off to my next adventure for which all of these other adventures have prepared me—moving out of Florida. Somewhere, some town or city, in the Northeast, the West Coast, the Midwest, or maybe even England, I’ll stop being a tourist, and start being a resident.

May your own travels be equally fulfilling and may 2013 bring many adventures. And hey, we didn't get apocalypsed. That's a good sign for the future. 

[Author’s note: Two more posts about Ireland yet to come. 1. Sheep. 2. A Hundred Ways to Die in Howth]

#Ireland #Culture #Travel #Gainesville #Florida

[mahbf]

Waiting for the End of the World (in Dublin)

There are still four more hours in Dublin before we are out of the proverbial, Mayan woods, in terms of avoiding this apocalypse. Cataclysmic change. End/Beginning of an/the era.

Whatever. 

It was a fine day in Dublin for an apocalypse.  As I walked down O'Connell Street at nine in the morning, the sun shone over the buildings, and, where I come from, it looked more like early dawn than midmorning. When I arrived at Trinity, Helen, my friend and newfound cousin, invited me to partake of a mince pie and some tea, to wait for the world to end at 11am. At 11.06 we decided we were probably in the clear and she took me to to see the Book of Kells. 

It's so perfect. It looks like a facsimile. The colours are so bright and the lines so fine and crisp. The page that it's currently open to has a cat, a peacock and what Helen and I decided is some sort of salamander thing. 

From the Book of Kells, we entered the Old Library. They don't make libraries like that anymore. I think that might be a comment on the trend of the education system. I think that it used to be a personal experience-- like the books housed in the Old Library, and like the Book of Kells (etc). I think that students used to be crafted like the manuscripts, shaped and moulded, with time and effort. Now, like the modern books in modern libraries, students are mass produced. Set up the analogy-- students of old: Book of Kells:: modern students: paperback Twilight. 

And what makes this even more tragic-- the loss of a true and rounded education producing scholars who are respected outside of 'the ivory tower'-- is that there are still very many professors (think of them like the clercs and scribes who crafted the pages) who want to provide that to students. But it seems to me that that is being less and less allowed. We're shifting from handmade books/students to factory made books/students. There you go. Apocalypse #1 of the day/era.

Ireland seems super into its genealogy. And so does my mom. So at her behest, I sallied forth to the National Library of Ireland. (An Idea: There's ecotourism. There's theme park tourism. There's gastrotourism. What about nerd tourism? Has any one thought to put together a tour of "Europe's Greatest Libraries! 10 Libraries in 10 days! Reading Room Access to each w/ a letter of endorsement! And, on the final day, a special day trip to the Manuscript Room!" How is that not a best seller right there?) Long story short, if your people are from Dublin, you're fine. You can go back to the 16th c. If your people are from the County Cavan, and are named Michael Ignacious Bennet(t), there's pretty much no hope.

Having nothing better to do, on this, the apocalypse, I thought, "What the hell, I'll go to Dublinia", to "experience Viking and Medieval Dublin!". I came across it last week, during my epic stroll, and I was a bit reluctant to go. I mocked it a bit. It looks as if it will be kind of a hokey, kiddy, Medieval Times type deal. It is not. 

Dublinia is great. Everyone should go. It's fun. It's educational. It's like a museum and a hands-on-science-centre (without the science, but with Medieval and Viking stuff). How could you *not* enjoy that? While there are elements that cater towards the early teen, many parts are quite sophisticated without being pretentious. The first floor features Viking Dublin. This exhibit concludes with Ragnarök (the Viking Apocalypse, and Apocalypse #2 of the day), and resumes on the second floor in the Middle Ages. The third floor shows the function of archeology in modern Dublin and the efforts to save Wood Quay, "Viking Dublin". Visitors are then led to the gift shop, and if you're not careful, you could miss one of the best parts... St. Michael's Tower. Instead of going to the right to exit through St. Catherine's cathedral foyer, go to the right, and climb the 96 steps.

I stood at the top of the St. Michael's Tower. I saw the panorama of Dublin city. The sun was setting and I saw, in the distance, mountains. I saw Dublin's streets, and I could tell where the Liffey ran. Last night, at the Celt, where I decided to spend my last night on earth, the band played "Rare Auld Times". From Viking to Ragnarök to the Middle Ages. From the Middle Ages to the archeology section, the steps are lined with an artists representation of a Dublin town square from the 15th to 16th to 17th to 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Up in that tower, I put on my headphones and listened to Flogging Molly's "Rare Auld Times", and for a little while, I think I got it. I want to get it. Hint: It's national nostalgia and it's why I'm a medievalist. To remember what we've lost, to look back fondly, introspectively and intelligently. It's why I'm going to study the amalgamation of Celtic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon that is the British Isles in the Middle Ages. In that sense, as well as many others, this trip has been a success. I'm sure that my end goal is correct, I've just got to get on the right path now. And as much as Dublin is not a medieval city, like, say Edinburgh or Cambridge, it remembers itself and its proud of what it has been and what it is going to become. And *that's* what makes the authors write and the singers sing about Dublin in such an incomparable way. It's no Paris, and it shouldn't be. 

Yowza, all that, catalysted from a tourist attraction called Dublinia. 

I counted at least two apocalypse today and to quote Riley Finn in Buffy, "I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse".

And was there a cataclysmic shift in paradigms? Nah, not really. But in some respects, wouldn't it be nice if there would be? 

#Apocalypse #Book of Kells #Dublin #Dublinia #Flogging Molly #Medieval #ireland #buffy the vampire slayer

[mahbf]

England, have my bones.

"You'll be fine," Julie said, "getting to the airport at 7am for your 8.20am flight." And I believed her. What I had not noticed was that while the flight was at 8.20, the boarding time was (read: gate closes) at 7.45. I arrived, leisurely-like around 7, got my ticket stamped and headed to the security line. It was around 7.15 when I realized that the RyanAir man had said that my flight boarded at 7.45. I had sunken maybe 1/4th of the total distance into the miry bog of a line that was security check. 

At 7.30, I began excusing, begging, pleading with my fellow travelers. Kindly, they let me ahead, and I struggled through security check. Got the pat down. 7.40. 

And I was off. Racing down the halls of duty free liquor and fragrance, my hiking boots not tied, at full lope. At full gallop. 

Of course my gate was actually a gillion miles away. It was at 7.44 that I struck a bargain with God. "Look", I said. "I went to Mass yesterday. I'm a little jew girl, raised episcopalian, and I went to Mass in probably one of the top three Catholicest countries in the world. That's gotta count for something. Just please let me catch this plane." Lope. Lope. Lope. 

I arrived at the queue, out of breath, sweaty and red. The people behind which I stood asked if I was ok.

Everything from there out has gone smoothly. Customs seemed confused as to why I would leave Ireland, go to England and then (big reveal at the end of the season...) go back to Ireland. 

Now that I am in Cambridge, I am kind of asking myself the same question. When I was 15, I wrote a list of life goals. Among them was "Learn Irish", "Learn about Celtic myths".  But the chief goal: "Go to Oxford/ become a British citizen." Yeah, that's all coming back. Little Emerson is in awe of England again. Maybe that never really left me; maybe I've just learned the nuances of what "England" actually is. 

Walking from the train station to Clare College, it was everything I'd imagined. No sense of disappointment. No mislead, mislaid, misunderstood preconceptions. It was all there. I had fish and chips and an Abbot Ale at The Anchor, while watching the punts for hire punt tourists up the river, into which a willow wept and ducks dipped. 

I crossed the bridge and there was Queen's College-- which is on par with a relic to me because it is where T. H. White went and I would not be a medievalist without The Once and Future King. 

Remember, I'm navigating this without a map, without an iPhone, with only crudely written directions, some of which include "turn left on unmarked road. pass other unmarked road, turn right". 

Having noted it months before, I took tea in Cambridge Library's Tea Room. I found it because the question "Where can I get a cup of tea?" is posed on the library information section. I was really looking forward to it and it did not disappoint. That said, I now understand why this is a necessary question.

Nerdling that I am, I am not ashamed, nor do I regret that the library was pretty much the vacation destination. Later in the evening, I would stroll the actual town of Cambridge. 

I will forever regret and rue that I decided to only spend Monday/Tuesday here. I wish I had at least one more day. The streets in the evening look like what I imagine the medieval streets looked like. It's no wonder White set his Arthurian legend between 13th and 15th c. England. He was living in it. And I envy him. 

The one purchase that I have room to pack or time to have made: a tie with the emblem of Queen's College. Perhaps unjustly, I feel entitled through T. H. White. I think we would have been friends. 

#Cambridge England #Cambridge University #Cambridge #England #Ryanair #travel #T. H. White

[mahbf]

Places I Have Eaten (Dublin Edition)

While most of my dining experiences have been homecooked, I have sampled a few places in the city. 

For breakfast on Wednesday there was the famous Bewley's, with its Harry Clarke stainglass windows and anti-aisling display in the front window. I had a cappuccino, bagel and cup of yoghurt with Irish honey and toasted almonds. The bagel was softer than American (non-New York quality) bagels. The yoghurt was SUPREME... it was also the size of what I would normally buy for a weeks supply of yoghurt, so Julie inherited some.

There is a small curry place, right across the street from The Duke, near Grafton street. Excellent noodles, super spicy green curry, a student discount (even for poor lost little University of Florida grad students like me). What more could you ask?

Insomia might be what Starbucks wishes it could be. It pains me to say that, but for 5 euro, one can get any hot beverage and the choice of a many different sandwiches. For something like 3.50 euro, any hot beverage and a muffin or cupcake. And I'm not talking "here's your drip coffee...", I mean really decadent hot chocolates, cinnamon gingerbread lattes... Come on, Starbucks, get on it. 

I was whisked to Cornucopia, which filled my little vegetarian heart with joy. It's this rustic-swank restaurant which serves vegetarian soups, hot veritable casserole type dishes and various types of cold salads (like couscous, noodles, leafy greens, chick peas and feta). For about 6 euro euro, you get two types of salad, a huge soup (hot or cold), a hearty slice of bread and vegetarian pate. They were out of the pate when I came through, so I got an extra salad. The honey mustard was unbelievable. Worth the trip. (This isn't sarcasm.) (Really it's not. Though I recognize both disclaimers just nudge it more and more towards being read that way. It's not. This honey mustard was perfect.)

Because there's nothing like having Mexican food 5,000 miles away from Mexico, we went to Boojum for burritos today. It's pretty much the Chipotle of Ireland, but with more beer selection and an Australian brand of ginger beer. As a burrito connoisseur, I endorse it.

Domestically, I have enjoyed the Irish butter, Branston Pickle (of which I am bringing home a jar), several kinds of Irish cheese (delicious, all), Jacob's Digestive Biscuits (grainy wheat cookies with chocolate on top) and Lyons and Barry's black teas. (I am told that I must endorse Barry's. I will be some kind of pariah if I do not.) 

I've only had one Guinness and it was a bit flat.  Fear not, I will mend this dearth of beer in my life.

#Ireland #Dublin #Food #Bewley's #Boojum #culture #tea #Insomnia #Guiness #Branston Pickle

[mahbf]

Dublin: heimlich und unheimlich

Don't bother to pack your canvas kicks if you're going to Dublin. Puddles will be inevitable. Boots are where it's at. I've been in Dublin for a week now but my stay has not been that of a typical tourist-- I am not having rogue train adventures, wild pub crawls, or even admiration of the fluffy sheep and remarkable countryside (yet). 

My stay in Dublin, so far, has been very domestic. I'm staying with my friend, Julie and her boyfriend Gerard, and it's as if I've been plucked out of my American sphere and placed, fairly gently, into a not-entirely-unfamiliar sphere of Trinity College and Dublin, the city itself. I've not done anything terribly touristy, and Dublin is not so unlike Boston, for example, that it is shockingly different. (That was a statement which I am sure I would have to defend more thoroughly if this were an academic discourse, but it's not, so I stand by it. Consider this, though, compare Dublin to Boston, New York, Seattle or Chicago... It's the most like Boston, right?) 

So far, I have taken scenic walks around Artane, in D5. Seen some what I assume would be considered pre-schools in the states. Seen some canals. Seen the inside of two residences. Eaten many delicious homecooked meals. Been to a Christmas party hosted by a TCD professor. Mastered the Dublin transportation system. Helped mark and set up books for the TCD book sale. Strolled the now-Christmasy Grafton street. 

And frozen. To death. I have slept under a goose down duvet, two thick blankets, a thin duvet, with a hot water bottle and my friend Julie. I was decently warm at that point. My poor Floridian acclimation! 

On the plus side, I'm picking up bits of Irish (which I have no idea how to pronounce). When I return, I will be able to write and recognize words for various civil functions, such as "bus lane", "start", "street", "monday - sunday" and some cetera. 

It's difficult to write about what I've been doing, because it's all been so normal. I felt at home in Hesse, Germany. It was different, but I wasn't menaced, I wasn't out of place. It was like visiting a distant relative. Dublin has struck-- perhaps strangely-- in the same heimlich way, but the opposite. Like a relative who you don't quite know coming to visit you in your home. You go about your day to day life, and it's pleasant, but there's something a little bit off, not in a bad way, but just in a "This is not how my usual day would go. Oh, that's right, Uncle Bernard is with me. I do love Uncle B." It's all very unheimlichy. 

I'm excited to read James Joyce's Dubliners and Ulysses in the spring for my seminar. I think, given enough time, if I understand my preconceptions of it right, Joyce and I might have very similar views on Dublin. 

Tomorrow, I go off to Cambridge to do some research on T. H. White. I'm staying in Clare College. On Wednesday, I'm taking a railway sightseeing tour of Glendalough, Avona and the Wicklow Mountains. At some point, the Book of Kells, Howth and Penney's. 

#Dublin #Ireland #Joyce #Trinity College Dublin #Artane

[mahbf]

Betset upon by the New Agers

I was sitting in Peet's. Reading. Listening to Joanna Newsom, when a couple approached and asked if they could sit with me. "Sure", I said. 

Our conversation started out fairly normal, who are you, what do you do? I told them that I worked a lot with Arthurian legend. "Oh," said the fellow, "then do you know a lot about... the Deeper Mysteries in Arthurian legend?" 

"Uhm, what?", said I. 

"The... Deeper Mysteries." I did not. But we chatted. He seemed to think that I knew something about the Templars that I was not disclosing. We discussed the metaphysics of sound and communication. He suggested that I join the Masons, because I had a lot to offer them due to my field of study. 

This is why I love local coffee shops... you meet the best people. 

#Peet's Coffee #New agers #templar knights #deeper mysteries

[mahbf]

Mostly, I took photos in B&W with my analog. I'll develop, print and scan them later this week.

But here is my photo set offering for Cambridge in October.  

#Cambridge #Boston #Harvard #fall #leaves #airplane #New England