Markus and Brian's Excellent European Adventure

Impulsive, Compulsive Or Insane?

Hey there peoples,

I know that I told you in the last posting that I was planning to head up to Glasgow around this time. I would be there right now, taking impromptu lessons in Scottish pronounciation if it were not for certain choices that have forced me to abandon my original plan of action. Most of the people who read this little log of ours know me very well and will not be surprised by what they read next. However, for those of you who have been sparred that conditioned and unreasoning side of me that stems from my adolescent obsessions, be warned, my next statement may upset and disturb you. I have decided that visiting Scotland on this particular trip would not be as much of a life changing experience for me as seeing Patrick Stewart (a.k.a Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek TNG) perform in a play called 'The Master Builder', which Brian and I will be seeing tomorrow. I can almost feel the disapproval seeping through the monitor, but if you only knew how deeply this series and those characters have imbedded themselves into the the very fiber of my being then you would understand how helpless I am to fight against this choice. We all have our vices and little obsessions, and for me the combination of seeing my first bit of english theatre with one of my favourite actors of all time is just too good to pass up. After committing myself to this, the only way I could have stuck to seeing Scotland was if I was content to view it framed by the window of a bus. This is not a particularly enticing option, and so I have decided to stay in Dublin for a little while longer and will be flying to London tomorrow morning.

The last few days in Dublin have convinced me that the the Irish don't know how to have a bad time. It's simply a concept they have never been exposed to, and after visiting several local bars which have featured irish music and dancing, jazz, blues, techno all accompanied by that universal sport - drinking, I am convinced that staying here indefinitely would not be an unpleasant fate in the least. The attitude is one of simple relaxation here. If you don't feel like buying a drink, don't buy a drink. You can sit and chat, partaking in the musical entertainment and it doesn't have to cost you a thing. It's a refreshing concept that I haven't seen in many other places and I am only too happy to share the mindset for another night before scooting off to London.

Anyways, I'll let you people know how the play went, albeit I'm pretty confident that I'm going to enjoy it one way or another.

Take it easy,

Markus

P.S. The title to this posting is a little bit of an inside reference. Who can tell me what it's from?

Top O Da Mornin To Ya

Hey there peoples,

It seems that Brian has been far more vigilant than I as of late to keep you informed as to our recent exploits. Instead of fighting against this new development I have decided that I am happy to continue filling this lethargic role which will be appropriately reflected through the length of this posting.

After Ireland I spent a day in Paris where I met some wonderful people with whom I made a delicious and nutritious meal in our hostel's kitchen. I guess you would have to know me well to realize just how giddy it made me to cook for a group again. The experience made me realize just how much I miss my usual access to a full kitchen. After partaking in that culinary project we all went out for a few (note: few = less than 10. I think...) and had an overall spectacular time chatting and swapping backpacking stories. The next morning brought with it over 25 hours of uninterrupted traveling, bringing me from Paris to Dublin where I was grateful to see Brian awaiting me at the train station. Brian had already been here for a couple of days, and so after a few brief introductions to the people that he had met, I felt like I was part of the Dublin crew and ready to join the par-tay.

The rest of my time here has been described perfectly well by Brian and the only thing that I would add is further emphasis on just how much the Guinness brewery rocked. Not only was the tour fun, creative and informative (Not to mention effective. I think a huge internal struggle will precede any attempt to order a beer other than Guinness from now on.), but the free pint of the famous black ale that they give you at the end of it all was by far the best glass of beer I have ever had the pleasure of consuming. Not only was the beer exquisite, but we had the pleasure of enjoying it in the brewery's cylindrical Gravity Bar which is located at the top of the building and offers a spectacular view of Dublin. If you should ever find yourself in the city, I highly recommend it.

When I'm not involving myself in the torturous activity of consuming beer straight from the brewery, I find myself booking trains, planes and ferries for my travels in the near future. I'm planning to leave Dublin on monday for Glasgow, where I will stay for 2-3 days, and then I will work my way down to London where I will return back to the land of Hockey and Maple Syrup on the 5th of August. Reasons for my choice to come home early are listed in no particular order and include:

A - My severe longing to drive my car.
B - To drive away the curse that seems to have brought only chaos and disaster
to my family in Dryden since my departure.
C - To submerse myself utterly and completely in electronic entertainment.

Okay, okay. I'm also coming home because I miss all you wonderful people so much. Instead of joining in whenever I burst into spontaneous song, people here tend to stare and then shimmy away as though I were a poisonous snake coiled to strike. My random sound effects are also not very much appreciated here and generally my random silliness just doesn't seem to be as accepted. I guess, if nothing else, this trip has helped me to appreciate those people in my life who see my nonsensical and erratic side, but call me friend all the same.

So prepare yourselves people. The crazy German is coming home soon!

Take it easy,

Markus

The Dubliners

Markus and I have met up and are kickin' it here in Dublin, yo. I've been sticking around a bit longer than I originally planned because travelling to and through the UK is going to be a challenge -- trains and ferries and buses are expensive (not covered under our Eurail passes) and travelling to Edinburgh and Glasgow before London would mean lots of headaches and cash, and not enough time to do each location justice. Plus, I'm having a great time in the city of the Irish; I've been hanging out part of the time with two American guys and a gang of 9 English girls, absorbing the Irish charm and atmosphere all around.

So, I'll be catching a flight to London a few days from now on a discount air carrier -- the easiest & fastest way of travelling, and paradoxically also the cheapest. The business is booming here; companies like Ryanair, if you book early enough, will charge you a whopping 2 pounds for some flights, excluding taxes (which aren't terribly high either). I'm guessing you fly on the wing or something.

I'm disappointed I won't get to see Scotland this time around, but Markus is making a valiant effort to get there tomorrow, I think. We'll swap stories later when we meet up again in London.

Getting back to Dublin, the city rocks my socks. There are so many fantastic bars, clubs, and live music joints around here, many offering a blend of all three. I accidentally managed to stumble into one of the most authentic Irish pubs (as I found out later) of them all, the Palace Bar, and headed upstairs after a drink. At first I thought it was empty; I couldn't hear a thing as I headed up, but walked in on an incredible experience: The place was packed with souls, all completely silent, as one lone older man (a customer, I also found out later) sang a traditional Irish lament, a haunting song telling a story of heartbreak and tragedy. The presence in the silent room was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Afterwards, a 6 person band in the bar struck up some more lively Irish music, which sounded incredible.

A few days later, Markus and I checked out a live music pub for some electronic music by a small group known as God is an Astronaut. Yesterday, we visited the magnificent Guinness Storehouse for a super-thorough history and education on the black beer (and a free pint). Other highlights for me have been seeing the ancient Book of Kells & touring Trinity College, and, last but certainly not least, meeting up with an ex-colleague from Redknee, Tom. We went out to lunch and afterwards the friendly Dubliner took me on a short tour of the city. Great time.

Tomorrow I'm off to the west-coast hippie city of Galway. There's a large arts festival finishing up there, so I'll check out the street performances and catch a nighttime standup comedy show by some Australian chap. Tonight, Saturday night in Dublin! Should be cool. Later.

Fun link of the day: My eyes, my eyes!

Stereophonic

This entry's going to be a little bit different. I'll take this entry from my personal travel journal and type it up later onto the website. So, the tone of this entry will be a little different than usual; you can expect more crass language, sexist attitudes, and immodest, revisionist storytelling from the gutters of my torrid mind. Enjoy!

As I write this, I can see rolling hills of green fields pass by my train window as I chug along towards Dublin, Ireland. I'm guessing the Irish are farming the colour green over here. We're talking deep green, lush farm fields bounded by lines of even darker green trees. Obviously helped along by the rather wet climate; dark, moddy clouds blanket the hills, falling over each other as they race to see who can open up and rain first.

The Irish themselves seem to wear a lot of green too -- I saw one elderly fellow wearing a green-upon-green suit. More fitting the Irish stereotype, though, is the unexpected, universal friendliness of the Irish people. It's only been about 8 hours since I jumped off the 19 hour ferry from France, and I've already been struck up into several conversations with total strangers -- like one of our guidebooks say, the Irish need about as much prodding to talk as hemophilliacs do to bleed. Even if it's not always cheery: One depressed bus driver was getting visibly sadder by the moment as he praised how "brilliant" it was that I was backpacking Europe. He then rached some sort of breaking point and brooded in a low voice over how his life is in a rut, how he's stuck doing the same bus driving job day in, day out. He mentioned how he has enough money saved up in real estate and in the bank, and nothing tying him down; I told him he should pack up and travel as well. I think that's what he wanted to hear, anyway. Brian Glick, international traveller, inducing misery upon others 6 days out of 7 (on Wednesdays I go shopping).

Spent the day today in the fantastic, oldish Irish town of Kilkenny (whose name makes me think of South Park every time). Not too touristy, with a large castle overlooking the river. The guided tour of the castle was fantastic; maybe I can enjoy and absord more of this whole "culture" and "history" deal after all, at least as long as it's narrated by that cheeky, fun-spirited Irish accent. (Sorry, Ireland, but I just can't take the accent seriously! Even when you're swearing or threatening to knock my lights out, it sounds like there's a punchline at the end of every sentence.)

As I write this now, I'm at the hostel in Dublin a day later. (Yeah, it's a multi-day entry, deal with it.) Went out last night with a bunch of people from the hostel to the packed, cobblestoned Temple Bar area of Dublin, and drank in one of the more local-filled, authentic pubs. What a trip -- the Irish will talk your ear off, and by the end of the evening half the place was standing (or swaying) while belting out off-key lyrics to whatever was playing. Our group escaped to a small area in the back so we could actually hear each other.

Speaking of the end of the evening, it comes quick -- most clubs and bars close at 2:00am, or else no one in the country would ever get to work on time (or get there sober). Tonight, I'll check out one of the many pubs devoted to live music, and visit the Guinness brewery and the ancient Book of Kells at Trinity College during the day.

The Tour de France was an intense but short-lived experience, by the way. I headed out to the edge of Toulouse, fought through massive crowds and giant fleets of media & team cars, and was near the front to see the crowd erupt into cheers for Lance Armstrong as he was introduced on the stage. I worked my way down the course before they started to get a decent vantage point, and if I had blinked I would have missed the whole thing -- they zoomed by, with the yellow-shirted Lance in the lead, and that was that.

Headed back to Paris afterwards for a few days, and went to the Pompidou Centre to visit the Museum of Modern & Contemporary Arts. I think I'm really starting to get a taste for that stuff, though I doubt I'll ever pretend to "get" or find much value whatsoever in the break-a-mirror-on-the-floor-and-call-it-art art. Still, most of the pieces were excellent. I snuck a quick movie of an amusing piece based on The Usual Suspects that I'll post later. There were also a number of "older" modern art pieces by Picasso and Dali that were fantastic and bizarre.

I also changed my flight ticket in Paris; Markus and I were taking about the trip before we split, and we're both missing people back home quite a bit. Three months, in retrospect, is an awfully long time to be away. We'd also like to catch a little bit of relaxing before the summer ends, and I'd personally enjoy having at least a little bit of cash to buy some food now and then (or even to pay a bit of tuition).

So, I'll be heading back to Toronto on the morning of August 4th, and Markus has hopefully booked a similar flight by now. It's only a two week cut, and we figure we'll just have to come back next summer for Spain!

That's it for now. Cheers!

Addendum

I'm also posting a few pictures along with this post, which should make you media-starved junkies happy for a day or two. But, the Internet cafe here isn't making it terribly easy for me to post 'em, so a lot of the pictures I'd like to post will have to wait; these are just a few. You'll have to also crane your neck and get a few cramps. Enjoy!

Pictures

1) Markus cliff-dives off a 10 foot cliff in Corfu, Greece. He also cliff-dove off the 50 foot one, but I unfortunately bungled the photo, which really, really sucked.
2) The Pink Palace puts on a traditional Greek dance and performance during the 4th of July toga party in Corfu. Apparantly traditional Greek dancing involves rings of fire.
3) Our beach in Ios, Greece. Our campground was in the complex of pools on the left.
4) Our campground bungalow. Note that you can't see the giant black ants that infested it and forced me to sleep by the pool one night.
5) One of the major stretches of clubs in "the village" in Ios. (Kahlua Bar, Disco 69, Superfly, and the Bulldog Bar.) At night, you could barely walk anywhere; the roads were packed with people hopping from one club to another.
6) "The village." This is pretty much all of it, too! (The bars and roads are hidden.)
7) Us, before we left, hanging out with three super-hip half-Japanese girls studying in America, and two blokes from Macedonia. And if you think that photo of me is bad, you should see the ones I'm not posting. (Or, no you shouldn't.)
8) The Roman Forum, in Rome.
9) For my aspiring-archaologist Mom, a photo of several of 'em at work.
10) The Colosseum
11) I love this sign.
12) Yes, humans actually built this.
13) On the path above one of the villages of Cinque Terre.
14) Another Cinque Terre village...Vernazza, I think.
15) Lance shakes the hands of young bikers before setting off on the day's stage.
16) Lance in the lead.
17) The rest of the stragglers.
18) Castle Kilkenny, on a typically cloudy Irish day.
19) The only picture I have of Dublin so far, this is the hella-busy pedestrian Grafton Street. More to come!