We're in the middle of a whole IT regeneration at work - and guess who is in charge? It absolutely sucks as there's lots of changes happening in the network and on the computers and of course you know who the go-to girl is when something doesn't work. I now officially hate computers, IT, “migrations” and networks. The only thing I love is techies that can fix my problems. Thankfully we have those. Love to Alan, Alan, Mark, and Niall, but particularly Alan Neville, who has been our main techie and general computer genius, apart from speaking quite good Spanish!
Anyway I don't want to talk about that here - I have enough thinking about it at work. Thankfully the week finished early on Friday afternoon when Bridget and I hopped in Gary's car and made our way down to Portumna to pick up our boat for the weekend! Hello sailor! The drive down was fairly long but enjoyable - the sunshine was brilliant and it always feels great to not be at work when you should be! On top of that on the way down Caroline from Concern (Ireland's biggest aid agency) rang Gary to say we'd won the project with them, which created lots of excitement in the car as it was a project Gary really wanted, and is really interested in doing. It was great ringing Una and Conor who had worked with Gary on the proposal, and also Roddy who was in France but was really happy for Gary. Everyone was ecstatic especially as earlier in the week we'd also won a big project with Davy, a wealth management company, which Gary had almost literally sweated blood to get. It certainly created a good reason to celebrate over the weekend!
When we got to the boat I was surprised as it was smaller than I thought it would be, but that proved to be only at first glance. There were four bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and three bathrooms on board, plus a sundeck (yay!). Michael, Una and John had bought mountains (and I mean mountains) of food on the way up so we started nibbling straight away - wine, cheese and crackers on the sundeck. I could get used to a life like that. We were still moored so I went for a quick swim in the Shannon, as I really wanted to swim and knowing Irish weather it may have been my first and last opportunity. The water was fresh but not cold. If it wasn't so slimy and green/brown it would have been quite pleasant. Then into the boat for our first bit of actual cruising. The boat didn't go very fast but Una and I both had our “Titanic” moments - standing at the prow of the ship with our arms outstretched. I must admit that I never saw the attraction in boating - why rich people would go out and buy a yacht was completely beyond me. I found out that this mindframe was a direct result of my never actually having been on a boat in my life (other than the odd ferry or two) since boating is actually great fun if you can put up with the cramped conditions.
After about half an hour of cruising we stopped at Terryglass for a pint and ended up staying and eating dinner there at the Derg Inn. Dinner was delicious and fun, and we went back to the boat for a round of Trivial Pursuit. I was looking forward to it all night as it's my favourite board game in the world. We split up into two teams - Gary John and I against Una, Michael and Bridget. At the first roll of the die I felt a slight rise in tension in the cabin, but shrugged it off as pre-Trivial Pursuit jitters (sometimes the excitement of Trivial Pursuit becomes a little too much for me). That rise in tension turned out to be only a precursor to what was to come.
Board games, while fun, are inherently competitive. So are some people. I, myself, sometimes surrender to the rage, despair and adrenaline of the lust for winning. Ask anyone that's ever played Pictionary with me - that game turns me into a wild beast beyond reason or even the capacity for cognition. And in a similar manner, aided and abetted by several glasses of wine, it didn't take long for my colleagues to turn over to the Dark Side. Pretty soon the air was thick with insults, accusations, and indignation. People who I have witnessed have reasoned and intelligent conversations on anything from politics and religion to whether or not broccoli is a natural or man-made vegetable and whether or not peanuts come from the ground (I swear) were reduced to this:
“We won that wedgie fair and square”
“You did not.”
“Give us the wedgie!”
“No!”
“Give us the wedgie...now!”
“NO! That's not fair!” *big pout*
“Is too. Now I'm taking the wedgie, and that's that.”
Oh dear.
We managed to finish the game without anyone mysteriously “falling” overboard, and went to bed exhausted.
Next morning an enormous breakfast courtesy of Michael (the new Jamie Oliver) and more sailing. Una decided she was going to go for a run, and while she only wanted to do about five miles, she ended up doing about double that. While she ran we boated up the river and met her at our next mooring. The dock was one of those that float in the middle of the river, so when Una finally showed up, Michael went to pick her up from the shore in the angling dinghy. Unfortunately Una's knight in shining armour turned out more a court jester as as Una was alighting the dinghy to get onto the boat, he manoeuvred the dinghy in such a way as to make poor Una fall headlong into the Shannon. Oops. Una took it well though, and it provided much humour value for the rest of us. Thanks Una.
We boated all day, and Mark, whos family lives in Killaloe and has his own speedboat came to meet us for a bit. He took us for a spin in his boat (totally fun) and we met his girlfriend Jean (who we all agreed looks scarily like Cameron Diaz - perhaps she should try out to be Cameron's stunt double?).
That night we went to a restaurant called “Gooser's”, which, although it has a completely stupid name, also features delicious seafood. I had crab salad and some other fish thing with mustard sauce, yummy. The portions were enormous and I was completely full afterwards and so relished the walk home in the balmy air. We got back to the boat and played cards for a while, thankfully this turned out to be rather more good-natured than the Trivial Pursuit for some reason! Surprisingly I turned out to be rather good at the game we played (beginner's luck maybe?) as I'm usually a disaster at cards.
Next morning I felt not so great, so I spent the best part of the day sleeping. In my bed, on the deck, on the prow, in Gary's car on the way home, wherever I was, I was asleep. It's not like we did all that much over the weekend to tire me out, but I just wasn't feeling well. Pity though as it was a beautiful day (we were really lucky with the weather). It was sad having to go home, but every experience has an expiry date unfortunately - and we do have to go back to work eventually and earn a living! Fortunately Una got lots of good material out of the trip to help her recommendations to Failte Ireland, so the trip actually served some useful purpose other than just a fun weekend away.
I got back home exhausted, so I pretty much just went to bed without unpacking. I had nothing ready for work the next day, but when am I ever organised? It's weird, I'm so organised at work but my private life is a complete mess. It's like I have a specific organization quota that I can use, and I use it all up at work and don't have any left over for my life. But what's life without a little chaos, right?
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
No Milk Today, My Love Has Gone Away
Before I move on to other things, just let me tell you a little story that will further illustrate the point of how fabulous my job is. This is so incredible I can barely believe it.
My boss, Gary, went on holidays to Toronto for 10 days. She came back Friday the 7th, and therefore the next business day would be Monday the 10th. We welcomed her back, everything was going swimmingly, I was making arrangements for her that I had been putting off until she got back (so that she could confirm or change them, not because I was being lazy). I had just scheduled an appointment for her for Monday with a director of one of our biggest clients, when she asked me, very nonchalantly (so nonchalantly that I didn't pick up the subtle note of impending doom in her voice),
“Lucia, am I going to the Bord Gais board meeting in Cork on Monday?”
I replied with confidence, “Sure, all your flights are booked, the relevant people are informed, all you have to do is show up.”
To which she replied, with a hint of amusement, “Then why have I six other appointments here in Dublin that day?”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I buried my head in my hands, screwing my eyelids shut tight, in the futile hope that if I couldn't see the world, it would suddenly cease to exist. In the world of Personal Assisting, there is no cardinal sin bigger than diary cock-ups. Especially in Genesis, where the kind of people we deal with are the crème de la crème of the corporate ladder (usually directors, board members, CEOs, etc). Getting an hour alone with these people requires the same organisational and logistical efforts of say, the Dublin Marathon. Usually they (well, their PAs) know us and will make time for us, but re-scheduling can be and usually is a nightmare. Not to mention I'd totally screwed up Gary's week!
So, what was Gary's reaction to this debacle? My mind was racing with everything from “Oh, my god, I'm soooo embarrassed” to “I'll be sacked”. But Gary wasn't angry, or even disappointed. She just said,
“Well, Lucia, it's nice to know even you are fallible.”
WHAT??? Not only was she not going to make me feel bad about the enormous oversight I'd just committed, but she managed to find a way to compliment me about it!?! What an incredibly emotionally mature way to deal with the situation. Imagine the kind of place the workplace (indeed the world) would be if everyone chose to react in that supportive fashion instead of dishing out a heap of retribution. I still felt bad about my mistake, but I sure felt a hell of a lot better, and after I'd finished mentally beating myself about the head, I went into damage control mode, re-scheduling what I could and cancelling what I couldn't. Luck actually went my way as none of the clients seemed too put out by the changes (it doesn't always happen that way!). So that was the end of that. Unbelievable.
The other thing is - we're going boating! We're doing a project with Failte Ireland, the Irish tourist authority, into the Inland Cruising industry here in Ireland, so we have to do some product testing! Six of us (Gary, Michael, Una, Bridget, me and John O'Regan, the graphic designer we usually use to do the creative on our projects) are hiring a 9 berth cruiser for the weekend of the 21st/22nd/23rd of July and are going cruising on the Shannon! It's going to be soooo much fun! I'm in charge of all the organisation (hahahaha! The girl who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery is taking care of the holiday arrangements of six people!) which is a bit scary, but ok. My colleagues are all great and loads of fun so I know we're going to have a great time, even if it rains for three days (though I really, really hope the weather is good, so we can swim and fish off the boat). The only unknown is John O'Regan, whom I've never met but from all reports is a raging alcoholic insomniac who smokes like a chimney. He could be awesome fun, or he could be a disaster. Every time we mentioned that John was coming, someone in the office would say, “Really? John? Oh, my goodness!”. After that happened two or three times I began to get intrigued as to exactly what kind of character we were dealing with here. I said,
“I'm kind of interested to meet this guy - everyone I've told that he's coming on this trip has had that reaction.” To which Roddy replied,
“You're exactly the type of bird he goes for; slightly left of centre. You know, a bit oddball. Wacky.”. Which is one of the most pleasing descriptions of my character I have ever heard, though you can judge for yourself whether or not it is accurate.
Anyway, enough about work. I've finally, after wanting to do it for aaages, started salsa classes. Shelly, the little genius, found classes that are:
a) close to home
b) only €8.00 and
c) really good.
I've only been to one class so far, but it was really fun and the teacher is good, actually correcting tecnique instead of just doing something and saying “copy me!”. Shelly and I are going together, and I think Marie is going to come too. Maybe Sabrina too, and if I mention it to Maria maybe she will come, who knows?
Another thing I've been putting off for ages is being part of some kind of organised sport. I found a football club just up the road from work with a ladies team - which would be absolutely perfect only training is on Mondays and Wednesdays, the same as the salsa. So perhaps I will try basketball or another sport instead. The idea is recreational, just have fun and meet people while doing something active, rather than taking it very seriously. But it's taking me a little while to find something suitable, close by and not a super dooper good team (the more tragic, the better). I need to play with crappy people!
A third thing that I've been putting off for ages and am finally getting around to doing is looking into becoming an adult literacy tutor. I find the literacy levels in supposedly developed countries like Ireland and Australia an absolute disgrace, and am going to do my bit to help. Furthermore it's downright dangerous for adults not to be able to read and write - both legally (how are they supposed to read contracts to sign them?) and physically (how do they read the correct dosage on medicine packaging?). The training courses don't start until September but I'm putting my name down now because this is something I really want to do.
I finally got into the World Cup - haven't missed a match in ages. All my teams are now out of the competition (well, to tell the truth Italy and France are the only two left) but I went to see France v. Portugal with my French flatmate, and although I was supporting Portugal in the end I was glad they didn't win; what bad sports they were! Tripping over every blade of grass on the pitch and beating up all the French players. I was appalled. Now I hope that Italy will take the cup, I was going for them before this whole thing started, much to the angerment (I think I just made up that word) of Marie, my French flatmate.
Now that I mention it, I don't think I told you about her before. Ilona, my old Polish roommate, fulfilled her dream of moving to London and working at Lucky Voice Karaoke, but that left us with a hole in the flat and the rent. That was filled by Marie, a 25 year old marine biology intern from Lyon. She's doing her final internship at Trinity College, has pictures of dolphins and jellyfish on her wall, loves aperitifs and hates Fabien Barthez (well, who doesn't).
Now it looks like Shelly and I will be leaving Bolton Street for slightly greener pastures. Well, not really, we're just going to be moving to a different part of the same paddock, since we really like the location we live in now but can't stand the flat we live in any more and furthermore it's just time, after a year, to have our own rooms. Our own space. As much as I love sharing a room (the company is good and it keeps costs down), privacy is a privilege that I have come to cherish over this last year. So we are (very slowly, without much motivation, since everyone hates moving) looking for a new place. But I am again coming to the same conclusion I came to when I was first flat-hunting here a year ago - Dublin is incredibly expensive.
Last night was the World Cup Grand Final, and what a game it was. I'll spare you the details as you either saw it or clearly don't give a damn about football, but the football was stylish and skilful, the atmosphere where we were was great (although I was supporting Italy and the place was full of French) and a great time was had by all (until the end, of course). Never have I been in such an enclosed space with so many testosterone-charged, hyper-tensioned Mediterranean men. If the smell of sweat wasn't so pervasive it could have been quite erotic. The only downers of the night were the Zidane debacle, and Trezeguet's face after it was all over. But even though none of my teams won, or even made it to the final, there's something so powerful about the image of the cup being lifted high, that I couldn't help but cheer my guts out. The other image that stuck with me was Zidane walking dejectedly back to the dressing rooms after being sent off - right past the World Cup.
As for me, my life is a little emptier without the beautiful game. I managed to move to the only country in Europe where football is not the main winter sport (it barely rates next to the Gaelic games). But I will fill it with other things, and wait it out until 2010.
I liked ending my blog last time with bits and pieces, so I will do so again. Here we go...
I'm planning a weekend in Lyon to go to Marie's birthday party...it's going to be soooo much fun, let's see how much of my high school French I can remember!
I've discovered a brand of Indian ready meals at Lidl for less than three euro a pop which don't have any additives and they use real spices (I can taste the fenugreek and I'm pretty sure I bit into a piece of clove). As I am now officially the laziest person in Dublin with regards to cooking this is a pot of treasure.
Last week the main printer at the office started to make bad clanking noises. We bought it last July, the 18th apparently. It's like they're programmed to break when the warranty's up. Hopefully I can get it fixed for free.
I have no appropriate summer clothes but summer is so short and cold here it's not really worth buying anything. Today I wore a skivvy and a skirt and I wasn't even hot.
I'm starting to think I over-analyse everything and take things too seriously.
Mark at work is a real prankster. Today he rang the bell and when I went to let him in there was nobody there. Sure enough he was waiting squished up next to the wall to jump out and scare me.
Paul Kelly's playing at the Village on the 24th. I really should buy tickets.
Sometimes, when I'm walking to and from work, I'm listening to my iPod, and a really good song comes on, and I smile, and someone walking the opposite way sees me and smiles back. That rocks. The other day I was listening to "Son of a Preacher Man" and miming the words and bopping along, and this guy beeped at me and gave me the thumbs up. Yeah.
A banana from the SPAR on the way to work costs me about 45 euro cents. This is outrageous.
Tonight I must go to bed early as last night I went at midnight (damn the match. Can't remember the last time I watched a match that didn't end in penalties!). On that note I will say, take care, see you soon! (And happy Independence Day for yesterday to all the Argies!)
Below you can find some pics of my flatmates, my ex-flatmates and I when Maria and Diana came to Dublin for a visit. The first pic is of some of the girls I've lived with so far (not all) but all of them live at Bolton Street/have lived at Bolton Street at some point. The last few are me, Maria, Maria and Diana (the original Bolton Streeters) pulling ridiculous faces to make ourselves laugh. Don't tell them I posted these here, they'll kill me.
My boss, Gary, went on holidays to Toronto for 10 days. She came back Friday the 7th, and therefore the next business day would be Monday the 10th. We welcomed her back, everything was going swimmingly, I was making arrangements for her that I had been putting off until she got back (so that she could confirm or change them, not because I was being lazy). I had just scheduled an appointment for her for Monday with a director of one of our biggest clients, when she asked me, very nonchalantly (so nonchalantly that I didn't pick up the subtle note of impending doom in her voice),
“Lucia, am I going to the Bord Gais board meeting in Cork on Monday?”
I replied with confidence, “Sure, all your flights are booked, the relevant people are informed, all you have to do is show up.”
To which she replied, with a hint of amusement, “Then why have I six other appointments here in Dublin that day?”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
I buried my head in my hands, screwing my eyelids shut tight, in the futile hope that if I couldn't see the world, it would suddenly cease to exist. In the world of Personal Assisting, there is no cardinal sin bigger than diary cock-ups. Especially in Genesis, where the kind of people we deal with are the crème de la crème of the corporate ladder (usually directors, board members, CEOs, etc). Getting an hour alone with these people requires the same organisational and logistical efforts of say, the Dublin Marathon. Usually they (well, their PAs) know us and will make time for us, but re-scheduling can be and usually is a nightmare. Not to mention I'd totally screwed up Gary's week!
So, what was Gary's reaction to this debacle? My mind was racing with everything from “Oh, my god, I'm soooo embarrassed” to “I'll be sacked”. But Gary wasn't angry, or even disappointed. She just said,
“Well, Lucia, it's nice to know even you are fallible.”
WHAT??? Not only was she not going to make me feel bad about the enormous oversight I'd just committed, but she managed to find a way to compliment me about it!?! What an incredibly emotionally mature way to deal with the situation. Imagine the kind of place the workplace (indeed the world) would be if everyone chose to react in that supportive fashion instead of dishing out a heap of retribution. I still felt bad about my mistake, but I sure felt a hell of a lot better, and after I'd finished mentally beating myself about the head, I went into damage control mode, re-scheduling what I could and cancelling what I couldn't. Luck actually went my way as none of the clients seemed too put out by the changes (it doesn't always happen that way!). So that was the end of that. Unbelievable.
The other thing is - we're going boating! We're doing a project with Failte Ireland, the Irish tourist authority, into the Inland Cruising industry here in Ireland, so we have to do some product testing! Six of us (Gary, Michael, Una, Bridget, me and John O'Regan, the graphic designer we usually use to do the creative on our projects) are hiring a 9 berth cruiser for the weekend of the 21st/22nd/23rd of July and are going cruising on the Shannon! It's going to be soooo much fun! I'm in charge of all the organisation (hahahaha! The girl who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery is taking care of the holiday arrangements of six people!) which is a bit scary, but ok. My colleagues are all great and loads of fun so I know we're going to have a great time, even if it rains for three days (though I really, really hope the weather is good, so we can swim and fish off the boat). The only unknown is John O'Regan, whom I've never met but from all reports is a raging alcoholic insomniac who smokes like a chimney. He could be awesome fun, or he could be a disaster. Every time we mentioned that John was coming, someone in the office would say, “Really? John? Oh, my goodness!”. After that happened two or three times I began to get intrigued as to exactly what kind of character we were dealing with here. I said,
“I'm kind of interested to meet this guy - everyone I've told that he's coming on this trip has had that reaction.” To which Roddy replied,
“You're exactly the type of bird he goes for; slightly left of centre. You know, a bit oddball. Wacky.”. Which is one of the most pleasing descriptions of my character I have ever heard, though you can judge for yourself whether or not it is accurate.
Anyway, enough about work. I've finally, after wanting to do it for aaages, started salsa classes. Shelly, the little genius, found classes that are:
a) close to home
b) only €8.00 and
c) really good.
I've only been to one class so far, but it was really fun and the teacher is good, actually correcting tecnique instead of just doing something and saying “copy me!”. Shelly and I are going together, and I think Marie is going to come too. Maybe Sabrina too, and if I mention it to Maria maybe she will come, who knows?
Another thing I've been putting off for ages is being part of some kind of organised sport. I found a football club just up the road from work with a ladies team - which would be absolutely perfect only training is on Mondays and Wednesdays, the same as the salsa. So perhaps I will try basketball or another sport instead. The idea is recreational, just have fun and meet people while doing something active, rather than taking it very seriously. But it's taking me a little while to find something suitable, close by and not a super dooper good team (the more tragic, the better). I need to play with crappy people!
A third thing that I've been putting off for ages and am finally getting around to doing is looking into becoming an adult literacy tutor. I find the literacy levels in supposedly developed countries like Ireland and Australia an absolute disgrace, and am going to do my bit to help. Furthermore it's downright dangerous for adults not to be able to read and write - both legally (how are they supposed to read contracts to sign them?) and physically (how do they read the correct dosage on medicine packaging?). The training courses don't start until September but I'm putting my name down now because this is something I really want to do.
I finally got into the World Cup - haven't missed a match in ages. All my teams are now out of the competition (well, to tell the truth Italy and France are the only two left) but I went to see France v. Portugal with my French flatmate, and although I was supporting Portugal in the end I was glad they didn't win; what bad sports they were! Tripping over every blade of grass on the pitch and beating up all the French players. I was appalled. Now I hope that Italy will take the cup, I was going for them before this whole thing started, much to the angerment (I think I just made up that word) of Marie, my French flatmate.
Now that I mention it, I don't think I told you about her before. Ilona, my old Polish roommate, fulfilled her dream of moving to London and working at Lucky Voice Karaoke, but that left us with a hole in the flat and the rent. That was filled by Marie, a 25 year old marine biology intern from Lyon. She's doing her final internship at Trinity College, has pictures of dolphins and jellyfish on her wall, loves aperitifs and hates Fabien Barthez (well, who doesn't).
Now it looks like Shelly and I will be leaving Bolton Street for slightly greener pastures. Well, not really, we're just going to be moving to a different part of the same paddock, since we really like the location we live in now but can't stand the flat we live in any more and furthermore it's just time, after a year, to have our own rooms. Our own space. As much as I love sharing a room (the company is good and it keeps costs down), privacy is a privilege that I have come to cherish over this last year. So we are (very slowly, without much motivation, since everyone hates moving) looking for a new place. But I am again coming to the same conclusion I came to when I was first flat-hunting here a year ago - Dublin is incredibly expensive.
Last night was the World Cup Grand Final, and what a game it was. I'll spare you the details as you either saw it or clearly don't give a damn about football, but the football was stylish and skilful, the atmosphere where we were was great (although I was supporting Italy and the place was full of French) and a great time was had by all (until the end, of course). Never have I been in such an enclosed space with so many testosterone-charged, hyper-tensioned Mediterranean men. If the smell of sweat wasn't so pervasive it could have been quite erotic. The only downers of the night were the Zidane debacle, and Trezeguet's face after it was all over. But even though none of my teams won, or even made it to the final, there's something so powerful about the image of the cup being lifted high, that I couldn't help but cheer my guts out. The other image that stuck with me was Zidane walking dejectedly back to the dressing rooms after being sent off - right past the World Cup.
As for me, my life is a little emptier without the beautiful game. I managed to move to the only country in Europe where football is not the main winter sport (it barely rates next to the Gaelic games). But I will fill it with other things, and wait it out until 2010.
I liked ending my blog last time with bits and pieces, so I will do so again. Here we go...
I'm planning a weekend in Lyon to go to Marie's birthday party...it's going to be soooo much fun, let's see how much of my high school French I can remember!
I've discovered a brand of Indian ready meals at Lidl for less than three euro a pop which don't have any additives and they use real spices (I can taste the fenugreek and I'm pretty sure I bit into a piece of clove). As I am now officially the laziest person in Dublin with regards to cooking this is a pot of treasure.
Last week the main printer at the office started to make bad clanking noises. We bought it last July, the 18th apparently. It's like they're programmed to break when the warranty's up. Hopefully I can get it fixed for free.
I have no appropriate summer clothes but summer is so short and cold here it's not really worth buying anything. Today I wore a skivvy and a skirt and I wasn't even hot.
I'm starting to think I over-analyse everything and take things too seriously.
Mark at work is a real prankster. Today he rang the bell and when I went to let him in there was nobody there. Sure enough he was waiting squished up next to the wall to jump out and scare me.
Paul Kelly's playing at the Village on the 24th. I really should buy tickets.
Sometimes, when I'm walking to and from work, I'm listening to my iPod, and a really good song comes on, and I smile, and someone walking the opposite way sees me and smiles back. That rocks. The other day I was listening to "Son of a Preacher Man" and miming the words and bopping along, and this guy beeped at me and gave me the thumbs up. Yeah.
A banana from the SPAR on the way to work costs me about 45 euro cents. This is outrageous.
Tonight I must go to bed early as last night I went at midnight (damn the match. Can't remember the last time I watched a match that didn't end in penalties!). On that note I will say, take care, see you soon! (And happy Independence Day for yesterday to all the Argies!)
Below you can find some pics of my flatmates, my ex-flatmates and I when Maria and Diana came to Dublin for a visit. The first pic is of some of the girls I've lived with so far (not all) but all of them live at Bolton Street/have lived at Bolton Street at some point. The last few are me, Maria, Maria and Diana (the original Bolton Streeters) pulling ridiculous faces to make ourselves laugh. Don't tell them I posted these here, they'll kill me.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Four months in a nutshell
Okay. I give up. I've been trying to get up the energy to write an enormous blog detailing everything that's happened to me since I started at Genesis, but I've finally (four months later - a testament to my stubbornness, which knows no bounds) given in to the fact that that is simply impossible. Therefore, what follows is a brief, bulletpointed summary of Lucia from end February to date. From there on in I am committed to updating this thing more than once in a blue moon so that it will actually be fairly current (haha).
Okay. Bullet point one. My job. Genesis is rocking along great. Well, Genesis and W5, for in fact I work for two companies (W5 is a subsidiary of Genesis). All the bullshit Irene told me at the interview turned out not to be bullshit at all, but an accurate description of the atmosphere. Genesis/W5 are immensely creative, energetic, dynamic, (at times chaotic) organisations that I feel honoured to be a part of. Everyone there is super-motivated, hardworking, intelligent, but also laid-back, fun, interesting and different (at times oddball). The old maxim, “We work hard, and we play hard” actually rings true at the office. Everyone works hard all day, but it is always acknowledged and hardly a day goes by when we aren't congratulating someone for something (a well-crafted presentation, a new client, a project come to completion). I get thanked a thousand times a day for the same number of mundane but necessary tasks. It sounds trivial but having worked at companies where nobody showed the slightest gratitude for the work you put in, I can say that it makes a real difference to your day and motivation when you feel like your work is valued and appreciated. This is the first job I have ever had where my employers haven't made me feel a well trained monkey would do just as well. In fact they've gone out of their way to tell me what a great job they think I'm doing.
I'm not the only one who gets lauded. Everyone's work is acknowledged, and when someone is under particular pressure there is always a clamour of helping hands ready to dive in. Even the MD will help me stuff envelopes if I have to get them out before 17:00. And the directors are always doing little things to brighten our day - usually food related. Our offices have been inundated in an endless stream of cookies, pastries, chocolates, muffins, scones and cakes. My favourite is Roddy's recently acquired habit of bringing back ice-creams on Friday afternoons. Not to mention the company lunches and dinners. I'd never ever had a staff lunch before I'd come to Genesis, and by now Gary, Roddy, Michael and Mark have treated us to more than I can count on my fingers. Once we had three in a week!
Anyway, after all this panegyrical waffle (and I haven't even started to list all the fabulous things about Genesis and working there), you can understand why, a week into my job, I didn't know how I was going to leave once my contract was up in October (I was thinking they'd have to drag me out by force as I clung with all my might to the heaviest bits of furniture). Thankfully, it turns out that Genesis is quite pleased with me and doesn't particularly want to let go of me in November either (hurrah!). They've asked if I'll stay on after my contract ends, and not necessarily in the same job. I.e, we'll hire another PA, and I'll get to do client work! Woohooooooo! It's not certain whether I'll be working for Genesis or W5 (They're actually completely different - Genesis does branding consultancy, customer experience design and a load of other stuff that sounds like jargony bullshit but is actually really fascinating and useful and they're trying to make things better for you, the consumer!, and W5 does market research, customer experience measurement and yes, again, more blahdy blah stuff that is actually much more interesting than it may sound at first) but I'm not too bothered, whatever I'll be doing I'll be learning loads (given I've never studied marketing or even advertising or even business or anything remotely related to this stuff). I've picked up quite a lot just from sitting next to these people but obviously there's a big difference between listening to and understanding what they say and actually doing it!
The downside to all this (if there is one) is that I'll have to stay in Dublin for longer than I planned, and therefore postpone my Barcelona thing, and my Seoul thing, and my Buenos Aires thing (and, I suppose, my eventual homecoming thing). But all those cities and adventures will still be there in a couple of years, and this fabulous opportunity certainly won't. So I'm grabbing it with both hands. Perhaps I can convince the guys to open up a Barcelona office?
Well, after all that drivel I can barely remember what else I was going to talk about. Oh yeah. Bullet point two. Health and fitness. Do you guys remember me at 15 or 16? I was always the one in Phys. Ed. class way, way, waaaaay in the outfield during the softball games, I was always picked last for the teams (well, second last, only to Joanne “Bush Pig” Williams), I'd come last by a mile in all the athletics try-outs (compulsory damn them), and the biggest physical achievements in the whole of my life were: coming third in the discus is Grade 5 out of four competitors; and coming 21st out of the girls in my class in the annual (again compulsory) cross country run in high school. That might actually have been something, had anyone actually cared about the race and ran with any conviction whatsoever. Thankfully I had some brains, because let's face it, I was never going to be an Olympic athlete.
Fast forward about seven years from high school to now (eek! I'm getting old!). Even last year I was dabbling in jogging here and there, as well as walking to and from the Luas every day (about half an hour each way). But now I walk to and from work every day, to Rathmines and back, which each way is about 45 minutes if I walk briskly (or significantly more if I dawdle) which by itself is plenty of cardiovascular exercise but...drumroll please...I have actually gotten off my arse and gotten myself a gym membership! I hadn't set foot in a gym since I left Oz last May, and was worried about the deteriorated state my body had probably settled itself into in the meantime. But have no fear - it seems that all the exercise I have been doing, not to mention all the hillwalking, jogging, and sightseeing I did in the two months I was roaming the Americas has actually had a positive impact on my fitness.
My first day at my new gym and I booked myself in for a fitness assessment (unfortunately not with the cute trainer I was flirting shamelessly with during the gym tour), preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. I nearly died of shock when not only did I rate the highest possible fitness level (What? How? Is this really me?) but it turned out that my fat level is 18% (the average for women is 21%). Apparently eating bacon and eggs for breakfast two weeks straight doesn't necessarily turn you into a hippopotamus. My stamina was also sky-high, the only disappointment was my flexibility, which rated “Poor” (the lowest possible level). Well, it's loads of stretching for me from now on. I told David, my trainer (unfortunately not one of the cute ones) that my goal was to tone my muscles so he gave me loads of boring but necessary machine exercises to do (thanks a million Dave) as well as plenty of excruciating sit ups and ab crunches. Yay. But now, after about six weeks, I'm starting to see the (very) vague outline of the possibility of a two-pack. Muscle definition, here we come. Plus I've been running loads, but I've found treadmills infinitely more forgiving than the open road. Pavement is just so hard!
I don't really want to dwell on the specifics of my training schedule, but I'd just like to point out how absolutely fantastic it feels to be fit and healthy. I feel normal again (after about seven years) and I'm fitter and feel better than ever. The truth is, I've always been a bit of a health and fitness nutcase, it just didn't look like it from the outside. I've always read loads about nutrition, sports, different exercise, the benefits of interval versus distance training, and so on. I had all the knowledge and facts but wasn't able to put it all into practice in my life. Something had to give me a nudge (well, ok, a sizeable shove) and that was moving away from home to another city. No more Mum and Dad having dinner on the table for me, which meant a) that I wasn't eating so much because who can resist five or six helpings of Wiener Schnitzel and Kartoffelnpuree and b) I could control exactly what I was eating all the time which meant less red meat, saturated fats and ultra-processed foods like cheese and more fish, nuts, yoghurt, brown bread, and broccoli. Mmmm, broccoli. I'm trying to eat stuff without additives (so, so, difficult) and organic where possible. I'm not turning my life upside down about it, but if it's fairly accessible, I'll buy natural and organic. Not having a car means a hell of a lot more walking. Thankfully Dublin is fairly small and you can walk everywhere if you live and work in the city like I do. So now that most of the hard work has been done (I'm now 66% of the weight I was at my heaviest) I can implement all the knowledge I soaked up in my years of reading like a maniac. I actually eat fish with some sort of regularity, I drink soy rather than regular milk, I do 30 minutes of cardio three times a week (or more) I try to include protein in every meal, I try to eat six small meals a day, and all the other stuff you're supposed to do but can never be bothered.
But like every silver lining, there is a cloud. In life there is good and bad, black and white, yin and yang. So for all these boons there must be a loss. And (again, watch out if you're male and can't stomach talk of “girly things” - perhaps you had better skip this paragraph) the loss for me has been my breasts. I knew (thanks to my maniacal reading) that fat loss occurs all over the body at once, not in particular bits and pieces. And I knew that since breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue, that they were going to be affected quite strongly by these changes in my body. But I certainly didn't know it was going to matter so much to me or how much I would miss them. For once I understand people who have plastic surgery. I would still never even consider it, but now I can more or less see where they are coming from. My body generally has stayed the same shape, with the same proportions, but just shrunk like a cotton t-shirt in a hot wash. Except for my chest, which has gotten disproportionately small compared to the rest of my body. Having always had at least a C cup has been a part of me, of my identity, like wearing glasses, loving the Beatles or living in Melbourne. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel less feminine now with my tiny A-cup boobs. I guess I just have to learn to accept my new body (when will this utopian self-acceptance ever occur?) with its new flaws, because now this is me and this is my identity. Take it or leave it.
Ok. Third bullet point. My social life. It's been a bit dead to be honest. I work 09:00 - 17:30 Monday to Friday, and often a little longer than that. Thankfully, for reasons I think I made abundantly clear above, I honestly don't mind putting in the extra hours (strange but true). But it does mean that going out during the week is nearly impossible without an enormous effort not to give in and simply collapse on the couch after work. Which leaves Friday and Saturday nights for going out, but this usually clashes with those of my friends who have shift work (damn them). That said, I do go out fairly regularly (last week I had social engagements on Wednesday and Thursday, not to mention the weekend) especially when you compare it to the Saturday nights I used to spend in Melbourne curled up on the couch with a romantic comedy and a bar of chocolate! This certainly has its merits as a top way to spend a Saturday night, but not every weekend. The clubbing thing goes up and down - usually I'll club a few weeks straight, get sick of it, not go out for a month, then feel the need to dance and get up and go!
I haven't really made any new friends since I got back to Dublin, something that's been troubling me. I love the friends I have now, but I feel like if I don't continually broaden my horizons I'm going to get stuck in a rut again. I have to start doing some kind of extra-curricular activity. I was thinking about Gaelic football, but to be honest I don't think I'd have the strength for training after work. Not to mention that the pitches are all out in the middle of nowhere, and catching the bus in the dark is not something I relish. Then I thought dance classes, which is still up there, or a writing class, which is something I want to do anyway so I may as well use it as an excuse to socialise.
In terms of boys - that area of my life is as chaotic as ever. Well, more chaotic actually, because I'm no longer content with admiring the objects of my affection from afar, but have actually had meaningful interaction with men I am interested in - an unheard of situation back in Melbourne. The Dermot thing didn't work out in the end - he was too hard to pin down, and after two or three broken dates I threw him in the too hard basket. He's an enormously interesting and incredible person, and the night we met was an unforgettable one, but I just don't know if I can deal with seeing someone I can never see (does that make sense?). Another guy, Fergus, I met at a club (he was really cute). He worked for the Golden Pages (Irish Yellow Pages), owned his own home, was a Liverpool fan, played the guitar and seemed a really nice guy. He took me out to the movies and then never called me again. Whatever. No-one really interesting after that, until now. But that's all I'm going to say about that for the moment (a girl's gotta have some secrets!).
Okay, now I've covered work, health and social life, the three main factors in my life at the moment. Some other stuff that's happened:
I have colours other than brown, black and navy in my wardrobe (even pink!)
I'm looking to move out of my flat but can't find anything I like that isn't €700 a month.
I'm not as mad about the World Cup as I thought I would be.
My skin is terrible at the moment.
I really miss my Paul Simon CD.
It's the middle of summer here and after two beautiful weeks at the beginning of June it's about 15 degrees and today I had to wear my winter coat.
I finally had the Labour Relations Commission hearing on Monday to try and get my previous employer (hereafter known as “that son of a b***h”) to pay me the €3,000.00 he owes me since last November. He's going to have to pay me but not until August. F****wit.
I've discovered the deliciousness of prunes.
After four years of longing, I finally caved and bought an iPod. It is just as great as I thought it would be.
I saw “Russian Dolls”, the sequel to “The Spanish Apartment”. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be.
Korean food is the second best food in the world, after Indian.
I've finally found a place to buy mate here in Dublin, but I don't have a bombilla.
I finally met three gardaí and got their phone numbers, but never got around to calling them. (Sorry John, John, and Pat! We really did like you...)
I bought a tiny black dress and actually wore it.
On Daffodil day a guy at Morton's, the deli where we usually get our lunch, gave me a daffodil for free. I didn't think anything of it until I'd walked out of the shop, realised what had just happened, and cursed myself as he was rather cute. Yesterday the guy at Londis gave me a free bag of chips. This time I realised what was going on (slowly but surely I am catching on to how the world works) but was in a hurry and anyway I wasn't interested so I accepted the salty treats and flew away to my physio appointment.
On that note, my neck has been playing up and I have been seeing a physio for the last month or so. My neck seems to be ok now, but I miss my osteopath Simon from back in Melbourne. He was fun, played good music during our sessions (strictly no Enya) and fixed my back.
That's all I can think of for now and it's time for me to go to bed (it is a school night after all). Happy belated flag day to all my loved ones in Argentina (I meant to email, I swear, but I just didn't have time). To all of you who have written to me and have as yet received no reply, sit tight, I will find the time sometime soon to get back in contact. I swear. I think of you often you can be sure of that. Love you long time and I promise to try and update this blog a little more often from now on. Hope the Argies kick ass in the World Cup!
Okay. Bullet point one. My job. Genesis is rocking along great. Well, Genesis and W5, for in fact I work for two companies (W5 is a subsidiary of Genesis). All the bullshit Irene told me at the interview turned out not to be bullshit at all, but an accurate description of the atmosphere. Genesis/W5 are immensely creative, energetic, dynamic, (at times chaotic) organisations that I feel honoured to be a part of. Everyone there is super-motivated, hardworking, intelligent, but also laid-back, fun, interesting and different (at times oddball). The old maxim, “We work hard, and we play hard” actually rings true at the office. Everyone works hard all day, but it is always acknowledged and hardly a day goes by when we aren't congratulating someone for something (a well-crafted presentation, a new client, a project come to completion). I get thanked a thousand times a day for the same number of mundane but necessary tasks. It sounds trivial but having worked at companies where nobody showed the slightest gratitude for the work you put in, I can say that it makes a real difference to your day and motivation when you feel like your work is valued and appreciated. This is the first job I have ever had where my employers haven't made me feel a well trained monkey would do just as well. In fact they've gone out of their way to tell me what a great job they think I'm doing.
I'm not the only one who gets lauded. Everyone's work is acknowledged, and when someone is under particular pressure there is always a clamour of helping hands ready to dive in. Even the MD will help me stuff envelopes if I have to get them out before 17:00. And the directors are always doing little things to brighten our day - usually food related. Our offices have been inundated in an endless stream of cookies, pastries, chocolates, muffins, scones and cakes. My favourite is Roddy's recently acquired habit of bringing back ice-creams on Friday afternoons. Not to mention the company lunches and dinners. I'd never ever had a staff lunch before I'd come to Genesis, and by now Gary, Roddy, Michael and Mark have treated us to more than I can count on my fingers. Once we had three in a week!
Anyway, after all this panegyrical waffle (and I haven't even started to list all the fabulous things about Genesis and working there), you can understand why, a week into my job, I didn't know how I was going to leave once my contract was up in October (I was thinking they'd have to drag me out by force as I clung with all my might to the heaviest bits of furniture). Thankfully, it turns out that Genesis is quite pleased with me and doesn't particularly want to let go of me in November either (hurrah!). They've asked if I'll stay on after my contract ends, and not necessarily in the same job. I.e, we'll hire another PA, and I'll get to do client work! Woohooooooo! It's not certain whether I'll be working for Genesis or W5 (They're actually completely different - Genesis does branding consultancy, customer experience design and a load of other stuff that sounds like jargony bullshit but is actually really fascinating and useful and they're trying to make things better for you, the consumer!, and W5 does market research, customer experience measurement and yes, again, more blahdy blah stuff that is actually much more interesting than it may sound at first) but I'm not too bothered, whatever I'll be doing I'll be learning loads (given I've never studied marketing or even advertising or even business or anything remotely related to this stuff). I've picked up quite a lot just from sitting next to these people but obviously there's a big difference between listening to and understanding what they say and actually doing it!
The downside to all this (if there is one) is that I'll have to stay in Dublin for longer than I planned, and therefore postpone my Barcelona thing, and my Seoul thing, and my Buenos Aires thing (and, I suppose, my eventual homecoming thing). But all those cities and adventures will still be there in a couple of years, and this fabulous opportunity certainly won't. So I'm grabbing it with both hands. Perhaps I can convince the guys to open up a Barcelona office?
Well, after all that drivel I can barely remember what else I was going to talk about. Oh yeah. Bullet point two. Health and fitness. Do you guys remember me at 15 or 16? I was always the one in Phys. Ed. class way, way, waaaaay in the outfield during the softball games, I was always picked last for the teams (well, second last, only to Joanne “Bush Pig” Williams), I'd come last by a mile in all the athletics try-outs (compulsory damn them), and the biggest physical achievements in the whole of my life were: coming third in the discus is Grade 5 out of four competitors; and coming 21st out of the girls in my class in the annual (again compulsory) cross country run in high school. That might actually have been something, had anyone actually cared about the race and ran with any conviction whatsoever. Thankfully I had some brains, because let's face it, I was never going to be an Olympic athlete.
Fast forward about seven years from high school to now (eek! I'm getting old!). Even last year I was dabbling in jogging here and there, as well as walking to and from the Luas every day (about half an hour each way). But now I walk to and from work every day, to Rathmines and back, which each way is about 45 minutes if I walk briskly (or significantly more if I dawdle) which by itself is plenty of cardiovascular exercise but...drumroll please...I have actually gotten off my arse and gotten myself a gym membership! I hadn't set foot in a gym since I left Oz last May, and was worried about the deteriorated state my body had probably settled itself into in the meantime. But have no fear - it seems that all the exercise I have been doing, not to mention all the hillwalking, jogging, and sightseeing I did in the two months I was roaming the Americas has actually had a positive impact on my fitness.
My first day at my new gym and I booked myself in for a fitness assessment (unfortunately not with the cute trainer I was flirting shamelessly with during the gym tour), preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. I nearly died of shock when not only did I rate the highest possible fitness level (What? How? Is this really me?) but it turned out that my fat level is 18% (the average for women is 21%). Apparently eating bacon and eggs for breakfast two weeks straight doesn't necessarily turn you into a hippopotamus. My stamina was also sky-high, the only disappointment was my flexibility, which rated “Poor” (the lowest possible level). Well, it's loads of stretching for me from now on. I told David, my trainer (unfortunately not one of the cute ones) that my goal was to tone my muscles so he gave me loads of boring but necessary machine exercises to do (thanks a million Dave) as well as plenty of excruciating sit ups and ab crunches. Yay. But now, after about six weeks, I'm starting to see the (very) vague outline of the possibility of a two-pack. Muscle definition, here we come. Plus I've been running loads, but I've found treadmills infinitely more forgiving than the open road. Pavement is just so hard!
I don't really want to dwell on the specifics of my training schedule, but I'd just like to point out how absolutely fantastic it feels to be fit and healthy. I feel normal again (after about seven years) and I'm fitter and feel better than ever. The truth is, I've always been a bit of a health and fitness nutcase, it just didn't look like it from the outside. I've always read loads about nutrition, sports, different exercise, the benefits of interval versus distance training, and so on. I had all the knowledge and facts but wasn't able to put it all into practice in my life. Something had to give me a nudge (well, ok, a sizeable shove) and that was moving away from home to another city. No more Mum and Dad having dinner on the table for me, which meant a) that I wasn't eating so much because who can resist five or six helpings of Wiener Schnitzel and Kartoffelnpuree and b) I could control exactly what I was eating all the time which meant less red meat, saturated fats and ultra-processed foods like cheese and more fish, nuts, yoghurt, brown bread, and broccoli. Mmmm, broccoli. I'm trying to eat stuff without additives (so, so, difficult) and organic where possible. I'm not turning my life upside down about it, but if it's fairly accessible, I'll buy natural and organic. Not having a car means a hell of a lot more walking. Thankfully Dublin is fairly small and you can walk everywhere if you live and work in the city like I do. So now that most of the hard work has been done (I'm now 66% of the weight I was at my heaviest) I can implement all the knowledge I soaked up in my years of reading like a maniac. I actually eat fish with some sort of regularity, I drink soy rather than regular milk, I do 30 minutes of cardio three times a week (or more) I try to include protein in every meal, I try to eat six small meals a day, and all the other stuff you're supposed to do but can never be bothered.
But like every silver lining, there is a cloud. In life there is good and bad, black and white, yin and yang. So for all these boons there must be a loss. And (again, watch out if you're male and can't stomach talk of “girly things” - perhaps you had better skip this paragraph) the loss for me has been my breasts. I knew (thanks to my maniacal reading) that fat loss occurs all over the body at once, not in particular bits and pieces. And I knew that since breasts are composed mostly of fatty tissue, that they were going to be affected quite strongly by these changes in my body. But I certainly didn't know it was going to matter so much to me or how much I would miss them. For once I understand people who have plastic surgery. I would still never even consider it, but now I can more or less see where they are coming from. My body generally has stayed the same shape, with the same proportions, but just shrunk like a cotton t-shirt in a hot wash. Except for my chest, which has gotten disproportionately small compared to the rest of my body. Having always had at least a C cup has been a part of me, of my identity, like wearing glasses, loving the Beatles or living in Melbourne. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel less feminine now with my tiny A-cup boobs. I guess I just have to learn to accept my new body (when will this utopian self-acceptance ever occur?) with its new flaws, because now this is me and this is my identity. Take it or leave it.
Ok. Third bullet point. My social life. It's been a bit dead to be honest. I work 09:00 - 17:30 Monday to Friday, and often a little longer than that. Thankfully, for reasons I think I made abundantly clear above, I honestly don't mind putting in the extra hours (strange but true). But it does mean that going out during the week is nearly impossible without an enormous effort not to give in and simply collapse on the couch after work. Which leaves Friday and Saturday nights for going out, but this usually clashes with those of my friends who have shift work (damn them). That said, I do go out fairly regularly (last week I had social engagements on Wednesday and Thursday, not to mention the weekend) especially when you compare it to the Saturday nights I used to spend in Melbourne curled up on the couch with a romantic comedy and a bar of chocolate! This certainly has its merits as a top way to spend a Saturday night, but not every weekend. The clubbing thing goes up and down - usually I'll club a few weeks straight, get sick of it, not go out for a month, then feel the need to dance and get up and go!
I haven't really made any new friends since I got back to Dublin, something that's been troubling me. I love the friends I have now, but I feel like if I don't continually broaden my horizons I'm going to get stuck in a rut again. I have to start doing some kind of extra-curricular activity. I was thinking about Gaelic football, but to be honest I don't think I'd have the strength for training after work. Not to mention that the pitches are all out in the middle of nowhere, and catching the bus in the dark is not something I relish. Then I thought dance classes, which is still up there, or a writing class, which is something I want to do anyway so I may as well use it as an excuse to socialise.
In terms of boys - that area of my life is as chaotic as ever. Well, more chaotic actually, because I'm no longer content with admiring the objects of my affection from afar, but have actually had meaningful interaction with men I am interested in - an unheard of situation back in Melbourne. The Dermot thing didn't work out in the end - he was too hard to pin down, and after two or three broken dates I threw him in the too hard basket. He's an enormously interesting and incredible person, and the night we met was an unforgettable one, but I just don't know if I can deal with seeing someone I can never see (does that make sense?). Another guy, Fergus, I met at a club (he was really cute). He worked for the Golden Pages (Irish Yellow Pages), owned his own home, was a Liverpool fan, played the guitar and seemed a really nice guy. He took me out to the movies and then never called me again. Whatever. No-one really interesting after that, until now. But that's all I'm going to say about that for the moment (a girl's gotta have some secrets!).
Okay, now I've covered work, health and social life, the three main factors in my life at the moment. Some other stuff that's happened:
I have colours other than brown, black and navy in my wardrobe (even pink!)
I'm looking to move out of my flat but can't find anything I like that isn't €700 a month.
I'm not as mad about the World Cup as I thought I would be.
My skin is terrible at the moment.
I really miss my Paul Simon CD.
It's the middle of summer here and after two beautiful weeks at the beginning of June it's about 15 degrees and today I had to wear my winter coat.
I finally had the Labour Relations Commission hearing on Monday to try and get my previous employer (hereafter known as “that son of a b***h”) to pay me the €3,000.00 he owes me since last November. He's going to have to pay me but not until August. F****wit.
I've discovered the deliciousness of prunes.
After four years of longing, I finally caved and bought an iPod. It is just as great as I thought it would be.
I saw “Russian Dolls”, the sequel to “The Spanish Apartment”. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be.
Korean food is the second best food in the world, after Indian.
I've finally found a place to buy mate here in Dublin, but I don't have a bombilla.
I finally met three gardaí and got their phone numbers, but never got around to calling them. (Sorry John, John, and Pat! We really did like you...)
I bought a tiny black dress and actually wore it.
On Daffodil day a guy at Morton's, the deli where we usually get our lunch, gave me a daffodil for free. I didn't think anything of it until I'd walked out of the shop, realised what had just happened, and cursed myself as he was rather cute. Yesterday the guy at Londis gave me a free bag of chips. This time I realised what was going on (slowly but surely I am catching on to how the world works) but was in a hurry and anyway I wasn't interested so I accepted the salty treats and flew away to my physio appointment.
On that note, my neck has been playing up and I have been seeing a physio for the last month or so. My neck seems to be ok now, but I miss my osteopath Simon from back in Melbourne. He was fun, played good music during our sessions (strictly no Enya) and fixed my back.
That's all I can think of for now and it's time for me to go to bed (it is a school night after all). Happy belated flag day to all my loved ones in Argentina (I meant to email, I swear, but I just didn't have time). To all of you who have written to me and have as yet received no reply, sit tight, I will find the time sometime soon to get back in contact. I swear. I think of you often you can be sure of that. Love you long time and I promise to try and update this blog a little more often from now on. Hope the Argies kick ass in the World Cup!
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Back to reality
I walked out of the airport and inhaled deeply of the grim, cold, smoky Dublin air. Home sweet home indeed. I waited for the 16A, dragged my bags onto it, and off again at O’Connell Street. Without surprise, I noted the roadworks on Dublin’s major street were still going (since I arrived in Ireland last June). I finally made it back to my Bolton Street flat and buzzed for Ilona to let me in. What a relief to chuck my bags in a corner and flop on the couch after that flight! All I wanted to do was snooze on the couch but Ilona wanted to talk so I made her fill me in on everything that had happened in my absence. Not too much apparently – Antonia had found her dream job at a four star hotel in Switzerland, Sabrina had a boyfriend (Mark, she met him in the jacuzzi at Ilona’s gym – is that weird or what?) and Shelly was...still Shelly. Ilona herself was getting heartily sick of working in retail and thinking about moving to London.
The work thing was preying on my mind too. One of the greatest things about returning to Dublin was the knowledge that I would never ever have to spend another day working for ACS “Professional” Cleaning. But that knowledge also meant I had to find another job, and everyone knows how unpleasant jobhunting is. But as I was snoozing on the couch that day I plugged in my phone (which had died in the first week of my travels and I had forgotten my charger) and later I turned it on to find not one but two text messages! I found this odd as not only had I not told anyone (other than my flatmates) exactly when I was coming back, but I didn’t even know until a couple of weeks before my flight home! The most precise description I had given people was “I guess I’ll be back sometime around February”. Who could be trying to contact me? The first message turned out to be from Dermot, the guy I met a week before flying out to Buenos Aires. He had messaged me a “Happy Valentine’s Day” from the day before, which was cheering as I had figured he would have forgotten all about me in the two months I was away. Apparently not, which put a smile on my face. The second message was for voicemail. I dialled the voicemail number and this is what I heard:
“Lucia, hi, it’s Tanya here from Orange recruitment. I know you’re looking for contract work and I’ve got a job here you might be interested in, but the interview is tomorrow. Can you do it? Call me back.”
Jeezus.
I called her back of course, and she told me a little about the position (very little, just that it was a small company, that I would be PA to the directors, and the salary, which was more than acceptable). I told her I’d just flown in from Boston and hadn’t had time to update my CV. She said, “No worries, I updated it for you and they have it already”. I said, “Great, just tell me where I have to be!”. She told me, I put down the phone, and then flipped out. But there my friends came to the rescue. How different from my first jobhunting experience in Ireland! Back then I had one interview outfit (one pair of black pants and one ill-fitting white shirt) that I had to wear to all my interviews, and I was all by myself in the world, dealing with preparation and knockbacks on my own. This time around Maria lent me a shirt and pullover for the interview (all my shirts were now far too big for me), Shelly and Maria both gave me advice, and generally reassured me that I would be brilliant.
The next day I woke and prepared myself for the interview, dressed, put on makeup, and made my way to Rathmines to the Genesis offices. Lucky I had done my own research on how to get there as Tanya had told me to take the number 16 bus when in fact the correct bus was the 14A. I can’t imagine how stressed I would have been had I trusted her, got on the number 16, and ended up god knows where, and unbelievably late. As is my habit with these things, I got there way too early, and went down to the pub for a cup of tea before ringing the Genesis bell at exactly five to eleven. Irene came and met me, and showed me into the boardroom for my interview. As usual I was intimidated as hell (interviews are scary, boardrooms are scary, both combined are super scary). Irene asked me the usual interview things, and even though I’ve answered the same questions loads of times I still never know what to say. Especially to the killer question, “What is your biggest weakness?”. However, years of writing humanities essays on esoteric subjects like Just War Theory or Gender Politics in Rural Malaysia have raised my bullshit capabilities to a fine art, so in the end I think I came off rather well. Aside from the interrogative part of the interview I felt quite at ease as Irene was warm and friendly, and she insisted that that was the general atmosphere around the office. She gave me a big spiel about how everyone was on the same level and even the directors don’t hesitate to make everyone coffee, but I didn’t get too excited about it as I’d heard it all before from my previous employer, and it turned out that words are not always accompanied by deeds. But Genesis seemed a sensible, hardworking company, not too big, not too small, I was to have more responsibility than in my previous job (but no accounting thankfully), and I came away with a very positive feeling about it. But after the interview is over comes the hardest part – the waiting game.
As the waiting game was being played, I wasn’t idle – I signed up with a bunch of recruitment agencies, sent out squillions of CVs, and waited and waited for responses. Eventually, a couple of follow up calls later, they called me in for a second interview, to meet Gary, the MD and one of the directors I would be PAing for. This time instead of the boardroom, we met upstairs in the office, on the couches, with a coffee table covered in what I later found out was a real zebra skin (eek!). We had a quite quick chat, Gary explained to me in a bit more detail what Genesis does (as much as is possible in three minutes), and we had a chat about me, what I’d been doing (like everyone Gary was interested in my travels) and bits and pieces. She asked if I had any questions, and like an idiot I didn’t, because I’d done up a very extensive list for the first interview, and I didn’t have any left to ask. Gary asked me like three times, “Are you sure you don’t have any more questions?” and I couldn’t think of one (and I couldn’t repeat the ones I had asked last time because Irene was right there). I felt like a complete idiot, but thankfully Irene came to my rescue by assuring Gary that I’d asked loads the last time. And that was pretty much it, other than Gary commenting on how much she liked the book I was reading (“The Magus” by John Fowles, which is brilliant, by the way). I figured she couldn’t hate me completely if she read similar kinds of books.
Nonetheless, I didn’t have a good feeling about that interview. Unlike the last time where I had left sure that I had made a pretty good impression, this time I felt like I’d come across as shallow and dull, with a total lack of initiative, resourcefulness and lateral thinking. So when Tanya rang me a few days later, I was less than completely enthusiastic.
“Hi Lucia, how are you?”
“Oh, fine thanks. I had that second interview the other day”
“Yes, that’s why I was calling. How do you think it went?”
“Oh, not so good actually. I don’t think I made that good of an impression.”
“Well, it’s funny you say that actually, because I rang to let you know they offered you the job!”
That’s more or less how the start of the conversation went, but I can quote the following bit verbatim:
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: “No, I’m not kidding!”
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: “Nope.”
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: *laughing* “No! I’m not kidding!”
Anyway, long story short, I got the job (only God knows how or why) and started almost straight away. I had landed back in Dublin on February 15, and by February 27 I had started at Genesis. That’s less than two weeks. I had never found a job so easily and with so little effort and heartache. I even had people ringing me for interviews at other companies which I had to decline! I guess the jobhunt thing really does get easier each time you do it! So the job had been procured, but two significant questions were still to be answered: firstly, would I like the job? And secondly, could I do it? Despite assuring my prospective employers with all the confidence I could muster that the answer to both of these questions was a resounding “YES!”, in reality, I was somewhat less than convinced. But what’s the fun of going to work eight and half hours a day at a job you can do with both hands tied behind your back and a paper bag on your head? I just hoped I wouldn’t look like too much of a fool.
The work thing was preying on my mind too. One of the greatest things about returning to Dublin was the knowledge that I would never ever have to spend another day working for ACS “Professional” Cleaning. But that knowledge also meant I had to find another job, and everyone knows how unpleasant jobhunting is. But as I was snoozing on the couch that day I plugged in my phone (which had died in the first week of my travels and I had forgotten my charger) and later I turned it on to find not one but two text messages! I found this odd as not only had I not told anyone (other than my flatmates) exactly when I was coming back, but I didn’t even know until a couple of weeks before my flight home! The most precise description I had given people was “I guess I’ll be back sometime around February”. Who could be trying to contact me? The first message turned out to be from Dermot, the guy I met a week before flying out to Buenos Aires. He had messaged me a “Happy Valentine’s Day” from the day before, which was cheering as I had figured he would have forgotten all about me in the two months I was away. Apparently not, which put a smile on my face. The second message was for voicemail. I dialled the voicemail number and this is what I heard:
“Lucia, hi, it’s Tanya here from Orange recruitment. I know you’re looking for contract work and I’ve got a job here you might be interested in, but the interview is tomorrow. Can you do it? Call me back.”
Jeezus.
I called her back of course, and she told me a little about the position (very little, just that it was a small company, that I would be PA to the directors, and the salary, which was more than acceptable). I told her I’d just flown in from Boston and hadn’t had time to update my CV. She said, “No worries, I updated it for you and they have it already”. I said, “Great, just tell me where I have to be!”. She told me, I put down the phone, and then flipped out. But there my friends came to the rescue. How different from my first jobhunting experience in Ireland! Back then I had one interview outfit (one pair of black pants and one ill-fitting white shirt) that I had to wear to all my interviews, and I was all by myself in the world, dealing with preparation and knockbacks on my own. This time around Maria lent me a shirt and pullover for the interview (all my shirts were now far too big for me), Shelly and Maria both gave me advice, and generally reassured me that I would be brilliant.
The next day I woke and prepared myself for the interview, dressed, put on makeup, and made my way to Rathmines to the Genesis offices. Lucky I had done my own research on how to get there as Tanya had told me to take the number 16 bus when in fact the correct bus was the 14A. I can’t imagine how stressed I would have been had I trusted her, got on the number 16, and ended up god knows where, and unbelievably late. As is my habit with these things, I got there way too early, and went down to the pub for a cup of tea before ringing the Genesis bell at exactly five to eleven. Irene came and met me, and showed me into the boardroom for my interview. As usual I was intimidated as hell (interviews are scary, boardrooms are scary, both combined are super scary). Irene asked me the usual interview things, and even though I’ve answered the same questions loads of times I still never know what to say. Especially to the killer question, “What is your biggest weakness?”. However, years of writing humanities essays on esoteric subjects like Just War Theory or Gender Politics in Rural Malaysia have raised my bullshit capabilities to a fine art, so in the end I think I came off rather well. Aside from the interrogative part of the interview I felt quite at ease as Irene was warm and friendly, and she insisted that that was the general atmosphere around the office. She gave me a big spiel about how everyone was on the same level and even the directors don’t hesitate to make everyone coffee, but I didn’t get too excited about it as I’d heard it all before from my previous employer, and it turned out that words are not always accompanied by deeds. But Genesis seemed a sensible, hardworking company, not too big, not too small, I was to have more responsibility than in my previous job (but no accounting thankfully), and I came away with a very positive feeling about it. But after the interview is over comes the hardest part – the waiting game.
As the waiting game was being played, I wasn’t idle – I signed up with a bunch of recruitment agencies, sent out squillions of CVs, and waited and waited for responses. Eventually, a couple of follow up calls later, they called me in for a second interview, to meet Gary, the MD and one of the directors I would be PAing for. This time instead of the boardroom, we met upstairs in the office, on the couches, with a coffee table covered in what I later found out was a real zebra skin (eek!). We had a quite quick chat, Gary explained to me in a bit more detail what Genesis does (as much as is possible in three minutes), and we had a chat about me, what I’d been doing (like everyone Gary was interested in my travels) and bits and pieces. She asked if I had any questions, and like an idiot I didn’t, because I’d done up a very extensive list for the first interview, and I didn’t have any left to ask. Gary asked me like three times, “Are you sure you don’t have any more questions?” and I couldn’t think of one (and I couldn’t repeat the ones I had asked last time because Irene was right there). I felt like a complete idiot, but thankfully Irene came to my rescue by assuring Gary that I’d asked loads the last time. And that was pretty much it, other than Gary commenting on how much she liked the book I was reading (“The Magus” by John Fowles, which is brilliant, by the way). I figured she couldn’t hate me completely if she read similar kinds of books.
Nonetheless, I didn’t have a good feeling about that interview. Unlike the last time where I had left sure that I had made a pretty good impression, this time I felt like I’d come across as shallow and dull, with a total lack of initiative, resourcefulness and lateral thinking. So when Tanya rang me a few days later, I was less than completely enthusiastic.
“Hi Lucia, how are you?”
“Oh, fine thanks. I had that second interview the other day”
“Yes, that’s why I was calling. How do you think it went?”
“Oh, not so good actually. I don’t think I made that good of an impression.”
“Well, it’s funny you say that actually, because I rang to let you know they offered you the job!”
That’s more or less how the start of the conversation went, but I can quote the following bit verbatim:
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: “No, I’m not kidding!”
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: “Nope.”
Me: “You’re kidding!”
Her: *laughing* “No! I’m not kidding!”
Anyway, long story short, I got the job (only God knows how or why) and started almost straight away. I had landed back in Dublin on February 15, and by February 27 I had started at Genesis. That’s less than two weeks. I had never found a job so easily and with so little effort and heartache. I even had people ringing me for interviews at other companies which I had to decline! I guess the jobhunt thing really does get easier each time you do it! So the job had been procured, but two significant questions were still to be answered: firstly, would I like the job? And secondly, could I do it? Despite assuring my prospective employers with all the confidence I could muster that the answer to both of these questions was a resounding “YES!”, in reality, I was somewhat less than convinced. But what’s the fun of going to work eight and half hours a day at a job you can do with both hands tied behind your back and a paper bag on your head? I just hoped I wouldn’t look like too much of a fool.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
The Boston Snow Party
The easiest and cheapest way of getting from New York to Boston was the Chinese bus - only $25 one way, which was fine by me. One unplanned bonus was the fact that despite all the time I had spent in New York I hadn't made it to Chinatown (after the disappointment of the San Fran one) so at least I got to see a bit of it even though I didn't explore. The bus company was badly (well, non-existently really) signed, and the doorway was practically hidden between other shop fronts. Thank goodness I had all my luggage with me and someone realised what I was looking for and pointed me in the right direction.
Sitting behind me on the bus was five or six college kids going to Boston for a few days, and I had fun pretending to read my travel guide while really eavesdropping on their conversation. I was also excited about driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts, but in the end all I saw was highway and some very uninspiring trees.
We finally made it to Boston and thankfully the hostel had given me fairly decent instructions on how to get there. Not that it was easy thanks to my backpack, daypack, and wheelie luggage. I know that you have to have gates into the subway to make people pay, but do you know how hard it is to get through them with three enourmous bags? I negotiated the subway system (the "T" - hehe) with relative ease thanks to great signage and headed out of the T station into the bitter bitter cold to await the bus. A very kind native Bostonian (recognisable by his accent, thick as two planks) helped me with my bags both on and off the bus (how charming) and pretty soon I was checking in. The reception guy was very nice and as we were chatting away I was reading all the signs and things about the place, not interested really, but just out of an unbreakable habit of continually reading anything that happens to be around. However one piece of information stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Wait a minute. That sign there says John Lennon stayed here."
"He sure did. Back in the 60s."
"Oh my GOD!! I am such a huge Beatles fan! I cannot believe he stayed here! I'm staying in the same hostel as John Lennon!!"
"Well...do you want to stay in the same room?"
"Oh my GOD!! Of course!"
So, not only did I get to stay in the John Lennon room, but there wasn't anyone else in there for the three nights I was there, so I had it all to myself!! The excitement of that wore off fast though as I realised why I had it all to myself. Or, rather, why the hostel wasn't full of guests at that particular time. February in the USA is winter, and it had been getting progressively colder as I travelled from Boulder to San Fran to LA to New York, and now by Boston I was freezing my little fingers off. But even I was unprepared for what I woke up to the next day. My trip to Boston came inclusive of one full-blown blizzard, free of charge. And I, not being used to snow (and especially not in such large amounts) thought, well, bugger it, I'm only in Boston for a few days, I'm going out anyway. Silly Lucia.
I waited out in the blizzard for the bus, and although I was already freezing I pushed ahead with my hare-brained scheme. From the bus to the T, three T transfers, a short walk, 45 minutes and minus one million degrees later, I was standing outside the Boston Museum. It was shut. Duh, they shut things in blizzards because no-one other than insanely determined and clueless tourists would consider going outside in that weather (oh, hindsight is a wonderful thing). At least I wasn't the only idiot staring gormlessly at the securely locked museum doors, but the fact that two British people were just as stupid as I was didn't cheer me too much. Particularly as I had lost my gloves in Peru, and I thought my fingers were going to snap off. An hour, three T transfers, one bus transfer, a short walk and a zillion units of patience later, I was back at the hostel, enthusiasm well dampened, but at least back to 37 degrees celcius. I sat on the computer and drank hot cups of tea for the rest of the day, and contemplated the frustration of being in a new city and not being able to see anything.
The blizzard had stopped the following day, and I thought (silly me) that I could finally do something cultured and see some history (the main reason I came to Boston was to check out all the Independence sites and the Boston Tea Party site and all the related stuff. When I mentioned this to the check in guy, he just laughed and said, "Good luck finding the Freedom Trail with all this snow on the ground!". I looked outside and saw the snow ploughs struggling with the nearly waist deep layer of white and reluctantly gave in to the girls at the hostel and resigned myself to a day of shopping. We went to Macy's, and had sushi, and wasted time basically.
We planned to go out that night to taste test some of Boston's famous seafood, and from that point on things began to go horribly wrong. We got there late and the place was about to close (only 21:00) so the waitress rushed us into ordering, and one of the girls I was with (from South Carolina) got all flustered and stressed. Then her soft drink came out and it was flat. She sent it back. The replacement was flat. Then the other girl I was with (from England) didn't like her dish. Then they wouldn't split the bill. Then the waitress was hanging around while we were trying to decide how much tip to leave (not much considering the service we got and how much we paid for our meal). The whole experience was a disaster and very embarrassing for everyone involved. We couldn't wait to get out of there and the car ride home was very quiet. I had resigned myself to writing that night off as completely ruined, but I underestimated the power of alcohol and karaoke.
Earlier that night we'd made plans with this English kid (from London) to come out with us for dinner, but when we left he wasn't there (thank god). When we got back to the hostel we decided we'd go and find a pub to go and have a drink at (even though at that point I wanted to go to bed and never see these people again). The kid (don't remember his name) came with us and so did Nathan, a kind of kooky older (but not old) guy who was also staying at the Prescott. The five of us bundled in the car and drove to downtown Boston, where all the pubs and stuff are. When we got there we found two great and unexpected bonuses:
1. The beers were $1 and
2. They had karaoke.
Of course everyone was adamant they were not going to sing, but after some Dutch courage (and some extremely bad singing by other people which gave us confidence) we all sang at least once. I fulfilled a dream (partly) when Nathan and I did a duet of "Summer Nights" from Grease. It brought the house down and we had loads of fun. We stayed at the pub till they kicked us out and went back to the hostel where we had vodka and cranberry juice, dunkin' doughnuts and corn chips.
The next day was my last in Boston and it promised to be a good one as I looked out of the window to find a bright, bright sunshiny day. We (the South Carolina girl, the England girl, Nathan, and the London boy) went for breakfast to a cafe around the corner from the Prescott, which was very enjoyable (and, I promised myself, the absolute LAST cholesterol-laden breakfast I would have for the next six months). The downer came as I reached into my back pocket to pay for my breakfast, to find my wallet, including credit card, bankcard, driving licence but thankfully not too much cash, was gone. Some frantic searching, a call to the Everett police station and a lot of sighing later, I gave up and called the Commonwealth Bank to have my card cancelled. So much for the duty-free shopping I was going to do at the airport. I went back to the hostel and finished up packing my bags, and then Nathan and I (he had a flight a little before mine) headed off by bus and T to the airport. Along the way as we were chatting, he brought up a very interesting proposition. Apparently it's very easy to get a position teaching English in Asian countries like Korea, China and Japan. They like if you have a TEFL qualification, but, he said, to be honest, the most important thing is to get really good headshots done! They want young, vibrant people teaching their classes because that's what will bring the students (and therefore the money) in. Even better if you don't speak Korean, Chinese or Japanese as then you won't be able to "cheat" and speak to the stundents in their native language. Sabrina's got me really excited about going to Seoul, so maybe once I'm finished in Barcelona, 6 months of teaching English in Seoul before heading to Buenos Aires will fit in just nicely. I'll probably be teaching English in Spain anyway, so most likely I'll even have some teaching experience! Anyway, it's something to think about and look into.
After I sadly bade Nathan adieu (the crappy thing about making so many friends overseas is that you have to say goodbye to them all eventually) I went to check in at the Aer Lingus desk (theirs being the only airline to let me buy an e-ticket with my Aussie credit card, thanks a million Aer Lingus) and what a relief to come to the desk and hear that thick Dublin accent! It was like I was already home. I chatted at length with the check in girl (never mind the queue that was building up behind us) about Boston, and Dublin, and the craic in both places, and she reprinted my boarding pass with an exit row seat (cheers for the leg room) and I got checked in and went to wait in the interminable airport security line. Some airport clam chowder (actually not bad), airport coffee (very bad) and what seemed like a thousand years later, I was on the aeroplane. At that point I was tired, uncomfortable, penniless and really really ready to come home. The flight was uneventful, other than the millions of Irish guys in khakis (must have been some kind of military troop or something) milling around Shannon airport. Any other day I would have been over the moon at all the gorgeous uniformed men, but at 05:30 after a 10 hour flight I was not looking or feeling my best, and in fact was just annoyed that they had taken over the only coffee outlet in the airport.
Finally touching down at Dublin airport I felt strange. I was relieved to be home, that my own bed, own couch, own clothes were only a short bus ride away, but was this the end? Was I now to return to everyday life, which compared to the last months would certainly seem routine, dreary, interminably monotonous ("Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/to the last syllable of recorded time;...")? The last year (more or less) had been a series of embarkations, of beginnings, of adventures. Now I had my first homecoming, and I wasn't sure that I liked it.
Sitting behind me on the bus was five or six college kids going to Boston for a few days, and I had fun pretending to read my travel guide while really eavesdropping on their conversation. I was also excited about driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts, but in the end all I saw was highway and some very uninspiring trees.
We finally made it to Boston and thankfully the hostel had given me fairly decent instructions on how to get there. Not that it was easy thanks to my backpack, daypack, and wheelie luggage. I know that you have to have gates into the subway to make people pay, but do you know how hard it is to get through them with three enourmous bags? I negotiated the subway system (the "T" - hehe) with relative ease thanks to great signage and headed out of the T station into the bitter bitter cold to await the bus. A very kind native Bostonian (recognisable by his accent, thick as two planks) helped me with my bags both on and off the bus (how charming) and pretty soon I was checking in. The reception guy was very nice and as we were chatting away I was reading all the signs and things about the place, not interested really, but just out of an unbreakable habit of continually reading anything that happens to be around. However one piece of information stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Wait a minute. That sign there says John Lennon stayed here."
"He sure did. Back in the 60s."
"Oh my GOD!! I am such a huge Beatles fan! I cannot believe he stayed here! I'm staying in the same hostel as John Lennon!!"
"Well...do you want to stay in the same room?"
"Oh my GOD!! Of course!"
So, not only did I get to stay in the John Lennon room, but there wasn't anyone else in there for the three nights I was there, so I had it all to myself!! The excitement of that wore off fast though as I realised why I had it all to myself. Or, rather, why the hostel wasn't full of guests at that particular time. February in the USA is winter, and it had been getting progressively colder as I travelled from Boulder to San Fran to LA to New York, and now by Boston I was freezing my little fingers off. But even I was unprepared for what I woke up to the next day. My trip to Boston came inclusive of one full-blown blizzard, free of charge. And I, not being used to snow (and especially not in such large amounts) thought, well, bugger it, I'm only in Boston for a few days, I'm going out anyway. Silly Lucia.
I waited out in the blizzard for the bus, and although I was already freezing I pushed ahead with my hare-brained scheme. From the bus to the T, three T transfers, a short walk, 45 minutes and minus one million degrees later, I was standing outside the Boston Museum. It was shut. Duh, they shut things in blizzards because no-one other than insanely determined and clueless tourists would consider going outside in that weather (oh, hindsight is a wonderful thing). At least I wasn't the only idiot staring gormlessly at the securely locked museum doors, but the fact that two British people were just as stupid as I was didn't cheer me too much. Particularly as I had lost my gloves in Peru, and I thought my fingers were going to snap off. An hour, three T transfers, one bus transfer, a short walk and a zillion units of patience later, I was back at the hostel, enthusiasm well dampened, but at least back to 37 degrees celcius. I sat on the computer and drank hot cups of tea for the rest of the day, and contemplated the frustration of being in a new city and not being able to see anything.
The blizzard had stopped the following day, and I thought (silly me) that I could finally do something cultured and see some history (the main reason I came to Boston was to check out all the Independence sites and the Boston Tea Party site and all the related stuff. When I mentioned this to the check in guy, he just laughed and said, "Good luck finding the Freedom Trail with all this snow on the ground!". I looked outside and saw the snow ploughs struggling with the nearly waist deep layer of white and reluctantly gave in to the girls at the hostel and resigned myself to a day of shopping. We went to Macy's, and had sushi, and wasted time basically.
We planned to go out that night to taste test some of Boston's famous seafood, and from that point on things began to go horribly wrong. We got there late and the place was about to close (only 21:00) so the waitress rushed us into ordering, and one of the girls I was with (from South Carolina) got all flustered and stressed. Then her soft drink came out and it was flat. She sent it back. The replacement was flat. Then the other girl I was with (from England) didn't like her dish. Then they wouldn't split the bill. Then the waitress was hanging around while we were trying to decide how much tip to leave (not much considering the service we got and how much we paid for our meal). The whole experience was a disaster and very embarrassing for everyone involved. We couldn't wait to get out of there and the car ride home was very quiet. I had resigned myself to writing that night off as completely ruined, but I underestimated the power of alcohol and karaoke.
Earlier that night we'd made plans with this English kid (from London) to come out with us for dinner, but when we left he wasn't there (thank god). When we got back to the hostel we decided we'd go and find a pub to go and have a drink at (even though at that point I wanted to go to bed and never see these people again). The kid (don't remember his name) came with us and so did Nathan, a kind of kooky older (but not old) guy who was also staying at the Prescott. The five of us bundled in the car and drove to downtown Boston, where all the pubs and stuff are. When we got there we found two great and unexpected bonuses:
1. The beers were $1 and
2. They had karaoke.
Of course everyone was adamant they were not going to sing, but after some Dutch courage (and some extremely bad singing by other people which gave us confidence) we all sang at least once. I fulfilled a dream (partly) when Nathan and I did a duet of "Summer Nights" from Grease. It brought the house down and we had loads of fun. We stayed at the pub till they kicked us out and went back to the hostel where we had vodka and cranberry juice, dunkin' doughnuts and corn chips.
The next day was my last in Boston and it promised to be a good one as I looked out of the window to find a bright, bright sunshiny day. We (the South Carolina girl, the England girl, Nathan, and the London boy) went for breakfast to a cafe around the corner from the Prescott, which was very enjoyable (and, I promised myself, the absolute LAST cholesterol-laden breakfast I would have for the next six months). The downer came as I reached into my back pocket to pay for my breakfast, to find my wallet, including credit card, bankcard, driving licence but thankfully not too much cash, was gone. Some frantic searching, a call to the Everett police station and a lot of sighing later, I gave up and called the Commonwealth Bank to have my card cancelled. So much for the duty-free shopping I was going to do at the airport. I went back to the hostel and finished up packing my bags, and then Nathan and I (he had a flight a little before mine) headed off by bus and T to the airport. Along the way as we were chatting, he brought up a very interesting proposition. Apparently it's very easy to get a position teaching English in Asian countries like Korea, China and Japan. They like if you have a TEFL qualification, but, he said, to be honest, the most important thing is to get really good headshots done! They want young, vibrant people teaching their classes because that's what will bring the students (and therefore the money) in. Even better if you don't speak Korean, Chinese or Japanese as then you won't be able to "cheat" and speak to the stundents in their native language. Sabrina's got me really excited about going to Seoul, so maybe once I'm finished in Barcelona, 6 months of teaching English in Seoul before heading to Buenos Aires will fit in just nicely. I'll probably be teaching English in Spain anyway, so most likely I'll even have some teaching experience! Anyway, it's something to think about and look into.
After I sadly bade Nathan adieu (the crappy thing about making so many friends overseas is that you have to say goodbye to them all eventually) I went to check in at the Aer Lingus desk (theirs being the only airline to let me buy an e-ticket with my Aussie credit card, thanks a million Aer Lingus) and what a relief to come to the desk and hear that thick Dublin accent! It was like I was already home. I chatted at length with the check in girl (never mind the queue that was building up behind us) about Boston, and Dublin, and the craic in both places, and she reprinted my boarding pass with an exit row seat (cheers for the leg room) and I got checked in and went to wait in the interminable airport security line. Some airport clam chowder (actually not bad), airport coffee (very bad) and what seemed like a thousand years later, I was on the aeroplane. At that point I was tired, uncomfortable, penniless and really really ready to come home. The flight was uneventful, other than the millions of Irish guys in khakis (must have been some kind of military troop or something) milling around Shannon airport. Any other day I would have been over the moon at all the gorgeous uniformed men, but at 05:30 after a 10 hour flight I was not looking or feeling my best, and in fact was just annoyed that they had taken over the only coffee outlet in the airport.
Finally touching down at Dublin airport I felt strange. I was relieved to be home, that my own bed, own couch, own clothes were only a short bus ride away, but was this the end? Was I now to return to everyday life, which compared to the last months would certainly seem routine, dreary, interminably monotonous ("Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/to the last syllable of recorded time;...")? The last year (more or less) had been a series of embarkations, of beginnings, of adventures. Now I had my first homecoming, and I wasn't sure that I liked it.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Start spreading the news
I got on the plane at half ten at night and hopped off at half six or so the next morning, which sounds okay but because of the time difference between the East and West coasts the flight is actually only about 5 hours long, so I didn’t sleep much that night. Given I’d spent the previous night aboard a bus, by the time I made it to NYC I was sick of travelling, sick of being tired, and just wanted to go home to a warm bed. I found my hotel after some difficulty (getting slightly lost in Times Square) and did some laundry, got something to eat, had a shower and practically spent my first day in NYC in bed. Usually this would rate as a felony on a Lucia holiday, wasting time lazing about in bed (particularly in New York!) but I was just absolutely wrecked and without that down time I wouldn’t have had any fun at all over the next days.
Absolutely first order of business was Central Park. Last time I had been to New York (1993) I was 11 years old and I begged my mother every single day to go to the John Lennon memorial in Central Park. I was happy to do whatever she wanted – Rockerfeller Centre, Empire State Building, Liberty Island, Twin Towers, FAO Schwartz, whatever! Just as long as we went to the damn memorial. Needless to say I was dragged to a million different places and no memorial. So even though it was a cold, blustery day, I put on every single piece of clothing I had with me (for some reason, NYC is colder than Boulder, even though there wasn't snow. Probably it's all the wind) and headed out. Central park was ok, but I couldn't help thinking how much more fun it would be to visit it in the summertime. There'd actually be leaves on the trees, it would be so pretty, and you could lie on the grass and have a snooze or read a book. As it was, I headed straight to the memorial which was cool as someone had made a peace sign on it with roses. I took loads of pictures and pondered the coolness of John Lennon for a while, and then headed over to the Dakota building (where John used to live, Yoko still lives, and where he was shot in 1980). At least I think it was the Dakota building - it was the building at the spot where Lonely Planet said the Dakota was supposed to be, but the building gave absolutely no sign of its identity. So I took a picture of me in front of it, and called it a day. That's the Dakota building for me, anyway.
Over the next days I saw loads of NYC touristy crap - the Empire State Building (didn't go up it though - with a wait of more than an hour and a price tag of USD16, it just wasn't worth it) the 9/11 site (another mysterious lack of signage), did a tour of Central Station, which was totally cool and informative, went to the MET (you'd be stupid not to, and they have really cool Dali paintings), did a tour of the UN buildings (not as interesting as I had hoped as I didn't really learn anything new, but it was cool to at least see where all the UN stuff happens), went to Liberty Island (ok) and Ellis Island (amazing - the immigration museum is totally fascinating, and the audio tour was great! I spent a whole day there) and checked out districts like Harlem (not as scary as they say). The subway is fantastic and once you get around which trains are express and which aren't, it's absolutely the most efficient people-mover I've ever seen. Plus the people-watching opportunities on a subway are many and exciting.
Some non-particularly-touristy things I really enjoyed: Eating breakfast every day at a real NYC style diner where one of the waiters had a very strong "New Yawk Tawk" accent; the Egon Schiele exhibition that my totally hot Danish roomate Jacob recommended to me (Flor, you know all about this guy right? He's amazing - he's incredible - he's my new favourite artist - well, not quite); The inscription over the door of one of the rooms in the New York Public Library ("A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit; embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life"); and the cool vintage shops I (by this stage in the trip) was too broke to buy things in.
New York was, after I'd gotten over my initial exhaustion, just as exciting and invigorating and vibrant and fabulous as they make out. I'd move there - maybe. Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out. Anyway, my time in NYC was short and pretty soon it was time to make my last US stop before my return home to Eire - Boston, MA.
Absolutely first order of business was Central Park. Last time I had been to New York (1993) I was 11 years old and I begged my mother every single day to go to the John Lennon memorial in Central Park. I was happy to do whatever she wanted – Rockerfeller Centre, Empire State Building, Liberty Island, Twin Towers, FAO Schwartz, whatever! Just as long as we went to the damn memorial. Needless to say I was dragged to a million different places and no memorial. So even though it was a cold, blustery day, I put on every single piece of clothing I had with me (for some reason, NYC is colder than Boulder, even though there wasn't snow. Probably it's all the wind) and headed out. Central park was ok, but I couldn't help thinking how much more fun it would be to visit it in the summertime. There'd actually be leaves on the trees, it would be so pretty, and you could lie on the grass and have a snooze or read a book. As it was, I headed straight to the memorial which was cool as someone had made a peace sign on it with roses. I took loads of pictures and pondered the coolness of John Lennon for a while, and then headed over to the Dakota building (where John used to live, Yoko still lives, and where he was shot in 1980). At least I think it was the Dakota building - it was the building at the spot where Lonely Planet said the Dakota was supposed to be, but the building gave absolutely no sign of its identity. So I took a picture of me in front of it, and called it a day. That's the Dakota building for me, anyway.
Over the next days I saw loads of NYC touristy crap - the Empire State Building (didn't go up it though - with a wait of more than an hour and a price tag of USD16, it just wasn't worth it) the 9/11 site (another mysterious lack of signage), did a tour of Central Station, which was totally cool and informative, went to the MET (you'd be stupid not to, and they have really cool Dali paintings), did a tour of the UN buildings (not as interesting as I had hoped as I didn't really learn anything new, but it was cool to at least see where all the UN stuff happens), went to Liberty Island (ok) and Ellis Island (amazing - the immigration museum is totally fascinating, and the audio tour was great! I spent a whole day there) and checked out districts like Harlem (not as scary as they say). The subway is fantastic and once you get around which trains are express and which aren't, it's absolutely the most efficient people-mover I've ever seen. Plus the people-watching opportunities on a subway are many and exciting.
Some non-particularly-touristy things I really enjoyed: Eating breakfast every day at a real NYC style diner where one of the waiters had a very strong "New Yawk Tawk" accent; the Egon Schiele exhibition that my totally hot Danish roomate Jacob recommended to me (Flor, you know all about this guy right? He's amazing - he's incredible - he's my new favourite artist - well, not quite); The inscription over the door of one of the rooms in the New York Public Library ("A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit; embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life"); and the cool vintage shops I (by this stage in the trip) was too broke to buy things in.
New York was, after I'd gotten over my initial exhaustion, just as exciting and invigorating and vibrant and fabulous as they make out. I'd move there - maybe. Probably not, but I wouldn't rule it out. Anyway, my time in NYC was short and pretty soon it was time to make my last US stop before my return home to Eire - Boston, MA.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
City of Angels?
We pulled into the LA Bus station and I asked the guy there how to get to the airport (the crazy lady invited me to spend the day with her, but I was adamant that I had to check my bags in first thing, so maybe I’d see her at Santa Monica?) and he literally sighed, rolled his eyes, and told me, “You know, it’s very difficult. You have to catch like three buses”. First of all, I don’t know why he seemed so surprised at my question – you’d think every second person would ask him that. Secondly, catching three buses is not one of the most difficult things in life – compared to quitting smoking, raising a family or growing up, dealing with bus exchanges doesn’t really rate. Thirdly, he didn’t know what he was talking about, since it turned out that the trains were only a short bus ride away, providing you with transport directly to the (free) LAX airport shuttle. Nothing could be easier. Feckin’ eejit.
I checked in my bags about 14 hours ahead (my flight was at 22:30 that night, the cross-country red-eye flight) and set off to explore LA for the day. John, who had lived in LA three years, had advised me to spend my one day hanging out in Santa Monica and Venice Beach, which I proceeded to do. Things were looking up as I rode the bus out to Santa Monica, the sun was shining, I was in a new city, and I was on my way to the beach. By the time I actually got to Santa Monica however, it was gloomy, cold, and blanketed in mist. I walked along the boulevard, went down to the deserted beach where you couldn’t see the sea for the mist, and took in the strange juxtaposition of palm trees and fog. Nothing to see here, so I made my way on foot to Venice Beach which I heard would be covered in stalls, rollerbladers, lots of activity and people. That day it was completely deserted, not a soul to be found anywhere. In conjunction with the weather it made the scene more or less post-apocalyptic. There was absolutely nothing to see and do, so after a quick Indian meal at a local restaurant, I headed back to the airport to wait out the long nine and a half hours before my flight.
I checked in my bags about 14 hours ahead (my flight was at 22:30 that night, the cross-country red-eye flight) and set off to explore LA for the day. John, who had lived in LA three years, had advised me to spend my one day hanging out in Santa Monica and Venice Beach, which I proceeded to do. Things were looking up as I rode the bus out to Santa Monica, the sun was shining, I was in a new city, and I was on my way to the beach. By the time I actually got to Santa Monica however, it was gloomy, cold, and blanketed in mist. I walked along the boulevard, went down to the deserted beach where you couldn’t see the sea for the mist, and took in the strange juxtaposition of palm trees and fog. Nothing to see here, so I made my way on foot to Venice Beach which I heard would be covered in stalls, rollerbladers, lots of activity and people. That day it was completely deserted, not a soul to be found anywhere. In conjunction with the weather it made the scene more or less post-apocalyptic. There was absolutely nothing to see and do, so after a quick Indian meal at a local restaurant, I headed back to the airport to wait out the long nine and a half hours before my flight.
If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
Travelling would be a lot more fun if there wasn’t so much...travelling involved. I love visiting and exploring cities, but if you travel on a shoestring, getting from place to place takes soooo long and is exceptionally uncomfortable. Lucky for me I have immense capabilities to combat boredom, retreating into my head and daydreaming the day or night away. Another tool in my anti-boredom kit is starting conversations with random strangers. And thank goodness for that because if I had to name the most depressing place I’ve been to in the US, it’s the Greyhound bus station in LA. I’ve never seen such a large and motley array of low-lifes and tramps. There was a dismal cafeteria selling pre-packaged food and revolting brewed coffee (the coffee was something I would get used to over the next three weeks or so), but mainly it was tired people with vacant faces waiting for buses. They waited mainly on the floor as the geniuses who designed the bus station didn’t grasp the fact that a bus station is essentially a waiting room, and only put two or three benches in the place. I got to the station at half seven, and my bus to San Fran was at half eleven. I had chosen this bus as
a) it would allow me plenty of time to make the bus even if my plane was late for some reason and
b) I would theoretically be able to sleep on the (eight hour) bus ride, and therefore save myself the price of one night’s accommodation in one of the USA’s most expensive cities.
Which was great, but I still had four hours to kill in that dirty, stinky rat den. I managed to, thanks to some sneaky pushing, shoving, ducking and diving, secure some bench space right near the door to the bus bay, and found myself next to a rather large African-American lady by the name of Angela. Despite my tiredness we had a long and interesting conversation about travelling, growing up, her losing her father, crime in San Francisco (very high apparently) and whatever else came to mind. She was incredibly kind-hearted, warning me repeatedly to take a lot of care in San Fran and to ring her when I got there to make sure I was OK. “I’ll be right across the bay in Oakland”, she assured me.
After a seemingly interminable wait, the bus finally pulled in at the station and we piled on. By some miracle I managed to get two seats all to myself, and proceeded to lay down in a foetal position with my scarf as a pillow. From that position neither hell nor high water was going to move me. Eight hours later, we pulled into the second most depressing place in the USA, the Greyhound bus station in San Francisco, and at half six in the morning. Now. Where on Earth was my flipping hostel? I’d booked into the Green Tortoise on the recommendation of some backpackers I’d met in Peru, and thankfully, as usual, my Lonely Planet came to the rescue and provided me with a map of uptown SF with the bus station and my hostel marked. They looked pretty close together but considering the fact that since I’d left Boulder I’d added a suitcase on wheels to my backpack and daypack, I thought I’d better ask someone whether or not it was walking distance. Invariably they advised me to take a bus, or two to be precise, so I gave up my hopes of pedestrianism and waited under gloomy skies for the bus. I was later to find out that in North America anything further than a block and a half is considered too far to walk, and I could have easily made it on foot, luggage and all. But for now I was a victim of San Francisco’s public transport system, which is mercifully reliable, if expensive. The man standing at the bus stop next to me struck up a conversation, which was exactly what I had been trying to avoid given the warnings I had been given about the dangers of San Francisco by everyone I talked to. He turned out to be a well meaning soul, though the conversation was made somewhat difficult due to a physical deformity which meant his tongue was permanently sticking out of his mouth, muffling his speech as if his mouth was full of chicken burritos. Try speaking while you are sticking your tongue out of your mouth. Go on, I know it feels foolish! Now get someone else to do it and see if you can understand what they say. Now you have a better idea of how I was feeling, at 06:30 on a grim January morning, waiting for the bus in a unfamiliar city, with this warm-hearted but fuzzy-speeched gentleman offering to take me to my hostel, and at the same time warning me to be careful because there’s a lot of crime in the city (did he not see the irony?). In the end he did escort me (well followed me really) to the Green Tortoise, where I, with some relief, managed to disentangle myself from him.
I checked in, dumped my luggage (yay!), ate a delicious and free breakfast at the hostel, and opened my guidebook. Where to first? Well, my main interest in the city, when I first decided to go, before I had done any research into the place, was historical. San Francisco, in my mind, was the birthplace of the gay liberation movement (at least in the USA) and the home of the Beat generation of the 60s and 70s. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” was what inspired me to include North America on my world tour in the first place. Therefore my first destination was Castro Street, gay centre of San Francisco.
On the way there I visited the church of the original Mission that was the origin of San Francisco. It was, unbelievably, deserted when I happened to visit, and I revelled in the solitude and reflected quietly on the life of the original San Franciscans. The adjoining basilica, built much later, was full of people (Sunday morning service) and much more opulent than the church. I must say that I liked the church better, but perhaps that was more to do with the ability to enjoy it in peace. Happily, the Mission had an adjoining cemetery, and, although small, I spent some time admiring it.
Onwards to Castro Street, and meanwhile the skies had cleared and the sun shone brilliantly onto the animated sidewalks I was making my way down. Castro is a lively neighbourhood, with small, quaint, brightly painted houses, couples walking their dogs, people chatting on the pavement, and ultra cute and trendy cafes – a far cry from the deserted Boulder streets. I even saw a VW Beetle with 70s “flower power” flowers painted all over it! I nearly fainted with excitement. Castro street itself is even more colourful and lively than the surrounding suburb, bedecked as it is in the rainbow flag symbolic of the gay pride movement, and full of people (being the main street on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of winter – what can you expect?). I quickly found myself at the famous (infamous?) Castro theatre, which was unfortunately closed, and even more unfortunately screening Mary Poppins just days after I was due to leave SF! I found an “alternative lifestyles” bookshop and spent some time perusing that, and generally checked out the cool shops and cafes and vibe. If you Melbournians can imagine a cooler, gayer version of Brunswick, that’s something approximating Castro.
On to the Mission district, which, funnily enough, is not that close to the original Mission. To be honest it should be renamed the Mexican district, because I had more luck there with my Spanish than my English. What’s in the Mission district? Cheap Mexican food (mmm, tacos) so lunch was the first thing on my mind. Second up was a tour of some of the district’s many, many murals. There’s very little in this world that’s as unqualificatedly great as a mural. They’re fun for the artist to paint, they brighten up the neighbourhood, they’re easily accessible for anyone to enjoy (not locked up in some musty museum archive) and they can have lots of other uses like conveying an important message, mourning the loss of something or someone important, or celebrating something or someone. Unfortunately the tour guide preceded the mural tour with a very long and detailed lecture on the history of muralism, some famous muralists, and the process of mural painting. This was all very interesting, but it did mean that by the time we actually started the mural-spotting, most of the people who had signed up for the tour had to leave. We did see some amazing murals though, probably at least one hundred, and all within a few blocks of each other. If you were to do a comprehensive tour of the Mission district, or indeed of all of San Francisco, I’m sure you’d see hundreds and hundreds.
By this time it was getting colder and darker, and time to be heading home to the hostel, but I didn’t reckon on the unavoidable coolness of San Francisco. On my way home I was constantly distracted by incredibly cool and funky vintage clothes and furniture shops. Although I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to spend money on anything but sightseeing (yeah, right) I just couldn’t resist popping into one or two. And what luck that I did, as it brought on one of those “Eureka!” moments. Shopping at vintage stores is like panning for gold; you spend hours sifting through piles of dirt, stones and sand to find that little fleck. The other thing about vintage clothes is that they’re all one-offs – if the fleck doesn’t fit you can’t ask the saleslady for a different size. So when I found a gorgeous (and I mean gorgeous) brown patchworky skirt for USD$20, I flipped out and raced to the changing rooms with my heart in my mouth. The waist looked teeny-tiny, but clearly all the walking in Peru and running in Boulder had paid off, because it looked fabulous! I couldn’t get to the cash register fast enough and left the store with plenty of retail therapy endorphins flowing through my bloodstream.
The furniture shops were even more awesome, and if I ever move to San Fran, I’ll be there every weekend maxing out my credit cards on globe-shaped armchairs and 70s diner jukeboxes. But there was no way I was dragging that stuff back to Dublin (not that it would fit in my microscopic apartment anyway) so with loud sighs I managed to not buy everything not nailed down. By this time it truly was getting dark, and although I’d met nothing but friendly, helpful, law-abiding citizens so far, I didn’t really want my first encounter with the seedy side of the city to be on my own after dark. I made it back to my hostel in one piece and under the cover of night, and what a difference this made to the street the Green Tortoise was on! At 08:00, when I left the hostel, I hadn’t paid much attention to the mainly shut, mainly grey buildings surrounding the hostel, but scurried on my way to the Mission. After dark, Broadway becomes the “Vegas” of San Francisco – flashing neon, naked girls, tuxedoed bouncers, and casinos, casinos, casinos. Not really my thing as I hate neon, I’m straight, and I’m ideologically opposed to gambling.
Back at the Green Tortoise I hung out a little in the common room, chatted with a few fellow backpackers, and finally surrendered to a hot, hot shower and bed. Never had a bed felt so incredibly comfortable as after a night asleep aboard a long-haul bus.
The next day was cold, wet and gloomy, perfect weather for what I had planned. The grim weather helped put me in the right frame of mind to visit the (now defunct) jail for the craziest, hardest, and most dangerous criminals in California. Alcatraz is the stuff of legend, and it was only a short ferry ride away.
Alcatraz has an award-winning audio tour of its premises, and for once in the history of sightseeing gimmicks it lived up to its promise and delivered a thoroughly enjoyable and very informative spiel on the old prison. It had audio commentary from previous inmates and guards, which gave precious insights into life at Alcatraz. Two stories in particular struck me, both from inmates. The first told of the frustration and surrealism of being caged in a tiny cell in a small complex on a little island, while the enormous, busy, and free San Francisco was clearly visible, so close yet so far, just across a few miles of water. The other talked of his rush of feelings on sight of a woman, probably 18 or 20 years old, simply walking up the path, after eight years of seeing only men. I think we can all understand and empathise with his feelings at that moment!
Following Alcatraz I ate an enormous and delicious bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) at one of the places recommended in my Lonely Planet, next to a tall dark and handsome stranger whom I lost no time in chatting to. I told him I was on my way to the SFMoMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and he told me about half a dozen other museums I had to visit, other good Asian restaurants about town, and the history of the chef hierarchy at Tu Lan, the restaurant we were eating at, at which he was a regular. After a pleasant but lamentably short conversation, we said our goodbyes and I made my way to the museum.
I knew I’d had value for money the second I walked into the museum. The building (particularly the foyer) is a kind of artwork in itself, a beautiful marriage of form and function with delicious angles, clean lines, contrasting textured surfaces, and well-chosen colours. I was in awe before I’d even set foot in the galleries. Plus the coatroom guy was very very cute, one of those vibrant, curly haired, Art student types with glasses. Creativity practically sweating out of every pore. Much as I would have liked to stay and admire him, I tore my eyes away and made for the art. I’m not going to try and describe the artworks to you – it would be extremely difficult and entirely pointless. Suffice to say I had a great time in the museum.
Back to the hostel where the night was similar to the previous one – although I did get talking to one of the girls in my room under some extraordinary circumstances – I walked into the room when she was on the phone to a doctor due to some back pain she was having, and the doctor told her she may possibly be pregnant, and to go out and buy a pregnancy test at the pharmacy right away. After asking me not to let anything slip to her sister (of course not) she dashed away to the chemist. The test turned out negative, thank god, but she did end up going to the hospital for a few hours and getting some painkillers, which cost her all up about USD$2,000. Thank God for insurance. I can’t imagine what a pregnancy scare would be like in the middle of your travels, thousands of kilometres away from your loving friends and family.
The next day was the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, which, although large looking on the map, this is misleading as it is not merely large but enormous. The lovely young gentleman who started talking to me on the bus looked at me funny when I told him I wanted to traverse the entire park, and later I found out why. He walked me through the first part and pointed me on my way, and I was off to find the new museum that had just been built. The building was fascinating and beautiful, and the adjoining grounds had some cool ultra-modern park benches. I did go inside the museum...well, into the lobby. I baulked at the entrance fee, and as I’d had my fill of modern art at SFMoMA, and I wasn’t interested in the other exhibitions they had (Egyptian art or something) I figured I’d just explore the gardens. I found an AIDS memorial, which is a very pertinent one to have in this city. I found out, not without some indignation, that AIDS was originally called GRID, Gay Related Immune Disease. I wondered aimlessly in the gardens for a while, checking out all the plants and going “hmmm, interesting” at all the Latin plant names like I had any idea what they meant. At this point I was freezing and sick of plants, so I ditched the educational part of the day and went walking along Haight Street.
The Haight is another “Beat Generation” mecca, and full of more vintage and new clothing stores. I tried on heaps of cool stuff, including one absolutely gorgeous 1920s fire engine red evening gown in perfect condition (about USD$250 if I remember correctly). It was too small, thank god, or I wouldn’t have held myself responsible for my actions. How many occasions have I had call to wear a dress like that in my life? I can count three, tops, in nearly 24 years. But oh, it was divine. Almost immediately on exiting the shop I passed a group of teenage lads sitting on the pavement seemingly minding their own business. As I walked by, they flashed me a sign saying “Smile if you masturbate”. Hard as I tried I couldn’t suppress my giggles and the boys all cheered and laughed delightedly (and thankfully good-humourdly). Later on I got chatting to a sales guy in one of the shops as I was trying on hats. I don’t think I ever found out his name, but lets call him Adrian because he looked like an Adrian to me. We talked at length about clothes, accessories, our wardrobes, where we shop, our style changes, our style disasters, whatever, while I perused the merchandise. If I lived in San Fran he would make a great best friend. Eventually I located a fabulous beige cord jacket with flower embroidery. I ummed and aahed for half an hour (partly because I was indecisive and partly because I wanted an excuse to keep talking to Adrian) before I decided I’d finish walking up and down Haight street and come back for the jacket if I didn’t find anything more fabulous. Which I didn’t, so after a few more hours of checking out the incredibly funky and awesome styles (why why why did I move to a stylistically bereft city like Dublin?) I walked dolefully back into the shop and bought the damn jacket. Out of the kindness of his heart Adrian gave me a 10% discount to ease the pain, and the endorphins were rushing again. On my way back I was offered drugs on the street (first time in my life! I thought I must give out an anti-drugs vibe or something, but apparently not so in San Fran).
Back to the hostel for some shut-eye to prepare for an open mic night they have on a Tuesday night. I thought I had slept through it all, but thankfully when I got down there the party was still going strong. I stood by myself like a loser for some long minutes before I finally located the Kiwi guy I had been chatting with the night before. We hadn’t been talking long before he introduced me to John, “The coolest guy in the Green Tortoise”. I must admit this introduction didn’t particularly intrigue me, as I put it down to the copious amounts of beer the Kiwi guy had been drinking. However, John lived up to his description and I soon found that we were something like kindred spirits. Somehow, some lucky how, I managed to find the most intellectual guy in the place and we were soon talking a million miles an hour about politics, architecture (he’s an architect) music (he’s a guitarist in a band in his hometown, London), travelling, books, whatever. Absorbed as we were in our conversation we began to realise that people were beginning to leave the common room, and loathe to let the night end there, we hooked ourselves onto a bunch of people heading out to a karaoke bar (karaoke – yay!!). More talking ensued, mixed with some singing and dancing, and other stuff...until finally the bar closed and we were all summarily kicked out. Back at the hostel more tranquil chatter, plans were made for the next day (Golden Gate Bridge!) and we said goodnight.
Early the next morning the two of us headed out by bus towards the Bridge, and then began the longish and what would have been incredibly pleasant walk along the bay, but in the currently misty and damp climate was quite depressing. We made the most of each other’s company along the route, and after we made it to the bridge and took one or two snaps of the vague bridge-like shape hidden in the mist, we looked out for some kind of outlet for hot, caffeinated beverages. Lamentably, the Golden Gate Bridge must be the only tourist attraction in the world that doesn’t have an associated gift shop/cafe selling trashy souvenirs and overpriced muffins, so we began the long and wet trek back to civilisation. If we thought it was wet on the way there, we were forced to re-evaluate our degree of wetness on the way back as we became positively drenched from head to toe. After some time we managed to locate a Starbucks and I am ashamed to admit that I threw my principles to the wind and entered the establishment without a second thought. At that point I probably would have gone into a casino had it promised me hot coffee. After we had sat down with our liquid heaters, I noticed a trail of dirty, wet foot and jeanprints leading from the door, to the counter, to our table, and finally, to my sodden runners and jeans. “Did I do that?” I asked, shyly. John smiled and teased in his adorably haughty London accent, “I’ll buy your coffee, but by God I’ll make your floor wet!”.
We’d both decided at that point that enough was enough and headed back to the hostel where all the sensible people were hanging out in the warm and dry. We chucked our clothes in the dryer and messed around on the internet, I had a look through his architecture books, he played me mp3s of his band (actually pretty good), we had cups of hot tea and enjoyed being warm and dry. Later, dinner, and after that, we headed out to a bar to check out a blues band we’d found out about earlier. The band was pretty cool, I felt transported to Memphis and the Mississippi Delta which was great because unfortunately I wasn’t going to make it to New Orleans this time around, and I really wanted to. But at least I got a small injection of N’orleans in San Fran. We left pretty early as John was on a flight to Chicago early the next morning and on a train earlier than that. We swapped emails and all the usual, but it seemed futile as we live in different cities and men don’t write (two or three line emails from men are an achievement), but I guess next time I’m in London I’ll look him up, maybe he’ll even be playing somewhere...?
The next day, my last in San Francisco, was kind of quiet and uneventful. Now John-less, I decided to check out Chinatown which is reputably quite large and given that it was Chinese New Year at the time, I figured would be abuzz with activity. Not so much unfortunately, but I did buy some cheap postcards and I ate at Sam Wo’s (apparently an old Jack Kerouac hangout). That night I packed my stuff and started to make my way to the Greyhound station again. By that time it was getting dark and I wasn’t in love with the idea of walking alone, when I heard a voice call from the door of the hostel. “Hey! Hey! Are you going to the Greyhound station?” “Why yes I am” I replied, and it turned out that this lady was too, and also on her way to LA (my flight to NYC left from LA so back there to catch it). It turns out she was Canadian, which bothered me not a bit until we began to talk further. There’s a small exchange in a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode that I really like (this has a point, trust me), and it’s where Riley and his friends are discussing Buffy, and Riley says “Don’t you think there’s something a little...off about her?” and Graham replies munching on a sandwich, “Maybe she’s Canadian”. I just put this down to innocent teasing of Canadians by their bigger, richer neighbours, but after talking to this lady I began to wonder whether there wasn’t something to it after all. She was a nutcase, a loony and a half. And one of the problems with mental cases is that when they find an attentive audience, they never shut up. I was thus facing the prospect of a four hour wait and an eight hour bus ride listening to her incessant, disconnected ramble. I was racking my brains trying to figure out how I was going to get away and concocted a series of hare-brained schemes – I called Julia back in Melbourne, she wasn’t home. I went to get something to eat. I went to make enquiries at the ticket desk and mercifully got pulled into another situation – there was a guy at the ticket desk trying to buy a ticket for his brother in some other city, and the ticket ladies were trying to make him understand the concept of a password, so that they could identify his brother at the other end. The problem here was that the customer spoke only Spanish, and the desk ladies were the only two people in SF who didn’t speak any. I was standing there trying to decide whether or not I could be of any help when one of the ladies asked me if I could speak any Spanish and that was the end of that. So I translated and it all got sorted. Then back to the loony lady where I used my last resort (pretending to sleep) to get her to leave me alone.
The bus finally came and unbelievably I again managed to worm two seats to myself (I don’t know how, I’m sure it’s a piece of incredible, never-to-be-repeated luck), so I proceeded to squish myself up into the foetal position again and snatch some shut eye (if not actual rest) on my way to the giant freeway that is Los Angeles.
a) it would allow me plenty of time to make the bus even if my plane was late for some reason and
b) I would theoretically be able to sleep on the (eight hour) bus ride, and therefore save myself the price of one night’s accommodation in one of the USA’s most expensive cities.
Which was great, but I still had four hours to kill in that dirty, stinky rat den. I managed to, thanks to some sneaky pushing, shoving, ducking and diving, secure some bench space right near the door to the bus bay, and found myself next to a rather large African-American lady by the name of Angela. Despite my tiredness we had a long and interesting conversation about travelling, growing up, her losing her father, crime in San Francisco (very high apparently) and whatever else came to mind. She was incredibly kind-hearted, warning me repeatedly to take a lot of care in San Fran and to ring her when I got there to make sure I was OK. “I’ll be right across the bay in Oakland”, she assured me.
After a seemingly interminable wait, the bus finally pulled in at the station and we piled on. By some miracle I managed to get two seats all to myself, and proceeded to lay down in a foetal position with my scarf as a pillow. From that position neither hell nor high water was going to move me. Eight hours later, we pulled into the second most depressing place in the USA, the Greyhound bus station in San Francisco, and at half six in the morning. Now. Where on Earth was my flipping hostel? I’d booked into the Green Tortoise on the recommendation of some backpackers I’d met in Peru, and thankfully, as usual, my Lonely Planet came to the rescue and provided me with a map of uptown SF with the bus station and my hostel marked. They looked pretty close together but considering the fact that since I’d left Boulder I’d added a suitcase on wheels to my backpack and daypack, I thought I’d better ask someone whether or not it was walking distance. Invariably they advised me to take a bus, or two to be precise, so I gave up my hopes of pedestrianism and waited under gloomy skies for the bus. I was later to find out that in North America anything further than a block and a half is considered too far to walk, and I could have easily made it on foot, luggage and all. But for now I was a victim of San Francisco’s public transport system, which is mercifully reliable, if expensive. The man standing at the bus stop next to me struck up a conversation, which was exactly what I had been trying to avoid given the warnings I had been given about the dangers of San Francisco by everyone I talked to. He turned out to be a well meaning soul, though the conversation was made somewhat difficult due to a physical deformity which meant his tongue was permanently sticking out of his mouth, muffling his speech as if his mouth was full of chicken burritos. Try speaking while you are sticking your tongue out of your mouth. Go on, I know it feels foolish! Now get someone else to do it and see if you can understand what they say. Now you have a better idea of how I was feeling, at 06:30 on a grim January morning, waiting for the bus in a unfamiliar city, with this warm-hearted but fuzzy-speeched gentleman offering to take me to my hostel, and at the same time warning me to be careful because there’s a lot of crime in the city (did he not see the irony?). In the end he did escort me (well followed me really) to the Green Tortoise, where I, with some relief, managed to disentangle myself from him.
I checked in, dumped my luggage (yay!), ate a delicious and free breakfast at the hostel, and opened my guidebook. Where to first? Well, my main interest in the city, when I first decided to go, before I had done any research into the place, was historical. San Francisco, in my mind, was the birthplace of the gay liberation movement (at least in the USA) and the home of the Beat generation of the 60s and 70s. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” was what inspired me to include North America on my world tour in the first place. Therefore my first destination was Castro Street, gay centre of San Francisco.
On the way there I visited the church of the original Mission that was the origin of San Francisco. It was, unbelievably, deserted when I happened to visit, and I revelled in the solitude and reflected quietly on the life of the original San Franciscans. The adjoining basilica, built much later, was full of people (Sunday morning service) and much more opulent than the church. I must say that I liked the church better, but perhaps that was more to do with the ability to enjoy it in peace. Happily, the Mission had an adjoining cemetery, and, although small, I spent some time admiring it.
Onwards to Castro Street, and meanwhile the skies had cleared and the sun shone brilliantly onto the animated sidewalks I was making my way down. Castro is a lively neighbourhood, with small, quaint, brightly painted houses, couples walking their dogs, people chatting on the pavement, and ultra cute and trendy cafes – a far cry from the deserted Boulder streets. I even saw a VW Beetle with 70s “flower power” flowers painted all over it! I nearly fainted with excitement. Castro street itself is even more colourful and lively than the surrounding suburb, bedecked as it is in the rainbow flag symbolic of the gay pride movement, and full of people (being the main street on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of winter – what can you expect?). I quickly found myself at the famous (infamous?) Castro theatre, which was unfortunately closed, and even more unfortunately screening Mary Poppins just days after I was due to leave SF! I found an “alternative lifestyles” bookshop and spent some time perusing that, and generally checked out the cool shops and cafes and vibe. If you Melbournians can imagine a cooler, gayer version of Brunswick, that’s something approximating Castro.
On to the Mission district, which, funnily enough, is not that close to the original Mission. To be honest it should be renamed the Mexican district, because I had more luck there with my Spanish than my English. What’s in the Mission district? Cheap Mexican food (mmm, tacos) so lunch was the first thing on my mind. Second up was a tour of some of the district’s many, many murals. There’s very little in this world that’s as unqualificatedly great as a mural. They’re fun for the artist to paint, they brighten up the neighbourhood, they’re easily accessible for anyone to enjoy (not locked up in some musty museum archive) and they can have lots of other uses like conveying an important message, mourning the loss of something or someone important, or celebrating something or someone. Unfortunately the tour guide preceded the mural tour with a very long and detailed lecture on the history of muralism, some famous muralists, and the process of mural painting. This was all very interesting, but it did mean that by the time we actually started the mural-spotting, most of the people who had signed up for the tour had to leave. We did see some amazing murals though, probably at least one hundred, and all within a few blocks of each other. If you were to do a comprehensive tour of the Mission district, or indeed of all of San Francisco, I’m sure you’d see hundreds and hundreds.
By this time it was getting colder and darker, and time to be heading home to the hostel, but I didn’t reckon on the unavoidable coolness of San Francisco. On my way home I was constantly distracted by incredibly cool and funky vintage clothes and furniture shops. Although I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to spend money on anything but sightseeing (yeah, right) I just couldn’t resist popping into one or two. And what luck that I did, as it brought on one of those “Eureka!” moments. Shopping at vintage stores is like panning for gold; you spend hours sifting through piles of dirt, stones and sand to find that little fleck. The other thing about vintage clothes is that they’re all one-offs – if the fleck doesn’t fit you can’t ask the saleslady for a different size. So when I found a gorgeous (and I mean gorgeous) brown patchworky skirt for USD$20, I flipped out and raced to the changing rooms with my heart in my mouth. The waist looked teeny-tiny, but clearly all the walking in Peru and running in Boulder had paid off, because it looked fabulous! I couldn’t get to the cash register fast enough and left the store with plenty of retail therapy endorphins flowing through my bloodstream.
The furniture shops were even more awesome, and if I ever move to San Fran, I’ll be there every weekend maxing out my credit cards on globe-shaped armchairs and 70s diner jukeboxes. But there was no way I was dragging that stuff back to Dublin (not that it would fit in my microscopic apartment anyway) so with loud sighs I managed to not buy everything not nailed down. By this time it truly was getting dark, and although I’d met nothing but friendly, helpful, law-abiding citizens so far, I didn’t really want my first encounter with the seedy side of the city to be on my own after dark. I made it back to my hostel in one piece and under the cover of night, and what a difference this made to the street the Green Tortoise was on! At 08:00, when I left the hostel, I hadn’t paid much attention to the mainly shut, mainly grey buildings surrounding the hostel, but scurried on my way to the Mission. After dark, Broadway becomes the “Vegas” of San Francisco – flashing neon, naked girls, tuxedoed bouncers, and casinos, casinos, casinos. Not really my thing as I hate neon, I’m straight, and I’m ideologically opposed to gambling.
Back at the Green Tortoise I hung out a little in the common room, chatted with a few fellow backpackers, and finally surrendered to a hot, hot shower and bed. Never had a bed felt so incredibly comfortable as after a night asleep aboard a long-haul bus.
The next day was cold, wet and gloomy, perfect weather for what I had planned. The grim weather helped put me in the right frame of mind to visit the (now defunct) jail for the craziest, hardest, and most dangerous criminals in California. Alcatraz is the stuff of legend, and it was only a short ferry ride away.
Alcatraz has an award-winning audio tour of its premises, and for once in the history of sightseeing gimmicks it lived up to its promise and delivered a thoroughly enjoyable and very informative spiel on the old prison. It had audio commentary from previous inmates and guards, which gave precious insights into life at Alcatraz. Two stories in particular struck me, both from inmates. The first told of the frustration and surrealism of being caged in a tiny cell in a small complex on a little island, while the enormous, busy, and free San Francisco was clearly visible, so close yet so far, just across a few miles of water. The other talked of his rush of feelings on sight of a woman, probably 18 or 20 years old, simply walking up the path, after eight years of seeing only men. I think we can all understand and empathise with his feelings at that moment!
Following Alcatraz I ate an enormous and delicious bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) at one of the places recommended in my Lonely Planet, next to a tall dark and handsome stranger whom I lost no time in chatting to. I told him I was on my way to the SFMoMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and he told me about half a dozen other museums I had to visit, other good Asian restaurants about town, and the history of the chef hierarchy at Tu Lan, the restaurant we were eating at, at which he was a regular. After a pleasant but lamentably short conversation, we said our goodbyes and I made my way to the museum.
I knew I’d had value for money the second I walked into the museum. The building (particularly the foyer) is a kind of artwork in itself, a beautiful marriage of form and function with delicious angles, clean lines, contrasting textured surfaces, and well-chosen colours. I was in awe before I’d even set foot in the galleries. Plus the coatroom guy was very very cute, one of those vibrant, curly haired, Art student types with glasses. Creativity practically sweating out of every pore. Much as I would have liked to stay and admire him, I tore my eyes away and made for the art. I’m not going to try and describe the artworks to you – it would be extremely difficult and entirely pointless. Suffice to say I had a great time in the museum.
Back to the hostel where the night was similar to the previous one – although I did get talking to one of the girls in my room under some extraordinary circumstances – I walked into the room when she was on the phone to a doctor due to some back pain she was having, and the doctor told her she may possibly be pregnant, and to go out and buy a pregnancy test at the pharmacy right away. After asking me not to let anything slip to her sister (of course not) she dashed away to the chemist. The test turned out negative, thank god, but she did end up going to the hospital for a few hours and getting some painkillers, which cost her all up about USD$2,000. Thank God for insurance. I can’t imagine what a pregnancy scare would be like in the middle of your travels, thousands of kilometres away from your loving friends and family.
The next day was the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, which, although large looking on the map, this is misleading as it is not merely large but enormous. The lovely young gentleman who started talking to me on the bus looked at me funny when I told him I wanted to traverse the entire park, and later I found out why. He walked me through the first part and pointed me on my way, and I was off to find the new museum that had just been built. The building was fascinating and beautiful, and the adjoining grounds had some cool ultra-modern park benches. I did go inside the museum...well, into the lobby. I baulked at the entrance fee, and as I’d had my fill of modern art at SFMoMA, and I wasn’t interested in the other exhibitions they had (Egyptian art or something) I figured I’d just explore the gardens. I found an AIDS memorial, which is a very pertinent one to have in this city. I found out, not without some indignation, that AIDS was originally called GRID, Gay Related Immune Disease. I wondered aimlessly in the gardens for a while, checking out all the plants and going “hmmm, interesting” at all the Latin plant names like I had any idea what they meant. At this point I was freezing and sick of plants, so I ditched the educational part of the day and went walking along Haight Street.
The Haight is another “Beat Generation” mecca, and full of more vintage and new clothing stores. I tried on heaps of cool stuff, including one absolutely gorgeous 1920s fire engine red evening gown in perfect condition (about USD$250 if I remember correctly). It was too small, thank god, or I wouldn’t have held myself responsible for my actions. How many occasions have I had call to wear a dress like that in my life? I can count three, tops, in nearly 24 years. But oh, it was divine. Almost immediately on exiting the shop I passed a group of teenage lads sitting on the pavement seemingly minding their own business. As I walked by, they flashed me a sign saying “Smile if you masturbate”. Hard as I tried I couldn’t suppress my giggles and the boys all cheered and laughed delightedly (and thankfully good-humourdly). Later on I got chatting to a sales guy in one of the shops as I was trying on hats. I don’t think I ever found out his name, but lets call him Adrian because he looked like an Adrian to me. We talked at length about clothes, accessories, our wardrobes, where we shop, our style changes, our style disasters, whatever, while I perused the merchandise. If I lived in San Fran he would make a great best friend. Eventually I located a fabulous beige cord jacket with flower embroidery. I ummed and aahed for half an hour (partly because I was indecisive and partly because I wanted an excuse to keep talking to Adrian) before I decided I’d finish walking up and down Haight street and come back for the jacket if I didn’t find anything more fabulous. Which I didn’t, so after a few more hours of checking out the incredibly funky and awesome styles (why why why did I move to a stylistically bereft city like Dublin?) I walked dolefully back into the shop and bought the damn jacket. Out of the kindness of his heart Adrian gave me a 10% discount to ease the pain, and the endorphins were rushing again. On my way back I was offered drugs on the street (first time in my life! I thought I must give out an anti-drugs vibe or something, but apparently not so in San Fran).
Back to the hostel for some shut-eye to prepare for an open mic night they have on a Tuesday night. I thought I had slept through it all, but thankfully when I got down there the party was still going strong. I stood by myself like a loser for some long minutes before I finally located the Kiwi guy I had been chatting with the night before. We hadn’t been talking long before he introduced me to John, “The coolest guy in the Green Tortoise”. I must admit this introduction didn’t particularly intrigue me, as I put it down to the copious amounts of beer the Kiwi guy had been drinking. However, John lived up to his description and I soon found that we were something like kindred spirits. Somehow, some lucky how, I managed to find the most intellectual guy in the place and we were soon talking a million miles an hour about politics, architecture (he’s an architect) music (he’s a guitarist in a band in his hometown, London), travelling, books, whatever. Absorbed as we were in our conversation we began to realise that people were beginning to leave the common room, and loathe to let the night end there, we hooked ourselves onto a bunch of people heading out to a karaoke bar (karaoke – yay!!). More talking ensued, mixed with some singing and dancing, and other stuff...until finally the bar closed and we were all summarily kicked out. Back at the hostel more tranquil chatter, plans were made for the next day (Golden Gate Bridge!) and we said goodnight.
Early the next morning the two of us headed out by bus towards the Bridge, and then began the longish and what would have been incredibly pleasant walk along the bay, but in the currently misty and damp climate was quite depressing. We made the most of each other’s company along the route, and after we made it to the bridge and took one or two snaps of the vague bridge-like shape hidden in the mist, we looked out for some kind of outlet for hot, caffeinated beverages. Lamentably, the Golden Gate Bridge must be the only tourist attraction in the world that doesn’t have an associated gift shop/cafe selling trashy souvenirs and overpriced muffins, so we began the long and wet trek back to civilisation. If we thought it was wet on the way there, we were forced to re-evaluate our degree of wetness on the way back as we became positively drenched from head to toe. After some time we managed to locate a Starbucks and I am ashamed to admit that I threw my principles to the wind and entered the establishment without a second thought. At that point I probably would have gone into a casino had it promised me hot coffee. After we had sat down with our liquid heaters, I noticed a trail of dirty, wet foot and jeanprints leading from the door, to the counter, to our table, and finally, to my sodden runners and jeans. “Did I do that?” I asked, shyly. John smiled and teased in his adorably haughty London accent, “I’ll buy your coffee, but by God I’ll make your floor wet!”.
We’d both decided at that point that enough was enough and headed back to the hostel where all the sensible people were hanging out in the warm and dry. We chucked our clothes in the dryer and messed around on the internet, I had a look through his architecture books, he played me mp3s of his band (actually pretty good), we had cups of hot tea and enjoyed being warm and dry. Later, dinner, and after that, we headed out to a bar to check out a blues band we’d found out about earlier. The band was pretty cool, I felt transported to Memphis and the Mississippi Delta which was great because unfortunately I wasn’t going to make it to New Orleans this time around, and I really wanted to. But at least I got a small injection of N’orleans in San Fran. We left pretty early as John was on a flight to Chicago early the next morning and on a train earlier than that. We swapped emails and all the usual, but it seemed futile as we live in different cities and men don’t write (two or three line emails from men are an achievement), but I guess next time I’m in London I’ll look him up, maybe he’ll even be playing somewhere...?
The next day, my last in San Francisco, was kind of quiet and uneventful. Now John-less, I decided to check out Chinatown which is reputably quite large and given that it was Chinese New Year at the time, I figured would be abuzz with activity. Not so much unfortunately, but I did buy some cheap postcards and I ate at Sam Wo’s (apparently an old Jack Kerouac hangout). That night I packed my stuff and started to make my way to the Greyhound station again. By that time it was getting dark and I wasn’t in love with the idea of walking alone, when I heard a voice call from the door of the hostel. “Hey! Hey! Are you going to the Greyhound station?” “Why yes I am” I replied, and it turned out that this lady was too, and also on her way to LA (my flight to NYC left from LA so back there to catch it). It turns out she was Canadian, which bothered me not a bit until we began to talk further. There’s a small exchange in a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” episode that I really like (this has a point, trust me), and it’s where Riley and his friends are discussing Buffy, and Riley says “Don’t you think there’s something a little...off about her?” and Graham replies munching on a sandwich, “Maybe she’s Canadian”. I just put this down to innocent teasing of Canadians by their bigger, richer neighbours, but after talking to this lady I began to wonder whether there wasn’t something to it after all. She was a nutcase, a loony and a half. And one of the problems with mental cases is that when they find an attentive audience, they never shut up. I was thus facing the prospect of a four hour wait and an eight hour bus ride listening to her incessant, disconnected ramble. I was racking my brains trying to figure out how I was going to get away and concocted a series of hare-brained schemes – I called Julia back in Melbourne, she wasn’t home. I went to get something to eat. I went to make enquiries at the ticket desk and mercifully got pulled into another situation – there was a guy at the ticket desk trying to buy a ticket for his brother in some other city, and the ticket ladies were trying to make him understand the concept of a password, so that they could identify his brother at the other end. The problem here was that the customer spoke only Spanish, and the desk ladies were the only two people in SF who didn’t speak any. I was standing there trying to decide whether or not I could be of any help when one of the ladies asked me if I could speak any Spanish and that was the end of that. So I translated and it all got sorted. Then back to the loony lady where I used my last resort (pretending to sleep) to get her to leave me alone.
The bus finally came and unbelievably I again managed to worm two seats to myself (I don’t know how, I’m sure it’s a piece of incredible, never-to-be-repeated luck), so I proceeded to squish myself up into the foetal position again and snatch some shut eye (if not actual rest) on my way to the giant freeway that is Los Angeles.
Land of the free, home of the brave
I was happy to be finally on my way to an English-speaking country, and excited to see my cousin Ana for the first time in about eight years. I did have one moment of blind panic on the flight into LA however. When I looked at the LAN in-flight magazine at the page on filling in immigration forms for the USA, neither Portugal nor Australia were listed as countries eligible for the visa waiver program. Now, I had done extensive research before I left for my trip as to whether or not I needed a visa to get into the US, and had found that neither Portuguese nor Australian citizens needed a visa for stays of less than 90 days. But when I was in the air, about to land on US soil, with the immigration police right on the other side of the airport wall, and I didn’t find Australia or Portugal on the list, I became immediately convinced that they were going to assume I was a terrorist, and interrogate and deport me on arrival because I had no visa. Of course, this never eventuated, they just took a fingerprint, stamped away and sent me onwards. I hated LAN at that moment for their inaccurate magazine sending me into a spiral of self-doubt. But I got over it when I realised I was in the USA, legally, and on my way to Boulder. That excitement wore off fast however and gave way to boredom. Is there any other mood in airport lounges? LAX is enormous, but there’s still not much to do. You would think that in a building where everybody is essentially waiting around, you could make a lot of money providing something for people to do other than eat and buy duty-free perfume. My flight to Phoenix finally took off, and I was on my way to Denver.
What excitement when I finally reached my destination! Not only was my epic flight finally over, Anita was meeting me at the airport! We did the usual huggy and kissy things, and she introduced me to Santiago, her three and half month old baby boy, who was asleep at the time, but very cute. We hopped in the car and I got my first real introduction to the North American winter – I had acclimatised a little to the cold in Cusco, but Boulder is 2000 metres above sea level and it was snowing! We drove home, chatting a million miles an hour, and got to Anita’s place, which is in typical, eerily tranquil American suburbia. The place is gorgeous though, with enormous and incredibly soft couches, which I lost no time falling asleep on. Not before my control-freak mother had called to make sure I had gotten in ok, not even ten minutes after we walked in the door.
The next day Anita and Dani (her husband) had planned to go skiing, so we packed the little one in the car and set off for the powder. I, personally, can’t stand skiing, but I had plenty of postcard writing and sitting on my arse to catch up on (sitting on planes doesn’t count – unless you’re in first class, how are you supposed to relax in those cramped little seats? And airport lounges are hardly more comfortable). I helped Ana and Dani babysit Santi while they tore up the slopes. We went to a totally yummy Mexican restaurant for dinner, and looked out onto the snowy town at night, which was very picturesque. Even though I had done bugger all that day and Dani and Ana had been exercising like mad, guess who fell asleep in the car on the way home? In fact it took quite a few days of sitting around for me to totally recover from the madness of Peru. I didn’t realise how exhausted I was until I had a chance to rest and I realised I didn’t want to do anything except eat, sleep, and talk. I did plenty of that over the next nine days! Ana had gone out of her way to make sure I had plenty of healthy food to eat because I’d been whining about how much junk food I’d eaten in Argentina, but somehow I managed to find all the cookies, waffles, cheese, and chocolate they had hidden in the house! I forgave myself a lot because I was on holidays, and to be honest I was mainly eating quite well (more or less). And despite holiday mode, I was finally running again! Ana was sure I was completely insane, running in the dead of the Boulder winter in trackies and a singlet, but you get hot after a while, and the sun was shining! Plus no wind, which made it warmer than running in Dublin. I did my 20 minutes, but was kind of wrecked after I got back. That’s what five weeks of not running and eating ice-cream will do. I felt better after I got back and Dani asked me, “How did you go?”, and I replied “Oh my god, I’m sooo out of shape!”, to which he responded matter-of-factly, “You’re not out of shape, you’re 2000 metres above sea level.” Woohoo! I can blame it on the altitude! Actually I think he was right as I continued to run nearly every day in Boulder and I acclimatised fairly quickly.
Plenty of things happened over the next few days: Ana and Dani got me hooked on “24” (How is “Chack” going guys?); we went to “The Teahouse” and got a free dessert because Ana found a hair in her meal; Ana went to the dentist and I took Santi for a stroll in downtown Boulder; we went to lunch several times with Anita’s friends; Santi got sick with an ear infection and a cold; I tried to update my blog and write emails; I slept in various times; we bought a pile of cool stuff with which to decorate Santi’s room; I got chatting for an hour in the middle of the night to an orphan with an American citizenship and a Welsh identity who came to our door to sell I never found out what; we went for coffee and the guy behind the counter took a fancy to Ana and gave us delicious cookies for free; I sang Beatles songs to Santi and tried to educate him about good music; and heaps of other “life stuff”. The best part was being with Ana again. Never having had sisters being with my girl cousins is an experience I cherish. They are all very, even wildly different, but all my beautiful family.
Eventually however, my honeymoon period of hanging out and being lazy (my favourite pastime) was over and, now that my batteries were fully recharged, it was time to leave Boulder and start exploring the West coast. I’m crap at goodbyes, but this one was very cheerful. Dani made a delicious lunch, we drank caipirinhas, I said a long and kissy goodbye to Santi (I miss you so much you little monster) and Ana and I hopped into the car and were Denver-airport bound. Even after so much travelling I was feeling more than a little anxious about the next part of my journey – I guess that’s something I’ll never get over, and I’m not sure if I even want to. Part of the whole idea of travelling for me is to rejuvenate myself by propelling myself constantly into the unknown. Once the unknown ceases to challenge me, I won’t be able to learn anything from it anymore. So onward to the Golden Gate city.
What excitement when I finally reached my destination! Not only was my epic flight finally over, Anita was meeting me at the airport! We did the usual huggy and kissy things, and she introduced me to Santiago, her three and half month old baby boy, who was asleep at the time, but very cute. We hopped in the car and I got my first real introduction to the North American winter – I had acclimatised a little to the cold in Cusco, but Boulder is 2000 metres above sea level and it was snowing! We drove home, chatting a million miles an hour, and got to Anita’s place, which is in typical, eerily tranquil American suburbia. The place is gorgeous though, with enormous and incredibly soft couches, which I lost no time falling asleep on. Not before my control-freak mother had called to make sure I had gotten in ok, not even ten minutes after we walked in the door.
The next day Anita and Dani (her husband) had planned to go skiing, so we packed the little one in the car and set off for the powder. I, personally, can’t stand skiing, but I had plenty of postcard writing and sitting on my arse to catch up on (sitting on planes doesn’t count – unless you’re in first class, how are you supposed to relax in those cramped little seats? And airport lounges are hardly more comfortable). I helped Ana and Dani babysit Santi while they tore up the slopes. We went to a totally yummy Mexican restaurant for dinner, and looked out onto the snowy town at night, which was very picturesque. Even though I had done bugger all that day and Dani and Ana had been exercising like mad, guess who fell asleep in the car on the way home? In fact it took quite a few days of sitting around for me to totally recover from the madness of Peru. I didn’t realise how exhausted I was until I had a chance to rest and I realised I didn’t want to do anything except eat, sleep, and talk. I did plenty of that over the next nine days! Ana had gone out of her way to make sure I had plenty of healthy food to eat because I’d been whining about how much junk food I’d eaten in Argentina, but somehow I managed to find all the cookies, waffles, cheese, and chocolate they had hidden in the house! I forgave myself a lot because I was on holidays, and to be honest I was mainly eating quite well (more or less). And despite holiday mode, I was finally running again! Ana was sure I was completely insane, running in the dead of the Boulder winter in trackies and a singlet, but you get hot after a while, and the sun was shining! Plus no wind, which made it warmer than running in Dublin. I did my 20 minutes, but was kind of wrecked after I got back. That’s what five weeks of not running and eating ice-cream will do. I felt better after I got back and Dani asked me, “How did you go?”, and I replied “Oh my god, I’m sooo out of shape!”, to which he responded matter-of-factly, “You’re not out of shape, you’re 2000 metres above sea level.” Woohoo! I can blame it on the altitude! Actually I think he was right as I continued to run nearly every day in Boulder and I acclimatised fairly quickly.
Plenty of things happened over the next few days: Ana and Dani got me hooked on “24” (How is “Chack” going guys?); we went to “The Teahouse” and got a free dessert because Ana found a hair in her meal; Ana went to the dentist and I took Santi for a stroll in downtown Boulder; we went to lunch several times with Anita’s friends; Santi got sick with an ear infection and a cold; I tried to update my blog and write emails; I slept in various times; we bought a pile of cool stuff with which to decorate Santi’s room; I got chatting for an hour in the middle of the night to an orphan with an American citizenship and a Welsh identity who came to our door to sell I never found out what; we went for coffee and the guy behind the counter took a fancy to Ana and gave us delicious cookies for free; I sang Beatles songs to Santi and tried to educate him about good music; and heaps of other “life stuff”. The best part was being with Ana again. Never having had sisters being with my girl cousins is an experience I cherish. They are all very, even wildly different, but all my beautiful family.
Eventually however, my honeymoon period of hanging out and being lazy (my favourite pastime) was over and, now that my batteries were fully recharged, it was time to leave Boulder and start exploring the West coast. I’m crap at goodbyes, but this one was very cheerful. Dani made a delicious lunch, we drank caipirinhas, I said a long and kissy goodbye to Santi (I miss you so much you little monster) and Ana and I hopped into the car and were Denver-airport bound. Even after so much travelling I was feeling more than a little anxious about the next part of my journey – I guess that’s something I’ll never get over, and I’m not sure if I even want to. Part of the whole idea of travelling for me is to rejuvenate myself by propelling myself constantly into the unknown. Once the unknown ceases to challenge me, I won’t be able to learn anything from it anymore. So onward to the Golden Gate city.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Cusco - Last days
I still had four days in Cusco after I finished the trail, but the first of these was spent housekeeping (laundry mainly, including my jeans which were soaking wet and muddy up to the knees), writing emails, reading, sleeping, and basically spending as much time as possible on my arse or lying down. This gave me two and a half days to explore Cusco. Clearly I wasn’t going to see much of anything in two days without a guided tour, so I enlisted for the City tour on Tuesday and the Sacred Valley tour on Wednesday.
Cusco has a really amazing cathedral, built after the Spanish invasion, and therefore built and decorated in an interesting mix of European and Inca styles. For instance, the horses in the paintings (all of biblical scenes, obviously) look very llama-like, and I found the very first depiction of the Last Supper I had ever seen where Jesus and the disciples are eating guinea-pig and drinking chicha (corn beer). In that particular painting, Jesus and 11 of the disciples are white, and one had dark skin. I don’t think I need to tell you which. It seemed odd to me that an Incan artist would choose to depict Judas this way, as if he was identifying with him somehow. I figure the reasons for this were economic, that the Spanish man (I bet it was a man) that commissioned the painting wanted it that way, presumably to convey to the recently vanquished Inca society what their place in the new social order was.
Next up, the Qorikancha, an old Inca temple that the Spanish, in their Catholic colonial frenzy, tore down and built a convent on top of. Anything that was deemed to be of spiritual significance to the Incas (pagans) was taken down, the walls and basic structure left and taken over by the Catholic Church for the convent, and for a palace for one of the men who had helped Pizarro conquer Peru. Years later there was an earthquake that shook all of Cusco, and the Spanish-built walls and roof came tumbling down, while the Inca walls remained intact. Since then the Qorikancha has been declared a protected site and the convent was never rebuilt, giving a “construction site” feel to the place, which is a little unfortunate.
The weather began to sour as we headed out to Saqsaywaman (or “Sexy Woman”, to all the pronunciatorally challenged English speakers), an incredible Inca structure built with enormously massive stones (excuse the tautology, the size of the stones merit the emphasis) one of which has more than 30 corners (or something like that, we didn’t spend much time there on account of the rain). Then we went to see a (fairly uninspiring, compared to the rest of the things we’d seen) water temple, before being dropped off in the main square. I had been fairly careful so far on my travels not to waste money on stupid and ridiculous souvenirs (fridge magnets, commemorative coins, woven bracelets and similar tourist trash) but was loath to leave Peru without something to remember it by. I had noticed a lot of Peruvians wearing woollen ponchos, which looked beautiful and very warm. I found a gorgeous one for USD$24, which I was quite prepared to pay if that was the going rate, but given I was shopping in a street just off the main square, I was inclined to believe they were ripping me off. As always, when in doubt about something, I went back to the hotel and asked Vicky. She advised me (wisely of course) to wait until the next day when I would be going to the market at Pisaq and would be able to haggle a better price. I had also decided to eat guinea-pig that night, but the restaurant Vicky recommended proved impossible to find, and, disinclined to wander about any more in the pouring rain, I ducked into the cleanest looking place I saw. Let it be said here that despite all the warnings I ate salads and food from stalls in Peru and didn’t get sick. I had alpaca (tough and fairly tasteless), a glass of wine and a coffee which all up cost me 30 soles, which, considering I had eaten an enormous bowl of delicious vegetable soup, lomo saltado and juice for lunch for 2 soles fifty, seemed completely outrageous. However, considering it was about seven euro I shut up and enjoyed my meal.
My second-last day in Cusco I spent doing the tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Incidentally, there’s nothing sacred about the valley itself, but rather the river that runs through it (the Urubamba) was sacred and the reputation rubbed off on the valley. Although the hotel had booked me on the English tour, there was some confusion at the tour company with regards to which bus I should be on, and by virtue of the fact I was talking to them in Spanish I managed to worm my way onto the Spanish tour. Thank God, because another day of pre-recorded, broken English would have done my head in.
The first thing we went to see had nothing to do with Inca culture or Peruvian history, and everything to do with capitalism and fleecing tourists. The Pisaq market. Trying continuously to keep my father’s advice in mind (“Lucia, don’t buy stupid shit.”) I ignored the vast array of cheap but poorly made and incredibly useless souvenirs and embarked on my poncho-finding mission. I eventually found one very similar to the one from the previous day (though admittedly not quite as good quality) for 35 soles, less than half the price of the other one. I also finally bought some corn from a stand, although I wasn’t hungry, it was something I wanted to try before I left Peru. There are a few different types of corn available in Peru, and this kind is white rather than yellow, with enormous, mutant-size kernels. It was sweet and juicy, served in its original leaves, eaten without condiments. Yummy. I was soon to regret this purchase however, as I didn’t realise that our next stop would be an early lunch. The lunch was buffet style, and Christina (a girl I met) and I decided we would have a bit of everything. Everything meant starters, sushi (which I hadn’t eaten since I left Australia) main course and dessert. For all this we only had an hour. We stuffed our faces like mad, the food was delicious, but by the end of it I really needed a good lie down. A good lie down didn’t really factor into my near future however, and we were off to see Ollantaytambo.
“Tambo” in the Inca language means “rest stop” and that’s basically what it had been, a sort of Inca hostel on the way to Machupicchu. Again we learnt lots about Inca engineering, agriculture and logistics, and it turns out they were actually quite clever little ducks. They had grain silos up in the mountains where two or three air currents happen to meet, making that space a few degrees colder than the ambient temperature. The guide told us how they diverted the course of the nearby river to get the boulders from the mountains “over” the river to the Ollantaytambo site.
From Ollantaytambo to a smaller site with an adjoining church. The church was unremarkable save for the quite gory and depressing representations of Jesus dripping with blood. I guess they were trying to make an impactful statement about the nature of Jesus’s sacrifice, but maybe they let their imaginations run away with them? By this stage we were all getting a little sick and tired of the locals waiting to pounce at every tourist trap, thrusting ponchos, little carved animals, jewellery and coca leaves in your face. It was especially heartbreaking to see young children out there in the rain, hawking souvenirs, when they should, by rights, have been in school. Such is the extent of poverty in Peru.
That marked the end of the tour and to be honest, I was pretty wiped at that point. I slept in the bus all the way back to Cusco, and that night met up with Christina and we wandered the streets together, checking out the nightlife (which was pretty dead considering it was a Wednesday). Cusco is even prettier by night, the square is all lit up and if you look past the city into the mountains all the lights from the houses twinkle at you like stars. I only stayed out for a couple of hours before heading back to the hostel and crashing into bed.
Thursday was my last day in Cusco, and I had planned on going out to see a bit more of the city in the morning, but I ended up packing, eating breakfast, and generally doing housekeeping stuff and wasting time. I still hadn’t eaten guinea-pig, or gotten my jeans back from the laundry the hotel had sent them to two days before (my only pair of jeans!). I also hadn’t been able to confirm my flight with the “travel agent” I had booked it through, who wouldn’t answer my (numerous) emails. Finally in desperation I called Lan to discover that although she had booked me on a flight, it was four hours earlier than the one she told me she was going to book, and I had to be at the airport in less than an hour. I took a taxi to the restaurant Vicki had recommended where they served guinea-pig, and I was right to follow her recommendation, since it was almost half the price there as everywhere else in Cusco. I was surprised when it came out of the kitchen, I guess I was expecting some sort of “fillet of guinea-pig”, but what I got was a spread-eagled, fried-up, whole animal sitting on the plate. The waiter told me not to bother with cutlery, that it was traditional to eat it with your hands. It occurred to me that he may have been taking the piss, but I took my chances and went in fingers first. Guinea pigs have a high bone to meat ratio, so really hands is the only sensible way to eat them. The skin was crispy and the meat tender. It was delicious but I would have liked to have more time to really taste and enjoy the meal, and not have to wolf it down in order to get to the airport in time to catch my flight. I caught a taxi back to the hostel, got my bags together and was just about to catch a taxi to the airport when my jeans finally turned up from the laundry! Rejoicing at the fortunate timing, I jumped in the taxi and said my final goodbye to Cusco as I was riding along in the brilliant sunshine. Cusco is such a pretty and friendly city, and, although being there feels like stepping into a bygone era, it has a lot of charm and uniqueness to recommend it as a city, not just as a place to sleep in order to see lots of Inca ruins.
Of course, once I got to the airport I was playing the waiting game. I had plenty of books to read but insufficient energy to concentrate enough to read them. What I really needed was a trashy magazine, “Cosmopolitan” or similar, but I only had a couple of soles left and I wanted to keep those for dinner. Besides, a trashy mag would keep me occupied for a maximum of about two hours, and I had a marathon 27 hours of flying ahead of me. I wasn’t even going that far (to Denver in Colorado) but to get there I was flying Cusco – Arequipa – Lima – LA – Phoenix – Denver. I amused myself as best I could, particularly during the eight hour layover in Lima, and was finally on my way to the next continent – North America.
Cusco has a really amazing cathedral, built after the Spanish invasion, and therefore built and decorated in an interesting mix of European and Inca styles. For instance, the horses in the paintings (all of biblical scenes, obviously) look very llama-like, and I found the very first depiction of the Last Supper I had ever seen where Jesus and the disciples are eating guinea-pig and drinking chicha (corn beer). In that particular painting, Jesus and 11 of the disciples are white, and one had dark skin. I don’t think I need to tell you which. It seemed odd to me that an Incan artist would choose to depict Judas this way, as if he was identifying with him somehow. I figure the reasons for this were economic, that the Spanish man (I bet it was a man) that commissioned the painting wanted it that way, presumably to convey to the recently vanquished Inca society what their place in the new social order was.
Next up, the Qorikancha, an old Inca temple that the Spanish, in their Catholic colonial frenzy, tore down and built a convent on top of. Anything that was deemed to be of spiritual significance to the Incas (pagans) was taken down, the walls and basic structure left and taken over by the Catholic Church for the convent, and for a palace for one of the men who had helped Pizarro conquer Peru. Years later there was an earthquake that shook all of Cusco, and the Spanish-built walls and roof came tumbling down, while the Inca walls remained intact. Since then the Qorikancha has been declared a protected site and the convent was never rebuilt, giving a “construction site” feel to the place, which is a little unfortunate.
The weather began to sour as we headed out to Saqsaywaman (or “Sexy Woman”, to all the pronunciatorally challenged English speakers), an incredible Inca structure built with enormously massive stones (excuse the tautology, the size of the stones merit the emphasis) one of which has more than 30 corners (or something like that, we didn’t spend much time there on account of the rain). Then we went to see a (fairly uninspiring, compared to the rest of the things we’d seen) water temple, before being dropped off in the main square. I had been fairly careful so far on my travels not to waste money on stupid and ridiculous souvenirs (fridge magnets, commemorative coins, woven bracelets and similar tourist trash) but was loath to leave Peru without something to remember it by. I had noticed a lot of Peruvians wearing woollen ponchos, which looked beautiful and very warm. I found a gorgeous one for USD$24, which I was quite prepared to pay if that was the going rate, but given I was shopping in a street just off the main square, I was inclined to believe they were ripping me off. As always, when in doubt about something, I went back to the hotel and asked Vicky. She advised me (wisely of course) to wait until the next day when I would be going to the market at Pisaq and would be able to haggle a better price. I had also decided to eat guinea-pig that night, but the restaurant Vicky recommended proved impossible to find, and, disinclined to wander about any more in the pouring rain, I ducked into the cleanest looking place I saw. Let it be said here that despite all the warnings I ate salads and food from stalls in Peru and didn’t get sick. I had alpaca (tough and fairly tasteless), a glass of wine and a coffee which all up cost me 30 soles, which, considering I had eaten an enormous bowl of delicious vegetable soup, lomo saltado and juice for lunch for 2 soles fifty, seemed completely outrageous. However, considering it was about seven euro I shut up and enjoyed my meal.
My second-last day in Cusco I spent doing the tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Incidentally, there’s nothing sacred about the valley itself, but rather the river that runs through it (the Urubamba) was sacred and the reputation rubbed off on the valley. Although the hotel had booked me on the English tour, there was some confusion at the tour company with regards to which bus I should be on, and by virtue of the fact I was talking to them in Spanish I managed to worm my way onto the Spanish tour. Thank God, because another day of pre-recorded, broken English would have done my head in.
The first thing we went to see had nothing to do with Inca culture or Peruvian history, and everything to do with capitalism and fleecing tourists. The Pisaq market. Trying continuously to keep my father’s advice in mind (“Lucia, don’t buy stupid shit.”) I ignored the vast array of cheap but poorly made and incredibly useless souvenirs and embarked on my poncho-finding mission. I eventually found one very similar to the one from the previous day (though admittedly not quite as good quality) for 35 soles, less than half the price of the other one. I also finally bought some corn from a stand, although I wasn’t hungry, it was something I wanted to try before I left Peru. There are a few different types of corn available in Peru, and this kind is white rather than yellow, with enormous, mutant-size kernels. It was sweet and juicy, served in its original leaves, eaten without condiments. Yummy. I was soon to regret this purchase however, as I didn’t realise that our next stop would be an early lunch. The lunch was buffet style, and Christina (a girl I met) and I decided we would have a bit of everything. Everything meant starters, sushi (which I hadn’t eaten since I left Australia) main course and dessert. For all this we only had an hour. We stuffed our faces like mad, the food was delicious, but by the end of it I really needed a good lie down. A good lie down didn’t really factor into my near future however, and we were off to see Ollantaytambo.
“Tambo” in the Inca language means “rest stop” and that’s basically what it had been, a sort of Inca hostel on the way to Machupicchu. Again we learnt lots about Inca engineering, agriculture and logistics, and it turns out they were actually quite clever little ducks. They had grain silos up in the mountains where two or three air currents happen to meet, making that space a few degrees colder than the ambient temperature. The guide told us how they diverted the course of the nearby river to get the boulders from the mountains “over” the river to the Ollantaytambo site.
From Ollantaytambo to a smaller site with an adjoining church. The church was unremarkable save for the quite gory and depressing representations of Jesus dripping with blood. I guess they were trying to make an impactful statement about the nature of Jesus’s sacrifice, but maybe they let their imaginations run away with them? By this stage we were all getting a little sick and tired of the locals waiting to pounce at every tourist trap, thrusting ponchos, little carved animals, jewellery and coca leaves in your face. It was especially heartbreaking to see young children out there in the rain, hawking souvenirs, when they should, by rights, have been in school. Such is the extent of poverty in Peru.
That marked the end of the tour and to be honest, I was pretty wiped at that point. I slept in the bus all the way back to Cusco, and that night met up with Christina and we wandered the streets together, checking out the nightlife (which was pretty dead considering it was a Wednesday). Cusco is even prettier by night, the square is all lit up and if you look past the city into the mountains all the lights from the houses twinkle at you like stars. I only stayed out for a couple of hours before heading back to the hostel and crashing into bed.
Thursday was my last day in Cusco, and I had planned on going out to see a bit more of the city in the morning, but I ended up packing, eating breakfast, and generally doing housekeeping stuff and wasting time. I still hadn’t eaten guinea-pig, or gotten my jeans back from the laundry the hotel had sent them to two days before (my only pair of jeans!). I also hadn’t been able to confirm my flight with the “travel agent” I had booked it through, who wouldn’t answer my (numerous) emails. Finally in desperation I called Lan to discover that although she had booked me on a flight, it was four hours earlier than the one she told me she was going to book, and I had to be at the airport in less than an hour. I took a taxi to the restaurant Vicki had recommended where they served guinea-pig, and I was right to follow her recommendation, since it was almost half the price there as everywhere else in Cusco. I was surprised when it came out of the kitchen, I guess I was expecting some sort of “fillet of guinea-pig”, but what I got was a spread-eagled, fried-up, whole animal sitting on the plate. The waiter told me not to bother with cutlery, that it was traditional to eat it with your hands. It occurred to me that he may have been taking the piss, but I took my chances and went in fingers first. Guinea pigs have a high bone to meat ratio, so really hands is the only sensible way to eat them. The skin was crispy and the meat tender. It was delicious but I would have liked to have more time to really taste and enjoy the meal, and not have to wolf it down in order to get to the airport in time to catch my flight. I caught a taxi back to the hostel, got my bags together and was just about to catch a taxi to the airport when my jeans finally turned up from the laundry! Rejoicing at the fortunate timing, I jumped in the taxi and said my final goodbye to Cusco as I was riding along in the brilliant sunshine. Cusco is such a pretty and friendly city, and, although being there feels like stepping into a bygone era, it has a lot of charm and uniqueness to recommend it as a city, not just as a place to sleep in order to see lots of Inca ruins.
Of course, once I got to the airport I was playing the waiting game. I had plenty of books to read but insufficient energy to concentrate enough to read them. What I really needed was a trashy magazine, “Cosmopolitan” or similar, but I only had a couple of soles left and I wanted to keep those for dinner. Besides, a trashy mag would keep me occupied for a maximum of about two hours, and I had a marathon 27 hours of flying ahead of me. I wasn’t even going that far (to Denver in Colorado) but to get there I was flying Cusco – Arequipa – Lima – LA – Phoenix – Denver. I amused myself as best I could, particularly during the eight hour layover in Lima, and was finally on my way to the next continent – North America.
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