Ireland and other bits

Here’s the thing about traveling by train. To Americans it seems exotic and romantic. A lazy anachronism free of stress and filled with rolling vistas. Get on when you want, get off when you want. If you miss one train there will be another along shortly: no fuss, no haggling with surly, dismissive ticket agents. You are the master of your own destiny on a train. You can breath more deeply. Your life’s path’s seems clearer. Surely, the US lost some bit of gentility and culture when it turned away from the rail systems to the impersonal bustle of the interstate highway system.

Bollocks, as the English say.

Like anything that involves the teeming masses of humanity, train travel sucks. And to the uninitiated, it is an incomprehensible babble of signs and signifiers requiring a lifetime to master. What platform is your train leaving from? Who knows? Depends on what platform it arrives on? It will appear on the destination board 2 or 3 minutes before the train is ready to depart. Sit anywhere you like? Sure, as long as its not reserved. How do you know its not reserved? The digital readout will indicate. But don’t get comfortable because the readout is updated at every stop. Well, at least I’ll have a seat. Well, not necessarily. If you can fit in the aisle or toilet or sit on the stored luggage, then welcome abroad. Or maybe you can just sit on your lovers lap the whole way and provide the entire car with a little soft-core entertainment for a couple of hours. It seems likely that the English’s first exposure to sex as a child isn’t on cable like in the states, but on the train.

But the vistas! Oh, the vistas! Building, building, church, field, sheep, sheep, sheep, church, camper, camper, building, building, sheep, sheep, hill, ruin, building, church, sheep. Oh, the vistas.

Then there is the ferry. The ferry is the train without vistas.

And just so you know, I’m being balanced and am willing to reveal flaws as well as sing praises, the English, a long with the rest of the world, have yet to figure out a solution to one of the oldest and most harrowing problems of travel.

Children.

On the ferry, the swift ferry, the swift ferry named Jonathon Swift (wow, huh?), Kelley and I sat next to a family dedicated to fighting tooth and sperm against the leveling off of world population. But apparently their commitment extends only to birth. After that, the kids seem to be on their own. They travel as a group, much like a school of piranha, leaderless and hungry.

Thus Dublin. The first thing you need to know about Dublin if you are committed to traveling there is; don’t reveal your destination to strangers. Upon discovering your intention, strangers feel compelled to warn you off. “Dublin, you say,” as incredulity and, yes, fear begins to fill their eyes. “Why would you be going to Dublin?” Or just “God, Why?” Or “Get out as soon as you can. The countryside is lovely, but Dublin ……” The consensus of opinion seems to be uniform. Unless you are a Joyce-fetishist, there is one reason and one reason only to travel to Dublin: a U2 concert.

It’s a low city, Dublin. No skyscrapers. And brown, faded almost. And dirty. There is trash everywhere: in the street, in the gutter, in the canal, tangled in the masses of seaweed and algae hanging from the canal banks. It should be no surprise Bram Stroker grew up here.

But beyond that it took a day or two to discover the real danger of Dublin. The first night Liz and Cap and Kelley and I went to eat and then had a beer. Liz and I still shaky from our travel decided to call it a night. We told Cap and Kelley to have a good time and headed in.

The next morning Liz and I were kicking ourselves. The night Cap and Kelley had. Well, wow. Barhopping. Meeting friendly, colorful Irishmen completely infatuated with Americans. Singing, dancing, drinking. I could only hang my head in regret and hug Liz in solidarity. But tomorrow night, I silently vowed, tomorrow night, I would embrace Dublin wholeheartedly and drink from the cup of its debauchery.

As you can imagine the day passed slowly. We went looking for Temple Bar. Learn from our mistake. Temple Bar is a street not a bar. Wandering up and down Temple Bar asking where Temple Bar is does nothing to advance the reputation of American abroad. We visited Trinity College. We took the bus tour of the city. We visited the Mecca of Dublin: the Guinness Factory. But in my mind all of it prelude to the night. I could hardly suppress a smile as twilight began to approach. Tonight, I too would know the joy that Kelley and Cap had experienced the night before. I could hear the Bacchanalia calling to me.

One aside. One fact that increased my expectations and apprehension in equal measure; Dublin is city full of people lying in gutters. Not bums either. More than once, in the middle of the day, we passed a man dressed in a suit, lying in a gutter. Well, on a city where that was a common sight I would have been a fool not to be a tad nervous. Ah, Saturday night in Dublin.

Now I understand that an excessive buildup often undermines the actual experience. That anticipation often blunts actual experience. But, well…come on.

It was like being invited to an orgy, only to arrive to discover you’d only be watching Cinemax. Before 9:00pm. On a Tuesday.

Which brings me to the apparent real danger of Dublin: confabulation. I’ve known Kelley for a lifetime now and Cap seems completely trustworthy. We went to the same bars. But instead of the intoxicating beat of the a DJ, we listened to a remix of “My name is Luka.” Instead of exuberant Irishmen, there was a Bailey’s salesman dressed as a ringmaster and giving away free shots with no takers. Plenty of “hen parties” of middle-aged women in costume sipping drinks demurely through penis-shaped straws.

To be frank, I was worried. Because not only had Kelly and Cap told us of there adventures but there had been pictures. My best guess is they paid desperate locals to pose with them. Maybe pulled one or two directly from the gutter.

My commitment to my friend is absolute. The next morning I bundled Kelley on the first Ferry leaving for England hoping against hope no permanent damage had been done. Cap and Liz fled to the countryside. Only time will tell if I acted quickly enough.