and now for something completely different: marathon training

I'm feeling so not enthused on this subject, but the marathon is in 9.5 weeks so I'd better act enthused.  Tomorrow will be my first run in over two weeks.  It's not going to be a big one - just 3-5 miles (depending on how I feel) at a gentle pace, on the treadmill, followed by plenty of stretching and some toning.  Hopefully I'll be blogging again tomorrow morning to say how great it went.

final bus post

This particular bus post may actually be posted from the bus, rather than just written on the bus and saved in a word file for posting at the hostel.  I say "may" because the connection is more than a little wonky, which of course is typical, and since it's a free connection on a cheap (10 euro) bus, I'm not going to complain.

Today is my last day of vacation.  Or my second-to-last day, if you count tomorrow, when I'll get getting up early, flying for several hours (it looks like today's flight arrived more or less on time, so I assume flights will be getting through to JFK just fine tomorrow), getting home (assuming there's some sort of transportation available), and dealing with the mess I must surely have left my apartment in, as well as the contents of my suitcase, which at this point weighs around one hundred fifty pound and contains mostly dirty laundry.  Or my third-to-last day, if you count Wednesday, which I will be getting my life in order and seeing the dentist about possibly acquiring some teeth.  I'm rather pleased about having this extra day off to reduce the post-vacation stressiness.

I had originally intended to go back to Dublin this morning, but there was nothing I was particularly wanting to do there, and I did want to do a Galway walking tour.  So I left my bag in the hostel and, after a scone (last scone of the trip, I guess), went to the tour office.  I ended up being the only person to show up, which made for quite a nice tour.  The guide was very knowledgeable (has degrees in political history and architecture, and is now working on his PhD in archeoastronomy... a nice change from the drunken idiots who had seemed to constitute the entire male population of the country) and it was an interesting tour; I'd seen all the landmarks already but of course hadn't known as much about them.

After the tour, I spend about an hour and a half in a very good bookstore, and walked out with four books for ten euros (at least one of these was a necessity, as I was about to finish my current novel had only one book left and didn't know if I'd like it, and the bus ride today and flight tomorrow to get through), which was only due to a major exercise of willpower and the finite amount of space in my backpack.  Then I had a bowl of soup and a cappuccino (I am becoming very European, although not to the pint of being able to spell that word without help) and finished my book (Scarlet Feather, by Maeve Binchy, quietly excellent like all her books are), and then I walked around and thought about buying a wool scarf, but all the ones that were authentic I just didn't like, plus they're not cheap (20 euros for the really awful ones, 30 for the decent ones). I don't need a $45 scarf that I'm not enthusiastic about, although perhaps I'll still see something.  Then I had a headache coming on and the streets were getting crowded, so I went into a shop with a line coming out the door and had a coffee and brownie, but the brownie wasn't terribly good and the headache came on anyway.  Possibly I'm dehydrated from days of limited water, or else my body would like something to eat that is not soup or dessert... I'll try to rectify both of those tonight.  I was fortunate enough to get on a cheap bus to Dublin that's supposed to arrive at 7:30 (although that might be the airport arrival and the city stop is first... if I'd known about this service I'd have spent the night here and gotten up at the crack of dawn to get the 5 a.m. bus, since I'll still have to deal with annoying transit to the airport tomorrow fairly early) and then by the time I get cash (I'm all out since the bus was cash but will probably need a key deposit, and you can't use cash for small purchases here anyway... if I get 20 euros and buy dinner and breakfast I can spend the rest on junk at the airport, which is always fun) and get to the hostel it will be eight, but hopefully I can stop somewhere on the way for a sandwich or, what I would really love, a nice warm takeout dish of pasta, although that's probably getting a bit carried away.

So... that's pretty much it, right?  Not a bad vacation, all in all.  I don't feel excited about re-transitioning to work (and marathon training) but maybe I will in a day or two.  And, I have tons of Irish books to read when I get home.

change of plans: Cliffs of Moher

Today I was going to go on a walking tour and then... I don't know what.  Shop more, walk more, try to find something open on a weekend.  It would probably have been slightly boring and slightly depressing.  Instead, I went on a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher.

First, I walked out on the hostel's breakfast.  I've been doing that a lot this trip at hostels.  I suppose when I was twenty-one and well beyond broke, I was willing to eat the European version of Wonder Bread, with off-brand jelly and instant coffee (actually, I didn't drink coffee back then).  Now, I don't care that it's free, I'm not eating it.  I'd rather spend money for decent food.  So I went out at around eight-thirty this morning, found out where and how to catch the tour bus, and then spent some time waiting for things to open so I could get coffee and food.

On boarding the bus, I found myself seated next to a college student from Switzerland, who was reasonably quiet and pleasant and a good seat partner - plus, I got the window seat.  The day was a lot of driving, but we also saw a lot of different things.  In addition to the Cliffs of Moher themselves (which are best described by the pictures) we drove through the Burren and saw a number of castles and ruins.  The day dragged a bit at the beginning and the end, but I'm definitely glad I went, since this was exactly the sort of stuff one comes to Ireland to see.  (Although it seems like a lot of my trips are starting to blend together at this point... Ireland and Iceland look a tiny bit alike)

Now my trip is mostly over.  Tomorrow I'll spend a bit more time here in Galway, if I can, before returning to Dublin, and Tuesday morning I go home.  It's been a good trip, especially the cycling part.  I'd forgotten how isolating and dislocating solo travel can be - something I forget every time I'm planning a trip, and remember as soon as I am on it.  But I suppose all travel has its difficulties; family vacations seem to be not really fun for anyone, and couples trips can entail a lot of fighting.  One should probably try not to quote cancelled television shows, but I'm reminded of a line in Joan of Arcadia in which God tells Joan that she needs recreation, but that the word should be taken literally, as a re-making of herself, and not to mean necessarily fun.

complaints

Judging from the volume of the guests at this hostel, Galway must have the best - by which I mean most awful - bars in Europe.  I'm going to need another two weeks off to catch up on sleep after this trip because I haven't gotten more than five or six hours most nights.

Travel, particularly, solo travel, is so high-variance.  One minute you can be thrilled to be wherever you are and not wanting to go home ever, and just a few hours later - without anything in particular happening - you can be wondering why you decided to make the trip so damn long.

Weekends are particularly difficult times for travel.  It seems like the usual hostelling population - lone travelers and pairs who keep to themselves and have a tendency toward early hours - is eclipsed on weekends by a population I can only refer to as Drunken Idiots.  They arrive in the city for one night, primarily to drink, and they travel in huge packs, and they are loud.  Also, they tend to be already drunk when they arrive, and the men among them leer at any women they can lay their eyes on - even women as bedraggled as I am at the moment (aside from the missing half of my front tooth, my lip is still obviously beaten up, and I have several scratches still on my face, and of course every garment I own is dirty or damp or both, and I've spent the past ten days in a country without proper hot water).  I can't determine any reason for their existence except that possibly they have already been banned from every bar in their own city.

There's nothing wrong with Galway, really.  It's a small city with some medieval remains.  I'm going to try to take a walking tour tomorrow to learn more about them.  I had a pretty good afternoon today - after waiting for several dozen DIs (probably I'll have to talk about these Drunken Idiots again, so I might as well have a handy abbreviation) to vacate the lobby, which is located on what in the US would be called the fourth floor, I left my bag and took a walk around.  Most of what there is to do here (before 6 p.m. on non-Sundays, at least) is shop - there's one museum, but it's open about two days a week, and every other historical site is by appointment only, which is very popular here.  I went into a few places but was not feeling too excited about the same sweaters and jewelry as everywhere else; however, they do have some nice bookstores, and a nice river, and it seems like there are some recommended "long walks" if the weather is nice tomorrow.  I went into a coffee shop and had a nice "salad" (salads here consist mostly of cheese and bacon, which is not really the American definition of the term) and "cake" (British for dessert) and sat for a while, and then I walked around some more.  By seven, everything had been closed for ages and it was too cold outside to sit, so I came back to the hostel.

The hostel makes me homesick.  I think I'm much too old and antisocial for these places, although European hotels are really no better - more privacy, but fewer amenities and even more barren; often just as much noise.  I miss the cycling group and I miss home; I might wish I'd decided to go home earlier, but of course I probably wouldn't be able to get back because of the impending hurricane.

Another bus post

I have been, of course, exceptionally remiss.  I always am, around the middle of the trip.  But to a great extent, on this trip, the photos speak for themselves.  The second half of the bike trip was a lot of biking, rather a lot of rain, and small towns with one commercial street.  It was beautiful, of course, and I was with good company, but it was also a lot of riding and a lot of hills.

Tuesday – I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve blogged – was a day of riding around the Dingle peninsula.  I think I must have written about this.  There are some ruins on the peninsula, and some smaller towns than Dingle, and many shops and B&B’s and small restaurants or tearooms catering to tourists.  Wednesday was a rest day in Dingle, which I actually did spend resting – I think I must have blogged about this as well.

Thursday was a very long bike ride.  The first half was quite tough but also went quite well.  The lunch stop was not very nice – just a little store in a gas station with tables in it.  There was a tea stop in the afternoon and that was very nice – it was this small, local establishment that you might have seen in Western Massachusetts, organic and sort of hippy-ish.  But the ride still went on and on, and I was very tired, and there were still twelve miles to go.  There was traffic – by this time it was rush hour, and while drivers are quite polite on the back roads, in towns they are less forgiving of bicyclists – and the roads are narrow.  At some point the people I was biking with went up on the curb, to get out of the traffic, and I tried to go up on the curb as well, but I was tired and not thinking clearly and went at it from the wrong angle, and I wasn’t ready for the impact and the bike skittered out to the side.  It all happened very fast, too fast for me to react.  I got one hand down, sort of, but mostly I landed flat on my face on the sidewalk, which hurt so much it almost didn’t hurt at all.  There was blood all over the sidewalk and I couldn’t think for a few minutes and I was very scared.  But I came away lucky – a cut lip and a cut hand and some scratches on my nose, a few bruises and scrapes to add to the collection on my legs, but the only permanent damage I sustained was a badly-chipped tooth, which I’m told the dentist can patch up entirely.  With the chipped tooth and the still-swollen lip it doesn’t *look* all that minor, but it could have been a lot worse – I didn’t break my nose or even my glasses, my eyes are fine, I didn’t hit my head, and while I’ve lost rather a lot of tooth, the root is still intact and as long as I don’t try to bite directly into anything I’m not in any pain.  The others in the cycling trip have been very nice about it, and when I came back to the hotel all battered up they did everything they could to make me comfortable, making me tea and bringing me band-aids and assuring me that I don’t look completely ridiculous and that my teeth can be fixed and someday not too long I’ll laugh about my war wounds from the trip.

So, surprisingly, losing half a tooth didn’t ruin my vacation, or even my day.  That night I went to dinner with everyone else, and had some pasta and an Irish coffee and was perfectly cheerful even though my lip was still quite swollen and periodically would start bleeding.  Yesterday was another long bike, and I wanted to do some of it – there was supposed to be a great view at the beginning, and I also didn’t want to let the injury be the last thing that happened on the cycling trip (which yesterday was the last day of).  So I decided to go slowly – by that point I didn’t have much choice, as my muscles were quite fatigued.  I went with two others who I’d spent a lot of time with on the trip, and we took it very easy.  Before we even started up the big hill, we stopped for shopping and a cup o tea, which was lucky since it rained for quite a while, and instead of biking up a mountain in the rain, we were in the cottage, drinking coffee and Guinness and eating chocolates and warming our hands by the fire (yes, they have fires in Ireland in August, for very good reason – it’s chilly here, and nothing is heated adequately).  Then we set off up the hill, and to be honest we walked a good bit of it.  None of us had a lot of strength left, and I wasn’t using my clips anymore (which was a good thing, since it was so wet and of course I was leery of falling, but which did reduce my ability to power up hills) and I was less willing to push myself than previously.  But the whole area was gorgeous and we saw some spectacular views, both on the way up and on the way down.  However, by the time we got to the bottom it was getting onto the middle of the afternoon and we still had about ten miles to go before the lunch stop and then, in theory, another twenty after (I had not planned to do this last part).  I was hungry, especially since I hadn’t felt wonderfully that morning and had hardly eating anything at breakfast, and getting very tired, as was one of the people I was biking with, but the other was quite – almost annoyingly – chipper and getting impatient with us.  I’m not usually the person with less energy in a group, which made me feel even worse, but I told myself that she was probably tired as well and just trying to keep the group’s spirits up and make her last day as good as it could be.

The way it ended was that we got lost, and spent about an hour going the wrong way, figuring out that we’d gone the wrong way, and trying to figure out what the right way would be.  We saw some interesting country and a herd of sheep being herded, which I’d only ever seen in movies, and then we found the right way and continued on.  At that point our guide, who’d been looking for us because it was nearly four and we weren’t at the lunch stop, found us, and we all ended up deciding to end our ride there.  I was very happy to climb in the bus, be driven through thirty miles of scenic country, and then go to my hotel, have a long, hot shower, and lie on my bed reading before dinner.

For dinner I had bangers (sausage) and mash (ed potatoes), a nice change from the chowders and soups I’ve been eating.  It was quite good, actually (and, in keeping with all Irish food, quite substantial) and the dinner itself was a lot of fun, with everyone in good spirits and getting a bit nostalgic about the trip, talking about what their next cycling trip might be and insisting that we all keep in touch and call if we’re ever in each other’s cities.

This morning I awoke early, repacked my bag in an increasingly doomed effort to make everything fit, had a hearty breakfast in the B&B, and caught the 9:00 bus to Limerick.  We’re just about to arrive, and I’ll switch to the bus for Galway, which is where I’ll spend the next two days before returning to Dublin to head, a bit sadly, home.

rest day

Today was our rest day in Dingle.  We had lots of options for things to do - small bike trips or taxi trips to museums, and there was certainly plenty on the island that I would have liked to see if it hadn't been fifteen miles away or if it wasn't my rest day in the middle of a fairly demanding cycling trip - but I decided to take it very, very easy.  After a leisurely breakfast, I set out with another of the members of the tour group to visit a church and a convent we'd read about in one of the guidebooks in the B&B lobby.  These turned out to be actually quite interesting, and we also saw an art gallery that we both really liked.  Then we met up with another member of the trip and shopped for a bit, and then had lunch at a very nice seafood house - I had chowder that had at least an entire fish, and several mussels, in it, and then another appetizer called Crab Gratin which I could only eat about half of - and then continued shopping, and then had ice cream, and then continued shopping some more.  It was a lot of fun, and I got some good things - a travel wallet, which I needed since my existing one broke several days ago, and two pairs of running socks for much less than they would have cost at home (and they're not wool; wool is a big fad in running socks right now and I hate it), and a very nice green poncho sweater which was extremely expensive (at least, for a souvenir) but I really liked it.  All in all, a pleasant, companionable, unproductive, restful day.  My only concern is how I'm possibly going to bike forty-three miles tomorrow.

quick post after breakfast

A great deal of time has passed (okay, two days) without blogging, and as so often happens, things have begun to recede into the mists.  I have, probably, only a few minutes, but I want to record as much as I can in that time before it all drifts away.

Monday:

• A rather hilly day of cycling.  I started out fairly fast, and alone; there were a lot of uphills and a long flat cycle through a valley and then an ascent to a gap.  I felt like a character in The Lord of the Rings, with the sun beating down on me in the broad green valley and cows and goats and sheep making noises at my bike. 
• At the top of the gap, I gathered with the other bikers in my group - it seems like we all tend to congregate at these sorts of locations, and like the biggest climb ends about a third of the way into the trip but takes the first half of the day.  There was then a descent, and then another long climb, and then the lunch location.  Everyone was feeling pretty draggy and defeated at that point, I think, and nobody stopped for lunch.
• The afternoon was a bit of a blur - I remember I spent most of the time biking with a couple who goes slower than I normally would, which encourages me to slow down and check out the scenery.  
• At the very end of the bike ride, there's the option to go past the town a couple miles and go to a beach.  That was really amazing - I have pictures of it but, as with all of my pictures, they totally fail to capture the awesomeness.  The beach was wide and cold, and people were walking along it in parkas.

Tuesday:

• A fairly flat cycle.  The views were amazing.  We kept stopping to look a the water, at ruins, at rocks, and to climb up things.  Unfortunately, between getting a fairly late start - we had to ride to Dingle first - and all this stopping, we didn't have time to do everything there was to do on the ride.  We saw views of the Blasket Islands, but didn't go to the Blasket Islands visitors center, which apparently has some very interesting exhibits.  There were also other museums and monuments and ruins that I would like to visit but that there just wasn't time for.  
• I've noticed that - for everyone, not just me - the primary impediment to enjoyment is an anxiety that sets in late in the afternoon, that there won't be time to get there, and that makes us hurry along, often needlessly, to get there.
• The day ended at a pub called Dingle Pub, with chowder and a sandwich and "Irish Country Western" music, which is a bit like Irish music and a bit like American country music.  They are big on the song Country Roads here, and when the musician played it, I had that feeling you can only have when you're very far from home, of being totally displaced from your own home, and totally at home in the broader world. 

Today is a rest day... I think I'm just going to take it easy and shop.

Cycling, Day One

               Today was the first day of my cycling tour.  It began with breakfast in the B&B, which began with the landlady saying “the buffet [of toast, cereal, yogurt, granola, fruit, etc.] is over there, and what would you like to eat?”  After breakfast (eggs, very good bacon, toast, and coffee) we got situated on our bikes, and then set out.  Much of the morning was spent near Killarney, seeing attractions in the Killarney National Park – Muckross Abbey (a ruin) and Muckross House (a Victorian house with a tour, complete with reenactments).  The group started out together but I ended up spending a lot of my time with two women on the trip, which was nice because it gave me some company (and gave one of the other girls some company later in the day, when her friend elected to ride in the van) and encouraged me to move at their pace, which was more laid-back and fun than mine might have been. The first half of the cycling today was actually fairly tough – there were some steep hills, and I fell over once when I was going slowly up a hill and being passed by a car and moved too far to the left and ended up in the ditch, with my bike on top of me, because I couldn’t get out of the clips fast enough.  After that I felt pretty shakey, and it rained for a while, and there were still some steep hills before the lunch break.  Fortunately, the girls I’d been with earlier had caught up to me, so I rode with them all the way to lunch.

               Lunch was at a café at Molls Gap.  The view was lovely, the soup was warm and filling, and the chocolate cake was excellent.  Afterwards, we had another fifteen miles to cycle, and I was a bit worried because the last twelve or so miles had taken us two hours (we hadn’t left the park until 1) and it was already 4:30.  But the long lunch break had been very refreshing, the weather had perked up, and the ride was easier, and we made it to our destination around six.  This left time for a short bath, a quick shower, and a walk around town before dinner; somehow through the excitement of travel I’ve bonded with one of my bikemates to the point of sharing entrees (neither of us could choose between the cod and the lamb; I’m very glad I got to try both).  Also, there was more chocolate for dessert. 

               What else to say about the bike ride?  I saw beautiful scenery, to which I cannot do justice with either words or photographs, and adorable towns and houses, and sheep.  I got sweaty and dirty, and at some point I cut my thumb.  I felt exhausted at the end, and it was awesome.  I am a very simple person, I suppose; give me pretty scenery and an opportunity to sweat in it, and something good to eat afterwards, and I consider it an excellent vacation.

               

Saturday's Post

I’m writing this Saturday evening at the B&B in Killarney, although I won’t be able to post it until… Wednesday?  Next Saturday?  Internet does not seem to be, you know, a thing in Ireland.

This morning I slept surprisingly late – at least, *I* was surprised when I checked my watch upon waking and found it was 8:49 a.m.  But I guess I shouldn’t been; I haven’t been sleeping all that much or all that well, so I was due for it.  I made tracks out of the hostel and caught the 9:30 bus to Killarney; after about 90 minutes of scenic riding I arrived.  It was a bit disorienting because my guidebook doesn’t have much in the way of coverage here and the bus station is not in an obviously central location, but I found the center of town quickly enough.  After dropping off my bag at the bike tour’s meeting point, I ducked into the coffee shop around the corner.  I briefly considered not doing so, since it didn’t seem like the most super-optimal coffee shop, but decided that, since I hadn’t eaten or had any coffee yet, I should go for the easy option over the perfect one.  This turned out to be a very good idea.

After having a scone (good, but not as transcendent as yesterday’s) and a cup of coffee, I set off to explore the town.  The first thing I saw was a bookstore, and – convinced that possibly Southwestern Ireland might be the Land of No Books, I went inside and bought a book.  (I also bought a book in Cork, so I now have three books in my possession, the first of which I am halfway through, and have finished and discarded three magazines and any number of local papers).  Of course, Southwestern Ireland is actually lousy with books, and there were (at least) three other bookstores in Killarney, but this was the best one so if I was going to buy a book it was good that I bought it there.  It is, however, the Land of No Cash Machines; there were three total cash machines in town, I think, and all the tourists were being directed to the same one.

After walking the length of the town, going into a few other stores, and seeing a couple of the historic government and religious buildings, I set out for Ross Castle.  It was a nice walk through the outskirts of Killarney and a wooded area, and the castle is on a beautiful lake.  I just walked around the castle – there was a tour to go inside, but my book called it tedious (some other girls on the tour did go inside, and they said it was interesting enough).  There were also boat trips to go to an island in the middle of the river, but they seemed rather disorganized and understated, so instead I sat by the lake and read for a bit.

By the time I got back to town, I was quite hungry.  There were a lot of pubs in Killarney, and proper restaurants, but not really a lot of coffee shops or places to get a snack.  Eventually I stumbled on Murphy’s, an ice cream shop from Dingle that my guidebook mentioned.  I tried the sea salt ice cream (weird but not good) and settled on the chocolate and caramel.  It was good, inferior to most of the ice cream I had in France but still far superior to most American ice cream.  Then I walked around a bit more, shopping (not with any intent to buy) and looking for provisions to stock up on, and then sat in a courtyard by a playground and read for a while before it was time for the tour group to meet up.

The tour group met in a hotel, where we had an introduction to the trip before a somewhat fancy and not very good dinner.  (I’m terrible at ordering, of course; too often, I get what I think I should get rather than what I actually want.  This time I had what was basically a fancy version of fish and chips.  Since I’m not very fond of either fish or chips, it’s not surprising that I wasn’t thrilled with this meal.  However, it wasn’t bad, and now I can say I had it once in Ireland and I do not need to have it again.  Also, really, nothing on the menu was very interesting and much of it was a lot more expensive, so there were not really any great choices.  During the meal, I met the other people on the trip – there are twelve of us, which is a nice number, enough that you’re not forced to be with the same couple people all the time, but not an unwieldy amount – including the woman who will be my roommate for the next several nights.  Finally, we departed for our guesthouses; we’re split up, and my half the group is at a guesthouse run by an exceptionally friendly middle-aged woman.  The guesthouse does not have internet, so hopefully nobody is expecting to hear from me anytime soon.

Cork, part II

This morning I was awakened at some indeterminate hour by one of the women in my room, who had set an alarm.  Actually, I was wakened at several indeterminate hours by various of the women in my room as they snored, came in late, snored more, etc., but on this latest occasion I was unable to fall back asleep, especially because the other women also began to wake up.  Eventually I bestirred myself to dress and gather my things.  The hostel was charging three euros for breakfast, which seemed not a very good price for tea, whole milk, and dry cereal.  Instead I went to a coffee shop I sighted yesterday, which I anticipated would be worth visiting - in fact they were; they had filter coffee - a true rarity at coffee shops in Europe.  I also had a scone, in fact my first-ever British (ish) scone, with butter and jam, and it was quite excellent.

Thus fortified, I took the bus to Blarney to visit Blarney Castle.  My guidebook considers it an overrated tourist attraction, and perhaps as ancient castles go it is ordinary, but I am not a connoisseur of ancient castles so I thought it was pretty cool.  I took many, many pictures of the castle and grounds (you can see them in the album I linked to yesterday, if you are so inclined).  I also visited a few of the touristy stores in Blarney carrying wool, linen, lace, etc. while I waited for the next bus back to Cork.  Shortly before the bus came it started to rain, and the rest of the day was rainy, windy, cold, etc. - typical Irish summer weather, I'm told.

One of the first things that happened when I got back to Cork is that I stumbled upon one of the two modestly-priced restaurants recommended by my guidebook, Idaho.  There I ordered coffee (no such thing as too much coffee) and something called a "potato bake" - baked potato covered with cheese and topped with bacon.  This is exactly as rich and hearty and perfect for a cold afternoon as it sounds, and while it is not exactly a subtle dish, it was quite good.  According to my guidebook the place is "tiny" and diners are "packed in like sardines", but I found it quite cozy.  Also, my meal came with a side salad, which gave a whiff of nutrition to the comfort food.

After lunch, I walked around the downtown for a bit.  I intended to work my way westward and end up at the Cork Public Museum, but I got a bit sidetracked and ended up visiting the southern third of the city, which I hadn't been before.  I saw one of the major churches and some of the University College Cork campus (one very nice building in every single architectural style of the last three hundred years).  Then I went into the park (the museum is kept inside the park, supposedly), but apparently the wrong park, or I went the wrong way in it, because I ended up on a path by the river with a wooded area on the other side and absolutely no turnoffs, and when I came out I found myself nowhere near where the museum was meant to be, and also on an entirely different river than I  had meant to be on.  After a somewhat extended detour in search of a restroom (they do not have them in most restaurants, or pay toilets as they used to in London) I climbed the hill on the northern side of the history to visit the other major church, and discovered that the Butter Museum was nearby, so I visited that as well.  I concluded my day with a trip to Vibes and Scribes, a chain of bookstores (that are in some places combined with record stores or craft stores or some other type of stores).

It was a good day.  Turns out, lunch - both the sitting-down and the fueling-up components - is helpful for having energy in the afternoon.  Tomorrow I will spend the morning traveling to Killarney.

photos

My Ireland 2011 album ... for some reason the post-on-blogger link isn't working.  I'm going to do just one album, in order to keep it a bit more manageable than my dozen or so Parisian albums are.

Cork.

So the first half of today was occupied with getting from Dublin to Cork.  I took the bus, as I mentioned, which was pretty inefficient - the trip was nearly five hours long, as compared to less than three hours for the train trip.  But it was also very interesting.  Although we were on highways for part of the time, we drove through (and stopped in) many small towns.  Especially during the second half of the trip, I got a passing glimpse of several sights mentioned in my guidebook (castles and monasteries built on rocks and whatnot.  Ireland is lousy with castles.)  The ridership was about equal parts elderly people and young people - no families, children, or, that I saw, anyone between 40 and 60.  (Actually, I may well have been the only person over 30 and under 60; people who look the age I think I look - and, apparently, as I learned last night, even more people who look the age I actually look - tend to be in their mid-twenties.)  It was actually a fairly pleasant experience, which bus rides in the states - even with wifi - never, ever are.

When I got to Cork, I proceeded immediately to my hostel; this place is definitely friendlier than where I stayed in Dublin, and the common rooms are more spacious and the bathroom less deplorable, but it's also more crowded.  And, again, no towel for rent, and not even a scrap of hand soap in the bathroom.  In my old age I have become exceptionally demanding.  I set out to explore the city, and one of the first things I did was go into a conveniently-located Marks and Spencer to purchase a towel.  I was also a bit curious what, exactly, the famous M&S entailed - it seems to be basically a giant Target, a bit more pretentious and much more expensive but really only because it's British.  I ended up getting a beach towel because (a) it was on clearance sale for a price I might actually, at home, consider paying for such a thing, and (b) I don't have a beach towel and have occasionally wished for one, so it's not a completely wasted purchase as a bath towel would become after this trip.  Now it will be my Irish beach towel.

I walked about Cork for a while, getting the lay of the land - it seems to be much less big-cityized, but also more spread-out, than Dublin.  I went to the English Market (continuing the Ireland-is-the-Philadelphia-of-Europe theme; it was just like the market in Philly except with no Amish vendors and much smaller) and purchased my first proper(?) meal of the trip, a sausage on a stick.  (It was actually really good, even if I did feel a bit stupid eating it.)  I went to the Crawford Art Gallery, which is supposed to be one of the best art museums in Ireland (according to my guidebook); it was actually quite good, even ignoring the zero-Euro cost.  They had a variety of paintings, sculptures, and installations from the nineteen, twentieth, and twenty-third centuries, with some - but not too much - explanation.  On the way back to the hostel, I got a bit lost and ended up walking in what I would have thought was a pedestrian-unfriendly zone - a sort of industrial area with lots of car traffic, home of Heineken Ireland - which contained quite a lot of pedestrians.  I went into several small grocery stores to buy something for dinner, and was repeatedly appalled at the offerings outside the snack / dessert area.  Mayonnaise seems to be a major ingredient in everything here, sometimes in addition to margarine.  Butter and ham also feature prominently.  I ended up buying a wrap with ham and coleslaw (apparently that's considered a vegetable here).  I may have discovered the one country on earth where the cuisine is actually worse than in the States, and - at the same time - the one vacation where it is possible for me to gain weight.

written this morning, on the bus

Well, it’s been up and down.  After finishing my blog entry last night and eating the last of my filched-from-work snacks for dinner (when I get around to posting photos, you’ll see that I haven’t had a proper meal since…. Well, it depends how you define proper meals; possibly since Sunday) I went to the pub where the Literary Pub Crawl was to begin.  It was a very good tour; it began with an introduction to the literary heritage of Ireland and an excerpt from Waiting for Godot I hadn’t realized it, but Samuel Beckett is Irish) and continued with three more pubs alternated with (outdoor) discussion of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and other Irish writers as well as excerpts from the work.  The tour guides were really excellent; they are professional actors and very knowledgeable on the subject matter.  I didn’t have anything to drink at any of the pubs because I was already feeling so knocked-about, but it was interesting to see all the different places.  One of the people on the tour had also been on the historical walking tour in the morning, and we got to talking – he was a law student from Moscow doing a summer-long tour of Europe to participate in debate competitions.  As I was leaving the final pub to go back to the hostel, one of the tour guides suggested I arrange a future meeting with “[my] friend from Moscow” because “stranger things have happened”.  I pointed out that (aside from the fact that I’m pretty sure neither of us was interested in such “things”) he lives in, you know, Moscow, and also is probably a decade younger than me, and both tour guides were quite surprised to learn that I am not, in fact, 22.  Of course I know I look young, particularly when I’m tired, but these days I mostly meet people who know that I’m not a college student, and my conception of myself has evolved so much in the last five years that it’s surprising to realize that I still register (at least to middle-aged men) as very nearly a child.

               That was the up bit.  The down bit started in the middle of the night, when I was awoken by the noise of the bars outside and the snoring roommate inside and kept awake for, I don’t know, somewhere between one and two hours.  This was much-needed sleep that I lost, but worse was the fact that I couldn’t really entertain myself, since my netbook was in my locker outside and turning on a light while other people are sleeping is not the done thing.  Also, I was starving; I retrieved and ate the “flapjack” I bought yesterday – that was the last of my stockpiled food, and events like last night are one of the reasons I stockpile – and tried not to feel too sorry for myself.  I thought of two of the couples on the literary tour; they must have been in their late twenties, both newlyweds, with about eight brain cells among  the four of them (this is an unfair characterization, I suppose, as one of the couples seemed to possess about four brain cells each, while the other couple clearly had none).  They chattered away merrily while we waited for the tour to begin, mostly about their weddings (one of the couples was on their honeymoon; the other, or at least its female half, was just wedding-obsessed) and a bit about their travels.  I was certain that neither of these couples, in their proper hotel rooms, was having trouble sleeping, or at least if they were, they were having trouble sleeping in a proper room.  Of course, I told myself, hotel rooms in Europe are not, in my experience, significantly less depressing – or any more spacious, per person – than hostel rooms. 

               At some point I fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until morning (good).  I showered – there was hot water (good), and although I didn’t have a towel and the hostel people didn’t have one to rent to me (bad), it was fairly warm so I was able to get cleanish and dryish without too much fuss (good). I had a bit of breakfast (good).  I discovered that I had forgotten half the cord for my camera (bad, but could have been worse – it was the outlet half, not the camera half, so I can still charge by connecting to my computer, possibly, or possibly with the plug half of the computer adaptor) and had been under a misapprehension about the outlets available in Ireland and brought the wrong adaptor (bad, but could have been worse – the hostel sold me a universal adaptor).  I also discovered that I could get a bus instead of a train to Cork, which would take more time – unclear how much more time, maybe an hour?) and cost a great deal less money (13E rather than 60E, which seems worth it).  I had to hightail it to the bus station, though, since there are only buses every two hours.  I made it just in the nick of time (very good; the train station is all the way across town so I might have been stuck for two hours if I’d missed the bus) but as I was putting my bag under the bus I realized that one of the compartments was open.  It wasn’t the main one, where I have all my clothes and sundries or one of the smaller ones where I have shoes and lotions.  It was the second-to-main one, where I put all my biking gear.  It’s unclear what, if anything, fell out – I didn’t have time to look, and I don’t even recall how far open the compartment was, definitely significantly.  This could be very, very bad – my biking shoes and toe clips were in there, which might be hard to replace here and would certainly be expensive ($200, or more, for both); also my biking shorts, brand-new camelback, and bike helmet – in other words, all the expensive and/or difficult-to-replace-while-traveling stuff is in this compartment, so this is probably the worst compartment to lose something from, since clothe and toiletries are comparatively disposable.  So I could have really screwed myself over here, simply by being in a rush and forgetting to check all the compartments of the bag.  It is also possible that nothing fell out; if something heavy or loud had fallen, it is to be hoped that I would have heard it, or that someone walking behind me would have seen and told me.  My blue vest was sort of poking out when I discovered; this is encouraging because it is one of the last things I put in the compartment (although also lightweight and friction, which means less likely to fall out).  The nature of the compartment is such that I’m most worried about narrow things, particularly the camelback and the pedals.  I suppose there’s no point in worrying about it too much, since I can do exactly nothing about it until I get to Cork.

               Which is where I’m on my way to now.  We’re driving through countryside; it seems to be not exactly woods and not exactly farmland.  Pastureland, maybe?  Just now I see a field with grazing animals – cows or sheep.  Very Britishly, there have been lots of walkers, on the road (when we’re not on highways) and even in the fields.  The fields are much smaller than American fields, too, and have trees or shrubs as borders.

One thing I’ve noticed here is how many other languages, besides English and Irish, I see.  Everything is in English, of course, and everything official is also in Irish - apparently only the very old and the very well-off speak it now – but there are also bits of German and French and everything else.  I wonder if this is a European thing, with all the countries being so close together.  I didn’t notice it in France, but they’re defensive of their language there and frequently signage isn’t even in English.  I noticed it a bit in Iceland, but not as much, and thought it was because of the prominence of the tourist industry.  I don’t recall noticing it at all in Germany. 

Sleepy, and also hungry.  Should have had more breakfast in the hostel, but I didn’t really like the place and felt uncomfortable there.  Hostels are always physically uncomfortable, but the attitude of the management and guests makes a big difference in how they feel.  At this one, the management seemed largely contemptuous of the foreignness and uncoolness of the guests, and the guests seemed obnoxious and aggressive.  Perhaps, though, this is just that I’ve gotten too old and remain too uncool for such places.  I think Cork will be better, if only because it’s a smaller city.  There should be less street noise, hopefully less crowding.  I’m looking forward to relaxing for the day and a half after I get there (assuming I don’t have to shop for new bike supplies…) – and also to the rest stop we’re supposed to make in a while, when I’ll be able to get some kind of snack.

Dublin. No, I do not have a creative title.

Somehow, when I travel, I always seem to have more adventures than usual even before I leave home.  Perhaps I am more attuned to adventures, or perhaps there is something about dragging a suitcase that creates adventure.

I don't know that I have the energy - or the time, really - to do my adventures of the last 24 hours justice, but I'll try to make a quick rundown for the benefit of posterity and my two readers.

• Met a bizarre character on the way to the airport
• Flew on  possibly the oldest commercial airplane currently in service.  
• Took pleasant, efficient, reasonably-priced public transit directly to hostel.
• Discovered that I have become too old and spoiled to appreciate hostels.  In this one, you have to either leave your stuff unlocked (bad idea, obviously) or lock it in lockers that are not only not in the same building as where you are going to sleep but not in an actual building at all.  This is particularly fun when you discover something in your bag has exploded; my approach to this has been to mop up as best I can and just cede that compartment to grossness for the time being. (Fortunately it only had bottles in it, no clothes.)
• Walked around a bit, trying to get my bearings and choose between the free walking tour recommended by the hostel guy, which seemed poorly organized but was free, and the 12E walking tour recommended by the guidebook.  After a meallet of yogurt and coffee (eating is an adventure for me even at home; in a foreign country, there are whole realms of excitement, such as the fact that they have hazelnut yogurt here, which is actually really good, even though it's Yoplait, which is a brand I can't stand in the US, and also trying to ingest caffeine in the absence of proper drip coffee, which which today's solution has been something called the macchiato) I chose the latter.  It turned out to be a good decision; there wasn't too much walking involved, but it was historically-focused and quite interesting.
• Comment: A lot of Dublin architecture reminds me of early U.S. architecture, I think what would be called Federalist at home.  Here it's called Georgian and is on a grander scale.  In general the city is a bit like Philadelphia - lots of history, lots of old politics, buildings from the same period, upscale shopping, a bit of seaminess - but with more aggressive drivers.
• After the walking tour, visited the Chester Beatty Library, which is an impressive collection of illuminated manuscripts, plus an exhibit about art books by Matisse.
• Walked north of the river - shopping (largely chains we have in NYC, plus Marks and Spencer), books and more books, tourists and souvenir shops, statues.  Had more coffee, and something called a "tiffin" that I thought, from the packaging and display, would be a granola bar or protein bar or something, but turned out to have the following ingredient list: "Belgian milk chocolate, biscuit".  I'm pretty sure this food item would be illegal at home, but it did give me the energy to continue walking - important, because at this point (around 3 p.m., or 10 a.m. after almost no sleep according to my internal clock) I was definitely flagging. 
• Continued walking.  Presumably there are pictures of the interesting things I saw on my camera.  Saw another shopping district and a biggish park.  Sat on the grass, fell asleep, woke up freezing (it was warm-ish this morning but by late afternoon was in the low 60s).  
• Detoured through residential areas to see the birthplace of George Bernard Shaw and the Irish Jewish Museum, both open only a couple hours a day and not the hours I was there.  At this point the day was starting to feel less like vacation and more like boot camp, which I suppose is how my vacations frequently end up.

I have at this point walked past/through a good portion of the tourism-relevant area of the city.  There is certainly more I could see, and museums I could visit and so forth, but I won't feel bad about leaving tomorrow morning.  Tonight - because a hostel is not a place you have a quiet night in - I'm going to go to something called the Literary Pub Crawl, which is basically a tour of places that writers went (although probably also a bit of a pub crawl as per the name) and is supposed to be very interesting.  Then, I'm looking forward (with perhaps a bit of delusional optimism) to a good night's sleep before a quiet train ride to Cork.

weekly roundup

This has been a middling-uneventful week, although I suppose I have some excuse for that - in addition to marathon training and wrapping up a project at work, I'm also preparing for a trip to Ireland (which I plan to chronicle here).  I did manage to go to one wine bar with my less-serious book club (we read Penelope Lively's Family Album, which was worth reading even if we didn't discuss it all that much), Cellar 58, where the waiter was extremely anxious for us to order food and extremely tardy (over an hour, for simple-to-prepare plates, when it wasn't particularly crowded) in delivering it.  The amount butter and salt contained in my egg-on-bread dish made up for some, but not all, of that.

, 

For the first time ever, I managed to properly explore Summer Streets - by running through it.  I covered the whole distance, plus the Brooklyn Bridge, twice, and although the "activities" seemed a little deserted (with the exception of the sand-building area) I was impressed by the number and professionalism of the volunteers and police officers, the water stations, and the link with Central Park.  I managed to run about 14.5 miles with minimal unpleasantness - a good note on which to take a hiatus from training for a couple of weeks while I'm out of town (I'll be walking a lot, of course, and during part of my trip I'll be biking 30-40 miles a day, so it's not as if I wont be getting exercise... just not of the running variety).

Also, I finally saw Harry Potter, in IMAX 3-D of course.  To be honest, I can't say that it was awesome - but then, I don't think any one of the Harry Potter movies is awesome.  They're all good, but most of the awesomeness is in their sum.  The books are similar, although they're obviously an awful lot better.

I'm leaving for Ireland Tuesday after work.  I am mostly packed, but I don't feel at all prepared.  I suppose that's normal.

I have done, and failed to blog about, a number of things lately.

Thing 1:  Fondue at Kashkaval.  After my excursion to Artisanal, fondue was clearly the thing to do.  Instead of going back to Artisanal (huge, high-ceilinged, thoroughly French, midtown-Easty), I went to Kashkaval, which is basically the opposite - cramped, even by NYC standards, with a much younger crowd and serving Middle Eastern tapas (which I didn't try) in addition to the fondue, and also housing a cheese-and-fancy-foods shop (which I didn't look closely at, being spoiled by the many cheese shops in my neighborhood).  The meal consisted primarily of melted cheese with dessert starring melted chocolate, so of course it was awesome.  Also interesting, because I had never had anything with cheese fondue besides bread, and on this occasion tried both vegetables (ranging from the good - mushrooms, broccoli - to the weird - peppers, which are not weird themselves but don't really go with cheese, insofar as anything can not go with cheese) and meats (the meats were very good; dipping them in cheese did not particularly improve them).

Thing 2: Excursion to DC.  The purpose of this trip was to organize and pack up my remaining possessions at my parents' house, although it felt kind of like the purpose was to spend ten hours on a bus over the course of two days.  The pain of the lengthy bus ride was significantly alleviated by rereading Sense and Sensibility.

Thing 3: Master Class, on Broadway, starring Tyne Daly.  This is a play about Maria Callas, an opera singer about whom I knew little and cared less.  I do somewhat like opera, though, and this play made me want to see more of it.  It dragged a bit at times - there simply wasn't enough action, or enough characters, or any humor, to prevent it - but Daly's performance was incredible and usually engrossing, and it was definitely worth seeing.

Thing 4: Fifteen-mile run.  My goal was to get one of these in before my trip to Ireland, and I did, although just barely.  I was sick much of this past week (to the point of actually taking a day off work Tuesday) and, although I felt better on Friday, my evening at the theater prevented me from getting to bed as early as I'd have liked and the vestiges of my cold kept me from sleeping well.  I woke up at 5 a.m. yesterday morning, feeling okay, and after a bit of cereal and a bit of dawdling headed out to Central Park.

This was one of those runs that felt bad from the beginning, and never really got any better.  They happen.  I ran one big loop around the park - six miles - and then one loop on the upper five (comprising Harlem Hill but not the easy bottom loop).  The last part of this loop was alongside a race that was running on the lower five, and because of this race and the exhaustion that was quickly beginning to overtake me, I decided not to do my last four miles as a single loop around the 72-to-102 portion of the park but two circuits of the bottom loop.  Up until this point I had been running very slowly but had only stopped twice, at the water fountain on Harlem Hill, for refills, and although I felt very tired I had no specific complaints aside from running short of tissues.  I'd worn a shirt with longer sleeves than usual and my worst friction burns weren't acting up too much (later, I felt burning at the collar of the shirt, and my burns look pretty bad even today - but they feel way less bad than usual, probably because I can wear shirts that don't hit so high).  But things got very bad very quickly after I hit the 11-mile mark - calf spasms, thirst, general fatigue and desire to stop running at every moment.  I was taking (short) walking breaks about every five minutes by the end of the run.  When I finally finished, it was an effort to drag myself home, and I felt pretty badly for several hours.  I'm pleased that I did this before my trip (next weekend, I'll probably bike Summer Streets - for fun, and for bike practiced - instead of doing a long run) and also rather apprehensive about how I'm going to get from where I am to marathon in the next 13 weeks.

Thing 5: Alexander McQueen at the Met.  Sadly, this is something I did not do.  I had been putting it off because of the reports of huge crowds, and when I finally tried to go yesterday (this is the last weekend of the exhibit) the line was out the door.  And around the steps, snaking along the plaza, and down the block.  So I went to the Guggenheim instead and looked at rocks on pillows (weird) and a room with dollar bills covering the walls (cool).

Thing 6: Discovered an(other) awesome brunch place: Elmo, in Chelsea.  Really more of a general restaurant, but the french toast was awesome (and huge, although after yesterday's run the hugeness wasn't a problem).  It was both unique (made with raisin-walnut-cinnamon bread and topped with very good baked apples and caramel sauce) and good.  And - sadly rare in brunch places - the waiters were non-snooty and refilled my coffee without being asked, and - also rare in brunch places - the meal was actually a reasonable-even-outside-NYC price.

Agenda for this week:  several small workouts, although possibly not today.  lots of work.  book club.  start packing for my trip.

Random Runs

So I am training for a marathon.  Actually, that's not entirely accurate.  I'm planning to run a marathon - the New York City Marathon, on November 6  - and I am not training for it to my satisfaction, which is the source of my angst in this post.

I started out well.  I ran the Brooklyn Half somewhat faster than my goal time of 2:24 (I am not a fast runner; usually, I am a stubborn one, although as you will see my stubbornness has not been holding up this summer) and, after a short break, resumed regular weekday treadmill runs (which increased in distance, over the course of the spring and early summer, from three to five miles) and weekly or biweekly long runs of about 12 miles.  I planned for July and the first part of August to be my first phase of ramping up the mileage.  I wanted to lock in significant gains in these six weeks because I'll be away the second half of August and when I return there will only be about ten weeks (of which I'll need to taper and rest at least three) before the marathon.

This did not go as planned.  The first weekend of July I was out of town and did not do a long run.  The second weekend, I ran 14 miles.  The third weekend, I spontaneously truncated my planned 15-miler due to heat, dehydration, and friction burns.  The third weekend, I actually cancelled my long run entirely (in my defense, it was been record-breakingly hot that week).  The fourth weekend, I was out of town; I had hoped to do a fifteen-mile run on Friday morning, but because it was pouring rain I decided to wait until the gym opened which meant shortening my run to ten miles.  And now I am sick, which means - while I did a five-mile run yesterday at a reasonable pace - any long-run plans for the weekend need to be tentative.

When I write it down like this, it doesn't look so bad.  In a month of blistering heat and two weekends out of town, I did three runs of at least ten miles, and completed them all without significant breaks or walking (by contrast, when I trained for my first marathon four years ago, walking breaks comprised probably around 10% of every run).  But all of this doesn't change the fact that I'll be in Ireland the last two weeks of August (biking for half of it, which means my running during the trip will be limited, although it is to be hoped that this intense cross-training will have positive spillover effects on my running) and that when I return I'll have only a few weeks to force myself into reasonable marathon-running shape.  I'm still hoping to get in a fifteen-miler before I go (assuming the weather and my heat-sensitive skin cooperate), but that doesn't entirely alleviate my apprehension about the very steep road I'll have ahead of me when I return.