Any Side Drive

Cork to Malin Head (1)

2010-11-06T17:14:00.001-07:00

The Prelude

We’re in little boxes. Boxes of time and often of space. We have cubicles in our offices where we carry out various tasks to ensure that we can put food on the table and fuel in our bikes. We sit at desks, we operate machinery, we dig holes, we study. All of this is fairly obvious but what lies beyond the obvious is the fact that we are simply cogs in a much greater machine. In our boxes we have to produce something or justify our existence in some other way in order to survive unto the next day. Like cogs in a machine we are used to routines because this is how we know the world to operate. We work within our boxes according to our routines in order to survive but also to produce wealth, much of which doesn’t ever end up being our own but rather someone else’s. This is the enigma about adventure, perhaps it is even the enigma of motorbiking itself, that adventure (and perhaps motorbiking) is something without routine. It is out of character, it is something we are not used to because the box has been shed, present time and mindsets are all shed and we must live in the moment and adapt as we go. It is living in real time and something most of us crave but often don’t let ourselves do. The important thing about living in real time on a motorbike is that real time is going at 60mph while leaning through a bend and this is also what many crave.

One of the main reasons for my buying my Suzuki Bandit 600 was to engage in some long distance riding. Ever since I had began riding I had been taking my little Honda Innova 125 well outside of its comfort zone in and around the city, going out to the edges of the county where its little engine would huff and puff but always, and I mean always, bring me home. Often it did so on fumes, for it really did seem to have a distaste for petrol, bringing me home from Waterford city one late summer afternoon on just about 3 litres of petrol. Being a Honda it could probably do this forever but really I needed something bigger if I was going to carry on doing this sort of mileage. The plan for the Bandit then was to pack it up for a few days in the summer and to head away through the country for a few days to escape my thesis. Never one to blame myself, I’ll push it instead to my thesis and the concept of time itself to shoulder the blame for me not having the opportunity during our glorious summer to take to the roads in that much of a fashion. Still I did clock up about 4000 miles since June and that’s not half bad. With my thesis completed however I had no reason to not begin planning to take the bike on a bit of a tour and planning began. I mean planning in the sense that something was going on in my head and so did not necessarily involve me taking out a pen and paper although I do recall checking some distances on Google Maps before quickly forgetting them. I had always wanted to go and see the Burren though and then continue on through Galway and into Connemara strapping a tent to the back of the bike and doing the tour as a single overnighter. Logging on to Facebook one night and mentioning it to Gary changed all of that; he said he’d like to join me and I decided that company would be nice so it was now that real planning was going to begin for this was definitely going ahead.

Having completed my thesis I did feel I needed time to relax and take a break from reading and writing and to be honest even writing this is taking a little bit more of an effort than I thought as I read over things, adjust things, and generally give in to a seemingly never ending style twitch that forces me to go back over my last sentence. Oh, wait I must change that last bit. From the day we enter school life changes to become goal orientated - we need to finish that days homework, we need to do well in the Leaving Cert and then I needed to go on and complete my degree before finishing my MA thesis. No I didn’t have an office cubicle but I always had something to aim for, a new goal to achieve and with the ending of the thesis there was now no goal to aim for. This should be relaxing but ultimately you only end up searching for something else to occupy your mind for in my case I felt hamstrung, I felt lazy almost. Now that the bike tour was becoming a reality I had a new goal to aim for, something completely unrelated to what had gone before for this would take me out of my comfort zone, out of my box and into life in real time. This would be an adventure and one that had been some time coming.

Realising that Facebook was surely not the most effective way to plan a motorbike tour, Gary and I met up in the somewhat less than luxurious surroundings of the Main in UCC. Hayfield Manor it may not be but it did have free wifi which was essential for Gary’s meanderings through Google Maps. Initially my own mental plan had just been to travel to Connemara and then come home by, and I quote here, “go out and then come back East and then travel South”. The word vague does spring to mind doesn’t it? I had a desire to travel to one of Cork City’s away games on the bike and due to me mixing up some dates I was convinced that City were playing Finn Harps in Donegal on the weekend that we were thinking of using for this trip. Gary did seem enthusiastic about the roads in Donegal and that enthusiasm was convincing enough to make me want to travel that far which was great considering that I then found out that we (as in City) were playing Finn Harps here at home in Cork. Still, riding up to Donegal was still very much on and with a long weekend coming up a plan was gradually coming to fruition.

An August Weekend in Kerry

2010-08-03T07:12:00.001-07:00

Mobile homes are, apparently, the only real and popular manifestation of the Dymaxion house. This was a 1930s idea and design by Buckminster Fuller which tried to float the idea of a mass-produced house on the same level as the mass produced car. He was so convinced that he even declined for a one-off to be made as a showpiece at the Chicago Century of Progress Exhibition in 1933. He wanted it to be mass-produced or not produced at all. And so we have the mobile home, the closest that the world has come to a Dymaxion type utopian dwelling. Mass produced, cheap compared to standard and traditional houses, stand-alone or capable of being in a park with others and of course mobile, they have the ingredients needed. Still, they aren't quite what he had in mind I would imagine although the interiors of both have something of a similarity looking at that picture there.

I hadn't been to the mobile home in Kerry for quite a long time - it had been at least a couple of years since I had spent any substantial amount of time down there and with the August weekend approaching I thought it would be a good time to go and have a look. The bike would be the mode of transport - I had travelled to Kerry on it before and had even visited the mobile home but that main road down to Killarney, and Tralee was nothing if not a little boring. The twisty bits, which really should be fun, are usually spent with me wondering how it could be while stuck behind an old Ford Escort with a man driving it and that man inevitably wearing some sort of a hat and a jacket even if the sun was after being angled to beam down on his car and his alone. He would be convinced that this was his road, and his alone too. After all, he had paid his road tax and although his little Escort had failed the NCT (or had just not bothered to even be examined at all), this gave him the right to go at whatever speed he so wanted to. I don't get this at all, if you want to travel at 20mph then fine but pull in and allow other drivers/riders to go past you safely rather than allowing them to become frustrated and then attempt irrational overtakes while sticking up the middle finger as they wizz by barely missing a tree or a rock on the opposite side of the road. I mean what if there are two Escorts, both going in opposite directions? And what if both of those Escorts are holding up frustrated motorists behind them who then......oh oh....

Accepting the fact that the ride down would be boring, I packed some clothes, a pizza and some waffles,my camera and mp3 player and strapped the tankbag to the bike with bungee cables. The magnets in it are meant to hold it to the steel tank but I reckoned a couple of bungee cords would do no harm in case of a gust of wind or something. My camera was in there! Plus those cords could be used to great effect at hitting that man with the hat in the Escort if his window was open. They'd be like whips, they might make him go quicker.

Despite the warnings, there were no Guards on the road that I could see (and besides I obeyed the speed limit mostly anyway!). I suppose accepting a banal journey kept me extra safe from speeding tickets too. There was one part though where I really enjoyed the bike - outside of Macroom as the road becomes narrow and twisty, I managed to put myself in front of a few cars and with some clear air I could enjoy the road. Then of course I met more cars and that was ended abruptly. Still at least I could take some pictures and as I crossed the border into Kerry that was just what I did. In fact I pulled off the N22 to a church to take a picture, expecting this church to be fairly important and beautiful. It was signposted from the main road by a prope

r road sign...however this was misleading, it wasn't all that important or even aesthetically pleasing. It was set in the Clydagh Valley, just down from the main road and where traffic once used to flow on by.

Now though the road there in the valley, houses on both sides, is full of gravel and used only by the locals who probably appreciate the lack of traffic and noise in their little piece of heaven. Shame that they couldn't make that church a little more inspiring in it's location all the same.

As I exited the valley I noticed again an awful lot of gravel on the roads, something that as a motorcyclist I absolutely hate to see. Not only is this type of road repair illegal but it also smacks of laziness - "ah it's ok, the cars will run over the gravel and flatten it down". No, it doesn't work like that and if you, like I did once or twice in the weekend, run over gravel mid-corner on a bike, then you'll not be happy at all. Unless you're a fan of sitting in a ditch with your bike trashed and somewhere away from you on the road. Thankfully that didn't happen

to me as I saw the gravel but it so easily can. You've probably done it on a little bicycle.

My next stop was to take a few pictures as I went into Rathmore. The place consists of a church, a better looking one than the one pictured above, and a fuel station which

also sells ice-cream. It used to anyway. I had traveled between these rocks for so long in car but never had I stopped to actually look at them and on the bike I had the chance. The road wound it's way around these rocks but it was much too wide for these little bends to be any much fun but perhaps this was just as well. These are views to really take in and to wonder - those rocks just stand there in time. People have died in and around here, people have been born in and around here. These rocky hills and jagged edges have seen it all and will see it all again, almost immune to the effects of time. You have to admire that and reflecting on it does make you feel a little bit less important and a little bit less, well, big. What you can or cannot do matters very little to these inanimate objects of nature. They've seen it all and they'll survive it all longer than you or I. That's unless the NRA come in and blow them up with dynamite to build a road but with no money in the country they probably can't do that. The rocks didn't care to comment on that.

I stopped in Tralee to fill the bike up. It cut out on me in the petrol station as I waited for two cars to move so I could get at the pumps. It started back up again just fine and it didn't have me worried but it is something I will have to sort - carbs need to be balanced and the valves probably need adjusting and then the idle rpm will need setting. That should cure it but really it's no big deal.

As I put the pump into the tank the petrol stopped flowing...it was only allow

ing me €2.40 worth of petrol. I couldn't understand and I was there trying to hold the tankbag away from the filler cap with it's magnets scrambling against me to hold on! Into the shop I went and itturned out he couldn't see me so he stopped the pump. It was probably the helmet bu

t I never got this before. He apologised after and on a bank holiday there was no way I was going to make a big deal about it. Besides I had seen McDonald's and that was looking a little tempting to me so I wanted to park the bike and get in there, or at least think some more about it.

There were busloads, literally, of Spanish, Italian and French kids in and around the McD's but the queue looked fine. I would have hated to be working on this day though, some of the tables were covered, and I mean covered, in cups of Coke or milkshake. The manager of the place, or the franchisee, must have been making substantial donations to all of the religious orders or else had undertaken some sort of big PR exercise in the schools these kids came from because I could see him out the back counting money and then giving up. He was exasperated by it, wouldn't you be after you have just counted to two million? I think I saw him rolling around in the money then although I couldn't be sure. Anyway he got an extra €5 from me when I ordered a double cheeseburger, small fries and a small drink. Nothing special but I thought it would be a good idea to fill the gap and while I had went in meaning to spend no more than €4, a Happy Meal (€4) was out of the question. All of the kids would have laughed at me. I mean they were obviously all watching me!

With a full tank of petrol and the demands of hunger fulfilled, I made my way to Camp,

located West of Tralee on the Dingle Peninsula. Once I got here i

t would be into the mobile home I would go and life would slow dramatically. Without a watch, time would melt away. With no place to be and no deadlines to meet, time

would be meaningless. Hunger could be a guide but better yet I find the sky, the moon and stars to be more entertaining. And you can see all of them down here without a city around to pollute

the darkness.

Arriving was actually a bit of an experience. Through Blennerville and the windmill there and seeing the Slieve Mish mountains unfurl before me as I rode west was one thing. It was another thing to look out at Tralee Bay and see Fenit Rock shrouded in cloud as more white fluff descended from the mountain behind me. I promise that it wasn't as dark as this photo shows where I was, it just seemed that the cloud was quite happy to sit out at sea. However I have another thing to tell - it was a whole other thing altogether to arrive into the campsite and see children absolutely fascinated by the fact that a motorbike was coming in. I suppose thinking back on it now there weren't ever many bikes came to the place at all despite some of the roads on the peninsula being great to ride on. Perhaps most bikes just passed through aiming for Dingle instead. The energy and excitement from these kids was really something to behold and made me think that I would look a right fool if I happened to drop the bike at low speed in front of this lot. The other side of my mind was wondering if I should have brought chocolate bars and humanitarian equipment. It was a bit like arriving in to a place full of kids who had been told the weekly medicine and chocolate delivery was going to finally arrive after the last 5 deliveries failed. I smiled a lot but behind the helmet they probably couldn't see that so had I put on a "sorry kids but the other guy is bringing that stuff, he's just five minutes away" face then they wouldn't have seen.

After arriving and putting the motorbike on it's centre stand I opened the mobile home. Here it was, the Dymaxion House with the Slieve Mish in the background.

The thing was, I had no running water here. Electricity and gas for cooking were not an issue but the pipes had ruptured in the winter frost and we had not had the chance to fix those up yet. And by "we" I mean "Dad". There was some water there in a large container, enough for copious cups of tea and coffee and cooking. And for brushing teeth too. Toilets and showers would have to be done camping style though - over in the communal block that the, er, campers use. The main thing however was that I was now down in Kerry, had a place to sleep, to read and to sit if I wanted to. That pizza I brought though was now of seemingly no use as a good friend of mine came over to me and

informed me dinner was ready for me. I'd only barely gotten off my helmet! That's the thing with friends though, not even having to ask. By the way, it was delicious.Well, Mr Fuller would have been proud of me for at least remembering him!

I was toying around with the idea of leaving on Sunday, basically just staying for one night and going home but the place was after capturing me and it wasn't about to let go to easily. I had to stay another night. And I did. Sunday didn't feel like Sunday at all down there now that I bring it up. At home there is just this general feel about a Sunday - a Sunday just is. It exists and you know it is there but what to do and what to fill it with are two questions that are difficult to answer. It's a timespace normally occupied by a sleep in and then a think about what to do with the rest of it. While there was a sleep-in in Kerry there was no question of what to do with the rest of the day - it didn't matter. I could sit on the dunes and watch the people on the beach or just wait until a sunset occurred or just walk around. The pressure of leisure wasn't there - there was no need to feel that you had to go and do something fun. Although I did end of having fun anyway and it started with a hearty breakfast after a phone call from another good friend of mine. His parents had made sure that extra rashers, sausages and eggs were on the pan. It would have been rude to refuse of course. The funny bit was that the litre of milk I had bought was still pretty much unused!

Brandon had always been in my thoughts for the weekend. The place has always held a special kind of intrigue for me - this small village out on the very west of the northern part of this peninsula, a small harbour with it's back to a violent sea, the spray from the

Atlantic waves almost seeming to fly over Mount Brandon and down to the harbour below. Narrow roads, jagged mountains and wavey seas all around. I had to go.

Before I did though a few of us walked along and I took some pictures of some unusual looking little creatures below sand dunes near a marsh that is home to the bullfrog. So much of a home in fact that mobile home sites were taken away from this particular area in years gone by. It's strange seeing the bays that people had created for themselves, where 30 foot homes of steel

once stood and gazed out.

You wouldn't even know now unless it was pointed out to you so fast does the sand move here and that tough dune grass. It was in that grass that this bumble bee was spotted, gathering up the pollen in the summer heat. And at this point there really was summer heat, it was turning into a beautiful day with a little humidity but then let's face it, we can't have it all out own way. Once I managed to get this picture I knew that there was definately a point in getting some more of the same and it was a coincidence that one of the guys had become a little fascinated by a red bug that was flying around the place and in general making itself an object of fascination to said person. Really it was black but with red dots - impressive all the same. Getting a photo of this was difficult though, the camera wanted to focus on the grass all around the place but that wouldn't make for a great shot at all. Who wants to see grass? It was a group effort to try and get a picture of this red and black bug between holding back blades of grass, suggestions of "macro" this and that and "point it somewhere else" along with various swear words and associated vocabulary of frustrations. It all failed. Nature gave us another chance though and we saw another one crouching peacefully, and alone. The other one was with a friend, a very very close friend it seemed actually. This one was alone and with a steady hand and the camera now cooperating (on auto mode surprisingly) this was what happened. Look to your right!I know I said before that time is not an issue down here but with me being

persuaded to have dinner again I thought I had better be on time for it. And so the time was right to suit up and leave for Brandon. It was, I now know, 15 miles away (25km) but I was confident of getting out there and getting back by 7pm. It had been a few years since I had been out to Brandon but I remember being fascinated with the place. When you stand there and look at the mountain to your west (well it's at your feet really if you turn around!), the next town is in Newfoundland. There are indeed further points west on the peninsula but you'd have to go over to Dingle first and even from that angle Mount Brandon won't allow you too far back up to the north of the peninsula thus preventing a proper ring road around the peninsula. A formidable mountain then. It certainly looked it as I made my way out and took a right at the fork that questions you whether you'd like to go up the Conor Pass and into Dingle or down into Cloghane and eventually Brandon. Unfortunately there was some gravel on the roads even before the bike and I hit the very narrow passes after that fork. As such there wasn't a whole lot of fun on the road but again the scenery made up for this and there was actually some fun to be had on the very narrow bits into Brandon - they were twisty, tangling themselves around trees, rocks and fields with small hump backed bridges bringing you across little streams and rivers. I had to stop a few times, it was too impressive not to take some pictures home. It would be like going into Leonidas, standing at the counter and just looking. Lapidus, the architect you have probably never heard of but whom I would like to quote simply because I have been waiting to use this quote for a long time, said "Say you like ice cream - why have one scoop? Have three". And so I decided to have three and stopped to take a few pictures. More than three I'll have you know. Morris Lapidus would have been proud.

The way you know that this picture was worth taking was because of the straight road. No entrances to it from anywhere, no people around....perfect to open up that throttle. I didn't though simply because this scenery demanded to be looked at and admired. And of course photographed too. This was proper wilderness, and that includes with houses. It's still wilderness even with houses by the way, who's to say the people in them aren't wild? More power to them.

I was left wondering at some points about what happens here in the winter. I mean in the city we had enough problems with ice and snow but what about out here. You complain about rain? Well try looking for a bus shelter here then. Go on call a taxi if you like, you can wait under that bush there. I'd hazard a guess at saying it takes a good while for any service technicians to come out here to sort out electricity if poles fall or if pipes go bang. Even getting an FM radio signal out here is troublesome with all of the mountains. Mobile signal isn't bad though.

I'd say it's all worth it for sights like this though. I would say that though as a person who doesn't have to live here. I can just go off and enjoy this place when the sun shines and return to the city in the rain. I wondered as I passed the turn off for the quay what it was like in the past winter - did families try and pitch together with one person going into Tralee to pick things up for people or are they all so used to things like this that they know how to deal with it in a way a city person doesn't. I carried on past the quay with these thoughts in my mind - I wanted to head to Brandon Point. This road just ends at the top and that is the best way of describing it really. It carries on as a fairly narrow local road but after a little while you begin to travel gently uphill.

Gentle but noticeable. Noticeable also, and alarming for many a person I would say, is the fall

on one side of this road.

It meanders it's way up the side of the base of

Mount Brandon. To be fair that base is pretty much mountain anyway, there's a good incline there and if you fancied rolling in some grass you'd be better off not doing it at the side of the road facing water because you'd probably need to be ready to get wet. Very wet, lungs and all. There is a bush that runs along the road though so it doesn't look this bad but being higher up on the bike means seeing over this and showing off a spectacular view back at the peninsula and the harbour. A clearer day would have given it that little bit of sparkle but there you go, Tralee is way way in the distance there somewhere and Newfoundland is behind that mountain which is behind me. It was nice but I thought the view of the harbour and of the lakes below the Conor Pass was a little nicer at the time.

I couldn't spend the whole night taking pictures though, I had a dinner to get to and 45 minutes to get back. Seeing as I hadn't bother to time myself on the way out I had no idea how long to get back. It was time to pilot the Bandit home.

Off I went, a better of idea of the roads then before and made i

t back in 25 minutes.

Not bad considering that the roads are insanely twisty but blind to the point where you really can't roll on the throttle until you're around the corner. No problems with the rear swinging out here. And yes, again it was delicious.

I felt pretty refreshed from the ride home as I sat down to dinner and then saw the top of the dunes turn orange. My head was clear, my tummy full and my mind ready, so it seemed, to take in a sunset that looked like nothing I had seen for quite a while. And especially not down here. I ran to get my camera, an dark rusty glow emanating from every surface the sun was touching upon before it slipped off under the horizon ready to wake the people of LA up from slumber.

Running up the dunes I could see on the path through the grass, the footprints of people in the sand and the shadows within them. All around them the sand was a strange

orange. I'd say that the

Orange mobile network would have been delighted, not to mention the Tango drink people.

I stood on the edge of the dune, not running down on to the beach in order to get a higher shot and saw the orange disc descend ever so slowly below the Maharees which nature was using as a horizon in this case. Focusing on it was a bit of problem, all of that light hitting the camera ensures that the shutter speed goes up in order to capture the light but not too much light. Too slow and the picture will just be white. The balance is difficult, much like life itself and the sun poses similar problems for our minds. It's all a bit much for the mind to take when you think that this thing sustains the planet, it can't be controlled but yet says hello and goodbye at the same times it always does. You can only do something about it if you are a cloud and you aren't so you can't. Some of that days resident clouds did actually try and do something about it all but they failed - there was no way this sun was being denied it's moment. And neither was I, I was going back to Cork the next day and wouldn't be around for the sun to be given a second chance.

I had intentions of leaving at about 8am to avoid the traffic but my inner guide of sense told me this was a ridiculous idea and made me sleep in till about 9am. After all I had spent the previous night and some of the very early talking with a few friends in their mobile home. Oh, and that pizza came in useful. We tried to cook it in my place, well I did, but the oven wasn't taking the flame. The gas was on but it didn't want to light and I didn't fancy attempting this too many times. I had visions of me seeing a ball of white and that would be the end. Mobile homes take to fire like magnets to steel if you aren't careful. Gas doesn't particularly mind where it sets itself alight and so I turned it all off. We'd cook it in another oven, in another mobile.

With the end of the night approaching I went off to bed, taking a caramel slice with me. It was only a small one, maybe an inch squared but it was delicious. For the associated logic I refer to the Lapidus quotation above. I did finally use that milk in a proper quantity in the morning when I had a bowl of cornflakes, coffee and then engaged in packing the bike after going for a quick wash in the communal toilet/shower area.

I filled up the topbox and made sure everything was in the tankbag for the journey home - the camera was put in here for easy access. I hadn't done this for the trip out to Brandon, instead just leaving the tankbag at home and popping the camera in the topbox but its handy stopping and taking pictures from the saddles without having to unlock a box and stop the engine. I had the intention of doing the trip back to Cork as a non-stop journey, and I did, so why I put the camera in there I do not know. Just in case I suppose. I made it back to Cork in 2 hours which wasn't bad considering there was some traffic on the road and also considering I took a regional road from Macroom to Cork and not the normal N22 main road. I was just sick of being stuck in behind cars and being on straight roads. What I'm saying is there was a possibility of doing the journey slightly quicker!

I was home for lunchtime though all the same. It seemed that using hunger as a time gauge wasn't a bad idea at all.

To see the full collection of photos from the weekend go to: http://pix.ie/fabio/album/383954

JFK (New York) - The Second Part of Our Stay in JFK

2010-02-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Again this was written on my phone, at the time - live, if you will!!!
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I ended up getting that coffee. After waking from my sleep and coming to the conclusion that I’d be getting no more I listened to a few songs on my mp3 player before Donal woke. The conversation didn't exactly flow between us, there wasn't all that much to discuss really. After a while I got up and walked around a little deciding there was no point in me allowing my arse to get sore because it'd be doing a lot of sitting later on. I stumbled upon the chapel in the terminal and went in, partly because I'd never done this in an airport before and partly because I wanted to pray that I would actually get home. I don't remember much of the rest of the walk although it was certainly a mission to find a decent place for breakfast, a feat I failed at (well the airport did really because no place decent was open) but I did see that Donal had some company and seemed to be engaged in conversation. I didn't want to get involved, as ignorant as that may seem (it was morning, you know me and mornings!), so I walked on again looking for a breakfast place and/or preparing myself to go and join this little talk. Airport food really is never the same as normal food. The only food that stays the same is fast food but then 100% pure fat stays the same everywhere really. Maybe it's just that groggy feeling you get after spending a night in the clothes you wore all day, fake air from conditioning machines all around you and eyes tired from lack of sleep. And airport food is generally expensive too for what it is. I was prepared then for a substandard something-or-other for breakfast at a price I would normally raise hell over and I duly made my way to Au Bon Pain, a cafe chain that began in Paris (I could have told you that from the attitude of the woman at the cash register if I hadn't already known).The croissant, breakfast cereal and coffee came to 8 dollars which wasn't too bad but I would have preferred it with a please, a thank you and a smile. The coffee wasn't to my liking either, what was I thinking when pouring hazelnut coffee? Probably not an awful lot, tiredness and all that...a great, and genuine excuse!

I sat down I joined in that conversation between the middle aged black ladies and Donal. Meeting people on the train was never a bother but not so much here at the airport where, as I already said, it seemed to every man for himself. Talking to these ladies was not only interesting but it made the time fly by, they were very interesting characters who didn't like Republicans (a fact that made me want to buy them lunch notwithstanding that my wallet was now very very empty) and one of them was the first black lady to attend Stanford University. Both had indeed been active in the civil rights movements. There really was so much to talk about but their flight to Dubai was being called and off they went. I wasn't happy to see them go for I was only beginning to get into the conversation but at the same time I'd yet to have had any coffee and was finding I'd to make bigger and bigger efforts to stay in tune with them. I suppose it worked out well for both parties time-wise.
I finally ate my breakfast after this before going out to take a stroll around the terminals, wanting to see the old TWA Flight Centre. And I did although I didn't get to go inside or get too close because security had me spotted and rudely told me to leave. There we are with rules again, I was looking at a building not even used as part of the airport any longer and some woman in a hi-viz vest looks at me as if I've 2 heads and says, and I quote, ‘you want to take photos? Well you can’t, you must leave'...'can I ask you a question?'...'you must leave now'...'ok ok I’m leaving'. Honestly the Patriot Act really has given these type of people all the power in the world and it's not as if public opinion would be at your side either for the police will say 'he was acting suspiciously around the airport terminal' and then automatically Al-Qaeda will be sending you on a recruitment form with details of a pension scheme that says something about eternity and virgins. Needless to say then, I left but I got my photos before she caught me. From here I went on to look through some other terminals including the old Pan-Am WorldPort, a circular building with an extended cantilevered roof which extends out to cover the aircraft from rain. Well it used to, but planes are much bigger now and Pan Am are dead with Delta now in that terminal. Looking around it though it's clear it needs to be done up and I felt quite disappointed that it had been left to go the way it had after it once being the showcase of the world's biggest airline. That’s New York for you though, things come and go, changes happen on a whim and while it is certainly better at looking after history than many other cities, it’s often too busy to care - at least to care too much. Last night as we ran around like headless chickens many in the airport seemed not to care an awful lot which was frustrating but then millions go through this airport and mistakes happen to plenty others, they probably get our type quite often so caring too much really just isn’t an option...

Houston/JFK (New York) - The first part of our stay in JFK...

2010-02-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on my phone while waiting on our flight in JFK International to get back home to Ireland
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Our packing had, for the first time really, been done on the night before we were due to leave. The taxi was booked for 11am and, because we weren't the greatest fans of Houston as a city to visit, there was no sense of foreboding-I was quite happy to be heading home. They always say, whoever 'they' actually are, that anticipation is the best part of everything and to an extent they were correct. When you queue up at McDonalds, which I have just finished up doing here at JFK airport, you anticipate the meal. You stand there, see the luscious pictures on the menu, you smell that odour emanating from the machine they likely have out back marked as 'universal good food smell' and then when you actually receive the food, it’s a letdown, always is. And so McD's thrives on anticipation but yet so do we as people-it is inescapable. It certainly was for me as the taxi rang my phone as it pulled up outside the hostel.
Bags ready and feeling fresh following a shower, shave and a decent sleep (although not in that order), I sat into the taxi. It was from here that I got a real view of just how huge Houston is, something one can't really do on foot for while you do realise its size, you don't quite grasp it in your mind simply because you can only walk so far before the heat kills you. And the heat will kill you. We drove for a lengthy enough period of time but at no point was the city ever becoming smaller or less dense, it seemed that any countryside was very far away. There you have it, Houston has no real planning or zoning laws, you can pretty much build a giant pasta monster building or something else equally silly, anywhere-it's crazy and has brought about a car centric, sprawling city. We passed huge shopping complexes and other places we may have passed through had they been close but they would only have been so with a car. Sprawl had made this city out of reach to those without wheels. Exiting the taxi was exciting; we were now going to complete the first leg of our journey home soon!

The notice boards were showing that our flight was delayed. I wasn't all that concerned, the excitement of it all was probably papering over these early cracks in what should have been a good, smooth day. Having checked in our bags we went through security which was actually easy enough although even our shoes had to come off and I found this strange next to our train experiences. Having done this we went on, explored the place for a little and went to Wendy’s. This place had been recommended to us for although it was fast-food, it'd be good fast-food and it was too. I’d go back. After eating we proceeded to our gate but then the problems began-another delay was announced followed by yet another delay once we had actually boarded the aircraft itself. Jetblue were lucky they had TV's for every seat and that the Hungarian Grand Prix was on although it's hard to follow races on American TV; there seemed to be an ad break every 4 laps. If there weren't TV's then people would have been very angry but there you are, the American consumer is placated by the great mother known as TV. To be fair I was too. The flight itself, once it got going, was rough. Seats were comfy and there was lots of legroom, although neither could compete with the train, but the air outside was not comfy for it was moving like a Vespa through Milan traffic; at pace and erratic. Turbulence seemed to follow us through the whole flight but we should have expected this for a lot of the delay had been caused by bad weather in the New England area which then held up flights going into and out of New York. There was one moment when I became a little concerned, not quite worried because I knew there was nothing I could do, but I was curious you could say, about my fate and whether I'd be making it to New York. It wasn't something that should have entered my mind, my knowledge of aviation matters should have dispelled the notion but not this time. I was glad to land, more so to catch our flight to Dublin rather than of my unease about turbulence but what both of us didn't realise at this stage was that we were racing time, and time had a head start.

Due to a JetBlue partnership with AerLingus our luggage was due to be put straight through to our Dublin bound flight and so we raced from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4. We walked, at pace through T5, stopping once at the restrooms before carrying to catch the AirTrain to T4. This airport is so big, a train brings you between Terminals and so we made it to the train walking through a new section of T5 which meant we didn't, unfortunately, get to go through Eero Saarinen's architectural marvel, the old TWA Flight Centre which I think is one of the world's most beautiful buildings. What we did see though was an information screen informing us that our flight was on final call. Not knowing the vastness of the building, we sprinted to the departures area. Nowhere could we see an Aer Lingus check-in desk and their separate ticket desk was closed. Seeing an electronic check-in machine, we typed ourselves in but boarding was finished, or so it said. Practically grabbing a slight man with an airline uniform on, we asked him, desperately pleaded really, if there was still a way for us to make the flight. He explained there was no point in even approaching security and while we thanked him for his help, help we rushed out of him, we went and approached security anyway. Without a boarding pass though, there was no way the lady was leaving us pass. He was right and we both knew it really but at the time it seemed right to at least try. Frustration was well on its way to taking hold though, manifesting itself when Donal smacked the Aer Lingus desk with a slap he should be proud of. I was too busy trying to understand why a 24 hour airline had a ticket desk open for just about 6 hours a day, a thought the couple we met there who had also had a connection botched were probably thinking also. While trying to comprehend this I was also riling myself up for the biggest fight (I was going to say argument but that's way too light really) of my life.

I picked up the phone to ring Aer Lingus but yet again machines were at the other end of the line and when finally the phone did ring I received a message to say the centre was closed till 8am.The phone would have taken a lot of abuse had this not been an airport for even though my anger was out there, I didn't want to have to explain this to the police. At this point confusion still reigned, we were stuck, lost in a nowhere with no idea of when our time in limbo would finally come to an end. After an encounter with two friendly chocolate shop assistants we were pointed to the general information desk and given some reassuring news. They both were of the opinion that we'd be put on the next flight, which would be the day after, but at least we'd not be charged although when I mentioned weather as the factor in the delay, they were sketchier. All the same, we were better informed now and Donal had used one of their mobile phones to call home. It was here that we began to get our heads together and for that we were really thankful. The information desk enlightened us further while a JetBlue assistant, after heading back to T5, told us our bags were in JFK thus confirming to us that it was impossible for us to have made the Aer Lingus flight no matter what we had done-the original delays had killed us and we hadn't even known. On the plus side she was pretty certain we'd be put straight on the next Aer Lingus flight with no extra charge. Hearing this was a big relief but nothing can really account for having to spend a night here in limbo-I'm typing this on my phone looking out to a rather empty space but even still one person is asleep ten feet from me and plenty more are around the corner. Shops are closed, some food places are still open, lights are all on, life goes on. The place is and yet isn’t, part of the real world. It’s built to pass through, not to spend time in and that's not right. You should enjoy every moment although that's not to say I enjoyed every moment of today and when we speak with Aer Lingus tomorrow it may not be a happy moment either but we live in hope.

Sleeping on a floor is hardly ever a good idea but when it is an airport floor it is probably even worse. In saying that however, when you do it, you know you have little enough choice. Seats are at a premium, especially those you can stretch out on and at times it becomes almost like hunting wild animals. You pace up and down the terminal, remembering where you last saw decent seats, keeping your eyes peeled for any that may be free and wondering suspiciously if that person with the massive wheeled carry-on bag is going to grab that free seat first. Correct me if I'm wrong but there doesn't seem to be a lot of solidarity between travellers in an airport, it’s every man for himself, or woman. Perhaps this is caused by the fact that, as I said before, the airport is a transitional place with no real permanence. I eyed up seats last night and found some without leaving the seat I was scanning from. It was a bench seat, cushioned (you get into remarkable detail when you actually have to rely on these things for a night's sleep) with a few tables by it. Donal took the bench as he became sleepy and when I finally needed to nod off I took my bag and went off into a corner, on the floor. It didn't seem too dusty so at least my clothes wouldn't be destroyed but it was a little cold and not too comfortable. Having rested my head on a bag full of jeans with headphones on I gradually drifted into a sleep. I woke up an hour or so later. When I woke I was cold, it was like I had slept in a fridge, so I got up and saw a free bench with some chairs on which my legs could stretch out. Looking back now I’d hit the jackpot but then my sleep was light, unenduring and basically crap so I just moved a little and tried again. I think I got another hour but when it gets to sleep hours of such a low figure it really doesn't matter because your eyes will be burning in the morning and your head will feel like lead. And yes my eyes are burning and my head does feel like lead. I know I can't shower until tomorrow and even brushing my teeth will be hard-my toothbrush and toothpaste is in my checked-in luggage bag. Donal has a little mouthwash for us both, if we both go easy on it. A decent home cooked meal has been deferred and I'm feeling hungry, I need breakfast. I don't know though if coffee is a good idea for should I wake up now or try for more sleep? Surviving in an airport is all about strategy and this could be a vital call but even though that'll keep my mind occupied for a while, one thing will keep my mind occupied for hours to come-I should be at home, but am instead in an airport thousands of miles from home. Coffee it is I think.

I ended up getting that coffee. After waking from my sleep and coming to the conclusion that I’d be getting no more I listened to a few songs on my mp3 player before Donal woke. The conversation didn't exactly flow between us, there wasn't all that much to discuss really. After a while I got up and walked around a little deciding there was no point in me allowing my arse to get sore because it'd be doing a lot of sitting later on. I stumbled upon the chapel in the terminal and went in, partly because I'd never done this in an airport before and partly because I wanted to pray that I would actually get home. I don't remember much of the rest of the walk although it was certainly a mission to find a decent place for breakfast, a feat I failed at (well the airport did really because no place decent was open) but I did see that Donal had some company and seemed to be engaged in conversation. I didn't want to get involved, as ignorant as that may seem (it was morning, you know me and mornings!), so I walked on again looking for a breakfast place and/or preparing myself to go and join this little talk. Airport food really is never the same as normal food. The only food that stays the same is fast food but then 100% pure fat stays the same everywhere really. Maybe it's just that groggy feeling you get after spending a night in the clothes you wore all day, fake air from conditioning machines all around you and eyes tired from lack of sleep. And airport food is generally expensive too for what it is. I was prepared then for a substandard something-or-other for breakfast at a price I would normally raise hell over and I duly made my way to Au Bon Pain, a cafe chain that began in Paris (I could have told you that from the attitude of the woman at the cash register if I hadn't already known).The croissant, breakfast cereal and coffee came to 8 dollars which wasn't too bad but I would have preferred it with a please, a thank you and a smile. The coffee wasn't to my liking either, what was I thinking when pouring hazelnut coffee? Probably not an awful lot, tiredness and all that...a great, and genuine excuse!

I sat down I joined in that conversation between the middle aged black ladies and Donal. Meeting people on the train was never a bother but not so much here at the airport where, as I already said, it seemed to every man for himself. Talking to these ladies was not only interesting but it made the time fly by, they were very interesting characters who didn't like Republicans (a fact that made me want to buy them lunch notwithstanding that my wallet was now very very empty) and one of them was the first black lady to attend Stanford University. Both had indeed been active in the civil rights movements. There really was so much to talk about but their flight to Dubai was being called and off they went. I wasn't happy to see them go for I was only beginning to get into the conversation but at the same time I'd yet to have had any coffee and was finding I'd to make bigger and bigger efforts to stay in tune with them. I suppose it worked out well for both parties time-wise.
I finally ate my breakfast after this before going out to take a stroll around the terminals, wanting to see the old TWA Flight Centre. And I did although I didn't get to go inside or get too close because security had me spotted and rudely told me to leave. There we are with rules again, I was looking at a building not even used as part of the airport any longer and some woman in a hi-viz vest looks at me as if I've 2 heads and says, and I quote, ‘you want to take photos? Well you can’t, you must leave'...'can I ask you a question?'...'you must leave now'...'ok ok I’m leaving'. Honestly the Patriot Act really has given these type of people all the power in the world and it's not as if public opinion would be at your side either for the police will say 'he was acting suspiciously around the airport terminal' and then automatically Al-Qaeda will be sending you on a recruitment form with details of a pension scheme that says something about eternity and virgins. Needless to say then, I left but I got my photos before she caught me. From here I went on to look through some other terminals including the old Pan-Am WorldPort, a circular building with an extended cantilevered roof which extends out to cover the aircraft from rain. Well it used to, but planes are much bigger now and Pan Am are dead with Delta now in that terminal. Looking around it though it's clear it needs to be done up and I felt quite disappointed that it had been left to go the way it had after it once being the showcase of the world's biggest airline. That’s New York for you though, things come and go, changes happen on a whim and while it is certainly better at looking after history than many other cities, it’s often too busy to care - at least to care too much. Last night as we ran around like headless chickens many in the airport seemed not to care an awful lot which was frustrating but then millions go through this airport and mistakes happen to plenty others, they probably get our type quite often so caring too much really just isn’t an option...

Day Twenty - Boone, North Carolina

2009-08-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

The contrast between life in New York and that in Boone really is almost immeasurable when I look at pictures of both parts of the trip. In New York the camera worked overtime keeping up with my snap-happy fingers, framing and committing to memory almost any sight of note. It was, looking back with 20/20 vision here, a race to keep up with the city itself. In Boone there was no race track, never mind a race in and of itself which is why when I look back at the twentieth day spent in the United States, I have but a handful of pictures. It’s not that we didn’t do very much, well actually it is, but it is the type of things done that I suppose didn’t really merit a picture but rather were best committed to my own memory so that when such menial things were done at home I would remember how these things felt when done so many thousands of miles away. Throwing a Frisbee in North Carolina isn’t all that different to throwing a Frisbee in Cork or Kerry but I did think about this while engaging in some frantic throwing and the odd dive that dyed my shorts a shade of green over the cream and grey excuse it had for a pattern. The Frisbee is the same, the throw is the same, the wind is the same annoying one that makes a fool out of you by pushing the disc toward you before then, just as you have committed to a hyperbolic lunge/dive, pulls it back and lands it three feet opposite to where you’re knee fell to the ground from 4 feet up. Fecking wind. Even the scenery was similar, lovely as it was, for let’s face facts here, Ireland is not known as the Emerald Isle for the colour of some of its seaweed. The difference was in the distance.

Yet again the day had started off in a lazy fashion, no one really got up early which suited me for you already know how I feel about getting up. In fact you already know the painfully slow workings of my mind in the morning and my solidarity with people of the same mentality. Another difference between Boone and the earlier parts of the trip was the amount of sport-type activites which we engaged in. The day before we had gone hiking and squeezed in a trip to the Mast General Store which is, apparently, one of Boone’s more famous gifts to the world, or at least to the US (which according to a recent survery IS the world). With the hiking all of us tagged along so we had a full Honda Civic on the go (5 seats for 5 people) but today wasn’t in anyway planned. I’m not saying the hiking was but the sentiment for it had been laid down the previous day, the Frisbeeing was completely off the cuff though. Allison stayed in the apartment and Jessica was……..actually where was Jessica? It was only when we were leaving the apartment, Frisbee in tow, that it dawned on me that Jessica was clearly not around. If I had been paying attention to conversation the previous night I would have known she wouldn’t be but clearly I had heard and not listened, a phrase I am borrowing for this from my own mother whom I so frequently “didn’t listen” to when younger and, taking a wild guess here, also at present. She was going out to a festival with her Dad, something I had been told about before that conversation the previous night but which I had confined to the back of my memory because I was too entwined with the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains out of the car window as we passed the fair site where she was going with her Dad. It was a Scottish festival and her roots go all the way back to that bonnie land so she was going to the festival this Saturday with her father, it all made sense now. I also remembered that she had said that we could meet her father that morning if we were awake. I was asleep. The kind of asleep where you are in the bed, blanket warmed from sleeping there all night, blanket on top of you, pillows under your head and thoughts of “ah, no pressure to get up, this is much too comfy yet”. Refer to my explanation about how my mind works at this early hour of the morning in order to fully fit in with this line of thought…read it twice if you are one of those early risers who just loves the mornings and thinks everyone else will if you rub into their faces just how awake and happy you are at 7am. Twice for you. As I was lying there I could hear Jessica’s father come in the door and felt that I should really get out of bed and introduce myself for I guessed that the chances of him bursting into the bedroom to do likewise would be slim at best. I moved in the bed a little wondering how long he would stay and I could hear that he was mispronouncing Donal’s name. Donal was yet again to be “Don-Al” not “Dough-Nal”. You’d understand it more if Donal had actually written out his name and handed it to Jessica’s father by way of introduction but he didn’t, he said it out and all that had to happen was a repeat of what Donal had actually spoke. If I found it strange, which I did, I can only imagine how Don-Al felt – this was the second person of any note who had managed to get it all wrong. Poor fella was all alone in facing this onslaught on his name too, although I could hear Jessica chirp in with a correction but I was thinking that this could get particularly awkward and maybe if I was there it might not be so difficult. There was no way I could make the shower without passing the living area and thus having to stop and chat…there was no way I could make it really. The blanket was lovely and warm anyway and he’d be leaving soon too. Logic told me this would be a first and last impression for Jessica’s father (when would I ever see him again?!) and weren’t Americans very demanding when it comes to first impressions? Surely my hair, tossed and coming out in all directions wouldn’t be a nice sight. The excuses rolled on until I heard the door close and a small bit of guilt crept in. The thought of some nice morning coffee, with the vanilla flavour (both natural and artificial) got rid of that. I should have gotten up though.

Suzanne, Donal and I drove down to the university playing fields which seemed to be much like UCC’s Farm (not for animals despite the name, for sports…although Gaelic football is played there so perhaps there is a connection with animals). Suzanne explained that the car park we were leaving the car, and my camera in, is where you have to park as a first year student due to parking restrictions on the main campus at the other side of the town. A bus, the Appal Cart, would bring you to the college for free. Not that I really looked into it, although I probably should have, the Appal Cart actually was a town wide bus service and was free. Imagine the number 2 being free into Patrick’s Street (and yes it does go there but only after 7pm)? The sun was shining, it was a lovely day as we stepped from the car and walked down towards the fields. There didn’t seem to be any particular layout to it but we walked, crossed a small river with an ornate and roofed bridge and set out to throw the disc around the place, and hopefully catch it too. As we walked across the cut grass I thought that a football would be a much better idea, we could kick it around, run, pass, curl it around. There was a girl around, friend or not, so obviously you’d have to look as macho as possible and I reckoned a football would allow the machismo to be better showed. Still the Frisbee throwing was fun, I hadn’t done it in quite while and the surroundings were perfect for it. There was a relatively steep hill on one side, the car park over some fields on the other…actually we were in a bit of a bowl as there was hills on all sides really, some closer than others and this made it into quite a picturesque place. Perhaps the hills were also a reason for the lack of any real breeze and with the sun taking its toll I took off my shirt so that I wouldn’t have to wear a virtual damp sponge. I could also get a bit of a tan as well I thought because I didn’t want to be labelled with the usual “farmers tan” tag that a lot of Irish people receive when they come back from holidays. Thinking about that now perhaps it’s just an item of begrudgery because you have been on holidays and they haven’t and for that, they (whoever “they” are) must find some fault with you. Best to be one step ahead of those people. Actually it’s best to ignore them really but…

Anyway we threw the Frisbee around and the wind did indeed sometimes make a lot of fun out of all of us, except for Suzanne it seemed, for Donal and I were both having to run and try to catch or slap our hands together expecting there to a disc in between when what was actually happening was the Gods of Frisbee were having a laugh at watching the disc fall to the ground a few feet ahead of the clapping hands. This necessitated some diving, or at least I thought it did. There was a few reasons behind this line of thinking, one being that if I couldn’t play football then I should at least be allowed to dive around a little and also it felt good to jump through the air and cool down for about half second before landing when it became apparent that I now had double the sweat on my brow than when I started out. It was good fun all the same but eventually we began to ask each other the time, always an indicator of an activity going stale. It’s funny how it’s done really, no one wants to push anyone else to stop but at the same time a signal is being sent to people. When the time came we all stopped and sat on the grass after asking each other were we hungry, which was a valid question seeing as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was also useful at calming any remaining embers of enthusiasm for throwing the Frisbee. Sitting on the grass with no top on was a little strange for the grass was almost spiky and not soft like it is at home. I suppose with less rain grass is like this, it’s normally soaked back home so the mud bath you inevitably end of sitting in at some point is bound to be soft. Suzanne then started to use a blade of grass to emit a shrieking sound much like a bird call. It was brilliant, a great party piece if there had been a party on at the time but even still I wanted to know how it was done. And this was my downfall of course for I couldn’t do it. I tried and I tried and when Donal managed to do it I had to try harder but it wasn’t happening. I was sitting there wrapping grass ornately around my thumb trying to do a shrieking noise. Eventually I managed to get it, a few times as well just to prove that it wasn’t a fluke but all the same it wasn’t easy and after a few goes I decided to leave it go…quit while you’re ahead and all of that.

Despite having grass very near our mouths we remained quite hungry as you can imagine and we made our way to a peculiar place called Cook Out. I had heard Suzanne talk about this place before in conjunction with bbq-ed food and other such tasty delights and was quite looking forward to see what fare they had on offer. The only problem was that there was really no way to see what fare was indeed on offer. You see the principle behind Cook Out, as indicated by the name really, is that they cook the food and you take it out. Cook Out. Actually sorry that doesn’t make sense, it only does when you think of this place as providing the cooking service for the BBQ you want to have In the garden but for which you couldn’t be bothered heating the coals up for. Handy really, but then it takes the fun out of the BBQ too, especially if it is a gas one from which you can compete with your friends in a “how high can the flame go” contest by smacking oily meat on the grill and watching the flame go high. We queued up for our food seeing that orders were being taken at a booth and the food being taken from that same booth. Donal went first after quickly examining the menu and then I went myself after spending a bit of time going through all of the forty variations they have of milkshakes. Forty! I think I settled for the Oreo chocolate chip although with that many flavours on offer I am sure that I could have asked for an oxtail flavoured milkshake. Think about that when you feel like binging on food. George W Bush always had a way of leaning on his podium as he spoke with one arm and I did the same myself at this booth, the guy on the inside noting my Cork accent, as I leant and ordered my meal. Suzanne went next and after we paid we headed back to the apartment. Everything was set out nice and tidily on what looked like disposable versions of the TV dinner trays you’d normally see in 1950s TV shows. I must say, this detracted somewhat from the feeling of eating BBQ outdoors; the fact that we were eating this indoors was also a probable factor too. Cook Out was an interesting little place though, set in a very motor-centric area of Boone where there were essentially no footpaths! If you wanted Cook Out without a car you’d need to cross a 4 lane road first, a busy four lane road.

In a way then Cook Out boiled down what America is synonymous for, the car and personal transport over public transport and walking and the link between the car and food. This link has been there since the 1950s but in Cook Out you didn’t even have the option of sitting in, you had to take the food away with you (although I would have liked to have seen what would have happened if I had sat outside the one story building and eaten there in the little car park). There was a drive-thru option of course, there’s a drive-thru option for everything over there including dry-cleaning , but there was also the other non-drive thru booth in case you felt like parking the car ten feet away and taking a leisurely stroll to the order window. I thought it nice of them to give some people at least an introduction to walking.

The food itself was actually quite good and the milkshake was well worth whatever I paid for it which really wasn’t much I don’t think. Maybe the Frisbee made up for the fat intake…it must have, especially when coupled with that ten foot walk to the order booth.

Day Nineteen - Boone, North Carolina

2009-08-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

The previous day hadn't been easy on anyone, Suzanne and Allison had driven for 6 hours up and back from Raleigh, while myself and Donal had competed in our own Olympic sprint event to reach the train from DC to Raleigh before strapping ourselves in for the 3 hour drive from Raleigh to Boone. Not to say that that drive was anything but fantastic, it was a little taste of the Great American Road Trip, in an American made car (though it was a Honda) with possibly the most hospitable American people ever to grace that nation. It has always been a dream of mine to see America through my own eyes - don't find that too confusing, I did see New York et al with my own eyes, I didn't borrow anyone else's, but I would like to some day go exactly where my eyes look, whenever I want to. That's a garbled explanation if I ever came across one but what I am trying to say is that, while the train down to Raleigh was very comfortable and public transport in the cities so far was more than adequate, there'd be nothing quite like seeing the next road sign and just following it. I'm on two wheels myself, a proud biker but even if it was done on four wheels it would be a dream. Even getting a little taste of that on the Interstate for a few hours was fantastic. In that sense then the drive to Boone was more than a drive, it was a preview of a dream, a dream that one day I hope to fulfill but really the stay in Boone was about more than this for staying with friends, mobile friends (meaning they had a car for they call mobiles "cell phones" in the US) , meant that I had more choice in what I wanted to see and where I wanted to go. This freedom, a freedom within the freedom of the great travel already undertaken, was supposed to still be years off, only within reach when I myself would be in control of the bike or the car. And that freedom involves getting out of bed at whatever time you want, in a room that, at least temporarily, you can call your own. Upon waking in Boone, this was just what I had.

I looked around the room, it wasn't huge by any means but a decent size nonetheless and reminded me of a bedroom in my Nan's house. I had the only bed in there and didn't have to worry about any other people waking up in a bed opposite mine with red eyes but the most upbeat morning mood ever. Nevin and mornings don't really go together, I can do mornings but generally I am a night owl and getting up in hostels, was, I found, a tiresome enough process for if others were in the room you had to keep quiet and if those people were awake then it was quite possible that they could see your liathroidí when you drop the towel to put on the shorts after your shower. You had to think and plan everything as if it was a military operation but here in Boone I could easily go around the room naked admiring my fine body in the mirror; I'm not sure which I am more unsure about, my "fine" body (ahem) or there being a mirror in the room! Well I can always say that I have been naked in North Carolina, which is nice.

It takes me a while to actually get out of bed after waking and when I eventually did put my feet on the ground I took my clothes and towel and went for a shower. Looking back on it now I'm surprised at how little time it took to do this for normally I have to talk myself into getting out of bed, I have to reason with myself. "Nevin, it's 9:30am, you set the alarm for 8am, isn't an hour and a half enough of a lie-in?"...."hmmm...but it's half nine now so what's another half hour, at least that would round it up and I'd be more prepared for actually getting up". Honestly this is a real example of the thoughts that go through my head on a typical morning. I'm surprised they can be so diplomatic actually because my general reaction to people in the morning is one of contempt or at best a sort of begrudging observation that they are alive.

"Good morning Nevin, how are you on this beautiful summers day?"
"Well I was much better, wrapped up in my bad mood, than before you decided to barge in with your morning sunshine and good mood, now why don't you go and have tea with a hippy?"

You can be sure that if you say good morning to me at too early a time, or in the wrong way, then this is the response that is going through my mind only waiting to come out from between my lips. I blame it on Mother Nature, it's too early in the morning for blame anyway, besides blaming people for being nice and happy, in which case the earlier the better. The rule does bend a little though for if the other person says "good morning" in a noticeably moody way (the deep voice and rubbing of the eyes normally gives it away I find, seeing as that is how I am) then I will generally acknowledge them nicely (though with a deep voice and rubbing of the eyes) and develop a "morning respect" for them for you know that they feel just like you do. Remember algebra rules? Two minuses make a plus.
When I entered the sitting area where Donal slept seeing as he had fallen in love with the sofa contraption in there I bid him a grudging good morning, received one back and when Suzanne and Allison came along, a similar repetore was followed. I could tell that they weren't going to be regaling to me, stories of them hopping out of bed at 5am in order to eat their cereal as the sun rose up and that wasn't it great to be alive. While it is harder to tell if a female should be offered morning respect, seeing as they don't really get the deep voice thing us male gets, they seemed slightly less chirpy than they had the night before and were still in sleeping attire. Thus morning respect was given and few enough words were exchanged as we ate cereal. Suzanne put coffee on and despite being less chirpy and slower to reply to things than she had been the night before, she made a considerable effort to make sure I had enough milk (and knowing where to get it) for the cereal and went to the trouble of putting coffee on, coffee with vanilla extract (natural and artificial flavours said the packet, always good to use a mixture of man and nature) no less. At this point I was wondering should I add some kindling to the fire and get the day going by cracking the morning silence, something my still cobwebbed brain was telling me not to do but if I was to do this I'd need a topic. The vanilla coffee, having never seen it back home, was one, so I latched on to that but quickly retreated after mentioning it realising that it would be better if I just drank the coffee appreciatively and having let the caffeine take effect, guage whether I, or anyone else, was ready to converse. It was as I drank the coffee, at the table near the door, that my mind thought back on my nights sleep. I had actually slept on the sofa and Donal on the more solid couch but having woken at the very early hours I removed myself to the bedroom I was given due to my side feeling a little sore. A supporting pole going across the centre of the sofa was stabbing into my hips, as I remembered, the coffee duly doing it's role, but I also remembered that before I moved, I had debated the merits of doing so in my mind. It's probable that I tried to either put a cushion underneath me or else take an angle grinder to the culprit of my discomfort...anything to avoid me having to get out from under the blanket. And to think I had ensured everyone in the house the night before that the mighty Nevin would not fall asleep on the sofa, this coffee was unearthing too much! But it did taste really good.

Today we'd be going on a trail, up the mountains, something I thought I'd only ever get to do if I came over with a license to drive or ride a bike but it's funny what life throws up at times. I donned my Cork City jersey, thinking it'd be a good idea to wear that in order for it to wick any sweat away from my skin (what with it being a football shirt and made to do that sort of thing) and was out the door and into the front seat of the Civic. I was feeling a little bit guilty about taking the front seat all of the time even at this early stage but seeing as we ended up going along some of the Blue Ridge Trailway, it was a joy and I imagined myself going through it on a bike, two wheels transverse beneath me, leaning the weight of man and machine into the sweeping bends and straightening it up to enjoy the magnificent views we were now looking out at. Land and more land, green with tall trees rising and falling until the eye could no longer see. The clouds tipped the top of the trees as it became a blur near the horizon, this was truly amazing. Obviously to be out and about in this, to be physically in touch with this awe-inspiring exhibit of nature was an experience to behold and stepping from the car we all, quite gingerly began our walk up through the Tanawha Trail.

I say gingerly at least for myself here. Suzanne had done this trail before as I am sure Allison and Jessica had also but I was determined to keep up with the pace despite not knowing what was ahead of me. Now it would have been foolish had I just jumped to the front and taken over the walk but the path had already accounted for such foolishness by being only wide enough for one person to go through at a time...so I suppose we were much like a human train and being stuck in the middle of this train I noticed that the girls were wearing sandals. This seemed a little strange because back in the apartment Donal and I had been told that we'd need to wear some sturdy footwear. When I hear "sturdy footwear" normally I think of those hiking boots that come into Lidl or Aldi every Springtime when the Aldi or Lidl bosses think we are all in the mood for climbing mountains with their brochures ordained with pictures of happy couples gazing admirably at Austrain or German hills (because they love hiking over there apparently). Unfortunately I hadn't packed, or come to think of it, every bought, this kind of footwear despite sometimes thinking that I might do. And so I went along the trail in my Adidas runners, the blue, white and red ones that had been admired a year earlier in no less a place than Times Square. By a young black man. No higher praise for stand-out runners really but they were never made for a path like this, dry mud, the odd wet section, slippy moss covered rocks and bushes on either side that you had to become intimately acquainted with whenever another group of people decided to walk in the opposite direction to us. I mean had they not thought of just waiting at the top until we could all go down in an orderly fashion or did they think the trail was another embodiment of the Interstate!

We didn't reach the top as such, which I will say now was a little disappointing, but that was through no one's fault but the weather's. Clouds were moving in, we could no longer actually see the top that I had so wanted to reach and some of the path was becoming a little slippy from the odd drops of rain that were falling. Still the view was amazing as we sat on a massive rock on a jagged rise. I looked out in front of me as I sat, legs folded, on this massive chunk of rock as Donal continued his impression of a Southern gay guy which was, at this stage, becoming annoying. They seemed like hills but size is perceptive and when everything around is huge then even the biggest of things doesn't manage to stand out and so these mountains were hills for hills never stand out for being hills alone. The lines graduating towards the horizon were shaped as hills, with their gentle curves but there was just so many of them and all covered with a deep, rich, green blanket of pine trees which actually allowed you to see just how massive these hills were, rolling through the land. Turning around showed me just how high up I was and just how deceptive these hills were when I looked over the edge and saw the top of trees way below me. Looking back at it now what a contrast this height was from the height experienced standing at the top of the Empire State Building in that massive metropolis known as New York City. I wasn't afriad of either one but the sense of awe was certainly different as in New York I gazed over miles and miles of bright lights and a city still alive deep in the night while here in the mountains of North Carolina I could see the Blue Ridge Parkway but no other sign of civilization, it certainly made you feel very very small and humble. Well it did for me anyway, I can't speak for Donal's southern gay persona!

Our next stop in the Honda Civic was at Mass General Store, a chain of Western style traditional shops which sell lots of sweets and jeans and cowboy hats. It was impressive it must be said. Going into the shop I was delighted that I didn't have any kids because if I did then this would have been the perfect place from which to ring the bank manager to allow him prior notice of the emptying of my account in return for tons of sweets. Admittedly I have a bit of a sweet tooth myself but I kept myself back from buying too much, limiting myself to some chocolate covered something-or-others. Chocolate bars just aren't the same in America, they're too oily rather than milky, but I was willing to give these treats a try and later on that night I was glad I did for sitting down to watch a movie they turned out to be fantastic!

Day 33 - Fucking Houston

2009-07-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

It started off ok. I had slept well and the Chinese middle aged guy in the bunk underneath me hadn't complained or snored all that loudly through the night, two things he seemed extremely adept at after the first night in this Houston hostel. I hadn't been able to sleep properly and tossed and turned in what possibly was the world's noisiest bed and never before had anyone had sex on this because it was a top bunk in an all male dorm. Besides, if they had done, I say congratulations, it can't have been easy to. I will admit that half of my own noise making came about as retaliation for the fact that Mr Washington Lee (that's his name) was snoring his brains out. Whenever he snored too loudly while I attempted to get some form of sleep, I would turn in the bed and bounce my whole body off of the mattress. It wasn't that I wanted to break the beams and crush the poor man but I just wanted to get him to shut up. It didn't really work so I grabbed a fistful of top-bunk-bed-post and shook that. Of course the next morning I was apologetic to the man when we ended up discussing this and didn't mention his snoring. As a middle aged Chinese man I reckoned he was a bit of a cute hoor so I decided to keep my own weapon in hiding until the time was right and to be fair I haven't had to use it for last nights sleep was a lot better and we established diplomatic terms by introducing oursleves to one another. No longer was he to be a mortal enemy, he was to have another judgement day. Or night in this case.

I went in, secured my MP3 to the bed post so as not to leave it fall from the top bunk like it had done the night before and listened to a few choons before settling into a deep sleep. I heard a small bit of snoring if I am to be totally honest but I slept fine and didn't feel the need, at least not consciously, to hammer the bed. Waking up this morning, I had a plan to walk to Sears to get some jeans there for taking back home (lets hope the Customs lads ain't reading this for I will be arriving in Shannon Airport...yes...Shannon, fuck em it's only three pairs anyway). After breakfast and a quick shower, which in my case is anything under 30 minutes, I headed out. Sears here in Houston, or at least the one on Fanin Street, is basically a big cement block. Using my rather less advanced notions of engineering, less advanced when compared to some actually qualified, this buidling was rather simply made. A mould was made, concrete was poured and then the builders hired some children who lived under Interstate overpassses to carve out lareg openings they now call "floors". There doesn't seem to be any windows and the doors even look pretty darkly and unwelcoming. Maybe Sears got the building for cheap when the government decided not to use it as a nuclear blast shelter.
Of course if it was to be used as a blast shelter then I'm not sure how effective it would be for even walking to this place caused me to sweat profusely. In fact, when I stepped out of the hostel at about 11am, sweat immediately beagn to retreat from my skin. It felt the heat and began to seep away. Remember that this was before I even began to walk, it was and is, that hot. If you were to compare to an everyday item, then it would be akin to walking into a small bathroom with no windows or vents after the shower had been left on for a few hours. As Donal said, it is like a steam room, but without the ceremics or the ability to actually leave at will to somewhere cooler.

Walking down the streets I continued to sweat but knew that Sears would be air conditioned, even dogs kennels are air conditioned here. Tthere wasn't anything dramatic, just a big store in need of some renovation with plenty of Lee and Levi jeans for $30 and under - a bargain compared to home in my mind at least and so I took some pairs. I paid for them too if you are wondering. The real drama was on the way home. I crossed the street to Fiesta supermarket and got some uisce, turned on my mp3 player and began a slow amble back to the hostel determined not to sweat too much but it was just past midday, God and the Devil were working together for the first time ever to create the hottest place in the history of ever by moving the sun to within 10 miles of the city and trapping the heat with lots of white clouds. It wouldn't have suprised me if there was an electric blanket draped all over the ground of this massive, sprawling and roasting oven of a city. Determined as I was about the sweat issue, having showered once already I was in no mood to waste time and have another one, I wiped my brow coming through a residenital neighbourhood near the hostel.

I could feel sweat being trapped in the hairs on my forearm as I wiped it across my forehead. My determined fight was doing with tissues for this job, simply because I forgot them. But then as I withdrew my arm I could feel something was up with my left eye. I threw my hand at it, knowing that perhaps I would catch it. The lens let go of its grip to my eye lash as it slid onto the palm of my hand feeling slightly withered and dry. This wasn't good. I needed to be able to see in order to make it back to the hostel. With one eye I was more vulnerable to everything, nuclear blast, robbery, getting lost but not more vulnerable to being picked up in a Mustang convertable by the local university's cheer leading team. There's always a flip side, always. I attempted to put the lens back in but couldn't do it, it was withered and drying so quickly from the absolute heat that even if I had had access to a mirror, it would have been a challenge for my eye to actually accept it. And so, looking around in vain, I dropped it to the floor where it would in time rot away allowing me to proceed back to the hostel with one eye working. Well I lie, two eyes working, one of which can actually see things properly. It's a strange sensation having one good eye and another eye feeding very blurry images to my brain. Not to worry though it was only to be for a short period of time before Ii arrived back at the hostel and replaced them because they had been in a few days over their real limit anyway so it was no big deal to me.

This was where the good part came to an end. I left the scene of the lens falling out with a sense of hope but upon arriving at the door of my dorm that hope was crushed. To be replaced, and those of you that know me already know what I will say, by unlimited amounts of absolute anger, the pure kind they don't sell at Tesco, so pure in fact that refineries throughout the globe beg for it as an example. Well I was no mood now to sell anything but the permission for this hostel to be either set on fire, vandalised (but only to an extent that it would render the place as "destroyed" and not just "damaged") or have a bomb dropped on it. I had begun to warm to the place earlier and all, having arrived with a fairly poor first impression of the place but now this has all changed. The doors are locked as a routine, it's routine in many hostels it seems but not for all of the useful daylight hours (between about 10am and 5pm) like in this mad house. I tried the door again knowing I couldn't open it without damaging it and it's frame so I trudged back to the common room, one eye open sulking on the couch wondering where Donal was and where the owner of this hostel exactly was right now, for many various and violent reasons. I texted Donal and found out he was at a gas station but would be returning to the hostel soon so at least I'd have someone who knew the situation about the place which put my mind at ease somewhat (and even more so when he brought Oreos with him). Before he arrived though I went and tried the office door, that too was locked but I deemed it pretty breakable and had to continually remind myself that I was at an age now where my temper could get me in a lot of trouble and Texas execute more people than any other US state, although Donal has pointed out that only 8 actually practice this grusesome exercise. Still I didn't want to be fighting this after breaking a door, esepcially if I couldn't find the keys once in there. There were some emergeny numbers on the window though and I figured this was reasonable so I rang the first one.

"Hello Joy (yes that is her real name, I knew by seeing this that I really shouldn't expect too much from calling her), my name is Nevin Power and I am staying at your hostel. I lost a contact lens and need to get into my room to replace it as I can only see out of one eye essentially...I wouldn't have rang but it is an emergency for me".

"Well try the back door to the office" she said in a voice that sounded quite hesitant. It's not often you would hear someone encourage you to actually break in to their office, or at least enter without someone in charge being around. I did of course try the door and explained that it was locked, all the while conscious of my phone credit which I would need to ring another number or two and that's not counting the local assassin.

"That door is locked Joy...", Ii explained allowing my voice to trail off in order for her to think up of a response but again she was sounding hesitant and while it is very rare that I get angry over the phone (it doesn't have the same feel as in real time you know, except for when it is a machine in which case it feels good but also peculiarly empty as it doesn't ever get angry itself). Anger is reciprocal, one person gets angry and takes it out on another who then gets angry allowing the chain reaction to continue much like nuclear fission but I wasn't about to lose it with Joy for not it was not worth the trouble. She had the power to kick me out of this place and probably would, it's not a conventional place at all and I doubt a conventional response would have been issued. Neither was one issued in this case for she went on to tell me that no one else had keys, the one guy who did she didn't have any contact details for and that there was no point in ringing anyone else for they were all out of town.
"So, I'm sorry, but I guess you'll have to go around as a one eyed man for the day". Normally I would give a slight laugh to leave the conversation on good terms but on this occasion I was mute, said goodbye and hung up. I was livid.
What if this was a defibrilator I needed or what if I left my phone in the room and urgently needed it to contact my parents over a sick relative or friend? What if the case had been worse than it was? I suppose she just would have said, "Well you'll just have to be the short-of-breath-man for the rest of the day so".

I went back to the couch, got up from the couch and tried the office door again before walking into the kitchen, possibly looking possessed to the other people in here and took a knife from the drawer. Maybe I could prise open the lock, the house has never ever been refitted so everything is pretty old and worn but this didn't work either.

And so I lay on the couch, closed my eyes, had some music on and drifted off into a state of semi-consciousness before Donal woke me having brought with him Oreos and suggested I write something on the blog. So here it is, as fresh as it can be. As fresh as anger from a riled up Nevin and by God is Nevin riled up right now.

Day Eighteen - DC and North Carolina

2009-07-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

As promised in the last posting of Day Eighteen, I will indeed give a full and vivid description of what the ordering of our dinner was like from the nearby Popeye's fast food outlet on Bennings Road. Having gone to the door of the Senegalese place to find it was closed, my secret wish was granted, I would be able to eat some greasy chicken. It wasn't that I didn't want Senegalese, for I did, but I wasn't all too disappointed because the back up plan was intriguing. The reason for this sense of intrigue was simple. In the middle of a fairly old resedential area which had, in a sense, seen better days, stood a colourful fast food joint. While it was yellow and red, other buildings around it were grey and frankly dodgy looking. This is not to say that Popeyes was to win an award for the world's most outstanding paint job for you could tell that only a few hours after it opened the locals were hard at workl, modifying, the paint scheme if you will. Still, it all added character.

We walked in slowly, hungrily, past the two or three cars laying in the driveway area away from the drive-thru section. There's drive-thru's for everything here, even for laundry and for banking. I still remember going through my first McD's drive-thru in Douglas, Cork. It was a novelty to say the least, here you were driving to a window to get dinner in a paper bag and putting money through a window. As unglamourous as that sounds, it seemed as if the world was all of a sudden a better place for it. I realise better now although I do harbour the urge to go through a drive-thru in a shopping trolley some day.
As we pushed on the door to get in, I noticed that we would have the option, if we so wished, of sittign in with our food. Options are funny things though, we all have the option of throwing a brick at a cop but knowing the consequences we tend not to. Well the option of sitting down in here was much in line with that area of thought. The principle occupiers, big and broad black guys, were having a good time amongst themselves and who would we be to interfere? Iit wouldn't be right.
I had spotted on the menu that the chicken, which they specialised in drowning with hot oil, was served with biscuits. Nnever before, and I bet you haven't either, have I seen a mother load her shopping trolley with chicken from the freezer and rich tea biscuits. Therefore when the menu kept issuing that combination to me as my eyes scrolled around it, I naturally was curious. Chicken and biscuits? Only over here. I asked the lad in front of me who had just put his order through the plexiglass what exactly these biscuits were. He pointed to the items piled up in the kitchen, items that looked like scones to me. I thanked him, knowing that he wasn't a threat but to be honest that thought did cross my mind a little. Iif things wanted to kick off in that place then they would and the staff knew it - they were behind half inch thick plexiglass. Never before, in a food outlet of any kind, have I ever experienced anything quite like this. It was a complete sensory overloading, boysterous failed gangsta rappers eating merrily (they made it show) in the corner, a drunk guy who recieved the odd crumb from them who nibbled like a squirrel and dropped beer on the floor near Donal and I as we ordered (and no this wasn't anywhere near midnight or a nightclub) and staff who seemed oblivious to it all behind the half inch of clear plastic. And why not be oblvious, they were behind enough protection to stop a Scud missile nevermind a baseball bat or similar dynamic hitting device that the failed rappers used as protection of choice.
Ooh, and the food came out through a rotating box, at no point could you touch a member of staff unless your arm was only a centimetre thick and quadruple jointed. As the food was being prepared actually I saw that my drink, a large one no less for I had walked all of Washington that day, was in a Coca Cola plastic glass which I of course duly left at the hostel despite promises to take it home.

I can't really blame the fast food for this but God loves a tryer. I was asleep and because Popeyes use too much fat in their cooking process I was still processing my meal in my sleep thus casuing me not to get up at 8am like I said I would. I just made that up on the spot and Ii'm impressed...if only it were true. Bascially I overslept as I was up too late the night before and was cruely woken by Donal. Never before had I been so quick to grasp a situation as Donal pushed me to wake up, seeing my eyes open and then warning me,"We've got one hour".
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck". I can't say that I have ever responded to anyone like that in the morning either but there you go. Donal packed his tuff, I packed mine before rushing a shower and we both skipped breakfast in order to get out to the bus and to the train on time. We literally had one hour between waking up and that train going on it's way to Raleigh.
We caught the X2 bus without much of a wait but it looked shaky, time was ticking and as we boarded, I wondered would we have been better off making a run to the subway station which at that time may have been more reliable for us. Too late now, our quarters deposited, the bus was moving, slowly, but moving. Donal was calm, or seemingly so, but I was really fearing that we would miss this train and I was hungry into the bargain. I watched every bus stop, counting the people, were they old or young, did they have kids? Old people and kids took longer and old people especially for they like to engage in cobversation with the bus driver and I really wasn't in any mood to hear how Mrs Darling's knickers flew off her line yeseterday in a breeze or how the last bus driver had been rude to her. While this didn't happen, thankfully, there was always a group of people waiting at every stop and possibly some imaginary stops as well for that is what Murphys Law does to people. It fiddles with the mind.
Finally we were at the Capitol, our stop for Union Station, but our jounrey wasn't over yet. Mental torture, such as the bus trip was with the counting of minutes, the anxious glancing at a watch that kept ticking on and on, the people waiting at every stop to get on, was never going to be complete without some physical torture to. With a backpack and 20kg of luggage each, we had 7 minutes to get onto that train before it's wheels began to turn and we still had about one and half blocs to go. We crossed the road and looking at my watch, I began to run pulling my case behind me, Donal followed. My legs ached, my arm stretched too much to reach back to my case and drag that at speed, it all seemed too much but looking at my watch was the incentive that kept us going. There was no way we could miss this train.
Union Station is a grand building and worth looking at but all I remember from it is some letters indicating platforms and after finally seeing our letter, the final boarding call was issued and tickets were thrust into the hand of the waiting attendant at the door. A rush down a flight of steps to the platform and finally we were aboard, drenched in our own sweat but content to be on the train at last.

The train was something we were both really looking forward to and I had done a lot of reading as regards train journeys in America before even leaving the shores of the Emerald Isle. Apparently you got to talk to a lot of people on the train and that really the journey was not so much about the desitination but actually a lot about how you got there and who you talked with. It turned out to be true for having settled in, I got out at Richmond, Virginia where a smoke stop was scheduled. Not being a smoker I took my camera and went picture taking but got talking to the guy sitting across from me and so it remained until he got off to meet his family about two hours later. Before all of this however I had made my way to the lounge car to get a coffee and a bagel, two items that I thought of as a temporary breakfast, and while they won't break any taste records, they did the job. Besides, the scenery outside was much too nice to really allow me concentrate on the food although when I went back to my seat and got talking to Joe again we ended up on the subject of BBQ's. He was a 52 year old black guy, originally from DC and working as a cook something he had an obvious passion for it must be said. He roasts whole pigs on his outsized grills in his yard and by the way he was talking seemed to collect BBQ's for fun but had yet to acquire a small one, the only type that I myself have. We were both quite appreciative of our food, esepcially meat, and there were times when I felt like a learner driver in an L-plated Fiesta next to this guy with his collection of Cadillacs, BMWs and Alfa Romeos. You can imagine then that I was extremely chuffed when he mentioned to me, as he prepared to leave the train, that he was going to go and buy a small and cheap BBQ, like my one, right that day because he thought it'd be a good idea in case he ever wanted something just for himself and so avoid a big clean up job on his bigger ranges. I nodded in approval many times, possibly even when he had left the carraige altogether.
Try cooking your steaks directly on the hot charcoal having brushed off the dust from the coals first. Hhe could have told me to eat it raw and I would have beleived him he was that engaging but on this bit of advice, I think I'll be following myself. As engaging as he was though I was glad to put my neck back to a normal angle, until a clearly overweight lady one seat behind where Joe was, commented on my blue, white and red shoes. I turned my head to face her when she asked me did I play soccer, answering that yes I did. And here was where the fun began for she then enquired if I was going to NC State. Asuming that she was asking was I headed for the State of North Carolina, I dult responded that yes I was but obviously our wires had crossed. As nice as the lady was, we were never quite on the same page and when we did eventually land on at least the same book, I was taken slightly aback. She had been to France and Germany and wanted to go next to see Ireland and Britain. I must be honest now and say that this was unexpected, she looked more at home in a battered pick up truck sharing a seat with a banjo and a husband named Cletus. My sincere apologies to that lady go out to her now for I was working from stereotypical imagery, not something I am proud of but that's not to say that she didn't need to lose a few pounds if that was possible for her to do. I'm making no assumptions this time, maybeshe couldn't. Either way, her heart was in the right place.

It was in the middle of a phone call from home that I noticed the change between north and south and it's nothing if not pronounced, the houses changed and the towns too. There was more oepn space, more greenery and the houses had white pikcte fencing and ornate wood work on them. Yes indeed, this was the south and it wasn't long before I had to funnel my way through people getting on the train in order to get my luggage and get out, a difficult process it must be said but once it was done I felt my phone vibrate and Suzanne and Allison had made it to collect us. Nnow here was luxury, an air conditioned and sculpted Honda Civic coupe to bring us the 3 hours to Boone. I hadn't realised that this was the length of the journey because looking at some maps I reckoned that the drive was less than an hour but how wrong I was and I'll never forget how nice a gesture that was. They didn't point out any worries over fuel or distance, nothing at all and we even stopped off to get dinner in a masive mall before continuing on the Interstate to Boone, a welcome sight after the big cities that had so drained us so far.

Day Seventeen - DC

2009-07-13T13:58:00.001-07:00

The final proper day in DC came along not any quicker nor any slower than I expected to. I wasn't glad that today was the last day here nor I was sad to know this either because I expected that by the end of the last full day I'd have done all that I would have wanted to do. It's not quite as random as other cities and so you can leave with your canvass full so to speak, ready to come back another day maybe but in no real hurry to do so. Or misty eyes. This was only going to happen though if I got up and actually did the things I wanted to do and as I promised myself I did indeed get up early having enjoyed only about 5 hours of sleep.

This was a trait of DC, free internet meant staying up late updating this blog. The things I do for you people. I had promised to try and wake Donal to see if he wanted to come to the Capitol Building too but I guessed that this was to be a futile exercise and so it proved. I put my hand on his shoulder after rising from my own bed across the room and rocked him a bit but he didn't seem to like that, showing his distaste by throwing an arm against me, so I left him be. The arrangements, if this were the case, weren't the clearest really, for Donal has no US mobile. We were to meet in the National History Museum later that day...no real times or anything but we trusts that it'd work itself out and so I went off alone to get to Capitol South, the metro stop I reckoned was closest to what I needed.

Being alone wasn't all that novel but being alone for that period of time, pretty much a whole day was and I reveled in it. You can do what you please, take your time and see and just gather your own thoughts together for no matter how close a traveling companion you may have, time alone is necessary. It is in all walks of life. I do hate being alone in queues however and that is how I stood in the long line that filed out of the Visitor Centre of the Captiol Building. Still I couldn't complain too much as I waited in the line looking at Dad's wearing denim shorts and long socks, the type of socks you normally wear when playing football. The baseball cap and dodgy 80s style shirt completing the look. Actually that shirt as even poor in the 80s. Pity the kids.
The line moved on and through a security check which wasn't all that bad even at this unholy hour and I should mention this now, I hadn't had breakfast yet, I skipped it to ensure I got here in good time...i.e., before 9am.
And I was lucky I skipped breakfast because the overweight, bearded and jovial man looking after the line inside the centre gave me the last ticket for the next tour. He wasn't Santa although he was wearing red.

The tour consisted of an ultra-patriotic movie, then a tour of the actual building which suprisingly didnt last all that long but was impressive nonetheless. By about 10:30am it was all over and I went in serach of some breakfast or at least a coffee. I thought that eating in the Capitol Buildings restuarant would be a nice idea but the prices were expensive even for a coffee which was actually out of one of those big thermos flasks. And it was Dunkin Donuts...so yes, America really does run on Dunkin, as the slogan says.
Instead of any form of edible sustenence I headed for some literary sustenence in the Library of Congress. Taking the tunnel from the Capitol Building meant I didn;t have to go through more security on the way but I was disappointed to fid you couldn't actualy access the books casually. You had to arrnage for that in advance but then this is the biggest library in the world, or at least in the top 5, so I thought it fair enough and besides I was hungry.

Walking out of the Library of Congress I proceeded to walk into the city centre to the Verizon Centre where I came upon a Dunkin Donuts. Having been able to check my exam results that day in detail and having dne very well I tucked, without shame, into a coffee and a few donuts. Now if these weren't good enough, the action inside was. A guy in a wheelchair, apparently a veteran, came inside and rolled over a womans foot by accident. He was outside being helped by some charity workers who he didn't seem to get on with and decided to take refuge in the Dunkin Donuts when this happened. The thing was though, the shouting match wasn't between the man who seemed to be not fully wheelcahir bound but perhas semi-whellchair bound, but was actually between this black woman in her forties and some other woman in there. In fact they seemed to know one another. The staff carried on with their work, perhaos used to this sort of altercation but by thsi time the wheelchair vet had scouted off outside to avoid any of the tongue lashings that were flying back and forth. Some Muslim women in there watched the show too, smiling at the comicness of it all. I was too, you couldn't help it. Even when a public apology was issued by the, er, lady who started it all. You know the way you have stererotypes who seem to match the moment? Well she was not that match.

Leaving from here the donuts were taking their toll and needed walking off so I proceeded to walk around the downtown area in the sun where I was stopped by a young woman who had just done a model photshoot it seemed. She showed me all of the photos, very arty mind you, and then went on her merry way. I think she was trying to make the boyfriend jealous. My camera was the thing that set this off by the way.

By now the coffee needed an escape route so I walked around and stumbled upon the library of the Washington Historical Society for which I had to sign in but it was nice and the exhibit of painting on Lincoln caught my attention. I also got some directions that put me on the right track to the Old Post Office Tower which the guidebooks say is a nice alterntaive to the busy Washington Monument if you are looking for a nice view. No trip is complete without a wild goose chase and this was mine for the directions I recieved, all in all from about 4 different people, all turned out to be wrong. How does this happen?! Well it happens when you don't have a map I suppose but I eventually found the building, the old post office building which was now a pavilion for shops and cafe's in a nice indoor setting. I went through the security and a National Park Service Ranger guided me to the lift which took us to the 12 floor..well it did between two lifts anyway. The view, even thought I had been up almost ten times as high in New York, was really nice. Not overawing or anything but serene and calming in a way that is hard to put into words. You're kjust happy to enjoy the view with no crowd to block you for it never got busy while I was there. You could gaze out and see the Capitol Building, the Washngton Monument itself and a load of the city.
On the way down in the lift I enjoyed a chat with a guy who goes up their regularly when he is on lucnh from work. It tunred out he had moved over with his job from California which would be the equivalent of a laid-off Limerick worker moving to Poland to work in the Dell plant there. It's amazing the length that American people go for their work, it seems to be a whole other ball game here.

Finally I went on to the National History Museum which was quite impressive but which I won't go into detail due to time constraints right now but Ill say this..I dind't meet Donal here!

I went on to Arlington National Cemetary taking the subway and saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldiers before walking abck the considerable diatance to the Jefferson Memorial, a very expensive text asking Donal to meet me there, which he did. It was a beautifil setting on the banks of the Potomac away frm the busier Mall exhibits.

We had promised we would eat dinner in a Senegalese place next to the hostel and though we were both very hungry we went and saw that it was closed. Next stop, Popeyes fast food, concentrating it seemed on chicken and biscuits, a combination I had never thought of before but those biscuits were actually scones. Now this place was something else altoghether but I'll leave that explanation for when I have more time for it deserves it so watch for updates on this post!

Day Sixteen - DC

2009-07-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

If there was one place in DC that I had to go, other than the toilet as a natural reaction to things as we all have to (you can laugh now), it was the National Ar and Space Museum. Being fascinated by planes and rockets and such, this place was a mecca for me and the first stop on our long sixteenth day in DC. Again we didn't start out particularly early but we did make it out of the hostel earlier than on other days which was an achievement in itself we reckoned as we talked on the way to the subway station by the DC United Stadium named after Robert F Kennedy.

A short trip to the Smithsonian stop on the metro line left us almost directly in front of the Air and Space Museum. A quick security check and sign announcing that they were open until 7:30pm rather than the usual time of two hours earlier reassured me a I reckoned we could be caught for time in this museum, the world's most popular. And it ain't the world's most popular due to the security guards I can tell you that. I've become used to security checks at doors over here, not that I agree with a lot of them or see the point in some of them but they there and this isn't my country so I can't dictate that they should or should not be. Anyway being so used to them I slipped off my belt, got ready to put my camera through the machine and such only for the security guard to verbally slap me with, "sir, you're not listening, no belts or cameras, walk through". So I could just walk through with this stuff then? Seemingly so. Well I did anyway and you know what, he was right, I wasn't listening and it is only now hitting me that many Americans aren't either. The reason is that so many are sick of hearing about terror threats, alert levels and stop here, undo your belt, stick out your tongue to show if you're lying, type of things that are going on. An automatic reaction has entered the consciousness and I'm not even American. So there, it was automatic, I wasn't listening.

As for the museum itself, well it really is something else. Planes hang from the ceiling, the Mercury capsule stands encased in perspex alongside a Gemini capsule. To think that this capsule opened it's door in space to allow a man to float around outside was a thought worth remembering as I gazed at the switches, the tiny area to sit in, the control column and screens. A mobile phone has more computing power than this I thought...some watches too. Plenty of satellites and probes were on display including the Voyager probe, a test model of the one that is now in deep deep space way past our solar system. The lunar module was on show and this itself made me excited for this thing was up there on the moon, or at least was a full model or ground test version of it. In fact most were ground test vehicles so you were looking at the real thing, at the one that would go up if the other couldn't. It doesn't get a lot more real than that and yes, it was big.
You can walk through a Skylab test vehicle to see the first US space station, look into a 747 cockpit (they chopped off the front of a 747). I could go on and on but really you get the picture. Oh and there were missiles there too, ICBM's like the SS20 from Russia and the US Minuteman. There was the Sidewinder and the Exocet missile. Basically there was an awful lot of stuff, all of which was fantastic.

The idea for the day was to go and see the Air and Space Museum before then going to the National History Museum which Andrew, our well dressed friend from Leicester, had recommended. Time had run against us though, the Air and Space Museum separating Donal and I to the point that finding each other was only facilitated through sheer luck. We had walked for so long through this massive museum that we were tired and in need of something to eat fast.

It wasn't going to be fast though as we walked up through Georgetown, home of old Victorian style houses, the George Washington University, the Watergate Hotel and a lot of embassy and diplomatic houses. Eating in this part of town was said to be good and easy to find, something that had evaded us so far in DC and looked once more to be doing the same. We walked through leafy streets, quiet in this evening time towards a building I should have recognised. The sign gave it away, it was the Watergate (and if you plan on staying, it's closed till 2009 for renovations). We walked around it finding a lot of shops and such, not belonging to the hotel it seemed, which suggested to me that the place was now apartments and some are. As novel as it was to stumble on this place, food was not being served so we carried on, I pointing to the river side and in the opposite direction to where we were walking, as a possible hunting ground. Admittedly we did have to walk quite a bit but we got there. The sun was going down as we turned around from the direction which would have brought us straight back into central DC, frustration beginning to tell as cyclsists and joggers passed us. They weren't hungry you see.

We finally made it to the riverbank and found a nice restaurant there that is owned by the farmers union of...I think it was Nebraska. A union owned restaurant with good prices and some nice looking plates in front of happy looking customers sounded good to me. It sounded especially good after looking at the prices in the other places clustered in this circle under what were probably luxury apartments. High prices should have been expected though - there were boats docked at the side of the river and they weren't rubber dinghies or inner tubes either.

Our waitress it had turned out, had spent a night in Dublin airport on her way to Paris and had heard that Cork was a lovely place. In fact, anyone who did care to comment on our home city, always seemed to have heard only good about it which does make one proud. I suppose, when you are away from home, thousands of miles away from home, you tend to look more favourably at your homeland and iron out the mistakes that are so much more obvious when you are actually at home. Someone once said you become more Irish when you leave Ireland and I have to agree.

Oh and the food was wonderful, the burger was delicious as the waitress recommended it for my dangerously empty stomach and the dessert was tempting. So much so that she managed to sneak a bit out for me to taste but I really had no room left.

After taking pictures outside the entrance to the Watergate Hotel we went on home. The next day I was determined to be up at the crack of dawn in order to get a tour of the Captiol Building. I'm not that good at getting up early but this had to be done...when would I be back to do this again?

Day Fifteen - DC

2009-07-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

When you think of a tank, you think of an army and when you think a strong army, you think of the US Army. With bases all over the world and a history that involved them in some sort of conflict every two or three years, this is the automatic choice. The spread of US culture and with it the image of the army as liberator also helps in this regard. So why am I saying all of this? Well where is the centre of this mammoth military machine?

The Pentagon.

Getting up late once more we set off on the metro to the Pentagon, that famous building, breached just once, on 9/11 and an example of architecture to come when it was built in the 1940s. It was condemned then as wasteful expenditure and not a real government building for it was located away from the other main ones, across the Potomac River. These concerns subdued however, the whole idea of a Russian mushroom cloud eradicating all government buildings in DC whether they be across a river or not, taking over in the minds of the media columnists who decided it was in the wrong place first day. We arrived at the stop, myself already thinking it pretty nifty that it was possible to get off at a stop called "Pentagon", but then DC surprises you in this subtle way. Now, all of the metro stations in DC have escalators to bring you to ground level for it was built in 1976 and so is pretty modern and up to date, but this wasn't an escalator that we faced as we scanned our cards to get out of the station (another peculiarity that wasn't present in the Boston or NYC systems). This was a mega-escalator that seemed to rise not to ground level but sky level for upon looking up that was all one could see. I was confident that I would have to call Dulles International Airports air traffic control centre to get permission to go this high and this steep. I discovered the steepness when looking over my shoulder. I should mention that in many stations there were ads with pictures showing what happened to the shoes of unattentive people coming off escalators. Torn, ripped and frayed. Well if you fell backwards before even approaching the getting off part on this giant then you're whole body would be ripped and frayed. And torn. To see people running down the opposite one as they talked on phones was like watching someone walk a tighrope. Amazing and dangerous and the evil side of you wants them to fall, or get a fright anyway. I decided that would be unfair though so I stopped thinking that as I gasped in amazement, the exit section coming up, the steel steps going under those teeth-like things at the top of every escalotor. The advert compares it to an alligator when disturbed (not that I've ever disturbed one) but I reckon it's a fair comparison.

You wouldn't actually realise you were at the Pentagon unless you were told for when we exited we had to confirm that this indeed was the building between ourselves. The view we all know is from the top so you can see the shape easily but not so on ground level. We read a little of its history outside in the view of cheerful guards with machine guns, always a comforting sight, before setting off to see the Pentagon Memorial dedicated to the victims of the 9/11 attacks on the US military HQ. It was very well down, each soul commeortated in a very systemic way which photos do more justice to really. Or is this me crying to move on to the next blog post for I have so many to do? It is I will admit but basically the memorials are steel benches over a pool of reflecting water with the names engraved on to them and the area organised over a large space at the sight the plane hit with ages increasing along a wall system that borders the memorial. It was modern and effective for the benches really mshow that many lives were lost, some not even teens yet.

The humidity on this day was overwhelming and in the memorial area there was no shade. It was that heat that bakes you, it just slowly turns you on a giant spit better known as Earth until the Sun is ready to go to bed and you are soaked from sweat. Water fountains are readily found in DC though and we used them quite a lot, needing to of course.

Time had flown by as we had spent the hottest part of the day indoors, which made me wonder upon glancing at my watch, what it must have been like to be out in the sun in the midday heat. Actually this reminds me, when we were walking to the subway I saw a local black guy wearing a vest walking up in the opposite direction to Donal and I. He was sweating profusely. I knew at this point then that we were in for it. If the locals were sweating then we would be too, only worse. Much worse. The only cure was to literally shower in antipersperant but even with this your body would make sweat and you'd explode from not letting it out. There really was no way out.

There was a way out from the Pentagon though as we walked back to the subway looking across the massive Pentagon car park to buildings marked as Boeing, Lockheed Martin etc... I thought od Eisenhower and his warning of the impending dominance of the military-industrial complex in US politics. I thought also of the US need to have car parks surround everything. The saving grace in this case was that a good few Pentagon emplyees rode motorbikes.
My suggestion was to eat in the Dupont Circle area of town that night as that was supposed to have a concetration of nice restaurants in a laid back area. We didn't quite find a concentration but we did hit upon a nice Greek place that originated in Vienna. Peculiar I thought but I was hungry and didn't fancy another bowl of Muesli as a dinner substitute and so, in we went. The food was nice but portion sizes were small compared to what we were used to which, looking back, was a good thing as we can't eat whole farms every day now can we?

Still I figured dessert was in order to so I hopped into the South's answer to Dunkin Donuts, Krispie Kreme and grabbed a donut and a coffee. It should be Crispie Cream and it should be Doughnut but when in Rome...or in DC, what ever the case may be...

The rest of the ngith we spent talking in the park at Dupont Circle, so named after a Civil War hero I believe. The park was a circle funnily enough with benches all of the way around affording views of its centre but not ot the nice mix of architecture behind it. This was a good place to people-watch however with the background Victorian buildings provding a nice vista through the park trees. We talked and we talked until time hit us and we decided it was time to call it a day but not before I managed to ridicule someone under my breath.

In America, many traffic lights have a timer so you know how long you have to cross the road and sitting by a crossing we could see this. 50 seconds to cross a 12 foot wide stretch of road. A group came walking over and of course there was one imbecile who took 50 seconds to cross, just to show the rest that he could. Now if I were a psycologist I would say that what in effect was happening was him showing how slow he could be to the rest of the group but then I'm not a psycologist. I don't need to be one to see that indeed he was. If I was the car driver I probably would have knocked him down to teach him a lesson.

And so for today there I leave you, don't act the fool.

Day Fourteen - DC

2009-07-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

The fourteenth day of the trip started fairly late it must be said. Traveling from NYC on a bus with an intense stop in Phily had worn us out a little. Phily doesn't get a fair mention in this blog due to time constraints but the talk with author Thomas Hine was so interesting and engaging that it was actually hard work to conduct. There I was sitting face to face with a seasoned journalist and writer, who was I? I just tried to me, asked questions, contributed to the conversation and did my best not to seem like an idiot and in this I think I did well. To put this in physical terms it was like trying to keep up with a seasoned marathon runner. It could be done but there was only one person who was going to feel the pain the next day. And DC was that next day.

I had sat down to have some breakfast, Muesli, or a kind of this anyway, when an English lad called Andrew came along and began to talk to me. He was dressed up in a formal shirt and jeans, very English I thought as I looked at him. He was a nice guy though, working in the Labour Party back home so I knew that I was talkign to someone here with a bit of intelligence. The problem was that I wasn't quite fully awake as he talked while putting some peanut butter on the toast that had just popped frmo the toaster. I thought, looking at the peanut butter, that it had come from Safeway where I walked earlier to get the Muesli. When I was there I was quite suprised by the amount of people who were shopping on this Sunday morning after the July 4 fireworks. It was packed full unlike the corner store I went to earlier before reaching Safeway. The corner store was fairly barricaded, a feature of the community businesses it seemed, and hadn't any real selection of cereal. I really watnede Muesli and had stopped myself buying some in Boston so there was no way I was having breakfast without bits of what looked to be rabbit poo but were actually raisans, in my cereal. Safeway it was then but getting in there was hard, I couldn't find the door. Walking around the massive shopping centre walls I came upon it and also came upon those crowds I talked about earlier.

After a little while I began to tune in to Andrew to the point where we both hit on the same thought. He was traveling alone, clearly not with a girl of any kind because surely no girl would allow him out in that long sleeved shirt. We talked and came upon the idea that perhaps he should come out with Donal and I to see the sights. An extra body would do no harm and he was affable and talkative so it made sense and withing the day we walked the National Mall seeing the outside of the Captiol Building and a lot of memorials that night.

The thing about DC is normally, well apparently anyway, the humidity that exists there in summer. On this Sunday we were lucky for the heat wasn't unbearable as we walked but it was getting late in the day so....actually that's not a bad reason for staying in bed, it was a strategic decision, not a tiredness issue after all. Any jury would agree I'm sure, even in the US Supreme Court, a building's steps of whom I climbed after losing the two lads at the Capitol Building. That's what happens when you bring a camera though, you want to get better shots, see different angles and make the most of your time and I tried to,k even if that meant a million dollar text to Donal's Irish phone number to meet back up with them after I losing them completely. It turned out I had been gone for an hour but in DC it is easy to lose yourself in thought as you wonder about the buildings, what they really stand for, what freedom really is and whether this place is one of contradictions, the centre of an empire with unfmailiar clothes or simply a place which history decicded would be built in a European style, to rival those Europeans.

After catching back up with the lads, we went to eat in Quizznos Sub. Well ,they did. I choose not to do so, as I wasn't in the mood and didn't fancy going there in the first place but I wasn't about to winge for I wasn't starving. A thing about travel is that the apple cart can be very easy to upset and ruin things between two people although it's different with groups I suppose. With two, the balance is easy to unfurl and with no real reason to complain, I didn't. Besides, even if I was hungry, what was coming up next would more than distract me from it.

Having walked a lot of the National Mall, the long corridor containing the Captiol Building, the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial etc, it would have been a shame to have missed out on the chance to finish it off, at night, and so we walked along it, curious as to where the crowds of people were for it was a Sunday night and as we walked we felt as if the whole city belonged to us and us only. Had the police erected barriers to prevent people from seeing us walking around? I have discussed rules and regulations here before so anything is possible. Our first port of call was the Washington Monument, a staggering tower dedicated to the man who is revered over here as the first Presdident, great leader and all around good guy. The name should give it away. Looking up at this tower, having seen it so many times before on other media was something quite special and while I have no allegiance it to it, it made an impression. The whole Mall is meant to really for it is the heart of America's freedom rheteoric and what a heart! Needless to say there were plenty of American flags fluttering in the wind around the monument and at this point I took off to see if I could see the White House, which I did but only from afar as the Police presence was obviously quite large and I didn't know my way around the rear section where you get closer to the most powerful home in the world. At this stage it was dark, the moon had risen and was clear in a night sky of dark navy blue and I wound my way through sidewalks, seeing the Organisation of American States building, a place where many important decisions had been made but which seemed to have little significance for most walking by. So much so in fact that I easily laid the camera on the ground to allow it take a steady 4 second shot of the building.

The task in hand now, as the clock ticked by, was to find the two lads who I said I would meet by the Lincoln Memorial, a sight to behold at night. I walked through parkway seeing it in the distance and knowing that if only I hopped the little chain along he side of the path I could cut through and get there a lot quicker. This would certainly have been done at home but not here in DC. This place is hallowed ground, it is like one massive church of liberty where American cicitzens come to worship and pay their respects. I was certain that walking through the grass would not only bring me some funny looks but also a police man wondering if I had escaped from a mental insitution. That was fair enough really, I couldn't simply make up my own rules here, I wouldn't appreciate it if Americans back home decided to walk across...well, Turners Cross.

I finally reached the Lincoln Memorial as it passed ten o clock. The view from there down the reflecting pool that, well, reflects the Washington Monument, was something to behold but glory is not always as true and noble as it can be. Walking down to the nearby Vietnam War Memorial I was thrown into an area of darkness, slant light, poorly formed reflections and thouands of names, 58,261 in total. I walked along the wall, walking down into the ground to it's centre and then back up as I exited what I can only describe as a wound in the ground. A nescessary wound to remember those people who fought in a war that personally I think was pointless and based on lies and false theories. Upon walking up I saw a man, not dressed like anyone else at the wall, asking people if they needed help looking up a person. Some didn't acknowledge him, it was as if they didn;t want this man, who was a veteran of this war, to remind them that this war was real. Here was living proof and to the right of him was symbolic proof etched in a wall. I contemplated turning back so as not to engage with him, I couldn't see him properly and didn't know what to say and for that doubt I still feel a little bad. Who was I to judge him? My feet took me by him where I answered him that I didn't need help with the wall but that I appreciated his asking. How could I not acknowledge this guy? He was here of his own accord, perhaps gaining some solace from being around people that, etched in the wall, he may once have served alongside. This man had probably seen things that I never want to see, experiences that none of us can ever be prepared for and people, few as they were, ignored him. I was glad then when one group did indeed ask him some questions. Being honest, I wanted to ask him what it was like out there but what was he suppossed to answer with? He was a man, not a talking exhibit and I thought it was best then to listen to what he was being asked by others as igonarant as that in itself sounds. One thing stood out for me - 35 sets of brothers were killed in that war. Having a brother myself this was something that took me aback. How can one possibly explain that to a mother and father?

I finally climed the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a temple like structure modelled on Zeus temple in Greece. You can't help but be amazed, it is outstandingly well made, lit and although it has no press button machines to "learn more about Lincoln" it didn't need them. It seems to me that in America everything has to be bigger, better, or extended to again and again. The Lincoln Memorial stood simply without need for any of this and was better off for it.

And I must say, I was better off for having Muesli supper when we got home to the hostel.

Day Thirteen - Phily and DC

2009-07-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

It's not easy to travel when stuck rigidly to a plan. Can it really be called a holiday then? Not that this is really a holiday anyway because there are things to constantly worry about, are the dates ok, when do we need to be at the train station for, do we have enough money until we get to an ATM. Is my bike at home still ok? This then, is better described as an adventure and so it was as our bus pulled into Philadelphia where I was going to meet up with Thomas Hine, the author of a book called Populuxe which pioneered the study of the designs of the 1950s in realtion to US identity and the Cold War of the time. I fund it fascinating and will probably do my MA thesis on this quirky subject and so talking to him was a no-brainer. We met up and went to a cafe, commenting on the weather which was suprisingly not humid and the layout of the city which reminded me of Boston. I'd go back, it was compact, had narrow streets, a mix of high rise and low rise and dated from a good bit back. On top of this with the industrial decay perhaps still taking its toll there, the city had been through what Marseille and to an extent what Cork also went through in the 1980s with heavy industry leaving in droves, the city had extra character. It had seen bad times and was enjoying the improving times all the more for it. I'm not going to be so arrogant as to pontificate on this for we were only there for about 3 hours before we had to end our interesting chat and make our way to Chinatown to catch a bus to DC.

Catching a bus here was interesting. Donal went first confronting an angry Chinese woman who clearly never had taken a class in customer-service before. She gave Donal the wrong ticket but this was expected as he had asked for a ticket to Phily when he was already there. It sorted itself out in the end but not before she raised her voice, spoke English faster than any Oriental person had ever done and tore tickets like a shredder. I learnt the lesson and got through it hassle free...not that you'd want to hassle her. The bus was supposed to leave at 4:30pm but didn't leave until after 5pm which was the prime reason we missed out on the fireworks later that evening. I was sitting on the bus, no air con on and was complaining, mainly to myself, about the bus driver who looked like the only thing he was interested in was smoking outside. The only drama was two black guys who had obviously had an argument and were on the street, not the bus thankfully, getting ready to square up to one another. The weaker looking guy ran away with a bag on his back though which ended that, allowing me to resume complaining. We finally left at about 5:15pm, too late to get to DC in time, not that we knew right then.

DC hit pretty hard when we got there. As the bus approcahed the city, we could see the Capitol Building in the distance and the Washington Memorial but the part of town we were going through looked pretty run down confirming what I had heard from a friend before that when you leave the centre of DC, it begins to look pretty mank. Mank sometimes means character though and after a few days we got the hang of it but as the X2 Metrobus dropped us to the hostel I had other thoughts...mank really was mank, or so it seemed. The hostel seemed pretty far out, in an area that didn;t look appealling and I suppose I judged the book by its cover a little quickly. The owner of the hostel wasn't there to check us in and the fireworks were going to start soon. When he did arrive, he complained we hadn't given hima check-in time. That was optional accoding to the website. He sorted us out thoguh and turned out to be a nice guy but he took his time showing us around the hostel which again added to the fact we couldn't see the fireworks and by the time we threw our stuff down and got onto the subway, hope was fading. I clung on to the hope that the fireworks would last a while for as we entered the subway station we heard big, and I mean big fireworks going off, as through the neighbourhood familes and kids set off their own little ones. People got on the subway on the way to a stop we would get off at and with this I thought we were ok, the locals were timing it as we were. It turned out they were going home The show was over when we came up to ground, a scuffed National Mall with people gathering their stuff to go home was all we saw.

Yes you read that correctly, they were going home. The timw was 10:15pm and they were going home even though the next day was a Sunday, they could afford to stay out and party. This was strange behaviour to say the least for back home...well you know how St Patricks Day is, it lasts about a week, employers wonder where workers have gone and the whole country is turned upside down in a pool of drink. DC was a massive contrast as people took their fold up chairs, lined for the subway, and went home. In Boston it was different, last year at least, but then this wasn't ever renowned as a party city and even finding food, never mind drink, if you wanted it, was difficult.
We walked, using our senses as we had no map and didn't feel in the mood to talk to a local as we were gutted at not seeing what we really had wanted to see. Eventully we came upon a part of town that seemed to have some places to eat but guess what, despite the bit of life that was still going in this section of town, food places were closing up. Imagine Abrakebabra closing at 10:30pm on a Saturday night? I honstely couldn't believe it and thought for a second about maybe opening a fast food place in this town myself and raking in the dosh. It was there for the taking really. Ultimatedly we ended up going to McDonalds, as much as we didn't want to, and ate our food on the steps of the Smithsonian Arts Museum near the Tresaury Department Building. It was unique at least.

As we sat there the police came by and informed the crowd sitting on the steps that if anyone was under 17 they'd to be home by midnight, fifteen minutes away. I couldn't believe it, they were so strict on this! There was even an ID check threat made which resulted in a few people leaving just to be sure. One girl had to make a show of throwing out her can of alcohol in front of the crowd as the police saw her drinking. It wasn't due to her being underage it seemed, it was just because she was drinking outside. "Don't spill it out on the steps, come down to the sidewalk, it'll stain the steps". So there we are, rules and regulations again.

We left to get the subway home to the hostel and I had a distinct impression that DC wasn't going to be a nice place to spend time. Book covers though can really mask what lies inside.

Day Twelve - New York

2009-07-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

Day Twelve was to be our last day in New York before we made the trek to the bus and on to Washington DC, with a brief layover in Philadelphia to see an author I have wanted to meet. It was strange thinking this at the time because we had gotten so used to New York, to the accents, to the moods and to the area as a whole. Don't get me wrong here I am not saying that we 'knew' NYC, no one, in my opinion, can ever really know this place because it changes quicker than you can get to know it. Maybe you can get to know it as an overall concept but in physical bricks and mortar it's fluid and as such then difficult to know, if at all.

This musing wasn't going to keep us from feeling a little disappointed that we were leaving however. We'd have to make the best of the place while we still could and our starting point, admittedly a little bit of late one, was the USS Intrepid. This is a WW2 spec carrier with all different types of planes on it and Concorde next to it on the quayside. It would be impossible for this not to be good but we had left the hostel late, a feature that was to continue into our time in DC, and were hoping that it wouldn't shut before we came along.

The reaon we had left late was because we hadf laundry to do and an average sized amount of it and looking back it probably took an hour to do as we semi-struggled with the industrial strenght machines. We went in, asked for instructions, bought mwashing powder in a plastic bag that said "Made in Mexico - Effective and Economic", prayed it wasn't H5N1 infected and proceeded to pour it into the machine too late. There was no drawer like in machines at home but a rubbber cover with a special pipe, opened to allow to to out in the powder as water sped through it but the water had gone through before I realised and I think the manager wanted to scold me when I explained the problem. Instead he got a container of water and rinsed it down manually. Well I did, he filled it. We then dried the clothes, 5c a minute, folded them neatly so as not to iron them as there wasn;t one around and we finally got back to the hostel. Although it may have seemed like time wasted it wasn't because where is more local than a laudrette in Harlem? The accents and things we heard were just brilliant and way too lengthy for this.

Finally we left for the USS Intriped and as we sped walked our way down the Lower West Side from the Times Square subway stop, the signs were promising as we could still see people on the deck of the ship looking around casually. These were later on to turn into the world's most evil people by the way..keep reading. Seeing the hopeful signs I had begun to get excited and when the guy sitting casually in the shade asked us if we needed help I confidently asked which way did we get on to the ship. He didn't tell me but rather informed me that the ship was closed. There was no point, arguing although it had closed early. Donal had half guessed so he wasn't too gutted but I was, I was disgusted. Concorde was there, just over a fence somewhere or something and here I was a few minutes too late to see it. Think back to when you were a child and wanted that extra sweet but upon almost getting it, it's moved or taken away. This was that feeling only that the TV remote control was also just out of reach of the playpen and Fifty Cent or another self styled gun loving "ho-dog" or whatever name his "homies" have given him on a give day, is playing on the TV. They used this form of torture in Guantanamo if you believe some people. You see the thing was, I walked down a little bit to at least picture the ship and then saw Concorde, standing gracefully, 220 feet long next to the carrier, reflecting the sun with its gloss white paint, a symbol of mankinds progress a nd a symbol also of its regress. They allow you to walk through it and all. We'll leave it be at that, where's the waterboarding guy?
Oh and the people on the ship who had went on time were evil for enjoying themselves up there when I know, for a fact I will jave you know, that at least half couldn't tell on aerofoil from a wing. And for those of you that know, that was a trick. Those evil bastards wouldn't have known though.

Going by customary tradition we had to have a steak in New York due to it being our last night and having seen a place right under Madison Sqaure Garden earlier in the week, we headed for that. It was closed. I was actually not to unhappy that it was if I am to be completely honest with you because it's name was "Ken and Pauls" or something like that and I just knew it was going to be expensive because, and pardon me here now for they are not all like this, but I guessed that two yuppies who made it big in stockbroking before running from the impending bubble, opened this place and came up with this great name by putting their first names on a sign. That's the imaginative capability of two former stockbrokers or accountants and you know that generalisations are always true. Then of course, as we continue with our generalizations, they jumped the price on the menus because if the soup is $10 then it must be the world's best and that isn't always true. Cutting this long story short, we walked a little further, basically across the road at Madison Square Garden to a little restaurant doing a finbe Porterhouse steak for about $24. Deal, although doing that every night would be a disaster both healthwise and financially, one night every now and then is acceptable and we found our last night in New York as being completely acceptable.

What was even more acceptable still was the Empire State Building and the view from the top which was to cap off our time in New York with a bang, in a literal fashion so it happens as we saw some early fireworks from up at the 86th floor with the breeze blowing through the stars to cool us down. Getting up there was a bit of a disaster though as you had security checks, screaming kids (it was that playpen and the tv remote I tell ya), long lines (yeah those ones) and sore feet. Organization and uniform design do not seem to be the fortes of the people running the whole show as the guys in the burgundy and black, initially sounding like a good combiation until you see that burgundy is the main colour and not the trimming of the uniforms, look like they applied for their jobs straight after being thrown out of a high class circus. The organisation is about the same for although the lines were orderly, they were slow and cumbersome as you curved your way around velvet-roped empty space. Frustrating was not the word but at the end of the day it was worth it as the view is something else up there.
You ascend in the lift and your ears pop numerous times adjusting to the rapidly changing air pressure, you watch the floors tick by in anticipation (one middle aged Japanese guy in the lift looked very, er, anticipated, in a way only Japanese people can manage to). Then you emerge and take another shorter lift from 80 to 86. And then you see the crowd of people already on the deck. There was enough room though and I managed to loose Donal and get great night shots of the Manhattan skyline which shows that 1) the crowd was big and 2) the crowd was big, but not big enough to prevent me using the wall as a tripod for timed long exposure shots. Forget the last part, just me showing off. It was a clear night and the eye could see for miles even before we got the extra lift to the 102 floor, indoors and with very few others in there, this oasis of silence allows you to reflect on the view, to really pay attention and hear yourself say "wow". Lights as far as the eye could see, silhouttes you recognise fro mthe silver screen, streets you've crossed before but not look like slithers with ants crossing them. Being 1200 feet up in a building built in the 1930s, depsite the frustration while queueing, really is something to try. And it really is something to cap a week in New York with.

Day Eleven - New York

2009-07-07T10:41:00.000-07:00

Traveling is not always just about leaving your home, it is also a lot about looking forward to coming back to that same home. On a trip five weeks long though and only eleven days into, I was already missing home but knew that there was no choice but to carry on, keeping busy by looking at the sights and generally keeping my mind occupied. In New York this is pretty easy to do as you can imagine. I can't exactly think of the banks of my own lovely lee (and the song of the same name) when a black guy is shoving a CD in my hand and trying to get me to buy it. He's an independent rapper, he has to sell his stuff someway and really, American know how to do this. I can't say that's ever happened on Pana really, the only people who come close are the Concern charity workers who ask you to give out your bank details under an umbrella on Oliver Plunkett Street after they have practically ambushed you. You see them, you try crossing the street but you've just missed out on one on the side you crossed to and you can see him turn as a person opposite you rejects him and bang, you're caught. Charity is fine, very fine actually but I personally don't like this type of charity collecting. Sure they don't force you to give but that's like saying the people who circled you in school and shouted "fight fight fight" at you and one other inevitably bigger guy, aren't making you fight. As for the CD, I think I actually bought one in the end but I bargained with him and got it for two dollars.

On the other hand you can certainly think of home when sitting in a diner somewhere, it being alien to you as you look about with your Biochemistry degree (not that I have one myself mind) wondering whether the NYC smoking ban was a good idea or not as you sip on an ice cold glass of Cola. You can't get Rasa over here, certainly not if you call it Rasa. No TK Red Lemonade either. Probably because it turns red with the addition of DTT but still it tastes good back home.

It's important to have links to home when travelling and that includes people you know from home and normally locate with home in you mind. A friend of mine, Christine, had come to New York on a J1 for the summer and we spent this day with her, or rather she did with us as she had come in from way outside the city to spend a day in Manhattan. The day didn't begin too early, we met up at Grand Central at midday, Donal following on after having a shower. It's only really a valid excuse but the air conditioner in ther hostel wasn't too effective at least for our room due to there being about 12 people in the room. That's a lot of breathing and a lot of warm air which, so my theory goes, means you get sleepy and so I have just made out a valid excuse for sleeping in late. It obviously wasn't that we were doing so much walking at all.
Not having had a brownie since Boston and trying to find a decent cafe in Times Square to have a chat meant that we went into one of New York's Europa Cafe's and discussed home, being so far from it, America, other people and all the rest of it, things you would no doubt find quite boring. However these things were important to talk about as they reminded us both of home and that was the important bit. If you are at your home reading this then you won't find that interesting but you get my drift.

Upon Donal catching up with us we queued up for Broadway tickets at the TKTS Booth unde those red stairs. This was not like a regular queue though for Americans call them 'lines'. People underestimate the cultural gap between Ireland and America at times for we all know what 'lines' mean when overheard in a dodgy nightclub. Yes indeed the guy with the hoody simply wants to get into a line to get his coat from the cloakroom, that's all. Oh and this line was wet, again what I would imagine a line to be like in a nightclub seeing as that line would probably be along the top of a wash basin or hand dryer. The TKTS Booth was due to open at 3pm but as we descended from the red steps to have a look about we noticed that there were actually already quite a few people in front of us, perhaps 50 or so people. We took our place though, suprised at the amount of people alreayd there for tickets and waited. Waiting is never fun, that's why there is always magazines in waiting rooms and such like but at least there were three of us together and that meant that we could talk and pass the time because, to be frank, the adverts around Time Sqaure were getting pretty boring. We really should have guessed that there would be rain on the way after seeing the clouds and indeed there was - heavy rain. I think Donal felt it first and then it just began to pelt down like bullets, soaking any bit of fabric it touched. I had brought a poncho with me, perhaps guessing that there would indeed by some rain and it helped a little as we learned the art of "tent-putting-upping" which I beleive is actually Japanese in origin. Not really but then it should be Irish in origin as the British kepy burning down the permanaent structures and it does rain a lot on the Emerald Isle...I must look into that one further for a bit of historical hijacking.
I ripped the poncho out and we put it above our heads trying to share the plastic sheet amongst us so that we didn't get too wet but water will always find a way and whenever we moved the water slid through creives in the poncho and down our backs. It's always the back isn't it? Murphys Law is alive and well, the first world wide set of laws ever, before the League of Nations and before the UN.

Eventually we reached the top of th queue and after much discussion on what to go and see we ended up with three tickets for Shrek the Musical. Chicago was $98 and that was with a discount (the TKTS Booth sell tickets at a 20% to 50% discounts as the shows are all same say shows). Shrek was a shade under $50 so that sounded good immediately after the Chicago price was conveyed to us at the desk. Funnily enough no prices are listed on the elctronic boards that disdplay the show times and the percentage discount but I remember the Chicago one saying it was a 50% discount so if you want to see an expensive show then this is the one for you. Shrek was a reliable bet for us though, should be funny and we'd know bits from the film so we wouldn't get lost. We didn't go straight from the tickets to the show obviously, we were soaked and needed changing so after paying a visit to H&M where clothes may have been found we ended up splitting up. Christine and I went to look for a hoody for her as her jacket and top had completely soaked through and although was now drying in the heat, must still have uncomfortable. We went searched through a lot of shops and ended up going through Fifth Avenue in the search but unless she wanted to take out a mortgage there was no way she was getting even a pair of socks there because we had choosen the centre of New Yorks fashion district to look around for a cheap hoody and in the end we hopped on the subway to get to Harlem and to the hostel.

Donal was pretty much set to leave to get the show, I showered and changed while Christine rested and we went off then, hungrily it must be said, to the Broadway show. We made it on time, just about. Before I go any further let me take this opportunity to say that being late is not an actual problem for what it does is it prevents you from waiting and so its a preventative measure. After all I did already discuss the virtues of a waiting room didn't I?
On the way in I looked at my watch and saw that we had five minutes to take our seats and having not eaten anything since that brownie around 12:30 I mwas in the mood for a dinner but they only really had M&M's and water and other stuff like that inside the theatre and they chraged me $8 dollars for a pack of them and a bottle of water. I thought, afterwards, because at the time I was just desperate, that the guy who set those prices should have gone down with Bernie Madoff. The show though was great, very funny, well made, the music was very good and all in all I thought it was well worth the $48 I paid for my ticket because when will I next be at a Broadway musical? Who knows? Phone me if you do know, that'd be the berries.

Food was the next thing on the agenda, we had virtually starved our way through the day, except for the overpiced M&Ms, the packet of which I have had framed, and were all quite hungry for a proper dinner. TGI Friday's was somewhere I knew little about but knew enough that while in New York it was probably appropriate to eat there and it must be said that the three of us did quite well with the food although the post-10pm service charge was something none of us liked. Tipping is a strange practice really over here, it actually helps the worker to make up a decent wage because in most places they don't get enough of a basic wage in order to liove their lives. In essence then you are expected to buy their food for them and put nappies on their kids. That's the truth of it when really you shoud be rewarding them for good service so they can treat themselves and the employer paying for the daily nescessities through a decent wage because with the current system there is only one person gaining and that is the emplyer. The worker is being ripped off because tips are not a guaranteed income but yet that workers bills are always guranteed to come in the letterbox when meant to. Customers are ripped off in that they know that they must always pay more than the menu actually says. It's a ridiculous system, not that I mind tipping for good service, but not the point where the server must depend on what you and others give them over the period of an evening. It's unfair on them and in this instance in TGI's, was even unfairer on us. Still, we had dinner in Times Sqaure at 11pm and it feels good to say that.

Not long after this we ambled to Grand Central and Christine found her train home while we went on the subway, already talking about what to do the next day. It's a paradox, you have to plan the next day out and yet by doing so you're just making the time go all that quicker but what were we meant to do? Use a poor air conditioner in a room of 13 sleeping bodies as an excuse?!

Day Ten - New York

2009-07-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

You may know that I have a slight fascination with the American life and culture of the 1950s and 1960s. It started out with two lads, Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin, the two brothers who make the duo better known to those who like a bit of alternative electronic music as Boards of Canada. When I discovered their music, I liked the videos, which happened to be made by fans simply to post on youtube and upon reading through some comments I ended up on a site called www.archive.org which actually has reels and reels of Americana film, adverts and short programmes from way back when TV was just about after working it's way into every house in the States. I suppose this was the first step and I gradually awakened in myself, for it was already there just that i had never bothered pursuing it, an interest in American culture of the time and the optimism assocaited with it as people looked forward to automatic houses, kitchens where the food would be automatically made, where cars would glide along highways without the need for someone to drive the thing. Perhaps the culmination of this era was with the 1964 World's Fair, the ending of the period coined by the author Thomas Hine as the Populuxe period of US history.

This fair was held in New York, in the Queens borough at Flushing Meadows Corona Park where the Mets play thier baseball and where the tennis stars of the world travel to annually to play in the US Open. There is a fascinating video from the time of the fair on Archive.org made as a promotional video for it I think and having watched it and become somewhat fascinated by the whole idea of this world fair and the involvement of so many US companies in it with great places like 'Motoramas' and 'Unispheres' made there, I knew that while in NYC it would have to be seen. It was a Wednesday morning so I doubted many others would be there and besides who else is interested in seeing rusted remains but me? It turns out quite a few actually, but not really with the rust it seemed.

The blue line on the subway took us out of Manhattan and above ground through Queens and looking out of the windows it quickly became noticeable that we had arrived in Manhattan just through this partiuclar area. The ride was fairly long, again the maps were decieving in their distance but eventually we got there, one stop earlier than we really should have but it was no big deal. The sky was pretty cloudy at this stage and it was coming up on 3pm as we walked down to the park past some houses and cheap looking pizza places and convienience stores. The are didn't look too well off at all, not that that made it dangerous or anything but I was sure that tourists really didn't frequent the area all that much. Crossing the road, what came into view was a Redstone booster, the rocket that launched the first Americans into space which had the famous Mercury capsules for the silver suited astronauts placed on top. Next to that was a section of rocket engine, maybe from the Saturn boosters and next to that was a Titan rocket, the family of rockets that sent the Gemini spacecraft up into the stars to allow the US conduct their first spacewalk, months after the Russians had done their own. Although fenced inside the New York Science Museum they were imposing and I can only imagine what they must have been like to ride upon. I'd say they were quite a bit more severe than the subway. I have a great interest in this period of space travel as it fits in with that US optimism of the time and to see these rockets up close was amazing. We have all looked up at the stars at some point and on doing so wondered what is up there. Is it the ultimate freedom to be there where there are no rules as such, where not even gravity can rule upon you? Perhaps it is but perhaps also it is the greatest awakening one can have, to see our planet below you, to know that it isn ot your home but the home of billions. And yes you could say that New York is a planet in itself!

We weren't sure if we could see the park without paying but I knew it was free and after seeing a pathway, we followed it and came upon a sculpture which was emtitled "space" and suppossed to show the free flowing of metal in space. It did a good job, I thought it looked fantastic but it was simply standing there in the middle of a road into the park, a road seemingly open only to pedestrians and authorized park vehicles. There was no plaque, no sign, nothing to commemorate what must have taken so much time and thought to make. This theme was to continue throughout our walk around the park when we came upon such structures as the New York State Pavilion, three tall towers with observation decks on top and outdoor lifts along with a large area next to them covered with a glass suspended roof, the floor a detailed map of the State of New York in tile along with whatever exhibits were in there. I saw this as we walked along while gazing at a group playing baseball. Essentially what had become of the park, only partly in fulfillement, of the man who brought the World Fair twice to this part of New York, Robert Moses, was that it had turned into an organic play and recreation area. Moses wanted the park to be a great area for the people of NYC to play and relax but the Fair didn't bring in as much money as hoped, in fact it lost money, and so could never be made into what it really should have been.
Instead there were dry pools where fountains once shot magnifently into the air, grass and weeds growing where fantastic pavilions by the likes of GE and Pepsi once stood. The exhibits that still stood did allow me to think back on what that time must have been like with crowds of people admiring the flags, the national pavilions and the progress civilisation had seemingly made in industry after WW2. The Unisphere, a massive 700,000 pound stainless steel globe, with all of the world's seas and continents on it still stands about 12 stories high, tilted on its side as the earth is in space only that the water pool that once surrounded it is now dry, the floor a kind of aqua blue, now feeling only the patter of rain where once fountains showered water to. It was sad to think that this stood, as grand as ever for it recieved a facelift a few years ago, without anyone else really paying much attention to it where once it was the centrepiece of a World Fair. I contemplated this while watching planes fly over it as I lay down under Antartica. Donal and I climbed the metal foundation to it and lay under the world so to speak which was quite unique.

After this we walked down through more dry pools towards a statue called the Rocket Thrower, 43 feet high and cast in bronze in Italy. It depicts a man hurling a sphere into the air with a trail of fire behind it. From here we carried on to a huge pond from where, if you looked back at the Unisphere, it was suppossed to be the same view you would see of Earth if you were 6000 miles in space. A nice touch it must be said although I read that after being there wich is a shame. Just before we circled the pond it began to rain a bit and we took shelter under a tree, lucky there were plenty of benches around to use. People were playing football (soccer) nearby as well so it seemed to me that at least the park was actually being used but still I couldn't help thinking it was a shame that it is simply being left go to dust, being patched up now and then, but largely being allowed to go it's own way, forgotten in time. At the same time though maybe this is the way it was suppossed to be for if it were permanent it wouldn't have that certain magic about it.
I thought about this as we left, walking past the tennis stadium to the parks own subway station. Just before I walked past the light rail platform to the subway I took a look at the murals put in the ground at the end of the slope that you walk up to the platforms. They detailed some of the ideas of the park, some images of the park and indeed two murals held information on what was inside the time-capsules buired beneath the soil somewhere in the Park by Westinghouse. They're due to be opened in 6939Ad so we'll see what the people of the time think of birth control pills, a Beatles 45" record and plastic heart valves and so many feet of microfilm detailing general life in the late 1930s and the 1950/60s (two capsules, one for the 1939 Fair and one for the 1964 Fair). Or maybe we won't find out but you know what I mean.

We left, in a way I was sad to leave but we were both hungry and had more to do, and finally got to Greenwich Village via subway where we actually managed to catch a game of street basketball. Before actually getting to Greenwich Village we stopped off at Grand Central Station to look around and what place to look around. The marble walls, the high ceiling, the clock in the centre with the information booth and the throngs of people going home from work or a day inthe city moving , always moving to somewhere else. I really hoped they had admired this place beofre because it deserved to be admired. It was elegant, polished, almost relaxed in dealing with so many people. You know that when you call a building "relaxed" that it has a charcter all of its own and Grand Central really does. We left with our mouths wide open in amazement to catch the subway to Greenwich at last.
The basketball there when we got back to above-ground level was interesting to say the least as we watched tall coloured lads shift with amazing dexterity around a court which was sponsored by Nike it seemed. I got some good pictures of it all and after picking a colour, the white's I decided to follow the score as a crowd had gathered around to watch. Having picked the white's, they of course lost but it was good to see nonetheless. If we weren't hungry we may have stayed for more but our stomachs willed us on to find Johns Pizzeria and we were not dissappointed. Two 16 inch pizzas for $20 each baked in a coal fired oven and mande by two, maybe Mexican, chefs who really looked like they would throw you in the oven yourself if you made a complaint to them. Either that or they'd get the Mexican Mafia after you because they looked the part to be leaders of a Latin American group involved in certain less than legal activities. I'd go so far as to say that they went in to John and say "Hi John, we are good pizza chefs, here is what you will pay us, here is what we will do and we will begin right now" - I don't think John had much of a say but it didn't matter as the place attracts quite few celebrities even though it is so cheap (for what you get) and, well, not exactly chic looking inside.

To work off this massive amount of dough we walked south a bit through Chinatown and crossed over Manhattan Bridge, that less than famous one that borders the Brooklyn Bridge. It took us some time to actually get on the bridge but once on it became clear that this was not a structure to laugh at. It carried two roads which were always busy and it carried two subway lines as well as the walkways across it. It was all done so each was very seperate so there was no way you could fall in front of a subway train as that was a level above you seperating you from the roads. It was quiet and as Donal walked ahead at speed to work off the pizza, I ambled across taking shots of Brooklyn Bridge from a decent height and the lower Manhattan skyline. I sang too, as one does when on their own a few stories over the Hudson River as the sky turned darker and darker.
We reached Brooklyn and then went for the bridge bearing this borroughs name. By this time things had slowed down quite a bit as the darkness was fully set in and we sat own along the river on rocks in the park near the Brooklyn Bridge. If you ever watched the film Munich, then the park at the end of the film is where we were. After taking some pictures we then crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and this was really something. Even without the Twin Towers, the Manhattan skyline, to a Cork boy, is something to behold. Donal and I discussed how it must be monotonous to locals in the same way that Pana can be for us but yet they would find the small low rise of Cork to be fascianting in the same way we found the high rises of New York. I will say that the bridge is romantic, it's lit up and you travel on wood not on concrete or anything and it is by no means garish, just beatifully made beckoning you to walk across it or sit on a bench on the bridge to contemplate the scenery. As you walk over it you notice a hump, it's a suspension bridge after all and as you cross the haflway point you speed up towards the bright lights of Manhattan where you can lose yourself to anonymity. Now I did say that romance is certainly a part of this bridges character but what is romance if you are anonymous? But then what is romance if you can be not one person but two in an area of anonymity? Real romance, that's what that is and New York is a perfect place for it.

Times Square is another perfect place for this. Maybe one of the most well known and busiest places in the world and yet Donal and I could sit there and watch it all unfold from the red steps over the TKTS Sales Booth, the crowd who do discount tickets for same-day Broadway shows. Imagine sitting in a place where thousnads of people are present and moving and changing ever minute, where lights are so bright that the difference between night and day is certainly present but not in the sense that you may know it, where the place looks brighter at night than in day, where anything and everything can happen, where victories have been celebrated and New Years welcomed. There really is something about sitting back and relaxing in the midst of all of this. In a way it showed that amongst chaos, not order, but sanctuary can be found. There was no trouble, no drunken people trying to cause fights without even knowing it themselves, no tension at all. New people sat down every few minutes as others left reflecting life in NYC itself where buildings are brought down, replaced by new ones, where most things are never allowed to grow old but rather put away to make space for the new. It was the centre of ecclecticism then and we were there until about 12:30am before going back to the hostel to sleep.

It had been a long day with miles of walking but there was certainly a lot for the mind to store away as sleep came by. It knew it'd have more to store soon.

Day Nine - New York

2009-07-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

Today was going to be the day when we were definitely going to make it to Greenwich Village. You may remember from earlier in this blog though that plans do not always follow their intended course and this one didn't either but there's an interesting story here nonetheless. How could there not be when it's set in New York?!

We started the day with the full of intention of seeing a bit of Greenwich Village which has, according to the Berrlitz travel guide we were depending on, maintained a village like charm due to the artists and others who live and mingle there. It's lack of imposing skyscrapers is also probably another factor in this as I found that the skyscrapers, especially newer ones were almost frightening in their stance. You look up at them like you would a school bully but you'd gasp in amazement at how they stood rather than at how winded you were from that punch to the stomach. All the same they do make you feel quite insignificant and annoymous whereas in Greenwich Village the buildings were much more like tall houses with speciality shops and restuarants dotted throughout serving those artists and students from nearby New York University. Come to think of it now it is students that often bring quite an amount of diversity ot a city and in this section of area they certainly add to the mix. This is being written with experience from another day when we actually did get to Greenwich Village but on this particular day we do not go there. You see looking at a subway map in New York is not difficult to do but rather it opens up whole new possibilities to you and I knew that at some stage dueing the week 8in New York I wanted to see the Flatiron building, arguably the world's first modern made skyscraper using the same basic construction that much taller and more famous builsings have since used. This then was a pioneer and as such it is fitting that it is a point, pointing horizontally to the Empire State Building which is way up town.

Even getting this far was an achievement though for we had walked quite a few blocks which is a square of land as the Americans divide up a lot of their cities into grids so you don't get Pana-like curved streets. Maybe they have some silly rule about this, it wouldn't suprise me! A block on a map looks small but when you actually down to the whole walking busines it turns out to be something a lot more altogether. We did it though and after some walking through the Lower West Side we reached the Flatiron District, named after that iconic building dating from, I think, 1909. With some pictures taken we ended up going into the park directly in front of the building and let me tell you something, New York would be a place where people come to die if it were not for these parks which are beautiful and scattered around the city in agreeable places. Honestly, the city is massive, everything there is bigger and as you shuffle by in shorts and sandals, dying with the heat, the bottle of water in your right hand already warm even though you only drank two sups from it, all of the buildings begin to look the same. Sure there are taller ones and smallers ones but you begin to not care, finding shade and a place to sit become your only goal while wishing at the same time for a fan to magically pop out of the ground to cool you down.
Of course when you need shade, it isn't around and as you stumble about helplessly, hyperbole is always good for a story, New Yorkers walk into you, inform you that you should get help by using lots of words beginning with the letter "f".
Parks then are places were you can go and lose yourself from the beeping of traffic, the steam that rises from the subway vents on the streets, the buzz that seems to will you to push on and go quicker so that you can look just like every other frantic New Yorker.
We entered the park and sat down, looking upon the grass and trees before Donal took an amble around which allowed me some time to take some pictures and to simply contemplate things alone. On a trip like this it is probably one thing that many overlook and yet contemplating the progress made, the progress yet to be made and just how much you like or dislike a place, is important as it makes your trip all the more rewarding somehow. Doing this alone allows your own thoughts to play about inevitably reaching inconclusive answers on everything but answers nonetheless. See how inconclusive that was? There you go.
Donal came back around the circle path around through the park, which it must be said was very well maintained, and off I went then to look about this little oasis before remembering that nearby was the New York Life Building and the Metropolitan Life Tower. Both are old, maybe neo-classical style buidlings which really are very grand and detailed. The New York Life building was open for the public to walk through and I'd say that at the time I was the only person dressed in shorts and a tshirt inside the massive lobby but I didn't mind and with my camera I began to take some pictures as I walked through. As with most places such as this in New York there was barriers that prevented you from going upsatirs without the right ID card to scan you through and to ensure no one hopped the barrier elegantly uniformed security men stood by. I even had an engagement with one. I pointed the camera at the area where the lifts and stairs were and I think I actually go a picture of it with all of its marble and polished brass but as I looked I saw, from the corner of my eye, that someone was gesticulating at me. A guard was telling me that pictures weren't allowed and to be honest he was nice enough about it but again to me it seemed like utter paranoia. I exited the building and went back to Donal who had, by this time, been waiting quite while for me and as the evening was drawing in we were no closer to Greenwich Village.

We were hungry though and had a restaurant in mind thanks to the guide but we couldn't locate it. Being two Irish lads rain came upon us (although I would also like to put the blame amongst those J1ers who come over to look for work in the summer, they're Irish too). This was no ordinary Irish rain though but proper darts of rain plummeting from the sky ready to make the colour of your shirt a whole lot darker. We stood doorways agast and hungry as thunder roleld in the distance observing natives running to cars, to doorways, cluthcing papers and even one guy who stripped off his top and ran down the footpath to what I think was his van to collect something. The rain slowed after a while to a level that to us Irish lads read "Irish summertime" on our weatherometer so the sight of people still holding umbrellas was comical at least to me. We hit upon Union Square which unfortunately we couldn't explore due to the rain becoming slightly heavier but again it's another park distinct from Madison Square Park where we had been earlier. It was coming up on six o clock by now and we needed to have some food having not had any in a few hours. We passed the Virgin Megastore, having not known there were two in Manhattan and saw a diner across the road on Broadway (remember that Broadway runs the length of Manhattan, it really is very long) but we also saw a place called Strand Bookstore which was closing soon. Having heard the name before as a place to pick up rare books at cheap prices, we decided to head inside before going to the diner a few doors down. The place was a mess but then it did say that it had the equivalent of 18 miles of books and I'd believe it, there were 3 floors full of books and by full I don't mean a full Waterstone's shop. Full in this place meant it barely passed fire regulations for people to exit, or so I would hazard a guess at. I found a book on 1950s America which I thought would be interesting, paid for it and then saw, upon reaching the door that once again it was lashing outside. So I stood in the doorway, the exit door behind me and the proper exit door in front (this was like a porch I suppose) and asked a girl who was also standing there was this the weather for the rest of the night. She turned out to be French and didn't know where Ireland was - must have been my pronounciation but I'd say it hit her afterwards and my God does she feel stupid now.

The rain wasn't stopping so Donal and I made a belt for the diner a few doors down the street where I was tempted by the salads but ended up with a Greek Gyro Chicken with the salad too. I was nice and healhty by American standards it must be said. By the time we had left though the night was after approcahing, it didn't look terribly inviting and we hopped on the subway from Union Square to Harlem to get back to the hostel. The day had been a long one, miles had been walked and the rain was after telling us that we really ought to get an earlyish night. And so it was.

Day Eight - New York

2009-07-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

I made it downstairs on time for breakfast on this morning, much of a miracle as that may seem to you dear reader. There is an excuse for me not being the most punctual for breakfast while all of the hostellers from other "efficient" countries like Germany and notably Holland grab the freshest muffins. Picture a large apartment room with a kitchenette set up at one end and now put five bunk beds in there. I'm over by the window which is normally an asset in any room with so many sleeping bodies but not in this humidity really, it's actually like being closer to the source of heat (which it is come to think of it, I mean that extra few feet to the sun from the bed nearer the kitchenette makes all the difference really). Also I am on the top bunk which means that I have to climb a ladder and with there being only one bathroom/shower per floor I have to keep a keen eye trained on that door in order to leap out and get washed. Well not really; I do wash and yes I do keep a keen eye but I also play a game with myself called "let's wait and see how long you can wait before going in to the free bathroom before someone else decides to take it". Admittedly if that game is to sell it'll need a catchier title.

While eating breakfast we overhead two key words, 'free internet' emerging from the girl across the table we were sat at and immediatley I waded into her conversation in order to find out where tyhis free internet may be available. She explained in a nice and polite manner that Apple had a shop in NYC that had lots of Imacs and Ibooks and other products with the letter "I" before them. It won't be long before someone comes up with one called "iSh*t" I'm sure. Her directions were simple enough and were to lead us on a wild goose chase that, while not the wildest, certainly was the most sweltering I have ever experienced.

Following her directions, we walked all of the way down the West side of Central Park, along the border if you will, passing the apartment complex where John Lennon was shot leading to his death soon after. The day had started out as somewhat of a subway-free day due to the fact that we walked down Lenox Avenue and then all of the way to the Apple store eventually but while walking down Lenox I noticed a distinct change in its appearance from the day before. The streets were alive and bore a slight relation to the Coal Quay on a Saturday morning with people going by fairly busily and traders out with their stalls. The difference between this street trading and the other more conventional trading that takes place in, say, fifth avenue is quite startling but then again that is what makes NYC what it is. Also the difference in price would be quite spectacular also, after all the battle is between "Man in Harlem selling fruit" and "Gucci" et al (whoever they are).
At this stage, early as it was, we should have noticed that the heat would get to us and half way down the side of Central Park it did as we took two or three breaks along the way. It was difficult to even talk on this stretch, mainly due to the distance between the two of us as Donal was keeping a slightly quick pace while I was taking it at a stroll looking about for pictures. I wasn't the only one suffering from the heat though because a young couple walking ever so slightly ahead of me on the sidewalk (there we go again) seemed to be having a little spat from what I could tell. Upon pasisng them out I forgot about them but after catching up with Donal and then sitting on a bench, the couple walk past and stop quite near us. This spat was beginning to get interesting and it did as he walked across the road, she just stood glued to the floor and then without warning stormed off into the park.

Now the Apple store was suppossed to be at the end of this side of Central Park but it turns out that the kind lady had been mistaken for we had reached Columbus Circle but to no avail. We stared around at the TrumpTower (yeah another ugly one), some other buildings and a giant sign for CNN. Oh and the nice monument to Christopher, the man himself. At this point I was really just looking forward to being in an air conditioned store whether it contained internet access or not but I knew I had emails that had to be checked so I ploughed on with Donal who bumped into some Irish people on 59th Street which borders the south end of Central Park. Two horse and cart drivers (forgive me, I know I've got it wrong) one of whom had been doing this work since the mid eighties and only got talking to Donal after a group of Brits enquited about prices and Donal noticed the Irish accent. My camera was busy with me having it against me eye taking pictures all around me but I did find one thing fascinating. Here we were in a city of 8 million people and we not only run into an Irish man, because lets face it New York and all of the North Eatsern seaboard of the US is full of Irish, but brush past Mariah Carey. I'm being a little liberal with that term as she was perhaps across the street swarmed by minders and other people to the point where, when we reached the end of the street, some scrawny looking guy with some official bully tags around his neck was "recommending", yes "recommeding" as he said, that we not cross the street here but fruther down. If I was a US taxpayer (and if anyone from the IRS is reading, I am and I am fully compliant....for anyone else I am not), I would have recommended that he stop telling me where to go as my tax dollars would have paid for the road and the sidewalk and if I wanted to reach my hypothetical, perhaps invisible, car across the street by where Ms/Mrs Carey was, then I had a right to. And you know what, I would have had mroe respect had he simply said that no one was to cross the street, full stop. A crappy recommendation was half hearted and abnoxious though.

The recommendation didn't stop us from getting into what turned out to be a super cool Apple store although the predeicted lack of internet access was showing itself like a pimple on a nose. There was indeed access but it seemed half of New York also knew about it and were taking advantage. I didn't see it as the end of the world for I got to sit down and watch people queue up or set appointments to deal with guys with "alternative" hair do's that took hours to fix in place. The worked in sections called Genius Bar and other creatively titled places. All in all the place was excellent, lots of products and iut was underground with only a glass box and the Apple logo telling it apart from other builings on a ground level. The most amazing sight, for me, was an old lady in her seventies, being taught how to create the Apple equivalent of a Powerpoint presentation. I wonder will she also get an "alternative" hair do?

One task that really needed doing on the day was the change of our train tickets as we had decided two less nights in Hueston in favour of an extra night each in North Carolina and New Orleans was a better set up. For this to be done we made our way to Penn Station which as it turned out, was right under Madison Square Garden which is quite a large size itself. Upon desending the busy steps in the station you can see just how much of an airport this place is, the only difference being the lack of planes. Shops and places to eat are everywhere and that one worker at the information point who you never want to meet was also there, his contribution of an answer to a question requesting a place where we could change the ticket dates being met with the pushing of a small leaflet under the glass screen in front of him with a phone number. I already had that number but thanked him anyway and set off to line up to get the ticket details changed by a real person. This took a while and completely set aprt the plan for the day which was essentially to check out Greenwich Village but what happened was that we skipped dinner, I went to Dunkin Donuts and ate two doughnouts and drank a cup of coffee on the steps of the General Post Office while watching the world, and Crazy Lady, go by. Crazy Lady, a drummer apparently, pontificated her musings from the steps before moving on. Interesting lady but a little loud for my taste.

It was while Donal and I walked a bit to find a subway station that the sun caught my eyes as it set in a pretty orange sky over New Jersey in the west prompting me to suggest we go to the top of the Rockefeller Centre's GE Building to sample that view from over 800 feet up. You should google the Rockefeller Centre really, go on - it was built in the 1930s and seems to get a lot less attnetion than the Empire State Building but as a whole complex I think it beats it because it is a collection of fine buildings in an Art Deco style in a form that Le Corbusier, the French modernist architect of the 50s and 60s praised in his day. Well I praise it in this day. There is just so much attention to detail in every little bit of work done on the building from around the tree's to the lobbys to the ceilings and the diamond and glass encrusted walls in the lobby at the top floor. The view from the top was of course fantastic as the sun set and darkness came over the city. There isn't really any escaping the scale of New York, everything is huge from whatever angle you look at it from, but when you are up this high it really does push home the length and breadth of this city and this further compounded how far Donal and I had walked throughout the day. Lots and lots and there was only more to come.

Day Seven - New York

2009-07-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

Sundays are strange days full of ritual. I realise that this is a sweeping statement but before you decline to read any further, give it some consideration. Sunday is the sabbath day, a rest day, a day for gardening in England and also a day for washing the car in England (I know because a neighbour of mine who never acknowledges anyone elses existence washes his car every Sunday and he is English - he has not garden though). This was a slightly different Sunday though for New York is a slightly different place.

It is the capital of the world, yet another sweeper of a statement but really the arguement is too strong and way too long for me to fit into this but it is a cultural centre, an economic centre and has such a massive influence on all other centres of such that it commands attention and on this Sunday it was certainly getting some. Tourists were teeming to the usual sites and Harlem, where we had arrived the night before was awake to the sound of gospel singing.

The night before in the hostel we met a guy who I decided to nickname Taz on account of me forgetting his real name (Ruud) and he warned me that breakfast was served between 9 and 10 and not a minute earlier or later. He seemed a nice guy, a big fan of discount cars from Pathmark for cheaping up on the food and drink scene and splurted like Taz (the Tasmanian Devil) when he wanted to, in Harlem speak, "diss" something (homie). Upon arriving downstairs at a few minutes past ten to find he was correct, he approached, sufficiently full of breakfast himself to inform me that I had missed it but that he would wake me in the morning to ensure I wouldn't. I think this may have saved him a broken jaw because it indicated that he was trying to be nice, not really rubbing it in that I missed the food and tea/coffee. So he's going home to Holland perfectly healthy don't you worry.
Now obviously Donal and I couldn't function without some breakfast so we exited the hostel to a heat that was comparible to a working steel furnace. We should have expected this really, it being the end of June, it being NYC and it being close to midday. But we didn't, who are we Einstein?!

Walking through New York is an expericne but Harlem is a place apart really. The night before certainly sent a bit of a culture shock my way in that I had never really seen any people openly dance in the street to Michael Jackson music but with the sunlight of Sunday allowing me to see clearly, the shock was gone and an understanding set in. This was a real community, people looked after each other and though there were few chain stores or fancy houses, it was the closeness of locality, the intimacy of community that bound people together. Perhaps this sounds a little romantic but Harlem's dodgy reputation didn't look deserved to me, it has it's own charcter and if you can't deal with that then it ain't about to change for you but if you simply go with the flow then things will be fine and you will enjoy yourself all the more. I suppose, as travellers, we have to remember that we are treading on land that others live on, it isn't ours to shape to our temporary needs as oppossed to their permanent needs. With this in mind, in a more or less subconscious way, we walked down Lenox Avenue, in the sun, hearing gospel music waft from open church windows and my God was there a lot of churches. We reahced the top of Central Park, the north side of it and then went in search of Broadway. The plan was to go to a diner I had eaten in last year in order for us to get breakfast and so off we went. It was a long walk but at least it gave us a view of the city and eventually we indeed stumbled upon the diner next door to the Newton Hotel on upper Broadway.

For us, days are days and that is all there is to it so we weren't expecting it to be too busy but it was. It was Sunday after all but that had slipped our minds a bit as days melted into one another. We sat down to fine breakfasts all the same but as Donal noted, as nice as the waiters were (I didn't spot a waitress), they were still able to get you to leave, but in a nice way. Typical New York!

Having bought a Metrocard that was valid for a week ($25) on the Saturday night when we arrived into a mental and messy but all too characterful Chinatown, we out ourselves on to the subway to bring us to the South of Manhattan. Ground Zero, Wall Street and Batter Park were on our to-do lists but as with anything in New York, new things cropped up all of the time, as they do in a city of it's size where permanence is but a word and nothing more. There wasn't much to see of Ground Zero really unless you wanted to see the museum but personally I find it a little strange to have a museum dedicated to a tragedy that occurred so recently - time should be allowed to mellow it out a little, to heal the wounds in a natural way rather than for that wound to be kept open for so long. I am sure you have your own valid opinion on this but for what it is worth, that is mine.
We walked past the rebuilding site, which does a lot on its own to reveal to you the scale of the destruction, despite the fencing that prevents you from viewing it properly, and came across St Peters Church which was left unharmed by the whole tragedy and indeed provided a place of refuge and shelter to rescue workers and others who were there to help in the days and weeks after 9/11. The stories exhibited in there were fascinating, moving and true. No need for me to tell you but there were some Irish flags in there even.

At this point we were either both so covered in sweat that we really didn't care anymore or else the day had cooled a little. There was certainly more shade under the tall buildings around Wall Street although I distinctly remember that at one point in St Peters I felt like I was in heaven due to a fan being close by; until some idiot walked in front of the air. He moved thankfully because that was keeping me alive more or less!
Looking around Wall Street was great in itself and stepping inside nearby Trinity Church was quite an experience but the real highlight of the day was the visit to Staten Island.

Taking the Staten Island Ferry is a great experience really, the views are good, it isn't too quick, it doesn't rock around on the water and it's free. Really that's hard to beat and as we passed Lady Liberty we thought about getting some food on Staten Island which, according to most, isn't frequented all that often by tourists. Worth a look then. I'll never forget where we ended up. It was a restarant with a distinctly Mediterrean feel to it and a lady/manager who was quick with the smiles but was also clearly in need of more staff or less of her friends as staff. Efficiency was not it's key point and you know what, that was just as well for it wouldn't have been the same otherwise. My thoughts, while there, was that this was some mad experiement by a well-off lady who wanted to see what she could do in retirement with her friends. Well she, or her freind, whoever the chef was, certainly put up a fine plate of cheese as a starter. There was even some left over for Taz which we had wrapped up and brought back! There was a lady playing soothing guitar music in there too by a window which framed her against the Manhatten skyline over the Hudson River. They say that New York is a place everyone knows, that you become familiar with it from tv and movies and was this view just this - a reminder in real life.

On the way back to the hostel we took a slight diversion from the ferry and went to see the Vietnam War Memorial near the ferry terminal and Battery Park. Letters home from guys in the front lines, a memorial to the youngest US figher killed, 15 years old, he had changed his birth cert to say he was of age. Seeing it at night made it all the more sombre and Donal and I were the only ones there. It was fitting that it was empty except for us as that allowed time to reflect on what we were reading as did the time it took to take photos without flash. It wasn't overly showy and you'd miss it if you weren't looking for it but as with a lot of things in life once you went and saw beneath the surface then a lot more becomes revealed.

Day Five - Friday (and Day Six - Saturday)

2009-06-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Writing blogs late after the evnts happen usually result, I suppose as I have never done a consistent blog before, in a kind of amnesia, a general forgetfulness. Also the brevity is somewhat compunded by the fact that free internet, as was the case in Boston, is sadly no more. My apoligies for the lateness but this is Nevin after all and if you know me then you'll know the joke.

Boston, even by our fifth day there was not getting boring in the slightest although we had seen almost all of the major sights but the highlight that sticks in my head is when we went into a Boston institution called Legal Sea Foods. Now aparrently all of the swimming animals served up here are as fresh as possible and I would agree that the fish I had was very tasty but I felt a little ripped off compared to the feast that we had to endure, yes endure (after all, eating all of that dessert was akin to a marathon), in the Cheesecake Factory. Also the waitress wasn't very nice at all. The lads commented that she was from the mid-west but whatever about that she deserved a hiding because to be frank here, it was as if she was reading it all from a book. Lovely.

I should mention that I am writing this from a laundrette in Harlem and it is hard to get things to come back to me especially seeing as I havent my camera with me but be patient. Hey, imagine that, they've a web terminal (for five dollars an hour) in a laundrette? Unreal.

Saturday, our sixth and final day in Boston was a sombre affair. Donal and I had really enjoyed our time there but quite clearly Boston didn't send back the feelings at all. Bunker Hill, as the name suggests is on a hill and we wanted to see it so we climbed up through the beatiful and typically New England style picturesque streets of Charlestown (a part of Boston). It was worth it really but not in a way I thought it would be. You see the sun was very strong that Saturday and we had checked out from the hostel in a slight rush, sad to see the back of what was a very relaxing and laid back abode and were laden down with our luggage. Pulling my luggage bag up the hills wasn't nice and I understand now, in a very very very slight way, how people in wheelchairs feel when they must casually gaze at steps and instead go five miles east in order to use the worlds longest ramp in order to get up that little hill themselves. I thought at one point I would need a tent to sleep in on the way up and a rehydration team to ensure liquid of some form stayed in my body. Still, I made it to be top but it wasn;'t what it seemed.
The view was suppossed to be great from up there but upon setting down on the grass both Donal and I wondered "where is this view?". Sure we could see some of Boston through gaps in the nice houses but it was nothing too special.

Then Donal went away for a while as I talked to my parents and brother on the phone (missing them already would you believe?).

He came back and pointed to the massive tower which stood proudly on the top of the hill. I had admired it from the grass, this was the spot where the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought in the War of Independence and this tower stood as a monument to the US loss in that battle. I acknowledged his pointing but then he informed me you could go to the top. 300 winding steps! I tackled it of course but Donal had done it with his luggage on his back. I left mine in his care on the grass of course. I entered and got into my stride but as the stairs went on I could feel my calves growning...300 steps without any stop, it was a spiral after all, is not as easy as it sounds. There were peopel behind me so I wasn't about to stop and the sun couldn;t shine in so that helped a little but when I got to the top, well, what a sight. Now I understood what the guidebooks had been praising for so long. There was a good few people up there already and I did indeed bear in mind, a little nervously, that this tower was built about 150 years ago (or something like that) but I did look down the grate covered shaft in the centre. May I just say that one would have a very sore head should they remove the grate in order to have a little jump. Looking out from the four "windows" though revealed views of all Boston and was quite something else. Pictures more than words would do it justice but I'm paying for this web time so you'll have to google it yourself.

From Bunker Hill we hopped back on the subway straight into South Station to buy our tickets for the Fung Wah Chinatown bus to bring us cheaply and hopefully safely to New York. $15 dollars was a figure we simply couldn't argue with and in fairness the coach was comfortable. One does become a tad disconcerted when they see that same bus companies bus being pulled on the back of a tow truck while half way through the journey though. I did because as you can guess, Donal and I saw just this.
There wasn't an awful lot to see from the Interstates but it was nice to actually be on them as they do have a somewhat mystical air about them and I even went so far as to take pictures of a sign for the I-95, that being the name of a song by a band called Fountains of Wayne whom I happen to think are brilliant. The thing that really sticks in the mind about the Interstates though is the sense that it is in another timescape, another world. I am sure that you could grab a Big Mac on I-95 at 2am, I grabbed a Happy Meal at about 5pm somewhere along it when the bus stopped for a break but the thought that stuck in my head was to do with the geography of the area. There was nothing but fields and trees, a big wide road and two McDonalds and two filling stations, one on either side of the road. In a way then this is the human as car for as ther car is fuelled up quickly, so can the human body be. Amazing.

What was more amazing though was the sight of Manhattan as we entered New York City through the Bronx, then Queens, into Brooklyn and then over Manhattan Bridge to Canal Street which is the middle of Chinatown. Seeing the Empire State building rising up and the Chrysler Building gleam in the sun as it sets gently in the east. Some have siad that fater 9/11 the NYC skyscape has beconme generic but this didn't seem so to me. It was a sight to behold. Once we had arrived we immediately went for the subway and on into Harlem, which I will admit was a culture shock at first becuase everybody was simply being themselves, there was no faking going on like in most places in this world. Poeple were out dancing on streets, in the parks, conversing on street corners. The places was dark, and alive!

Anyway the time is running out on the web terminal but I know I have plenty to keep you informed of...my camera is coming as a second memory the next time.

Day Four - Thursday

2009-06-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

We often look at Germany or England as being the capitals of the world as regards rules and regulations but over here it's almost as bad. A friend of Donal's was caught underage drinking in the university he was studying in over here despite him not only being legal to drink in Ireland (as he was/is Irish) but also only a week from his 21st birthday which would make him legal over here. Getting caught is one thing but when the book is read to you and threats of prison ensure, then things understandably get a little more tense. America has the moniker of "land of the free" but sometimes you really have to question this and ask is that true because there are so many laws that govern what you can and cannot do and looking at things, the police really don't seem to be ones to mess and joke with - they stamp the law and they stamp it good. Good like a boot sole in the face with your hands in cuffs on the, the, er, sidewalk. Why can't they just say footpath?!
My own take on the rules concept occurred Thursday night when, while exiting a subway station, there was an automatic announcement made reminding travellers that they were the subway police's "eyes and ears" and "if you see something, anything, suspicious, report it at once". They use the slogan, "if you see something, say something". While this may make sense in combating the threat of terrorism, it also gives us an insight into the American mind which seems to be in a permanently paranoid state. Not that paranoia means it ain't there but really at times it goes a little far. This Friday morning (I write this a day behind) I was talking to one of the hostel staff who insisted China had a hold over the US but then I explained it didn't really because the Chinese wouldn't loan money to the US if it did not trust Washington, which it does in this matter and anyway the main streets that line Beijings shopping districts are full of US stores and Chinese people enjoy US film and material goods too. The US is still on top, the paranoia just seems all a tad more bizarre. Actually come to think of it, in the subway stations there is almost always a guard near the entry point where you swipe your card to get into the system. I've yet to see a guard on the train itself or strolling around a platform. Maybe terrorists will show themselves by hopping the barriers so as not to pay, which would get the guards attention but I doubt it. It all seems a little topsy turvy to me.

Thursday wasn't a good day for barrier hopping anyway because of the heat. We woke to a heavy air, the sun belting down outside, no threatening clouds and an air that seemed to want to smother us if were not for the breeze that restrained it. After trekking to the JFK museum using the subway, we met up with Steve, a friend of Donal's who is studying in Maine, north of Boston. Our plan was to see the museum before meeting Steve but this was a plan and what happens to plans? That's right....don't work do they?
The museum is a fair walk from the JFK Museum/University of Massachusetts's subway stop but there were bus services that would shuttle you down there at no cost. We didn't think much of the distance though and walked from the subway, following not an Interstate, but what they call a Route, it was Morrissey Boulevard and pretty quick and busy so it was. You could probably say it's equivalent in width was the South Ring Road in Cork. The walk was long, broken only by us going in to a supermarket called Shaws to buy water and despite people telling me before that supermarkets over here are huge, I really think that this was no bigger than a 'big' supermarket in Ireland. Still, the water was cheap and Icelandic funnily enough.

The outside of the JFK Museum is a sight to behold,m simple geometric lines sculpted on clean white concrete with black glass as contrast. The beautiful Boston harbour and a pale blue sky providing the perfect backdrop for it. It's out from the city in Dorchester so from the waterside you actually end up looking over the water towards Boston so it was a stunning view whether you looked toward the city or instead towards the water and the peninsula's out West which, if one went further south, ended up being Cape Cod. There was drama as we approached though because I had received a voicemail message on my new US mobile number (I bought a sim card on Wednesday). To access it though I had to talk to a machine to set up my account and this proved very frustrating, almost as much as when I tried to enter call credit to this new sim while looking around Harvard the day before. Maybe the machine could not understand my accent but I sure as hell couldn't tell where the 'pound' key on my phone was leading to much gesticulation and language until I realised that I was actually getting angry at a machine. Now this is normal enough, people get mad at PC's all of the time but in this case I was getting angry by talking to it on the phone. Surreal. And it just talks back nice and calmly as your blood begins to bubble a bit, then pump and boil and all the while the machine says "I'm sorry, I didn't get that", doing its best to sound human. By the way, all of this anger cost money too as every call and every text costs dosh, even if you receive one! You can understand the anger then surely, even if the machine didn't.

Damn machine has now even made me take up your time and mine too by me typing so much about it. The hold they have over us...now the Americans should be paranoid about that!!! We actually got to JFK library and museum a little late as Donal discovered, quite by surprise that he had given Steve the wrong hostel to book himself into. He was convinced we were in the Prescott International but alas we were not. On top of this Steve would now have to make the extra and for him, unexpected trip to the museum to meet us. Time slipped by though as we gazed across at Boston over the harbour and we called to meet him at the subway stop rather than make him walk out to us which would have meant he could have legally had us up for torturing him. There wasn't enough time for him to get out and for us to see the museum so we went back in, met with him and decided it was dinner time. Dinner time in The Cheesecake Factory. Now this was mighty fine may I say, good value and very filling. The two lads, delighted to have seen each other after not having done so for months (Donal showed this through copious amounts of public affection displays upon seeing him), had BBQ burgers and I had the Ranch House Burger. What they basically did in the kitchen was get a chainsaw, a cow and some plates. Chunks of cow were put on the grill and a huge plate was then filled with stringy chips (not great but they did their job as side actors to the main story which was the beef) and salad. I mean my burger was a slab of beef, with steak pieces on top before onions and mushrooms were thrown in too along with the salad for it. I felt like asking if it would be possible to bring me a vice-grips so I could hold it together.

Of course Nevin had to be the man and go for dessert as well. Remember now that this dessert was for one person but no way could any one person eat it and if they did then a medal they surely deserved. This was chocolate cake with coffee ice cream ,lots of cream, choc sauce and fudge and almonds. Steve assisted in the eating, Donal didn't due to the almonds but really it would have been more appropriate for us to have erected scaffolding around it before hiring people to help us finish it.

We exited behind the Prudential Centre and had a look around the South End, taking in the park around the Christain Science Centre and the hall where the Boston Symphony play. It was all very grand and the fountain that the kids danced through looked very tempting in the early night time heat. Then again so did the long artificial pond that ran the length of the science centre. It really was something though as I walked to the end of it and the view consisted of a long and elegant science centre going the length of the rectangle pond on the left, a 20 foot office building to my left which fitted in nicely with the Prudential Tower and the smaller but much shinier apartment building beside it. We walked after having taken in this view and went down through Kenmore, Fenway Park, up Massachusetts Avenue before crossing Charles Bridge and taking some fine pictures in the meantime. They were all the nicer as they were night shots of the Boston skyline from MIT and the Cambridge area.

Steve, when we got back to the hostel ended up staying with us in the dorm, the staff failing to recognize his will to pay for the bed. To be fair to them this only consisted of a whispered question in the room wondering whether they'd notice. I suppose when you are Irish you just know that rules are there to be broken, or at least modified and twiddled with. And no, no one did report anything suspicious in the dorm.

Day Three - Wednesday

2009-06-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a peanut butter factory? No, didn't think so. It's not really one of those places that you drive to on a Sunday with the family. Come on, get in the car before the factory shuts down and we can't smell the peanut butter anymore - I can hear the arguments already. This doesn't happen though because of a few small issues such as, even when the factory is closed there is still that smell and there are no peanut butter factories near you. I say that with a certain amount of conviction and 90% of the time I well be correct. Use google maps to prove me wrong along with one utility bill to prove your address is really yours. That's right you couldn't be bothered to and thus I win that round.

What I meant to say was that Donal and I found a new route back to the hostel from the subway station on Wednesday by going past a baseball field where the state Little League champs ply their trade and a peanut butter factory. We exit the road, lined on both sides by houses after the field and factory, on Main Street and then get into the hostel on School Street. Much more agreeable scenery than the cars that rushed by on Route 99. It really must seem to you that Wednesday was a low point but in fairness it wasn't because we went to one of the ten trillion Dunkin Donuts outlets in Boston and we went to Harvard as well. Oh and we had dinner 52 stories up in the clouds. Literally in the clouds.

The weather continued to act up, or rather, play Mr Consistency in that yet again it was dull and misty as our day began. I had breakfast while gazing out a window near the hostel kitchen having used antibacterial soap to wash what I thought was a communal spoon in order to eat my Frosted Flakes. They taste the same as back home by the way but the change in scenery, as Donal succinctly put it, was what made the difference. Not that the Grand Canyon was outside or anything but rather Route 99 and it's masses of cars and jeeps. while Time Magazine lay on the table for me to read through (I'll have 5 weeks of them to read when I get home assuming they'll not be thrown out).

Our first stop on the way to Harvard, a "must see" according to most travel guides (who are actually mostly wrong, read on...) was Dunkin Donuts. Now this was something. Donal asked for half a dozen donuts, which, by looking at it's place on the menu board, wasn't an altogether huge number. The plan seemed solid enough, they were boxed and so could be consumed throughout the day to keep hunger at bay. I suggested we sit down in the food court though which probably scuppered that plan because he proceeded to eat them all. I ate my two and a cup of coffee - I recommend the Boston-something-or-other donut that I got...delicious thing altogether cos there was a light custard in the donut which itself was dipped in chocolate. Zero trans fat was a bonus although the bag and box didn't mention any other types of fats of which there were an awful lot I am sure but marketing them probably wasn't a good idea and perhaps neither is knowing about them as you eat them. The thing about the food court though was just the diversity of it all. Upon looking around, there were different shades of people everywhere with different fast food chains forming the background to what seemed an eclectic, maybe even acidic painting, that moved. There must have been 15 of them, Dunkin (apparently America runs on Dunkin, or so their slogan says but believe me you will not be able to run after their donuts, I mean when was the last time you saw a guy prepare for an Olympic sprint with donuts and coffee?!), a Greek place, a Japanese place...the list could go on. You know the way that a lot of people working in McD's in Ireland are foreign, well so are these guys over here only that each national fast food chain had it's own nationals so if you were to go to the Japanese place to try a Sushi Mac or whatever they were cooking up you'd have a Japanese guy serving you. Same with the Greek place, good old Stavros or Aristotle the millionth was behind that counter dishing out Gyros or another national delicacy. I had to look that up by the way, never heard of Gyros before.

From here it was on to Harvard which is in the Cambridge area of Boston and is a place you should see if you're around for a few days although to be honest I'd quicker tell you go and look around MIT, the buildings are nicer and the place seems more open and it's nearer to downtown as well. Plus I used their internet for free last summer in one of their libraries. They have a hall there that was designed by Eero Saarinen too, not to sound pretentious now, but he being a favourite architect of mine. Not that I know many other architects but his buildings are cool. Harvard you see is all red brick buildings, like town houses with small windows and it really left a fairly cold impression on Donal and I. Ok it was huge, ok it was impressive and sure it's got history and character but there was something missing. It was too sprawling, almost a city in its own right, the buildings weren't all that nice to look at and it just seemed, even for it's sprawl, as somewhat cramped too. Strange. There was a redeeming factor though and this was the Museum of Natural History which I must say was amazing. I honestly couldn't write enough about it only to say that I have never seen plants made of glass before and that I had never seen sulphur or flourite up close and personal. Nor had I ever seen dinosaurs, well their massive skeletons, nor the lions or other animals in there. It was all really well done and my feet hated me for it. A good sign it must be said.

After all of this we were beginning to get a little hungry so we decided to treat ourselves by splashing out in the Top of the Hub restaurant aptly named for its location, 52 stories up, on the top of the Prudential Tower. It's a little expensive, about $55 dollars each for three courses each but really it was top quality. The food was fantastic and neither of us would say that lightly, this really was another level and the lamb was the best I ever had in my life. The waiter was correct in saying I'd never finish all of the cookies for dessert though so he wrapped them up for me. He was also the first waiter ever to be able to talk about toilet paper in a posh restaurant without bringing down the classiness...even for a second. Well, his name was William after all. He said it in connection with the view, or rather, non-view because the clouds had covered over the top of the building which shows you how high we were dining. While the view would have been nicer, it was a novelty to literally be dining in the clouds and so it was. Afterwards we went to the bar there to enjoy the live jazz, drum, double bass and piano and that was mighty fine, as a Texan might say. Not that Texans would like jazz or instruments that don't consume fuel of some sort. Now if that double bass ran on petrol, well that'd be different. We saved ourselves the cover charge of $20 dollars too by dining there. Smooth jazz has a hypnotising way about it though and we were both lulled into a light sleep by it only for me to be woken by the manageress who wanted to seat a couple where my legs were. It ended up with them moving to a booth to the side of us instead which was fine seeing as they would have blocked our view of the band. They wouldn't block the fleeting view of the streets below though for at times the cloud lifted a little only to fall again. Glimpses were all we got but we were thankful for them all the same.

Retiring to the hostel at about midnight was a great idea as were going to get some sleep immediately or so the plan went but as you know plans never work as we engaged in conversation with a lovely lad from California who asked us to speak some Irish and who's friend asked us did we know the Maloney family. I need not go on. They were lovely people, very interesting but I was asleep after five minutes. I tried to finish the cookies from the Prudential that William had wrapped up for me but I gave up. Donal is still trying to confuse me about the number of them I ate though!

What happened on Day Two???

2009-06-24T08:54:00.001-07:00

That's a good question in fairness and there's plenty to say about it too. There's also plenty of observations after being made and you'll have to forgive me now for this diversion but there are directions on the soap bottles over here. Directions. I assume they are for those of us who don't know how to use soap and really I hadn't realised that there were very many of these people. The chain shop Family Dollar, and stick with me because there is a story coming up here, have directions on their own brand soap and even a tagline that compares the soap to a leading brandname but then follows this by saying that the soap in the bottle is in no way related to the mentioned brandname. Do you follow? No, well its on the bottle for the lawyers to follow in case there is a court case.

The story behind this bottle was that, being hungry, Donal and I decided that we needed to get some breakfast. I had been up before Donal and looked online before thinking that maybe we would be better off simply walking into the centre of Everett and seeing what was around. The short walk took us past the typical American suburban houses on the street side. You know the ones, flag on the lawn, white wood walls, big car in the driveway. Walking through a residential area gives you a taste of what the place is really like and the only person I met myself when I returned along the same route later to get that soap was a postman - everybody was at work or asleep and seeing as it was midday, I guessed they were at work. Unless unemployment really is that bad and they've chosen to sleep through a recession. Not a bad idea either I suppose. The centre of Everett was lovely though and seemed to be a real look at what small town America could be despite it being a suburb in Greater Boston. We looked at some menu's before deciding that we were walking aimlessly in a hungry state and fell into Dempsey's Muffins and Bagles. This was not built for tourists and I did notice one or two old folk look with curiosity in the direction of myself and Donal, not in a threatening way like a stereotypical Texan but rather in a way more similar to a dog who has discovered that new food has been put in it's bowl. Not that I am comparing elderly folk in Everett to dogs although they both seem as friendly.

I order the Dempsey Special, two eggs, two sausages, two bacon strips (rashers in proper English), two pancakes and then a choice of toast or English muffins and a coffee as well. I began eating it at about 11am. Even at 4pm I wasn't just 'not hungry', I was full, still full. And they did free coffee refills as well. My Dad would love it because he wouldn't even have had to ask, they watch and they come with a new cup before they can see the bottom of the first cup. I believe at some point in time philosophers will debate whether this indeed means that a bottomless cup has been found. The breakfast was utterly American but so was the place itself, local people who got on well with the three staff who seemed to know everyone who came in and it was laid out in a diner style. You know the type, benches and tables for 4 or for 2. That breakfast cost me $8 by the way - very good for what I got I think. Upon paying I couldn't help but ask, after some banter with an old guy I left go ahead of me in the short queue, was the place ever frequented by tourists. The waitress, who must have been in her fifties, explained that it wasn't really, that it was very local as I could tell myself from the interactions between herself and the other two staff and the handful of people in the place. On top of that, you don't call an elderly customer a ''cheap ass'' with a smile if you don't know him.

We got a taste of shopping after that, but not in the way tourists normally shop. Donal forgot to bring a towel so we went into a place called Family Dollar and got one there. It was while he showered later, thanks to that same towel ,that I made the short walk back to that shop in order to get cereal for the next mornings breakfast. Not only could I not monetarily sustain $7 breakfasts every morning but neither could my stomach. My taste buds might have but when have they ever cared about body weight or cholesterol - in fact they never have for anyone! If they did they'd not like the taste of sweets and sausages and all of that stuff.

Our plan was to hit Massachusetts's State Building with the massive golden dome and look around that for part of the day but it took up a huge amount of time. Really though the subway system is a blessing as we can get around very easily and cheaply, unlimited rides for a week for $15 is brilliant value. We got off near Boston Common and walked a short distance to the building and seeing as I had promised myself to bring my camera, I took a few snaps. Once inside we mistakenly found ourselves entering the Governors Office. We quickly backed up and closed the door quietly hoping no one had noticed. It's funny in that we had to go through an x-ray detector upon entering the building, much like an airport, but we could easily have kept that door open and beat up the governor had he been around. Sometimes you have to wonder!
It was a very impressive building though, the flag hall, the history attached to the building - it all just came down like a giant aura. We went and saw the Senate room and the House of Representatives which was decidedly a lot more wooden. Literally wooden.
On the way out, after walking in there for what seemed like miles and miles, we took a look into the bookshop. In here was an elderly gentleman who didn't have a great liking for Texas. He served in the Army, asked where we were from, sold us post cards and generally we had good fun with him. He asked us to say hello to everyone in Ireland for him so here it goes, "Hello". He doesn't want any Texans getting the same treatment; we asked him.

Although the mist was getting progressively heavier before then lightening up and starting it's cycle again, we headed out and followed the Freedom Trail to the old State House were James Otis gave a fiery speech which kickstarted the whole movement for the Americansto get the Brits out. It was interesting but closed soon after we got there. They were kind enough to give us free passes to come back another time. Free passes would indicate that we should have paid to get in but we hadn't paid. We aren't bad at finding a bargain it must be said.
The thing about this area of town, the downtown, financial centre was the sheer scale of the buildings. While not as tall as the John Hancock Tower or the Prudential Tower, there was a higher concentration of them and that just makes the whole thing a lot more awe inspiring. It calmed as we walked along the sea front to Fanueil Hall marketplace where we grabbed tow brownies and sat to eat them. Here the buildings were older dating from the days when Boston was an important trade port and we could see this as we ambled along the quayside to Little Italy where we had dinner in Pizzeria Reginas.

Now the thing about Pizzeria Reginas is that it is famous. Not that you would think that for the place isn't done up, has no airs or graces about it and the manager, the grey haired guy (slicked back...well he is of Italian extractions!) with stylish glasses would have trouble shouting at people if it meant he'd save time. We had to queue to get seats but weren't long waiting and surely this was a good thing, the place obviously has a reputation. Sitting at the small bar in there was interesting in itself. We talked to the bar man and saw the pizzas being made. As Donal said, while the pizza was great, it wasn't this but rather the buzz, the energy in there, that made you want to stay. People talking with their mouths full, the juke box playing some great songs, people singing, the ring of the telephone by the bar, the slamming of oven doors and the shouting of the staff who really were going like the clappers. Fantastic little place.
And yes the pizza was nice although I struggled to finish mine, more so than the 20oz T-bone of Monday night!!! It must have been the brownie. This was a good thing though as Donal then had time to attempt to explain the rules of baseball. While I half know them now, I can't help but wonder how that game is so popular. Americans like fast action and tackles and tough things like that and yet soccer is seen as second rate here. A land of contradictions.

We rounded off the night in the hostel, pretty tired from all of the walking we had done that day and besides the weather wasn't great either. Not that you'd need a reason to stay in, the place has free tea, internet and lots of couches for reading on. It's got a kitchen and pool table as well. All in all it's good as a place to take care of oneself, sleep and just relax. In fact it feels more of a house then a hotel would as there seems to be no formalities which is nice. It'll keep me happy as long as the box of Frosted Flakes (that's what Kelloggs call them here, not Frosties, perhaps because then some people wouldn't know what they are) is still in the kitchen and untouched tomorrow.

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First Night in Boston

2009-06-23T07:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you can just feel that a place, a town or a city or even a village, is alive. It is living and breathing with the help of the thousands, perhaps millions in Boston's own case, of people who pass through, eat, drink, sell, buy and generally just live around the place. The great thing about our hostel location here is that it is out of the central city area in a city of it's own, Everett. It's not touristy, seems quite residential and yet busy too with the roads being kept busy and last night was no exception. It is alive but then Boston itself is in another league as we found later on.

The journey over was fairly hard, especially when you consider that there was very little sleep got by either of us the night before we set off from Shannon - 4 or 5 hours sleep really isn't enough to get by on and Donal fell asleep in the hostel last evening which left me wondering whether to wake him or not. I didn't, I was too busy sitting on my own bed wondering what the next five weeks would bring. It's a longer time now than it seemed weeks and weeks ago when the planning of this whole thing was still underway. Five weeks then was the amount of time you completed an essay in! Still, as I wondered I thought of home, all of a few hours into the trip and I was thinking of home , it was time for me to get off my arse and onto the web to chronicle the first few hours of this trip. It's funny how that clears the mind. It's funny also how steak clears the mind.

I woke Donal eventually as I was getting hungry and knew where to get a decent 20oz t-bone steak. I knew he'd be ok with being woken up for that. And he was. It was still dull when we left for Whiskey's, across from the Prudential Centre in the Back Bay (look it up you lazy rat, what am I, google?!). The subway was pretty quiet at this time, around 8pm, but even for a Monday night there was a fierce buzz in Whiskeys as people drank after work aor came to eat. There was a "ball game" on the TV too so people were glued to that as I think the Red Sox were playing (Boston's team). It didn't really matter to us as we were busty eating cow, and lots of it, but not before we tucked into a fine salad too. It came to $37 dollars between us, two 20oz steaks, salads and one glass of pepsi. I reckon that was a good deal for what we got - now convert that to euro's and begin to feel jealous.

It wasn't all food though, as I said earlier Boston was awake, a Monday night and the place was simmering nicely with the bubbles of life hopping near the top of the pot but not overflowing onto the stove. It was only Monday after all. We arrived in Copley Square subway station, or T station as they say here, and climbed the stairs to a scene anyone would be startled by. The John Hopkins Tower slanted off to our left about 60 stories high, the Prudential Tower stretched to the sky over the magnificently grand and beautifully lit Boston Public Library. The street lights were dim, it was like something out of a film. But a good film. And then that is the USA isn't it? A cultural behemoth, a place you recognise without ever being there and when you are there you feel a faint sense of recognition but at the same time you gasp at the scale, something TV cannot really show that well. This was one of those moments.

There was more though as when we walked around a little after the steak, we crossed Harvard bridge, all the while looking back at the skyline of the Boston Back Bay region while to our left along the river was MIT and it's grand and opulent buildings, lit subtly while piano music drifted out of a window. Well actually that was because there was a music class going on but it did fit the mood nicely.

I didn't have a camera on me at the time bu those sort of views really don't leave your head all that easily. That's what really matters I suppose although today the camera is coming with me!

In Boston

2009-06-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well the day ahas arrived at last. I still remember the day when I came up with this idea to travel through America, or at least a section of it. It is a whole continent almost! It was a grey November day, the weather being much the same as that outside the window of the hostel myself and Donal are staying in right now. Apparently the weather is due to stay like this till we leave this city. And Donal was just saying on the plane how it would be and achievement if we were to get five weeks of rain...did he speak too soon?!

The flight over was fine, we flew in one of the new Aer Lingus A330-300's, St Munchin and it had TV's in the headrests with a remote control so you could flick through about 20 different films, picking and choosing when you wanted to see them and pausing them and all. There was music and games on it and all, it was very good. The food on the flight wasn't bad either it must be said. After arriving at the airport though we queued to go through the exit gate only for Donal to be subject to a random interview and search - just luck. They pulled him aside and asked questions and half heartedly looked in his bag and he said that it actually turned out that the guy was a parartrooper and they got chatting when he saw his D-Day book upon searching his hand luggage!

We took the "T", subway, to the hostel from the airport which was no hassle at all really but we did have to walk a little although not so much that it was a big deal. The hostel is in Everett, outside the centre of Boston and its nice to be a real part of America - I mean, our neighbours live in wooden houses and there's a giant Best Buy store down the road as well. It could only be more American if there were flags flying on the lawns and yes indeed the Star Spangled Banner is flying from a few of them. Yes I did say lawns!

The hostel is fine, clean and basic but it has web access (as proven by this!) and you can be in the centre iof Boston in less then half an hour by combing the bus with the subway, easy. In fact that is just what is about to happen as we need to go and eat.

And so the journey begins. Keep an eye on this site as it progresses to see how we're getting on.

141 miles from Cork to Ballyvourney

2009-04-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Click for pictures.

Click for map.

Motorcycles are strange beasts. They have to be more than simple machines if they can make people so passionate about them because surely they are more than a simple form of transport. It is two wheels set in a frame with an engine underneath you. And isn't that really it? It is you and the motorcycle, free on the road. It is the road however that does not get plaudits that it deserves, after all, roads are just lines of solid ground and yet somehow they can seem to call you, beckoning you to follow it simply to see where it goes. I'm going to say that the reasoning behind this is a simple look back at childhood when you wondered where that path into the woods went or maybe it was a simple curiosity borne out of childhood. It remains with us all through life I think but we can only show it now and then, when we are free to do so and when on a bike freedom is the key word and naturally then we follow the road. We answer its continuous call knowing there are risks but isn't that what life is all about, the risk of taking risks?

On Sunday morning I planned out a route using Google Maps to ride from Cork City to Ballyvourney but by going through Nad, Banteer and Rathmore in Kerry. Essentially it was to be a big loop on mainly regional roads and I wrote the route out on a sheet of paper stuffed in my jacket pocket confident that the reminders of what towns I should hit, coupled with my own fairly good sense of direction, would bring me safely to my destination. When you sit on a motorcycle however you realise that it isn't so much the destination as the journey and after giving the bike a quick check over I got ready to roll. Needless to say the original route plan was slightly altered on the fly!

I geared myself up before setting off, putting on my armoured jacket, armoured pants zipped to the jacket, my helmet and gloves and boots and stepped out into the sunshine which I hoped would mean that the bike would start without much hassle. Gemini, my Honda Innova 125, had recently thrown me a problem in that the choke cable used to start the engine when cold, had buckled so when I had to start it now I often had to use the kick starter numerous times before warming the engine and then finally setting off. I didn't feel like having to use the kick starter with all my gear on i this heat and thankfully didn't have to for the sun had warmed the bike cover and the bike under it to the pont where the seat felt nice and squishy and sit on and the electric start worked first time! With my route in my head, I stepped down on the lever to engage first with a clunk, twisted the throttle and was off.

The Innova, having a top speed of about 70mph, is never quite at home on the motorways or fast national roads but its lively single cylinder engine is quite at home on the backroads and regional roads that cut through some of the beautiful Irish countryside and it was my intention to stay on these roads as I made my way through the city, heading in the direction of Blackpool through Shandon, amazed at how little traffic there was in the city on this particular Sunday. I could have taken the main Mallow road out to Blarney but that was a national route and instead I made my way up through the Northside of the city through Fairhill and down through Lower Killeens. Killeen, in my mind, were a cloth making company, you know the cloths for cleaning dishes and rubber gloves for washing up? Well there was no such factory on this road. Sorry. Anyway even though I had just left the city and hadn't even arrived in Blarney yet, it seemed like I was deep in the countryside already and the Lower Killeen road was empty bar one car, quite bumpy but there were no potholes and some nice bends. The problem with the bends was that they were partly blind so I wasn't sure were there entrances behind them and having scouted out one or two I actually turned back to shoot through the bends with more aplomb safe in the knowledge that nothing would come out to block my path. It was worth it!

It was only a few minutes before I reached a fork in the road and I was on the road to Blarney where I thought it would be wise to fill the tank. I stopped breifly earning the vicious look of a woman in a Ford Fiesta as I put my lid back on having filled the tank and paid. I was taking up space in the busy garage and she joined another queue for a pump, still glaring at me. Maybe she had overdone the dinner or something at home. Not too far up the road I saw a sign for Waterloo and followed it on instinct, which gives you a clue as to how my original route plan was already being ripped up! In fact the route plan was for me to hit Kerry Pike but I knew Blarney was close enough so I suppose on the first "stop" I had already deviated. It's part and parcel of the whole adventure really. Of course following the road to Waterloo, I couldn't stop Abba from playing on that MP3 player in my head. "Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to..." Oh God. I passed through quickly briefly stopping to look at a round tower with the road up to that being a lovely tightening right hand bend with a smooth surface so I could really lean the bike. At this point that MP3 player had stopped. Thankfully.

I then followed the road out of Waterloo which to me consisted of just that round tower, the adjoining church and a pub as in the pictures. Funnily enough I thought the position of the round tower was perfect for attacking the pub military style if need be. Sometimes I wonder about myself...it's not often I'd make an observation like that! From Waterloo I went north the bike flicking through some minor bends with ease but there was nothing too exciting yet and although the scenery was nice it wasn't anything to stop and take pictures of. A town called Donoughmore was on my route and seeing a sign for it, I stopped the bike and took the sheet of paper out of my pocket. Sure enough I missed Kerry Pike but Donoughmore was indeed on my list and I duly turned right to follow the sign. Where I was though seemed like some sort of great plain - there were mountains way far out but for a fierce distance there was really nothing but fields (and the house across the road). I stopped somewhere on the way to Donoughmore in a little village that seemed pretty abandoned to me. It had a Coop Store in it and a pub with petrol pumps in front of but despite the petrol prices being recent enough, the actual pub itself looked very much closed as did the shop further up the road. One or two vehicles passed through, none of them paying much attention to me and none stopping either so there really must not have been much to the place and slowly coming to that conclusion myself I started the Innova again and and rode off to Donoughmore, possibly following signs but I can't quite remember.

I knew that in order to get to Nad and then Banteer I needed to be on the R579. I rode through a village called New Tipperary which really, looking back was worthy of a picture but took a steep road West of it up into Donoughmore Cross which I did picture and at where a funny little episode occurred. Bear in mind here that throughout the journey I was wearing ear plugs to protect my ears from the wind and engine noise which can get quite annoyingly loud even through a helmet. Stopping to take a picture of the bike under the Donoughmore Cross sign a couple pulled up in their car. They were coming from a road going north and were wondering to go on to the R579 or to go right on the road I had just come from. Or at least they were the options I saw. There was of course the option of getting tanked in the two pubs not in the picture. The guy, who was in the passenger seat too kthe map from the lady driving and asked which was the way to Coachford. Only half hearing him (I was too lazy to take off the helmet and ear plugs), I tried out my lip reading skills. I got Coachford so I looked at the map and told him to take the road I had just come from as I thought that would bring him there going by the map anyway. I realise now that pointing with thick gloves at roads on a map isn't very specific because my thumb was the size, on the map, of County Louth. He thanked me and they pulled off and I duly did too, following the road linking to the R579 through a little cross road called Ballycunnigham. However as I stopped near it to take a picture I noticed in my mirrors a car I recognised from earlier. It was the couple I gave directions to and they drove past me, smiling at me probably discussing how much of an idiot I was. I smiled back. I then noticed that one of the signs at the crossroads pointed to Coachford and I too felt like an idiot but of course I could justify it by saying that if they had went my way they would have gotten there too and enjoyed a longer spin. Still I forgot about it as I photographed the abandoned pub at the crossroads which was called Ballycunningham. It needed to be photographed as the place hadn't been given any attention in years, every car passing, and there was a good few, all seemed to be going somewhere else, not slowing for a look or anything. The place seemed like it had bad memories hidden away and people wanted to run from it. I decided I should let it to its rest and followed the sign to Nad wondering what old characters drank in this pub before.

I don't think I had ever been to Nad before and I didn't realise what distance I had to cover to actually get there but it's not like I should complain about the journey. The road was beautiful, part of the so-called Duhallow Trail which meant that any town I passed through had a nice green and red designed sign stating that and the towns or village's name. A nice touch. As I rode along I could see that the road had a few bends ahead so I began to ready myself to lean the Innova through a few of them. There's something intimately pleasurable about leaning a bike through a perfect bend, what speed you carry in to it, how you set the bike up before this and then how you ride out of the bend, gently lifting the bike back to where it began on the straight and narrow. It's like a dance routine, slow in the mind but fast in physicalities (or should that be the other way around?) and this road was the dancefloor as the green and lush countryside flew by. I hardly noticed but the bends actually swivelled and curved upwards along the side of a section of the Boggeragh Mountains which allowed for some beautiful views into the valley below and this meant, of course, that I had to stop and take a picture or two. At one point I saw a farm way down the valley and thought that the road was worth having a ramble along but sense got the better of me and I stuck to my route, or at least what I had improvised as a route anyway. It was to be the first time sense would win all day.

I did warn that sense only won once on the day so as I came to the top of the mountain or hill or whatever other thing you would like to name this section of raised ground, I spotted two roads leading into a forest and passed them but then thought that perhaps one of them would be worth a quick look. A quick mirror check and I grabbed a fistful of front brake, hit down through the gears and after a lifesaver I turned around to go back and check out the trail. That's what it turned out to be, a trail with a load of bumps, sharp looking rocks and a muddy verge. Oh, and there was plenty of tree's on either side so it seemed to me like the only people using this road were going to be forestry workers and the chance of that happening on a Sunday were slim. I passed a parked Ford Fiesta as I entered the trail, an elderly couple in the car were enjoying the view and I wondered for a split second should I ask them what I was letting myself in for and indeed they looked at me as if to say "what are you doing?!" Soon enough though I couldn't see their car and was too far up the trail to turn around. I mean, what would have been the point in turning around having come this far to see nothing yet? I had to carry on to please myself and yet again sense lost the battle. Not seeing a watch for time didn't help either I suppose. There seemed to be a crest ahead so I rode to that, the road now changing from gravel to some kind of pot-holed tarmac slither with bog on either side and woods too. Having reached the crest I parked up and sat on the bog (if you'll excuse the pun) for a short while. Actually hold on, I didn't sit on the bog as in, go to the toilet, I sat on a dry section of the bog to relax a little! I thought that with being so far in from the road I wouldn't hear any cars which would have been nice, to be somewhere so remote you could pretty much do what you wanted to do (like scream or something). However I did hear cars after taking out my ear plugs after removing the helmet so they went back on, I turned around in a fairly muddy patch which meant plenty of wheelspin weeeee!!!! The journey back to the road was much shorter than I thought it would be and as I dodged between big rocks and sharp pebbles, I pondered on what a guy had told me before. He said "But what if you get a puncture?" He was right. Out here I was miles from anywhere and certainly I could not bring the bike up to a shop to have it sorted. In that situation it's best to say "Well, who gives a shit?" I clearly did, and do, but you get my point.

Rejoinging the road I soon found myself going through Nad which disappointed me in way, it was just a pub and very little else, so little else that I almost forgot to snap a photo. The road to it went downhill and really couldn't have gotten much better than it did, curving through the landscape with one particularly delightful right hander which just begged to be taken at full throttle with a gently lean. It's difficult to describe really but if you've been on a bike you'll understand. It's special going through a corner on a bike because it's just you flying through the air you're feet a few inches off the ground straddling a machine that'll hopefully bring you safely through it all. After this euphoria though Nad was a let down. A fork in the road just outside Nad (well I'm not sure could there be an outside and an inside with the place being so small), led one way to a place called Lyre and another to Banteer. The name "Lyre" interested me but I decided not to follow it, Banteer was on my route map. Did sense win there? I suppose it did though looking at a map now it seems I could have done both easily. But then what if Lyre wasn't all that good? Right now, in my head it is a lovely little village with an intriguing name. Discovering it could have meant the ruin of this image kind of like us humans finding out that the moon is not made of cheese - a shame.

On to Banteer and the road was still pretty much following the Duhallow Trail which a sign before Nad had remarked was an EU supported initiative or area or some such thing. The sign looked old school, battered by the long winters up here. There was one point where I pushed a little too much and if I remember correctly, which I may not, it was as I approached Banteer. I was leaning into a right hand bend which led to a bridge and I misjudged my entry speed and made a little mess of the recovery. I say little mess because a big mess would have been my battered body and a bike lying on the road looking like an angry mother had taken a hammer to it. I leaned further into the corner realising my speed was too high, my gearing was correct-ish for the exit and a further change down could have resulted in the back-end of the bike kicking out a little which was certainly not what I needed so I did what one should never do in a corner, pulled the front brake. The risk is that you can pull it too much, lock it and then you'll slide onto the ground but I pulled it gently then switched to the rear brake which is what I should have done and glided through. All's well that ends well I suppose and its a lesson learnt. Plus it livened up the story at a point where I would have been going on about lovely roads again so be thankful.

Banteer itself was fine, I stopped, turned the bike around at a Skoda garage where my presence seemed to move off a young couple looking through the used cars and I parked up outside the Post Office to take a pic. There was a pub and a church, two staples of Irish village life but no shop that I could see, bar the PO which was closed. I looked at a tourist information board across the street and saw that the mountain behind me was climbable though I'm not sure if they meant that it was to be hiked up or perhaps driven up. It promised views that would last a lifetime in memory but alas I didn't go back and past Banteer train station on the way out of town following one of those Mercedes 4x4's which were popular when people thought taking a loan from the bank made them rich. I wondered how the woman in this one was paying off the inevitable loan she had saddled herself with. I then laughed at her when I thought of how much she needs to fill the tank compared to me!!! It was deserved, she pulled out on me. Still, by doing so I had a runner for a lot of the ride into Millstreet meaning I could cruise along at 50mph with not a care in the world, the slipstream behind her big blocky vehicle creating a nice cushion for my bike's engine to cruise along in. Maybe she even thought I was following her, which was fine by me although I was not following her.

One thing about enjoying roads on the Innova is that you often have to push it, wokring through the 4 gears in order to get the greatest use of what little power its small engine can produce and this can become tiring after a while as you plan ahead to brake and lean and accelerate, all the while attempting to ensure that you keep your speed someway constant and the engine in the right rev space so that you didn;t slow yourself down. Cruising behind her meant I could avoid that, put the bike in 4th gear and just enjoy the views. She turned off at Rathcoole, another village marked with a Duhallow Trail sign so now I could push on a little to Millstreet. I'd never really had a good look around Millstreet and was interested to find out what it was like although the road down into it wasn't quite up there with the road neaer Nad as regards the grin factor. I even took my first touristy picture there! The guy in the tractor near where I took the photo may or may not have said something funny about the whole episode - I can't tell as I wasn't talking to him. After taking the picture I rode down a hill and then back up slightly, finding out that this simply the outskirts of the town which was by far the biggest around. In going through the town centre, I had the idea of stopping to walk around a little but didn't until I almost passed through the place altogehter. I was looking for a shop so that I could stop, have an ice cream and just stretch my legs a little. The Innova had proved comfortable enough to a point, I didn't have a sore arse yet and only my lower legs showed any sign of soreness and the little walk sorted that. Ambling into Centra I didn't get an ice cream after all. I parked the bike across the road in the car park, read about how Millstreet hosted the Eurovision and then realised that with a helmet on me and gloves, it'd be hard to carry an icne cream too. Mars Bar and can of Pepsi it was then. I walked and drank as I walked down the main street certain that people were looking at me as I wasn't a familiar face. Despite it being a town and not a village I still suspected that this system of "community surveillance" was going on. It was interesting to see Murphy's furniture shop though as it looked like Murphy was using the furniture and selling it out of his house, an ingenious idea I thought. At the bottom of the street, and I use the term bottom here to mean the lowest point of the street as regards elevation from sea level (ther street dipped), there was a chipper and a pub. Two pubs in fact. What I found interesting was the proximity of the pub to the chipper and how they had tried to change the chipper into a "fast food family restaurant" or so they said. The name change, I thought, still didn't stop drunken people from next door from stumbling through the narrow door into it. It couldn't have been more convieniently placed anyway - right next door. In fact most places in Millstreet seemed to be made up of houses so most doors were much narrower than you'd normally expect a shop to be. I doubted that the Green Glens Arena could be the same. This was where the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest was held and as I was passing through I decided I may as well have a look. I rode the bike out of the car park near Centra turning right at a sign for the place and rode up a short hill to where the Arena was supposed to be. There seemed to be some kind of competition happening there at the time so the car park had a few cars in it and I couldn' quite be sure which was the Arena and which was the secondary school. Neither really stood out. I suppose I expected the Arena to be obvious in its stature but really it was fairly non-descript but then as I didn't get off the bike I couldn't quite. On my exit I took a lane leading to a big house so I slammed on the brakes realising my mistake and turned it around pretty quickly to get out of there with the thought that any second now a pack of dogs akin to the hounds The Simpson's Mr Burns possesses would come running out. They didn't. That's if they even existed by the way.

By now I was itching to get back out on to the open road and I hit the road to Rathmore. The bike would be seeing another county! The road to Rathmore was, besides a small twisity bit near Ballydavid, very straight. It was bumpy though and it seemed like they hadn't had enough diesel to run the steam roller on it mushc to my eventual annoyance. In fact what was more annoying was the twisty bit to Ballydavid. There was no way that could be enjoyed because the road was just way too bumpy, a large stretch of bumpy fresh-ish tarmac having been laid all along the roads twisty bits to ensure that tall people bounced their heads off car roofs and bikers had their arses broken. I was forced to slow down quite a lot but I imagine the road would have been safer had it been smoother despite higher speeds. Even the margins were crumbling. The extremely straight stretch of road, had it been smooth, would not have seemed out of place in America. I was forced to slow down on this too as the suspension eventually gave up the ghost, launching me off my seat while doing 60mph. I eased back on the throttle and carried on but slower this time. The tree's lining the side of the road didn't look like places I wanted to be launched into. When there were gaps in the trees though there were some lovely views of the mountains in the distance seperating me from Ballyvourney and I stopped to take a picture. In fact I had to stop, turn the bike around, go back and find a large enough gap in the trees and then take a picture. The guy mowing his lawn on the lone roadside house must have thought I was crazy going up and down past him. His lawnmower looked good though, it was a driving one, or whatever they're called. He was even impressing his kid by allowing him ride on it and to be honest I would have too, its not as if there are radios on those things for entertainment and he's probably sick of the landscape I thought of as beautiful.

I soon came upon the Welcome to Kerry sign on the road and slowed to take a picture. The driver behind me didn't seem to notice I was stopping and looked back in anger as he passed me. Maybe he was listening to Oasis at the time. I took the picture, seeing a factory up ahead and the road was a lot smoother with a bend into the mix at last. I checked mirrors, lifesaver, indicated, lifesaver and pulled away to attack the bend with a bit of gusto, I was tired of simply cruising now although I had to admit to slowing a little going past the Cadbury's factory. I love chocolate but there was no real reason to slow down. As for Rathmore, well I didn't think too much of it but by now I was guessing that I'd be needing fuel soon and despite planning to fill up in Ballyvourney upon getting there it turned out I'd have to use Topaz in Rathmore which seemed to have a Centra the size of Dunnes sttached to it. They even rented DVDs!!! Before that though I followed the road deeper into Kerry, past a bar called The Bridge Bar (bridges must have been oh so special when they named this one) and then took a right on a small local road towards the mountains. Looking at maps now I would have eventually ended up in Ballyvourney, or near it anyway but my fuel tank was against me, now showing only 2 bars out of 6 and I couldn't be sure of making it over the mountain without a lot of fuel to play around with. Topaz didn't locate on this road so I'd be stuck if I ran out. You could say then that sense won because I turned back looking at the road with a certain wonder - what was up there? where would it lead? what views would I see? I couldn't find out but I did find out that the Topaz station in Rathmore had the massive Centra attached to it.

I now had the option of going hell for leather back to Millstreet or going back to the fabled mountain road. Millstreet it was, after all, the sun wasn't going to stay in the sky forever, it was approaching 5pm and as I rode Eastwards I nodded to some bikers passing opposite to me. I had the sense that they were going home and so was I but I was probably much further and certainly on a much much smaller bike. The twisty bits ruined by bumps earlier were ok this time, with my left side of the road not having seen works done to it and I had a slight bit of fun heading through them but nothing extreme, the bends ended too quickly. Once I got into Millstreet I took a look at the tourist map at the Centra I had been to earlier to have a look at the route to Ballyvourney. Using a little bit of common sense I thought if I follow the road to Macroom then Ballyvourney won't be far and this was right but the road to Macroom was the road to Macroom not the road to Ballyvourney. The tourist map suggested a cycling route on some local roads over the mountain to Ballyvourney and apprently there would be some fantastic views too so I mentally jotted down "Take road to Macroom, third local road on left, then follow signs". They said the route for the bikes was well signposted which was a relief as being stuck on the mountain wasn't going to be fun. I accelerated out of Macroom, sharing a stare with a boy racer who I knew for sure wasn't having as much fun as I was and headed South to Macroom. There was a fair amount of traffic on the road and no bends of real note so I was essentially cruising along again enjoyin the views and looking out for the third exit to the mountain road. At this stage I was getting hungry and felt like going home but at the same time I really wanted to reach Ballyvourney so spotting the third exit I slowed the bike down and followed the road waiting for there to be plenty of signs, as promised, to guide me along. The signs never materialised for I followed the road anyway, it was nice and bendy so even though I couldn't bring he bike up to any speed I did manage to have a little fun through the corners, dabbing on some brake to push the balance to the front and giving full throttle coming out of corners safe in the knowledge that I was still going slowly anyway! The views only seemed to get nicer and nicer as I followed the road and I could see that it led to te crest of the mountain on the other side so at least I had some form of direction now. Climbing to the top of this section of mountain I met a 4x4 coming the opposite way to me and left it past. I used the opportunity then to hop off the bike and take a picture thinking to myself that not long had passed before I had been on the mountain way off in the distance. Or so I thought anyway. It seemed nice to think it and it may have even been true. Passing over the crest though I came upon acres of forest and all of it was below me as the pictures show. Honestly, if you were dropped in the middle of it from a helicopter you'd have a hard job finding a way out, or at least a long job finding a way out. With the bike I could just coast along in 2nd gear and look down although seeing some inviting turns, I sped up a little post-photo taking and enjoyed not going over the gravel in the middle. Gravel and bikes don't go together really. Even though the view to the left was fairly spectacular what with the forests and a horizon way way off in between mountain gaps, the view to the right of me as I rode on was also pretty good because the mountain kept going up! There seemed to be some sort of transmitter at the very top as well which meant I could go further as there was likely a road to it but I was already fairly isolted from civilisation already rather than go any further. Reaching a gap in between mountain sections I reached a junction in the road. Or so I thought anyway. I could have continued on the road which was now heading further Westward rather than Southward as I needed it to go and so when I arrived at the junction I took a left into a clump of forestry, a rusted wreck of a car watched ominously from a makeshift parking point as I piloted the bike over a rough trail deeper along the edge of the forest. The views from the left were quite nice and when I stopped to picture it I noticed that the N22 Cork - Kerry road was far far off in the distance so Ballyvourney must be close. At a time like this you tend to become more confident in yourself and I decided to press on despite my concerns over a potential puncture or other mishap. The trail was considerably worse than the last one near Nadd, it was very bumpy and rocks were strewn everywhere with clumps of bushes overgrowing on to it so that at one point it was difficult to keep the bike upright as I was going slowly and trying to avoid the rocks! I couldn't hear a sound anywhere so I knew I was on my own and I folowed the trail further on until it came to a fork. This was particulalry frustrating as there was no way that I was going to be able to go any further so having worked hard to get here I was now going to have to turn back and undo my work to rejoin the road about two miles back. The fork was precarious too, it led Southeasterly as far as I could tell as it had veered off, not offering the views I once had. One trail led into a load of mud, boggy mud which I had no chance with and the other trail was muddy too but pallets were placed over it to allow people to walk on through. There was no way the bike would make either of these. Besides even if it did I had the views I had before and couldn't guide myself. I shouted out in frustration and lifted the bike around as the mud was fairly soft, taking off with some wheelsping maybe...I'm not sure as I was too frustrated to remember. Coming back on to the road seemed a little shorter along the trail but I was disappointed and heartened at the same time - I was at least going to be back on something that was less likely to rip chunks of rubber from my tyres and the road had to go to SOMEWHERE. On the other hand I thought I was taking the right direction and was looking forward to the feeling you get when you emerge, semi-lost to find that your instinct brought you through it. It turned out that this happened anyway when the mountain road sloped down and whirled around a little towards Ballyvourney at last. I met the inevitable bunch of sheep on the road on the way back of course so at least I knew that a farmer was nearby and he couldn't be that far from a town or village could he? A this point it is worth mentioning that the I did indeed pass a sign, pointing in the direction of Ballyvourney for cyclists. If one signpost was their meaning of "well signposted" then they certainly had this very wrong. There was to be one close call though - isn't that the rule?! I was following the trail back into Ballyvourney and there were houses now adjoining the road which was another good sign but a guy in a red Peugeot 206, or so I think it was, came up opposite me at some speed. I slammed on the brakes and veered left where I had little room anyway but he just carried on, veering slightly, but other than that fairly unfazed. I didn't mind too much really, there was no cursing or anything going on underneath the helmet as I was just too glad to be off those tough roads and back to something smooth. By now I was ready to just sit back in a counch and relax but there was no chance, I had to continue on home but before I left Ballyvourney I took a detour to Cúl Aodhá a small Gaeltacht community outside of Ballyvourney. I remember it had been mentioned somewhere in the reams of paper I had to learn off in Leaving Cert honours Irish and thought that as I am out here I may as well see the place. It turned out that, through I suspect some healthy Gaeltacht grants, that the road to it was smooth and curved along the river adjoining it so I could lean the bike a little but not have to fight with it. The place seemed lovely and I took a snap of what seemed a shrine to Sean O Riada and made my way back to Ballyvourney and finally Macroom.

The road from Ballyvourney to Macroom was one I knew well have travelled it many times as a passenger in a car. At last I'd see what it was like to drive on. Although the signs said "dangerous bends ahead" I always saw them as fun looking and because there was a short line of slow traffic in front of me preventing the fun I slowed to a stop to take a pic, take stock and then fly off again through the bends, hopefully with the road to myself. Of course as soon as I stopped two cars went by but they seemed to be going at a reasonable pace, not the 30mph the others were intent on keeping. Eventually I got back on the bike and blasted through some of the bends, taking advantage of the good surface by leaning the bike over quite a bit carrying a decent pace into the corners. I had already missed some of the fun on some of the corners as I hadn't stopped early enough. It was only when I really got sick of just pottering along that I decided to stop and alow them go on so that I could choose my own pace. A nicer, more fun pace.
Of course they eventually came about up ahead as I closed in on them. Maybe they slowed down deliberately. In fact it may have been some bitter father who decided that, as he had had a crap Sunday due to the family acting the collective tool in the car with him, he would spread his frustration over the whole road, backing up traffic. "Will ye shut up in the back, no, no ice cream, we're having dinner when we go home.....and will you stop going on about the washing? I put the machine on spin rather than cool-wash, big deal, they'll be fine. Shut up back there!" It can't be easy being a father and having to work a washing machine too though at the time I didn't think about that and probably did utter a curse at the perpetraitor of this heinious road crime. Actually I was glad to be in an unintentional convoy as at least I could rest the engine a little, not straining it in hitting 65 or 70 on the way home. This traffic convoy by the way even went through Macroom.

People wouldn't have been suprised had it been a wedding going through the town at such slow pace and for a while I toyed with the idea of taking a left to take the old Coachford road back to Cork but dismissed the idea having not been on the Macroom to Cork road before and wanting to try it out. I actually thought it would be longer although the few bendy bits outside of Macroom were not much fun due to the slow pace and when the pace quickended eventually, the Innova had no problem keeping up all of the way back until I took a detour to Kilumney from the Ballincollig bypass and then ended back up on the bypass deciding I wouldn't fancy going through Ballincollig. I really, at this stage, just wanted to be home and continued on until reaching Togher in the city where I pulled off and took city roads back to my house.

All in all the trip was brilliant and my longest yet, 141 miles of riding pleasure although it was tough in places.

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