Dec. 3: favourite destinations
I believe that every single
one of us is imbued with a degree of wanderlust. For some of us, it is
so compelling that we can think of nothing but travel. For others it is
but a small spark and it can be extinguished, forever, by a weekend road
trip.
What I'm saying is that all of us feel the need to leave home for a while and see another part of the world. I believe that all of us have a particular place that calls out to us. Often there's no logic to it. It just calls our name.
In high school, my brother developed an overwhelming desire to visit Australia. He made that dream a reality by working all sorts of crazy shifts at a sandwich restaurant. When he finally made it, I was happy for him. He spent Christmas there and he can tell a story of sitting on a patio somewhere, looking at a small Christmas tree and missing his family. But that's his story, not mine. (Years later, my brother told me that he wanted to visit Australia after watching Crocodile Dundee.)
I had a place that called to me too. It was Ireland.
In 2003, I'd just taken a job at The Glengarry News. I was 30 years old. My publisher and I were having dinner one night and he asked me if I was going to take a summer vacation. I sort of mentioned that I'd like to go to Ireland but I thought that was a little ridiculous. He asked me why I thought that. I gave him a bunch of superficial reasons - some of them had to do with money and some of them had to do with timing - but the real reason was that, deep down, I just didn't think I deserved to have a nice vacation like that.
My boss told me to stop beating up on myself and my family told me something similar and that is how I wound up spending two weeks in the summer of 2004 visiting the Emerald Isle.
And yes, it rained most of the time.
I went to Ireland during the Rose of Tralee Festival, which is basically a combination of a beauty pageant with a Celtic celebration. I thought that I could busk on the streets and make a lot of money and maybe even perform for some of the Irish lasses competing in the contest.
So I took the train to Tralee and I went into the public square and I set up my magic stand and 10 seconds later a police officer came over and told me that I had to have a performing permit. I told the officer that I had called the city of Tralee a week ago and they had assured me that I didn't need a permit and the police officer told me that the person I had spoken to had made a mistake.
I didn't make any money in Tralee. But I did get rained on. In fact, I got mega-rained on. I even bought an umbrella from a street vendor and I went back to my hotel. The next morning, the streets of Tralee were littered with discarded umbrellas.
*
The first meal I had in Ireland was at Burger King. This upset me because I was hoping my first meal would be a traditional Irish one (probably something using potatoes.) Later, I walked by a club called Wild Road. A girl inside blew me a kiss so I went inside to meet her. Then I discovered that she was 16 and so I went away. Later, I would meet an Irish girl named Mags whose hair is as red as fire and whose toned body is a sea of freckles. A young man from Paris will try to pick her up and Mags will see through him from the get-go. She will initiate a conversation with him, dominate said conversation on every psychological level, and then send the would-be pick-up artist on his way. Later, I would congratulate Mags on her skill. She will take a drag from her cigarette and say: "You have to keep the boyos in their place."
*
In Killarney I will meet a poet named Patrick O'Donohue, and if that isn't the perfect Irish name then I don't know what is. He will show me his poem She Spins Her Web. He will tell me that he wrote it that morning and I am the first person to read it. I will feel a profound connection with Patrick O'Donohue and it will last about ten minutes.
Later that night, I will make about one hundred Euros doing card tricks on the streets of Killarney. I will make a magic stand out of a pizza box, some masking tape, and a wicker garbage can. I will return to the hostel at 2 a.m. and I will get about 30 minutes of sleep before a group of drunk American men in their early 20s barge into the room. One of them will be absolutely furious because he is not ending the night the way he envisioned, by having sex with a drunk Irish girl. He will spend about an hour swearing and grumbling to his friends and then some stranger in the dark will yell at him to STFU.
The next morning, I will notice that street vendors sell an awful lot of John F Kennedy memorabilia. They also, inexplicably, sell a lot of New York Yankee hats.
*
In Knock, I visited a shrine that was visited (allegedly) by St. Mary, St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist in 1879. I went, not because I was hoping for some mystical religious experience (though that would have been nice) but because I wanted to see if there was any truth to the legend.
I didn't do much detective work but I did get disgusted by the amount of commercialism that had sprung up around the shrine. Everywhere I went, I ran into people peddling everything from holy water to tiny statues of Mary. One old lady gave me a little brown bottle of holy water that she said had been personally blessed by the pope. She promised to pray for me. I promised to pray for her too. And I did.
*
In Athlone I stayed in a dorm that is reserved for students at a nearby boarding school; since it was off-season, the dorms were empty. I was in room one and I was pleasantly surprised to see the room had its own private bathroom and a TV. I turned it on. Irish TV sucks.
Believe it or not, there was a show about potatoes.
*
Somewhere in there, I wandered into my hostel room and saw a naked girl brushing her hair. I was embarrassed and I apologized profusely but the girl, who was from Europe, was not embarrassed about her nakedness.
And somewhere in there I kissed the Blarney Stone and I biked one fifth of the Dingle peninsula and I went to a play in Dublin and I visited the James Joyce Museum and I ended my trip to Ireland by sitting with a bunch of Canadians and Slovakians in an Irish pub in Dublin, where we watched Canada beat the Slovaks in the opening game of the World Cup of Hockey.
When it was over, the Canadians and Slovaks celebrated together and it just felt so very very human.
I doubt I will ever visit Ireland again.
What I'm saying is that all of us feel the need to leave home for a while and see another part of the world. I believe that all of us have a particular place that calls out to us. Often there's no logic to it. It just calls our name.
In high school, my brother developed an overwhelming desire to visit Australia. He made that dream a reality by working all sorts of crazy shifts at a sandwich restaurant. When he finally made it, I was happy for him. He spent Christmas there and he can tell a story of sitting on a patio somewhere, looking at a small Christmas tree and missing his family. But that's his story, not mine. (Years later, my brother told me that he wanted to visit Australia after watching Crocodile Dundee.)
I had a place that called to me too. It was Ireland.
In 2003, I'd just taken a job at The Glengarry News. I was 30 years old. My publisher and I were having dinner one night and he asked me if I was going to take a summer vacation. I sort of mentioned that I'd like to go to Ireland but I thought that was a little ridiculous. He asked me why I thought that. I gave him a bunch of superficial reasons - some of them had to do with money and some of them had to do with timing - but the real reason was that, deep down, I just didn't think I deserved to have a nice vacation like that.
My boss told me to stop beating up on myself and my family told me something similar and that is how I wound up spending two weeks in the summer of 2004 visiting the Emerald Isle.
And yes, it rained most of the time.
I went to Ireland during the Rose of Tralee Festival, which is basically a combination of a beauty pageant with a Celtic celebration. I thought that I could busk on the streets and make a lot of money and maybe even perform for some of the Irish lasses competing in the contest.
So I took the train to Tralee and I went into the public square and I set up my magic stand and 10 seconds later a police officer came over and told me that I had to have a performing permit. I told the officer that I had called the city of Tralee a week ago and they had assured me that I didn't need a permit and the police officer told me that the person I had spoken to had made a mistake.
I didn't make any money in Tralee. But I did get rained on. In fact, I got mega-rained on. I even bought an umbrella from a street vendor and I went back to my hotel. The next morning, the streets of Tralee were littered with discarded umbrellas.
*
The first meal I had in Ireland was at Burger King. This upset me because I was hoping my first meal would be a traditional Irish one (probably something using potatoes.) Later, I walked by a club called Wild Road. A girl inside blew me a kiss so I went inside to meet her. Then I discovered that she was 16 and so I went away. Later, I would meet an Irish girl named Mags whose hair is as red as fire and whose toned body is a sea of freckles. A young man from Paris will try to pick her up and Mags will see through him from the get-go. She will initiate a conversation with him, dominate said conversation on every psychological level, and then send the would-be pick-up artist on his way. Later, I would congratulate Mags on her skill. She will take a drag from her cigarette and say: "You have to keep the boyos in their place."
*
In Killarney I will meet a poet named Patrick O'Donohue, and if that isn't the perfect Irish name then I don't know what is. He will show me his poem She Spins Her Web. He will tell me that he wrote it that morning and I am the first person to read it. I will feel a profound connection with Patrick O'Donohue and it will last about ten minutes.
Later that night, I will make about one hundred Euros doing card tricks on the streets of Killarney. I will make a magic stand out of a pizza box, some masking tape, and a wicker garbage can. I will return to the hostel at 2 a.m. and I will get about 30 minutes of sleep before a group of drunk American men in their early 20s barge into the room. One of them will be absolutely furious because he is not ending the night the way he envisioned, by having sex with a drunk Irish girl. He will spend about an hour swearing and grumbling to his friends and then some stranger in the dark will yell at him to STFU.
The next morning, I will notice that street vendors sell an awful lot of John F Kennedy memorabilia. They also, inexplicably, sell a lot of New York Yankee hats.
*
In Knock, I visited a shrine that was visited (allegedly) by St. Mary, St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist in 1879. I went, not because I was hoping for some mystical religious experience (though that would have been nice) but because I wanted to see if there was any truth to the legend.
I didn't do much detective work but I did get disgusted by the amount of commercialism that had sprung up around the shrine. Everywhere I went, I ran into people peddling everything from holy water to tiny statues of Mary. One old lady gave me a little brown bottle of holy water that she said had been personally blessed by the pope. She promised to pray for me. I promised to pray for her too. And I did.
*
In Athlone I stayed in a dorm that is reserved for students at a nearby boarding school; since it was off-season, the dorms were empty. I was in room one and I was pleasantly surprised to see the room had its own private bathroom and a TV. I turned it on. Irish TV sucks.
Believe it or not, there was a show about potatoes.
*
Somewhere in there, I wandered into my hostel room and saw a naked girl brushing her hair. I was embarrassed and I apologized profusely but the girl, who was from Europe, was not embarrassed about her nakedness.
And somewhere in there I kissed the Blarney Stone and I biked one fifth of the Dingle peninsula and I went to a play in Dublin and I visited the James Joyce Museum and I ended my trip to Ireland by sitting with a bunch of Canadians and Slovakians in an Irish pub in Dublin, where we watched Canada beat the Slovaks in the opening game of the World Cup of Hockey.
When it was over, the Canadians and Slovaks celebrated together and it just felt so very very human.
I doubt I will ever visit Ireland again.
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