Exams Irish Style

So the first one was this morning. In a hotel ballroom. Apparently the school doesn't have the facilities to hold all the exams on campus - even though the exam period is spread out over three weeks. I guess I kind of noticed that when I downloaded my exam "timetable" a few weeks back (the very first day it was available), but it only occurred to me yesterday that I didn't know how to get to the hotel. I asked one of the roommates and he said "oh, that's over in Salthill," which is a section of town pretty much as far from my end of town as you can get.

"Do most people walk all the way out there?"

"Na, you'd be best to take a taxi. Better book it today too, to be sure."

Good thing I asked. Luckily, the cab appointment and ride went without a hitch (although you better believe I re-confirmed that this morning). However, upon alighting from the cab, I learned I owed ten (ten!) euro. Granted I'm not a math major, but since three of my exams are at the hotel and the other two are next door at "Leisure Land" (a waterpark/arcade/gym/conference center), that means 100 euro (about $125) just to get to my exams.

After the exam, which I'd put in that all-too-familiar law school category of "tough but fair," I walked out of the hotel to bright sunshine. I decided to walk it. A bit over an hour I arrived home. A bit of a pain, but doable for $12.50. No wonder I can climb mountains now.

I figure I just saved 90 euro. Wonder how many pints of Carlsberg that will buy? And you thought I was just studying over here.

Exam Season

I have more thoughts on Italy, especially Rome, but I it's exam season and my first one is tomorrow. So, just quickly, I will remind you all what it's like to take one test at the end of the semester for your entire grade.

Last night I had a series of dreams in the genre of "can't find the exam room" or "the test is written in Spanish yet everyone else is writing furiously" (I actually had the latter the night before the LSAT). One was, I had spent a week in Italy but never had a shower with any water coming out, and getting up and getting ready for the exam was beset with no hot water, roommates using the bathroom, and other roadblocks to getting out of the house. The other one I had to prepare an exam for others to take, and not only had I not done that, I further had not made arrangements to move an exam I was supposed to take at the same time.

You can laugh at it when you wake up, then this happens: this afternoon I sit down with what I thought was an empty notebook for the purpose of taking some practice exams. But when I open up the notebook, it's got a week and half's worth of notes from the beginning of the semester. Some from each topic. I assure you, I was completely awake. How the feck could I miss this when making my outlines? So I have essentially not studied the first two weeks of classes and exams start tomorrow! In sheer panic I grab all my other notebooks and start comparing.

It appears that early on I hadn't been to the bookstore yet and kept them all in one. BUT, I had actually copied all of these notes over to my new notebooks when I did get around to buying them. I have no memory of this. At any rate, crisis averted - and you thought I was just getting knackered over here.

Florence

I think I saw more art and more churches in the last six days than I have in my entire life. Don’t get me wrong, Italy was a beautiful and moving experience, but if I see one more Madonna con Bambino Jesus, I'll convert to Paganism.

I think it was Dave Barry who said, about shrines and temples in Japan, that it's best to see one to three of them, then STOP, because they will be essentially the same. The same holds true for churches, even in Italy and the Vatican City.

On my first morning in Florence, I rushed to the Duomo, the city's cathedral, and queued for forty minutes to get to see the inside when it opened at 10am. The guide book made it sound like this was the most essential thing to see in Florence. After looking around what appeared to me to be just a bigger version of most of the Catholic churches I've ever seen, I was worried that Italy was not for me (this is the best you got?). Thankfully that was not so. For one thing, you can get a 660ml bottle of Peroni beer for €2.20 from a snack stand, drink it on the steps of the Campanile (aka the cathedral's bell tower) and the polizia will nod at you politely.

Of course, I would have to admit that two of the highlights of the trip were indeed church-related. First, for €6 you can climb the bell tower. You can also climb to the top of the Duomo, but there was a two-hour wait for that (no line for the bell tower), and plus when you climb the Duomo, obviously you don't get a view of it, as I did from the bell tower. This climb is not for those with a fear of heights or closed spaces. On the way up the 400-plus steps, there are several spots, especially near the top, where you have to wait at a corner, ducking your head, to allow others to come down the same narrow staircase. More than once I was essentially trapped for several minutes as streams of people came from the other direction. Add to that that you are surrounded by stone - stairs, walls, ceiling - and in many of the corridors there is very little light. Yet it's quite the opposite when you arrive at the top: open air, a view for miles, and nothing but a mesh canopy between you and a several hundred foot drop. Awesome.

Second was Santa Maria Novella, a sizeable church very near the train station. I had decided I'd seen enough churches after the Doumo, San Lorenzo, San Spirito, and San Trinita, but I had a couple hours to kill waiting for the next train to Rome. So I saw what turned out to be one of the little gems of Florence. Inside was like a mini-museum. There is Masaccio's freso, Trinity, from 1427. It was one of the very first paintings to use proportion to create the illusion of three dimensions. You may remember from Art 101 that this involved the use of a 'vanishing point.' Supposedly Florentines waited in long lines to see this illusion, and it still is working today, almost 600 years later.

In one of the chapels is a massive fresco taking up three walls: Nardo di Cione's Last Judgement. The center wall depicts judgment day, with angels leading souls to the center of the painting to be judged. If they are lucky, they join the happy souls on the left wall which depicts paradise. But in a corner of the center painting, the devil pitchforks the damned off to the right wall, which contains purgatory and hell, based on Dante's version. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed in Santa Maria Novella.

After seeing it inside, I was happy to sit outside in its piazza and people watch with a Peroni or three in perfect weather. Question: is Italy the only place where atrociously large sunglasses have become fashionable? I wouldn't know since, in Ireland, the sun doesn't shine. But I was mystified as to why such beautiful people would obscure two-thirds of their face with these monstrosities. Similar to the fashion puke that was trucker hats, I blame Paris Hilton.

On a side note, everything in Italy keeps different and very unusual hours, at least from an American perspective. Typical example: June & July Mon-Fri 9:30am to 12pm and 3pm to 6pm, Sat 9am to 5pm; Sept-May Mon-Sat 10am to 4pm; first and last Sun of the month 1pm to 5pm; closed August.

Try Not to Miss Me

Ok, kids, it's off to Italy for me. Try and play nice amongst yourselves. I'll be three days in Florence and three in Rome, then back home to Galway. Today should be an interesting day of travel as I have to walk downtown, get the train to Dublin, somehow get from Dublin's train station to Dublin's airport, then fly over to Florence and walk or cab it to my hotel. All that said I should arrive shortly after midnight local time.

After three days in a Florence hotel, I will be roughing it at a Rome hostel. Normally I would shell out the extra cash for the hotel, but for whatever reason I couldn't find hotel for much under 100 euro a night; the hostel was 28. We'll see if you get what you pay for.

Overheard in Galway

I'm sure many of you have happened across Overheard in New York, a collection of dim-witted and otherwise amusing conversations, quite literally, overheard in NYC. Inspired by a walk downtown today, here is my offering:

Dreadlock guy: What, no burrito?
Dreadlock girl: What?
Dreadlock guy: I thought you were getting a burrito.
Dreadlock girl: I did.
Dreadlock guy: Wow, you ate it already?
Dreadlock girl: No. It's in my backpack.

--Shop Street

Is it any wonder that I fear staying in a hostel for my Italy trip?

No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

I know that people sometimes wonder why I like rap. How do I relate? Why would such music speak to me, a white boy from small town New England? I have always thought it had something to do with my corollary interest in racism. And it does, especially given that I had some racist relatives growing up, and given that I've lived in the northeast and in the deep South (New Orleans). But I ran across this picture recently and it crystallized something:


Signs like these were common in Britain until quite recently, hanging in pubs and hotels. I don't share this picture as if to suggest the Irish struggle is comparable with the African one. Actually quite the opposite, especially in America. And I suppose that is exactly what interests me. Why is one kind of racism gone but one not? Because one can't tell an Irish person on sight? I don't know, but I do know that sometimes very small things make very big differences, fair or not.

No Time for Stage Fright

One of my recent visitors from the USA asked me after a few pints had caused the need for a few visits to the toilet, only to find none there: "what's up with all the gang pissers?"

Ah, yes, pluming in Ireland is a different deal altogether. Although running across a pub without a men's room toilet is quite rare, the 'gang pisser,' is the rule, not the exception. I think the last time I saw one before coming here was in Fenway Park, actually. Our female readers may not be familiar with the contraption, which is essentially a trough with a leaky pipe running across the top of it to (slowly) flush the former pints down the drain. Often they are built right into the wall and floor, so it's just like taking a leak against the side of a building, except it's legal and a guy might elbow his way in next to you if he really has to go. I'm trying to imagine how nuts it would be to have a guy try and share a urinal that was already being used, but with the trough it is just par for the course. On the upside, this seems to relieve (sorry) the temptation to go in the sink. As a hand-washer, that practice is always upsetting. Perhaps I understate.

Speaking of hand-washing, having one spigot that mixes hot and cold water is apparently a luxury in Ireland on the scale of a super sized soda. Nine of ten places you go have one hot spigot and one cold spigot at opposite ends of a tiny sink. And one of them is always dripping steadily. If I had Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder I would never sleep thinking of all the wasted water here. Of course, one thing Ireland is not short on is H2O.

Instead, what it is short on is space. Most hotel showers are on the order of three foot square, or smaller. Mine here is two feet square. I asked one of the roommates if this was typical even in homes and he said, "oh, no. In people's houses they're quite big, up to three foot by three foot." Although I will admit I love the way they'll mount a space heater on the wall pointed at the shower door so when you get out you aren't cold. Brilliant!

Croagh Patrick

One cool thing we were able to do was to attempt a climb of Croagh (Mount) Patrick just outside of Westport. This mountain is where, in the 5th century, St. Patrick spent the 40 days of lent. It stands a bit over 2,500 feet high overlooking Clew Bay. I'm not much of mountain climber, or really these days, even much of a workout person, but when I heard that St. Patrick had actually stood there some 1600 years ago and that pilgrims climbed it each year, I was hooked.

Depending on how you look at it, the nice thing is that you start at sea level. Nice because you get thick air, but not so nice since you really are climbing every foot of just under a half mile of elevation. Middle brother and I set off shortly after 10am, having left best friend to do some shopping and avoid the flare-up of a hip injury. We stopped for breaks along the way but pushed essentially as hard as we could because we realized about half an hour into the journey that the "one hour up, one hour back easy climb" that one guide book said was way off, and we had agreed to meet in town based on a 2.5 hour round trip.

It was challenging, as the first third of the climb ends with about 500 feet of climb at about a 45 degree incline. The second third is quite easy - they call it the saddle and you walk a basically flat section along the top of a ridge to reach the base of the summit itself. The last third was quite tough. I'm pretty sure the grade was over 45%, I'd guess about 750 feet of climb, the terrain is made up of a pile of softball-sized boulders, and the wind really starts to pick up. Here we were forced by the terrain to take it pretty slow.

We reached the summit in about an hour and twenty-five minutes, which seemed like pretty good time (our round trip was about 2:30, not until we reached the parking lot again did we see the sign saying average round trip was 3:30). On the summit is a large white chapel, which unfortunately was closed. And, we think, the final resting place of St. Patrick. I say we think because the grave was marked in Gaelic, and none of the guide books mentioned that he was buried there. At any rate we said a few prayers, got some great photos, and sprinted down as fast as we safely could.

On our way down we encountered a guide who confirmed that we had gotten the best views of the year so far - no rain and a minimum of clouds. Check it out:







As always you can click on any picture to get a larger view.

Opening Day: Where has Stan Papi Gone?

This is how out of touch I am. I didn't realize until just now that it is opening day at Fenway. Are you kidding me? And the Sox are already 5-1, three games up on the Yankees. This is the year!

Actually, the combination of Opening Day and an element from the Ballina story (that moment of hesitation where you're not sure which way to act) reminds me of a story from my youth.

When I was about seven my dad took me to my first Red Sox game. It was after the '75 Sox had lost the World Series, which I was too young to remember, although I knew about that team. My dad had a big vinyl record with the calls of the big games on it. But I knew the ending was sad. It was also shortly after the '78 Sox lost in the one-game playoff. I knew that story was sadder because there was no record on the shelf and the game was never talked about.

Boy, was I excited. To actually go to the park I'd seen on TV so many times. When I was a kid and couldn't sleep, I'd often wander downstairs and find my dad alone in the den in his recliner, watching the Sox with a beer and a bag of chips. He'd let me sit with him past my bedtime, so long as mom was asleep. He probably knew I'd conk out soon enough. Plus, we were able have the whole bag of chips at once. My mom's rule was that you put a couple of handfuls in a bowl - that was it. Otherwise, you'd eat the whole bag in one sitting, and money didn't grow on trees.

This was back in the days when packs of Topps cards costs 25 cents. You got 15 cards and a chalky stick of gum. Problem was, there were 26 teams so there was no guarantee you'd get a Red Sox player. I was always scrounging for another quarter so that I could get two packs - 30 cards at once - then you'd have to get a Red Sox. At least that's the way it seemed. Of course sometimes you'd get a bunch of Montreal Expos, or worse, a checklist card (who wants that?). Back then I think the 'new' teams were the Mariners and the Blue Jays, they stunk even worse than the Expos.

This is the year. It seemed real back then. World Series in '75, playoff loss in '78, a great lineup - Yaz, Rice, Evans. Yes, this is the year.

About the 4th inning of the game, my dad noticed that some kids would run up to the players by climbing up on the corner of the dugout between innings, clamoring for autographs. The usher would come along and shoo them when play started again so that people could see. These were the good seats, after all. I think we were about 15 rows back. I knew my dad was real proud to have gotten such good tickets. Yaz came to the top stair of the dugout. He was on deck next. My dad pressed a pen and the game program into my hand.

"Go shout to Yaz, see if he'll give you his autograph." I looked at him like he was nuts. Yaz? Just holler at him like I knew him? But my dad persisted. I think he was more exicted than me. Imagine an autograph from Yaz. The sure-fire Hall of Famer. A 3,000 hit club member. There was no saying no. Dizzy with adrenaline, I headed down and started to climb up on the dugout.

"Get down from there!" A chubby bald usher shouted at me. I turned back to my dad. But he was too far away to hear the usher, and their lines of sight meant they couldn't see each other. My dad motioned to me and mouthed urgently, 'go on, go on!' I was no more than ten feet from Yaz. My head swiveled back and forth between these two authority figures.

"Get down I said! Kid, get offa there right now!"

'Go on, go on!'

"Kid you're gonna be in big trouble if you don't get down right now!!"

'What are you waiting for? Go! Go! He's right there!'

So what did I do? Precocious little squirt that I was, jump up to the lip of the dugout and yell out 'hey eight, how bout's an autograph'? No, I cannot tell a lie. I sat on the corner of the dugout and cried. My dad had to come down and take me back to the seat, both of us embarrassed with me having decided that Boston was the meanest place on Earth.

But then a funny thing happened. A utility player named Stan Papi had seen the whole thing unfold. He signed a ball and a program and had them sent up to our seats. I had never even heard of Stan Papi. His card said he was a Montreal Expo; he'd just been traded to the Sox. Suddenly Boston was the best place on Earth. My dad looked at the ball - it was an Official American League Ball! I don't know why that mattered so much but it seemed so real to have the same ball the players actucally used - it even had the Commissioner's signature imprinted on it. We were both beaming. What a great day!

Of course over the years I've lost the program and the ball was pressed into service in a neigborhood game, but I'd like to think that that's what a player would like to have happen to a ball, not for it to sit encased in glass somewhere to be untouched by boyish hands. But what remains is what's important. A nice guy did a nice thing for a little kid a long time ago and I remember it.

So when someone asks - who's your favorite player of all time, I pass over Clemens and Yaz and Rice and all the rest and say: Mr. Stan Papi.

The Fine Line Between Bartender and Patron

There is no way to sugarcoat this: catching the flu while on vacation just sucks. We lost about three man-days this past week to a nasty little bug. Although otherwise it was a pretty enjoyable vacation, I will be hard-pressed not to remember it as the flu vacation.

But to keep the focus on the positive as I am wont to do, I will tell you about one of the highlights of the trip.* We ended up staying for two days in Ballina, partly because we didn't want to drive much with one of us sick and partly because we found the town quite agreeable. Ballina is not a tiny charming town. Nor is it a city rich with history. It's sort of at that awkward freshman stage between town and city, but in a way that made it endearing to me. Incidentally, Ballina is second only to Letterfrack as favorite towns to say out loud. It's pronounced bah-lee-NAH, with an emphasis on the last syllable that is very exaggerated by locals when drunk.

While in this town, I noticed my surname on the front of a pub. Although mine's an Irish name, it's a bit rare and this was the first time I had seen it on a pub. So of course we had to visit. This place was only slightly larger than a finished basement, with approximately the same odor. Several older men who looked like they had not moved in a very long time populated the place; a few watching the football match on the telly. But the bartender, a wiry man in his 60s, wore a shirt and tie, which gave the place a modicum of decency.

He had a bit of trouble understanding me, and I him. It was only after being served I noticed him serve himself a double whiskey and gulp it down. I realized it wasn't our accents that had caused the difficulty but his drunkenness. Best friend and I sat and sipped our pints, muttering out of the side of our mouths about the patrons.

Is that guy asleep?

I believe the technical term is: 'passed out.'

Should we stay for another?

Think of the blogging potential that is here. We are staying.

Do you think he's one of your kin?

He drinks like he is.

I am hoping that we were better at gauging our volume than our bartender, because as different patrons arrived, he would "whisper" in a voice that the whole bar could hear even over the telly.

"We got two yanks here. It's those two over there. The ones under 65 not wearing tweed."

When best friend ordered our second round, it emerged that our bartender (Sean) and I shared the same last name. Suddenly we were all fast friends. Perhaps more than best friend would have liked. Sean removed himself from behind the bar and joined us at our table.

"Hop up there and pour yourselves another pint," he said, motioning towards the bar. "I'll pay for them." Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, I jumped up. I think Sean planned on this. No one at the bar batted an eye. I poured two Guinnesses and waited for them to settle. Now, if you've never been to Ireland or just don't drink Guinness, you might not know that the 'proper' way to pour a Guinness is to fill the glass about 5/6 full and then wait for it to turn from what appears to be all foam to its normal black with cream top. This takes a few minutes, then you top it off. While I'm behind the bar waiting, two guys walk in and order two pints of Guinness. I look over to Sean for help, but he is entranced by best friend, who is a pale-eyed bonny lass. Later I would learn he was telling her an abridged version of his love life ("but you can ask my friends for the rest of the story - I just don't want to talk about it"). The new customers were not smiling at my hesitation. What could I do? I poured them two pints and charged them three euro each - I figured that was a fair price given the atmosphere. Of course while their pints were settling, three more guys came in.

Point being, for about 45 minutes I was both patron and bartender at my namesake pub - a role Sean had apparently been fulfilling for decades. Another singular experience in Ireland.


*This is (unfortunately) tempered by the fact that middle brother was unable to join us and partake in the fun; he could not be more than a short walk from either a bed or a toilet, or both, for the better part of a day and a half. The same fate would strike me 24 hours later.

The Atlantic Northwest

I suppose I'll have to write about Scotland later. I'm off to pick up best friend and middle brother who are arriving on the red eye. We're renting a car and driving around the northwest of Ireland. If we happen across an internet cafe perhaps I'll make an entry, but that seems unlikely. So expect no entries until Monday.

Back to your regularly scheduled life.