Sunday Morning, Glasgow

Sunday morning, Glasgow

Woke early and spent some time updating my Flickr page--the trip now has a proper Set, but will still need some work and adding to before it's finished.

Yesterday was a mixed bag of good and wet. Rained all day all over Scotland, and the traffic getting out of Glasgow was just horrendous. By the time we made it to St. Andrews, The Wolves in the Walls was more than half over, and so I never made it to the show.

The drive itself was great, however. Colin rented a very comfortable Jetta for the day, and I was able to sit back and watch the Scottish countryside roll by while he careened around sharp corners and flew through various towns and cities.

Wandered around St. Andrews a bit, had fish and chips in Anstruther, then headed down to Glasgow. Got to see the famous cantilevered Forth bridge while driving over the also-famous Forth Road Bridge (sorry, the weather was too mucky to take pics. Wikipedia will have to do instead.)

Caught the closing night of The Bacchae, which was one of the big draws at the Edinburgh International Festival, the largest arts festival in Europe. It featured the return to the Scottish stage of hometown boy Alan Cumming. It also featured a lot of lazy hamming and mincing around by Mr. Cumming. The play had some flaws, but still a great experience nonetheless.

And that's been Scotland, more or less. There was a lot of conversation, and pub-hopping Friday night, and more of that excellent bacon they have over here. But mostly just the deep getting-to-know a place, and people, that my traveling has become. I don't think I've seen one historial site or stepped foot into a single museum. I like doing those things, mind you, but I haven't really done any of that lately.

Time to pack up, hop back over to Dublin, and then home tomorrow. And then back to the great work ahead of me.

When the wolves come out of the walls...it's all over.

So I was planning this (sort-of) cheap trip to Ireland, and then I was watching one of the Harry Potter movies tonight (Azkaban, the best one), and thinking about Scotland, and that gorgeous landscape, and how I'd like to go there again. But it's Britain, and the pound is really a bitch right now when it comes to the exchange rate.

I know a blogger over there, in Glasgow, works for the NTS. Extended the invite to me a few times. Just found out that The Wolves in the Walls is being performed again.

Very tempting. It's Gaiman, of course. And he's been on the mind for a while now, so it would be fitting and proper to go to Scotland right now.


I have two plans for the trip. Okay, three. And maybe more, but three is where I'm at right now.

1. Visit. See friends in Dublin. I like these people, and I like visiting them. That's the number one reason for going. They always take me to the best pubs, and the conversation is second-to-none. Only this time I'm not getting the Large pizza, Linus.

2. Write. I want to spend several hours sitting in a pub, or a coffee shop on a cool Sligo morning, or late at night in a hotel room when I can't sleep, and I want to start putting some ideas together for a new play. And I want to sit on a train and listen to music and read books and be by myself for a while.

3. Learn. Lots of excellent writers came out of Ireland, especially playwrights, especially lately. Hope to catch some shows while I'm there. Figure out how they tell their stories, take a few notes. I'm obviously attracted to Irish storytelling, so I figure I'd better start soaking some of it up while I'm there.

There is a 4th, which relates to Scotland, and that's due to the fact that my ancestry is Scottish, and I would love to spend a few days there again, get up into the Highlands, that sort of thing. I love Ireland, but the landscape of the UK always seems to pull me more than Ireland's does. Not sure why that is.

I could blame the Irish rail system, which seems ill-equipped to get people to the remoter places. I've been to Ireland 4 times in 5 years, and have barely seen proper countryside or landscape. This needs to change, and I suppose the answer involves renting a car, something I've successfully avoided since 2001.

But my point is this: I seem to go to Ireland for the people, and the conversation, and the atmosphere. But Britain for the land, for the hiking, for the outdoors. So maybe Scotland needs to fit in somewhere.

So it's 3 Am now, and I really should get to bed. I'm training my body to stay up late so I can dig in to The Deathly Hallows tomorrow night, but I'm starting to fade.

Cheers, everyone.

Good Irish Weather

David Beckham is headed to the U.S. to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. I had some good thoughts on this, but Chris Cope got to them first, so go read what he has to say. No need to say the same thing twice.

My only new thought is this: we're in the middle of the American football playoffs right now, so most people will greet this news with a huge shrug, but I am at least interested to see what effect Beckham has on the popularity of MLS.

Cope is an American journalist who decided to move to Wales last year. Considering that I tried to do something similar last year, I tip my hat to him for actually making it. Of course, reading about the severe depression that he spiralled into upon arrival, I sometimes think it might have been a good thing that I stayed in the States.

I still get itchy, though. Winter around here has been mild, and it's currently 47 degrees as I start my Friday at work. It's that cool, slightly damp weather that I strangely enjoy, and always reminds me of that Irish/UK/North Atlantic weather. Gets me wanting to go for a long walk through moors or old forests or smell the sea air in Salthill.

The Real and True of it All

Spent the final day in Dublin just wandering around, lost in thought and getting ready for the trip home tomorrow.

I wanted this trip to kick the shit out of me, and that's exactly what it did, in ways I never even imagined. You want to live here? Fine, then you're going to spend night after night sitting in pubs by yourself, and your days on buses with the rest of the colorful locals you wish to live among.

Had enough? Lonely for dear sweet home yet? How about I throw a major terror threat your way? Let's give you a near-panic attack in a London hotel room as the BBC and Sky news fill the screen with horrific potential what-ifs in your head and once again make the world a more dangerous, more unfriendly place for an American traveling alone abroad.

I'll give you green fields and staggering history and architecture and even a few friends to meet up with, but I'm also going to give you some devastating food poisoning on the way over. Nothing like severe vomiting to make you want your mother by your side, eh Brian?

A nice hike in the Welsh countryside? No, let's hike uphill for three or four miles, pal. Now let's ride a bike up steep roads and climb slippery rocks so you can see some goddamn ancient Celtic fort. Had enough yet?

I got my ass beat real good on this journey, but had fun doing it along the way. There's a lot to solo travel that's great, but most of the time it's hard fucking work and I'm rarely at ease with myself. It's usually afterwards that I can look back and appreciate everything, like a marathon runner who knows it's going to be brutal at times, but you do it because you have to.

Now I come home and try to sort out the elaborate fantasy world that I call my life. Pick up the pieces and try to figure out why I'm such a bastard sometimes. Why my preferred method of solving problems is to pour gasoline on them and light a match.

So long, Ireland. So long to good friends and strangers I passed on the street. See you later, London Tube. St. Paul's, I'll get inside you one of these days and see that T.E. Lawrence bust, I promise. Not for a while, though.

This trip had to be taken, I now realize. I had to once and for all get this place out of my system. Be over here enough that I run out of things to do, stop seeing the place through Pogues lyrics and Murdoch references and just see it for what it is, the real and true of it all. The rain and the bums and the dirty streets, and the wind off the bay and the creamy head of a pint. Fill it all up in my head, and keep it there.