Author: Ariel

Josselyn and I arrived into Edinburg late Friday night. During all of our previous explorations that the two of us have gone out, I’d been in charge of knowing where we were going and how to get there as due to the extensive time I’ve spent navigating strange cities as well as my old home of New York I’ve gained a internal compass, a strong sense of direction and a keen location memory. This trip however, Josselyn was determined to prove herself equally capable and prior to our departure from Barcelona researched the directions to the hotels we would be staying at and writing down the addresses of those we wanted to visit afterwards so she could get GPS directions as need be. After checking in we were hungry and wandered nearby to get some food. The streets were mostly empty except for the people making their way out of the closing bars and all the restaurants we walked past were closed except for a late night kebab and fried fish shop with walls plastered with club promotions for New Years parties and concert venue announcements. I ordered the typical British dish of fish minus the chips, add lettuce and a tomato topped with a garlic sauce on a bun, making it a delicious sandwich, and Josselyn ordered a veggie burger. We ate this inside while drunk-people of varying ages, speech capabilities and levels of aggression came in and out to get food and pass the time by harassing the workers for speaking English with an immigrants intonation and grammar.

The next day we woke up early to go on a tour of the midlands with Hairy Coo tours. We met at Deacon Brodie’s Tavern, named after the infamous historical person for whom Robert Louis Stevenson found the inspiration to write Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and from there were given a fantastic tour by Donald. The already beautiful scenery and human constructions was made richer by his knowledge of Scottish social and geographic history. His self-effacing humor was even able to turn the most grave and tragic of historical stories into lighthearted moments. We first stopped first at the largest metal bridge, made to showcase the financial power of the burgeoning Scottish bourgeoisie. Following this we went to several others stops, including one of Scotland’s William Wallace monument. Here Donald went into the historical details about the real William Wallace, who was the son of a wealthy lowland aristocrat and not a dirty highland nobody as depicted in Braveheart.

Following this we stopped by two castles, one of which that was used in the Monty Python film “The Holy Grail”. Outside of the connection to the film, the castle had nothing particularly special about it, though Josselyn and I did have fun while walking around the castle and banging together a pair of coconuts. The most beautiful part of the tour for me was the various Trossachs lochs that we stopped by and drove past. One particular loch is famous for being the setting of Sir Walter Scott’s poem The Lady of the Lake and it is understandable why this is so – it’s breathtakingly gorgeous. This particular region is widely associated with the faerie folk and has connected to it the story of a priest who apparently started to learn and talk too much about them and so was spirited away by them. While the story is false, it is true that this region is unlike anything that I’ve seen in Western Europe before. Donald explained that the reason for Scotland’s geographical peculiarity stems from that fact that it was once a separate volcanic island with a geological history vastly different from that of England so as they collided with each other it formed a large number of distinct attributes.

As Donald spoke about Scottish tourism and its relation to the Romantic literary movement in Britain he explained that it was originally conceived of as a pleasure formulated to counterbalance the anxiety ridden daily life during the nascent days of industrial in England. Anyone familiar with William Blake’s famous descriptions of black churches or any of the Romantic writers of the late 18^th century who were a witness to these changes in the capital intensity of manufacturing can understand why visiting an area of nature untouched by capitalism would be appealing. As someone that has extensively read the British Romantics, and indeed was named after Percy Bysshe Shelley, I was thrilled to be here. Though there is clear evidence that market considerations and operations are existent in the countryside, the wilderness still appears to be mostly left to the developments of nature and in the villages most of the businesses are locally owned, operated and seem only concerned with continuing to exist as they are. During a break at one of these little towns, Josselyn and I had lunch at a restaurant wholly stocked by locally grown produce and fishers. Josselyn’s squid was delicious and the halibut that I had was by far the best I’d ever eaten. Our last stop was to see a hairy coo, which means hairy cow in American or British English. The cow-like animals that were once a sign of wealth in the region in the same way camels still are in parts of Egypt. As we drove back, Donald recounted several humorous stories about his life and played music by The Pretenders.

After we got back to the city we walked aimlessly for a bit. Josselyn and I were both hungry and when we get like this we have trouble making decisions on what to do. We eventually decided to get something to nosh on at “The Last Drop” pub, so named for it’s being next to the former site of the Grassmarket gallows, before going on a ghost tour. Tradition and storytelling ghost tours define the old city of Edinburg in a way that I’ve not seen in other places. Guided narratives which recount place-location history is typical, but in Edinburg I noticed that more so than in any other place I’ve been many companies rely less upon important historical occurrences than upon old stories of for-profit killing (Burke and Hare), the unusual (Deacon Brody), revenge or the grotesque (Half-Hanged Maggie) to provide anecdotes for those wishing to get insight into where they are visiting. This is not to say that there are not those tours available, but a brief walk down Royal Mile and you’ll see the posters for several different guided ghost tours. One of the reasons for this stems from the amount of medieval and mid-gothic architecture that compose the old city and the proximity of protected cemeteries which give it a spooky vibe. After having visited Edinburg and Porto, Portugal I understand why J. K. Rowling describes Hogwarts and the magical world architecture of Harry Potter as she does. The city does get very creepy at night and a wrong turn can literally take you from a semi-modern street to something that feels is in the 16^th century. Regardless, after this rather uninspired twenty-minute “tour”, we walked around the downtown area for a bit, popping in and out of places like the Three Graces and The Hive before returning to the hotel.

In the morning we woke early to make sure that we were able to connect with yet another Sandeman’s walking tour. We got breakfast in a café within sight of the meeting point and met an American from California who, like myself, had recently completed their Masters degree and was now working abroad with their significant other.

We went a graveyard where Scottish patriots were tortured to death. The site, called the Poltergeist, is supposed to be one of the most documented haunting sites ever and is interesting to unbelievers like myself as it shows the horrible cruelties inflicted upon patriots and thinkers ahead of their time.

Visible from inside the graveyard is the school which is supposed to have inspired the description of Hogwarts as well as several dead people whose name is the same or very similar to those found in Harry Potter. I mention Harry Potter because, of course, this is the city that Rowling wrote some of her first books. Following the cemetery we passed the café wherein she wrote her first book and at the close of the tour the guide presented us with a history of Scottish nationalism in relation to the rock upon which early kings were crowned.

After the tour we walked into the National Gallery. It was small, but free and had several good paintings and comfortable seating so we could rest for a bit before going on the last tour of the day. In fact it was here that I’ve seen one of the few 19^th century portraits of an attractive aristocratic young woman. Seeing it immediately made me recall how the Vikings used to take most attractive women they found on raids as war brides and how in Scottish writer Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting, Sick Boy says that the only attractive women in Scotland are tourists. I realize that this sounds weird as I write this – but it made sense at the time. We continued to look around the museum for a while then went to the Canonsgate Kirkyard as I wanted to see the grave of Adam Smith. It was a good idea, however due night falling in Edinburg around 4pm here we weren’t able to find it. We looked around for quite a while then went back to the area around the statue of Adam Smith on Royal Mile to get food before going on a Underground and Ghost Story tour with Mercat Tours.

Our guide took us around to various parts of the city around Royal Mile telling us of the various crimes, punishments and strange happenings that occurred in the place we were standing on at that moment. In narratives that reminded me very much of the opening of Foucault’s “Crime and Punishment” and several of the scenes in Peter Linebaugh’s “The London Hanged”, our guide detailed what would happen to the body of the condemned following the courts verdict of guilt. The storytelling was  engaging and we ended our tour up by entering an old underground cellar and work area that was abandoned with the development of the new city and is of course now “possessed” by various ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts, but as Josselyn does she was rather frightened. Knowing this I furtively threw a small rock in the room our guide claimed was possessed by a little boy. This evoked a scream from her and a series of apologies after she realized that she was the only person scared by the sound. Following this we went to a live Rhythm and Blues bar to watch a live performance and then to a Latin club to go dancing.

Despite the long night we had we woke up early the next day to visit several places that had we’d chosen beforehand. We got on the bus early in order to go to Gilmerton, a small town about 35 minutes from Edinburg. Josselyn found a cove there that was supposedly a must view when in Edinburg, however the doors were locked when we got there. We waited a few minutes and knocked heartily, but no one came. After this we went back to the city and started walking our way up to the Castle.

We went into the Writer’s Museum, which had special displays for Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Raleigh. While I find the development of literature and the historical novel to be interesting – hence my appreciation of Lukacs – and the scandalous and peculiar lives of creatives to be intriguing – hence my love of Henry Miller – the actual desiderata of their daily lives makes for poor presentation in a museum as in such a setting they appear so dull and ordinary. While there was pipes which originally belonged to the authors, locks of hair, pens, and other trinkets the more interesting aspects about their personal lives cannot be sufficiently displayed as writers be definition achieve their fame by making something intended for reading and a place wherein books are available to study about a person in depth is not a museum but a library.

After snacking we took a bus a little outside the Old Town in order to hike up Arthur’s Seat, a volcanic rock formation adjacent to the Queen’s Palace at the end of Royal Mile. There was no seat on top and the site has nothing to do with King Arthur, however there was a beautiful view of Edinburg well worth the effort it takes to climb up. After this we viewed the Queen’s Palace and then returned to the hotel to pick up our stuff and catch our flight to Stockholm.

The road from Sintra to Porto was completely clear being that it was Christmas Day. The toll lanes, however, still functioned. Not realizing it at the time, I drove through one of the toll lanes designed for people with speed passes and didn’t pick up a ticket. This didn’t bother me so much until an hour and a half later when I stopped at one of the toll points and was asked to deposit said ticket into the machine. As I had none and only a five Euro bill in my pocket the cars started piling up behind me. All possibilities of escaping not just the fine but being able to continue driving seemed impossible. Surly, if I was pulled over, the Civil Guard would see how terribly I started the car into first gear and would follow me until I made some sort of other gaff that would then cause him to pull me over and prevent me from getting to my destination. As all sorts of contingencies ran through my head as I was unable to think of what to do next the intercom came on. In English I explained that I had lost the ticket. Responding in kind, he told me that I had to pay 60 Euros, the cost of driving the whole of the toll road up to that point, but that as they only accepted cash he would print me out a bill that I could pay in a few days. With this printed out he opened the gate, and let me go.

I thought this escape to be a positive portend for things to come but after arriving in we found our hotel closed. The lights were on but no one was home. We knocked. We called on the intercom. We called on the phone. Both rang endlessly. And after a half an hour of this we finally decided to drive around and find someplace else to stay. Nearly immediately we found a hotel right next to the main square that was open. As, we decided to take care of our hunger pains with some Indian food – one of the few restaurants that were open and something that I’d wanted to try since getting into Portugal given their colonial linkages. It was good, however it was little different from the northern Indian cuisine that I’ve had at dozens of other restaurants.

My alarm woke me up at 7 a.m. so I could find the free parking spot the hotel receptionist had gave me directions to. She said that it was only four blocks away. I passed by the x she’d market on the hand made street map and saw the number on the building but there was no lot there. After an hour of driving around and not being able to find it I reluctantly settled on an underground lot by a mall. I walked back to the hotel and slept some more. Around 9 a.m. we woke, had the hotel’s free continental breakfast and started out on our day to walk around the sights of Porto.

Because my foot was still in pain from my sprain, we decided to get tickets for one of the hop on hop off bus tours. As so many tourism websites state with more florid verbiage, Porto is beautiful. The gothic churches which abound with blue and while tiles are gorgeous. The old schools and homes of the rich give it an imposing air deflated by the massive amounts of unoccupied buildings and homes. Next to grand edifices are dilapidated houses claimed by stray animals and wayward substance abusers. We stopped at many places, such as the statue in honor of those who died defeating Napoleon’s army, a cultural center bankrolled by British merchants with regional investments and went into many unique places, such as the bookstore once frequented by J. K. Rowling. There are many beautiful statues and fountains in Porto worthy of note, but they almost seem to slip into the background as even the storefronts and apartments above them have a distinct old-world charm.

While attempting to check in for our flights at the hotel we discovered that there were no tickets for our return trip. As we were having such a pleasant time in Porto, we decided to stay an extra day. This meant, however, that I had to return the car back immediately rather than on the way to the airport. Now my ability to drive stick goes as far as that I can do it. I can’t do it very well, and I can’t do it very calmly. This is because ten years ago, over the course of a half an hour, my friend Aaron taught how to drive stick and since then this skill has lain dormant. This lack of practice combined with no area or language knowledge made driving for me a very anxiety inducing experience. How Josselyn was able to find the grace to deal with me like this I don’t know, but I am very appreciative for it and her help in getting us to where the car needed to be returned. After dropping off the car, we walked to the ocean. It was perhaps a mile and a half walk but it was such a wonderful day. Josselyn and I sang and talked on the way over.

We stayed there a bit then took the bus back to the main part of town. One there, we took a boat tour up the Douro River and down to the mouth that leads out into the Atlantic. We passed by many boats that one loaded Port wine onto larger ships for delivery to the New World and now take tourists out.  It was gorgeous and pleasantly brief.

In order to catch the last Cortez port tastings we went down the Teleferico. Compared to the one in Medellin it is very short, but having the carriage for just the two of us was romantic. The Cortez tasting had just closed when we got there, but luckily for us there was another one open nearby. There we had several glasses of Port as well as an appetizer of cheese, chorizo, olives and tostadas. Because this wasn’t very filling, we walked out towards the river looking for a place to eat. Facing the water was Sandeman’s restaurant, which has no connection whatsoever to the tour guide promotions company. We walked in and had delicious food and amazing sangria without a huge price. Now slightly tipsy, Josselyn and I chased each other around, her running and my skipping on my one gimpy foot, before arriving at the Dom Luis bridge. We walked across the bottom and then climbed some four hundred steps, which I nicknamed “The Steps of Truth,” in order to arrive at our hotel.

We slept early that night so we could have a final look around in the morning – yet when morning came our plans for an early wakeup didn’t come to fruition. We were both tired and didn’t end up leaving the hotel until almost noon. We ate lunch at a vegan restaurant then ambled our way around the city until finally catching our flight home.

After arriving in Lisbon I immediately encountered a problem: There was no immigration controls and therefore my passport would not get a stamp. This was a point on which my refined particularities could not rest and so I asked a police officer near the exit in Spanish if we had somehow passed an examination point while gesturing to my booklet that I wanted it stamped. He gave me a dimissive chuckle and said no. I swallowed my disappointment and Josselyn and I grabbed a bus into the city center to go to our hotel.

Making the west to east path from the airport in even on just a public bus was a beautiful sight. In the outskirts of the city we passed by large single-family houses, buildings that look like middle class South American projects, amazing graffiti and then we came across a statue of Christopher Colombus. From this point on the rest of our journey would be around the city center and we would be seeing beautiful statues referring to conquest, peace and the foundation of new constitutions, large gothic buildings for churches and schools, opulent plazas made to showcase the wealth extracted from the New World. While in this public bus I felt so taken aback by the tight proximity of so many significant buildings. We got off the bus at the last exit and from there got out first sight of the Atlantic from the other side of the ocean.

While at the moment finding our hotel was a greater priority than a little oohing and ahhing at a sight that I had spent many hours of my youth looking at across from the other side, it did strike me as being an important moment.

After checking in and dropping off our bags we ate and walked around Belem. Here we had our first taste of the Belem pastries. They were as delicious as I’d heard they were and we ended up eating a dozen before leaving four days later. These pastries are so important to the region that rumors circulate as to how many people know how to make them. In fact, over breakfast the next day I listened to two British travelers heatedly discuss whether it was two or three people who knew the secret recipe for them. They both agreed that none of them were allowed to travel together in case an accident happens which would cause the recipe lost forever, but whether or not a teenage grandson, whose name escaped the graphic designer from Manchester, had been informed of the family secret seemed to be the cause of discord. The high-bred, Hong Kong born youth on a gap-year claimed that this was non-sense. He claimed that as he hadn’t worked his way through the company yet from the lowest position to the top he hadn’t yet earned entry into the inner circle or trust and it was only at this point that he would be told the secret recipe. It was at this point I couldn’t resist joining in, saying that it didn’t matter if all the family owners disappeared as the workers, despite none of them being informed of the whole recipe, would be able to talk to each other and recreate it perfectly. This new set of considerations caused an immediate row, though I didn’t listen to the fruition of it for Josselyn and I then made our way to the attractions of Belem. Coming back from the future, following our meal we walked around without any particular place on the itinerary for a while and eventually retired for an early evening over some port.

The next morning we woke early and went to the Jeronimos Monastery. After the visiting De Gama’s resting place  we went to the Maritime Museum – a testament to the role of sea exploration in Portugal’s culture and history. Everything related to the seafaring life was documented, save the cargo going to the New World, and a mighty picture did it paint. Not only were there paintings of battles with the British, but there were many a model of ships that were greater in size than human beings, giant maps showing Portuguese possessions along Africa and India, showing the natural goods of a region, showing the holdings of other powers, paintings of important captains and admirals – all with beards indicative of powerful patriarchs, cannons and guns, compasses, astrolabs, anchors, portable examples of ropes for use in the maritime academy – even a dozen full ships taken from the ocean and placed in the museum so that they royal glory can be held onto as a relic an looked onto as a sign of continual importance despite the fact that it is from a outdated world of, as Nietzsche would refer to is, as monumental history. The ships that ended the exhibit, transitioning from wind powered war ships to combination wind/engine to just engine sly not so slyly commented on the Portugal’s decline in relation to other western powers. One exhibit here specifically showcased the ordinance used in a pre-World War I naval battle between them and the Germans. While the latter used 20 mm guns, clear evidence of their intention to be able to conquer other industrialized nations, the Portuguese responded with 7 mm guns, evidence of orientation to rule over people without access to industrial weapons capabilities.

After this exhibit we went to the Tower of Belem, the site at which many of the voyages to the New World would get their official farewells from royalty and a place that was used for a short period of time as a political prison.

Following this we went to the Berado Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which has a very impressive permanent collection of modernist artwork starting with the Dadaists and moving up into the myriad “isms” of the post 80’s art scene. What I liked most about the museum was though there clearly an imperative to obtain certain artists’ works to be able to say that they were represented there, none of them were chosen with care onto the work itself. Thus though a small museum in Belem, the collection was impressive even after having seen Madrid’s gems.

In addition to the permanent collection was a temporary display on the propaganda posters from the Second World War. The posters were from every combatant’s side, though predominantly from the American, and ended with a long animated documentary originally shown in movie theaters that illustrated the importance of building long-range bombers to fight the German war machine. I’d seen many of the posters before when doing a research projects on American propaganda and looking at them now gave me the same sort of feeling – that despite all the tragedy involved in such a large conflict, the social strains that happened for the non-combatants, what an amazing effort towards organizing daily life for a purpose. I found the manner in which all sorts of items and practices were limited, tabooed or structured in such a way that it benefitted the war effort, such as the saving of animal fats at home for dropping off at butchers who will pass them on to the government for bomb-making, to be fascinating. Especially so as now more and more scientists state there is increasingly a need for all human’s behavior to be monitored and corrected or it is highly probable that barbaric conflict caused by global population movements in response to climactic change will occur on a scale never before seen.

After we left the museum, we walked to the Presidential Palace to get some pictures of the gardens and statuary across from it. From here we watched the sun set and then went to eat at a Chinese restaurant.

Lisbon is also known as the city of seven hills and going up and down it’s three highest points over a three hour perambulation through the thin pedestrian corridors leaves one drained but still fascinated. The city itself reminds me in many ways of some South American cities I’ve been too – a very clean city center with evidence of decay all around it. Buildings with cracked paint are endemic and there are literally hundreds of abandoned buildings that have been bricked up. I was to see this not only in Lisbon but in Sintra and Porto as well. Strangely enough, considering the state of economic affairs in Portugal, I didn’t see evidence of squatters in any of the buildings. This contradiction between the high cost of housing and the wide scale availability of use for residential or business use is something that needs to be addressed by those that are fighting for reforms not created by the E.U. I saw several posters for a United Left movement in Lisbon, however there’s none of the direction action culture here like there is in Barcelona. Yet unlike the Brazilian barrios, there were no barriers between the hillside/poor areas and those below that are richer.

In the poorer section of Lisbon, where once the Arabs and Jews were segregated following the reconquest, you can see their lingering influence in arcitectural qualities that aren’t as readily apparent as, say a migilah. The streets are very narrow, which keeps the sun out, thus making it cooler. The age of the city is also apparent in how it is made, evident in the communal showering and clothes washing facilities in some areas.

As we walked back into the city center area Josselyn and I were immediately harassed by drug dealers. Despite my very firm refusal of their offers, people would continue to harass us with offers of hashish and marijuana. After the third time this happened, I stopped being polite when someone would greet us and just ignored them. This was more effective than a firm “no”. My experiences in Dublin, where we stopped and talked to amiable people with enjoyable accents speaking on behalf of groups such as Doctors Without Borders and Greenpeace had softened my normal New Yorker tendency to ignore people I don’t know trying to stop me on the street. Ignoring their advances brought many of the more admirable qualities of the city into view.

Many of the Lisbon’s buildings facades are tiled with light blue patterns or large pictures if not maritime influenced decoration. I can only imagine that it was having grown up in a house where Danish plates of similar color but different images attracted me so much to these blues and themes – but I kept commenting on them to the point that Josselyn started to make fun of me for constantly gushing on how beautiful I thought it all was. I was somewhat sensitive to such poking fun at my expense, but when she agreed that this would be a nice color theme that could be brought into an imaginary “kitchen of our dreams” one day I felt happy. While walking we also met a few honest, lazy beggars who provided us with a hearty laugh.

After all this walking around we went to a Portuguese wine tasting to relax. We got to try several whites, roses, reds, and muscatels and followed this by eating cuttlefish and squid at a non-descript restaurant a few blocks from the Praça do Comércio.

The next night we went out and visited some more of the city and finally decided to see some of the nightlife. There are few places on this world that I would view parts of as being favorable to New York and Barrio Alto is one of them. Here the people fill the streets like I’ve never seen. I imagine it being similar to the gin bars that Engels describes in his tome on the conditions of the English working class, but rather than the desperation born of super-exploitation written on the faces of those present there was the drinking for an enjoyment of the epicurean kind. Barrio Alto is the student quarter and here there are indeed thousands of people on the street chatting, going in to dance, outside to smoke from bar to bar to circulate. The drinks here were exceptionally literally 1/5 to 1/8 of the price that it is in Barcelona and the people much more welcoming and convivial. We looked for a fado show amidst the anarchy of the street but found none. However we did come upon a live music venue. As the song playing when we came in was Oasis, Josselyn’s favorite, we stayed there for a while dancing and making friends with the locals then followed the four a.m. torrent of people down the hill to go home or to other less than respectable locations.

This past weekend my fiancé and I took advantage of a cheap flight special by RyanAir and flew to Dublin for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. Though waking up to get to the Barcelona airport was a bit unpleasant, being able to arrive and start the day with a typical Irish breakfast next to a coal fire was worth such discomfiture.

We checked into our hotel then walked around the areas around the Lifee river, around which Dublin is developed. After about an hour of ambulation later, we then walked to the Old Jameson Distillery. I obtained tickets in advance through the website so was able to escape having to wait in line or hope that a tour would happen before close. The tour started with a video providing a brief history of whiskey, the founder of the Jameson distillery and the manner in which the company was growing today. It had the feel of an informercial, but was well-enough produced and had enough information of interest to keep even the disinterested entertained. From here we walked inside and saw a series of tableau vivants. It started showing the storage and processing of wheat, then continued on to different steps in distilling with a special emphasis on showcasing the equipment used to make the alcohol. The next section had barrels with corked lids in order to show the “angel’s share” over time. In total the tour was not very long, perhaps half of an hour, but being able to see the videos and experience even a simulacrum of the production involved is well worth the price of admission. The ticket price also includes a free drink, which is how we finished the tour.

When I’ve drank whiskey in the past, I’ve typically done so straight or with a dash of water. However here I was given the option to try it with cranberry juice and was presently surprised how refreshing it tasted. Josselyn had the whiskey with ginger ale, which was also so pleasant that she expressed her first liking for the liquor. Because we had been randomly chosen at the beginning of the tour, at the end we were then separated from the rest of the group in order to develop our “whiskey tasting skills”. Two non-Jameson brands were pre-poured next to the Jameson and we sipped them while the tour guide gave active commentary on our experiences. At the end she asked each person what their favorite is.

The purpose of this is to have all those chosen for the tasting say in front of everyone that they prefer the Jameson to the others, relying upon social pressure if not on actual personal preference. While I was a little put off by this, both as my favorite liquor is peaty single malt Scotch’s like Laiphroaigs, I do usually buy the Jameson more as it’s more widely drank by guests.

After finishing this whiskey flight, the tour ended but Josselyn and I continued on our tastings into the beautifully decorated bar in the foyer. There we had another flight of whiskey, which consisted of their 12 year, 18 year, Special Reserve, Jameson Gold and Middelton labels. The whiskies were delicious, being their premium labels, but it was the bartender’s effort into the Irish Coffee that was especially commendable. The coffee was sweet, as Josselyn likes it but I don’t, yet cut with just enough of the whiskey so as not to make it seem overwhelming. It was a perfect way to end our tour before having to go back into the cold and we left feeling very warmed by our experience – though this may stem from the fact that we’d just had several shots of liquor on mostly empty stomachs.

It was these empty stomachs that prompted us to stop at an all-you-can-eat Asian restaurant. It was after eating here that I discovered one of the problems that I soon found to be endemic to Dublin that a former New Yorker found to be an especially perplexing problem – lack of acceptance of credit cards and ATM’s that were blocks apart. As anyone who has lived in Manhattan or the areas close to it in Brooklyn know, ATM’s are omnipresent and cards are accepted everywhere. In Barcelona that has been the case as well, so their lack here also surprised me. The situation was such that after we ate, having no cash to pay, I had to go find a second ATM that was two blocks away from the one that had been suggested to me by the wait staff as upon getting there I discovered it was out of order.

It was too late for us to go to the Guinness Storehouse and as we would have had to run in order to catch up with the Literary Pub Crawl we decided to instead top at a few places on the way back ourselves. With the food, the lateness and the tiredness, however, this desire actually only translated itself into one stop which was followed by the rest of the weary traveler.

We awoke early to eat a simple but pleasant breakfast at the hotel then embarked on a three and a half hour tour of the city via Sandemans. We learned a great deal about the tragic and humorous history and culture of Ireland’s capital – specifically in relationship to the Irish’s many attempts to obtain home rule from the British. Our guide, Gavin, had extensive knowledge of this and told it with gusto, detached humor despite suffering. It is not just this style of speech but the tour itself that gave me memories of a similar guided jaunt in the Golan Heights. There too the guide showed us around the areas once occupied by others, giving the history of a regional conflict with obvious attempts to sway sympathy to one side. I don’t mean to evoke any sort of deep comparisons between these two places, but merely state that being in this tour I came to realize that one of the cultural fronts between two such peoples consists precisely in such seemingly innocuous tours. The mobilization of sympathy through such narrative structure that one physically relates to at that precise moment it very powerful. Whether it is someone telling you that the spot you are now standing on was once a shooting ground for British snipers and mortar rockets, or that one a clear day you can see Damascus which one directed a full scale invasion through the are on which you stand, makes for compelling narrative. Combining this with memorial art immediately after seeing this definitely has an effect of emphasizing this. In the Sandeman’s tour, the lack of accounts to counter those given stemmed in the first place as a systemic result of the political system while the latter was due to the lack of British visitors – however I doubt this would have blunted much of the edge of the comments. The result would have likely been merely barbed banter and apologetics for something outside of one’s control. Regardless of the political issues at hand, the architecture, as the picture here shows – was very romantic.

That said, as we ended the tour Josselyn and I were joined by Phil, from Prospect Park, and went to a restaurant in order to eat some Guinness Irish stew. It was served cafeteria style in a large bar that the group attended after we went, and while it was good considering the hunger we’d worked up in our walkings through the cold, I couldn’t help but thinking that even though it was less “authentic,” I’d made it better before. After eating we split a cab to the Guinness Brewery as we were all tired from the walk. While not someone who drinks regularly, I am a fan of stout beer in general and Guinness in particular.

The Storehouse which tourists can visit is an actual working brewery in the same way that those who visit Brooklyn Brewery’s tours on the weekend see the people working, but it is so much better for not being so. The seven story edifice is filled with everything Guinness related – the actual ingredients that go into the drink, machinery that is used in order to brew it, the history of the now obsolete but once very important cask makers, as well as advertising. The production value of the place is indeed impressive and reminded me of the science museums that I used to love to visit as a kid. Josselyn and I spent probably two hours going through the entirety of the Storehouse, and at the final part of our educational edification we able to top off such knowledge with a full glass of Guinness draft.

The view was breathtaking and sipped our beers as respite from all of the activity of the day so far.

After this we had enough time to change clothes, drop off the small presents picked up from the Guinness gift shop and managed to catch up with the pub-crawl. We went to several bars and clubs, the names of which all escape me except for “The Kitchen”, which is owned by Bono of U2 fame. It wasn’t anything spectacular – but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

The next day we woke up around mid-afternoon, very comfortable and protected from the slightly chilly room by the enormous blankets provided by the hotel.

We walked around the city in order to see some of the other sights, including the Book of Kells, which is as impressive in person as it is when looking at a picture of it’s contents, some more parts of Trinity college, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Amusingly enough, Josselyn turned down my suggestion that we look inside the church as she wanted to view more parts of the city. We were told later by Dani, a Brazilian friend Josselyn made the previous night, that if we would have gone in the church at that time they would have been starting mass shortly, which I would have wanted to stay for, and that if we would have done that we would have met Bono. While I personally don’t care, seeing Josselyn’s face as she related this fact to me the next day did bring me some laughter.

We stopped for coffee and inside I saw a newspaper article that I found telling of the general state of world economic affairs. A local rag related the proclamation of the Irish Arts and Crafts council that stated that if at the time of the upcoming Christmas each person was to spend only 5 Euros on domestically produced craft than the nation as a whole would save 13 million Euros. The news story made me think of Jonathan Swift’s famous satirical manifesto as well as a comment made by the Dublin guide the previous day. The first because he upbraided the wealthy landowners of his time for, among other things, importing foreign goods at great expense rather than purchasing and helping develop markets closer by and the latter as he explained that during the period when the loans were rushing into the country there was no lack of spending on foreign produced goods. The figure of speech which the guide had used had been quite telling – what happens when you give a bunch of money to a people that had never been instructed on how to spend money before – they spend all sorts of stupid things like new clothes and TV’s and what not – which do nothing to accumulate additional capital. This is a theme that ‘ll develop further in another blog, however, I’ll simply point out the huge difference in the possibilities in Irish and American newspapers as the latter would never publish such a news story, funded as it is by the advertising of multinational corporate interests.

We stopped to eat at a lovely little Cornish pastry bakery run by an Argentine woman about to return home for the holidays. As Josselyn and I have been considering moving there at some point, and as the two of them have some sort of connection as Latin Americans in that region, we stayed there for a while and learned about the economic conditions there right now. I’m still open to considering it, but there are admittedly many other places that I would prefer to move to next.

After making a brief stop to watch a flash mob, we walked through the main commercial thoroughfare, looking at some of the street artisans works and stopping to watch to one of the juggling buskers, then went to the hotel for a brief rest. After which, Josselyn took me out for my birthday dinner at One Pico. One Pico serves modern Irish cuisine with a price that is a steal compared to similar quality restaurants in other countries. The almost casual ambiance lacking signs of opulence consists of low lighting, minimalist decoration in the form of early twentieth century glass and gold wall lamps with decorated mirror balls hanging underneath. These mirrored balls are not tawdry seemed to indicate that the culinary traditions of various places receiving large Irish migrations will influence this location.

My fiancé took me here for my birthday and upon entering the unseasonably cold night we were promptly asked for our coats and quickly seated. The waiter was a little pushy in obtaining our orders immediately, but this could be false as I may have just gotten more accustomed to Spanish cameraras languid attitude more than I had thought. While we waited for our orders to appear we were offered a selection of breads – whole grain, raisin and walnut, tomato, and plain.

I started off with the foie gras appetizer. It had included square cuts of fresh pear dusted with breadcrumbs, a thick slice of fluffy white brioche toasted so as to give it a texture that perfectly complimented the spread and a pear –vanilla puree. I had this paired with a German Riesling whose fruity notes accented this wonderfully. My fiancé had the Beef Carpaccio, which she enjoyed greatly.

For the second course I had shallots and pork while my wife had steak. There are few things that are more simple or delicious that an excellent cut of steak. When combined with a fried onion, pureed sweet onion sauce, a grilled leek and a small dash of spicy sauce on the side it makes it perfect. I had to plead extensively to obtain a second bite from my wife of this delicious combination – and it was my birthday dinner! Along with our dinner we had a delicious sauvignon blanc, chosen as my wife is averse to red wines. I was at first somewhat reluctant as to how this would pair with the pork and steak respectively, however the sommelier was spot in his assessment of the pairing. While not as full bodied as I am used to preferring, I found that the lightness of it countered well with fat of the pork and brought out the slight fruit notes in the semi-spicy sauce holding the shallots to the plate. My wife said that she greatly enjoyed it as well.

We finished our meals by both ordering strawberry cheese cake and, as the lime sorbet was out that day, raspberry sorbet paired with a Moscatel wine from Malaga. The cake came out slightly chilled and topped with a fresh, room temperature compote made of raspberries and blackberries. The tart of the berries juxtaposed with the sweetness of the cheesecake was not the only exceptional aspect of the desert – but both the cheesecake and the sorbet itself were exceptional. In the United States it is typical for cheesecakes to be quite hard to the downward thrust of the fork, from the cheesecake itself to the hard crust at the bottom. The desert we had at One Pico, however was soft on the top and bottom. The crust seemed to he held together simply by the wish to be delicious and the cake itself was light as a down pillow and had none of the overwhelming denseness that so many other restaurant mistake for the sign of a well executed cheesecake.

With this combination of excellent service, delicious food unto itself and it being an exceptional value we will definitely return when next we are in Dublin. The next morning we woke early, yet again, and took the bus back to the airport and a short flight later we were back home.

I’d wanted to go to Pais Vasco since arriving in Spain and a RyanAir flight special finally convinced me to visit Bilbao and San Sebastian over a three-day weekend. I departed at 6:30 am and as the flight is only a little more than an hour landed at eight am. A quick bus ride and a short walk later I was at my hotel in the middle of La Ribera, the old town district along the waterfront which had been continuously occupied since the thirteenth century and is now known for it’s haute cuisine and pinxhos culture. Tired from going to sleep late out of joyful anticipation of exploring a new place and waking up early I took a short nap without bothering to set an alarm as getting up late is just on par with Iberian culture and I knew I wouldn’t miss out on anything happening before noon.

When I did awaken, I first decided to go to the Bilbao Guggenheim. After double-checking their hours of operation on their website and learning that from my hotel to the museum it was about a twenty minute walk along the brackish river Nervión I began my journey there. It was cold out but I was warmed by sun and the cities attractive mix of modernist and traditional architecture. Trekking there it appeared that the rest of Bilbao had also been waiting until a late in the day to become active. As I walked I reflected on the city, and my general nomadic experiences for quite a while. Soon, however, I arrived at the wavy titanium exterior of the museum.

In a word, the museum was disappointing. Were I to given the chance to visit again or not, chances are I’d allot my time for other activities – be it taking a long shower, spending more time drinking my café con leche while reading La Vanguardia or something equally mundane. This dislike of the collection was partially my fault for not having done more research into the permanent collection and in trusting in the aura of “Guggenheim” to be something worthwhile. The overwhelming majority of the museum were large, elemental installation pieces that I found to be marginally interesting but overwhelmingly pretentious in the scope of the work. When it comes to art I am admittedly a realist and romantic in taste and find most modern sculptures, plastic arts and paintings to be dreadfully lacking in redeeming qualities. There are times when I wonder if I am a philistine for having such negative views towards such art, but these disappear after I interrogate the reasons why I think this is so. The largest installation piece, taking up an entire room was naught but large pieces of wrought iron made so that you “lose yourself” by going into some of the pieces and see changes in shading in perspective in another

A string of Christmas tree lights of the type made in the seventies hanging from the ceiling as a means of referring to the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Sculptures without function or figuration whose features are supposed to allude to ur-artifacts and thus symbolize the totality of sculpture. One of the paintings that I did take a special pleasure in seeing, though not for it’s aesthetic qualities, was my first Julian Schnabel painting. When she was alive, my grandmother had told me when growing up Schnabel and my father were good friends. She told me how after he had returned from his first trip to Europe he had offered her several paintings in return for borrowed money that consisted of broken plates plastered onto a giant canvas. She’d said thanks but no thanks and suggested that he find a new occupation. Of course these paintings would later be a major parts of his career in the New York art scene and these particular works were his way of distinguishing himself from other artists working in the abstract expressionist medium. Looking at his works there I felt connected with her not just from the story but from my assessment of the work. I found myself more interested in wanting to read the book The Recognitions described in the Guggenheim audio commentary as being influential to Schnabel as well as other artists of the time, than the work itself. One section held numerous screen prints of Lenin in various colors, while another was of strange, non-functional shapes formed from wood, clay and metal.

While I recognize that some degree of commentary will always be needed for art – it seemed to me that most of the descriptions there were posted in order to make bad, facile art have a depth to which it isn’t able to convey on its own. Put another way, most high, complex art is to me just stupid. For instance, throughout my times in many a museum I have seen several paintings whose coloration is solely black or solely white. One may give all sorts of explanations as to the importance of *that* particular color choice and how it responds to a movement in art at their time or something else. But this applies equally for a blank canvas and seeing such pieces makes me feel as if someone is trying to get something over on me. Visual artists still have an aura to their works which has yet to be eradicated in the way that others artists have. Rarely if ever, for example, do you hear of a renowned author whose work only a few people understand.

I’ve probably devoted the same amount of time to the art at the Guggenheim Bilbao as walking there and back. After leaving there I walked down Alameda Recalde to Colon de Larreategui to look at the many old municipal buildings, statues of eminent personages past, small squares hidden within buildings and other beautiful works of living architectural art. This and Bilbao’s Old Town, to me are much more attractive and aesthetically edifying than anything held within the walls of the museum. Indeed I felt that the greatest aspects of the museum were outside it – the giant spider on the north side and the dog composed of plant lift in the front.

As I walked around the old town I saw several plaques indicating former residences that made my inner historian smile. The Latin American liberator Simon de Bolivar lived for a while in one of the apartments here and Miguel de Unamuno was born on one of the streets. While it’s hard for me to imagine such people there now, so far away from Spain’s golden era, but seeing such placards always brings me joy.

At night these streets lost their commercial luster as they became filled with small and large groups of twenty-to-fifty-somethings. In the areas closest to the river, thus closest to the newer and more expensive developments, were the older crowds hopping from one pinxhos bar to another in order to have a wide variety of snacks and drinks. The further one gets from the river on the east side the age of the crowd drops, the diversity increases and there is less emphasis on fine dining paired with regional wines and more emphasis on greasy foods and cheap drinking.

Placa Zumarraga marks the dividing line between the affluent and the less fortunate. As one leaves Casco Viejo and goes into Solokoetxe the crowd changes to metal heads, punks, rockers and their dogs and the odors from clean, river-scented air to the pungent smell of marijuana, old sweat, spilled beer and frying fats. This zone appeared to be the only space where the African community living further south appears to interact with the Basque youth at night, a place where those made marginal by chosen identity and forced history mingle. As I was more interested in culinary tourism than Bilbao’s wanton youth culture, I quickly ambled through the latter to spend our time in the former sampling pinxhos of different restaurants. There may have not been as many interesting radical and rock flyers – but the atmosphere was more convivial.

The next day I woke up early and took a bus to San Sebastian. I’d decided to go there on the advice given to me by one of my neighbors in my Barcelona apartment complex that had gone there the week before. The bus ride was cheap and the time to get there quick. I tried to start a conversation with a young Frenchman who was reading a copy of Naomi Klein’s book No Logo, but as my comprehension of French consists of a handful of words and his grasp of English was tentative at best I simply gestured with my hands that I found the book interesting, had seen the author speak before at the Brooklyn Book Festival and that it made me happy to see someone reading it.

From the bus departure point I ambled along the large pedestrian walkway past second hand clothes markets and small cafes along equally small squares towards the Cantabrian Sea. On my way to the waterfront I passed beautiful old buildings made with hewn stone. Some of that had, since being mortared together, turned into a climbing ground for vining plants and made the building look like a pretty admixture of 1st and 2nd nature.

When I finally arrived to the main beach pavilion, I was immediately taken aback by the natural beauty contrasted with the color scheme imposed upon the buildins surrounding it. Simply put, San Sebastian is a beautiful example of the type of small coastal towns along the north of Spain and south of France that has exceptional charm. I couldn’t resist walking down to the small sand beach to lay in the sun for a while to enjoy the heat, breeze and view.

After perhaps half an hour, I walked back up the stairs to the two-hundred foot wide boardwalk park interspersed with small statues, children’s play areas and a number of trees denuded of leaves now that winter was just beginning to make it’s presence felt. There were many young families pushing their children in fancy strollers and others holding their adolescents by the hand. I went to investigate a merry go round that looked like it was from the 50’s. The paint on the horses, swans and sleds may have been slightly cracked, but it still had an air of grandeur to it. I walked along the densely packed buildings adjacent to the wharf that hugged the high ridge with a thirty foots tall statue of Jesus looking down upon the town similar in appearance to the famous one in Rio de Janeiro. I walked past a large number of pastry shops exuding the intoxicating smell of sugar and butter, small clothes boutiques and vendors of baubles and tourist kitsch that I’ve not seen offered in other parts of Spain. I later entered a large stone government building that have been converted into mixed-use commercial space and just so happened to have one of my favorite restaurants in it, Gambrinus. While I felt somewhat guilty for eating Czech food in Pais Vasco, I have such rich and happy memories from eating such food when I’d lived in Prague that I couldn’t help myself form ordering some gulash and pivo. More health conscientious now, this time I substituted the requisite French fries for salad.
After that filling and relatively healthy meal, I decided that before sunset I’d walk to the top of the cliff overlooking the city. I returned to the area I just was on the street adjacent that which had taken me there and found myself distracted – both for want of coffee and sight of another beautiful beach.

In my quest for coffee I found discovered another beach to the east of the one I’d just been at with less people and more dogs. Here there was also a concrete wave break that I could walk down here and so feel the spray of the sea as the swells crashed against the rocks and see the crests became beautiful spumes. On one of the rocks I noticed ETA graffiti, the first evidence I’d seen of the Basque Nationalist group since arriving.

I walked along the beach for a little bit and even found a dog with an amiable owner that let me play fetch with him. I was somewhat shocked by this, as all the dogs I’d encountered in Spain were usually trained to ignore everyone but the masters. I went over and touched the water, so as to be able to say I did, walked along there for a while then decided to continue on my quest to see up close the statue, fort and lookout points.

On the tops of the steps of this church were visible two other churches. One was perhaps five hundred meters to the east of it and the other, larger one perhaps a thousand to the south. There was a spray painted anarchy sign on the carved wood door and metal handle of the church, which unnerved me. I’ve seen this sign spray painted on buildings throughout Spain and even understand the anarchist’s critique of the Catholic church here. That said I found the degradation of such old and skilled craftsmanship not as a sign showing of power but it’s very opposite. The church here has made this and many other buildings that bring people together while the anarchists, well, if they had something to show it certainly was not shown on any of the literature I’ve seen on the place. I continued strolling, past a movie theatre, a modern place of worship and arrived at stairs with a placard that indicated it was the beginning of the trail to the top. A group of teenagers were jovially hacemos un botellon at the top of this first steps.

The walk up the rocks was a mixture of stairs and pathways with oaks on either side. Though the temperature was in the teens (Celsius), I heated up fast from the physical exertion and after five minutes peeled off my jacket to make the trek more pleasant. I stopped at several vantage points that had both the city and the sea as it’s focal attraction. At one of these points, which had once been part of a fort protecting San Sebastian there was a large number of Spaniards from the town who seemed as if they came there as part of a weekly ritual. I briefly chatted with them then continued up another 500 feet to the main fort. On the way down I went down the second path that the guide in the tourist office had informed me of. On this route were I passed by several groups of youths picnicking in the grass, playing Frisbee and when we finally exited the park it was right by the large staircase immediately beside the docks.

Night was starting to fall and as there was little time left until the last of the buses returned to Bilbao I quickly make my way back to the bus station. The Gothic style church I’d passed earlier was now lit up with lights of various changing shades of red, blue and purple. The outdoor-seating areas of restaurants were slowly filling up and the young families were replaced with couples window-shopping. I waited perhaps fifteen minutes for the bus and sat towards the back. Being that this was the second to last bus of the night, this time the bus was completely full. A group of borrachas that were unable to sit together populated the seats around me and spoke loudly and crudely throughout the entire hour and a half trip back. By their faces I could tell those not with them were somewhat annoyed, but at the same time only partially so as they would sometimes crack a smile. As for me, I learned two new uses for the verb joder. Tired from our long adventures, after I got back I skipped extended pinxho hopping again and instead stopped in only two different places that I’d not visited the night before.

The next day was my last so I went to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which was both fantastic. One of the temporary exhibitions was of Anselmo Guinea, a Basque modernist painter whose works were exceptional and the other was of La Maleta Mexicana, which I’d seen and wrote about while this collection was in Barcelona. The permanent collection also had a number of fine works, and of course a section of gothic religious art that seems to be mandated in all Spanish museums. I spent perhaps three hours looking through and admiring many of the paintings. There was a small section with sculptures reminiscent of those I’d seen in the Guggenheim, but after mocking them I simply walked past them.

After leaving I wanted to do and see more, however the streets of Bilbao, just like the streets of Barcelona and I would presume every other area of Spain, were nearly empty and the doors to most of the restaurants, shops and cultural areas were closed. Sunday! There was a Chinese restaurants which was of course open, so I ended up having a nice buffet there before taking the bus to the airport. While my stay there was only three days, walking around through so much of the old town of Bilbao and San Sebastian, getting to see the major museums and experiencing pinxhos culture did not make me feel as if I had missed out on much. Certainly I’d passed over numerous gems, but at the same time it was so nice there that I promised myself to go back there again.