All right, the number-one suggestion I got on my last review was to make it shorter, but on top of that I realize that my reviews are pretty much redundant since there are quite a few other sites with equally deliciously-vicious reviews, so I’m saving myself (and you) some time by condensing my reviews.
New Moon:
This book opens right back up with teenage angst and girlish infatuation. Why did I possibly try to convince myself this book or any of the others could be otherwise? Somehow Bella’s back living with Charlie -- I’m sorry, did I miss how that happened?? She mentally crushed him in the first book, so did she just come back and say, “Hi, Dad, I was just running from a vampire who wanted to kill me because I attended my vampire boyfriend’s baseball game -- say hi, Eddie, dear -- so I had to emotionally crush you to save your life. But it’s okay now, the baddie got shredded and beheaded and I only got a body full of crunched bones and $15k in hospital bills. Can I stay with you?”
It’s Bella’s eighteenth birthday and she’s morose (what’s new…) because she can never be eternally seventeen with Eddie now. The Cullens throw the ungrateful twerp a b-day celebwation and she gets a paper cut. Yeah. One drop of blood and Eddie’s sort-of brother, Jasper, tries to nom Bella. Of course she gets thrown across the room into a crystal punchbowl that slices her arms. Somehow the rest of the family manages not to jump on her like piranhas on a water buffalo, even though we spent the whole freakin’ first book on how hard it was for Edward to even be near her and it took Dr. Cullen three-hundred years to develop an immunity to the scent of blood. The Doc patches Bella up but Eddie is gloomy (what’s new…) He severs all forms of intimacy and communication and leaves her in the forest to wallow in self-pity and decide that life in meaningless. Do us all a favor and kill yourself now, Bella, and spare us this book and the next two.
Months later she’s still a lifeless zombie. Her father cattle-prods her to seek social interaction and see a movie with a friend. Bella doesn’t want to watch the scene where the love-smitten couple walks on a beach and utters fake love lines and yet we’ve had to put up with it for a whole freaking book.
They pass a bar on the way to McDonald’s and Bella thinks she recognizes four men loitering outside - the four who tried to rape her in the first book. So what does she do? She walks toward them. She doesn’t care about her frantic friend or her family, she’s just following an impulse, “but it’s not like I was taking a blade to my wrist.” Or taking unnecessary cough medicine? (Which she did…) Idiot. She sees that the group of men are not the same four.
“… Safe. I lost interest.” Idiot. See, I can play that game, too. Meyer relentlessly calls Edward ‘perfect,’ so I can call Bella ‘idiot’ a lot.
Bella goes into a form of psychosis and decides she can be a reckless idiot by buying two motorbikes. She goes to her friend, Jacob Black, to repair them. How does she pay for the extra parts needed? She steals from her college fund. Idiot. She also learns that by endangering herself she hears Eddie’s voice in her head, so she goes on a suicidal spree just to have hallucinations of him. Four words: Get yourself a shrink. Her first bike ride ends with her bloodily injured, and she’s delighted because she heard Ed angrily talking to her the whole while. So the recipe for hallucinations must be: Danger + Adrenaline + Stupidity. While you’re at it, would you like to steal some more money so you can recklessly drive your bike to the pharmacy and buy some more unnecessary cold medicine? Idiot. Jake takes Bella to the ER and Bella explains it away to her father by saying she tripped on a rock. And he’s buying this?!
It’s like Bella actually worships Ed; she obsesses over him and even italicizes he and him. Jake tries to make a move on Bella but that ain’t happening, so they split and Bella gets all depressed again before calling Jake every half hour to no answer. Yeah, usually guys don’t go for the clingy-obsessive type. Well, long, crappy story short, the mate of last book’s villain, (‘Member him? Well this is Victoria) has put Bella on the hitlist/menu, Jacob’s a werewolf, and Alice saw Bella’s apparent suicide attempts and now Ed thinks Bella’s dead. He’s going to go to the Vampire Mafia, the Volturi, and make them angry so they’ll kill him. Ha, ha, ha! Whatcha gonna do, egg their coffins? Toilet paper their belfry? No, worse! He’ll expose himself in broad daylight! Okay, not what you’re thinking. He’s just going to go all sparkle-pants in a bright area so the Volturi will kill him for exposing their vampire way of life. Wait, that’s not what you’re thinking either…
Bella writes a “I must go save the boy who dumped me a year ago and left me alone in a forest” note to Charlie and stops Edward’s gay - er, shocking plan. However, they are detained by the Volturi and led through a manhole into an underground chamber. Classy. Pages and pages are wasted on nothing. Bella’s immune to the vampire superpowers and they get to go free. As they’re leaving she sees a group of tourists being lured in to get devoured by the Volturi. Their dying screams rattle her to tears, but she still begs to become a vampire herself. Idiot.
So, Bella’s got her baby back and Ed admits he’s even more pathetic than Bella.
“At least you got up in the mornings. I was more or less curled up in a ball and let the misery have me,” he says. Idiot. Oh, wait, sorry, you’re Edward. Beautiful idiot. Bella’s more determined than ever to become a vamp (so she won’t ever lose her pwecious Eddie-baby again) She takes the matter to his family: To bite or not to bite. Following the theme of these books, they bite. They vote her in and Ed’s furious, but they talk her into graduating before becoming one of the undead. On top of that Edward asks her to marry him before he bites her. What, “You are now vamp-boy and wife, you may bite the bride”?? And who would want that anyway? She’s a terrible character and so is he. And let’s not forget the age difference. She’s eighteen and he’s over one-hundred. Society generally tends to frown on age differences greater than a couple years.
To wrap it up, let’s do a character-check on Bella:
Depressive
Without personality
Psychotic
Rock-bottom on self-esteem
Clingy
Steals/endangers herself for adrenaline-induced hallucinations.
What a perfect character to ultimately be the heroine or a four-book series and movies! For girls across the world to view as a hero!
Oh, and the final count on the number of times Meyer describes Edward as ‘perfect’ or ‘beautiful’ is:
Beautiful: 16
Perfect: 11
Eclipse:
So begins yet another novel-bomination: with deception (Ed and Bella lie to Charlie to cover up for Bella’s disappearance once she’s a vamp-girl) and more sensual writing about their lusty kisses. Edward has a possessive hold over Bella’s life. He shows all the signs of what people look for when they think they’re in an abusive relationship. He forbids her to see her best friend, Jacob, and disables her car to prevent her from sneaking out to see him (which she does anyway.) And this is what she wants to marry into? Even Bella’s ditzy mother can see he’s an overpowering inhibitor and she’s a romance-possessed groupie too blinded by Ed’s perfect godliness to see the restrictive hold he has on her.
Heck, on page 412 even EDWARD thinks she’s obsessive, saying, “The way you regard me is ludicrous.”
Getting on with the story: Bella gets a mysterious call from Jacob asking her not to come to school tomorrow. While making dinner that night she has a “Golly, maybe that silly ol’ Victoria who’s trying to kill me is going to try to kill me tomorrow” thought. Here’s yet another brilliant exerpt:
“I froze in the middle of the kitchen. The package of icy hamburger in my hands slipped through my numb fingers. It took me a second to miss the thud it should have made on the floor. Edward had caught it and thrown it on the counter. His arms were all ready around me, his lips at my ear.” What, with unwashed burger-hands? Nobody wants an e. coli cuddle.
When Bella and Ed meet Jake at school the next morning Ed actually physically restrains Bella from hugging her best friend. I can just see their life thirty years from now:
Bella: “I’m just going bowling with my Red-Hat Society friends. Surely I’ll be okay there!”
Eddie: (tossing back another can of Bloodweiser) “Hells no, B! I’ve seen the way that bowler guy looks at you. You ain’t leaving this house.”
Bella: “Oh, Ed, how could I ever disagree with your color-changing eyes and crooked facial expressions?”
It gets to the point where Bella has to send Ed on a hunting trip so she can sneak to Jake’s house, where the lonely dude is overjoyed to see his manic-depressive friend and spends the day explaining werewolf-isms like “imprinting,” a werewolf form of love at first sight that goes as far as soul bonding. Belle is overjoyed to have spent time with her friend, but the moment she leaves werewolf territory Edward appears out of nowhere and tailgates her home. He’s that repressive. He later bribes Alice to have constant surveillance over Bella -- the term ‘kidnapping’ is frequently used. And thousands of brain-dead Twi-hard fan girls want to be the next Mrs. Cullen? They can have him.
In a sleepover at the Cullens, Rosalie tells her life-story to Bella. She was a rich snobby girl who married a rich snobby guy who didn’t love her, got drunk with four buddies and then raped her and left her for dead. I’m seeing a pattern in Meyer’s writing. Well, when Rosalie came back as a vamp-girl she promptly murdered all five men who wronged her. Moral of the story: Being a vampire allows you to exact your own justice.
Bella scorns the bed Alice bought for her, that is, until Edward comes back. Then she likes it just fine so long as she and Ed can get ’carried away’ in it. Chapters 9-12, blah blah blah, wolfie history (told ’round a campfire! Kum-ba-yah!), teenage vampire angst, Ed asks Bella why she doesn’t want to marry him.
“Because I’m not that girl… the one who gets married right out of high school like some small town hick who got knocked up by her boyfriend,” Bella says. But, aren’t you a small town hick just out of high school who’s trying to get knocked up by her boyfriend??
“People don’t get married at eighteen!” she continues. What, I bet Meyer did.
“Not smart people! Not responsible, mature people!” Well, it’s okay then, Bella, because you’re not any of those, Miss I’ll-Meet-A-Tracker-Vamp-Alone-Then-Dive-Off-A-Cliff-During-A-Storm-And-Throw-A-Tantrum-If-You-Leave-Me.
So this book appears to be Vampire Story Corner. Jasper tells his history. He was bitten to become a vamp soldier, led a bunch of bite-fests in Mexico, then met Alice and the rest is Bambi-bitin’ history. And why do we suddenly care about a character who up ‘til now has had very little to do with anything? They believe a vamp is mass-murdering in Seattle to create a vamp-army, and they’ve decided to go kill all the rogue vamps (thus they need his vamp-soldier training skills to prepare them for battle…) But first, a snack before they hit the road. Bella spends the day at Jake’s house where he confesses his love for Bella, forces a kiss on her, and she breaks her hand punching him. He takes her home and tells Charlie the truth (for once) and Charlie isn’t the least bit worried. He’s supportive of Jake, in fact. Looks like bat-nuts crazy runs in the family.
Bella connects her stolen blouse and the Seattle vamp-army to mean there’s a huge plot to kill her. That’s right Bella, because everything’s about you.
“As I processed the fact that someone had created an army of vampires for the express purpose of destroying me, I felt a spasm of relief.” What did I say, bat-nuts crazy.
She mopes through her graduation and greets the party Alice throws for her with all the graciousness and gratitude of a prawn. Jake shows up and Alice convinces the family to create a relationship between werewolves and vampires to better kill the Bella-murdering army.
So there we have it: a vamp-wolf vigilante group about to battle a mercenary mob of bloodlings. This is like reading a “Godzilla vs. the Moon Octopus Man” show. And what is weighing on Bella’s mind the most during this troubled time? Yep, doing her boyfriend. She doesn’t at all wanted to get married but she couldn’t possibly miss this human experience. I think Meyer was lonely when she wrote this. Ah, Bella, your idiotic reasoning never ceases to disgust me. You went from a pathetic no-life to an obsessive-depressed no-life to a spineless whiner, and now just a slut. Could her character get any worse? She tries to go all the way that night but Ed demands marriage first (oh, heaven forbid! That might almost smack of morals, and we don‘t want to sully these best-selling novels with those!) Conclusion: Ed’s trying to - ha! - preserve Bella’s virtue. She laughs in his face. What a delightful whore. And he STILL proposes to her right there. She swallows the bit of vomit that came up in her mouth and says yes. Oh, I can totally see their married life:
Ed: “Quit hogging the blankets!”
Bella: “Well I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t so freaking cold!”
Ed: “Oh, you’re one to talk, you keep putting your freezing feet on me!”
Bella: “Fine, maybe I’ll just go cuddle a werewolf again!” You heard me right. To keep Bella out of the way, Jake and Ed take her up onto a cold mountaintop where her survival depends on snuggling with Jake to keep from freezing. And Ed has to watch the whole while. It’s actually pretty darned funny. Jake’s all in Bella’s sleeping bag with her and Ed can hear his every thought.
Because we just wouldn’t enjoy a book in which Bella sits and does nothing while the action happens elsewhere (like, I dunno, the two freaking long chapters in the first book where she sat and did nothing in a hotel) Victoria brings the army of vamps to the mountaintop. Of course. Battle, fight, kill, maim, Ed bites off Victoria’s head, they’re all saved, hooray. Bella expresses her gratitude by going to Jacob and telling him she truly loves him, then she goes right to Edward and says, “Let’s get married.”
Idiot.
Final count on the number of times Meyer describes Edward as ‘perfect’ or ‘beautiful’:
Beautiful: 4
Perfect: 5
Looks like the honeymoon’s over before it’s even begun!
Breaking Dawn
(Otherwise known as the “Oh Lawd, Kill Me Now” book.)
The last book in this series of snot-awful books begins with Bella trying to drive her new Mercedes. Yeah, they got the death-wishing, accident-prone, walking-insurance-company’s-nightmare a hotrod. But wait! A car enthusiast just happens to be at the same gas station as Bella and informs us that this baby’s made of body armor and missile-proof glass. Oh, well then. She gripes and moans and complains about her wedding just days away, but she’s very much looking forward to getting laid and even ‘practices’ with Ed. Meyer briefs over the wedding but we get a ridiculously long description of Bella getting ready for her moonlight swim, and the next morning they fight about it. Great start for a relationship. Ed says he’ll never have sex with her again until she’s a vamp so he doesn’t beat up her frail human body, but she begs and pleads and whines until he gives in. Yep, 100 pages into this book and we’ve read nothing but sex angst, wedding angst, and sex after-math angst. Apparently Ed bites pillows and headboards during intercourse but Bella’s too occupied to notice. This is assuredly the dumbest daisy drivel I’ve ever read.
One-hundred and twenty pages (and a few more steamy nights) later Bella discovers she’s preggers. Golly, how-EVER did that happen? And since Meyer’s vampires are little more than Supermen who drink blood, the super-vamp-baby is showing after five days. Ed’s response?
“Hi, Dad… it’s me… hey, listen, get the coat hanger, we’ve got a little something we need removed.” But Bella is protective and enlists the rabidly-maternal help of Rosalie to protect her from any sneak-abortions. Ed tries to get Jake to talk some sense into Bella and offers to let Jake sleep with Bella if he’ll do it (pg. 180). Jake is tempted. This is so wrong in so many ways.
Jake doesn’t follow through but he does abandon his pack after they read his mind and decided to kill the baby themselves for the protection of the pack. After angsty pages of Bella getting worse and worse they realize that the fetus isn’t hungry -- it’s thirsty! So Bella drinks blood. If this book wasn’t disgusting before, it is now. She’s drinking human blood.
The moral of this little story: Drinking human blood is a good thing under certain circumstances. Why, Bella perks up like a little flower in a rainfall. Who says you need to be bitten to be a vampire? Just find yourself a blood bank, make a withdrawal, get yourself a bendy-straw and - voila! - Bram Stoker can kiss Meyer’s ass.
Bella drinks blood all the time now so the baby’s strong enough to break Bella’s bones from within, but Bella wuvs the widdle angel and continues feeding it. The birth is like a scene from “Alien.” Bella starts vomiting blood, the baby kicks her apart, and Ed, true to gag-me-with-a-spoon-awful heroic vampire fashion, delivers the baby by biting through Bella’s womb. Against Bella’s maternal intuition, it’s a girl.
“If it’s a boy, I’ll call him EJ -- Ed-Jacob, to insult you both. Wait I’ve got a better name: Jacward! -- if it’s a girl, well, my mother’s Renee, yours is Esme… I know, Renesmee!!” She’ll fit in great with Bradgelina’s spawn. Rosalie takes the baby away with a bottle of blood, which you’d think would upset Bella, but not in this case ‘cause she’s dead.
Ed injects Bella’s heart with vamp-venom… right, do they milk vamps like they do rattlesnakes? Bella endures worse-than-death pain and awakes a vampire. But first! Jake gets all mad because Bella’s ‘dead’ and decides he’ll kill the baby himself, but upon seeing the baby girl he imprints on her. Nothing like having your best friend turn out to be a pedophile.
So we know Meyer’s vamps carry over their strongest human trait into vampiredom -- Emmett got super strength, Alice got premonition, Ed got mind-reading, Rosalie got super-witchiness… so what could Bella possibly have? Superstupidity? Atomic horniness? Crypton-clinging? Super-emoting? Could she possibly get even LESS of a personality, because frankly that was her strongest trait. No, Bella’s super power is the ability to withhold herself from doing things other vamps could/couldn’t do. Yep, she got super-introversion. Oh, wait, it gets better. The baby’s growing way faster than a normal baby should and communicates through Vulcan mind-melds.
Annnnd we’re back to sex. Wild, crazy vampire sex. Bella lives a happy euphoric life until one of the Volturi sees Renesmee and decides to send every single Volturi soldier to kill her. A couple hundred pages of blah-blah-blah later and the Cullens have a bunch of vampires meet the Volturi’s bunch of vampires. See, Meyer? Was that so freaking hard?? Did we really need almost ten chapters of TIME-WASTING FLUFF to get there? The Volturi come, they all talk about their feelings, then, um, the Volturi leave. Yep, that’s it. That’s the big ending to four sod-awful books. And people actually… LIKE these? I’m appalled.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Europe Trip: July 10
7-10-09 ~ Friday
First day of the hiking the Wicklow Way!!!
We were on the trail by 9:00, picking it up just beside a little craft shop in the village. The trail was a thin dirt line, thickly hedged on either side by ferns and stone walls. It went up a little way over a road and into a forest of sweetly-musky pines and abundant foxgloves. There were fences all along the trail that you cross by way of a low wooden step that goes through the fence and a wooden beam over the top of the fence. You just step from one side of the fence to another - very convenient. I could scarcely believe how gorgeous the forest was. The amount of ferns was massive, groves upon groves of them totally blanketed the ground, and the bright pink foxgloves were everywhere. The trail started as dirt and crushed rock. Almost immediately it went up a fairly steep incline and the trees loomed closer and closer until they knit together to make a dark corridor. The temperature was still perfect, and though the skies turned from blue to grey it still felt pleasant throughout the entire day. It smelled vaguely of sea air in the places where the pine or moss or alfalfa blooms weren’t stronger.
The trail opened up to a lovely view of the Monastic City from above, and you could just see the top of the cathedral, chapel, and of course the round tower. It was as if we’d stumbled into a mediaeval time. Heather bushed grew thickly now, dense and spiny with delicate lavender blossoms. The panoramic view was amazing! Our trail leveled out as we passed above Laragh -- we could see the fields dived with stone walls, making neat little squares of land -- before going back into an incline as we hiked up Paddock Hill. A mere 380 feet at its highest, pleasant on a map but a bit wearying on foot. It ascended pretty quickly and wild raspberry bushes would sometimes reach right out and prick you through your jeans or, in my case, snag your hair.
We started to travel along a gravel road, curious what part of the road we might be on. It led us right to Laragh, where we’d been the night before. Not right. Upon backtracking we discovered the little hiker sign that tells us where to go, hidden by thick brush. It said ‘turn right.’ We had gone straight. Okay, well, what’s a little twenty-minutes detour? It led us parallel a river and to a bridge over the reddish water. The trail became two planks nailed together to make distant stair steps, which then became a gravel walk with deadwood on either side. This ended when we crossed the highway and officially began the hike to Roundwood, our next destination. There was one more hill on the way to Roundwood but it was a gradual uphill that sloped into a sheep pasture, over a gate, and to a merciful home that had labeled one of their spigots “Drinking Water.” We were running pretty dry by then, and were very grateful for the refill!!
A long section of road took us to the next part of the trail, but we had to divert then to go into Roundwood. It was about a forty minute walk into the small village and up the hill to the Lakehouse B&B, simply a larger home owned by a wonderful couple named Lisa and Volker Nexer. They had a very young son named Caylon who, for the most part, stayed in the residential part of the house and was very nice the few times we saw him. Our room was eggshell white with pressed flower-paper lampshades and blue comforters. The beds were just was we needed after five and a half hours of hiking, and the sliding doors offered a great view of the Nexers’ backyard, complete with a small pond and lily pads. Beyond were the rolling hills and patchwork fields I never tire of seeing.
We asked Volker where he would recommend eating, and he said of the two places in Roundwood he liked the Roundwood Inn better. It was a quite, charming place with wooden floors and beams, hearts carved into the tables’ legs, and lampshades made of multi-colored pieces of glass. A fire burned low in the fireplace at the end of the room. My meal was Irish veggie soup and brown bread, perfect for the drizzling day it had become, and Katie had chicken and chips. (The Ha’Penny Pub’s are better.)
Extra hours in the evening left us able to walk up and down the main street and view what was to be viewed. I was taking pictures of the giant cathedral when a man pulled next to us in his car and asked, “Ehm, excuse me, are you two girls from ‘round here?” We shook our heads.
“Oh. I was jus’ wonderin’ if there’s a Cat’olic church nearby?” he asked. I pointed to the massive structure directly behind him. He turned and looked.
“Oh! T’anks, girls!”
Back at the house Lisa offered a small laptop and a selection of DVDs for us to watch; we chose “Ratatouille” and I finished up my journaling while Katie got the laptop up and running.
First day of the hiking the Wicklow Way!!!
We were on the trail by 9:00, picking it up just beside a little craft shop in the village. The trail was a thin dirt line, thickly hedged on either side by ferns and stone walls. It went up a little way over a road and into a forest of sweetly-musky pines and abundant foxgloves. There were fences all along the trail that you cross by way of a low wooden step that goes through the fence and a wooden beam over the top of the fence. You just step from one side of the fence to another - very convenient. I could scarcely believe how gorgeous the forest was. The amount of ferns was massive, groves upon groves of them totally blanketed the ground, and the bright pink foxgloves were everywhere. The trail started as dirt and crushed rock. Almost immediately it went up a fairly steep incline and the trees loomed closer and closer until they knit together to make a dark corridor. The temperature was still perfect, and though the skies turned from blue to grey it still felt pleasant throughout the entire day. It smelled vaguely of sea air in the places where the pine or moss or alfalfa blooms weren’t stronger.
The trail opened up to a lovely view of the Monastic City from above, and you could just see the top of the cathedral, chapel, and of course the round tower. It was as if we’d stumbled into a mediaeval time. Heather bushed grew thickly now, dense and spiny with delicate lavender blossoms. The panoramic view was amazing! Our trail leveled out as we passed above Laragh -- we could see the fields dived with stone walls, making neat little squares of land -- before going back into an incline as we hiked up Paddock Hill. A mere 380 feet at its highest, pleasant on a map but a bit wearying on foot. It ascended pretty quickly and wild raspberry bushes would sometimes reach right out and prick you through your jeans or, in my case, snag your hair.
We started to travel along a gravel road, curious what part of the road we might be on. It led us right to Laragh, where we’d been the night before. Not right. Upon backtracking we discovered the little hiker sign that tells us where to go, hidden by thick brush. It said ‘turn right.’ We had gone straight. Okay, well, what’s a little twenty-minutes detour? It led us parallel a river and to a bridge over the reddish water. The trail became two planks nailed together to make distant stair steps, which then became a gravel walk with deadwood on either side. This ended when we crossed the highway and officially began the hike to Roundwood, our next destination. There was one more hill on the way to Roundwood but it was a gradual uphill that sloped into a sheep pasture, over a gate, and to a merciful home that had labeled one of their spigots “Drinking Water.” We were running pretty dry by then, and were very grateful for the refill!!
A long section of road took us to the next part of the trail, but we had to divert then to go into Roundwood. It was about a forty minute walk into the small village and up the hill to the Lakehouse B&B, simply a larger home owned by a wonderful couple named Lisa and Volker Nexer. They had a very young son named Caylon who, for the most part, stayed in the residential part of the house and was very nice the few times we saw him. Our room was eggshell white with pressed flower-paper lampshades and blue comforters. The beds were just was we needed after five and a half hours of hiking, and the sliding doors offered a great view of the Nexers’ backyard, complete with a small pond and lily pads. Beyond were the rolling hills and patchwork fields I never tire of seeing.
We asked Volker where he would recommend eating, and he said of the two places in Roundwood he liked the Roundwood Inn better. It was a quite, charming place with wooden floors and beams, hearts carved into the tables’ legs, and lampshades made of multi-colored pieces of glass. A fire burned low in the fireplace at the end of the room. My meal was Irish veggie soup and brown bread, perfect for the drizzling day it had become, and Katie had chicken and chips. (The Ha’Penny Pub’s are better.)
Extra hours in the evening left us able to walk up and down the main street and view what was to be viewed. I was taking pictures of the giant cathedral when a man pulled next to us in his car and asked, “Ehm, excuse me, are you two girls from ‘round here?” We shook our heads.
“Oh. I was jus’ wonderin’ if there’s a Cat’olic church nearby?” he asked. I pointed to the massive structure directly behind him. He turned and looked.
“Oh! T’anks, girls!”
Back at the house Lisa offered a small laptop and a selection of DVDs for us to watch; we chose “Ratatouille” and I finished up my journaling while Katie got the laptop up and running.
Europe Trip: July 9
7/9/09 ~ Thursday
Technically it was 12:30 by our internal clocks, but by then we had set our watches forward to Ireland time, 7:30 a.m. Trying to sleep in the airplane was almost comical. You could sleep sitting up but eventually your head would roll onto your chest and put a crick in your neck. The girl across from me folded down her meal tray and rested her torso and head on that. She was much smaller than I was, though, and when I tried that I ended up with my body one way and my head another… which puts a crick in your neck… Katie brought her knees up to her chin and slept in a fetal position which she said was the most comfortable of all that she tried. I was in one of the two seats on the side that didn’t have enough leg room to get my knees us to my chest, so I ended up scrunching to one side of my seat and trying to slump down so my head could rest on my shoulder. I awoke a few minutes later thinking it was cozy and warm… then I realized I had leaned back onto Deb’s shoulder. Katie and I both got on-and-off minutes of sleep for about two hours, then it was time to start our “Irish” day.
“Good morning!” I said to Deb when she awoke a few minutes after me. “Did you sleep?”
“Yeah, until the screaming started,” she said. Yet another young child had just started screaming for no reason about an hour into our ‘sleep’ and the mother brought him to the back of the plane (where we were seated…) so we got the full force of the siren until the flight crew managed to stuff him and his mother into a far back room to work out whatever the problem was.
The airplane actually served us breakfast! A humble croissant, yogurt, and orange juice, but still way more than I expected and quite satisfying! We began our descent at 8:40; high above the clouds it seems like you’re in a whole new land. Just a solid sheet of white with rises and depressions in silver and steel grey that stretch far to the horizon and intersect with a pure, pale blue sky. We slowly angled down until the plane sliced through the clouds and swirling wisps trailed off the wingtips. I had no shame in aiming my camera over Deb to get pictures out her window for when the clouds broke and I got my first view of the North Sea, dusty blue with a metallic silver sheen rippling over it. Then the Irish coast came into view; at first it was boggy and rocky, a sort of muted sepia shade overall, then it burst into green fields and patchwork colors, the farmhouses and cottages little flecks of white or steel in the sea of green. The farmland morphed into asphalt surrounding the Dublin airport, and soon after the plane landed we were allowed out. So nice to actually move our legs.
The walk through the airport to customs had a strong feeling like we were cattle being moved through a series of curving chutes to an unknown destination, but as long as everyone else was heading that way we were content to follow. The halls gently curved one way and the other until they led down some stairs and through a labyrinth of post-and-ribbon pathways until we finally reached Customs. The fellow checking passports wasn’t very happy. He just stamped your visa and shoved you on through. We didn’t even have to get our backs checked again before exiting the airport. It was a lovely day outside, particularly after that hot Idaho weather. The skies were grey and the temperature mild, and though we saw a lot of people walking around in longsleeves we were perfectly fine in t-shirts.
We took the 16A bus to Dorset St. North, though for a few tense minutes we had no idea where we were going or where the bus was stopping. We couldn’t find any street signs for the life of us! I finally asked the elder man sitting next to me how they knew what street they were on.
“Day’s upon der billings,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, and wondered how I could pantomime to Katie that I wanted her to ask the person next to her how they knew what street they were on. Fortunately the lady behind me clarified the elder man’s statement for me: the street signs are on the corners of buildings on that street. There aren’t any signposts like we have in the US. Oh. Once we knew that we were able to get a clue of where we were and got off at the proper street.
The bus to Glendaloch left at 11:30. If we wanted to make that, we’d have to find the Dublin International Youth Hostel, check in our big bags (we each had one big pack and one small backpack), get back to a bus that would take us near St. Stephen’s Green, and from there catch the Glendaloch bus. If we didn’t make the 11:30 bus it left at 6:00 p.m., but that would take out our whole day in Glendaloch. It was 10:30 as we searched for the Dublin IYH. Katie navigated with her printed map and we walked as quickly as we could. We found the place pretty easily, actually, and a fellow named Salvo helped up get our big bags into a store room where they’d be safe the next few days. We transferred over a few things into our backpack, because from now until Sunday evening we’d be living out of our backpacks.
10:45: Run like heck. Thank goodness Dublin looks a lot bigger in the maps than it is in life. With Katie at the helm we darted from one sidewalk to another until we reached the 16A bus again. The timechart said it should be coming at 10:55, but by the time we reached the bus stop it was 10:53. We asked the nearly-toothless man next to us if we had missed the 16A bus.
“16A, sure, it comes by ‘ere,” he said.
“But did we miss it? The chart here says 10:55...” Katie said.
“Don’t give it a damn,” he said. “Dey’re niver on time anyways.” A minute after that our bus arrived and we asked if the driver would notify us when we reached Aungier St. It looked like a French word so we pronounced it like a French word. He gave us a funny look.
“Anger St.?” he asked. We exchanged puzzled looks.
“Yeah, dat’s it,” the toothless man said from behind us. We had explained our route to him in the hopes he could help. Not only did he help, he told us when the stop was approaching and the driver gave us directions to catch the St. Kevin’s bus to Glendaloch. Everyone is so nice around here.
We started running again, just smiling when the other pedestrians gave us curious looks, and though our watches said we were just a few minutes late, we turned the corner and found the bus still there!!! We ran to it and panted out our explanation.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, take your time, it’s okay,” the bus driver told us. We paid him and sat down to enjoy the scenic drive south from Dublin directly to Glendaloch. The Mediterranean couple in front of us seemed to be experimenting with new ways to make out on the bus, the Russian family to our left included a teenage boy who generally tried to deny he was connected to the parents sitting before him, and behind us was a German couple who discussed a great many things in their native language. The drive was a hour and a half and ended at the Glendaloch Informational Center. Our hostel, the International Glendaloch Hostel, was just a few minutes’ walk down the road from there. Over a stone bride in the main part of the village were two vendors with their wares laid out and two food carts. Though we never learned her name, one of the vendors was an incredibly friendly lady who talked with us about destinations, flights, and fascinating pieces of jewelry made out of compressed heather.
“Omigott, you’ve got to try this. These are the best ever,” she said, handing us a piece of shortbread she’d been breaking pieces off of to eat. It was almost pure butter, and really quite good. How nice of her to share with us!!! We asked her if she recommended any places in town for a good dinner later in the evening, and she said there weren’t many nearby - just a few that were in the next town over, Laragh, which was do-able if you were walking but still a ways off. She offered to drive us there if we could find a taxi back, but we politely declined since we didn’t know how accessible taxis would be. Glendaloch is a fairly remote part of the country.
We walked past our hostel and jumped onto a little trail that was beside the road. It led back the way we came and through a pasture, and soon it delivered us directly to the Monastic City!! We didn’t even realize it was this close! It’s an old chapel, cathedral, and tall round tower that used to be populated by monks. It’s surrounded by Celtic crosses, both historic and modern as the graveyard is still used to this day. We got many pictures of the beautiful knot work on the crosses, and the ruined chapel was fascinating. As we explored the whole area we made our way back through two archways, which deposited us right back out at the vendors! Wow!
After cleaning up at our hostel, we decided to try for dinner at one of the restaurants in Laragh. We set out walking for those… and walking… and walking. I don’t think it was “just a kilometre away,” as described. When we did get there it looked like a facy kind of restaurant -- really posh-looking waiters stood at the door, and posh-looking people went it. We tried the other recommended restaurant (okay, the ONLY other restaurant…) and it was also pretty spendy.
“Well, our hostel had a little diner next to it that made sandwiches,” I suggested. “If nothing else we can always scope out the Laragh Convenience Store!”
“No!” Katie said, so we walked all the way back to the Glendaloch Hostel. The diner was closed due to a wedding. So we walked all the way back to Laragh and bought some questionable sandwiches from a cooler in the convenience store. We were so hungry at that point, though, they were the best-tasting Laragh convenience store sandwiches we’d ever eaten.
We were exhausted by the time we got back to the hostel. We’d been up for well over twenty-four hours and I was actually falling asleep while trying to write in my journal, so sleep couldn’t have come more easily.
Technically it was 12:30 by our internal clocks, but by then we had set our watches forward to Ireland time, 7:30 a.m. Trying to sleep in the airplane was almost comical. You could sleep sitting up but eventually your head would roll onto your chest and put a crick in your neck. The girl across from me folded down her meal tray and rested her torso and head on that. She was much smaller than I was, though, and when I tried that I ended up with my body one way and my head another… which puts a crick in your neck… Katie brought her knees up to her chin and slept in a fetal position which she said was the most comfortable of all that she tried. I was in one of the two seats on the side that didn’t have enough leg room to get my knees us to my chest, so I ended up scrunching to one side of my seat and trying to slump down so my head could rest on my shoulder. I awoke a few minutes later thinking it was cozy and warm… then I realized I had leaned back onto Deb’s shoulder. Katie and I both got on-and-off minutes of sleep for about two hours, then it was time to start our “Irish” day.
“Good morning!” I said to Deb when she awoke a few minutes after me. “Did you sleep?”
“Yeah, until the screaming started,” she said. Yet another young child had just started screaming for no reason about an hour into our ‘sleep’ and the mother brought him to the back of the plane (where we were seated…) so we got the full force of the siren until the flight crew managed to stuff him and his mother into a far back room to work out whatever the problem was.
The airplane actually served us breakfast! A humble croissant, yogurt, and orange juice, but still way more than I expected and quite satisfying! We began our descent at 8:40; high above the clouds it seems like you’re in a whole new land. Just a solid sheet of white with rises and depressions in silver and steel grey that stretch far to the horizon and intersect with a pure, pale blue sky. We slowly angled down until the plane sliced through the clouds and swirling wisps trailed off the wingtips. I had no shame in aiming my camera over Deb to get pictures out her window for when the clouds broke and I got my first view of the North Sea, dusty blue with a metallic silver sheen rippling over it. Then the Irish coast came into view; at first it was boggy and rocky, a sort of muted sepia shade overall, then it burst into green fields and patchwork colors, the farmhouses and cottages little flecks of white or steel in the sea of green. The farmland morphed into asphalt surrounding the Dublin airport, and soon after the plane landed we were allowed out. So nice to actually move our legs.
The walk through the airport to customs had a strong feeling like we were cattle being moved through a series of curving chutes to an unknown destination, but as long as everyone else was heading that way we were content to follow. The halls gently curved one way and the other until they led down some stairs and through a labyrinth of post-and-ribbon pathways until we finally reached Customs. The fellow checking passports wasn’t very happy. He just stamped your visa and shoved you on through. We didn’t even have to get our backs checked again before exiting the airport. It was a lovely day outside, particularly after that hot Idaho weather. The skies were grey and the temperature mild, and though we saw a lot of people walking around in longsleeves we were perfectly fine in t-shirts.
We took the 16A bus to Dorset St. North, though for a few tense minutes we had no idea where we were going or where the bus was stopping. We couldn’t find any street signs for the life of us! I finally asked the elder man sitting next to me how they knew what street they were on.
“Day’s upon der billings,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, and wondered how I could pantomime to Katie that I wanted her to ask the person next to her how they knew what street they were on. Fortunately the lady behind me clarified the elder man’s statement for me: the street signs are on the corners of buildings on that street. There aren’t any signposts like we have in the US. Oh. Once we knew that we were able to get a clue of where we were and got off at the proper street.
The bus to Glendaloch left at 11:30. If we wanted to make that, we’d have to find the Dublin International Youth Hostel, check in our big bags (we each had one big pack and one small backpack), get back to a bus that would take us near St. Stephen’s Green, and from there catch the Glendaloch bus. If we didn’t make the 11:30 bus it left at 6:00 p.m., but that would take out our whole day in Glendaloch. It was 10:30 as we searched for the Dublin IYH. Katie navigated with her printed map and we walked as quickly as we could. We found the place pretty easily, actually, and a fellow named Salvo helped up get our big bags into a store room where they’d be safe the next few days. We transferred over a few things into our backpack, because from now until Sunday evening we’d be living out of our backpacks.
10:45: Run like heck. Thank goodness Dublin looks a lot bigger in the maps than it is in life. With Katie at the helm we darted from one sidewalk to another until we reached the 16A bus again. The timechart said it should be coming at 10:55, but by the time we reached the bus stop it was 10:53. We asked the nearly-toothless man next to us if we had missed the 16A bus.
“16A, sure, it comes by ‘ere,” he said.
“But did we miss it? The chart here says 10:55...” Katie said.
“Don’t give it a damn,” he said. “Dey’re niver on time anyways.” A minute after that our bus arrived and we asked if the driver would notify us when we reached Aungier St. It looked like a French word so we pronounced it like a French word. He gave us a funny look.
“Anger St.?” he asked. We exchanged puzzled looks.
“Yeah, dat’s it,” the toothless man said from behind us. We had explained our route to him in the hopes he could help. Not only did he help, he told us when the stop was approaching and the driver gave us directions to catch the St. Kevin’s bus to Glendaloch. Everyone is so nice around here.
We started running again, just smiling when the other pedestrians gave us curious looks, and though our watches said we were just a few minutes late, we turned the corner and found the bus still there!!! We ran to it and panted out our explanation.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, take your time, it’s okay,” the bus driver told us. We paid him and sat down to enjoy the scenic drive south from Dublin directly to Glendaloch. The Mediterranean couple in front of us seemed to be experimenting with new ways to make out on the bus, the Russian family to our left included a teenage boy who generally tried to deny he was connected to the parents sitting before him, and behind us was a German couple who discussed a great many things in their native language. The drive was a hour and a half and ended at the Glendaloch Informational Center. Our hostel, the International Glendaloch Hostel, was just a few minutes’ walk down the road from there. Over a stone bride in the main part of the village were two vendors with their wares laid out and two food carts. Though we never learned her name, one of the vendors was an incredibly friendly lady who talked with us about destinations, flights, and fascinating pieces of jewelry made out of compressed heather.
“Omigott, you’ve got to try this. These are the best ever,” she said, handing us a piece of shortbread she’d been breaking pieces off of to eat. It was almost pure butter, and really quite good. How nice of her to share with us!!! We asked her if she recommended any places in town for a good dinner later in the evening, and she said there weren’t many nearby - just a few that were in the next town over, Laragh, which was do-able if you were walking but still a ways off. She offered to drive us there if we could find a taxi back, but we politely declined since we didn’t know how accessible taxis would be. Glendaloch is a fairly remote part of the country.
We walked past our hostel and jumped onto a little trail that was beside the road. It led back the way we came and through a pasture, and soon it delivered us directly to the Monastic City!! We didn’t even realize it was this close! It’s an old chapel, cathedral, and tall round tower that used to be populated by monks. It’s surrounded by Celtic crosses, both historic and modern as the graveyard is still used to this day. We got many pictures of the beautiful knot work on the crosses, and the ruined chapel was fascinating. As we explored the whole area we made our way back through two archways, which deposited us right back out at the vendors! Wow!
After cleaning up at our hostel, we decided to try for dinner at one of the restaurants in Laragh. We set out walking for those… and walking… and walking. I don’t think it was “just a kilometre away,” as described. When we did get there it looked like a facy kind of restaurant -- really posh-looking waiters stood at the door, and posh-looking people went it. We tried the other recommended restaurant (okay, the ONLY other restaurant…) and it was also pretty spendy.
“Well, our hostel had a little diner next to it that made sandwiches,” I suggested. “If nothing else we can always scope out the Laragh Convenience Store!”
“No!” Katie said, so we walked all the way back to the Glendaloch Hostel. The diner was closed due to a wedding. So we walked all the way back to Laragh and bought some questionable sandwiches from a cooler in the convenience store. We were so hungry at that point, though, they were the best-tasting Laragh convenience store sandwiches we’d ever eaten.
We were exhausted by the time we got back to the hostel. We’d been up for well over twenty-four hours and I was actually falling asleep while trying to write in my journal, so sleep couldn’t have come more easily.
Europe Trip: July 7 & 8
7-7-09 ~ Tuesday
Three weeks in Europe!
Katie and I left at the 6:00 in the evening. The drive to Salt Lake City was only five hours and rather pleasant; Katie’s mother, Meredith, drove the whole way, leaving Katie and me to our silliness in the back seat. During a particularly silly moment of silliness I hugged the seat in front of me, and almost immediately a red light on the dashboard began blinking and a little alarm bell started ringing. It quit when I sat back. I was rejected by a car seat! It did not like the hug.
It didn’t take us long to check into the airport hotel; the Palm Restaurant is right next to the hotel and there was a giant, live palm tree in the pool area of the hotel. It grew up three floors so you could see it even from the hallway we walked to get to our room. A ficus tree also grew nearby; also enormous and it had a toy monkey among the branches. Our room was nice; not very big with two beds in it; the sheets were a tasteful multi-colored paisley on an off-white background, and the furniture accents were all light oak or light marble. Tasteful multi-color paisley or not, they were still quite comfortable for the night’s sleep.
7-8-09 ~ Wednesday
We were up at 8:50, and our hotel room came with a free breakfast (limited options) so we took advantage of that. Mrs. Huebschmann left around 10:00 and Katie and I took the airport shuttle at 10:30. Not much terribly interesting at the first part of the airport; the guy who checked our passports at security teased us about our passport photos, but I mostly suspect that was because he was in dire want of something better to do. We took off our shoes and bared the contents of our backpacks for security and passed through just fine. Our flight didn’t leave until 12:45, so we wandered through the airport’s few shops. One of them had those “travel-friendly” crinkle-clothes, including shirts, skirts, and bags. The bags were actually a pretty nifty idea -- packs tiny but expands to a hefty size. Their downside was that they looked rather like a size-‘elephant’ speedo when they weren’t stretched out. Illustrative photos may follow.
The flight was perfectly on time. I hadn’t gotten to be on many planes before now, so the whole take-off experience is still so cool for me! Just the sheer speed the plane goes down the runway; you think for sure you’ll be pressed into your seat for takeoff, but without ever feeling a thing you suddenly see the ground just slope away. The only indicator that we had left the ground was the muted whir of the landing gear retracting. It was really fun to watch the city grow smaller and smaller until the buildings were just grey squares amongst the green and tan landscape and the highways and roads were little more than winding threads. I had no idea it was so marshy and green around the Salt Lake. You’d never know it just from the looks of Salt Lake City when you drive through it.
The two children in the seat across from us and one row back set straight away to expressing themselves as vocally and physically as possible. They must have been around five and eight, old enough to know better. The mother spent the first hour and a half delivering empty ultimatums. At one point the little boy threw his cheetos on the ground and stomped them into the carpet, and the mother did nothing to stop him. It took a little more than an hour and a half of shrieking, squalling, and general babbling for the mother to finally take them to the back of the plane (hopefully for a good wallop, though I highly doubt it…) and the lady in the seat directly in front of them immediately moved to a new seat.
“I just can’t take it any more,” she said as she gathered her stuff. I gave her an air-five. The children were not much better when the mother brought them back. She would hiss some threat at them and the two kids would laugh and laugh. By then the flight was pretty much over, and at the very end the mother let down all pretenses of trying to look good in public and just started yelling at her kids as the rest of the people left the plane.
We arrived at the Chicago airport at 3:45, twenty-five minutes early according to our pilot. The Chicago O’Hare airport is big! While the skies outside were grey and drizzling the inside of the terminal was buzzing with travelers. Katie and I walked all around the airport, venturing into a few interesting shops before searching for something decent and affordable (pick one…) for dinner. Of course everything was overpriced, especially because it was in an airport.
Gate K7 originally said our flight would depart at 6:15, but when we got there it had been pushed to 6:45. We hung out around the gate until 6:30, when the gate attendant let us board the Boeing 747-300 (I remembered that specifically for you). This plane was freaking huge. It had forty-two rows of seats, and in the lower-class area each row had seven seats across (three in the center and two on either side). The plane taxied to the beginning of the runway and sat there for a long time. Then the pilot jammed the throttle forward and we rocketed down the runway, lurching into the air and slicing through the low-lying clouds. I never cease to be amazed by how much we take for granted -- this enormous metal craft, jamb-packed with passengers, still manages to become airborne and carry us all so far away.
A very nice African lady had her two- or three-year-old son sitting in the row behind Katie. Her son was still very young, so it was easier to understand his constant crying. The lady did all she could to help him, checking all his necessities, rocking him and singing softly. The lady next to me was disgusted that the flight crew didn’t offer her a first-class seat to help her out, since she was sitting between two strangers and still trying to calm her child. The lady next to me was named Deb, and though she has cousins in Galway and her grandparents own five pubs there, this was her first time going to Dublin. I inquired about the crop circles book she was reading.
“I’m a very new age person, yeah, and I’m huge into meditating,” she began her explanation. She studies the earth’s energy lines and has been keeping an eye on all the crop circles Europe gets per week (CropCircleConnector.com or something like that?). She said this year has been a banner year for crop circles with an increased number of animal shapes and an impressive one based on the binary system. She mentioned there had been quite a few recent crop circles around the area in London where we’d be staying. She has a friend who had a crop circle appear right next to his house and he meditated inside it. He said “it was a totally trippy experience to meditate inside of a crop circle,” so she was going to try for herself. That’s why she was on this flight.
The lights dimmed at 9:30 and a tv screen showed where our flight was on it’s path. We were over Nova Scotia! Such a bummer it was too dark outside to see the scenery. Katie and I had been forewarned to get some kind of sleep during the flight since we’d be crossing into a totally different time zone, so we pulled out our provided pillows and tried…
Three weeks in Europe!
Katie and I left at the 6:00 in the evening. The drive to Salt Lake City was only five hours and rather pleasant; Katie’s mother, Meredith, drove the whole way, leaving Katie and me to our silliness in the back seat. During a particularly silly moment of silliness I hugged the seat in front of me, and almost immediately a red light on the dashboard began blinking and a little alarm bell started ringing. It quit when I sat back. I was rejected by a car seat! It did not like the hug.
It didn’t take us long to check into the airport hotel; the Palm Restaurant is right next to the hotel and there was a giant, live palm tree in the pool area of the hotel. It grew up three floors so you could see it even from the hallway we walked to get to our room. A ficus tree also grew nearby; also enormous and it had a toy monkey among the branches. Our room was nice; not very big with two beds in it; the sheets were a tasteful multi-colored paisley on an off-white background, and the furniture accents were all light oak or light marble. Tasteful multi-color paisley or not, they were still quite comfortable for the night’s sleep.
7-8-09 ~ Wednesday
We were up at 8:50, and our hotel room came with a free breakfast (limited options) so we took advantage of that. Mrs. Huebschmann left around 10:00 and Katie and I took the airport shuttle at 10:30. Not much terribly interesting at the first part of the airport; the guy who checked our passports at security teased us about our passport photos, but I mostly suspect that was because he was in dire want of something better to do. We took off our shoes and bared the contents of our backpacks for security and passed through just fine. Our flight didn’t leave until 12:45, so we wandered through the airport’s few shops. One of them had those “travel-friendly” crinkle-clothes, including shirts, skirts, and bags. The bags were actually a pretty nifty idea -- packs tiny but expands to a hefty size. Their downside was that they looked rather like a size-‘elephant’ speedo when they weren’t stretched out. Illustrative photos may follow.
The flight was perfectly on time. I hadn’t gotten to be on many planes before now, so the whole take-off experience is still so cool for me! Just the sheer speed the plane goes down the runway; you think for sure you’ll be pressed into your seat for takeoff, but without ever feeling a thing you suddenly see the ground just slope away. The only indicator that we had left the ground was the muted whir of the landing gear retracting. It was really fun to watch the city grow smaller and smaller until the buildings were just grey squares amongst the green and tan landscape and the highways and roads were little more than winding threads. I had no idea it was so marshy and green around the Salt Lake. You’d never know it just from the looks of Salt Lake City when you drive through it.
The two children in the seat across from us and one row back set straight away to expressing themselves as vocally and physically as possible. They must have been around five and eight, old enough to know better. The mother spent the first hour and a half delivering empty ultimatums. At one point the little boy threw his cheetos on the ground and stomped them into the carpet, and the mother did nothing to stop him. It took a little more than an hour and a half of shrieking, squalling, and general babbling for the mother to finally take them to the back of the plane (hopefully for a good wallop, though I highly doubt it…) and the lady in the seat directly in front of them immediately moved to a new seat.
“I just can’t take it any more,” she said as she gathered her stuff. I gave her an air-five. The children were not much better when the mother brought them back. She would hiss some threat at them and the two kids would laugh and laugh. By then the flight was pretty much over, and at the very end the mother let down all pretenses of trying to look good in public and just started yelling at her kids as the rest of the people left the plane.
We arrived at the Chicago airport at 3:45, twenty-five minutes early according to our pilot. The Chicago O’Hare airport is big! While the skies outside were grey and drizzling the inside of the terminal was buzzing with travelers. Katie and I walked all around the airport, venturing into a few interesting shops before searching for something decent and affordable (pick one…) for dinner. Of course everything was overpriced, especially because it was in an airport.
Gate K7 originally said our flight would depart at 6:15, but when we got there it had been pushed to 6:45. We hung out around the gate until 6:30, when the gate attendant let us board the Boeing 747-300 (I remembered that specifically for you). This plane was freaking huge. It had forty-two rows of seats, and in the lower-class area each row had seven seats across (three in the center and two on either side). The plane taxied to the beginning of the runway and sat there for a long time. Then the pilot jammed the throttle forward and we rocketed down the runway, lurching into the air and slicing through the low-lying clouds. I never cease to be amazed by how much we take for granted -- this enormous metal craft, jamb-packed with passengers, still manages to become airborne and carry us all so far away.
A very nice African lady had her two- or three-year-old son sitting in the row behind Katie. Her son was still very young, so it was easier to understand his constant crying. The lady did all she could to help him, checking all his necessities, rocking him and singing softly. The lady next to me was disgusted that the flight crew didn’t offer her a first-class seat to help her out, since she was sitting between two strangers and still trying to calm her child. The lady next to me was named Deb, and though she has cousins in Galway and her grandparents own five pubs there, this was her first time going to Dublin. I inquired about the crop circles book she was reading.
“I’m a very new age person, yeah, and I’m huge into meditating,” she began her explanation. She studies the earth’s energy lines and has been keeping an eye on all the crop circles Europe gets per week (CropCircleConnector.com or something like that?). She said this year has been a banner year for crop circles with an increased number of animal shapes and an impressive one based on the binary system. She mentioned there had been quite a few recent crop circles around the area in London where we’d be staying. She has a friend who had a crop circle appear right next to his house and he meditated inside it. He said “it was a totally trippy experience to meditate inside of a crop circle,” so she was going to try for herself. That’s why she was on this flight.
The lights dimmed at 9:30 and a tv screen showed where our flight was on it’s path. We were over Nova Scotia! Such a bummer it was too dark outside to see the scenery. Katie and I had been forewarned to get some kind of sleep during the flight since we’d be crossing into a totally different time zone, so we pulled out our provided pillows and tried…
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Cynic's Review of "Twilight".
I have never liked the "Twilight" craze. I have never wanted to read the books. I have never wanted to be involved in the saga in any way. I managed to avoid the whole ordeal for a few years, then one of my employers handed me all four books and said, "Here, read these and tell me what you think of them." I couldn't be rude and just relocate the books to a nearby trash bin, so I decided to make the best of my situation: Read the books and write a scathing review. Through this review, it is my hope that those who wish to know what the big fuss about the books is may read this to get a general idea of how they are without having to suffer through actually reading them. Without further ado, I give you the Cynic's Review of "Twilight".
The first few pages are extraordinarily dull. I probably wouldn’t have begrudged it that, except the rest of the book degraded into an angsty teenage vampire heavy-romance. Bella tells us all about how much she hates Forks, WA (where her divorced father, Charlie, lives), but in the very same sentence says she’s chosen to go there. Self-inflicted punishment for some horrible unknown deed? Naw, that would have to actually involve a good plot. Her mother’s boyfriend/fiancee/new hubby/whatever-he-is annoys Bella too much. Once in the horrible town of Forks, Bella stresses how frickin’ green everything is, goes to school, and has an awkward boy named Mike latch onto her. His character is mentioned many times and does absolutely nothing for the plot.
We are finally introduced to Edward Cullen on page 18, where he is described as “lanky, less bulky than his brother, and with untidy hair.” Well, that only describes about half the boys in America. The excitement really ramps up as we read about Edward breaking a bagel apart. Be still my racing heart. Stephanie Meyers stresses that Edward is “beautiful” and “gorgeous.” In a world where the line between male and female appearances is increasingly blurred, I would not want to be called “beautiful” if I were a guy. Bella gets the nagging suspicion Edward hates her. He glares at her, “his eyes full of revulsion,” and goes into rigor mortis when she sits beside him in one class. But no, ‘that’s silly’ she tells herself. She must just smell bad. Yeah, that’s it.
Page 31: Bella obsesses over Edward. Charlie seems very opinionated about the Cullen family. He seems to like them. Bella comments on how attractive they all are.
“You should see the doctor [the Cullen’s father],” Charlie says, “It’s a good thing he’s happily married!” . . . or what, Charlie? What are you trying to say, Charlie?
**Speed reader’s tip: There is a TON of filler throughout this book. It’s the kind of stuff people do every day and don’t want to read about. Here’s a tasty little excerpt that just brings joy to my eyes: “I cleaned the house, got a head start on homework, and wrote my mom more bogusly cheerful emails. I drove to the library and wondered what kind of mileage the truck got.” For the love of all things, skip this sawdust and get on with things! ** After pages and pages of awkward, “I’m not looking at him… oh, dang, he’s looking at me, look away!… is he still looking? Just a little peek… dang! Still looking!” between Edward and Bella in the cafeteria, Edward finally decides to be civil and introduces himself to Bella. Meyers describes his voice and “quiet and musical,” and earlier as “low and attractive.” Sooo, are we to picture Gilbert & Sullivan or Barry White? Get this! He has a “soft and enchanting laugh.” Right now I’m doing some enchanted heaving.
All on page 44, Bella sums up the overall theme of the book so far by “persisting stupidly,” “feeling like a moron,” and “staring like an idiot.” Edward is quite polite all of a sudden, and they fritter away biology class by conveniently telling their histories to each other and smirking. Ed smirks a LOT. Again Meyers describes Edward as “beautiful,” but at least this time she precedes it with “bizarre.” Page 54: Bella obsesses over Edward. Then comes the epic I-was-nearly-crushed-by-an-out-of-control-driver-but-was-miraculously-saved-by-a-creepy-bi-polar-biology-partner-who-I-have-strong-reason-to-believe-was-previously-named-Edwina part, blah, blah, we’ve all seen the movie trailers. Ed trails Bella to the hospital where she’s given a clean bill of health and they have a spat because Ed won’t ‘fess up to what he did, but right after Bella tells us all about his glorious face. I’m getting sick of hearing about his glorious this, perfect that, and it’s only page 65. Funny enough, Edward goes right back to ignoring, shunning, and glaring at Bella. Must be that time of month for him. His eyes change colors more than a obsessive author’s Mary Sue hero. Oh, wait, he is. Black eyes, gold eyes, black, gold, give it a rest and put on some sunglasses. Even though Bella’s only really known Edward for a few days, his sudden cold shoulder throws her into a wild depression. Get a grip. I give credit to page 74 where she admits she’s pathetic, same page where she looks at his “too-perfect face” and tells him off for something he didn’t do. He flip-flops between giving her the cold shoulder and crooning with a musical voice. She flip-flops between obsessively preoccupying her every living moment with thoughts of him and lashing out at him. Must be both their times of the month. If this is the basis for a relationship that’s going to last four whole books, this is going to be a seriously dysfunctional relationship. Seriously, if I’d wanted this kind of bi-polar juxtaposition I would have eaten three boxes of marshmallow peeps and followed it with a jigger of Clorox.
Page 79: Bella obsesses over Edward.
Page 81: Edward stalks Bella and rescues her from a puddle. This time his voice is velvet and muted. There is a strong possibility this is because I’m trying to smother him with a pillow. She scowls at his perfect face. That’s the fifth time she’s called him “perfect” in four chapters. Oh yes, I’m counting, and the tally is going up. Just build him a shrine and pray in his general direction three times a day all ready.
Bella goes on a group camping trip with some kids from school and thus meets Jacob Black. She uses her
Page 139: Bella obsesses over Edward. That’s pretty much the highlight of chapter 7; it’s just twelve pages of blather about how sunny it is or isn’t, marinating fish, and emailing. Well, there went five minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
You might be able to catch up on some of those aforementioned wasted minutes by skipping three and a half pages of chapter 8 as they are purely boring drivel about prom dress shopping. Getting to the good stuff: Bella gets “herded” by a gang of thugs when she walks off alone in an unfamiliar city, and things almost get ugly, but Ed swoops in and saves the day. He delivers her right to where she should have been.
“How did you know where…?” Bella asks. Simple. You google him, he physically stalks you. He takes her out to dinner and we don’t get much from the whole scene information-wise other than that Edward can read minds to some extent, but not Bella’s for whatever reason. He’s forced to scent her out of a crowd - that’ll make ya self-conscious. On the car drive home we learn that Ed is a speed maniac, finding 80 mph too slow and 100 mph much more to his liking. Bella spills all about her google-fed suspicions and Ed fesses up to being a vampire, but not that kind that sleeps in coffins, burns in the sun, turns into a bat, has no reflection, and drinks human blood, you know, everything that makes a vampire a vampire. No, he’s a “good” vampire, he drinks animal blood, though it’s not as satisfying. Like vampires could ever be “good” in the first place. The trip ends with Ed’s ominous warning: “Don’t go into the woods alone.” Right, I’ll tuck that gem along with “Don’t play with knives,” and “Don’t stick that there!”
The chapter ends with this darling paragraph: “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him - and I didn’t know how potent that part might be - that thirsted for my blood. Third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”
We break now for an excerpt from the hit novel, Howl I Live Without You?: “Of three things I was sure: he was a werewolf, he wanted to nibble my nape, and I was in love with him.” How about this delightful cover-quip from Abducted Love: “He was an alien, he wanted to dissect me and sell my pancreas on the pan-galactic black market, and I was in love with him.” Or who could forget that heart-rending tear jerker, Los Cryptid Nights: “He was a chupacabra, he wanted to nom my goats, and I was in love.” Is anyone else detecting something incredibly stupid with this whole plot idea?
Bella takes on a new hobby of sniffing Ed’s jacket, we get a painful recount of the past two chapters as told by two hormonal teenage girls, and we are forced to read more about Ed’s “glorious, gorgeous, more-like-a-Greek-god” face. Bella and he talk at the cafeteria: he explains his family’s frequent camping trips are actually hunts for them to feed. His brother’s favorite meal is bear, while Ed’s is mountain lion. I’m sorry, I’m still back on the fact that they’re draining an animal’s blood at all!!! “Hi, Mom, this is my boyfriend the bloodsucker.” “Oh, he’s adorable! Bring him to the Sunday potluck!” Seriously, we just accept this? Make a hero of this? Page 219, back to perfect this, perfect that. Miss Meyers, the Society for Prevention of Adjective Abuse called -- they’re taking custody of all your “perfects” and “beautifuls” to prevent further mistreatment.
Ed’s now taken to petting Bella, and it’s painful to read page after page of Bella’s every single thought. We hear about her every frickin’ body function whenever Ed is in close proximity to her, and it’s getting predictable. Is he within four feet? That’ll cause irregular breathing. Within two feet? Cue heart palpitations. Even though Bella really likes her father and feels remorse for deceiving him, she lies to him about where she’ll be this weekend. Bella obsesses so much about her upcoming trip alone with Ed she takes unnecessary cold pills to go to sleep. Nice. Real nice.
They drive to some wooded place and Edward flashes happy-angry-happy-angry during their conversation. Despite major emotional control issues (as I once had it so eloquently described to me by a teenage Twi-hard: “Well, like, it’s, like, really hard for him cuz, like, he’s trying not to eat her.”) we get a sordid, minutely-detailed description of his body when Bella sees his shirt unbuttoned. Though “perfect” and “beautiful” are still relentlessly beaten into every description of Eddie, they’ve progressed from “glorious” to “angel” to “god.” This over-glorification must end. Now Bella flashes happy-angry-happy-angry during a fairly fruitless conversation-- how do they live with each other? Ed leads her into a sunny meadow and shows her what he looks like in the sun. His skin “literally sparkles like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded.” What with his white skin and dark-ringed eyes, I picture a bejeweled cadaver. Ed leans in close and Bella smells his breath: “sweet, delicious, it made my mouth water.” What the…? You do realize what that dude’s been eating, right? If someone’s breath is making my mouth water, they’re probably in need of a tic tac. The chapter goes on and on about how Ed can resist any other human, but Bella is his “brand of heroine.” Nothing flatters a girl like being compared to a life-destroying drug. Long and short of it, Ed really, really wants to kill Bella. “So I was filled with compassion as he confessed his craving to take my life,” Bella writes. I’m sorry, what? Who in their right mind says something like that?
Axe murderer: “Hey there, ready to meet your maker?”
Soon-to-be-victim: “Oh, you poor dear! Have a cookie!”
But we all know he can’t kill her. How would they ever extend their merchandising through three more books, countless t-shirts, websites, and bumper stickers without her?
Here’s a great excerpt: “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” he murmured.
“What a stupid lamb,” I sighed.
“What a sick, masochistic lion.” Amen.
They spend more time petting each other, then Ed takes Bella for a run in the forest. Weird. The follow it with their first kiss, which is painful to read in its infinitesimal detail. This kind of crap is something I’d expect from “Don Juan,” not two seventeen-year-olds. This whole segment is entirely too long. It’s thirty pages of fanatical adoration from Bella, way too much touching and stroking, and page after page of “my heart stopped,” “a chill ran through my body,” blah, blah, blah. She tells us everywhere Ed touches her, no matter how insignificant (it comes this close to being like, “He put his hand up to his brow to shade his eyes. His elbow was so near me, I could feel tingles running to my follicles.” I exaggerate not with the extreme hyper-sensitivity Bella has to Ed’s every action). Enough all ready! I don’t want to know!!!
Bella takes Ed home, where he hides from her father. Turns out he’s been watching her every night. He’s totally at ease letting himself into her room; how ultimately creepy. Breaking and entering for the sake of infatuated stalking. Bella pretends to sleep when her father checks in on her, and when he leaves Ed gets into bed with Bella. Whoa! Whoa! Not cool! Out! But no, Bella’s delighted with this arrangement, and Ed spends the night with her. Information desk to Bella: Your scruples are in the garbage bin. If you would care to reclaim your scruples, please come to the information desk. Well, since they’re getting serious now, it’s time for Bella to meet the family. They’re all nice to her, excusing one sibling, Rosalie, who supposedly is jealous of Bella. They take her to watch them play a game of baseball, which can only be played during a thunderstorm so the thunder can cover the sound of their bodies crashing together and the crack of the ball and bat. Is that bat aluminum? In a storm? No problem, they’re all dead anyway!
All’s fun and games until three out-of-town vampires rain on the parade, and oh, guess what, one of them wants to eat Bella. (I can see it now -- Edward: “He-e-e-ey, I called dibs first!”) Now there’s a wrench no monkey would expect. In a desperate attempt to escape the tracker, James, Bella breaks off her relationship with her father by breaking his heart and flees to Arizona, the one place everyone expects her to go but wouldn’t ever believe her to be, because they can’t believe she’d be dumb enough to go right to the one place everyone expects her to go. The entire Cullen family joins the effort to save Bella. Why? Alice explains that Ed’s been alone for one hundred years (loser.) and “they couldn’t bear to look into his eyes for the next one hundred if he loses her.” Right, read that as Alice’s way of saying, “You think he’s moody NOW…”
After a pathetic attempt to fill up pages of nail-biting suspense, Bella ends up in an Arizona hotel with her mother held hostage by James. Bella has a very pessimistic, defeatist view on life, and stupidly decides that her best option is to meet James and die. She leaves the protection of Alice and Jasper and meets James alone. Of course he’s tricked her; he doesn’t have her mother at all, just some of Bella’s home videos with her mother’s voice on them. Funny enough, the following pages in which James videotapes himself torturing Bella are less torturous than all the chapters of a smitten adolescent girl’s “dear-diary”-like entries we’ve been forced to read up till now.
I think I can actually say the rescue scene is my favorite part of the book for this one excerpt alone: “… I knew I was dead. I heard the sound of an angel calling my name… And the angel was sobbing tearless, broken sobs. The angel shouldn’t weep.” And you shouldn’t blink.
Though James is done for, he’s bitten Bella on the hand and the vampire venom will overtake Bella soon if something isn’t done. What to do? Ed has to suck out the poisoned blood. Of course. He hesitates in fear that once he starts he won’t be able to stop. To suck or not to suck. Going in theme with the rest of the book, he sucks. Like I’ve mentioned before, the “Twilight” franchise wouldn’t get far without Bella, so of course Ed finds it within himself to quit leeching. Hooray. Bella’s saved. Other than massive bodily damage and a great loss of blood, she’s perfectly fine. Eddie has fun with her heart monitor at the hospital, making it spike and stop with various lovey-dovey stuff. Real mature, buddy. For the epilogue, Eddie takes Bella to the prom, the last thing she ever wanted to do. Yeah, thanks, Ed. Bella has made up her mind to become a vampire, but Ed refuses because he doesn’t want her soul to be damned. It’s the end of the book, but you’d better believe it ain’t the end of that discussion.
Basically, the first three-quarters of the book is nothing but saccharine sappiness with sensual writing that could make Romeo and Juliet blush, followed by a few pages of exceeding violence at the end. Credit where credit is due: Meyer is inventive with her back histories for some of the characters, like Dr. Cullen, but the excessive amounts of hormonal preoccupation, detailed descriptions of nuzzling and stroking that make the reader feel awkward, and ridiculously exaggerated emphasis on how perfect/beautiful/glorious Ed is can’t be forgiven. Forget hormonal therapy for women going through menopause -- just have them read this. Now that I’ve read this, I’m a little disturbed to know that kids as young as ten are in love with these books. I don’t want to sound like an old fogey, but if I’d read this when I was ten I would have vomited fruit loops.
Total number of times Ed is called “Perfect”: 16
Total number of times Edward is called “Beautiful”: 17
Moral of the story: Never say “Bite me” to a vampire.
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