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.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
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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