My Goodness, My Guinness

My daydreams about Ireland often featured Irish people spending much of their time sitting around Irish pubs with names like Murphy’s and O’Connors, drinking pints of Guinness.  At home, Guinness is a delicacy, not found in every bar, and often running at around $5.00 a pint.  I still remember drinking my first Guinness ever.  I was 21, in a pub in Washington, D.C., surrounded by new acquaintances I didn’t know that well.  It tasted like a strange mix of coffee, chocolate and beer.  It was unlike anything I had ever drank before.  No matter where you are in the United States, drinking a Guinness can make you feel like you are sitting in a pub in Ireland, surrounded by green countryside, even though you are probably sitting in some sort of American imitation in some concrete jungle somewhere.

I have to agree with Sloan from Reason to Wander: your first Guinness in Ireland is your best.  All the anticipation of a place rolled up into one drink.

Our first Guinness was in Donegal with our friend McIntyre.  We unanimously agreed: it tasted better than at home.  It was the perfect pour, the perfect temperature, the perfect flavor.  It tasted downright creamy.  With each new arrival of our friends from home, we watched them enjoy their first Guinness in Ireland.  Fantastic stuff.

Like good tourists, we toured the Guinness factory in Dublin.  We heard the tour was touristy, but there was no question that we would go.  We had all bought into the Guinness marketing a long ago and are of the similar opinion that it is always a lovely day for a Guinness.

Their terminology is misleading; if you think of it as more of a Guinness museum, as opposed to a tour of a factory, you won’t be disappointed.

Plus the Sky Bar on the 7^th floor has great views of Dublin as you drink your free (or 15 euro, depending on how you view it) Guinness.

Our Irish Home Away From Home

In many ways, coming to Ireland was like going home.  Certain aspects of Ireland were, to me, more akin to the United States rather than the rest of Europe.  There’s big things, like the fact that we understood everybody and everything for the first time in months.  Well, if you don’t count the accents, that is.  Newspapers, television, signs, packages – all in English.  We could have real conversations with people, instead of just trading limited words.  Then there’s the little things.  Instead of just stone, brick buildings lined the streets.  Waiters will actually bring you tap water to the table without being asked.  The food was more familiar, too.  We ordered things like chicken salads and turkey sandwiches.

The best part about Ireland, and the thing that made it so familiar, was the steady stream of friends that came to visit us.  First McIntyre, then Matt, Danielle, and Jason, and then Tony.  It was fantastic to get to visit with everyone, even if everyone’s comings and goings meant that we all ended up traversing Ireland in a less than ideal fashion.  Everyone came and went as they could in order to fit their vacation to Ireland into their schedules.  We already had forgotten how short a one week vacation is.  We were appreciative that everyone chose to spend their vacation with us.

First, Mac met us in Dublin, and Mac, Sean and I headed to Donegal to visit places significant to Mac’s family roots.  Next, we headed to Galway to see Josh Ritter at the Galway Arts Festival.  Then, it was back to Dublin to meet Matt, Danielle, and Jason on Sunday, and Tony on Monday.  The seven of us got to spend two days together in Dublin, before Mac flew home for a family reunion and the rest of us drove to Doolin.  The next day, it was off to Dingle, and then to Kilkenny, before everyone had to fly home.  When Sean and I woke up on Saturday, realization set in.  This is our life now.  It was just the two of us.  We had no plans, just the rental car for another 10 days.  Well, Sean said, want to go visit Kilkenny castle or something?

Sightseeing is fun and all, and this year of travel is an amazing opportunity, but nothing beats drinking in a pub with friends you’ve known for years.

Naturally, I have lots of stories to tell from the time the gang was in Ireland, as well as the time Sean and I spent, mostly in Northern Ireland, after everyone left. Stay tuned…

To the Valley of Beautiful Women We Go

Although we love cities, we know that cities are never truly representative of the entire country. But we do have to leave Europe sometime, so some of the countries have gotten short shrift, at least this time around. Since we were headed north to Krakow, we decided to stop in the Hungarian town of Eger, where, we were told, there is a valley of beautiful women and wine. The valley of which we speak is actually called that – Szepasszonyvolgy, translated as the Valley of Beautiful Women. I’m not sure what Sean’s intentions were, but I quite liked the Hungarian wines I tasted in Budapest so I was game to go taste more of them.

Unfortunately, best laid plans go awry quite easily. We should know better to try to squeeze in too much, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. We showed up in Eger without accommodations. Normally, this is not a problem and can even be beneficial. Not in this case. I am somewhat of a planner by nature, so this fly by the seat of our pants approach does not come naturally to me. Although I tell myself, really, what is the worst that can happen, in Eger, I started to fear the worst – that we would have nowhere to stay.

We arrived in Eger in a somewhat cranky state after having been on the hottest train known to humankind. It was over 90 degrees that day. This train – an ancient relic dug out of retirement solely for the purpose of torturing us on the way to Eger, I was sure – naturally had no air conditioning. It also had no air flow, made even worse when it inexplicably insisted upon stopping, for no apparent reason, for an eternity several miles away from Eger. We tried to buy tickets on an overnight train the following night from Eger to Krakow. After telling us we could buy the tickets (we think; it was in Hungarian), the ticket teller then changed course. All we could surmise was that there was some sort of problem on the route. This left us no choice but to take the hot box back to Budapest, then take the overnight train from Budapest to Krakow. So while we originally had the entire next day to spend in Eger, we now only had an afternoon and evening the day we arrived.

After walking through a never ending construction zone to the old town, sweating profusely, I thought we could quickly find a place and get to the business of drinking wine. Over two hours later, after Sean trekked all over town while I stood guard with the bags in the hopes of speeding up our task, we still had no place to stay, even with the assistance of the tourist office. Everything – and I mean everything – was full. We finally were helped by a different woman at the tourist office, who told us about several options outside of town who had called to say they had availability.

By the time we ended up at the guesthouse, the entire day had passed. We were tired, exhausted, and hungry. Reality was dawning that we would not get to see hardly any of Eger. A big disappointment, for sure, because Eger seemed like a really cute town. It is known as Hungary’s Baroque jewel box. Plus it has thermal springs.

Although there was talk of devoting the evening to touring the town, we stuck with our priorities and headed for the Valley of Beautiful Women after grabbing something to eat. (For future of reference of anyone who travels to Eger: there are restaurants close to the Valley, so you do not need to head into the old town as we did if you don’t want). The Valley is a collection of wine cellars in a horse shoe shape.

The wine, made on premises at many of the cellars, is cheap. Supposedly you can take a plastic jug to be filled with wine straight from the barrel, but we just tried the different wines by the glass. For $2 or $3 dollars, you could have two very large glasses of wine. We didn’t see any beautiful women, per se, but we did drink many delicious wines.

USA! USA! USA!

I don’t think I realized what a high pitch squeal I have, at least when cheering for sports, until we watched the United States play Slovenia in the World Cup.  We found ourselves in Bovec, Slovenia on the afternoon of the game, which is a small town in the mountains consisting of less than 2000 inhabitants.  The pouring rain dashed any hopes of watching the game at the big screen television set up on Bovec’s main street.  We only had about two or three other options, so we ducked into a local bar and found a spot towards the back of the room.

We quickly realized that we would probably stay incognito until the United States scored, as everyone was focused intently on the game.  Plus, despite all our tough talk on the way to the bar, I realized that I am a wuss and did not have the guts to barge in a bar full of Slovenians chanting, USA! USA! USA!

In the first half, Slovenia looked strong.  We watched the bar go wild when Slovenia scored a goal.

Then, in the second half, it happened.  The United States scored.  Sean and I both let out cheers from the back of the room.  Only the two people in front of us whipped around to face us and not the whole bar, as I had feared.  Luckily, they were pleasant and did not run us out of the bar.  Although I had notions of good natured ribbing and cross-cultural interactions, this World Cup business was serious, especially for a small country like Slovenia.  No matter how good Slovenian athletes may be, there are simply less of them.  For a country as small as Slovenia, who had a scrappy fight to qualify for the World Cup in the first place, it must be frustrating to not beat the United States in a sport that is so huge in Slovenia, yet so insignificant in the United States.  I almost started wishing Slovenia could win, but then my American competitiveness and pride kicked in.  As it turns out, Slovenia and America tied, leaving many of the Slovenians glum.  What did you think of the game? we were asked.  Slovenia was robbed, they said, even though it was the United States who had what would have been the winning goal taken away from them for no apparent reason.  I’m just glad we weren’t around the following week when the United States scored a winning goal against Algeria at the last minute.  America’s win caused it to edge past Slovenia to advance to the next round along with England.  Luckily, we were long gone by then.

[And unfortunately, before I got to post this, the US was knocked out by Ghana.  So that’s that.]

Whirlwind Weekend in Munich

Even though I had only seen her once since we graduated from college, my friend Abbie generously hosted us at her apartment for a weekend in Munich.  Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I knew that Abbie moved to Munich a year ago to work as a scientist. (Isn’t it fun to say that someone is a scientist?  And she really is).  I thought it would be fun to see her and to take a little foray into Germany en route from the Czech Republic to Slovenia.  The whole weekend was a whirlwind, starting with us blowing into Munich Friday afternoon and ending with us blowing out of Munich Monday morning, complete with a mad dash to jump on the train only seconds before it started moving.

From Munchen

In between those times, we had a lot of fun hanging out with Abbie and hearing about her new German lifestyle.  She passed on some of the insights about Germany that can only be gained from living there instead of just passing through.  It was nice to have our own personal tour guide.  She made sure that we got a proper tour of Munich, which included visiting a beer garden, walking through Englischer Gardens, seeing Munich’s may pole (a giant pole neighboring towns used to steal from each other), and rubbing the well worn noses of three lions outside a palace for good luck.  On Saturday, we hit the autobahn in Abbie’s car to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (more on that later) and a monastery with tasty beers brewed by monks.  (We learned, by the way, that there is no such thing as The Autobahn, just many autobahns).

As we walked around Friday evening, it seemed the whole city was abuzz.  The late day sun was still shining, and apparently it had been the first really nice day in ages.

Hailing from Pittsburgh, of course I love rivers.  One of my favorite things about Munich was the river was so accessible to everyone.  It ran right through Englishcher Gardens (what we would call a park) and was almost like a big stream.  Although Germans apparently have a lot of rules, we learned that they don’t always follow them, as demonstrated by the groups of teenagers frolicking in the water close to a sign forbidding swimming in the river.  (Including one group of three boys signing Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver, despite being a long, long way from West Virginia).

In the grassy areas next to the river banks, kids were taking advantage of Germany’s lax alcohol laws to throw a riverside party.

Further on down the river, we watched the river surfers navigate the rushing waters on their surfboards.

Bikes are prevalent everywhere in Europe, but it seemed everyone had a bike in Munich.  People sailed past us on their bicycles, dinging their bells so we would get out of their way.  No matter how many times I accidentally walk in the bike path, much to the chagrin of bikers worldwide, I always have a delayed reaction to the dinging bells.

We had visited a beer garden in Prague, but it felt more like we were crashing someone’s backyard cookout than a public gathering place.  Munich’s beer gardens are notorious places, always situated under big chestnut trees, with big crowds drinking giant 1 liter beers.  We ate pretzels, currywurst, and a cheese dip at what Abbie said was a proper beer garden: one with long benches and shared tables, covered with chestnut trees, where you could bring your own food if you choose to do so.

And of course we drank giant beers (we are both German, after all), and learned the proper way to cheers someone.

Besides the good weather, we suspected that everyone’s good moods had something to do with it being the opening weekend of the World Cup.  The soccer fever was everywhere.

Most of the cars and houses proudly displayed German flags.  We watched the United States tie England at a cookout at Abbie’s apartment with her group of friends, a fun crowd hailing everywhere from Germany to Portugal to New Zealand.  Their excitement over the World Cup was contagious.  There was a mixed group in terms of who was rooting for and against the United States, mostly due to whether a US win would benefit their fantasy soccer teams or not.

Being avid American football fans, it wasn’t hard for us to get into the World Cup, so we tried to learn as much as we could from Abbie and her friends to prepare us for the next month.  Like most Americans, we know very little about professional soccer.  I think Abbie’s friend Katrin is right: without commercial breaks, soccer will never make it big in the United States.  I will say, although the commercial breaks during football games at home border on the absurd at times, it is nice to have one now and again for a bathroom break, particularly when drinking giant beers.  (Seriously, it is easy to get quite tipsy when you are drinking beers by the half liter, as many of the German beers come.  I find it amusing that when Germans feel they have had too much to drink, they don’t stop drinking or start drinking less.  Instead, they just water down their beers with lemonade – a tasty drink known as a Radler).  The next night, we watched Germany beat Australia 4-0.  Even to our novice eyes, we could tell that the German players had much fancier footwork than the American players.

And of course I would be remiss to mention three other favorite aspects of the weekend: Abbie’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, Floyd, and Mr. Monk.

Thanks, Abbie, for giving us a window into life in Munich and for sharing your stash of imported chocolate chips and your kitties.