Making Places Real

Plagued by violence for so long, Belfast is reduced on the news and in music to a city dominated by the Troubles.  Van Morrison, a native of Belfast, is one of the few singers who sing about the good things in Belfast.  We visited two places that appear in Van Morrison’s songs.  One of my favorite parts of traveling is when dots on a map or names in a song become real, living places.

Hyndford Street

Take me back, take me way, way, way back
On Hyndford Street…

This is the street where Van Morrison was born and raised.  Much as it was when Van Morrison was growing up, the street is in the middle of a working-class neighborhood with small, sensible houses.

Cyprus Avenue

And I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue…

Near Hyndford Street, Cyprus Avenue stands out from the others around it.  Many years ago, a developer envisioned a grand avenue.  He planted big cyprus trees lining the street that would someday grow into big, stately trees, providing shade and magnificence to the avenue.  The homes there are not mansions, but are considerably bigger than the houses on Hyndford Street.  Apparently, Van Morrison used to go to Cyprus Avenue to daydream, and later wrote a song about the avenue.

Get Out the Map

Before I left, Sally, one of my favorite lawyers that I worked with at my old firm, told me a story about how one time her and her husband just got into the car and drove without a plan.  There is something romantic about meandering about aimlessly.  I’ve always daydreamed about going to an airport and picking the next flight out of town, no matter what its destination.

As much as we have more flexibility on this trip than most Americans have when they travel, we still typically have some semblance of a plan, even if we end up changing it later.  As romantic as travelling without a plan sounds, I can’t bring myself to do it completely.  To truly travel freely, you need to not care where you go.  You need to not care how long you stay somewhere or what you see.  You also need to not care how much money you spend.  We probably planned less than most; I always dreamed of going somewhere, but never the specifics once we got to somewhere.  We used all of our pre-trip planning time just to have a rough idea of the countries we wanted to visit.  People kept asking me before we left, so, where are you going to visit in Japan?  In South Africa?  In Spain? I never had an answer.  This means we do most of our planning on the fly.  Although we usually procrastinate in making our plans, eventually we always come up with something.  It is too hard otherwise, especially if you want to find efficient, low-cost flights, or go somewhere in certain seasons, or sometimes to even get into a country.  I still have not shed my anxious, perfectionist self enough to truly throw all plans out the window.

But sometimes it is fun to truly not care where you will be for the next few days, to pick your next destination by where your finger lands on the map.  The first time we didn’t really have a concrete plan was when everyone left us in Kilkenny to fly home.  Our friends kept asking us where we were going after they left.  It is a foreign concept to not have a planned itinerary for travel to Americans who are used to making the most out of limited time.  Compared to our friends, and compared to our pre-trip selves, after four months of travel, we were now becoming somewhat used to not knowing where we were sleeping that night (even if there are some days I am not entirely comfortable with that concept).  Sitting in the car in Kilkenny, we kept asking each other, so, where should we go? We had just shy of two weeks before we had to return the rental car in Dublin to travel wherever we wanted in Ireland, with our only goal of wanting to eventually head up to Northern Ireland.  We hadn’t even booked our tickets to South Africa yet (or really decided exactly where we wanted to go in Africa).

We decided to head north straight away through a mountain pass marked as scenic on our map, and then make a detour over to the part of the penninsula past Galway we hadn’t seen.  The sad truth is, going someplace random means that, more often than not, you end up in towns like Birr.  Situated square in the middle of Ireland, Birr, and the surrounding areas, lack the dramatic scenery of the coasts.  Best I can tell, Birr’s claim to fame is that the first automobile fatality occurred there when an early model car collided with a horse and buggy.  Our options for dining on a Saturday night were Indian or miscellaneous Asian food.  Birr would have been a good town to check out local pub life, because surely there were no other tourists there, had we not been detoxing after the ten days with our friends from home.  Birr is a perfectly fine town, but sometimes there is a reason why certain areas are touristy and others are not.

Josh Ritter: in Ireland!

“I play rock ’n’ roll with lots of words.” – Josh Ritter.

Anyone who knows me, and anyone who pays attention to this blog (Hi, Mom!) knows that I absolutely, completely, love Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band.

I’ve seen Josh Ritter and his band play in some pretty cool places. Club Cafe in Pittsburgh, before they got “big.” (Big being relative, because they still aren’t anywhere near big). At a free concert in downtown Salt Lake City, and, later that same week, at the Mile High Music Festival in Denver. With the New York City Pops backing the band in Central Park.

But, without a doubt, my favorite show was the one we saw at the Galway Arts Festival. Maybe it was because it had been a while since we heard really, really good live music. (The guy with the green plastic kazoo later that night notwithstanding). Maybe it was because we were part of the biggest crowd in front of which Sean and I had ever seen the band play. Maybe it was because the band seemed really on that night. Maybe it was because they love Josh Ritter and the band in Ireland, and so do I.

As my cousin Karen would say, Josh Ritter makes my heart happy. I’m not the first person to say it, and I won’t be the last: Josh’s smile is downright infectious. You can’t help but smile too.

Our friend McIntyre joined us for the show. Is he on drugs, he wanted to know? No, I said. He’s always like that.

From the moment the band took the stage with bright lights bouncing to the beat of Lantern, from the new album, to the encore, which included one of my favorites, Snow is Gone, there was energy in the air. One or two songs from one of their older albums, The Golden Age of Radio, usually sneaks in, but is rare to hear Roll On and Me and Jiggs, more favorites of mine. The new album was well represented, of course, but so were the last couple of albums. I always like to hear what sort of creative spin the band puts on Harrisburg, a song born to be played live. I certainly was not expecting an insertion of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game sung by Zack Hickman, the bassist.  And, I’m not sure, but I swear I heard a bit of the Talking Head’s Once in a Lifetime as well.

I had been wanting to see Josh and the band play in Ireland for a long time. The show in Galway will definitely be one of my highlights of the trip.

“On a good night anywhere else in the world feels like Ireland and that’s all I can aspire to have.” – Josh Ritter

Brand New Day

When I look back at our photos from Ireland, I am struck by how many of the 19 days we spent there were gray.   We couldn’t agree on whether it felt more like spring or fall, but it sure didn’t feel like summer. Some nights it was so cold you could see your breath. Rain, at least a misting, was an almost daily occurrence. Weather was a big topic of conversation, even though there never seemed to be anything new to say about it.

On our first day, with the rain pelting me sideways, I thought, god, why in the world do people like this country?

It didn’t take me too long to figure out.

When all the dark clouds roll away
And the sun begins to shine
I see my freedom from across the way
And it comes right in on time
Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light
And it comes from the sky above
Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me
And lights my life with love

And it seems like and it feels like
And it seems like yes it feels like
A brand new day, yeah
A brand new day oh

I was lost and double crossed
With my hands behind my back
I was longtime hurt and thrown in the dirt
Shoved out on the railroad track
I’ve been used, abused and so confused
And I had nowhere to run
But I stood and looked
And my eyes got hooked
On that beautiful morning sun

And it seems like and it feels like
And it seems like yes it feels like
A brand new day, yeah
A brand new day oh

And the sun shines down all on the ground
Yeah and the grass is oh so green
And my heart is still and I’ve got the will
And I don’t really feel so mean
Here it comes, here it comes
0 here it comes right now
And it comes right in on time
Well it eases me and it pleases me
And it satisfies my mind

Kodachrome

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don’t take my Kodachrome away