If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you may get the impression that I’m living a free and easy expat life, traveling at the drop of a hat around Europe and spending every evening at the pub.
That’s true in some ways. I have been able to travel, but my travels are very dependent on my limited income (and where my friends have relatives). Yes, it’s been lovely to escape the freedom of a 9-to-5 job this year, but that also means I struggle sometimes with a sense of purpose and validation when my housemate comes in exhausted from her teaching job and I’ve just been sitting around the house all day working on articles and tidying the kitchen. It also means that I don’t have regular income or health insurance!
And yes, I do often end up at the pub with my friends of an evening, but that’s only after I’ve finished stacking chairs, emptying the bathroom trash cans and vacuuming up after a church service; or helping to lead a small group for young adults; or running a Sunday morning program for 45 hyper pre-teens.
For the real truth is that I’m doing real work here in England, and I thought it might be time for me to start sharing some of the emotional and physical struggles that have accompanied this experience. I made a major life change to spend a year in England, and the transition hasn’t been without its difficulties.
My trip to Ireland may have been short and centered around Dublin, but I saw and did an amazing amount of great stuff in three days.
Dublin itself was a vibrant and compelling city with a fantastic vibe. I could've spent days exploring the museums and historic sites, along with eating my way through the restaurants and hanging out in the shops. It was, however, expensive, but this view over the River Liffey, running through the city centre was, thankfully, free.
The trouble with keeping up this blog is that I'm supposed to post regularly, even when I don't think I've got anything to say. Now, the idea that I have nothing to say right now is quite ridiculous, considering my last few days. I've seen marvelous things. Maybe not quite as marvelous as all that Howard Carter saw when he first peeked into Tutankhamun's tomb (I think "marvelous things" is the phrase he reputedly used), but pretty darn marvelous anyway. It's just that my last few days have been so chock full of experiences it is difficult to put them into words and not to simply resort to an itinerary. And since I've been going now for several days straight, I am very tired and my frazzled brain wants sleep and order and time to let these experiences "marinate," as my 7th-grade algebra teacher used to suggest when we'd learn a new concept like FOIL.
Probably the most marvelous sight was viewing the Book of Kells and the Long Room in the library at Trinity College Dublin. But I also saw the prehistoric sites mentioned before, including the engineering marvel of Newgrange, with a stone roof so carefully constructed that not a drop of water has leaked in during the 5,000 or so years it's been around. I saw the Georgian Dublin Castle, which was pretty cool, but also the remains of 11th century Viking castle built underneath it, which was very cool. I walked about a vibrant, verdant, expensive, bustling city, popping into shops and eating at great restaurants. I saw an impressive display of stone and bronze age items at Dublin's Natural History museum.
Just a brief posting today from a stool perched before the very green walls in Paddy's Palace hostel, right in downtown Dublin. The walls of this lounge are painted kelly green, the walls in our hostel room were a pale lime green, the curtain on the window was just plain green, the elevated train running outside the hostel is grass green, the leftover St. Patrick's Day decorations hanging around the hostel are shiny green, and the lampshade is made up of metallic four-leaf clovers. Green ones, of course. I do love green, but it could all get a bit nauseating except for one thing--it's so fun! Just in case I missed it, I am in Ireland, and the green is here to tell me so.
I've found, though, that tourist trappings aside, Ireland truly is a verdant, lush, velvety green, even in March. We flew in yesterday to Dublin, picked up a rental car and promptly drove to Newgrange and Knowth neolithic sites. These burial and ceremonial mounds were built between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, and it was truly thrilling to visit them and marvel at the stone age carvings on the massive stones holding the mounds up. It was terribly windy and cold, with intermittent sleet showers, but when the sun came out it was simply gorgeous. I stood in the midst of the mounds gazing at the brilliant green carpets around me. (I'll post photos once I get back to Nottingham).
We drove back along the coast and stopped for a pub dinner in Skerries, an old Viking port. We arrived at low tide and clambered out on to the beach, shivering all the while in the fierce wind, but marveling at the purple and pink sunset clouds and the rainbow rays cast upon the whitecaps. Warmed by a hearty meal of pub burgers and fish 'n chips, we returned to Dublin to crash in our green, green room in this green, green land.
Now to see the Book of Kells and sundry other wonders!
I'm going to Ireland tomorrow with a few friends, and will be returning Wednesday evening, so I don't think I'll be able to post until Thursday, unless we have time to stop into an Internet cafe. But do check back fro stories and photos!
We tucked into an unbelievable Easter dinner at my house today: braised pork, red cabbage, roasted butternut squash, mashed potatoes, fennel, bread, cheese, chocolates, wine and more. Luckily I worked up an appetite this morning by helping with Easter activities for the children's department at my church. First we directeed 35 9- to 11-year-olds to build Easter gardens, complete with potting soil, live pansy and "empty tomb" made out of a paper cup. Then came large-group activities with more than 100 other children, including a special Easter presentation and an Easter quiz. I must admit I helped the small group of girls I was working with get special recognition for knowing the answer to "What annual sporting event is held every Easter on the White House lawn?" (The Easter egg roll, of course!)
I also discovered that English children don't receive Easter baskets. Although Easter is, on the whole, more widely recognized as a holiday here (most employees are off on Good Friday, and Easter Monday is a bank holiday), they don't give Easter baskets. Instead, children receive chocolate Easter eggs. I've yet to discover if British children actually hard boil real eggs and dye them, the way we always did at my house.
Yesterday I made another lovely excursion to the neighboring county of Derbyshire. Unfortunately, yesterday finally ended the long chain of golden sunlit days we've been so enjoying here in Nottinghamshire, even while the rest of Britain has been gripped with big storms and high winds. However, I wasn't too surprised, since I was also in Derbyshire on a rainy day about two weeks ago and an English friend said that day, "Rain in Derbyshire, how predictable!"
Yet I've found that Derbyshire, home to the Peak District national park, is equally beautiful on rainy grey spring and winter days as it is on bright summer and autumn days.
The train station is near my house, so every once in awhile I wake up and hear an especially noisy or fast train passing. Once in awhile, the house will even shake a tad, and since my bedroom has three exposed walls and is at the top of the house, I'll notice it.
That's what I thought it was when I woke up just before 1 a.m. to the sound of a very deep rumbling so loud it filled the room. But I quickly realized the train would have to be in the garden to make that much noise, and even so it could never make the room vibrate back and forth like it was doing. It was so noisy and the house was shaking so much that I wondered if it was some sort of wind storm. If so, it had to be a tornado. I'll admit that I was frankly terrified, because it felt like the entire, 200-year-old, brick house was about to come down. After a few moments the shaking and rumbling subsided and I ran to the window to see the storm. Yet all was still. Finally, the penny dropped. Was it an earthquake?
Yes, I found out this morning, it was a 5.3 magnitude quake with an epicenter in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, only 50 miles from Nottingham. Britain had just experienced its strongest earthquake since 1984, and plenty others were terrified, too. As this BBC story reports, there was slight damage to hundreds of homes and people nearest the epicenter actually got of bed and streamed onto the street in their dressing gowns (bathrobes).
I'm back in Nottingham now and back to real life, but real life is still pretty good.
I generally have Sunday dinner (or lunch, a hallowed British tradition) with the wonderful family I am living with, but this week everyone was away so I joined two of my friends for a leisurely lunch at the Victoria Hotel, affectionately known as "The Vic." The Vic is one of the very best locals around (a local is, appropriately enough, what the locals call the local public house). I've been before for drinks, but never for a meal. The food was stunning and the afternoon ideal.
The joys of a holiday in Scotland continue. I'm really enjoying staying in a big, luxurious lodge. Don't get me wrong--I love camping. But in this big house we all take turns making delicious meals for one another and get good nights of sleep and hot water, and the steam room, sauna and spa are just down the path at the hotel.
But I also love that there's a veritable playground for outdoorsy types like me just outside the door, from mountains and rivers to villages and even a big city.
Hooray! I've finally figured out the photo upload tool. And now that our international group has dined on delicious gnocchi concocted by the Dane and one of the Brits, it's time to share a few pix from yesterday's mountaineering adventure.
The fact that I am even posting right now means I am dedicated to this blog and dedicated to this job. My fellow sojourners on this Scotland adventure have all gone to bed, despite the fact that it's just 10:30...Tom & Linea, Kristen, Neil & Kathryn, Dave (unless he's been mauled by an otter) are all happily sleeping by now.
I am knackered, as they say here, or absolutely exhausted, after a 14 kilometer (8.7 mile) tramp over rough terrain up to the top of snowy, ice-capped glacial mountains down to shimmering, barely-thawed Loch Muir, followed by a massive plate of spaghetti bolognese, a glass of red wine and a slice of walnut cake. It was a very good day, but one that's left us absolutely shattered.
Sorry for yesterday's silence. I was en route to the Scottish Highlands. At the moment I'm perched next to a giant wall of windows in the second floor of the lodge I'm renting with six others. I'm gazing out the window at a stunning vista of pine-covered hills, with higher mountains rising beyond. The highest peaks of the Cairngorm mountains are capped with snow! It's a lovely, sunny day and we're all about to go exploring.
I'm staying at Craigendarroch on the Royal Deeside, near the Queen's Balmoral Castle and outside the village of Ballater. We're about an hour southwest of Aberdeen, the "Granite City" on northern Scotland's eastern coast, from which about 70 oil rigs drill into the North Sea. It took us about 8 hours yesterday to drive from Nottingham to Aberdeen, where we picked up one girl who'd flown in from Denmark, then we headed back to this resort. It was a gorgeous drive on a sun-filled day. I exclaimed many times over the beauty of the countryside as we drove from the Midlands up through the Lake District, finally crossing into the Scottish Lowlands and passing through the city of Glasgow before turning towards Aberdeen.
At Christmastime my English friends liberally sprinkled me with Christmas cards, so I rather expected the same on Valentine's Day. After all, at home I usually exchange cards with some close friends and we share around the chocolate and conversation hearts while admiring the roses from those with significant others who are smart enough to realize that yes, Valentine's Day is a commercial holiday, but we still want flowers.
However, I discovered last week that Valentine's Day, while a big deal in Britain and just as over-hyped and commercialized in the U.S., is just about romantic love on this side of the pond. It's a good thing I learned this before heading to the grocery store in search of fold-and-stick Thomas the Tank Engine children's cards to give out to my friends for a laugh. In England, though, I've been told that the only folks who exchange cards are couples. And, in fact, most cards are delivered anonymously.
I am accustomed to suffering winter for long periods of time. Or accustomed to not even having winter at all. That's because I lived in the Minneapolis suburbs until I was 9, and then our family moved to lovely Mesa, Arizona. When I was 18, I journeyed back to Minnesota for college and spent the next four years living a truly upside-down existence with my winters in frigid St. Paul (not recommended) and my summers in the boiling Arizona desert (also not recommended). Shortly after that, I moved to Chicago, where you poor folks are once again in the grip of subzero temperatures after a winter that has been, I hear, one of the worst in recent memory.
I also spent short stints in Spain and Washington, D.C., both of which places unrolled particularly nasty weather for me. Perhaps because of these experiences, I love talking about the weather. It's not a cliche to me, but a fascinating subject, and I think most native Minnesotans and Chicagoans would agree with me.
But now I am in England and I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that spring is getting close! Yes, it's true. While it had been raining for days when I wrote my Nottingham travel story, I am currently sitting in a patch of warm sunlight pouring in through the window at the top of the stairs. It's the third day of lovely warm, sunny pleasantness with still more to come.
