Ireland

The penultimate post- concluding thoughts and observations to follow.

I went to Ireland for a week, and since I was with my brother James we stayed in nice places and ate (and drank) very well. The first stop was Belfast, the Northern Irish city whose 20^th-century struggles with violent sectarianism are known to many. The city has made a huge effort to clean up its image and market itself to visitors, and I must admit it was nothing like what I expected. The nightlife was definitely visible and the CBD seemed dense, but an almost small-town charm could also be felt in Belfast. One evening we went to a great Indian place claiming to be “Ireland’s first curry house”, and the next night we found a cozy pub with live traditional music. One day was almost entirely spent on a day-trip to the Giants Causeway, which also had stops at the Bushmills Distillery for lunch and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. The Causeway was definitely worth seeing, and the Antrim Coast Road was beautiful in its own right, but I do wish I had spent another day in Belfast itself, before catching the train down to Dublin. James said he actually preferred Belfast to its larger Southern counterpart, although I’m not quite sure. 

In Dublin we visited the Guinness distillery, which is a seven-story building shaped like a pint glass. Entry is something like €12 ($15), but that gets you a free pint at the bar on the top floor, which has great views of the city. Another day was spent in the seaside village of Howth, north of the city, which has a great hiking trail along the cliffs which border the Irish Sea. Since I needed to mail some things, we had an excuse to visit the Dublin General Post Office, an important site in the Easter Rising of 1916 (the exterior columns famously still have visible bullet-marks on them) which now also houses a small museum. A literary pub crawl on the last evening left me incredibly tired and hung-over for my 6:30am flight back to Edinburgh, but was definitely worth it. I don’t know many other people who have downed pints in Davy Byrnes’ Pub, a favorite of James Joyce. Overall, to my American eyes and ears, Dublin seemed a lot like a UK city, with a number of distinctively (maybe deliberately) Irish symbols. The use of Irish Gaelic alongside English on most public signs, for example, was very interesting but seemed more like a conscious effort to show nationalistic pride than a convenience to Irish Gaelic monoglots (which I’m reasonably certain don’t exist).  But to conclude, I hugely enjoyed the trip, and I’d like to see more of Ireland one day. Nothing beats sitting in a Dublin pub and hearing a local band play “Galway Girl” while you reflect on the history of this island, and its influence on Britain, America and elsewhere. 

Giants Causeway (photo credit: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/369) 

                                                     

Belfast from the hills to the west (photo credit: www.odysseycoachtours.co.uk)                      

The top of the pint glass at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, where you get a free pint and great views (photo credit: http://www.free-city-guides.com/dublin/guinness-storehouse/)               

 

 Davy Byrnes' pub, probably on Bloomsday (photo credit: http://www.stay.com/dublin/bar-pub/11873/davy-byrne-s/)

Turkey

 Here goes part 1 of my 3-part, way overdue conclusion to the travel blog. Part 2 will focus on my trip to Ireland, and part 3 will be a summary of some things I have observed and concluded. Here goes.

The truth is, neither of us really knew what to expect in Istanbul. The old saying about being where "East meets West" is certainly true, although the West involved here is Eastern Europe, which is very different from the West that an American is used to. I guess my point is, the place actually felt more Eastern than either Tiz or I was expecting. What do I mean? 

Before we ever stepped foot into our hotel, we were accidentally treated to a taxi ride into a residential area far from the touristy city center, a region called Eyüp. It was a fascinating half hour or so, since there was not a Westerner in sight and the streets were busy and narrow and and clogged with schoolboys playing soccer and you had to honk at them to create just enough space to barely squeeze through. By the time we and our driver realized that he had taken us to the wrong Piyerloti Caddesi (Road), Tiz and I both knew that we had already experienced the most culture shock of anywhere we would see. And we were right, as most of our remaining time was spent doing touristy things in the largely Westernized Sultanahment district. 

But even there, you didn't feel like you were in the West really. The call to prayer which echoed from every nearby mosque (and there were many) often served as a reminder of this. Several times we had settled into a nice dinner at a European-style restaurant only to have this fascinating, melodic chanting shake us from that feeling of familiarity with our surroundings. Part of the charm of Istanbul is that you always feel like you have to be on your toes. 

I'll be brief when discussing the touristy sites we visited: they were all as incredible as I expected. In particular the Hagia Sophia (20 TL, about $11 or £7) was great; how could a 1500-year old Byzantine church turned Ottoman mosque turned modern museum not be?  We also loved the Grand Bazaar, a massive indoor market which was the trading center of the Ottoman Empire starting in the 1400s. It's crazy to imagine yourself in a bustling marketplace where once people from all over the empire, Budapest to Baghdad, came to buy and sell their goods. Americans might think of Turkey as peripheral in this modern age, but this place was once the center of the universe, and that feeling is unmistakable. Also, it's the custom to haggle over prices at the Grand Bazaar, and that was a good bit of fun too. 

If you have any questions about traveling to Istanbul (what to see, safety tips, etc.) feel free to comment below or ask me in person if you get the chance. Photos below. 

 

 Inside the Hagia Sophia

 

a very small part of the Grand Bazaar

 Turkish sweets- so good!

 

 Tiz inside the Sultanahmet (Blue Mosque)- head coverings for women are mandatory!

 

 çay (the same word as chai, the tea) - Turkish tea with those delightfully shaped glasses

 

the rooftop restaurant on our final evening- the views were amazing