Dublin's Fair City

We flew in to Dublin early. I think we got there about nine, but I can't honestly remember. Ireland's meant to be like that: all the fun you can't remember. We caught a taxi driven by the nicest old man who told about three jokes to the mile. Kilometer, since we were in the Euro Zone, but I'm not converting this metaphor.

Dublin: Where the street is actually paved with Guinness

He dropped us off outside our hostel, the Generator, and warned us to be careful: there was a big demonstration today in the city center. We tipped him and dropped our bags off and then wandered out into the city.
The first thing we came across was a large playground game in the middle of the street that essentially played like Bop-It. You remember Bop-it, from when you were a kid? Allison got her ass kicked, but I'll give her a break since she essentially woke up in a different country. We wandered a bit further, crossed the River Liffey and found ourselves at Ireland's oldest pub, the Brazen Head. It's been open since 1198. I have no idea why the beers haven't gone flat, but the staff was holding up well considering that this shift has been going on for 814 years.

Also home to Ireland's oldest drunk

Inside there was already a good crowd. I suppose that makes sense, since it was a fairly rainy Saturday and any warmth was good warmth. A group of guys in their thirties were on their second or third round of Guinnesses, and a man who looked suspiciously like my uncle Mike was lilting at the top of his voice. You could still barely hear him over everyone else's laughter. We figured when in Rome drink like the Romans do, and thus began a three day affair with Guinness stout. Well, for me and Allison, anyway, Laura hates the stuff.

My first pint in Ireland.

We finished the pints and headed out for a walking tour with some of Allison's friends from school, who were studying in London. We saw the town hall, the Castle, and the old viking artifacts, and Trinity College to name a few. Did you know that the Trinity College charter allows the Dean of the school (a position once held by Jonathan Swift) to shoot the Pope with a crossbow if he ever sets foot on Campus? Also, the Jedi library from the Star Wars prequels is modeled on their old library. Another thing we saw was about a dozen churches. It's true what they say; you can't throw a rock in Dublin without smashing a church window. There's cathedrals built by both the Guinness and Jameson families, and while we didn't sit mass there, we paid our homage to the two families with more direct worship.

A Church for what Ales you

The next day, in fact, started at the old Jameson distillery, which was right around the corner from our hostel. Nothing like booze in walking distance. They've preserved the distillery and they walk you through the original process of making whiskey. Jameson's, and consequently most Irish whiskeys, are distilled three times, rather than two (Scotch Whisky) or one (American Whiskey). At the end, we volunteered to do a little taste test, but I still love the smokey taste that peat gives to Scottish Whisky. All the same, they made us official whiskey tasters. Well, they spelled my name Tommy Pears, but close enough, I figure.

The next thing I remember was trying to drive out the British government

The next stop was the Museum of Irish Writers. This is housed in a mansion ironically owned by one of John Jameson's grandsons, and he lived in it while he oversaw the factory operations. We read all about Wilde, and Shaw, and Lady Gregory. I really loved the bits on Joyce, and I felt guilty for never having sat down to read Ulysses. I also realized I needed to catch up on my Irish theater, particularly in the way of Wilde and Shaw. Incidentally, on our way to the Guinness factory, we passed a homeless man who looked exactly like George Bernard Shaw. He waited for us to pass where he was sitting so he could throw an empty Jameson bottle (I don't know how he afforded this) into the street. Actually, someone should check and see if he's dead, that easily could have been him.
The next stop as I said was Guinness. This was beautiful. They've gutted the factory, although they still have a museum to show how everything once operated. Comically, there are five different pubs in the building, so we could've done a pub crawl without ever going outside. the view from the top is panoramic, although that is a bit useless when it rains all day and the sun sets at 4:30. Really, the city was as dark as a stout fresh from the tap, and it smells similarly.

If this is true I may live forever

On our last day we did a lot of loose ends of tourism; saw the Molly Malone statue, walked through the Temple Bar district, got a final pint at the Brazen head and tried to fit a pub crawl into the space of about an hour and a half (total success, by the way). Our flight was early, and there wasn't really enough time to see all of the city. With Dublin, there's not enough time in your life to see everything. Still, I loved my time in the city of Writers and Rebels. Slainte.

Molly Malone: Not just the girl Calvin King and I sing about on March 17

Wishful Drinking at the Alloa Brewfest

November is maybe the strangest time to host an event called Octoberfest. When I crawled out of bed around eleven it was already cold, which is warm for Scotland. I was running late so I showered and threw on clothes and crawled blinking into the lack of sunlight. My friends were waiting for me outside of Ash and we all headed down the hill to catch a bus to the train station in Stirling. There was no rush; it wasn't even noon yet.

We all tried sleeping on the train, although I don't remember anyone actually doing it. It would've been rather pointless since it's a half hour trip to Alloa. The train stopped and we all stumbled out--almost everyone on it was a student heading here for cheap beer.

Liam wanted to stop and get food at ASDA, which I agreed to since I also hadn't eaten and didn't want to drink on an empty stomach. Liam's a longhaired little teenager who's always shamelessly hitting people up for money and is in perpetual debt to his friends. I like him because he reminds me a lot of me at his age. We found cheap bacon rolls and milkshakes, which he insisted on. I was to tired to protest on the grounds that milk and alcohol are notorious enemies. As it turns out a milkshake here is just thick flavored milk, so we were fine either way. I can't imagine how he'll react to a real milkshake when he visits the states.

We rejoined the crowd and made our way to Alloa's town hall. Alloa's a small town in Fife Valley that doesn't really have anything, but today it had beer. Beer from all over Scotland. Beers with names like 'Demon Dark' and 'Movember Foxtrot' and 'Tempest.' We paid our fees and they shuffled us into the hall, which I think was built between the wars. Judging by the heating, those wars would be the Hundred Years and the English Civil War, respectively. They handed out commemorative pint glasses in lieu of tickets, and cards with little circles representing different monetary values to pay with. This would save the barkeeps time in dealing with cash. There must've been a hundred beers on draft. All the local breweries from across the valley were here, and some from farther away. Our local, the Alanwater, was represented by their brewery, Tinpot, with an Earl Grey Pot. But where's the fun in drinking the familiar?

Tap Out

It was maybe half noon, but probably earlier, and all of the tables were full. We staked out a corner, and then made our way in rounds to the bar for half pints. Half pints were easier since you got to taste more.  My first was a heavy that tasted like coffee, which seemed fitting since it was essentially morning. Two more chased quite well, one of them an 'American Pale Ale,' if that exists. I can't remember what it was called, only that it had 'horse' in the name. 

Wishful Drinking

We loafed a bit, bought steak pies with mushy peas from the concession. A white-haired woman and her husband were doling out food on styrofoam plates. The scene reminded me of church fundraisers when I was a kid, or watching my aunt boil hotdogs at basketball games in Ohio, even though the fare was worlds away.

George misunderstands the term 'Beer Goggles'

Eventually we found a table to sit at, across from a redhead from North Carolina and a Canadian in spiky heels that would give Lady Gaga pause. By this time I was into the second half of a high-yield pumpkin ale, and not afraid to say 'Thanks for Metric and not much else.' She hadn't gone quite as quickly as the rest of us, but still couldn't think of much to say. I don't know what they teach school kids North of the border, but politeness is usually just what weakness looks like in a tie. George had been told there would be a band, although this turned out to be a lie. Emma sat snapping pictures, which was incessant but proved to be quite useful. I don't remember what Carolyn was doing but I assume it was outdrinking us all.

A life of crime at the chippey

By about six it looked like midnight, so we started to make our way home. We stopped in at a chippey on the way to the station and I got another pie, this one scotch. We had to wait at the station for the better (or really worse) part of an hour and it was cold and German tourists took up half the waiting room and the metal chairs were too uncomfortable to sleep in. On the train back, though, we were silly and George stole my hat and we tried to eat Carolyn. We were back by about eight bemoaning the fact that it was so early and we were so sleepy. We continued our whining all the way to the union bar where we bought jagerbombs and Tennets to wash out the good tastes lingering in our mouths.

Unrepentant Beer Drinkers

All (or at least most) photo credits go to Emma Simpson, who looks like this after about four pints.

Barcelona

So I've been a bit busy recently. Specifically, I had three essays due on Tuesday, which was not fun, and before that I couldn't update this blog because I was in Barcelona. Basically, I'm trying to tell you that I finally have an excuse for not having updated this blog, albeit not a great one.

Anyway, last week was our fall break and I spent mine in Barcelona. It was great to see my Catalan family again. I did have to spend a good part of the week working on my essays, but that's not to say I didn't do anything fun. Without going into too much detail, here's a bunch of photographs from Barcelona.

Sean Connery and Morgan Freeman Love Barcelona

Columbus after I asked for directions

Perhaps the weirdest thing I did while in Barcelona was attend a translation class. Oh, no wait, I put that wrong. The weirdest thing I did while in Barcelona was give a lecture on American history to a translation class. This was surreal, as I gave a six minute speech on American history and then heard my words translated back by about twenty or twenty-five interpretation students. If you've never done this, I'd recommend it, although I can't imagine that opportunities abound for this.

Me, in front of the glass boxes where the interpretation students listened in on headphones

Incidentally, the city was covered in flags for Catalonian independence. On November 25 they vote on whether or not to become their own country. I hate to say it, but it really puts our own election in perspective. On that note: I VOTED. Be jealous, I'm making the democratic process my b----.

Anyway, I returned to Scotland on Sunday night, walking home from Stirling to the Uni through a fog that could only be fairly described as 'Jack-the-Ripper-esque.' Since then, not too much craziness has happened, as a lot of the time's been spent on homework. Wednesday, however was an exception, as much of the floor went out to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Here, see if you can guess who I went as.

All in all, it was a great night, and I'm only sorry that those fake eye-lashes almost destroyed my real ones. In any case, now that my essays are done, I'll be writing more with the Naughty Corner, and traveling a bit more. I'll be in Dublin the weekend after Thanksgiving, and there's talk of a weekend in London before that. More to follow,

Tommy

Full cast. Jealous much?

We Want the Airwaves

So it's been a bit since my last post (which is the standard opening for any post in this blog), but I have been writing quite a bit since the last one. Specifically I've been working on scripts for the radio. Yeah, over here radio still exists, although the campus radio here at Stirling actually only broadcasts online. Anyway.
Before I go any further, let me congratulate my cousin Nate Hyde and his wife Laurie who just a few days ago brought home a beautiful, healthy baby girl named Olivia Belle. I for one can't wait to meet my new first cousin once removed (which I'm pretty sure is how we're related, but to be honest I don't fully understand that system).
Now, the first set of scripts I've been writing has been for the SUDS (student drama) radio program. Basically I banded together with George and Liam (you remember those two, right?) to form a writing group that we've dubbed The Naughty Corner, and we're cranking out comedy sketches as fast as we can. We're hoping that the first batch will air this Sunday, and if they do I'll post the link to the show on facebook. There's nothing quite like teamwork and a complete lack of sleep to accomplish silly, raunchy comedy.

The Naughty Corner, en route to a dangerous SUDS pub crawl (George on the left, Liam hanging off my neck)

Today I also had a meeting with a gentleman from London who's interested in starting a new radio program here that would revolve around an absurdist version of a Scottish university. The idea's quite solid, although I need to develop my own characters more on this one. In any case, it sounds like it'll make for good radio. I'm turning into a hired gun for writing comedy on Airthrey Radio (so named because it records and broadcasts from the basement of Airthrey Castle, located on campus). Honestly, I'm loving every minute of the writing so far, and I can see why someone would want to make a profession of this.

Two hired guns in two hired fezes. I honestly can't explain this photo any further.

One final note before I conclude, and that is to plug the Alan Water Brewhouse, a pub located in Bridge of Alan, the village next to the University. I found them through George and the University Craft Beer society. They serve local beers and ciders that are amazing, cheap, and quite tall. Additionally, they make some of the strangest flavors you can imagine, including one called simply "Marmalade Pot" (don't ask). Nick Hyde (now a proud uncle), if you're ever back in Scotland, I'd highly recommend it. In fact, the whole place sort of screams for you, so get here as fast as you can.
I should probably get going to class now, since that is why I'm here in the first place, but I'll do my best to update this blog and keep everyone apprised of my increasingly strange and wonderful life here in Scotland. Enjoy your Fridays!

The Birthday Weekend, or A Test No Liver Could Be Prepared For

So as per usual, it's been far too long since I've posted, but I wasn't much in a state to write over the weekend because: I TURNED 21. Which isn't that big a deal over here since everyone can drink at 18. Still, the celebrations were great, and because the other Tom from our hall had a birthday on Sunday, we had a party going solid from Thursday to Sunday, which was pretty sick. So without further ado, here's the breakdown on the weekend.

Wednesday
Yeah, like most good weekends, this one started on a Wednesday, albeit at midnight. As soon as the clock turned 12 (turned to 12? Struck 12?) I celebrated with a shot of High Commissioner, which is a relatively nice Scotch that sells pretty cheaply. If you want price breaks, go straight to the source. I also cranked The Ramones "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" from Adios Amigos, mostly out of tradition. It is a sick song, though. Some friends came by and dragged me to the party kitchen here in four west, and more drinking followed. Quickly the birthday shot turned into some birthday shots, which turned into some birthday White Strike that was still in the kitchen for some reason, which turned into 3 AM birthday wrestling. I remember little, other than that I TOTALLY WON.

Thursday
Anyway, the next day was actually started out correctly. My friends Jessie and Allison took me out to a nice restaurant called Paparazzi's for Breakfast. It was nice and a good place to get a full Scottish breakfast (sausage, bacon, egg, grilled tomato for some reason and beans). I didn't have class on Thursday so I was free to enjoy my birthday and recover from the wrestling. That evening we ate some lovely carrot cake that Allison was nice enough to make for me. This all amped up to Thursday Night's main event "Beerienteering," which is just as much fun as it sounds. The basic premise is this: teams of about 6-8 go to a bar where they buy a drink and partake in a bar challenge set up by the people running the event. They then receive a clue about the next bar in the crawl. They then head to that bar and do the same thing. The challenges were stuff like picking up a cereal box off the ground with your teeth without touching the ground, or a chugging contest in two lines. At one bar I had body shots taken off me. It was a lovely, albeit long night, and our kitchen now has a silver platter inexplicably. All in all, a victorious night.

Friday
Friday I woke up at about 2, but at least I knew where I was and had time to get to class. Many of my compatriots were still riding the strugglebus from the night before, so I was one of the few contributors to the discussion on Scott's The Heart of Midlothian. This evening was much tamer initially: I made dinner and did some homework, and then got a text to go to the pub on campus to meet some SUDS (student drama) kids. I made friends with another writer, a cheeky sixteen year old first year called Liam, as well as a folk musician named George. I had a lengthy conversation with the latter about the song "Old Joe Clark," which I think proves that history moves in a circle, or at least that I'm never personally very far from folk and country music. Ah, well. I recall that this night ended with us sneaking into a kitchen and playing black jack until 3 in the morning.

Saturday
As the weekend moved on and our internal organs started failing, our party radius grew smaller and smaller. Saturday night we officially transferred the party over to the other Tom and held a wonderful kitchen party. More cake, a bit more whisky (that's how they spell it here), and many odd photos that I'm sure have surfaced on Facebook by now. I decided to go easy, since I'd had quite a weekend already. Mostly I hung out with Evie and Allison and discussed how the former reminds us of the second world war. I don't think I could explain that conversation now if I tried.

Sunday
The smallest party radius of all: my bed. I did nothing all day, since I was caught up on my reading. Eventually I facetimed my whole family, which was nice. All in all, a lovely way to spend the weekend.

In other news, I'm now writing comic sketches for SUDS radio, and have been approached by another group to write some type of series for radio here (I don't know what it is with these people and radio, but we'll see what happens). Until next time...

Hiking, William Wallace and the Most Scottish Kid ever

Five days, probably time for another one of these. There's also a fair amount to report here. Where to start?

Wallace Monument, from a distance

How 'bout all he hiking we've been up to? Good thing I brought those boots with me, 'cuz the kids on my floor take full advantage of the hills and woods surrounding campus. Last week we hiked up the hill to the William Wallace Monument, about half a mile off campus. I'll put some pictures up, since describing a tower is kind of redundant. It was built in the 1880's and is modeled after gothic design, and is located near Stirling in honor of the early Battle of Stirling Bridge, which Wallace won, and the later Battle of Stirling Castle, which Robert the Bruce won and which secured Scottish independence for a few centuries (and this sentence doesn't count as describing a tower since it describes tower history). Anyway, we took a good crowd up and got a picture with a man dressed as one of Wallace's men (which was actually kind of weird, you know, that he was just walking around this park at four on a thursday. Come to think of it, I'm not sure he worked there. Creep.)

Freedom!

Inside the tower and up countless flights of spiral stairs (or was it all one continuous spiral?) we learned about William Wallace, who was protector of Scotland following the death of Alexander III. Fun fact, Wallace carried a four foot long sword on display in the monument (if you can't picture four feet, it's the height of a child. No, a bigger child.) Because of this and his remaining bones (his four limbs were buried in the four corners of Scotland after he was beheaded in London) they estimate Wallace's height at about six foot six, making him three inches taller than me, his fellow Wallace, with what I imagine to be about two hundred extra pounds of muscle. The view from the top was easily the best part; you could see all the way to Edinburgh, which isn't particularly close).

Me mimicking a statue of William Wallace. Any resemblance?

One of the views from Wallace Monument

Since then, we've also been on two night hikes in the woods adjacent to campus. On the first, Lewis and I found an abandoned (and let's be honest, totally haunted) house in the woods. The next night we went back with a crowed, but couldn't find it. That's right, Loyola. This school borders on woods that change every night, forbidden forest style. UP. YO. GAME. Still, that night we did see three, count 'em, THREE (3) shooting stars. So a pretty good times for this former scout.
I have had the first day of classes for two of my classes so far; Scottish Literature and Medieval to Renaissance Literature, the latter being a lecture this morning. One interesting thing about being an English major here is that I have to read three  books a week, which I'm sure will be good for me as a writer. This week, the three include The Odyssey and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which makes me feel like I'm in senior year of high school with boy, Mr. Wagner, all over again. I'm also reading one called Beside the Ocean of Time for Scottish Lit, and I must say, it's terrific. It's by George MacKay Brown, and you should definitely check it out.
One final thing, before I end this ramble. Remember Stuart from that last blog post? He's been declared the Most Scottish Kid we know. In addition to knowing his way around Stirling post-pub visit, he pretty much sealed the deal with the sentence "My uncle is one of the top five pipers in the world." Yeah. And he plays the traditional drums that accompany bagpipes. One more thing; his clan? McLeod. WE'RE RELATED. So naturally we take turns ragging on people and coming up with slogans for White Strike (a cider so trashy it's a pound seventy-five for a Liter). I'm personally between "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose," and "White Strike, Black Out." In any case, it's like The Blitz in your mouth, and I'll make sure to send home a bottle. Oh, he also broke some bad news to me, that I must now relay to Thomas Graham (whose name keeps coming up in this blog): Jack Daniels is distilled after a Welsh Recipe, not Scots or Irish. Looks like we gotta switch to Johnny Walker, bro (which is distilled ten minutes from this kid's house, again, the MOST Scottish.)

Stuart, The Most Scottish Kid

In other news we found out why my Charlie Bronson prison workout is appropriate and why the dorms look this way; the housing system at this university is modeled after Swiss prisons. I feel safe. Anyway, all is well here, and we're enjoying a day of rain. Tomorrow we plan to go hiking. Until then.

Life North of the Wall

So it dawns on me that I set up this blog several days before I left and have yet to post anything. This dawns on me because every now and then I see this page and theres a line on my dashboard that says "No posts yet--Get Blogging!" Hey google plus advice-- piss off! I don't need some voice from across the sea telling me what to do with my time; that's what I have a mother for. Anyway, this blog is set up to chronicle my travels or whatever since I have a very bad memory compounded by the fact that Foster's is cheaper than water in our campus run store. Did I mention that this campus runs a liquor store, a club and a bar? But enough about breakfast, I'll come back to that later. This blog really got set up because Loyola never e-mailed me back about becoming a student blogger. Apparently somebody warned them. But, as Tyler Perry's Madea once said, "I can do internet all by myself." Anyway, this post title is a reference to Hadrian's Wall, built by the Romans to keep the Scottish (at the time, Picts) from wreaking havoc on Roman conquered England and Wales (incidentally this is often considered to be the last efficiently run Italian contracting job). The blog title itself is a reference to the Legend of Korra, and together I think those titles prove that while I know a great deal about history, at heart I will never leave my parents' basement. With that, let's talk about Scotland.

I flew in this past Saturday, and got to my room and as I'm unpacking I open the window to get some sunlight, which is funny since they don't have that here. In fact, the Scots don't have a word for sunlight since most of them live their whole lives without seeing it. It was sunny a few days ago and my friend Gordon (from Glasgow) was completely disoriented. We're telling him he dreamt the whole thing so he can cope with it. What I did see out my window was, and I kid you not, a golf course and a castle. So I'm definitely in Scotland, or Disney's getting really aggressive with their theme park placement. I took a walk after I got unpacked, and I was alone since I didn't know anybody here and had fallen asleep for an hour or two from the jet lag. Except I wasn't alone because on the way out of campus was Graham construction. And then two minutes down the hill was Graham dairy. Thomas, are you following me, bro? Cuz I've got a floor if you wanna crash.

Our floor is largely American, which is pretty comical. We outnumber the Scottish kids something like 3 to 2, and we've been talking about opening up an Embassy in our kitchen, since it's just loud American 20 somethings drinking with Scottish 18 year olds. After re-reading that sentence, I'll admit that I have no idea what happens in an Embassy. The hall itself, AK Davidson isn't bad, though a bit old. All of the student housing here looks like it belongs in the former Soviet bloc, and there is indeed an East and West Wing. Guess which one they put all the Americans in, Aaron Sorkin? We've all had a good time so far and the Scots are lovely. To name a few; there's Lewis, another English student and now a fellow nerf assassin, Gordon, who has been proclaimed my son and who let me borrow his computer early on since I lied earlier when quoting Madea. There's Evie, terrified of spiders but very sweet, Heather who I run into mornings, Scott (who is indeed a Scot) the quiet kid of the bunch of us, and Stuart the cut-up, and Lucy, a girl we've adopted from East Wing. These are of course weak descriptions, but I've got limited space, so give me a freaking break. There are too many Americans to name here, so maybe I'll do a post later just introducing people on the floor, or maybe I'll just make you guess who I'm talking about. There are, after all, two American Amys and two American Toms (although the other one is technically Czech.)

Before I go, a few words (as if I could ever write just a few words) on cultural differences. I believe I mentioned that this is a wet campus, which is surprising most of all in that it's not a big deal here. Eighteen year olds can drink in the open, so if anyone ever got into trouble we'd call for help and sae them instead of leaving them when we're running from the cops. Ya feel bad yet, American colleges? They sell Stella Artois over here for cheap, and it's called wife-beater, since that's what wife-beaters drink here. Gordon asked me what wife-beaters drink in America and I said "A lot." Can you believe we pay top dollar to import what the trailer trash drinks over here? They also freaked out when I pulled out a pocket knife to cut a Mars Bar (yes, they have 'em here) in half, as apparently knife crime is bad here and knife possession is an arrest (thank you to a very drunk Gordon for explaining this to me). Perhaps the strangest cultural difference is the schooling itself, though, as the majority of your studies are made up of independent studies. In fact, while at Loyola I would attend at least two classes a day for what comes to somewhere between two and five hours of class a day, here I have four class periods in a week, for a total of six hours of class per week. It does average out though, as reading homework in a given week probably falls just north of ten hours (it doesn't help that I read slowly, or that number would be much smaller). I had a class this morning that was cancelled, and my next class falls Friday at four. So I will be free for well over 48 hours now. Prepare yourselves, Stirling. One final difference I think is worth mentioning is that Four-Loco (or something close) is alive and well in the land of the Scots, and in multiple forms. There's something called Dragon, which is an energy drink with a bit less alcohol than the loco, but there's also something called Buckfast--a caffeinated tonic wine that tastes like oil (yeah, one time I drank oil. I was preparing for the role of Greased Lightning.) Both seem dangerous, but only the Scottish kids themselves are actually having a hard time handling them, by which I mean Lewis and Gordon, who both already have good Buckfast stories (and bad Buckfast hangovers). At 18, though, who could really blame them?

There is much more that merits mentioning, but this is already waaay too long a post, so I'll fill in the blanks later. More to follow whether you want it or not, I promise, and with pictures too! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going on a bus tour of the city of Stirling, and hopefully to a good fish and chippies shop. Bye.