#15

I’ve been slowly paring down the list of people I send this email to, as they become too dignified for the sorts of adventures I’ve started reporting. This is presumably due to a loosening of standards on my part, but if you’re still getting these emails…I don’t know, evaluate your lives, I guess…

This one should be better than most though, as I’ve been travelling and therefore don’t have to do quite so much of the ol’ squeezing wine from raisins, if you see what I mean. This’ll be more like me squeezing wine out of those mushy grapes that are turning kind of brown, at the bottom of the bowl, that you only eat when you’re desperate for grapes.

(Sidenote, does anyone love grapes as much as I do? You really don’t see them around much.

Did I miss the news article on the potentially fatal effects of grapes? Is this because I really like Classical History? Is this because I really like Futurama?)

The plan was to fly from Dublin to Birmingham (where the cheap flight was to), take the train to a town in northeastern Wales, spend a couple days there, then to Stratford-upon-Avon, back to Birmingham for the night to fly back here in the morning.

The bus system in Birmingham is by far the best I have ever seen in my life, and I’m someone who hates bus systems (listen, I hate tourists and visitors, here’s an idea. Why don’t we have a public transport system where we won’t announce what the next stop is, you have to announce before you get there that you intend to stop at it, and the next stop will be some ways off. Yes! Wonderful!). I stayed in two hotels (one on the way there, one on the way back), neither in the city, and was able to get around without any difficulty. Every 10 minutes to anywhere in the city. The problem is that there’s absolutely nowhere to GO in Birmingham. There are, literally, no interesting monuments commemorating no interesting events in no interesting places. The art museum was okay. So I wasn’t too bothered by leaving in the morning for Wales. Took a train. Big fan of trains.

Incidentally, this didn’t stop me from accidentally getting off the Birmingham bus about a mile early (I habitually do, I’m a nervous bus-rider). The area I stayed in was a little weird, as they usually are when you pay as little as I can afford. So: I got off at the wrong Rastafarian T-shirt shop.

It was a nice night and I didn’t mind the walk. I’m just saying. I GOT OFF AT THE WRONG RASTAFARIAN T-SHIRT SHOP.

It did snow while I was in Wales, something for which I was actually not prepared. We did learn a valuable lesson however. When you’re wearing every piece of clothing you’ve brought, your bag becomes incredibly light. Food for thought. Food. For thought…

Actually, I had been warned on my first day there, and even though it took me walking about 12 miles that day, I did go to all the stuff I wanted to see there, as the weather was fair. It wasn’t even the walking that ‘bout did me in (though it did. Who knew that was hard? Umm…part of it was up a mountain?....) it was the uncertainty caused by the fact that THERE WERE NO SIGNS ANYWHERE AND I WAS WANDERING DOWN SELDOM USED COUNTRY ROADS BY MYSELF.

There was one sign, a tricky one. It directed me into trespassing on someone’s farm which, if you’re wondering, did have a large dog, although I, having had misgivings since having to unlatch the gate and tiptoe around several sheep to start, caught sight of it before it caught me and made my dignified escape over mounds of sheep dung.

In fact, the snow only became a problem the second night, since well…because this was kind of a spur of the moment trip and because places like Llangollen, Wales, do not have youth hostels, accommodation was kind of a catch as catch can proposition. I emailed the Llangollen tourism center and they told me while they didn’t have a hostel, they had the next best thing, a bunkhouse. It was not open the first night I was there, but the second night, the snowy night, it sure was, so I signed up. I didn’t know what a bunkhouse was.

I’m used to hostels. I like them. Hostels, as you know I’m sure, are like hotels except that multiple people who don’t know each other share a room. A bunkhouse, on the other hand, at least this bunkhouse, is apparently just a little building behind the hotel. You know, like a shed. With beds in it.

I paid 20 pounds to sleep in a shed, in a snowstorm.

I paid 20 pounds to sleep in a shed, in a snowstorm on a SUNDAY when, apparently, the buses don’t run to Llangollen, so no one new can show up.

I paid 20 pounds to sleep in a shed, in a snowstorm, by myself. With a copy of the Daily Star, with a big picture of Matt Mosley, F1 Prez, and his nazi-style orgy.

It wasn’t THAT bad. I had a bed, with a fluffy blanket. There was a shower too, although I didn’t use it as I felt taking off any article of clothing would result in frostbite and there are some places the mind just refuses to go.

On to Stratford.

The buses in Stratford are the opposite of the buses in Birmingham in every sense. Birmingham buses can get you anywhere at any time, as long as you accept the fact that there won’t be anywhere you’ll want to go. In Stratford, there are plenty of places you want to see, but the buses will never arrive to take you there. I had missed the first, to the hostel, by about three minutes, not surprising since I had no idea where the bus stop was, how to get there, or any clue of its timetables, and the next one was in an hour and a half.

This was around 2. So I arrived at my hostel at about 3:45 and proceeded to my room, which I was sharing with a shy Indian gentleman whose name was apparently “Money”. I dropped my things and went back outside, ready to get back to the town. No more than five minutes had elapsed.The next bus was in an hour and a half. I cursed everything that had ever existed.

I arrived back in Stratford at around 5:30, everything obviously closed for the day.

Well cool. I walked around, had a nice British dinner and an ale or two, and looked at my watch.

It was 7:35 or so. I walked to the bus station.. I took note of the time tables at the bus so I’d know when to be back. Matter of fact, I took a picture of it. It said “AFTER 4 PM BUSES COME EVERY HOUR AT :10 and :30”. Good, about thirty five minutes to kill. I went and had another drink, looked at my watch, and then had another drink. Things were getting a little fuzzy, but that was alright. I was going to be on my way back, in a minute. I came back to the stop, 8:10 sharp. It said, and I swear these times had suddenly appeared on the sign while I’d been gone:

After 4 pm, every hour at :10 and :30 until 7:30, then at 10:30.

I don’t care what you guys say, when I’ve had a few to drink, I’m HILARIOUS. I have a distinct memory of yelling aloud “I’m going to punch a leper in the face.”

Then I had a whiskey. Then I still had some time. So I got some ice cream. It was awesome.
I got back and Money and some snoring dude were sleeping. “Money my man,” I muttered to myself, curling up at last under a warm blanket , refuge from a trying day. “You have a cool name, but you could live up to it a little more.”

Also, in Stratford, I caught sight of a British television host making fun of Texas women. I wasn’t even mad. I’ve seen British women. I just hope it helps keep the tears inside…

The next day, thanks to Snoring Sturluson (I enjoyed that joke, bite me) I got up wicked early, which I thought was good since that meant I’d catch an early bus. I was wrong, of course. I had missed one at 7 and the next one was at 9:20, in an hour and a half. I walked out at 9:20 to find those only come on Saturdays, for some reason, and it was actually 9:50. This leper shambled by and I gave him an atomic wedgie.

(If you don’t know what that is, ask a high-schooler. Go ahead, do it).

Back, at last, to Birmingham. And I showered. And it was glorious. And I drank a cup of tea. I don’t like tea, but they had an automatic kettle in the room, and hey, free tea.

Free tea.

Parents got here a couple days ago, I’ve been showin’ em round the place. Nothing much to report, or if there is I can’t remember it. Last night, Joe and I went out to a friend’s apartment for a party; on the bus we were standing next to this guy who was really fretting about how late he was for some music gig. These college girls got on and proceeded to take ten minutes to get out the proper change. “Jesus,” he says, “this stuff always happens when you’re late.”
At the next bus stop, and I am NOT kidding, a blind man got on, and then someone on crutches.

I was this close to telling the dude to get off the bus, I wanted to make it to my destination alive.

Tomorrow it’s for Paris, then Barcelona and Madrid. When I get back, it’ll be dissertation-working time. Can a young, college-educated lad (who will be 23 upon return. Also, not eating bread, it being Passover) write a 40 page dissertation in a month? Can he appease the gods of English literature with his offering and make it out of here alive?

I s’pect he better.

This dispatch (unofficially) sponsored by my favorite European delicacy-name Movenpick ice cream. Movenpick, it’s whistle-blowing good (and potentially hazardous).

(That’s not their slogan.),

Money