Arrival Dinner

So, my adventure with the bus from Dublin airport was not as fool-proof as I had hoped.  The Dublin bus system is horrendous.  This is their big tourist transit bus, and no stops were called out, the screen in the front of the bus said nothing informative, and it was good luck that I got a bus that actually listed the most common points of interest near each stop. 

What I mean to say is that I missed my stop. 

The next stop was the end of the line, and I was able to leap off the bus and grab the returning one, and convince the driver to let me go one stop back.  But nothing is ever easy in life, and I am trying not to start out my experience in Europe as an Asshole American.  He lets me know that this is my stop, so I get up and gather my things, while he lets people on the bus.  He talks at some length to two Spanish women about getting to and from the airport, and then he pulls away.

I'M STILL ON THE BUS.  I ask him to stop, and he says, "I let seven people on this bus and you didn't get off?"  And all I could say was sorry, I was waiting for people to stop coming on, but what I was thinking was that in America, you let the people departing the bus off before you let more people on the bus.  And/or you look to see if anyone (with a giant backpack, and purse and a massive suitcase) got off, and/or you make sure the one person who definitely needed to get off at this stop, gets off at this stop.

I guess all bus drivers are cut from the same cloth.  We have these unsympathetic jackasses in Seattle too.

Anyway, I ran into some helpful Philadelphian-turned-Dubliners, who pointed me over the bridge to my hostel, where I checked in entirely without incident.  There are 8 girls in my room (one has a late flight in), and it was fairly packed with lady body parts and accoutrements.  There are four bunk beds, and I'm on a top bunk by the door.  I have claimed every hook behind the door as mine.  It's a hostel, so it's not magic or anything, but the rooms are clean and big, with high ceilings, tall windows and wood floors.  I have yet to see anyone over the age of 25, but they might be holed up in one of the private rooms.

Initially when I was asked if I wanted to go drink before the welcome dinner, I said no.  But I thought that seemed a bit boring of me, so I went, and the 6 girls in our room ended up finding several more girls and three boys, so the now 11 of us took to the narrow sidewalks of Dublin in search of somewhere to get a Guinness.

Which was of course, perfectly easy.  We found one, and Will (the sheep guy) said he got a weird vibe, so we followed Tanner through this Polish street fair and into a satisfactory pub called Badbob's.  It was also filled with Poles who were singing really cool harmony songs and clapping.  There is a large Polish population because of the Celtic Tiger, dot com thing, and Poles came to replace young Dubliners in the low wage jobs.  So now they have street festivals.

I had a half pint of Guinness with black currant (as instructed), and luckily Guinness is a filling not a spilling kind of drink, because I hadn't really eaten anything since that ham and cheese croissant at 10:30.  I was a little warm headed, but ok as we headed off to get another Gunness at that pub that we had initially rejected.

In the rejected and unrejected pub, we found a three man stag party in progress, in which the lucky stag was made to wear a leprechaun costume.  He was an extremely drunk leprechaun, and when he and his friend wanted to have a drinking contest with Will and Alex, the barkeep cut him off.

Meanwhile, Lauren (my new buddy, who is also a teetotaler and a non-Greek) and I were cornered by the third wheel, an Englishman they found in the extras for Monty Python.  Everything about him was wonderfully English -- sweater, skinny jeans, Matt Smith hair style -- and he said he loved Americans for their personalities and their good teeth, and that he had all his out a few years ago.  Also, he hates Canadians, apparently.  He said he had had 12 pints of Guinness today, and shouldn't be standing up.

About this time, the stag was being cut off by the barkeep, so he was collecting his friends to leave.  He said hello to Lauren and I, hugged and kissed us, and left.  That's how a leprechaun makes an exit.

We all reassembled at the hostel, and found Leta for our meeting before dinner.  Leanna had to quit the trip because she broke her foot the week before, and Toto and Zoe and Emmaline and Marnie (the student advisor) would be arriving over the evening and next day.  We were given our 50 euro allowance for the beginning of the trip, with no promise for when we will be paid again (so be frugal!), and took of for The Brazen Head.

The Brazen Head is the oldest pub in Ireland, founded in 1180.  It is very quaint, and it looks like they variously attempted to wall in greater and greater sections of the street corner on which it was constructed.  There are several interior walls that appear to have once served as exterior.  I have pictures, which will make it even cuter.

At dinner, we took up two large tables, and reintroduced ourselves.  We had a two course supper of tomato and basil soup (or a Greek salad), and one of four quintessential entrees: beef stew, fish and chips, chicken breast wrapped in bacon, or bangers and mash.  I started with the stew, which was thick, tomato-ey and delicious.  I also had a piece of chocolate fudge cake, which was good because it was a dry crumbly cake with frosting that wasn't too sweet.  Unlike the moist, sugary cakes in America, it was actually a really pleasant finish to dinner.  Could have used some milk though.

Everyone else was gearing up to go party, and I didn't want to, so when we got back to the hostel, I came and took a shower, and wrote home to my family.  I am completely alone in this hostel room, but it is very comfortable and I don't mind being alone for a while after all the people and tight spaces I've been in recently.

I would like to think that it would be fun drinking with the rest of the group, but alcohol is expensive (in general, in Europe, and particularly in Temple Bar, where they ply the artsy, college student type for every cent they have).  And Lauren and I have decided to be non drinkers together, and it is always easier not to drink when someone else is doing it with you.  A half pint sets me back about 3 euros 50, which is much better than the 5 euros 20 that everyone else is paying.  The other nice thing is that when we go to dinner with Leta, she pays for everything but our drinks.  So I had a piece of cake instead of more alcohol, and I still came out on top.  I'm making myself keep track of how much I"m spending so that I can go to college this fall.

Saturday and Sunday -- Alaska Letters

                After our incredibly warm evening, I sort of expected it to be really warm on Saturday morning, but it was not.  Around ten, Marcus and I always check in and usually go to breakfast or whatever, but this morning he texted me to say that overnight he developed a fever and a runny nose and is feeling horrible.  So I was on my own, which was fine, because I had my lunch date with my Alaska friend Brynn.  I lazed around all morning until noon, which was lovely.  I couldn’t do a thing with my hair because I had left it down while we were fishing, and it was just a mangled mess.  Fair sea maidens have some very tangled hair.

                I had tons of time and I was sick of being in my room, so by about 11 I went out to buy my last few items.  I went to the Safeway and found a sweatshirt for myself, and the ONLY Iditarod mug for Aspen and the swim team was having a bake sale so I got out $20 in cash and supported them.  After that it was only 11:15, so I went across the street to the Alaska Ship Supply and bought a tee-shirt.  Then it was 11:25, so I sat in my car and tried to figure out what to do next.  It was pretty foggy, but I decided that it was worth dropping by the Sitka Spruce National Forest for a few pictures for Poppers.

                I learned that the Russians, when trying to colonize the Aleutians, tried to plant Sitka Spruces in Unalaska to make the island more self-sufficient.  It was 1805, so it is considered the oldest afforestation project in America.  It was afforestation not reforestation, because technically there were no trees here to reforest.  Prehistorically there were trees, and there are some petrified trees on other islands in the chain.  It didn’t work all that well, because of course there was a reason that there was no forest on the island before.  It’s too windy, and too cold, and there’s almost no useful nutrients deeper than like 10 feet in the ground.  So the “National Forest” consists of about 25 spindly looking spruces that have been here for almost 200 years but look no bigger than Christmas trees.

                I got some very cool misty photos, and it was definitely worth walking out there.  The salmon berries here and much sweeter than the ones in Washington, but that might be in part because we don’t let them ripen quite as long as they do around here.  By this time, it was about 11:50, so I drove over to Harris Electric to see Brynn.

                Brynn’s boyfriend was there too, and when they were done smoking (everybody here smokes), Brynn and I hopped in her car and Alex (boyfriend) went in his truck over to Amelia’s.  We had a lovely lunch, it was mostly me and Brynn talking about stuff.  She seems like a very nice girl.  She came to Alaska after her parents divorced.  She had been living with her grandma in Eatonville, but her mom moved up here, and when she was fifteen she came up too.  By the time she was 18 and pregnant with her daughter, her mom was ready to move to an actual place, but Brynn stayed.  I guess by that time she had decided she was enmeshed.  Brynn sort of reminded me of Rose, which initially made her feel very familiar, but once I identified it, I started to feel the same kind of, “oh, honey,” that I feel for Rose.  Which is always a little misplaced because both of them are older than me.

                After lunch with Brynn, she and I stopped at the post office, which didn’t open until two and we were there at one.  She was expecting a package of fish food for her mollies, but since the post office wasn’t actually open, she just grabbed her regular mail.  As far as mail is concerned, Dutch is Bush Alaska, so everything goes to PO boxes.  Which is a real pain in the ass for me, because I ship stuff to Tim all the time, and FedEx insists that I give some kind of physical address.  You could practically make something up just to make them happy, and it would still get there.  If it’s going to Dutch Harbor, it’ll get to the right person.

                We headed back to Harris, then I said good bye to Brynn and went back to my hotel room.  I had this yawning couple of hours to kill, and I spent most of it prepacking and listening to music and lying on the floor.  The sun was starting to come out, and it was warming up.  Right around four I rationalized that it would be better to shower now and get some of the Pollock off me and do something about my hair before I went to a party.  And I decided that if anywhere deserved my skirt, it might as well be a Dutch Harbor party.

                Just as I was coming out of the shower and had successfully untangled my hair, Tim texted me about needing the Chelsea truck back.  I thought that Marcus was still dying slowly in the infirmary, and I figured I’d just take that one to Brynn’s.  So I threw on my skirt and my sneakers (I had no decent shoes to wear with a skirt, it was atrocious.  I looked like a Duggar.) and drove over to the plant.  I couldn’t find Tim outside, so I went to his office, but it was locked, so I went to the dock, but the Chelsea K hadn’t pulled in from the fuel dock yet, and Tim wasn’t there either.  I stood there for a while, and I saw this big cloud of black smoke come out of the stack, and I thought, well that’s not good.  Tim eventually texted me and I went and found him by the trucks.  We drove all the way to the hotel before we realized that we hadn’t really solved my truck situation.

                Marcus, it turned out, had doped himself up on DayQuil and had made it to the plant.  So Tim and I drove back to the plant to find him.  The Chelsea K made it to the dock, and was beginning to off load, and that’s where we found Marcus.  He was talking to Chris about the fuel pump going out, which had caused the engine to die, sending out that plume of black smoke.  They managed to slide it in with no engine, and they have spare pumps so they will be ok for their last two trips.

                Marcus gave me no end of shit for wearing a skirt to the plant but I kept insisting that I wasn’t supposed to be at the plant, I was supposed to be at a party.  Eventually Marcus agreed to drive me to Brynn’s.  We found it easily enough, with only minor confusion over which brown apartment complex was hers.  Marcus had been asked a few times which of his daughters I was, and it was sort of confirming the expectation having him drive me to my friend’s house.

                At first it was just me and Brynn and her boyfriend Alex, then Angie and her husband and baby, then another pregnant girl and her boyfriend, then some more people.  For most of the fights, there were only a few people in the room, which was good because even though the living room was pretty spacious, it was getting really warm.  Sophie, the baby, was our barometer of the heat.  At first she was in a dress, then more people showed up and she got in her onesie, then more people showed up and she got naked, then a few more came and she cried so we all went out on the porch.

                The first few fights were good, a couple upsets for people who might have been betting.  The main event (I don’t remember who) was supposed to be five rounds, but it ended in the first.  The guy who won was basically hanging on the other guy’s arm, and was using the second arm to try to dislocate the one from which he was hanging.  The guy tapped out and it was all over in like three minutes.

                After that, it was fast becoming eat steak and drink beer time, so I called Marcus.  I’m a total party pooper, but it was ok.  We left and even though he was sick, the weather was so nice, we went out on Haystack Hill and looked around.  It was beautiful, and no amount of photos will ever quite capture how gorgeous it really is.  Pictures are too small, and not bright enough.  We went home as the sun was setting, and got cokes from the bar and went to bed.

Sunday:

                I’m too lazy to make a separate posting for Sunday, and besides it would be too small anyway.  I very lazily woke up about nine.  It was very hot and I had the windows open all night.  It was still hot in the morning, so while I got dressed I kept lying on the floor to cool off.  Eventually around 10 it started raining and I was all packed up.  I have so much more stuff coming back.  I really hovered over leaving my boots as a call-back to make sure that I return, but I decided I love them too much to leave them.  My suitcase is now entirely comprised of Things That Smell Like Pollock.  It’s much fuller than when I left, and my tote is incredibly full.  The only souvenir that had to go with the Things That Smell Like Pollock is Aspen’s coffee mug.  Sorry Aspen.  I figured it would retain the least amount of smell.

                So we got all together and went to the Grand for the brunch buffet.  I had hashbrowns and sausage gravy and bacon and coffee.  When my tummy settled a little, I got this martini glass with cheesecake, kiwis and this bright green kiwi Italian soda syrup in the bottom.  I t was very good, but I’m still picking kiwi seeds out of my teeth.  I had hoped Brynn and her daughter would make it, but they couldn’t.  I’ll find her on Facebook and keep in touch.  It was cool to make some friends in Alaska.

                We didn’t want my feesh to melt, so we had to go to the plant to get it.  Tim got a call from Mike Booth on the Chelsea about getting a box of crab legs for Chris’s birthday.  25 pounds is a lot to eat at one time, so they were asking to see if Tim wanted any, and he asked if I did, and I said hell yes.  So we got an invoice for the Bairdi crab legs, and went and got a box.  We put probably seven or eight pounds in some bags and stuffed it in with my feesh.  Then we taped up the whole thing and took it to the airport.  From breakfast on, it was raining pretty good, and our bags were in the back of the truck.  There were only the Things That Smell Like Pollock in it though, so I wasn’t worried about it.  My computer rode in the cab.  Marcus and I check in without incident, and while we were waiting, he went to the bar for a coke (Marcus and I drank a lot of coke over the week).

                This black guy comes out of the little airport bar, and is clearly the big happy drunk in town.  I guess he was with the guy who was sitting behind me, because he comes over and starts talking to him, and getting me involved, and everyone was getting touched and told how great they were.  So when he floated off again, of course me and this guy behind me were required to start talking.  His name was Anthony (drunk guy: James), and he works for the City of Unalaska as a city planner.  So he does zoning and whatnot.  We talked a little, he’s from Chicago originally, and he seemed nice if slightly awkward.  He was there to say good bye to his friend, who was on my same flight.  He went to the University of Wisconsin, and of course they also call it U Dub.  Eventually he wandered off to have a drink with his friend before she left, and I saw that Marcus had found Tim and Chris and Mike Booth, so I figured it would be safer to use the fishermen as my cock block.  It’s not often that that’s the case, but at least Marcus could play dad and give people the stink eye.

                The rain didn’t let up, so our plane didn’t arrive until almost 2 (we were slated to depart at 1:20), and we finally got on the tarmac just after 2.  My feesh supposedly went into a freezer, so it was supposed to be staying frozen.  We arrived in Anchorage very handily, but it was a little tight to our flight home, so we didn’t have much down time.  Getting through Anchorage security was really bossy.  The TSA lady tried to give Marcus some flak for his pocket knife, which was a TSA knife, and he told her so.  She’s like, “what’s that supposed to mean?”  Like he was copping some kind of attitude.  They wouldn’t let me bring my juice despite the fact that it was a sealed aluminum can.  Jesus people, think logically.  The airport in Dutch seems like what airports are supposed to be, seeing people off and hanging out and meeting people.  Not like big airports where it’s all taking off shoes and giving sass and people being harried.  The funny thing is that I’m not supposed to have the mace with me that Matt bought, but they didn’t catch it through either security checks.  At least the TSA in Seattle are nice, these Anchorage characters had a Mounty complex.

                Once we got through the TSA, we grabbed some soup up in the board room (SSSSOOOO luxUUUURRRIOUS!), and I went to take pictures of the native art exhibit.  I managed to go with almost dead battery the entire trip, and it finally died in the airport on the way home.  I thought that was pretty good timing.  The flight to Seattle was good, just a little turbulence.  I sat next to a very cute Russian couple who were probably in their seventies.

                I had to check my bag after all, it wouldn’t quite fit in the overhead, so I had to go pick it up with my feesh from the luggage claim.  My feesh’s box was a little dented, and I could smell seafood, which wasn’t a super great sign for it still being frozen.  I got all my things together, and pretty much as soon as I walked outside, Matt pulled up.  We were home by about 11:45, and we stayed up talking and distributing gifts until about 12:30.  I was super wiped though, because traveling is very tiring, and to me it felt like one in the morning.

                I got dad the Russian flask from The Grand, I got Aspen his mug and his Alaska Grown tee shirt.  Mom got some hand knitted mittens made by an island natives and an inlaid wooden pin for her hair.  Matthew didn’t want anything, so I got a couple chocolate bars and some fancy tea.  (And of course I brought the feesh and the crab legs.)  I got myself a Port of Dutch Harbor half zip sweater, and my headband.  Overall, I think it was a really great trip, and I would love to go back.  It caused a lot of anxiety for pretty much everyone involved, but hey, when is travel not anxiety filled?