McClure, then London

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this business. I think this time instead of my usual witty, historical and pop culture reference laden, look-at-how-funny-I-am-fest, I’ll tell a bit more straight-forward of an update. First off, Jon McClure visited me in Ireland. Many of you don’t know MC, but if you haven’t chances are, I’ve told you about him. If you do get an opportunity to meet him, you find yourself one of the most steadfast and loyal friends you could possibly wish for. If you get used to his eccentricity, you see what a genuinely great person he is. He must have really scrimped and saved to make it here. I’m really impressed. He did some very McClurian things right away. One of the first things he did when we go to my place was break out his voltmeter, and check the voltage of the outlets. He then proceeded to hack into my roommate’s computer, check the internet, and fix all the spy ware problems.
Over the course of the trip, I took him a few cool places, some of my favourite pubs, the best fish and chips place in Cork (and probably all of Ireland), Jack Lennox’s. You feel some sort of heart palpitations walk in the vicinity. You get this massive piece of super breaded fish and a ton of chips, wrapped in paper. They have this really weird ordering procedure too, you sort of yell your order to them from line (or, sorry queue), they start cooking your order, and when you go up to pay, they ask you what you ordered again, there is no line of communication between the two sections.
We went to Blarney Castle, it’s really touristy, but it’s sort of a must see. The first time I went there my friend Sarah (probably my best friend in Cork) and we walk the five miles from Cork. There was only sidewalk (or shoulder) for about half way. With these fooking shitty Irish drivers I was afraid for my life. McClure and I took the bus. The castle grounds are really nice (this probably the most bland sentence I have every written). Of course going to a castle with me is sort of a loaded action. You’re getting a mini-lecture, I’m full of information, like for instance, Blarney isn’t really a castle, it’s a tower house, albeit one of the largest examples (the largest being Bunratty). So you can imagine 6’ 10” McClure craning his head under 5 and a half foot high doors and winding spiral staircase, designed to be kind of difficult to go up, and me shouting “WHOA! Check this out, it’s a bartizan1.”And he kissed the Blarney stone (and I figured out how to sneak into the place, but more on that later).
We also went to Cobh, the port town where the Irish emigrants made their last stop. It was also the last place the Titanic and Lusitanian went to port. It was really great to have a pint on the seaside. When were at a park there, he picked a shamrock from the grass and put it in his check book for safe keeping. We didn’t do much touristy stuff, but that’s not really what either of us wanted. Oh, another highlight, at the Beamish and Crawford tour we got to pour our own pints. That was awesome. I was almost at my financial lowest, because which, I didn’t get to show MC some of other really cool things around Ireland. For that, I feel pretty rotten. However, I do think he enjoyed himself. I don’t know how much MC would have liked to spend most of his time on buses rushing from one tourist trap to another.
I just want to add some of the very McClurian things he did:

He said, and I quote, “Russia is like the freaking Romulan Empire.”

He asked me if I had any copper wire.

To reiterate, he’s 6’ 10. He hit is head on a street sign. Seriously.

He has a North Dakota polito-blog and he kept it up every single day he was Ireland.
He grew this chin-pubey beard, when I told him it looked silly, he said his girlfriend likes it. For those of you who don’t know, McClure has a girlfriend now. I’m sure they're watching Firefly or UHF as we speak.

Another quote:
Me: So what is the biggest difference you’ve notice between the U.S. and Ireland?
Him: Well, other than the lack of ubiquitous cashless transactions, not much.

You see, a man with like 6 bank accounts (including an international one) didn’t bring a debit card, and almost nowhere in Ireland (except for supermarkets and the like) accept credit card. I knew he didn’t have much money, so I tried to spring for as many things as possible. And even then the only accepted it absolutely begrudgingly. I eventually let him spring for a pizza. It was funny to get a pizza from Domino’s in Ireland, (McClure works there in the States) and to notice all the weird differences. He even took pictures.

There is one other shitty thing I did with McClure here. A week before on a drunken whim a friend an I booked a flight to London, so I wasn’t in Cork from McClure’s last night. I totally forgot about the dates. I feel incredibly guilty about it. I’m mean sure he went out with my roommates, but it’s not the same.
That trip to London was sort of cursed from the get go. I bought my ticket just minutes after my friend, just enough time for 12:01 to role around and my ticket to jump from 60 euro to 90 Euro. At the current exchange rate, 30 Euro is about 50 bucks. She offered to pay half and I accepted (remember this it’s important for the next blog instalment which I will try and write tomorrow). The next day I looked at my travel itinerary and noticed our plane got into Stanstead airport at around 11 p.m. Upon further inspection, I realized that the bus takes two hours to get to central London. There was no way in hell I was going to pay 15£ (=30 dollars) to sleep in a hostel when I could sleep in the airport for free. My friend was quite dismayed by the prospect. Yes, if we had change the day, I would have had the exact same amount of time in London, saved 30 Euro, and hung out with McClure one more day. Fuck. I planned on meeting up with my buddy Andrew from high school. I had sort of counted on crashing at his place for free, but never really confirmed it. When I talked to him about it, I found out he was living with a host family (which would make for an awkward fest). So, more hostel money. Fuck.
On the way to the airport, this guy tried to pop out from a parked position and cut off our bus driver. The driver slammed on the breaks, and the car and the bus barely hit each other, not enough to do much but scratch the paint. The driver continued on the to the airport, and the other car chased us down, cut the driver off, parked, emerged in his full knackery glory, and starts yelling at the driver who proceeds to call the garda. Meanwhile my friend is freaking out next to me, thinking we’ll miss the plane. We made it all fine. I had made all my food for the trip (in the form of tuna sandwiches, egg and bacon sandwiches, and a container of rice) and luckily customs did not confiscate may only sustenance for the next four days2. So we set up shop in the airport, I put down my bag for a pillow, draped a coat over my self, and went to sleep in a corner in the airport. My friend changed into her pajamas, got in her travel blanket, took sleeping pills, put on her eye cover, put her iPod earphones in, and went to sleep.

I was fortunate enough to go to London once before when I was younger, so I saw many of the sites already. The friend I was travelling with is also the sort of traveller that “loves to travel” but kinda vaguely hates most of the trip. That is to say, complains about the weather, stresses about the travel arrangements. Since I had seen almost everything I had wanted to see already, I was content to let her choose the travel plans, something I think she misconstrued as me leaving her to do all the work. Having said that I’m sure that there are plenty of things about me that make me hard to travel with. The three things I really wanted to see were the British Museum, the National Gallery, and go on a Jack the Ripper tour. I was pretty ambivalent about everything else. So the first day we spent about 5 hours in the British Museum. The British Museum is the most famous history museum in the entire world and has antiquates from where ever the Victorians could get the rape and pillaging tea biscuits. It has huge collections from Europe, Egypt, Middle East, India, China, Africa, and everywhere else the sun didn’t set on. So by the end, my friend was getting hungry and antsy while I was running around “WOAH! A palstave axe! WHOA, the Battersea shield, NO WAY, Japanese Edo-ware! Holy crap! This is the Curdale horde!” You get the picture, but hey, I know probably as much about some of this shit as tour guides do, so whatever. So, figured I’d compromise and go. The rest of that day we just sort of look at some of the more famous sites, such as Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, ect. Not really my thing, but I guess if you haven’t seen it before it a sort of must do. Making me take your picture in front of it and walking around with a camera out, is, in fact, only a must you if you want to embarrass the living shit out of Anthony.
After a fairly packed day, we went back to the hostel and ate some food. For about half an hour I wrestled with country codes and other annoyances to get a hold of my friend Andrew. We finally meet up in the King’s Cross tube station (yeah, the Harry Potter one). We decided to go to Lester Square. If you’re not familiar, Lester Square is the sort of Times Square of London, or maybe more accurately Broadway. Regardless, it’s the bustling theatre area in London. The three of us are walking around and Andrew pulls out a small bottle of whiskey and informs me there aren’t really public drinking laws in London. This kicks ass. Drinking outside has always had to be some sort of clandestine, vaguely dangerous activity (as my record with the Minot police verifies). We proceed to walk around bustling area, drinking, catching up, that sort of thing. By this point the whiskey is gone and we buy a bottle of wine. Soon, said bottle of wine was gone as well.
Were not really doing anything, per say, but there was a sort of really fun vibe to the whole thing. We pop in to the nearest off-license (they don’t call um liquor stores) he points out the cheapest thing he can find. It’s this these 750 ml bottles of this sort of sparking wine that is about 5 or 6% alcohol. We both buy three. I also purchased my friend a pack of gum (also important to remember for the next instalment).He asked if we want to go to Trafalgar Square. I think this is a good idea. If you’re not familiar, it’s this huge square in central London commemorating Admiral Lord Nelson’s defeat of Napoleon at Trafalgar. Surrounding the square are many important sites, such as the National Gallery. While there, we randomly meet Andrew’s friend from his study abroad program (I don’t remember the guy’s name). Andrew gives me the bag with the bottles in them and tells me to hold it for him. He then scrambles up a marble platform. On that said platform are massive bronze lions, each weighing several tons, as well a giant column topped with a statue of Admiral Lord Nelson. I say to my self, “self, pass up the chance to get drunk on top of a world famous monument? Could you live with yourself… if you didn’t?” So the four of us are all up on this statue. It had rained earlier that day and marble has an unforgiving grip when it is wet. Bronze is equally slippery. I should be dead. At this, point we turn to our neighbours, a bunch of 14 year old English girls (and one dude). I don’t necessarily think that drinking on the monument of Admiral Lord Nelson was touristy but rather, something funny as hell. But to kids who are native, I think the concept is slightly different. That is to say, all across the world, stupid kids like to try and make themselves look bad ass. I’m sure if they didn’t have Trafalgar Square to climb over, they would probably buy some My Chemical Romance hoodies. Or, if they were part of “my generation” they would have had Insane Clown Posse t-shirts3. I think the fact they were drinking (I think they were drinking) with 21 year olds, who thought they were cool enough to hang out with further added to the perceived badassery. I thought, this is so fucking ridiculous it’s awesome. I’ll have to write about this4. So, your man (this is Cork slang) though we were hitting on his girl friend and he was acting very defensive. I remember at one point, he was talking about drinking and he said something like completely implausible like “the only time I can get drunk is when I drink like 700ML of vodka in like an hour.” Here I was thinking half-pint should stick to half-pints (you can get either pints or half pints). I also remember imparting upon him some pearls of wisdom… “drinking is fun, I approve, but never start smoking.”
After maybe an hour of shooting the shit with these kids, I went to the bathroom in a McDonald’s. When I came back some older guy was yelling at everyone to get off the statue. I soon realised that the dude had a bottle in his hand himself. It wasn’t some authority figure, just another guy drinking. I also saw broken glass on the ground from on of the bottles. I assumed it was the kids, but it turns out it was one of my friends. Go figure. The rest of the night was relatively unimportant, we went to McDonald’s. Go figure. We got back to the hostel and I talked to the crazy ass German guys about Banksy and stuff for like two hours. I also met a French girl who, not only was living in Cork, but in the building attached to mine, and taking the same flight back as us. We’ve hung out a few subsequent times, but she has since moved back to France.
The next day, we crammed an inordinate number of sites into one day. It was a goddamn world wind. We attended mass at Westminster Abbey (though we bounced half way through). The sermon was incredibly boring, and deadpan, but it was worth it to listen to the boy’s choir. It was actually very haunting and creepy, this ancient stone building filled with tombs, and this ethereal harmony filling the gaps. So we went along the whole area, Houses of Parliament, walked past the Mi6 building (that is to say, if James Bond existed, he would work there), etc. Sorry if this sounds like a grocery list of famous stuff, but at this point it’s getting long, and I’m getting lazy. The National gallery was awesome, though I was incredibly disappointed that I spent more time looking at pompous-ass Baroque portraits than Van Gogh or Cezanne, something that certainly chaps my ass and sense of aesthetic (we spent way to much time with the early stuff, and when I got to the paintings that excited me *ahem* some one was getting antsy). Still, one of the best art museums in the world is still bad-ass. Okey, more grocery list… National Portrait gallery, Buckingham Palace (SOOO overrated), Hyde Park.
We met up with Andrew again got some quick fish and chips, and left to go on the Jack the Ripper tour. There were two tour guides, and older guy and a younger woman. The said we should divide into two groups, and far fewer people went with the woman, I said “why don’t we go with her,” I kinda felt bad. Andrew insisted with the older man. His hunch proved right, I later found out our guide was basically the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, and this was the only day out of the week that he gave a tour. As this is dragging on, I won’t tell you about my vague obsession with how fucked up 19th century London was. There is a sort of almost mystic legendary appeal. It was the world of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, the beginning of modern mega cites, the first subways, wealth and desperation, and the starkest example of oppression, probably in all of human history 5.
The remainder of the night, we hung out got some drinks, and back at the hostel I ended up hanging out with these wild Swedish kids (who all looked like models). One of them had lived in the states, had a nearly American accent and liked really good hip-hop. In the morning we did little but check out and get to the bus. Before heading for the bus, we sat on a park bench talking about how the trip had been a bonding experience while watching pigeons. While waiting for the bus, the weather was pretty bad, and my travel buddy was complete fuming. I really enjoyed the bus ride back, watching London pass in the rain.
The flight back was a complete ordeal. First, we found out weren’t supposed to be able to check in on-line because we didn’t have EU-identity cards (even though I have a Republic of Ireland ID). While in the airport I walked around the duty free, sampling whiskey (it was awesome). At the end of my financial rope, I got a bottle of gin (which I thought would be duty free, though it wasn’t it was still cheaper than Cork) and I picked up a bag of skittles for my travel companion, with the intention of being paid back (also important to remember). At this point I basically had enough money for a round of groceries when I got home. Of course, I was hurried along (and to be fair, it was good travel practice) so we could be early to our flight. The flight came in over an hour late. I spent a sizable chunk of the wait reading and making funny faces back in forth with my French friend who was behind us a ways in line. During the flight, they informed us we couldn’t land in Cork, due to the weather, and we would be redirected to Dublin. In Dublin, they directed us to buses (a four hour bus ride if I remember correctly). About forty five minutes outside of Cork, our bus ran over some metal and had a flat. Luckily there was the B & B we could park by and wait at. Having eaten nothing but two pieces of toast all day (it was about 10:45) I broke down and ordered a sandwich and a pint. We finally got back to Cork, however, they didn’t take us to the city, they took us to the airport, a fifteen minute drive outside of Cork. Luckily that is where our return bus tickets left from. My friend, exhausted and very irritated, commented that that trip back (which took 6 hours longer than it should have) couldn’t possibly have been worse, to which I replied “not true, we just made the last bus back to Cork by 5 minutes.”



1. Blarney castle does not have any bartizans, but nobody (but me and I’m sure a bunch of men wearing tweeds and drinking sherry) knows what the fuck a bartizan is anyway.
2. While in Ireland, I’ve taken a break from being a vegetarian. I still won’t get meat from a supermarket, but at the English Market (I probably should devout an entire blog entry to that place, it’s my favourite thing in Cork, oh, and I took McClure two or three times) the butcher I go to is a family butcher that only use range feed animals from their own farms right near Cork. Animal friendly (sort of), worker friendly, environmentally friendly, and cheaper. Liver and onions has become a staple in my diet, it’s a nutritional powerhouse. I don’t need to justify myself, fuck you.
3. I of course mean this in a tongue and cheek way. Also I would like to point out that I never once every considered doing so, though I guess C. Halseth at the Minot police thinks otherwise. Fucker. It’s an inside story. Anyway, I just meant that when I was 14 that is the sort of thing kids did to look badass and rebellious.
4. I am.
5. If you want understand some more of my mental pictures of the place, read Alan Moore’s From Hell or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as novels from the time.