Reflections on 2008

As 2008 comes to a close, it seems appropriate for me to reflect on the events of the last year. To call it an interesting ride would be an understatement. While the world at large has recently changed in irreversible ways, I have attempted to keep a more introspective focus here. I do not mean to suggest these experiences happened in a vacuum; such a statement would of course be ridiculous.

What follows are some of my experiences in the past year.

I have traveled to 7 countries outside the US. Seven of my last twelve months have been abroad, and I still have three more to go.

Before leaving, I was lucky enough to grow intellectually and swap ideas with some of the best academic minds in the world. In June my family flew to Boston to attend my graduation from what US News & World Report ranks as the top engineering university in the nation. My research allowed me to spend a month in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by a 123 page thesis report submitted only four months later.

In Iceland, I visited incredibly pristine environments and some of the most naturally beautiful landscapes imaginable, including volcanoes, craters, waterfalls, glaciers, mountains, geothermal pools, and geysers. In late June, I watched the sun set at 2am and come up a half hour later. A few weeks later, I went hiking (with daylight) around midnight.

I stood at the edge and looked down the largest waterfall in Europe (Dettifoss, North Iceland).

I toured both the worlds largest and second largest museums (Louvre in Paris & Prado in Madrid), and saw Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Picasso's Guernica.

I have come far too close in the wild with the world´s largest land and sea mammal (elephants and whales, respectively).

Throughout the year, I lived with people from Bolivia, China, Hungary, India, Japan, Kenya, and Spain.

One Hungarian roommate taught me how to drive a manual transmission in Reykjavik. Many thanks to the patient Icelandic drivers who tolerated my constant stalling at intersections :)

Although I missed out on many new films, I watched The Dark Knight in Reykjavik and Quantum of Solace in Dublin.

My culinary experiences grew just as fast; I saw & ate foods I never thought possible (mostly in Ghana & Iceland) - including goat, whale, bush rat, blood pudding, rotten shark, and sheep's head.

There were lots of drinks along the way: the highlights being Oktoberfest in Munich, Guinness in Ireland's oldest pub, wine under the Eiffel Tower, apeteshie at the Fire Festival in Northern Ghana, sangria in Madrid's Plaza Mayor, brennavin in downtown Reykjavik, and port in Lisbon's Palace Square. I learned how to say "toast" in all the local languages.

In Spain, I caught glimpses of traditional culture through Flamenco dancing and bull fights, performed in much the same way as it was in past centuries.

I stood on bridges and aqueducts built by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago.

And last but not least, I spent an afternoon in a penis museum in Husavik, Iceland.



Of course, not all of it has been fun & games.

It is always annoying to live out of one's suitcase, but I know few who have done it for months at a time. Or six.

Virtually all my time abroad has been in countries where English is not the primary language.

I have bared witness to abject poverty, starvation, diseases like Guinea worm, and people whose only source of water resembles a large mud hole located several miles away. I have lived in places without running water or reliable electricity. I have been awoken by rats chewing on my bed and animals walking on the roof. I know in certain places this is simply a way of life, and in other countries people are much, much worse off.

Having these wonderful experiences while simultaneously seeing how others live has burdened me with a substantial amount of guilt, a natural reaction of watching others toil without getting to enjoy life to the same degree. I still haven´t figured out how to justify much of my lifestyle when thinking of starving children, a concept starkly more sobering when experienced in first person and not as pictures on tv. The reality is these people are real, there are a lot of them, and they live less than a day's travel away.

By all accounts, this has been a hell of a year for me.

Despite how this can be read, I don't say it to brag. If anything, traveling has hopefully instilled some much-needed humility. When abroad, you are the idiot and everyone else knows what's going on. There are barriers to understanding, the most obvious two being language and a lack of knowledge of local customs. But overcoming these obstacles, or even just briefly peeking over them, is the joy of traveling.

While it has been a lot fun, the truth is that I often feel isolated. It's incredibly frustrating to have these wonderful stories and few people to share them with. I suppose part of my desire to write this blog has been to address that.

"What have I learned" is a difficult question to answer, not for a lack of substance but because I find it hard to coalesce my impressions. Or even if I do, finding a way to express them into words is often beyond my ability.

I have a greater appreciation for things I took for granted, whether it be a safe place to sleep, a hot shower, or even having a friend to talk to.

My time abroad leads me to believe most people often want the same basic things out of life (no matter how different the cultures), and happiness is very weakly correlated to personal wealth. People in Ghana smile the most of any country I've visited.

Seeing cultures live in such different ways has altered my way of viewing the world. I now see my beliefs and ideas of "right and wrong" as but one in a set of many.

I expect 2009 to be much more "normal" (indeed I will be surprised if any calendar year tops this one), but I do plan on living out my last three months abroad to its fullest.

Overall, I'd like to think my travels have made me a more caring, open-minded person. And I hope they continue to do so.

Sláinte!

Location: Dublin, Ireland
"Sláinte" (pronounced "Slonche") is the Gaelic word for cheers, and since there was plenty of beer drinking on this excursion I figured it was a good place to start. (Also, a previous post was titled "Prost!" in honor of the Germans, and I clearly don't want to play favorites).

Before I left work for the weekend, my coworkers asked me my plans. This has become a routine question they love to ask when we're all together because it's synonymous with "what country is Cash going to tonight"? They thought Dublin was hilarious, but the Spanish apparently seem to really like the Irish. I found this a bit surprising considering their distance from one another, but perhaps many European countries feel the same.

Our hostel was located right on O'Connell street, the main North-South drag in the downtown area. And we were only about a 10-15 minute walk from the main cluster of pubs called "Temple Bar".

Here is a typical "beautiful" day looks like in Dublin. We were actually quite lucky because it only rained one of the days we were there. Before I left the weather prediction was rain everyday...
And this liquor store was conveniently located right across the street from my hostel. Fortune smiles upon me again!
The first stop was Temple Bar. I should clarify that statement, because "Temple Bar" is not only the name of a neighborhood of bars & nightclubs, but also a specific bar within that area. This was taken at the bar with the same name, and clearly they have a wide selection of beers and spirits.
And there was a rugby game on, so it was fun to mingle with the locals and shout or boo when something exciting happened. Here's me with my first Guinness of the weekend.
I also discovered that Smithwicks (a lighter red ale) is my favorite Irish beer. Armed with this important knowledge, I set out to find some Irish girls there. I shortly thereafter wound up befriending 4 French ones instead. Oh darn...

This is me trying to keep a watchful eye on the oncoming traffic. I leave it to you to decide if this was done intentionally.
Here's me with my homie James (Joyce, the famous author).
As I already mentioned, it only rained one of the days I was there. But that one storm had enough wind and rain to completely obliterate the wimpy Spanish umbrella I had brought. So I had to pop into a store to buy another one - except the guy there talked me into getting a poncho instead. It looked really stupid, and thankfully there are no pictures of it. In fact I'll deny the event even happened if you ever ask.
We also noticed an interesting hat & beard as we were shopping around. I was tempted but decided to pass.
The following day we ate lunch at "The Brazen Head", which is the oldest pub in all of Ireland and established in 1198. It even has the Guinness plaque and everything to prove it.
We each chose the typical Irish food of beef stew and pints of Guinness. The food was quite good, and I managed to fall in love with our cute waitress who came over and asked in a thick accent "whad'ta wan' luv?"

The restaurant also boasted daily live music, so we stuck around and watched a local band play a few pieces. Good stuff.
After we left, we were heading back on foot and happened to pass by this neat little church. This picture portrays something I continuously found odd, namely how much grass there was despite the freezing temperatures and continual dampness. Take my word for it that it was much colder than it appears. But then again, it was November in Ireland...
The next planned stop on our agenda was Trinity College. It turned out to be a beautiful campus as others had promised. This is the main quad.
Probably my favorite part of the campus was the famous library which one can only see by paying to see the Book of Kells. I was, however, unimpressed by the book itself but liked the long rows of century-old books in the very old-school library.
The usher in this room was very upset that I was taking pictures (I was even trying to be discreet), especially since I was practically standing next to the "No Pictures!" sign. I consider pretending to only speak Spanish when he approached me, but considering my Caucasian appearance I thought this a rather ridiculous idea.

And just by luck we happened to walk by the annual Christmas-tree lighting festival, complete with a parade and Santa on stilts. The base of the "tree" is on the left-hand side; I think it was at least 100 feet tall and completely made out of lights.
They also had live traditional Irish music (called "Trad" by the locals) as part of the celebration.
And one of the musicians also came out and did some traditional dancing as well. She was quite young (probably in her mid-teens), but I was quite impressed nonetheless. It was my favorite part of the event, and the video is below for your enjoyment as well.

And this is a good shot of O'Connell street with the tree much later that night...which also explains why no one is around.
The next morning we awoke early and hit the road with our first stop being the most famous in all of Dublin, and possibly even Ireland...

Being ambitious folk, we had decided to allot only 90 minutes to the brewery in the hopes of then catching a bus outside the city. Of course this didn't wind up happening, but we ran with it and wound up having a great day anyway. So back to Guinness...

It's a self-guided tour of the 7 story building, and it winds around and has stations where one can stop & read or watch a short video about the brewing process or the history of the business. This is a shot of a facility map.
Notice how the entire inner part is shaped like a pint glass? Something tells me that's not an accident.

This is near the beginning of the tour and entombed into the floor - it is a 9,000 year old lease signed by the original founder, Arthur Guinness. Forward thinking guy!
And they really had a little something for everyone...even us nerdy engineers!
I absolutely loved this quote and will likely always remember it.
One of my favorite parts was this section which showed how the television and printed ads evolved over time. They also had video screens there where one could select and watch any of the television spots...even the ones back in the 50s. Really fascinating to watch it evolve over the decades and various countries; I felt like I was getting a mini-history lesson.
Near the top they have a bar where one can pour "the perfect Guinness", which according to the sassy young Irish lass working there should take slightly over 2 minutes.
The entire top floor is dedicated to a circular room (called the "Gravity Bar") with a bar in the middle and nothing but glass windows looking out over Dublin. And we were lucky enough to have a clear day (a true rarity in winter there) which left us with a great view of the city.
As I mentioned before, all of this took waaayyyyy longer than 90 minutes, which meant we missed our bus and now had nothing planned for the day. So we did what any self-respecting person would do...we went to the other famous alcohol icon of the country.
Unlike the previous tour, they led people through the Jameson distillery. Unfortunately the actual whiskey is now made in another city, but they've largely restored the original building in Dublin so one can still get a feel for it.

Here is one of the earlier steps where they are adding water and mashing the barley.
In the storage room for the raw barley our tour guide explained that historically these used to be a lot of mice & rats trying to eat the grain, so they had a famous cat who is claimed to have averaged 20 kills per day. They were so impressed by "Smitty" that they had him stuffed to commemorate his hard work, and here he is.
Of course not all the tour was that odd, but it was a lot of fun for me to learn how they store the various kinds of whiskey. For instance, I did not know they re-used barrels from very specific kinds of wine and spirits.
Of course the best part was the taste-testing. While everyone was given a glass of Jameson, they also asked for volunteers for a more "full tasting experience". Both my friend and I shot up our hands when the 3rd word in her sentence was "I'll need volunteers...". We were the only ones who did this, and she stopped, looked at us, and said "wow, we're not quite there yet but thanks for the enthusiasm".

Say what you will, but if we're only judged by our results than it was clearly a success...we were both later picked.

What this additional responsibility entailed was to compare an Irish whiskey like Jameson to both a Scottish (Johnny Walker) and American (Jack Daniels) one. Plus they gave time to explain how the processes were different and exactly why the tastes were different.
In the end I could distinguish between the three and had developed my preferences...who knew drinking whiskey early in the day could be so educational!

Later on that night I got a good picture of the Ha'penny bridge, which is named thus because it used to cost a half penny to cross it.
On our last day we awoke early and decided to use our little bit of remaining time to go gift shopping and to walk through St. Stephen's Green again. We had actually seen the park on the first day, but it was close by and we both felt we hadn't dedicated enough time to fully appreciate it.

This is one of the entrances into the park; for those of you who remember my last postings on Paris, Dublin apparently has its own little Arc de Triumph as well!
The park is located near the downtown area and consists of a walking path which loops the grounds and is surrounded by lush tress. A long pond complete with ducks spans the park as well.
There were also these little separate nooks like this one where I imagined poetry readings during the day and clandestine political meetings at night.
There was also a neat look-out point along the trail which overlooked a good deal of the park.
And since it was Fall, the leaves were turning on several of the trees. It made for a very impressive site.
This left us with only a few hours before our flights, so we begrudgingly left behind the city which we had both come to love. Even compared to my previous travels in Munich, Paris, and Madrid, Dublin seems to me a very special place. It's hard to describe exactly why; the weather was terribly cold/damp/windy, everything was fairly expensive, and it offered much less historic sites than most other famous cities in Europe. But the people we met (whether Irish or not) were so much fun, and for me personally it was so easy to integrate with a culture which spends so much time in pubs.

And this final one was taken while sitting in the bar at the airport lounge. Oddly enough, the beer there was the cheapest we saw on our entire trip (a pint of Guinness was 4€ instead of 5€).
Between the beer and hat, this is just about my best Irish impression!

As always, further pictures can be found here.