Barry in Europe

Cambridge MD is a town of about 10,000 people on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, across from Baltimore. I get the feeling that it is not really on the travel plans of many people tripping about the world or USA. I doubt that I would have ventured that way at all if it was not where one of my all time favourite people lives. Before getting there, I had to get myself out to Baltimore airport to acquaint myself with a new friend

When the fellow at the car rental place saw what I was going to be doing, he was all "are you sure you're going to be comfortable, that's a really small car, you might want something bigger", yet it is a 2 litre, brand new four door sedan and there is only one of me. I'm sure we'll be fine.

Navigation was very easy - out past Annapolis, across the Bay Bridge (would have loved to stop and take a picture as it looked splendid, but they don't tend to like that on freeways at the best of times, and definitely not when its going across a bridge) and, coincidentally, through Chester which is where I helped my Turkish friend to yesterday. I actually stopped there because I was feeling peckish, and the picture of a big red apple convinced me I was outside a foodstore. Not so lucky - I could get paint, my clothes cleaned or electrical supplies, but not food. Didn't actually get any until I hit Cambridge.

Our plans were not really set in concrete, so it wasn't a surprise to find Katie was not home, so went for a wander along the main street of Cambridge and out towards its pier - some nice old colonial style houses made for a pleasant walk and I found a bar down on the waterfront which served up (very slowly) a beer and quesadilla (a word I had a little trouble pronouncing, particularly when I couldn't remember which way round it is constructed). It was only after I'd ordered it that I remembered I'd had one last year, somewhere in Idaho or Montana and thought it awful. Luckily, this one was much better.

When I did catch up with Katie and Brian, they took me on a tour of the town. I think the highlight had to be Chesapeake Classics: even the possibility of such a place had never occured to me. It is a largish shop given over almost entirely to decoys, primarily ducks but also some fish, mostly for collecters rather than those who actually hunt ducks. Out the back was a decoy museum. Stupendous! Since it was second Saturday, Cambridge was putting on a show: a band was playing, beer was sold in the street (but not from a truck), pulled pork was on offer. I wouldn't say its the biggest turnout I've ever seen, but it was a nice thing to do. Like a lot of American towns, Cambridge main street has been destabilised by all the new shops starting up out on the highways and so things to get their downtown districts appreciated are important.

Chesapeake is crab country, but I can still shudder at a childhood encounter with a crab on my dinner plate: in 8 year old boy terms, it was yucky. The idea of a softshell crab which is battered, cooked and eaten whole brings back the shudders. So I didn't have crab for dinner.

On Sunday, they brought out the big guns in terms of places that appeal to me: traditional American eating establishments. Cambridge seems lucky to be blessed with several of these places. I wasn't too keen on Katie's chipped beef on biscuit, mainly because it was smothered in a milky white gravy, but was very happy with my choice. It is places like Millies, and another we would have eaten at had they not shut as we drove up, and the bakery Katie's sister has that make me think I could happily be American.

There was an information centre nearby, so we had to go over. Funny thing was, they were promoting Cambridge by quoting John Barth, who was born there, but when I asked the lady running the place if I could get any John Barth books in town, she had no idea who I was talking about. No visit to the John Barth birthplace for me then. It did set me on a quest, however. I have most of his books back home, have only ever read Lost in the Funhouse, but really wanted to read his Floating Opera when I heard it was set in Cambridge and the Bay. Cambridge doesn't really do bookshops, it seems. Katie was busy with my camera, managed to get lots of sideways shots but in one I am facing the right way up

Like my Orioles hat? Its the colour that did it for me.

The rest of the day, we just went to the beach away over on the East coast, in Delaware, at Reheboth Beach. First stop - every bookstore in sight in the hunt for John Barth books. No joy. Then it was time to settle into some seriously good beer at the Dogfish Head brewery pub - some of his beers are a bit extreme and gimmicky for me, but he makes a fine IPA, so fine I bundled a 24 into the car. I liked Reheboth Beach a lot - Katie had said it was kind of white trash, but it wasn't noticeably so (or I'm too white trash myself to know). It seemed very friendly, lacking in the kind of louts and drunks and drunken louts you run into at a lot of English beaches. The beach itself run for miles.

We were more interested in the ice cream, the popcorn, the salt water taffy, the t-shirts, the burgers, the rather nice gentlemen's clothing shop and, finally, the funfair.


These cars got up to an incredible speed

This was a squeal machine - all the kids would scream as it came down

although I was amused when a more mature lady got on - all she could do was laugh their head off. Katie and Brian were intent on going on this alarming whirligig thing, that I just couldn't cope with so I amused myself by trying to get their photo every time they came around: missed every time, except when the machine was stopped

Somehow it was after 10:00 before we got back, so after a quick cook up of some franks on the barbie, it was sleep time: early start Monday for us all. After going to the bakery and having rather good coffee twice and a fantastic donut twist thing, it was time to drop Katie at work and head off on my adventure.

Distance Travelled: 80 miles (the wrong way). Distance to go: nearly 2000.

When catching buses, I have become quite accustomed to just turning up and jumping on. Its what people do, right? Not when you’re taking the Greyhound. They make quite a performance out of catching a bus, at least out of Philadelphia. Even when you buy a ticket online, you have to be in the station a full hour before scheduled departure. There is nothing as simple as printing the ticket off the internet or giving the driver a booking reference. Instead, you have to tussle with the machine dispensing tickets, which tells you that it can’t read your credit card, then that there is no ticket associated with that card or any other that you might care to present. So you queue for the one person working the counter, watching in bemusement as three other staff come out, not to help her but to help people figure out how to get their tickets out of the machine. It takes 40 minutes of your hour to get to the head of the queue. Only then does a second person come to provide counter service.

Ticket finally in hand, you queue again, this time for the bus. It is a long queue, and people are counting the number ahead of them and asking “how many does that bus carry?” Because Greyhound just keeps selling tickets without regard to the number of seats on the bus: if it is full, you catch the next one. SIX HOURS later. So, the back of the queue becomes somewhat indeterminate, as those who are simultaneously late, nervous and pushy manage to find themselves in front of people waiting ten minutes.

One last flourish attends this performance: the man with the wand. It looks like a fat black spatula, with green and red lights. It is waved over everyone’s luggage, the lights flashing as if they are on a Christmas tree, not a machine to ensure we can safely travel Greyhound without being maced, knifed or drugged (these were the three things the man with the wand seemed worried about). It beeps frantically, like an alarm clock on speed. The man with the wand is evidently a better man than I, as I could detect no pattern to the sound and light show, and went away suspecting that that was all it was, a show.

Once on the bus, everything is fine. The driver, a self-sacrificing sort of gentleman warns us not to go near the luggage compartment as the cables holding the doors up tend to snap, and they’re heavy doors. “If anyone is going to die today, it is better that it be me, rather than one of you. So don’t mess with the luggage compartment”.

As you come into Baltimore, its industrial heritage is evident: no shops, motels etc, just some factories, piles of materials, and lots of cranes. Even the Greyhound station is out in an industrial area, next to a factory with a big chimney.

Again, I didn't have much of a plan, other than to wander around and see what can be seen. One reason for choosing Baltimore was The Wire, but I don't think I'd want to go to the places you see there. There are warnings not to go into certain areas of this city.

Walking out from the hostel, I had this feeling I was in a good place, a bit of a wreck of a city but I was glad to be there and, unlike Philly, there are two good coffee shops within a block of the hostel. What I didn't find were the big brand shops I've come to expect in American cities. I was impressed by the city library and Walter art gallery, not because they were particularly special but because they were both started with private money. Mr Walter had to have this building

to house his private collection. Inside, things are a little eccentric:

The Inner Harbour is where its at in Baltimore if you're a tourist, so I went and inspected the marine life:

Yep, that's a submarine. I've never even seen one let alone had the chance to go inside. You start in the aft torpedo room

which has been set up as an extremely cramped backpackers!

Moving forward



There are four of these, each producing 1600 horsepower.

Backpacker operators could learn something from submarines - this space has 36 beds:
The dining area is cosy

They call this a stateroom! I grew up reading about Captain's staterooms but never imagined they'd be like this:

The Officers' rooms are identical, except there are three bunks. And then it is the forward torpedo room,

and its all over.

I did have a vague idea of seeing the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Museum, biggest in the country apparently, but the submarine distracted me so long I didn't see any point trying to see the Museum.

I went back to the hostel to much love. In the morning, I'd been hanging about, eating pancakes and doing a bit of work, when the hostel manager brought in a damsel in distress. She'd flown in from Turkey the day before, had very little English, and had some work lined up in a McDonalds out in the boonies. The manager was looking for someone to put her on the train to the inner boonies, where someone would collect her. Since it was time to go anyway, I thought what the hell. Somehow this was a big deal to the manager, so when I got back, she was all "I love you so much...". Speaking of the hostel, it had a touch of elegance I don't normally get in hostels

For my last eveing, I walked up what was the main drag, and is now called historic Charles Street - it seems largely residential, but with a few grand hotels, cafes, bars, clothing shops, a University, a train station etc strung out along its length. It made for a pleasant walk, and about halfway along, there is Brewer's Art - a brew pub I'd been told about. Just as well, as I'd probably never have ventured underneath, where there's a cool bar, a proper underground place with limited light, hordes of people, loud music and good beer.

Distance travelled: 200 miles. To go: roughly 1900.

The flight over on Aer Lingus was pretty average, just as my researches had led me to expect. There was an unfortunate juxtaposition of myself between a number of babies: one would cry and that would set off a chain reaction, culminating in me wishing that airlines made special provision for parents travelling with infants. At my most aggravated, I would have been happy to see that take the form of having the wee darlings sit on the wings, but when I calmed down, a more reasonable solution came to mind – an area could be made separate and made into a quasi nursery, with cots for the tots.

The captain seemed to like telling long lingering tales about our arrival time – with the lack of headwind we’d be half an hour early into JFK but then he had quite a list of reasons why that time might get cut down. As it happens, we arrived dead on time. I had not made arrangements for onward travel, as I’d heard horror stories about how long it would take to get out of JFK. After collecting my bag, I was outside in two minutes! Outside, there were a couple of women touting for business for the buses into town: I was impressed that someone had the nerve to approach one to borrow her cellphone to call someone about a ride. Even more impressed to see the phone was actually lent.

I had a succession of commuter trains to catch,

first into New York’s Penn Station, then out to Trenton New Jersey and on to Philadelphia. It took hours and is not to be recommended. A more organised traveller to Philadelphia might have flown to Newark and saved a lot of time and hassle. An even more organised one would have flown to Philadelphia direct. But when I booked, I really had no idea where I’d go and so JFK seemed like a convenient option.

Although the temperature was less than 20 degrees, it was so humid that by the time I hit the hostel, I was asked if it was raining outside. It took a couple of pints of Samuel Adams to recover, then the hunt for my first dinner in the USA (since last year, that is) was on: America does food well and I wanted something nice. Unfortunately the place I picked sounded good, a roast beef palace, if you like, and the beef was nice but the microwave was a wee bit over-used.

I only had one full day in Philly, with no real plan except a feeling I should check out the Independence Mall - not actually about shopping but history. Philly has it in spades, thanks to a couple of bits of paper signed here a while back - the Declaration of Independence to name one, in this building

and it was the centre of US government for a few years. I took a good look at the display set up in the information centre as to what was on offer, and didn't feel any need to do anything but wander around the precinct for a while. Here is all that is left of the house occupied by Jefferson when he was President - the blue lines, not the handsome buildings to the rear

Horse drawn carriages are available by the dozen

Eating became important, so it was time to go to Reading Market, something I read about in the Guardian.





I was a bit bamboozled by all the choice and by the time I snacked on a couple of donuts and had a cinnamon sugar pretzel, in no need of lunch anyway.

My wandering walk took me past the magnificent City Hall



Ben Franklin was nearby, doing his thing an keeping an eye on what's going on

I had a sort of plan, in that I wanted to check out the main Art Gallery. Unfortunately, I had failed to find out where it is, so after a long walk along Philadelphia's version of the Champs Elysees, past the library

I finally got there about an hour before closing time. Since it is so large

and the entry fee a little steep, I took a shot looking back into town

and headed off in what turned out to be the direction of the railway station, where I enjoyed the classic lines of the interior.


Even more than that, I enjoyed the food to be found in the station - a marvellous chicken bisque given life by the addition of green chillies, jalapenoes, garlic and coriander then, in another stall, juicy and very filling ribs - getting four might have been a little greedy!

After the low rise buildings of Ireland and even the UK, I enjoyed wandering inner city Philly, as the tall buildings really evoke a big city feel. Not sure that I feel any pull to return any time soon, however, although I did miss out seeing what is reputed to be its most interesting street, South Street.

Distance travelled: 110 miles. To go: roughly 2000.

People flying from Dublin to JFK get quite a sweet deal, really. First off, when I booked, it was a LOT cheaper to fly from Dublin to JFK than from London, in the order of it being half the price. Then there is the fact that while you wait for your plane at the airport, some smiling representatives of the US Immigration service are on hand to process your entry into the USA. You get to JFK and find that all you have to do is hand a form to a fellow waving a similar one at you and you're done. No search, no X-Ray, not even a question about your intentions. Sweet. But the best thing about leaving from Dublin is that if you know Richard or, as in my case, his brother or maybe even if you pretend to know someone who knows Richard, he'll be there to ease your passage out of the country.

He took me on a pub crawl, told stories, got me drunk, in the same pubs as James Joyce and Flann O'Brien had undoubtedly got drunk before me, he ferried me about and took me into his home and fed me and was a very generous host. Thanks, man. I'm on my way to see someone else who is going to be playing host, and he set the standard high, but I venture hopefully. After all, she has indicated the possibility of sailboating, of crabs and the absolute incontrovertible fact of truckloads of beer in the streets.

It was nice to have a bit of a leer up in Dublin, to be still out when the bars were closing around us, even though it seemed very early at 2:00 a.m. Travelling by myself, I'll go and have a drink, maybe two, but for a long mission company is needed. An odd thing happened, twice on the night out. In one pub this Frenchman told me that he'd seen a mural of the band The Dubliners, and as he fingered my beard, he told me I looked just like one of its in and out members, Ronnie Drew. Poor fellow - he was very earnest about how we Irish were so great, and that there was a deep spiritual connection between the French and we Irish people. We didn't have the heart to put him straight. In the last bar of the night, an American woman could have easily been convinced that I was Ronnie Drew. As I had been until about an hour earlier, she was ignorant of the fact he had died.

On the Saturday, it was time for another pilgrimmage, but this time without the beer. My destination was a lot smaller than I imagined

and I wondered about how "stately, plump Buck Mulligan" managed the stairs.

This is the famous Martello Tower at Sandycove, in which the first chapter of Ulysses is set and where James Joyce himself stayed for just under a week - he didn't take too kindly to being shot at by his friend, apparently.

The room has been set up as described in the novel,


except that the black panther in the fire place was just a dream.

There were two plastercasts made of Joyce's face when he died. This is one of them

After the fabulous weather of last week, it was a bit of a shock when it turned miserable. I left the hostel in my shirtsleeves, thinking it was just a bit of drizzle. Within a couple of blocks, I was thinking I should find an umbrella. By the time I was half way down O'Connell Street, I was so desperate I bought an umbrella from a gift shop. By the time I was at Connelly Station, it had turned itself inside out three times (the umbrella, that is, not the station) and its frame was bent so I biffed it away in disgust. Only then did I remember the toasty warm raincoat I could have gone back for.

There was an upside, however. By the time I got down to Sandycove, the rain had gone off and the wind trebled. As someone said to me "there'll be no swimming in this":

Funnily enough, I walked around the point and someone was swimming, and another fellow was heading out in a kayak. Into this

Not so funny: as I left, I noticed the lifeguard getting very anxious, then running to his wee shed, extracting binoculars and running back to take a look. I hope it was nothing, but I did notice a human head bobbing in the waves.

It was with a little bit of sadness I checked out of the Gresham Metropole and hopped into the bus to Galway. Five hours on a bus is not my idea of fun, and luckily Bus Eireann seemed to be aware of that: they chucked us off the Galway bus in Limerick and made us wait for another.

After I got established in my hostel, I ran into a problem. They very kindly gave me directions and a map to help me get to what they said was a good place for coffee, but half the streets in Galway have no signs. So that's what the U2 song Where the Streets have No Name is about. Makes it hard to get about - eventually I found the place I'd been sent to, which turned out to be a cute French bistro. Galway was completely chocker, full of people in for the Volvo Yacht race - the boats are in town for a couple of weeks and Galway's turning on the party. I was in the laundrette and overheard someone travelling with the yachts: of all the places they're visiting, Galway is by far doing the most to make their arrival an occasion. Not, it seems, that Galway needs much of an excuse: guys in my hostel were talking about coming to Galway to perfect their serious drinking habit.

I found the whole place far too packed to be comfortable - I couldn't walk around without being bumped into, and trying to get a spot for dinner in anywhere that looked decent was impossible. Around 10:30, I finally succumbed and went for some chicken'n'chips at Supermac, where the person serving seemed to bark at me and all the staff scowled there way through the night. To make matters worse, two guys spent most of the night outside my window accosting all passersby. It was a little amusing, in that one guy sounded just like James Nesbitt (the fellow in Cold Feet) and the other like Billy Connelly, but still I was geting more and more uptight the longer I was in Galway. And I'd booked for a week!

I was considering doing my dough at the hostel, and finding somewhere quieter - even a hotel would have let me hole up - but had the brainwave of asking the hostel if I could shift my booking to another. And so I came to spend most of my Galway time in the Burren.

First, though, I had a night booked out in Clidfden, out through Connemara on the coast. It was nce seeing Connemara as we whizzed through on the bus, and Clifden was almost completely as I remembered it, a nice wee town set out in a triangular pattern



with a tail leading off to its "beach"

After I'd wandered around a bit, I had my heart set on salmon for dinner, as it seemed to be everywhere. I think I made a good choice, in the very modest EJ Kings hotel, in its third floor restaurant. Modest because, despite being started in 1820, they say they are "over 100 years old". Really good dinner. I was sitting outside, enjoying the last remnants of the sun, about 10:00, when this charming couple, up from the country and dressed for a visit to town, he was in a suit, she in some sort of eveing dress, sat with me for a bit and wanted to know all about New Zealand and my travels.

To get out to the Burren, I had to go back into town and catch a bus that went south along the coast for a bit. The Burren is a very odd piece of land - hills which have been denuded of their vegetation and soil, and just have crowns of limestone. I tried for some photos, but taken out of the bus window, they weren't so hot.

There were lots of wee cottages with thatched rooves - again, my efforts to take photos failed: I tended to get the tractor parked nearby rather than the house. Some worked, however:

Stone fences prevail - I think that each of these blocks were farmed by an individual crofter, to give him and his family a subsistence living. When I was here in the 80's, I remember a lot of them becoming unoccupied, simply because they were of no use to anyone.

My actual destination is a town called Lisdoonvarna - six hotels and a gift shop and that's about it. Oh, and the spa. I actually saw a movie about this town a while ago - it has had an annual match-making event every September for more than a century.

So, of course all of the hotels are plastered with banners promoting that, and promising "weekday dances" [so long as you wait until September]. It has the dinkiest wee library

The hostel is a former hotel

I had a really great time in Lisdoonvarna - the hostel was very peaceful, with a group of young Frecnhwomen hanging about chatting quietly to give a touch of sophistication. I even cooked. Town was a two minute walk away, where I could repair for a decent coffee twice a day. Incredible weather, 25 degrees every day, and long evenings - I found it very pleasant to sit outside until after 10:30, when the light finally faded. When I checked out, I had to tell the fellow its the best I've been in.

I did venture out for one day - through this odd town called Doolin. It seems they couldn't work out where to put it, so just flung it about on the side of the hill facing the coast. My objective was the Cliffs of Moher.

I didn't quite make it to the very end, as I had a bus to catch and really didn't want to miss it. Plus I had to visit the gift shop

Further round, the information centre and restaurant are fully underground.

Reading for the week was a brand new book the Guardian reveiwed a wee while back, by Richard Milward: Ten Story Love Song. The Times said of his first book, Apples, that it was a celebration of teenage immorality. I haven't read it, but in his second book, his post-teens are growing up and finding value in old values. It was curiously like the The Forsyte Saga, if you could imagine it set in a tower block in early 21st century Middlesburgh. Bob the Artist (the author is one and all) is the central character and a bit of a sweetie, although he spends a lot of his time doing multiple drugs and painting while in that state. An example of his innocence: a london gallery wants to show his art and bring him to London. He goes to McDonalds for lunch, and then remembers he's on expenses. His blow out? Another burger, and maybe an ice cream. Plus there is his yearning to be back home, with his girl. There is an enormous amount of drugs and violence in this book, but ultimately, it is a comedy, in the traditional sense.