Dublin

Our first day in Dublin dawned with clear and cool weather. We stopped at a nearby restaurant to sample the traditional Irish breakfast… delicious, but something you definitely can’t do every day! By now I’d accepted that I wouldn’t be drinking a “real” coffee until I got home; instead, there were two coffee-like beverages you could order: Espresso, watered-down espresso (Americano), and watered-down espresso with milk and mocha flavouring (cappuccino). On top of that, the minimum cost for any of these atrocities in miniscule cups was 1.70 EUR. Seriously.

Next, a walk around the city centre with stops at St. Stephen’s Green, the poet’s walk, and Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and the Long Room (the old library). I should mention that the Irish have it right… instead of towing your car away for illegal parking, they “clamp” it, and you have to pay a fee to have it removed: how sensible! At St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we chanced upon a free Handel recital, and it was absolutely lovely to sit there in that huge, historic church and listen to some pretty darn good singing. We were approached partway through by an English gentleman who asked: “Are you girls from America?” Surprised, we corrected him, and asked what gave us away. “Oh, you’re both chewing gum in church,” he replied, and we both blushed bright red and started for the garbage bin. However, the man laughed and said he didn’t mean it that way; it was just a decidedly non-euro thing to do!

Back to the hostel to shower and clean up, and a chat with the cute French guys who liked to walk around our room clad only in boxers. They were aware of Canada’s French-speaking regions and asked if we could understand them. “Oh, but, can you understand me, that is the question”, I thought to myself. From northern France, their English was almost as broken as my French. Made for an interesting attempt at communication. I invited them out for drinks, but they were going to rest up for a long night of partying. Such is life in Dublin’s Temple Bar… a perpetual party for all of Europe.

For dinner, a stop at the Bad Ass Café for some pre-beer grease. Well, not exactly... Just a good pizza and a pint of Murphy’s. I never eat like this at home so it was stellar. It also cost me $37 bucks CDN for a modest dinner. Geez.

But that night, Wednesday, was the craziest night yet (aside from my birthday). The front desk person at our hostel was kind enough to provide some recommendations for good music and good beer, so we started off at the infamous Temple Bar, Temple Bar. Of course it was full of tourists. We could barely move, but somehow that was fun… we were starting to get used to watching European football instead of hockey, and pretended to be right in there with the lingo. Go Liverpool! When the band came out, it was great. Just so many smiling, happy faces nodding along, and the odd person doing an Irish jig right in the middle of the floor. No-one was especially rowdy or intoxicated, no fights, no shouting, just a bunch of people having fun. That’s what it was like at every pub we went to in Ireland.

Then we crossed the street and went to The Quays, were I was AGAIN asked my age. Geez, on my 27th birthday trip, nobody believes I’m 18! I thanked the bouncer heartily.

The Quays… Fresh and tasty Guinness and 6 EUR a pint, with Ang drinking Bulmer’s like it was going out of style. Good times! The hot blond bartender had a tie full of national flag pins, and he picked us out right away: “I’ve got one for you girls,” he said, pointing to the Canadian flag. We were stunned. How did he know? “I just know these things”, he replied, “and I could tell by your accent”. No way… we didn’t believe it! “Fine,” he admitted, “I saw your Canadian flag keychain”. We ordered all our pints from him. He even walked out into the crowd to give me mine when I forgot it on the bar.

Music was traditional Irish, mostly drinking songs. It was awesome. The old dude with his guitar was just perfect. The atmosphere was friendly and again, full of happy faces. Ang and I met two friends from England. The first guy was a Hungarian with an English accent, who artificially inseminated cows and other livestock, and his friend was a headstrong gal who spoke “the Queen’s English”, whatever that meant. Lovely people, and we had a lovely time.

The Quays closed its doors around 1:30, and I’m not sure exactly how it came about, but Ang asked the bartender where else we could go, and then it was off to Gogarty’s for the late-night crowd. The bartender joined us shortly thereafter, chugging Miller’s through a straw to reach an intoxicated state all the quicker. And so the 5 of us joined the party across the street… and what a party it was. I can’t remember when I actually started liking songs such as “Clementine”, but for some reason it was the cat’s meow to sing along at the top of my lungs with a few hundred inebriated Irish souls. I just stuck to Guinness and had a blast with my new English friends and the cute bartender from the Quays, who somehow decided to hang with the 4 of us all night.

Around 3AM, Gogarty’s closed its doors too, and the bartender shooed us to the next haunt. This appeared to be a type of nightclub in the old-school Toronto fashion, and I balked. There was a cheerful, portly middle-aged guy from Scotland who was trailing me and I really wanted to lose him. Plus, I thought I had reached my alcohol saturation point, and the Quays bartender (no one’s fool, a total player) looked almost dangerously hammered. There was no way I was going in there… I dug in my heels. Dig dig dig… Scottish dude went in. Phew! Ang and the bartender went in, but Pete and Christine stayed behind with me, probably feeling almost as tired as I was. Moments later, Ang emerged, followed reluctantly by the bartender. The 4 of us agreed to call it a night, but the bartender would have none of it. He put the moves on Christine, but she laughed him away, then pointed to me and said something. Next thing I know, he calls me over. “ You playing hard to get?” His lids are drooping, he’s totally smashed. “Uh, no.” Without warning, he’s kissing me, ashtray mouth and all. Christ, why do people smoke!? And so that was unprovoked kiss number 2. I only learned his name afterwards.

The bartender, shot down by all three of us girls in turn, headed back into the nightclub: "I'll see ya when I see ya," he said to me, dejectedly (so I thought!). Ang and I walked Pete and Chris back to their hostel and we ended up taking a cab back to ours. Who knows why this made sense at the time?

We got back just after 3:30AM, detoxed with 2L of water, and got ready for bed. Ang went right to sleep, but I was sitting up on the top bunk when the French guys arrived. The tall one stripped down to his boxers right in front of me, and proceeded to ask me, in his sexy France French accent, how my night went. “Um, it was great of course, didn’t expect much else from Dublin!” I listed our plan of attack for the evening. He smiled. He didn’t seem drunk at all.

4 hours later, we awoke to yet another beautiful day. Ang and I abandoned our illicit cans of beer in the room, needing to jettison them for weight restrictions on the plane. I hope the French guys like Heineken. After a small breakfast at a nearby café, and a quick stop at a souvenir shop to pick up a Temple Bar T-Shirt (I mean, c’mon!), we headed to the Guinness factory. Nothing like more Guinness and the smell of hops to cure a hangover. The factory was great fun; I actually learned something… The tour ended with a fresh pint of Guinness at the “Sky Café” overlooking the city of Dublin. Sure beats the CN Tower…

We ran like mad to make it back to the hostel, grab our bags and head to the airport. However, for a multitude of reasons… we didn’t make it in time to catch our flight to Amsterdam. Much hand-wringing ensued at the airport. This was my nightmare come true… the next flight would cost $350 CDN each. So much for a budget holiday… we looked at other options, but the best was to continue with our original plans. So we took the bus back to Temple Bar, got another room in the Barnacles hostel, and proceeded to drown our sorrows with yet more pizza and Guinness.

We went straight to the Quays that night, where the bartender spotted us, and, in a surprising fit of annoyance, slammed his fist right down on the bar. All eyes turned to us… the other staff stared at us, and at him, quizzically. We confessed that we had missed our flight to Amsterdam. “Oh, I have a feeling that you’ll miss the next one too,” he said, both peeved and mysterious at once. He didn’t speak to us the rest of the night, and left before closing time.

Things perked up at Gogarty’s, where we met a nice fellow named Tom from Northern Ireland, and his boss. They work in the bottled water industry, with a small brand named “Classic”. That’s pretty much all I remember about that, except that Tom felt sorry for us having lost all that money on the flight, and he bought us each a few rounds. Perhaps it was because of that, I incurred my second hangover of the trip… yes, really, no kidding.

So the next day, definitely NOT wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, we make it to Dublin airport alive and on time. The flight was, er, “bouncy?” and the landing in Amsterdam was positively frightening. The lady next to me had her seat in a death-grip, knuckles white and all. I was glad to be over with that one.

Aran Island

To get to Aran Island, we had to take a bus for 30 minutes and a ferry for an hour. I was practically starving on the ferry (not used to those “continental breakfasts” of OJ and toast) and thrashed back my raging appetite with an instant coffee (*grimace*) and another made-in-Europe chocolate bar that you just can’t get here. As soon as we disembarked, we were accosted by taxi drivers/ tour operators who were vying for our tourist euros… kind of funny actually. You basically make a living on the Island with fishing or tourism. The first guy who approached us was the guy we went with (the other option was to rent a bike, but A) it would be hard to cover the Island in 4 hours and B) the bikes were pretty much spoken for by the absolute HOARDES of French students! Must have been school trip season in Europe). It all worked out though in the end. Our tour guide spoke Gaelic (Irish) and English with a wonderful accent. Easy to tell he did this same tour twice a day and has done so for years, because he talked so fast it was hard to take it all in! His modus operandi was to talk like mad, drop us off periodically to see the sights, hike, etc and then pick us up again. Total price? 10 euros.

The fort (Dun Aengus) was, of course, the highlight. Built on a cliff with a great vantage point over the sea and the Island, it was begun in the middle ages. I was pretty much in awe to see the sky and sea meet in an incredible shade of blue, stretching as far as the eye could see. Indescribable, really.

All of Aran Island, and indeed most of Ireland, is covered with low-lying, hand-built stone walls. They stretch on and on, curving and snaking through the sand, rock and grass, a testament to the industry of the Irish in making arable land from the rock. The walls served both to demonstrate ownership of property, and to clear land for farming and raising livestock.

After the tour, we picked up lunch at the local Spar store, where I tried again to tell the difference between 20 and 50-cent euro pieces. Delicious baguette sandwiches and fruit were enjoyed in the sun… alongside the healthiest and largest seagulls I’ve ever seen. We browsed the gift shops, full of clothes and crafts made by the locals, and then caught the ferry back to Galway. A bit tired and sun-kissed (the trek to Dun Aengus was quite a climb!) but it was definitely worth it.

We had a 20-minute turnover to catch the next bus to Dublin… and we just made it. I tried to stay awake as we passed through Limerick and Athlone, but to no avail. We were checked in to Barnacles in Temple Bar just after 11pm. The front desk guy working the night shift was Canadian – from Hamilton! – one of the many reasons we enjoyed staying at this hostel. We didn’t bother going out that night, although we hit up another Spar for some food. A good sleep was in order.

Galway

Monday dawned with a raging appetite, and it was off to Galway for us. Brunch was purchased at a nearby Dunn’s store, where I also picked up an Irish newspaper and a couple of the famous European chocolate bars… the chocolate there is amazing (Galaxy bars!) and makes our junk food seem like… well… junk in comparison. We took a cushy bus to the city centre and dropped our stuff off at the hostel, literally 5 steps away. Kinlay House… it’s a pretty decent place, friendly staff, but oh the showers are hot!! I think it’s a good way to save on water bills, because you couldn’t possibly stand under that water for more than a second or two… you literally need to scald yourself clean.

The rest of the day was spent traipsing around Galway, mostly the historic part by the harbour. We walked the long pier out to the lighthouse and took some photos of the palm trees… a strange sight in Ireland. We made our way past the cathedral and the University of Galway… a pretty campus, but nothing we saw during the trip could beat the University of Cork City. I don’t have many pictures because I was getting disappointed with my camera, so I just asked Ang to take pictures on my behalf!

For dinner, we picked a tiny restaurant on the main strip that advertised “real Irish” fare, and we filled up on seafood chowder and shepherd’s pie (with cabbage, not corn). Then off to a pub in search of some Monday night nightlife… well, we were still recovering from Cork so we ended up nursing a few pints and discussing what had happened so far!

Next: off to Aran Island for a day trip.

Blarney Castle

Bam! I couldn’t sleep the night of the 12^th, so Sunday dawned with a raging hangover AND an all-nighter. I’ve rarely felt worse. I was counselled to drink lots of water and eat greasy food, but even the thought of food made me feel nauseated. It was a good day for Blarney Castle and the crisp fresh air that came with a day in the sun/ rain/ cold/ hot/ windiness that is Irish weather. Seriously, one minute it rains, the next it’s sunny, and the next, it’s sunny and raining at the same time. I wonder why anyone even bothers to read the weather forecast in Ireland. I sure wouldn't.

So Ang, Emilie, David and I wander around the grounds of Blarney Castle and make the trek up to the Blarney stone. No, I didn’t kiss it… partly because I was supremely nauseated and the thought of hanging backwards over a wall with my head upside down really wasn’t appealing, and partly because no miracle on this earth could possibly give me the gift of gab. I mean, sorry, but it’s true. I stood on the edge and took pictures of the Irish countryside instead.

I spent the latter part of the evening running around trying to find a payphone and thinking Ang had been kidnapped.... but it turned out to be a false alarm... Note: there are very FEW public phones in Ireland. Then I sprawled over the air mattress and got a much-needed sleep….

The Trip Begins... In Cork

The flight to London was uneventful, except that the flight attendants forgot which plane they were on (hint: not an airbus). I had fun poking at the airplane food and chatting with the amiable Brit beside me. Things got off to a great start when I dropped my passport in the aisle, 2 hours in. I’ll never live that down. Ang and I arrived in London around 5AM local time, and thus began the longest day of our lives…

6 hours to wander through Heathrow with our backpacks, brush our teeth in the airport restrooms, and chase garbage cans around (there are no standing garbage cans in Heathrow). We caught a flight with Aer Lingus to Cork later in the afternoon, and settled in at Emilie & Leo’s place (friends of Ang). That was April 10^th-11^th, and I don’t think much else happened except for some housekeeping items (euro cel phone setup, groceries, dinner, walking around downtown a bit), and my first taste of a *real* Irish pub. There is nothing as genuine as drinking a pint of Beamish stout (brewed across the road) in a real Irish pub (in Ireland) filled with local residents. We met up with some of Leo & Emilie’s friends and I officially celebrated the first hour of my 27^th year at this pub (which had an Irish name which I couldn’t remember or pronounce). Jetlag caught up quick, so I bid everyone goodnight and retired relatively early.. at 1AM.. after being awake for 37 hours straight.

My birthday started out with an Irish breakfast cooked by Leo… the best pork sausages I’ve ever had, with eggs, toast, coffee & OJ. Then I went for a jog/walk along the river in Cork… or, I attempted to, but soon realized it was futile. The cobblestone roads and sidewalks were so narrow and crowded, and the stoplights so numerous, that running was impossible. I just strolled along the streets, taking in the sights and sounds. Couldn’t tell you where I went, it was just “right, left, right, straight, turn around and do the reverse”. Got back to the apartment and headed out with the girls for some shopping/ browsing downtown, then to the University of Cork with Ang to get some photos. The history of the place was of course, astounding. Nothing in Canada is that old… for the duration of the trip I never really could grasp what it would be like to build a shopping centre inside an old jail, or attend a church that was built in the middle ages, or to walk by rows of houses 400 years old. I was also surprised (and dismayed) by the lack of respect that kids and teens had for this kind of history. That is… once it’s gone, destroyed… we can never get it back.

My birthday dinner was at a disappointing place called “Curran’s”, frequented mostly by tourists now I believe… the group of us washed away our food with some good red wine, the European way. And then, Ang had the whole night planned out. I have beer mats to prove it, but it went this way: cool Irish micro-brewery with good beer, everyone buying me drinks, then to another pub/bar with more people and more beer, everyone buying me drinks. What did I learn? Not to mix cider with stout. It bears repeating: Do NOT mix cider with stout. Had a few Baby Guinness’ too...

Ach, we stumble back to Emilie’s apartment and when we get back, there is a mannequin standing there in his birthday suit, except for a garbage bag falling from his waist. Nobody seems to know how he got there. Someone throws a jersey and cap on him and names him Morris. I remember that I was disturbed by his disrobement and kept trying to get him to cover up, since unfortunately he was loosely anatomically correct. To no avail. Everyone laughed and I received no help for my troubles.

I’m not a big drinker by any means – averaging one beer every second weekend – but in Ireland, with great beer, no work, and surrounded by good friends and good people, I let loose. I had a couple of goals for my vacation, and although they’d be amusing to most readers I really can’t mention them… except that I’m working on being less anxious and shy about everything and just having more fun. But I need to be pushed outside of my usual comfort range and sometimes “liquid courage” helps. (Yes, *blink blink*... I did just write that). Oh and on my birthday… the first unprovoked kiss from a stranger. Either due to drunkenness or my innate charm... I’d like to think the latter. What a crazy birthday… maybe the best I’ve ever had… and the worst hangover I’ve ever had…

The Last will be First

“I’m looking forward to going home to Ottawa, where I can understand the language(s) most of the time, never have to buy a coffee for 2 pound 20, and hardly ever get lost. Not that I don’t enjoy vacations, of course… Wait, that’s pathetic isn’t it?”

That’s what I told the guy sitting next to me on the plane from London on Friday afternoon. And what luck to get him as a seatmate, because I had given up my assigned seat to a young couple who wanted to sit together. The crew was short on tea, coffee, and other beverages, and despite my best attempts I could only manage to wheedle from the stewardess a Coor’s Light that tasted exactly like cardboard. My well-traveled companion, however, shook his head at my complaints and, with a twinkle in his eye, made haste for the back of the plane. Moments later he arrived with a Heineken in one hand and a rye & Coke in the other. “I know how these things work,” he said mysteriously. Cheers to that! 4 beers later, the world was looking decidedly brighter, and our conversation was taking a lively turn.

I think I managed to convince him to try the Carleton triathlon in May, and also that I really wasn’t engaged, or a basketball player, and he tried to convince me that A) I wasn’t that “old”; B) I don’t need to wait until my 30th birthday to travel again; C) It’s important to work at something you enjoy; and D) Academia is over-rated. I countered by trying to convince him that he didn’t look 34 (which he didn’t). I’m going grey and his hair is thinning. We commiserated.

At the baggage check he hauled a monster of a suitcase onto the trolley. I saw him grimace and I said: “Geez, would you like a hand with that?” Ang jabbed me in the ribs: “April, don’t be so rude!” and I saw him look sideways at my unfortunate smirk. But I doubt that either of us felt like being serious after the booze and the long air journey… he stood up, laughed (oh yes) and gave me a big smack on the cheek before speeding away. Ang was astonished. So was I. Now I’ve collected kisses from 3 strangers in 2 weeks. Unprovoked for the most part.

On to the beginning of the story! I didn’t take notes, so I have to write in instalments.

Jitters

Ok I lied... I'm still in Ottawa, with a gigantic headache and bloodshot eyes, and my sleep-deprived self is still hung up on all the potential things that could go wrong, and I'm still paranoid about missing my flight or being swarmed by groups of kids, but the end is near!

Hopefully, hoping beyond hope that about 5 hours from now I'll be sound asleep on that plane. A co-worker just shared a tale of camera-snatching and swarming in Italy... but Rome, isn't that the worst place for such things? Regardless, it's the last thing I need to hear!

But I've got plans for safeguarding, and, like I've said before, I'd love to put my elbow in some thug's face.

Preparations

Spring has finally decided to show up! And what a lovely weekend for running it was! My chest/lungs are recovering steadily but of course, I overdid it and aggravated my ITB at the hip… guess it serves me right, but disappointing nonetheless because I’ll need my wheels in good condition for the trip. I picked up a pair of hybrid trail runners yesterday, and they’ll be my one and only pair of footwear for the next 2+ weeks…might have to chain them to the bed. Not so sure about the 30-person co-ed hostel experience; I don’t really expect to sleep much while I share a room with those party-going young’uns.

My apartment is totally a disaster area, with clothes, luggage, and sundries strewn about haphazardly. I spent hours going over air security regulations last night, in the attempt to pack a tiny carry-on that I could live from if the airline lost my checked bag (I half expect it to). Be prepared: Scout’s motto? I’ve learned that the lighter and smaller you want your pack, the longer it takes and the more creativity you must employ.

Ready? No. Nervous? Yes. I’m always the kind of person who needs to have a contingency plan… “If it can go wrong, it will”. Keeping in mind that we’ll be travelling to G8 countries (!) the cost of necessities will be much higher than here, where we tend to take things like clean, cheap drinking water for granted (and long, hot showers!). The stress of spending so much money on even the basics--food, travel and lodging--is making me feel kind of guilty! I have to stop myself from thinking of the alternative uses of these funds. Then there is sickness, injury, and all that jazz. Now add some worry about theft and personal safety into the mix and you’ve got a recipe for traveller’s anxiety!

I probably won’t be posting again until after I get back…. so long for now.

Fun with LRAS

Last night I got into a heated discussion over the slope of the LRAS curve. The shocking thing was that it was the most excitement I’ve had all week.

Now, before my dear readers haze me for inappropriate acronym usage: Long Run Aggregate Supply.

The key to understanding some of the practice questions in the CFA curriculum is the assumption that the LRAS curve is vertical (slope is infinite). I’m game for that. Long-term growth in real GDP would then be represented by parallel shifts to the right, by some amount equal to increased worker productivity (increase in technology, skills), mobility, and population. Oversimplified… but intuitive, right? To take it a step further…. in equity valuation exercises, finance geeks often use 3% for ‘g’: the rate of long-term growth in the economy, and this rate is used in the perpetuity calculations. In the long run, it is difficult to make a case for any firm’s revenue growth to exceed ‘g’.

Complete flexibility in prices (factor prices, price levels) and the notion that there is a finite limit to the aggregate supply of an economy (in the long run, at full employment) are concepts that contribute to the infinite slope theory. But you might argue some other possibilities, namely the Keynesian view.

In this model, LRAS starts out horizontal, curves and ends up vertical at maximum full-employment output. The idea here is that, when we’re below the maximum full-employment level of output, an increase in demand will not cause inflationary pressure. Hey, that sounds reasonable too, doesn’t it?

But we’re splitting hairs. In my opinion, the argument centres on the time period considered. What if there is a “medium-run”? We could have a “medium-run” supply curve with a Keynesian shape, and argue that in the long run, in a free market by definition, equilibrium is reached at the maximum output at full employment.

I’ll stop while I’m ahead.