A Low-Budget Production

As you may have noticed, I like to take quivery, out-of-frame videos of special moments in my life. After while I'll compile them into a high school English project kind of a feature film that sits on the cusp of confusion and seasickness. I really enjoy this.

Indeed, Ellen and I filmed much of our summer romp and I have here an 8 minute short film (sorry) of simplicity abroad. Ellen and I realized after our Contiki trek that we didn't film anything exciting while we were doing it but I reckon that's a good thing because we were in the moment, or something like that. Originally I planned to make two little videos of each trek but I had too much Eastern Europe and not enough UK. So I've mushed them together with an intermission of Ellen and I discussing the more memorable details of life on a bus and whatnot.

Please ignore our travelers hair and eye-bags and the snotty noses and coughing and other icky things that Spielburg would never allow on film. We're not professionals.



Now enough about the last two months...

Dublin and Galway

With Ellen in our dust, we touched down in Dublin. I had convinced Mom and Gigs that they didn’t need much time here. It is afterall, just another big city. I’ve been to Dublin a few times and while I like it just fine, I found myself feeling like I was in any big city in the U.S. except that everyone had charming accents and a quick sense of humor. I mulled over what I knew about Dublin and what I know about Mom and Carolyn and thought, “Meh, I’d give ‘em one day.” We arrived in Dublin in the late afternoon, checked into our hotel and then set out for supper. We walked through a lovely little park and just like that, they fell in love with Dublin.

“Oh it’s so beautiful!”

“This is so charming.”

“We’ll have to come back here.”

You think you know a pair of middle-aged snobs.

We spent just one night in Dublin before hopping on a train west to Galway. I insisted they visit Galway. I knew they’d love the little town and the bright colors and the ocean views and the music. We arrived to grey drizzle and empty streets and I felt foiled again. There were a number of fun notes from our Galway visit. To start, we stayed in what closely mimicked a South Carolina beach condo that required us to take an elevator underground, then traipse along a dark corridor, exit through a parking garage, take an unmarked staircase up, walk along the roof of a building, and unlock a trick lock in order to enter our residence. I really liked it in there.

Our first grey day in Galway consisted of trinket store shopping. I’ll admit that trinket shopping can be fun on cold rainy days for two reasons. One, I love a reason to not stand in the cold rain. Two, trinkets and tourist bobbles are an ever-changing realm of plastic and themed colors where the bobble in question will be cleverly modified in each place you visit. The Irish trinkets somehow had a sense of humor. My memories of Galway included brightly colored buildings and lots of flowers and ducks waddling through pedestrian streets while buskers and singers added happy sounds and giggles. Doesn’t that make it sound magical? Well it really is like that but somehow the rain took away all the colors and scared off the birds. It was so dismal and …British. So we entertained ourselves with mental games and jokes tailored to simple minds. We invented a Broadway play called “Meat Trap”.  Mom has a gap between two back teeth where things get lodged and require flossing to fish out. I know this is gross. Stay with me. For a while now she and I have referred to this as the Meat Trap. She’ll say things like, “My whole dinner is stuck in the Meat trap!” or “Gotta go floss the Meat Trap!”

At some point Carolyn made up a Meat Trap theme song that would become the opening number for “Meat Trap the Musical.” We happily hummed this tune for days and later on, one of those two came up with the slogan, “Get caught up in Meat Trap” and we lost all composure.

But enough about that. Later, in the afternoon of our rainy day, we sought warm shelter and ducked into a café for some hot tea and sweet pastries. Here, we met Ms. Fletcher. We don’t know what her real name is but Carolyn named her Ms. Fletcher. Ms. Fletcher was a sweet Irish lady, probably in her early sixties, and she was the waitress at this café. Ms. Fletcher walked with purpose and plunked things down on the table with enough force that you flinched when ceramic hit wooden table. She was the only one working the floor and kept herself busy clearing tables and washing dishes. Ms. Fletcher was a hustler. She never stopped moving. She shuffled around slamming dishes in bins, tossing forks at patrons, and refilling water glasses so quickly you were certain you would feel the effects of the splash zone. Ms. Fletcher politely took our order and then ran off to mop floors. She would blow past us with a bus tub full of white ceramic dishes and disappear into the kitchen. Moments later you heard loud slams and clanking and rattling and then she would reappear with an empty tub. Ms. Fletcher smiled at us every time she galloped past and made sure we had what we needed... and then around the corner she’d disappear and then clinking, rattling, and the tumble of dishes on countertops would bellow through the restaurant. Ms. Fletcher was like a barn animal and we would flinch and gasp each time we heard a destructive roar come from the tiny frame of Ms. Fletcher.

That night, we retired to our beach house and watched a TV show about honeybees while bundled in our coats on the sofa. I had purchased a woolen knit cap and Mom used newspaper as a blanket.

Our second day was equally dismal when we woke up in the morning. We ate our Irish breakfast, brushed our teeth, and then bundled up for another day of trudging. On this day, we rode an embarrassingly juvenile tourist train through town, ate lunch in a tea shop decorated with creepy porcelain dolls, and continued the hunt for unique Irish bobbles. But the best part of the day was just after lunch when the sun came out and all the colored houses looked bright and the flowers opened and the ducks waddled out and soon the streets were filled with music. The rain-to-sun transformation in the town is truly astounding. Mom agreed it looked like an entirely different city and suddenly we didn’t recognize a few places we had already visited. I’m bummed now that I didn’t have my camera with me that day. I didn’t bring it because of the rain and because I was tired of carrying it on my shoulder for the last three weeks. Don't take my phone pictures as proof. You've got to go see Galway for yourself.

On our last day, we ventured back to Dublin and stayed in an enormous Disney World-esque airport hotel for the entire evening before our flight home the next day. I remember very little about these last hours. I had mentally checked out a few days back and knowing there were no stops left on my summer venture let the rest of the air out of my balloon and I just remember being very sleepy. 

This was a rare occasion that I was happy to be coming home from a trip. I usually fight it and frantically search for ways to extend the trip or tack on a new stop - anything but going home!

But I was very tired and felt oddly sedated by the whole thing. I came home with the new concept that I didn't want to go anywhere else but then I got home, stepped into my house, and I didn't want to be there either. Suddenly my decade of tormenting wanderlust seemed to just stop. 

Since coming home I've been as restless as ever. I do not want to be in Charleston and I want to be somewhere else even less. I don't where that puts me. I have since looked at property in Virginia and Vermont. "And what are you going to do when you get there?" I asked me, "What's your 'Big Plan' Sparky?"

I didn't respond to this. That Laura is impossible to please.

Tenby & Cardiff

I was very excited to venture over to Wales and put my beloved coastline on display. I am consistently delighted by any news, thoughts, or photos that I come across that make me think of the Pembrokeshire Coast. I brag about it’s beauty and bright colors and perfect summer weather. I insisted a venture out this way would be worth our while and after excessive research (and telling us about all the research) Mom decided on a little town called Tenby. We took a train west from London and arrived in Tenby to a delightful, grey drizzle and a whipping, chilly wind. I worried everyone would regret the lengthy voyage and wish we had gone straight for Cardiff. I worried someone would get sick and I really really worried that Ellen would turn on us. 

Ellen Union don’t do no rain.

But all this worry was for naught and the little American tourists wrapped up in rain jackets and slogged through mud and puddles to venture around the colorful town. While we were here we had a delicious dinner, danced jigs on a mountain top, befriended the hotel’s cat, ate breakfast with a large geriatric tour group, battled a complex European plumbing system, did a little shopping, noticed lots of pretty flowers, and laughed so hard we crumpled down to the ground in public areas. It stayed grey in Tenby for our two day visit but I have only happy, bright memories. Ellen maintained her composure and fought the rain with us, becoming a little testy only once during the Old Folks Breakfast.

We then backtracked to Cardiff, the city I was most excited to revisit. I just really love that place. I was happy to lead my family around the little city and know where the train stops were and how to buy the tickets. I liked feeling like a pro of a foreign city – which is really quite preposterous. Had something gone even slightly wrong I’d have hidden behind Mom’s leg. 

Ne’ertheless, Mom and Ellen had never been to Cardiff before so I got to impress them with my Welsh wherewithal. We arrived in Cardiff the night of a Justin Beiber concert so the city was rampant with young people who have questionable taste in music and decision making skills. (That was mean. I’m not a Bieber person but I must acknowledge countless readings that say he his actually a talented musician.) The day after the concert, all the young people in the city were wandering around in Beiber paraphernalia which very much clashed with my tasteful memories of Cardiff. 

Here, in the city I was most excited to show off, the girls stuck to one particular street - Queen Street, the pedestrian-only shopping arena with countless stores and restaurants. In the beginning I thought to object this blasphemy. You can’t come all the way here just to go in new stores. There’s so much more to the city. There are beautiful parks and cozy old pubs and… and… and suddenly I didn’t really know what there was to do in Cardiff. I didn’t doubt that I love it but I had to think about how I had passed my time here.

At some point during the Contiki venture I realized that going new places is a relatively unexciting prospect. Now stay with me here. We'll go all the way there and then there we will be. What happens next? Well, if you’re in an adrenaline pumping situation, say a mountaintop or floating above a dense barrier reef, well by all means, you delve into it, but what if you’re in an average city? The only differences are the layout and the wacky foods. Somewhere near stop number five on this trip I re-realized that your life routine doesn’t change all that much no matter where you go. I still woke up and needed to feed myself. I had a few hours to kill and then I needed to feed myself again. A few hours here, maybe a nap, and again – feed myself. Then I get tired and sleep. New places really just make this effort more difficult because you don’t know where things are and you’ve got no refrigerator.

I thought of the two things I’ve learned in my twenties. (I’ve learned more than two things, I think.)

1) Life is life no matter where you live it.

2) Home is where your people are.

I thought about Cardiff and Charleston- a place I love and a place I live. I realized I love Cardiff for being beautiful and peaceful but mostly for the memories I have there - being with friends and all that. I love Charleston for the same reasons but also, my family is there. If I brought someone to Charleston, I would take them to King Street, walk them through a park, take them to a popular restaurant, and then I would bring them home. I’d cook for them or take them out to the dock, let them play with Buddy, maybe venture to the farm I use to work for - stuff like that. You don’t really get that stuff as a tourist and that’s the meaty stuff. The Home stuff. I realized I couldn't take my little group to the apartments I stayed in or the lounges where I hung out with science nerds, so I kept my mouth shut and let them shop for two days. I don't suppose Cardiff will be more than a cute, Welsh city to them, but to me, it's a place that felt just a little bit like home.

Around this time, suitcases began to bulge and there was a redistribution of belongings among members of our caravan. We all took turns making room for Baby Bliss – Carolyn’s travel size flat iron and a large calendar Mom bought by mistake. We had lots of desert while we were in Cardiff and we celebrated my birthday with a heavy meal and a decadent treat referred to as “The Chocolate Bomb”. Our last day was spent purchasing candy in an effort to use up coins that we couldn’t exchange. Mom bought chocolates, Gigs bought M&Ms, and I bought gummy fruits. Ellen threw her leftover change at us and boarded a train to London to fly home. We said our farewells to Ellen who was quite tickled that it was all over. We could feel the clouds of Ellen’s mood starting to shift so we reckon this was good timing. 

With heavy luggage and fistfuls of candy, Mom, Gigs, and I set out for our last country.

London - A Drastic Change of Pace

While Mom and Aunt Carolyn ventured to London from a quick visit to Edinburgh, Ellen and I arrived in the city on an early morning flight and had hours to kill before we could check into our next hotel. This marked the worst day of my Contiki Cough which Ellen and I both noted was far more ‘enthusiastic’ a cold than anyone else had.

“That’s because you coughed it directly into my face.” I told Ellen who disregarded that statement. I will note here that I have never before had more snot circulating through my sinuses. Blowing my nose resulted in astonishment from anyone within earshot. I pleaded with Ellen to let us slump in a café with a hot cup of tea and so we found a warm little spot where we ate breakfast and let the morning slip away.

It was chilly in London, a refreshing change from the hot Mediterranean air and I retired my green snappy towel to the depths of my dirty clothes bag.

I was elated to see Mom and Gigs hop out of a taxi in front of our hotel. We hugged and giggled and filed up to our hotel room where everyone sat to read the information booklets and leftover magazines from plane rides past.

We went from darting around a new city each day to inching along crowded sidewalks while Mom mulled over stopping in each store. Having discovered Moms’ budding interest in trinket shopping a few years ago when we flew all the way to New Zealand for her to buy a coffee cup, I had mentally prepared myself to move slowly and be relatively uninterested. What it lacked in adrenaline it made up for in verbal prose but I’ll get to that later.

The upside to London is the multiple visits we’ve all made here over time. Snobs aren’t we? We did not need to see the sites or wait in the lines and instead we spent our first day with no destination in mind and set out to the streets like seasoned pros, like locals with no plans for that day.  

Our second day of London was a ticklish kind of day where we had high tea in a fancy hotel and then took a cab to the West End to see a play. Snobs aren’t we? Once linked up with Mom and Giggles, I imagine Ellen felt a myriad of things. Sometimes she would barrel many yards ahead of us and when we finally caught up to her she would have already mapped out a route or a plan for our next few hours. Other times she was plugged into her cell phone or resigning herself to the back seat of our group and would offer no opinions on what she wanted to do that day.

I very much enjoyed being a bystander to Carolyn’s creative inner-workings. Gigs takes in a scene with a sharp eye and a quick tongue. To you, he may be an old man hobbling down the street with a cane. To Gigs, he’s a retired ship captain on his way to meet a haggard steward wench for pint. She concocted the tale of Snotty Snotkins and a few other fun characters.

At some point she wound up sitting next to this man on the subway. She eyed him slowly, her stare lingering on his feathered hairdo and without hearing the first peep of Carolyn’s thoughts, the four of us choked back tears and laughter. Snobs aren’t we?