An Unexpected Return

Well, after almost 4 long years, I'm back. It's a little weird coming back to this blog; I started it five and a half years ago to after I graduated college and before I started medical school to chronicle my world travels.  I thought of the title for the blog because I was living between thing for a year, on the borders of two significant life events. Then I thought I could the blog to write about my travels in general, and I returned to write about my trip to Ireland with Kevin but I have since been absent.  Now, after 4 years of being very much in the midst of a traditional life-path, nowhere near a border of any kind, I find myself once again living between things.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself.  Let me backtrack, since a lot has happened since leaving Ireland (I wish I hadn't).  I've traveled to a number of new places since then. I went to Panama with Kevin. I went to Greece after taking Step 1 of the Medical Licensing Boards. I went to Wales for two weeks before studying medical ethics in Oxford for a month. And I went to Morocco on my honeymoon. Ah yes, I also got married to the most amazing person (hi Sima), graduated medical school, decided to go into family medicine and matched in a great program at UPenn, moved to Philadelphia, got a dog, and, back in Greece, survived a 20 foot fall into a gorge and the following night that I was stuck in the gorge, before dragging myself out again; it was a harrowing and traumatizing near death experience. But, that is a long story for another time, though I think it is the source of the reason for my returning to this blog.

Last week, I sent in my letter of resignation to the aforementioned residency program, leaving the traditional medical path of pre-med, med school, and residency. I am not sure what I will be doing next, but I am now, once more, between things. The difference is, last time I was comfortably situated on the borders of two very secure states of being; I had just graduated college and had a medical school spot waiting for me.  Now, though I can see the border behind me, I cannot see anything in front of me.

This isn't a new feeling for me, both metaphorically and literally.  Over the years that I have been gone from this blog, my life has changed in some pretty immense ways, ways that I do not understand.  What I would like to do on the blog is retrace my steps, explore some of the life events that got me to where I am, and hopefully tell some good stories in doing so.

Too much to type on an iPhone

It has been a busy week, and I have not been by a computer much. In fact, I am not by a computer now. I am on a bus from Galway to Dublin on kevin's iPhone (thanks Kevin). I just wanted to post a little summary of the last week for anyone reading.
In Kilkenny we had the best brewery tour I have ever been on (smithwicks). Our guide, Ronan, was passionate and intelligent and he Poured a pint with more care than some mother nursing their babies. We also saw a great castle and met Clare hyland, a guide there. After Kilkenny we spent a few days in cork walking around, doing daytrips to blarney and midleton, where I kissed the blarney stone and went on the Jameson tour (including a tasting of 3 whiskeys). After cork came Killarney where we did a lot of walking and hiking, and where we climbed the highest mountain in Ireland. We then made our way to Galway via the cliffs of Moher (magnificent). Galway is an a
Amazing town with great music and pubs and very friendly people. We went on some more crazy hikes; yesterday was one of the more intense experiences I've ever had. We met great people and had great Craic and now we are on our way to Dublin for the last leg of the trip..

Fiery Politics, Brilliant Trad, and One Less Camera... Oh yeah, and Guinness!

On Wednesday the group finally all got together. One of the fellows' flight was delayed a full day, so instead of arriving on Tuesday he arrived on Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning also saw a departure. I woke up early and went to walk around Dublin on my own; I like to walk through a city by myself before having it colored by a tour guide. I stopped in St. Stephen's Green to check the map and take a break, I saw St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Literary Grottoes, and most of the rest of the city as well, including some nice residential areas. At 11 we all met up by City Hall to start our free walking tour. Our guide, Dave, was very energetic ("when he talks it looks like he is doing capoiera" - it really did). He was also very political. Very very political. And he was not afraid to show it. As he started the tour by Dublin Castle, I went to take out my camera to snap a photo and... it was gone. I figured it must have fallen out of my bag when I stopped at St. Stephen's Green. i ran back, but it was not there. Oh well.
We continued on the tour with Dave, learning lots about Irish history and politics and about the city itself. We had a liquid lunch, a nice microbrewed Irish Red, which was quite good. Afterwards we walked through parts of the city not covered by the tour and ended at the Guinness Storehouse, where we met the girls from the previous day. the tour there was self-guided, well-organized, and interesting enough, though it felt more like walking through a museum than a brewery tour. The Guinness at the 360 bar at the top was excellent though, and the full circle view of Dublin was magnificent (the weather has been amazing so far).
When we arrived in Kilkenny, a small quaint town, was off the hook (at 10:00pm) with young people all dressed out and going out to the pubs and clubs, and as we shlepped down our hostel with our huge bags we got many an invite to join the party. Two of us, after dropping off our bags, decided to take up the invitation, and we went out looking for some happenings. What we found was better than we could have expected. Instead of going into one of the big loud clubs along the main drag, we peeked our head into a small, quaint looking pub, and lo and behold, there was a group of musicians playing a trad session. We sat, had a few pints (Smithwicks, and more on it later), and basked in the music. And then, as if it couldn't get any better, one of the players started a sean nos! Look it up. It is something I was dying to hear here, and I was successful.
Oh, and i forgot to mention that our roommates at the hostels were, in a small town in Ireland, Israeli. Amazing.
We went to bed at 1:30, preparing for a day full of castles and breweries and more pubs and music (cheoil).

Flight & Days 1 and 2

The first flight, from Newark to Charlotte, was pretty uneventful. We were delayed, but thanks to the pilot's "shortcuts", we got there only three minutes behind schedule ("your welcome", he tells us over the intercom as we land; the man had a sense of humor). With about 40 minutes until boarding the connecting flight I walked to the next terminal, and, as I walked into the gate from which the flight to Dublin will depart, lo and behold, there are two girls standing there that are quite obviously (very) orthodox jews!. Of course, I engaged them in conversation, and it turned out they were on the same flight to Dublin and would be traveling through Ireland and Scotland. We exchanged emails and phone numbers (European of course) and boarded the plane, though it was not the last I would see of them.
On the plane I sat next to a wonderful Irish couple, who, when they heard this was my first time in Ireland, wrote an entire page of recommendations for the best Craic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic) in each of the cities I would be visiting. We chatted for a few hours throughout the flight, and they were, perhaps, the most pleasant flight companions I've ever had.
The sleeping situation was a bit less... pleasant, and I may have slept for half an hour, despite purposely not sleeping much the night before (in an attempt to make myself exhausted enough to sleep on the plane. Fail).
Security was uneventful, though I got my second dose of Irish friendliness when the passport control fellow started giving me recommendations for where to visit. Baggage claim was also quick and painless, and I spent it talking to those girls I mentioned before. I told them my plans (about how on Tuesday I would be going to the Fleadh Cheoil, a huge Irish music festival) and they seemed quite keen on going. We then took the bus into town together; they went to their hotel and I to mine. I dropped my stuff of, took a shower, and debated taking a nap before I quickly decided that I am here for two weeks and sleeping is at the bottom of my list. So, I went instead to Howth.
Howth was gorgeous. The first thing that went through my mind when I got there is that Howth is the Palisades of Dublin. Like the Palisades, Howth has beautiful hiking trails along a line of cliffs that are adjacent to some very nice neighborhoods and is easily accessible by public transportation from Dublin. Just that association alone made it a wonderful place in my mind, but the views out to sea, the islands, Salman Rushide's lighthouse (he stayed there for a bit during the fatwah) and Yeats' house (for a few years) made it even cooler. I hung out by the pier until one of my travel buddies, Yehoshua, made it in from the airport (his flight was delayed).
When he arrived we did the longest hiking loop there, a stunning six-mile circuit along the cliff edge. The weather was beautiful and clear up to 4, when we got some classic Irish...wetness? I am really not sure what to call it. It was like mist, but a little heavier, but it waslighter than drizzle. There was wetness falling from the sky, but if you put out your hand supine and spread out for 30 seconds it would barely be wet at all. We walked for another hour in this without putting on out raincoats and yet barely got wet. And yet it was wet. Somehow.
That night, between the hike and the lack of sleeping, I crashed. On the way back into town I fell asleep whenever we sat down, and finally, once I lay down at 930, I was out like a light.
The next morning we met the two girls on the bus to Cavan-town, where the Fleadh was being held. When we got there I think the first thing we noticed was that the more rural you go, the harder you need to work to understand peoples' accents. Some of these folks were practically unintelligible. However, music has no language barriers, and we spent all day going from recital to busker to trad session. It was a non-stop music fest and it was great. People weere playing the street, dancing in the street, every pub had impromptu sessions, the streets were packed with festival-goers...and it was a nice small Irish village as well, which was nice in itself. We heard a poetry reading outside the library where we stopped to eat lunch, we were attacked by bold bees in the parking lot where stopped to eat dinner, we met these two Americans there to compete, one of whom had a major gaffe (email me for details), we saw some pretty phenomenal musicians, including two harpists who had the fastest and most magical fingers I have ever seen. one of the girls and I kept making friends in the various pubs we went to... All in all by the time we got on the 10pm bus to go home we were pretty darn satisfied with our day. Ah! And I cannot forget! I had my first "real" Guinness in one of the pubs. The locals seemed a bit amused that I was taking the experience so seriously, but they also seemed a bit impressed and proud that I was taking it that seriously as well, and they wereglad I knew the proper Guinness-drinking rules (yes there are some rules). It was a brilliant first two days of the trip. I am now sitting in the hostel in Dublin, about to check out. Today we will meet Kevin, the other travel buddy, tour Dublin itself, go to the Guinness Brewery tour, and go to Kilkenny for the evening.
Slainte!

Traveling Again, Finally

For those of you who do not know, and who may still be reading, I have been in medical school all of this past year and now, with two weeks to go until year 2, I am taking a trip to Ireland. It was all very exciting, buying the ticket and planning the trip (this time I will not be alone), but as I check in to my flight online, it feels as though all of the last year melted away. It as if no time has passed between when I got home from Europe last summer (around a year and two weeks ago) and now. I feel like I wasn't even in school, that nothing happened, that I am just continuing my trip. It is really very exciting. Stay tuned, I may get the opportunity to post a bit about our adventures while I am there.

A New Post - Nevermind

I was going to post a whole lot today, about Antwerp and Brussels and Bruges and getting shabbos invites on the queue in the supermarket and long fasts and overnight buses and PhD dissertations and cog railways and 80 students from New Jersey and a huge fountain but it took too much time to plan my massive train trip through most of Switzerland for tomorrow, and it is late, and I am going to bed.

Den Haag

I had originally thought I'd show up in The Hague, wander around the city for a bit, make my way to the beachside suburb of Scheveningen, tram down to the ParkPop festival, and call it a day, taking a tram to Antwerp next for a few days in Belgium. I dropped my stuff of in the hostel and, putting the citymap away in my back pocket, starting aimlessly ambling through the city. I saw lots of great buildings whose names and functions I had no idea, just soaking in the atmosphere of thi city, which was, frankly, nicer than Amsterdam. Amsterdam is big and touristy and 95% of the tourists are there to see/experience two things; those things are not the Van Gogh museum and the tulips. This gives Amsterdam an air of rushed expectation. The Hague was much more laid back, much more charming with a more authentic feel, and much more empty. I was really digging the city when, walking down some street I heard a kid's voice call out "Abba." Now, I don't know Dutch, but almost a week here has given me the ability to recognize the phonetics, and I knew that Abba is not Dutch. I turned round and saw a man walking with two young children, and he had a kippah on! I went right up to him and said to the effect of "nice to see another kippah here;" I assumed he was also a tourist as I didn't think there was a Jewish community here. I was quite wrong. He told me he lives here in The Hague, that the Jewish community was having a BBQ, and that if I wanted to come run a few errands first, he'd take me to the BBQ. I eagerly accepted and made friends with his two kids in the car on our way to the hardware stores (Iyrgalen, 6, and Ronit, 3). The BBQ was fun and, and to increase the funky cooincideces of the day, I met a young couple who, three months before, moved to the Country Club area of Teaneck, not an 8 minute walk from my parents' house, who are living for two years here in The Hague for work. Wild! We even got to talk about the Young Israel of Teaneck!
After the BBQ we all went to Scheveningen, to the beach, where I played with the kids and, finally, ate some amazing herring. The beach was, well, a beach. Nice sand, decent water, tons of people, nothing new. The herring was though. They sell entrie fish that are beheaded and lightly salted and covered in chopped onions. You hold them by the tail, tilt your head all the way back, drop the fish in, and bite of a nice chunk. The texture is soft but the flesh is quite firm, not like the nasty cream sauce-mayonaissey stuff in the states, and it is not overly salty like our matjes (and I had matjes here as well as the normal herring). Final opinion: awesome. I will never eat herring the same way again. Eat that old Hungarian gys from Rabbi Friedman's shtiebel! (And no kichel here!)
After the beach I went back to the hostel to shower (did I mention, by the way, that the hostel I am in here is amazing?) and then I took the tram to the ParkPop festival. I got there with just two hors to the end, but I got to see Alpha Blondie, Nena, and Danko Jones perform. The festival itself was huge, a nine hour music extravaganza spread out over three massive stages set up over a grand expanse of field, covered in hundreds of thousands of people, soda and beer cups, and food wrappers. I've never been to Woodstock, but this was the closest I'll ever ever get. The sheer size of the it and the amount of people in attendance was staggering, and at least 80% of the people there were stoned or some level of drunk. It was pretty intense. I have never heard of any of the performers either, but they played some pretty good music.
Today I wandered around a really nice 15th centruy town called Delft. It was sooo hot, and after a few hours of walking and seeing some really nic buildings, I lay down on the grass in one of the parks and passed out for half an hour. The heat drains you, especially when carrying around a bunch of stuff and walking a lot. After the nap I felt better, and I went back to The Hague to walk around a bit more, and to go back to Scheveningen to sit on the beach and read (it was empty today) and have a last herring. As I dangled the herring over my mouth, actually already in my mouth, a seagull divebombed and grabbed the fish right out of my hand, whacking me in the face in the process. It was pretty hilarious, and I started cracking up; the bystanders who saw what happened laughed as well, and I got a new herring at no extra charge. I went to the shul for mincha/maariv, and called it a day. Tomorrow I go to Antwerp.
Today I