Rory Stewart

Boyd Tonkin thinks Rory Stewart ought to have won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Listen to what he said about my long-term celebrity crush:

"Rory Stewart's Occupational Hazards - his tragically farcical record of a year spent trying to govern two provinces of southern Iraq - ought to survive as literature, not solely as an eye-witness chronicle. For it also tells a story about inner turmoil and bewilderment, as a romantic neo-colonial ruler finds himself knocked sideways in the blinding sandstorms of post-Saddam reality."

Read the rest of the article here: http://arts.independent.co.uk/books/features/article2690130.ece

There's also a profile on him in National Geographic, for those who are interested:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/photography/afghanistan/rory-stewart.html

Ok, I'm getting back to work now. I promise I'll do something interesting this weekend that I can write about instead of just posting things I read on the internet.

SCOTUS

Just one quick anecdote: I was explaining to some of the girls at work about the ideological split on the U.S. Supreme Court. I lamented the fact that two of the oldest members are liberal and the two newest conservative members are only in their 50's, and Grainne said gravely, "Oh, you never know. People in high pressure jobs sometimes have massive heart attacks." Fiona and I burst out laughing and Fiona said, "Is that the hope you have for the future of American justice, Grainne?" Very reassuring.

Jane Austen

This will give you some idea of my working environment: it is lunch time and Katie just put on "All That Jazz" to get us in the mood to stop working. I spent all morning reading statutes and doing just a little bit of net-surfing. I have been coming in early to check my email, etc, since I don't have internet access at home. I read the excellent debate about the Supreme Court on slate.com and Jeffrey Toobin's article in the New Yorker. But there was one article in particular I thought I would share with you all. It's a discussion about the new Jane Austen mania on salon.com. Now, I confess to being a bit of an Austen maniac myself. I've read all her books at least twice; am the proud owner of Jane Austen's Guide to Dating by Lauren Henderson (last year's Christmas present from Kyla - very helpful, although I resent that I came up as Mary Crawford on the Which Austen Heroine are You? quiz); love Bridget Jones, both the books and the first movie (don't get me started on the second - how could Helen Fielding have agreed to such a misogynistic interpretation of her work?); and am the co-author of a drinking game to be played while watching the 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride & Prejudice (Rule 1: Every time Colin Firth is wet, take a shot). But this description of the new publishing-and-adapting frenzy was a little bit disturbing. Here, check it out: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/06/27/jane_austen/index.html

My favorite quote: "One of the great pleasures of female life in the 21st century, especially if you're of the class to which Austen belonged and into which she sunk her sharp teeth, is the possibility of earning your own living, of not having to land a man to survive financially, of no longer having to wear your need for a husband on your sleeve ... or tote bag or bumper."

Ok, I'm off on an "adventure" with the other interns for lunch.

Working Girl

I am at the end of my lunch break, so I thought I would write a little bit about what I have been doing.

First, my roommates, Aoife, Katie, and Olivia. They're "grand." Aoife is a pharmacist at the local hospital, Katie's a pediatric nurse, and Olivia is a software engineer. Anne, the girl whose room I'm in, is a teacher. So, they weren't lying when they said they were "young professional women!" They are really sweet and have all been so helpful showing me the ropes, and Aoife and I spent a lot of time hanging out this weekend (she is teaching me about Gaelic football and hurling). I know I've said this about 10 times, but I feel so lucky to have found this place to live - the girls all seem like people I would have been friends with, the house is really comfortable (we even have cable TV and a dishwasher - the lap of luxury!), and the location is perfect. I am going to try to walk home from work tonight to see how long it takes.

Then, my work. I have finally been assigned my first project. I am working on a campaign for immigrant children - perfect! Here in Ireland, they have what they call a "Universal Child Benefit" - completely unthinkable in our country - which means that they give a payout (I think about €160 a month) to every child, regardless of means or status. Any parent can register for it when they give birth. Anyway, it used to be applied to all children in Ireland, but because of tougher immigration measures, they are now denying it to many immigrants. This is silly because the whole point of the benefit in the first place is to prevent child poverty, and while wealthy Irish people are still eligible, many of the most needy children are going without! So, my job is to look at European Union law and see if this is legal. I have a big box full of files to start on, and it's a little bit scary, but it's very exciting. The people here are great and really laid back; I think I've had about 4 cups of tea so far today. I had lunch with the other American intern, Brian, who is starting law school in Michigan next year if he's not accepted to the Peace Corps. He lives with some other American students kind of near where I live, and he's been here for about a month, so he's given me lots of tips on places to go around town. So, I am settling in very well and really happy to be busy!

All right, my lunch break is over, so back to the grind!

(There's a picture of me having lunch with some of the other interns. From left: me, Catherine, Gillian, Christina, Grainne, and Katie.)

Dublin

Well, I am back in Dublin and all settled in. My roommates are great, my house is perfect, it feels so good to have had some hot showers and some good nights of rest in a comfortable bed in a room by myself! I started work today and everyone seems really nice - I had lunch with five other interns, and read lots of materials. Tomorrow I meet with my boss to determine what my first project will be.

I have spent a long time uploading photos, so check out my earlier posts! I will write more later.

Adeus, Portugal!

This is probably the last time I will write for a couple of days - I don't have Internet at my house in Dublin, so I'll have to find a cafe either with computers or wireless! I will definitely get to one Monday.

Today was another beautiful day in Porto - I walked around for most of the morning and went to the market, then went wine-tasting on the other side of the river at the only port house still owned by a Portuguese company (Ferreira), then had lunch (arroz com bacalhao), and am now going to go try to catch some of the Sao Joao festivities! Apparently I have stumbled into the feast day of the patron saint of this region! The big day isn't until tomorrow, but there has been stuff going on all week - today I witnessed the taping of a TV show about it in one of the squares, and there are decorations up all over. One of the traditions of this holiday is that everyone hits each other over the head with plastic hammers. I am so glad I was warned about this - can you imagine that happening if you didn't know? I would probably punch the guy. I also saw part of an outdoor performance of Jesus Cristo Superstar. I'm not the biggest Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, but I can say that it sounds better translated into Portuguese. It was really fun.

That's all for now!

Porto

It was such luck to meet Giulia and Genevieve at my hostel! Yesterday we went to Barcelos, where they have a big Thursday market, and we wandered around and bought some souvenirs. I even bartered! Poor girls, every 5 minutes I was like, "How do you say this in Portuguese?" But they were really good-natured about it. I never would have thought to go there if I hadn't met them, so I'm really glad I did. Also they were really fun to be with, and it was nice to have some company!

They were also on their way to Porto, but they were just stopping for the afternoon. Genevieve had been there before, but Giulia hadn't, so Genevieve was going to give Giulia a quick walking tour of the city before they caught the bus back to Lisbon. I tagged along with them, which was perfect because we went all over and I got to know my way around. Porto is the second-largest city in Portugal (still not that big), and my guidebook described it as "Dickensian" and I can see why. The Ribeira district, down by the river, is hilly and full of crooked cobbled narrow streets with old buildings built right up on the street. In fact, the whole city is hilly, and above the Douro River, it immediately rises up on both sides. I will write more details about the city later - I don't have much time now and I am hungry for breakfast! I can't wait to post some pictures.

After the girls left, I found a really nice cafe - a typical European cafe, with mirrored walls, a mahogany bar and small wooden tables with white tableclothes, and smart white-jacketed waiters. I had dinner and some wine and listened to some live music. "Fado" is the traditional music of Portugal, and I read somewhere that it is "the music of longing." I think Portuguese is just the most beautiful and romantic language, and I really wish I could speak it. The band consisted of two men playing different types of guitars, and a handsome white-haired man singing. The show was pretty short - only about an hour and a half, but I could have sat there listening for hours!

And now I'm off to enjoy my last day in Portugal. Bom dia!

Festas de Sao Joao

I had wondered if there might be some kind of festival going on here in Braga: the main square is so brightly decorated, there are food and craft booths set up everywhere, there was music playing on loudspeakers in the streets yesterday, and there were really far too many people about than could possibly be normal for a weekday afternoon. But what do I know about Portugal? Maybe it's like this all the time.

As I was walking back toward my hostel last night, I heard music and saw a small crowd gathered around one of those temporary event stages. Four men and three women were on stage playing traditional music, and in front of the crowd there was a space where one old woman was dancing by herself. My heart was just breaking for this old woman with her hair pulled back tightly from her face, sightless expression, and precise movements that evoked an absent partner. But soon a couple joined her, and then another, and then a pair of middle-aged women, and some teenagers, and soon a young boy climbed up and started dancing on the stage and had to be shooed off my the musicians. Later, a younger woman started dancing with the old woman, who retained the same unseeing expression of concentration.

It is the Festas de Sao Joao.

This morning I'm going with Giulia and Genevieve, two girls (Italian and Canadian, respectively) I met at my hostel who have been studying in Lisbon, to Barceloes, a traditional market town, and then on to Porto.

Please excuse any spelling mistakes - this keyboard is not very good, and I'm running out of time.

Braga

Well, it's official: I love Portugal. If I don't come back, don't worry: I haven't been abducted, I just decided to stay. (I feel like that joke was in poor taste, but oh well.) Today, I took the bus out of town and walked up the Escaderia de Bom Jesus (I believe that means the staircase of the good Jesus), and old pilgrimage site. I read that pilgrims walk up the stairs on their knees, but I went the traditional way. There were little chapels at each turn in the staircase with scenes from the Passion, and there were candles lit at each of them. I stopped halfway up (there are a lot of stairs!) to buy a bottle of water and some postcards, and I looked at some of the little trinkets the woman had for sale. Some glass bracelets with saints all around them caught my eye, and I looked at one, but it had a picture of the Pope. I asked the woman in very bad Portuguese if there were any without the Pope, as I am not Roman Catholic, and there was no one around, so she took out her backstock and we looked through all of them. The only ones that didn't have the Pope on them were wooden, and I really liked the glass ones better, so I ended up buying it anyway, but the woman and I had a good laugh over it and I have learned two more Portuguese phrases:«This one has the Pope,» and «This one doesn't have the Pope.» I've been trying all day to find some way to use those in context, but have not yet been successful.

The view from the top of the staircase was absolutely beautiful: it's at the top of a hill outside of town, and you can see the whole town of Braga with its orange roofs surrounded by rolling green hills. I went into the church which was smaller than it looked from the outside. It was dark and heavily decorated, but not as gaudy as Spanish churches - maybe there wasn't as much gold. They had a recording (I assume it was a recording; I didn't see anybody) of a men's choir singing, and it was very atmospheric. After I sat in the church for a little while, I kept walking up the hill behind the church through a park with a lake in some woods. Just when I had gotten far enough that I had no idea where I was and would have to retrace my steps (don't worry, Mom, I didn't go that far), it started to rain - I mean a downpour. On the other side of a clearing, I saw a street, and I ran into the nearest restaurant. It had a mahogany bar and really luxurious couches, and pictures of jazz legends on the walls (in fact, the first thing I saw when I wiped the water from my eyes was a picture of Duke Ellington), so I ordered a cafe com leite and sat down and read my book until the sun came back out. Instead of walking all the way back down, (I am extremely proud of this next part) I got directions from the waitress in Portuguese, found the city bus on a street with no visible bus stop, flagged it down, and told the driver where I wanted to go.

I had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant, and I want to say something quick about the food here. Both today for lunch and last night for dinner I had heaping plates of delicious, healthy food, with lots of vegetables, and a pot of tea, for less thn 6 euros. Another reason I love Portugal. I have also noticed that they are really good about conserving electricity here: I had to turn on the computer in the Internet Cafe before using it, and almost all of the public bathrooms I've been in have motion sensor lights. Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

So, the rest of my day: I sat in the square and had a glass of port, and wandered around some more. Tomorrow morning I'm going to try to get an early start and get down to Porto, where I will spend the rest of my visit. Boa noite!

Portugal

I made it to Portugal, and I knew as soon as I looked down over the rolling green hills, blue water, and orange rooftops that this was the perfect place for me to come this week. I spent most of the day travelling, flying into Porto and then catching a train up to Braga, and then spent the evening wandering around this charming town. I have struggled a little bit from my lack of Portuguese (although speaking Spanish and gesturing wildly seems to work pretty well, even though I'm sure it's really annoying), and guide book (in my missing suitcase, and I'm too cheap to buy another one). I hadn't thought about it, but it's been over three years since I've travelled in a country where I don't speak the language, and it's a challenge, but I like it.

Early Morning

It is 6 am and I am about to fly off to Portugal! I have had so much fun with Kyla and John the last couple of days. On Sunday, we went to the Street Performance World Championships in Merrion Square. Our favorite act was Mario, Queen of the Circus, a juggler whose show is dedicated to Queen, right down to a crowd-surfing finale to "We are the Champions" and a painted-on Freddie Mercury mustache. I wish James had been there - he would have loved it! Then we went to the Guinness Brewery and learned how the perfect porter is made. At the end of the tour they give you a free pint in this tasting room which must be one of the tallest buildings in Dublin; you can see the whole city from up there!

Yesterday, John had to work, so Kyla and I had a girls' day out. We went to the National Library, where they have a Yeats exhibition on right now. We perused the drafts and first editions and then listened to a poetry reading and discussion with Irish journalist Kevin Myers. They have been having these "poetry lunches" every day in June, but it was still packed! He read some Yeats poems from around the First World War, including one that isn't normally published and I hadn't read before, and then started a discussion about whether war poetry. Then we wandered around the city and stopped in St. George's Arcade, which is the big marketplace, before dinner.

And now I have to go catch my bus! I will be basking in the Portuguese sun in a matter of hours!

Bloomsday

Yesterday we ran so many errands! I think I have just about everything checked off my list. We went out to my house and dropped off my luggage, and I am so excited about where I'll be living. I haven't met any of my roommates yet, but I met the girl I'm subletting from, and she is lovely ("grand" as they would say here). Actually, she's going to be travelling around the Western U.S. this summer while I'm over here! The house is cozy, and in a nice neighborhood, and it's an easy bus ride into the city center. I'll post pictures as soon as I have them. Also, they finally brought my suitcase out. (So I understand. I haven't actually been reunited with it, but the people at Aer Lingus told me that they dropped it off with one of my roommates.)

Kyla and John got here yesterday evening, and we wasted no time getting right into the Irish groove. We went out to dinner, and then crammed into Oliver St. John Gogarty's for some live traditional Irish music. Yesterday was Bloomsday - the day on which the action of Ulysses takes place - and we wanted to make it to some Joyce readings, but there really wasn't much going on. But Kyla and I are going to a Yeats exhibit at the National Library tomorrow, so I should get my literary fix!

Yesterday was also a bit of an adventure. We were in a bus accident (just a fender bender, but we got our statements taken by the Gardai!), and we had to switch hostels because ours was full. This hostel was literally the sketchiest place I have ever stayed in my life. I mean, I have shared a room with 7 German bikers (Hell's Angels, not Lance Armstrong) in Sligo and stayed in the red light district in Madrid, but The Cobblestones in Dublin takes the cake. I slept with my purse under my pillow. Thank goodness I'm staying with Kyla and John for the next few nights! And then off to (hopefully) sunny Portugal!

Now we're going to meet Kyla and John at their hotel and check out the World Championships of street performing that's taking place in Merrion Square!

Rainy Day 2

Although it was rainy, the second day in Dublin was awesome! It is so nice to have Emily here: we braved the rain and ventured out to the Dublin City Gallery, which has a small-but-decent collection of French Impressionists and a lot of contemporary Irish work. We had a nice lunch at the Cobalt Cafe & Gallery and then wandered around and bought a mobile phone (I will post the number next time!). We had dinner at an adorable pizza place called the Cafe Bardeli, drank a bottle of wine, and then came back to the hostel and chatted with this really cool Brazilian girl named Tiffany. Above is a picture of me and Emily Jarvis on the Grattan Bridge, and one of Emily, Tiffany, and me at the hostel. I know it's a little off, but we were experimenting with the timer on my camera. Kyla comes tomorrow, and I'm so excited!

Rainy Day

Just a quick update: Emily finally got here, my suitcase is still missing, Kyla comes tomorrow, and Emily and I are about to brave the rain and go find a warm museum somewhere!

Flying

I am in Dublin! Above is a picture of me and my mom at the Seattle airport Tuesday morning. My plane trip was terrible, but I'm so happy to be here and I know air travel sucks for everyone these days, so instead of complaining, I am going to make a list of the things that I am happy about:

1) I made it here the same day I had planned to, unlike poor Emily Jarvis who won't get here until tomorrow.
2) I was not travelling with a small child.
3) I stood in line for 3 hours at JFK next to a handsome, very friendly Israeli diamond merchant. Although we obviously could not discuss politics, it was nice to have someone with whom to share the absurdity of the situation. It was also the first time I have ever been chatted up with the line, "Hey, is that the Economist? So, what's going on in the world?"
4) They only lost one of my bags. And I didn't have to lug both huge suitcases around Dublin! If they find my other suitcase, they will deliver it directly to my hostel. How nice!
5) Unlike the Harvard and Yale track teams, who were both on my cancelled flight, I did not have to wear a suit, but could relax in my normal travel uniform of two cardigans, a big scarf, fuzzy socks, and sandals.
6) I slept most of the way, so I am quite well-rested. Only time will tell whether I have warded off jet lag.
7) The lasagna on my international flight was actually quite good.
8) Because I missed my connection in London, I had time to sit down and read the Guardian over a panini.
9) A very friendly Italian boy carried my overweight suitcase up to my top floor walk-up hostel room. I don't think I would have made it by myself. I also don't think he knew what he was getting into when he offered to help; the moment he picked it up, a string of words came out of his mouth, the only one of which I understood was "Mamma Mia!"
10) This month's issue of The Believer contains, among other things, a Nick Hornby essay (which I always love), an interview with Terence Trent D'Arby, and a thorough explanation of the Beatles/Stones public rivalry that made the time on the airplane pass very quickly. Oh, and a really awesome mix CD. What could be better? I was also armed with three People magazines courtesy of my lovely grandparents, the New Yorker fiction edition, and the above-mentioned Economist. The time flew by.

Ok, that's all I can think of. I'm going to get some dinner and then go to bed.

Packing

I'm leaving for Dublin tomorrow, and instead of packing, I just went out for a drink with my brother, his girlfriend, and my roommate (see below). Before I get back to packing, I thought I should write down exactly what I'm planning on doing for the next few months in case anybody's wondering:

I'll arrive in Dublin on Tuesday, where I will be externing at the Free Legal Advice Centre (http://www.flac.ie) and the Northside Community Law Centre (http://www.nclc.ie) until the end of August. I have September free and unplanned, and then I will spend fall quarter at the University of Bath taking classes for my master's in International Studies. I don't start work until June 25, and I can't move into my place until the 24th, so for the next couple of weeks I'm going to be bumming around Dublin and taking a brief trip to Porto to soak up some sun and wine.

Kirsten has just predicted that this will be my last blog entry. I will try to prove her wrong and write again when I get to Europe!

My very own blog

Ok, I'm going to try out this whole blog thing and see what happens. My prediction: lots of posts for about a week and a half, inability to figure out how to do anything except write posts, and then abandonment. But I'm inspired by Jessica Rosenberg, so I'll do my best.

I'm leaving for Dublin in 3 days!! Boy, do I have a lot of packing to do!