over to Ireland

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4.18.08
Update since back in London… Dartmoor was incredible. Got back into London, and enjoying it better this time.

A tale from the hostel...(rated R)
First night back at the hostel a pretty young lady stepped in the room while I was about to go down and make dinner. We got to chatting and decided to go get some dinner at a Greek restaurant just down the street, it was raining. She’s Canadian and lives and works in Wales and was down in London to go on a cooking network TV show. We had a bottle or so of wine, and back at the room, things looked to get interesting when suddenly our other roommate returned - a young Scotsman named James, an actor with a lot of creative spark, pride and something indescribably unsettled in him. He was quite drunk and had just been through a situation, seemed a bit stark from it, almost had been in a fight at the bar or something and was convinced someone was out to get him. He took a liking to our female roommate right off. When the 4th roommate, a nice older Irish man named Danny, traveling musician, who sings and writes his own songs from the heart and sincere. We got to playing. We ended up not getting much sleep with James going on his story and trying to get attention from Rebecca...see the photo of a stark white boy in his underwear...this lad is a character, like no one I've met, a comedian.
Luckily I got her number...we'll see about that.

Wednesday Danny and I played a little bit together around the hostel and busking down by the river, and James hung out as well. Still hard to sleep in London...hilarious.

Thursday was fairly uneventful. Bought a plane ticket to Ireland for Friday. Met up with Jessica Chandler (Sebastian's sister) in Brixton. We went and saw some incredible jazz at a bar - half the bar was watching the football game, the other half was soaking up the jazz with focus and deep appreciation. The place felt very old world... it was a magical and healing place because of what was going on there culturally...it was what i suppose is considered a black borough of London, where it felt welcoming and free to be. Plenty diverse mix though, something I feel isn’t present in most places (even in the Bay Area). Brixton is in south London, less money than most other parts of London. A little history - England woke up to slave abolition much later than in the US. It also may’ve been behind the times on black suffrage…not sure. There were some riots or protests in that neighborhood in the 80’s sometime (similar to the Watts LA riots). A man showed me some really neat photos taken by a famous photo journalist friend of his, who recently passed away and worked at the Guardian.

4.18.08 (Friday)
Caught plane at 6am...argh...then rented a car (please send a prayer out for me...but don't worry mom) and drove from Dublin airport over to the west coast - Galway. Overwhelmed in Galway with the number of things of interest: history, music, literature, needing to take care of the body (excersise, yoga, etc)…what to do with myself.…the scatter brain. Ah, what to do?....

4.19 & 4.20 (Saturday/Sunday)
There was a mix up with the hostel arrangements and I had no place to stay in town, all the hostels & b&b’s were full up. I considered sleeping in my car or trying to rustle up some cardboard & plastic and bagging it for the night somewhere on some grass. But it got a little drizzly, and Ireland (as far as i can tell) is quite tidy with their recycling...no padding to be found. Instead I busked - some guys gave me $20 Euro, but it seems they did a better job entertaining me with their drunken self-deprecating humor. Ended up going back to a small gathering, played music, and crashed on their couch. Nice folks.

Yesterday I got up to Connemara area (northwest of Galway), at last!. Went to a mine and took a tour...learned a thing or two... more on that soon.…need to transcribe… The folks at the hostel put me up for free cuz they felt bad over the mix up.

(photos soon...left my digital camera in London...)

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Comments

[deleted_69833]

dingledoolin'
hey brian! great to read about what you have been up to! you are tracing a lot of the same ground phill w. and i covered a few years ago over there. don't know if you have much of an intinerary, but one of my favorite spots from that trip for meeting people and seeing and playing music were the towns on dingle and doolin the west coast. anyhow, can't wait to hear more.

[Jerry]

Re Slavery in UK
>>A little history - England woke up to slave abolition much later >>than in the US. It also may’ve been behind the times on black >>suffrage…not sure. You've got to be kidding! Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. This act gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom. The British government paid compensation to the slave owners. There has never been a colour bar on suffrage.

[Brian Brook]

thanks for the correction. how does this translate over to south africa? Is they not considered part of the British Empire?

[Karla]

Hi from Karla
Hi Brian, what an amazing adventure you are on. I will be in London 4/28 through 5/2, not sure if you will be heading back to London, but thought I would throw it out there. Enjoy every moment of your travels and be safe. RJ says Hi.