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| | Postcard from Ireland
Posted on 06/21/2008 by Isabella
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After the Street Performer World Championships in Dublin, Spike and I have fetched up in Camden, London, at the flat of Sparky Mark (Senor Chainsaw I realize these stage names mean nothing to most of you, but if you keep a picture in your head of a scruffy, slightly built guy in jeans and nothing else, waving a drill and apologizing for the mess, that's Sparky Mark).
The past week has seen us up, down and all around we made it through three festival days in Dublin on jet lag, 5 hours sleep, and Irish breakfast, headed out to a fishing village in Connemara, and just made it onto our flight to London with 5 minutes to spare *and* carrot cake.
Today we're off to perform in Covent Garden we did the "draw" for places at 8AM (shudder) and got a nice time slot in the afternoon and then heading to hang out with my BFF Vicki tonight.
Lessons from Ireland:
- Buskers who don't know you are always snotty, even more so when you're "the girls". Street performing in general is a bit of a boys' club, and when we turn up at a new festival there's often a bit of standoffishness until they realize 1) We actually have hard-core skills; 2) We're darn funny; 3) We're making as much money as they are. When the buskers in question are also engaged in a sausage match over who's going to win the Audience Choice Award, it's even harder. Fortunately, a few guys were more relaxed, and we got to know Byron (juggler), Nigel (juggler), Charlie (magician) and John (sits at a computer desk in a wading pool with tubes spurting water from all over his head and body).
- Irish breakfast is a cultural experience. On the plate: One lonely egg, surrounded by four pieces of Irish bacon (wide, flat and underdone I tell them, burn it, but they look at me like I've stated a preference for the flesh of live babies), two pieces of sausage, black pudding (mostly blood, like a cake of very dark, dry pate) and white pudding (don't ask). There is also a basket of toast.
- Just as in most places that aren't the USA, most things are closed by 6, food closes by 9 except kebabs. We ate a lot of kebabs. And I had one glorious BLT at an Eddie Rocket's All-Nite Diner after saying very firmly, "Burn the bacon, please. Completely brown and burnt all over. No really, burn it." Spike loves pink bacon. Heathen.
- When you are happy and confident about riding, even though there is more than a little air between your ass and the saddle while cantering and you have never ridden English before and there just isn't a lot to grab on to and the reins take both hands, and the horse is a trekking horse that goes to the beach all the time and knows damn well that now is the time it gallops, to hell with what the rider wants, it *knows the routine*, you should not take a picture until after your horse is completely facing the other, non-galloping direction. Otherwise you will drop your camera in the sand and possibly also take a dive off the horse, startling the German tourists you're riding with. Just in case this ever happens to you, remember: First roll (to avoid getting kicked), then get up really fast and smile really big to avoid freaking out said German tourists. Then get back on the horse. Had this been the time my time was up, my last words would have been "Holy Crap!" I'll have to think of a better exit.
- A high-water-pressure shower is rare. Treasure it. Spike and I treasured the one in our pub room in Cleggan for at least 20 minutes each.
- Here's what the Irish believe in: Stag parties. Drinking a lot (I thought it was a clich . It's not). Niceness. Independent spirit.
- Here's what the Irish don't believe in: Crosswalks. Going along with the EU. British people.
- When you amble our through the countryside in your right-hand-drive rental car, reminding each other to stay left, letting everyone else pass you, and stopping to take pictures, a 100km/h speed limit seems foolish, especially on 12-foot wide roads with hairpin turns, sheer drops to rocky coastlines, no center line, no shoulder, and random sheep grazing on the grassy tufts at the edge of the road, their fluffy rear ends unconcernedly impeding traffic. When you are heading back towards the airport and you really need the trip to Dublin to take 4 hours instead of 4 , it no longer seems so silly.
- Do not keep your passport and boarding card in your back pocket. Otherwise you may have to make a sudden dive into the WC mid-flush and spend the rest of the day washing your hands. When British passport control asks why your passport is damp, just smile and say, "It's been a day."
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