Two Worlds

November 12, 2007

Photo : Flickr/Domc
New York, USA : As the sun set over a June Manhattan skyline, golds, oranges and yellows flashing through verdant maple via an internet of brash glass edifices, taxi cabs trumpeting evening, sidewalks straining with purposeful natives and lingering snappers, I hurriedly gorged my way from Gramercy, the Flatiron, Midtown, Times Square onto Ninth, the Lincoln and the Met were waiting. Ballet, opera, I cared not, the opening, rising chords of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue performing con brio in my mind’s personal orchestra pit. Summer Swing in the city championed banners.

Once inside, the habit of a lifetime clouding judgment, I go for bottled Bud, yet before my transaction had been declared, the neighboring champagne stall, manned by a bright face in a tailored crimson waistcoat, yelled louder than any Bowery beat police officer. I was in New York - the home of my heroes George and Ira, Larry Hart, Bernstein and Runyon - so how could I possibly succumb to boring beer? The decision executed I dreamily stood, heavenly content, on the balcony, bubbles in one hand, a bowl of sumptuous strawberries in the other, as beneath New Yorkers swung and Lindy Hopped until a time when even the locals saw fit to retire.

Without the handcuffs of a Nine to Five and a full moon making the city too unbearably beautiful, I strolled downtown past a battery of iconic masonry, until, finally, Mumbles, a traditional dark varnished corner bistro on Third and Seventeenth, a place I had began to call home. By no means fancy, the food wholesome and substantial, not to pick and snack but to feast, and for a main running at around $10, it’s a boon to any exchange rate.

Although not shoulder to shoulder, three deep, there’s a happy lively buzz as Vicky and Trish pour and chat, whilst Steve, a lifetime propped on the sleek, brass appointed bar, recites Richard the Second in tones spectacularly similar to those of Anthony Newley. A girl called Aqua and her party from New Jersey gather. We drink. Draught Stella in the main, with special ‘in house’ bourbon chasers - emanating from a bottle worryingly bereft of a label - crashing gleefully onto chunks of ice, straight.

In the fashion of a stranger I make a pledge. Thunderous laughter follows. I receive, in the thickest of brogues, “Yeah, right”. The reason for their gaiety was my intention to walk to Brooklyn in the morning. Several no name bourbons followed. Walk down Third Avenue, I calculated, then at some point take a left. Had we not built an empire on such navigational impulsiveness? I argued. Mirth undiminished, the natives suggested all manner of transport, not necessarily to Brooklyn, but the sanatorium.

Around 5am, as she prepared to break another frame at Paddy McGuire’s, Vicky looked up inquiring as to whether my pledge still stood. My resolve remained dreadnought.

Saturday was stifling, in the eighties, and as the skyline stung my hangover head I edged unsteadily down Third, eventually hanging a left…..

Cork, UK : Decanting at No 48 on Lower Glanmire Road I discovered everything quirky, at an angle. Yet being slightly off kilter, no evident plumb line, is something possibly peculiar to Cork. Walking down MacCurtain Street, gazing left and right down slim alleys, at fine restaurants, veterinaries, building suppliers, bookies, chippies and rock star Rory Gallagher’s birthplace - Victorian, Georgian, and 60s brutal-ism of yellow, blue, claret, gray and bronze scrumming gloriously defiant against any aesthetic obligation - you figure that the Rebel City cares little for appearances, or what the foreigner may think. And why should it? Like a seagull to the lake, generations have been drawn to this enigmatic southerly retreat, its street signs leading to somewhere not intended no barrier to its delightful peccadilloes.

The Corner Bar encapsulates the haphazardness. Turquoise tiled on the outside, gnarled, chewed, drowning in Beamish on the in, the smoked postcards and notes of currency past pinned to historic beams and allied Formica lend a lost ambiance of the Lincolnshire country pubs I’d frequent as an underager in the late 1970s. However, with the visual anarchy comes the snug bonhomie - “A pint of the usual, is it now ?” welcoming a first return to the bar.

Ambles down the tree lined Lee in all its gold and marmalade autumnal splendor, theater ( Irish playwrights, obviously), film, music and Murphys by the pint saw out an engaging 6 days. The proprietor of my B and B, Jerry, would pull up a chair and join me for the traditional full breakfast fry up. English, Irish, Scottish, I find a full breakfast pretty much the same, and not one, may I say, to base any hopes of longevity. How my arteries survive I put down to Dad’s well laid sturdy genes.

With the rugby World Cup taking place at the time and with England in the semis I had to find a pub to satisfy my allegiances, so Counihans back room it was. One large screen, a bar stool and a steady supply of ale and I was set. The bar teeming, a substantial minority of whom were French - La Marseilles ripping off the roof, aided, unashamedly, by the locals who saw the lone English man as a perfect stooge - we witnessed a nail biter, I, as a fan of the nation’s football, cricket and rugby, am pretty much used to. As the final whistle blew the one, cheering, shouting voice belonged, as he giddily picked himself from the floor, to the English bloke. To be fair though, the Irish lads who’d spent the match goading away, involved me in their next round of Murphys with Bushmills chasers. More would inevitably follow.

Chocolate muffins accompanied by steaming black coffee from proper chunky mugs, as Jerry and I discussed the runners and riders at the Four Fifteen, suitably drew the curtain on a Cork visit high on eccentricity low on dullness.

About the Author : Pete is a mature student - yes, there are such things - and when his head isn’t deep in dusty academia, he is either at the theater, on his way to the theater, or checking travel sites for the latest last minute bargains. One needs a break, you see, from the never ending chapter rewrites, seminars and workshops - and if you believe that, well, quite frankly, you’ll believe owt.

The TSM Fall Travel Writing Contest has been organized in association with On The Beach Holidays