Travel

 

You get a lot of time to think when you travel. This was my first trip across the Atlantic. And for once I was actually able to not be inclined to work out my life so much and enjoy my travels. Not sure why for so long all you want to think about our problems back home when you are abroad.  Anyway, when I was younger it was really difficult to stay out of my head. After getting older, some life experience, a few good books, sage wisdom and an interest in practicing meditation I’m finding it easier to and more enjoyable to take life in, in a way that is really satisfying. Finally I can celebrate this, so you young folks out there falling under the pressure of your mental gravity, environment and harshness of growing up in modern life. The stress is normal, it’s growth and development which will pay off. So keep your eye to the sky and keep on keepin on no matter where you are in life.

 

To digress back to the purpose of this post, Limerick is amazing and I feel really fortunate to spend a good amount of time there while working no doubt. Ireland is an amazing country with really friendly people. It was cool to finally experience some kind of heritage in my ancestry. My grandmother’s family is Irish, the Fee’s from Antrim, who migrated here sometime around the revolutionary war. Apparently one of my grandfathers had married the daughter of an Earl. These revelations are all too interesting to me, being the history buff that I am. My first answer to anyone who ask what I liked most about Ireland is it’s history.

 

That history became a source of a lot of contemplation, notwithstanding the break from mental activity I mentioned above. I had an intention to visit  King John’s castle on the River Shannon since I arrived. There are not many castles in the US, or really none at all. Lol. Short of seeing an actual castle up close and taking the opportunity to take some great photos for instagram I was surprisingly in store for a great history lesson.

 

The route going through the Castle follows the whole of Irish history. I won’t go into all the details as I implore anyone to visit to see for themselves, but what I learned and experienced on that short lunch break caused a great sadness in me. Our world history is wrought with the experience of war and conquest which in my mind is usually always brought about by the rationalization of injustice for the purpose of greed, and maybe more understandably but nonetheless inexcusable in the same, fear.

 

Always a story of entitlement at the odds of the poor, shorted as unwieldy and dehumanized in our collective historical conscience in arguments of the necessary evils of progress. I came back to work with all this on my mind and with the current state of affairs an enormous amount of unsettledness. There should be a collective shame, but it’s forgotten. This is one of the reasons I follow history so much. With the amount of collaboration, which we are doing working together across borders and communicating online. There is hope these things will stop happening.

 

A very healthy and friendly pride permeate through the Irish people. It is very cool to see. It reminds me of the sense of pride we have in Texas, but without the haughtiness inherent in the egos we can’t fit into our trucks. By the way, there are no full-size trucks in Ireland. A saw one single small pickup the entire three weeks I was there. There is a chicness about the fashion there and what I would consider a quintessential euroness in all the hairstyles in clothing choices. Not sure how I know what Euro is, probably from movies, but It was really cool to see. Adidas is making a killing over there, but of course they would Adidas are badass.

The Locke Bar and Curragower  …full stop, some of the best seafood I have ever eaten and I was born in raised near the Gulf of Mexico in East Texas, frequenting South Louisiana for delicious cajun food. Since I left I have not stopped thinking about the seafood chowder, mussels and battered fish. Oh man, so good. I want to go back just for the seafood. Their chocolate, the purple stuff in particular, Cadbury’s puts US chocolate to shame. I mean, it’s really bad how deprived we are. I’m saying the same for bread. Irish soda bread. Dead. My bags on the way back were packed with 70 euro worth of Cadbury’s. I recommend the Galaxy stuff too, so silky.

 

Maybe at some point I’ll come back and add some stuff about Dublin, which is probably one of my favorite big cities now ever and talk about the cool music everywhere. Yet for now, i’m going to pick out the best photos to include in a gallery on this page and call it a night because I feel there is so much good stuff to talk about Ireland. Go if you can, as soon as you can.

When I was growing up graffiti was underground and it was illegal. Some property owners were kind enough to allow artists to express their talen legally on “permission walls”. These were rare, but probably instrumental in graf writing gaining notice in traditional art crowds and networks.

Nowadays after well-known “street” artists like Banksy with others gaining acceptance and popularity, murals public art and guerilla wheatpastings are becoming expected in the city landscape. The criminality seems to have lessened.

Some graffiti artists hate the term street art, some embrace the mainstream. In any case, I’m in the latter because it’s allowing our cities to become unique, beautiful and even more interesting. Fucking boring ass architecture from the later century has left much the city a wasteland of dull office buildings and strip malls. Thankfully someone had the sense to beautify some parts of Houston with scenic parks to help reverse the urban sprawl and corporate practicalism that plagued the city landscape for so long.

The photos above are just from one block and I have seen much more murals all around the city. It’s giving the city vibrance that has so desperately been needed. The murals are becoming an attraction with crowds of peope waiting to take photos of themselves standing beside the works of art. Interestingly no one really does this with paintings. Public art is for the people and people are drawn to interact with it.

Austin has lovely hills and a beautiful city. Houston, although flat and pretty dull save the skyline is full of the most diverse and beautiful people of any city that I know. The city is full of art, and a city with a message. Living, breathing and speaking. It is so great to see this and to watch my hometown grow, prosper and become more beautiful as the years go by.