Restless Me - The Journal of World Travel

"So now they were together. But things were not quite

the same between them as they had once been." -Thomas Wolfe

September, 1994 - Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland

Graduated from college in May. June, July, and August -- killed myself working double and triple shifts at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. to save money for a five-month backpacking trek across Europe.

Now it is the end of September and my circular route through England, Scotland, and Wales has delivered me by ferry to Ireland. Through weird quirks of Irish transportation and my own lack of planning, I will spend more time in Kilkenny -- a week -- than I will in Paris, Venice, Vienna, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Geneva, or Madrid.

But that's okay. Ireland is fine. It rains like hell every day, but it's fine -- something I get used to. On rainy days in Dublin, I trudge through the cobblestone streets to see Trinity Church, the Custom House, and the Four Courts. In rain-soaked Galway, I take in a free show of traditional Irish music and watch the All Ireland Football Final -- Down over Dublin -- while it pours biblically outside the pub. I cheer for Dublin, only because I've just come from there; I can't even follow the game, but it seems right to root for the capital city. But I soon realize that everyone else is cheering for Down. What everyone else is also doing is drinking beer.

Fresh off college and the steady supply of cheap, watery American beer that is part and parcel of the college experience (a classy night was when we substituted Mexican cerveza laden with lime juice), drinking beer was something of a problem for me. I hadn't acquired a taste for it. In England, I drank what was given to me in a pub off Piccadilly by a good-looking blonde who said she loved my accent and then left without saying goodbye to me. She gave me Guinness and I choked it down, trying to suppress a scrunched nose with every sip -- the dreaded "beer face." I was a man and I could take it.

In Scotland, I tried Tennent's and McEwan's. It was better, but the terrible truth was that I simply wasn't a beer drinker. I kept drinking because it was, after all, the thing to do. I was young, American, and out on my own. This made me a minor celebrity in many small towns throughout Europe. I wasn't going to say no to pints thrust under my nose.

Once I get into Kilkenny, I check into the Kilkenny Tourist Hostel. The hostel's backyard is a sparse patch of grass and dirt. Two lonely, moldy chairs sit under a tree. A dead cat lies nearby. Across the way, the giant Smithwick's brewery looms like an admonition -- it's a castellated affair, looking like the stone edifices I had seen in the Scottish highlands. A small creek runs just along its walls and a walk nearby yields a new friend in the form of a sprightly dog who follows me for half a mile. Dead cat, very alive dog -- wonderful dichotomy. And I realize that it is indicative of all Ireland itself. It's often sodden, gloomy, a curtain of lead covering the land -- dead. Yet, step into a pub. Traditional music plays. People drink, they sing, and Ireland is the most animate place on earth. But at this moment, as I walk beside the Smithwick's brewery walls, the yin and yang is shattered by a rising stench. It is palpable, thick, moist, like a hovering haze ready to completely envelop me. It is, of course, the fermenting yeast coming from the brewery. Breweries have a tendency to reek, and only those who count themselves beer connoisseurs or the poor folks who actually work inside breweries can take it.

So for the next few weeks, when I see Smithwick's on tap, I decide to skip it, thinking only of burning sulfur and rotting eggs instead of smooth and creamy ale.

November, 1994 - Bruges, Belgium

I'm sitting in an ancient pub in Bruges, Belgium and Natalie, a top-heavy blonde from Perth, is downing pint after pint of Framboise lambic. "Can't keep up with me, sissy boy?" she asks. I'm quite certain that I'm falling in love with this brash beauty and when she grabs my wrist and leads me into the alley and shouts -- at the top of her lungs -- "Come 'ere and get stoned with me," I can't resist. Soon her laughter echoes all over this medieval, cobblestoned town. And when we get back inside, I'm ready to drink. I have but two choices: the sickeningly sweet lambics or Smithwick's. The lines that feed Oland, Stella Artois, and Harp, I am told, are being bled. The bartender tells me a crazy story: Apparently, a rat managed its way into the Artois line, drank up the liquid, became bloated, and stuffed up the line. I can't imagine this could possibly be true. He smiles. What does that have to do with the Harp, I ask. He only smiles more and I can't do anything but marvel at the massive gap between his two front teeth. Natalie smiles too. I decide that the two of them are in on something. I also decide that I might ask Natalie to marry me. At this moment, I will do anything in the world for her. She is the embodiment of all beautiful Australian blondes that I could only imagine ten thousand miles away while I wore my pseudo-surfer Gotcha/Quicksilver/OP clothes in the eighth grade. Now here she is -- ten years later -- and I love her. I'll drink anything she gives me. And so, as the Smithwick's is passed across the bar, I take it to my lips and inhale. No eggs. No sulfur. I gulp. Smooth. Creamy. Delicious. Natalie smiles. I kiss her. She kisses me back.

Three hours later, the bar is closing and I have had eight Smithwick's. I'm reeling. We stumble back to the hostel. Natalie sings the whole way. I request Men at Work, but she won't oblige. "They sucked then and they suck now," she says. She has been my gateway to Smithwick's, and I want her to serve her diplomatic role now as the gateway to all that is Australia. I want her to pull koalas and kangaroos (just "roos" she tells me) out of her pocket. She won't have any of it. "We're in Belgium, you asshole," she says.

We crash into her room and fall into her bed. I ponder my chances. There are seven other people in the room. They're all Australians, and they're all drunk; I figure my chances are good. But it doesn't matter. Natalie has passed out. I stare at the bed above us for a long time before I start to fall asleep, Natalie's hair curled around my neck. Her left arm and leg wrap around my torso. Her lips press against my neck. Little whistles pass from her nostrils. Before I pass off into Neverland, I take the end of her hair and put it in my mouth. I love her; I am sure.

"Hey, Yank. Out of here. We gotta go." These are the first words I hear in the morning -- actually, only three hours later. Natalie and her friends are off to visit war sites in Flanders and they can't be late. I'm astounded; it's so bloody early. I'm also hung over. I kiss Natalie on the forehead and walk out. I'll never see her again.

But I'll drink Smithwick's again. Anywhere on the continent I can find it, I'll drink it -- say a silent prayer and lamentation to my Aussie near-love -- and I'll return to the States months later telling my friends about this phenomenal beer that, as it turns out, I can't get anywhere in America. Next