Category: Blog

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

— New Mexico has the highest per capita number of deaths by lightning of any state in the Union. It’s monsoon season here now, so the hot and sunny mornings give way to big storms in the late afternoon and evening. Two state troopers were struck by lightning (but fortunately not badly hurt) while helping drivers stranded in a flood here earlier this week.

— State Governor Bill Richardson this week attended a presentation to mark the shipment of green chile to New Mexico troops serving in Iraq. The 505 company (named for the telephone area code for the whole of the state) are donating $25,000-worth of green chile, packaged in what they described as the world’s first single-serving green chile sachets. Anything to cheer up the reservists and enlisted men who I’m sure would much rather be anywhere else than Iraq right now, although I don’t know how much competition there was from outside the state to be the first to issue green chile in single servings.

— Buying a carnita from Roque in the Plaza on Friday, I overheard a tourist identify himself and other Texans as ‘your favourite neighbours’. Roque, a native New Mexican and a polite man, declined to comment.

— Signs that America is at least four years behind Ireland in the maturity of its mobile phone usage: lots of guys are still wearing their phones on those dodgy holster things on their belts, and almost all the phones I’ve seen here are silver. Weird.

Thursday, July 22, 2004

An old friend of mine (an Irishman married to an American woman) maintained that it was over all 20% easier to live in most parts of the US than to live in Ireland.

Things worked a bit better, there was a greater commitment to customer service, and the cost of staples was less.

A couple of days into the giant list of things required to make a real life here, and I’m beginning to see what he means. I’ve now got a driving licence, bank cards are in the mail, I’m insured to drive the car and I’ve got a new mobile phone. I also found an adapter for my laptop, and our new neighbours came over with beers and homemade apricot jam as soon as we moved in.

All of this was completed without incident, and with a real sense that people wanted to help.  After the institutional rudeness and incompetence seen throughout the immigration process, the reality of life here (at least in small but big enough Santa Fe) is pleasantly different.

Thursday, July 08, 2004

My visa for the US was approved today after 3.5 hours of scary waiting interspersed with paperwork and questions – a pretty good definition of hell.

The whole room in embassy was filled with uncertainty and responsibility without control – the classic stress-inducing combination – with plenty of people being turned away ahead of us, computer malfunctions, and sundry departures from the stated requirements.

But I’m approved – it was great that Buendia was there as well – and now I just have to go back tomorrow to pick up the visa (the computer problems meant they couldn’t give it to me then and there).

Doesn’t seem quite real yet, but I’m in – and leaving next week for a new New Mexican life. Right now it feels like I’ve been flattened by a train, but I’m delighted.

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

I was one of the hundreds of thousands who spent part of the weekend on the Luas. Despite being clearly designed by a Wexford man – the floor looks disconcertingly like the Cusack stand during a Leinster hurling final – the whole thing is great.

With the sun shining on Sunday afternoon, you could almost be in another city – one with a real public transport system. And one with a few places most people on my tram had never even heard of – Cowper? Ballaly?. And a few that confused us – Kilmacud looks like it’s the Irish for ‘middle of nowhere’, and the Stillorgan stop is about 50 yards away from the Sandyford stop, and nowhere near the bowling alley.

But as we zoomed back into town – there are a lot of stops but the thing really accelerates between them – and rounded the elegant curve of Harcourt St, I was glad to have been on it during its opening weekend.

Now can someone remind my why the two lines don’t meet up?

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

So it’s the hundredth anniversary of a set of events that never happened. How suitably Irish.

Dublin is en fete to celebrate the centenary of the day described in Ulysses, and amid the free breakfasts in O’Connell St, the messenger bike races and the people in straw hats and period costume, sometimes it’s not clear why we’re doing this.

Which is fine. It was great to hear Ryan Tubridy try a quick reading from the book on breakfast radio this morning, and who cares if most people getting involved in the celebrations haven’t even read the book?

It was a modest but touching gesture of love for Joyce to pick that day – the day he first went on a date with Nora. A hundred years on, and there are parties in the street over it. Pretty good for a book.

I’m off to wander around in town. Of course.

Monday, June 14, 2004

Yesterday I rode in the Wicklow 200 – a huge organised ride that sends 1500 cyclists up into the mountains of Wicklow for pain and enjoyment.

The full length 200km option is a lot like a mountain stage in the Tour de France – half a dozen tough climbs and a lot of distance. I’d not been cycling too much in the spring, and reckoned the legs weren’t up to it, so I opted for the 100km shorter and easier version. Although it didn’t quite work out like that.

All was fine as we zoomed down the N11 at seven in the morning, with a Garda car stopping the traffic at the junctions on the way out of town. Amid the hum and whirr of hundreds of skinny road bikes it felt really good to be riding in the large good natured group.

When we turned off the main road after the Glen of the Downs the group swung right at a roundabout, and it really felt like we were a single entity, pouring round the bend.

The first hill broke the unity as the sharp climb saw us labouring in our own discomforts Even with my triple chainring, one twenty yard stretch (watched over by a masochistic photographer) was too much for me, and I reduced to pushing the damn thing.

But I soon remounted, and managed the next hill fine – gravel strewn but longer and more draggy. Up and down again until the sharp climb up to the top of Rathdrum, for food and drink.

We’d done around 60km, so from there it should have been a pretty straight road for me through Laragh, Roundwood and Enniskerry. I knew the 200 and 100 routes divided around Rathdrum somewhere, but the division point wasn’t clear, and I ended up heading out with the 200ers waiting for the split that never came.

Once I reached Glenmalure Lodge I knew that I was on the wrong road, so a call back to HQ confirmed this. Shit – back to Rathdrum, past scores of cyclists flying past me.

The road I should have been on was really pleasant, and the sun came out and I cursed leaving the sunblock behind. Eating and drinking all the way, and feeling in pretty good shape I arrived back at base to be met by Buendia and a certificate.

The short spin home and I was done. 157km in total (as near as dammit to 100 miles), just over seven hours on the bike. Sore legs and burnt arms, but a real sense of achievement.