Finnegan's Wake: Our First Experience Of Another Language On This Trip

We started off the day with a trip to Cafe Aroma, which was fast becoming our "local". The coffee is drinkable, it's warm, and they have internet.

Cafe Aroma. They serve coffee in glasses unless you specifically ask them to not. Today we forgot. 

Today Alex finally bought an umbrella. What kind of idiot comes to the UK for Winter and doesn't bring anything to prevent one from getting wet when it rains? It has pretty flowers on it. Look out for it in future posts. It features quite often because a lot of water will fall from the sky "in the future" (with our Knowledge Of The Future we could put weather forecasters out of a job).

Ally poses next to a statue with her new umbrella.

We do love a good free museum, so today we hit up the Archaeology Museum. We would later learn that this massive museum (it was huuuuge) and another one next to it, and some more buildings were some Lord dude's "town house" (town castle?) back in the day. It was big and housed a lot of interesting artifacts and that. We split up and Bry went off to learn about the Ring of Tara and the anthropological history of Ireland, while Ally checked out the Egyptian exhibit and the one about exciting stuff that had been found in peat bogs (whole bodies perfectly preserved! Butter that was hundreds of years old that people had put in the bogs to keep it cold!) and some stuff about Ireland in Viking Times.

A terribly blurry photo of Ally dancing in the rain outside the museum/towncastle.

The museum was in a pretty building that you are definitely not allowed to take photos of. Ally walked past some people smoking and taking a picture of themselves next to the no smoking sign, so at least she only broke one rule.

Because of the inclement weather on this particular day, we were not long about town before we sought refuge in the warm dryness of a local purveyor of SweetSweetCaffeinatedLifeblood, called The Fixx. The name of this particular establishment may have caused some of you Dunedin types in the know to sit up and pay attention. "What is this?", we hear you ask. "A Fix in Dublin, Ireland? What lark!". Sadly this Fixx was not of the same breed as the Fix (with one x)  of Dunedin fame (probably the best coffee you will find in Dunedin) (And they give med students 50c off, hurray!) (Bryony says "hurrumph" and would like to formally register her disgust at this blatant elitism) (Alex counters by pointing out the logic of them doing this, as it is right opposite the medical school and encourages us to leave the Hunter Centre and seek refreshment at their fine establishment instead of at the less good Hunter Cafe) (Bryony replies that while it is good to know that Med students do occasionally venture beyond the esteemed halls of Hunter, it is worth pointing out that the Zoology Department is also in the immediate vicinity of the The Fix, and the Biochemistry Department is very close to its more northern iteration, yet you don't see us benefitting unfairly due to the status our degree confers. Humph) (We also get two-for-one pancakes at Capers, points out Alex helpfully).
Anyway, we liked this new Fixx. They made pretty good coffee, had free internet, and had a whole wall that was made out of bookshelf, including a hidden door to the bathrooms. It was like being in a Sherlock Holmes novel.

A photo of The Fix, Dunedin, that we stole off the internet.

Couldn't find a photo to steal of Fixx, Dublin, but the orange and black is a weird coincidence, no?

Also found a photo on the internet of the sneaky hidden bathrooms. The internet is a treasure.

We managed to navigate our way back to Sweny's Pharmacy to attend a reading of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. We showed up and squished into the tiny shop with all the books, old pharmacy stuff, and other Joyce Fans (we're ascribing ourselves that rather lofty title now) and were given hot tea and a copy of the book. What we hadn't realised was that at this reading, everyone had to read. We went around the room and read a page aloud each, which was kind of terrifying at first, because Finnegan's Wake is not really written in English. Here's a wee idea of what we were dealing with:


What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-
gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu
Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still
out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons cata-
pelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie
Head. Assiegates and boomeringstroms. Sod's brood, be me fear!
Sanglorians, save! Arms apeal with larms, appalling. Killykill-
killy: a toll, a toll. What chance cuddleys, what cashels aired
and ventilated! What bidimetoloves sinduced by what tegotetab-
solvers! What true feeling for their's hayair with what strawng
voice of false jiccup! O here here how hoth sprowled met the
duskt the father of fornicationists but, (O my shining stars and
body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of
soft advertisement! But was iz? Iseut? Ere were sewers? The oaks
of ald now they lie in peat yet elms leap where askes lay. Phall if
you but will, rise you must: and none so soon either shall the
pharce for the nunce come to a setdown secular phoenish. 



At first it was embarrassing, as we had no idea what we were saying or if we were saying it correctly, but after a while we came to realise that noone else did either and it was a lot of fun. Sometimes what looks like a huge mess of letters on paper makes actual words when you say it out loud. We even started to get some of the dirty jokes. The group that had assembled at the shop were an awesome bunch of people - some local Dubliners, but also other people from all over the UK and the world. The combinations of accents and first languages trying to make sense of the craziness that is that book was hilarious, and we often all dissolved into giggles. Afterwards they invited us to come out for a drink (our first pints of Guinness in Dublin!) at the pub around the corner, which is where Joyce's wife used to work when they were a-courting.

Another photo shamelessly stolen off the internet. This is what the inside of the shop looks like from all angles, and the dude in the labcoat is the very awesome PJ.

What a cultural day we had.