Éire pt. 2

Okay, here's the rest of the story about Ireland. It's about 10:00 here and I am sitting in bed on my computer - once again, I wore myself out a bit today walking around. I went to Regent's Park with Katie and Alex before the three of us met up with Gareth for some dinner on Brick Lane. Brick Lane is a street full of Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants where people stand outside their restaurants and come up to you offering you deals so you'll eat at their place and not the restaurant next door. Really good.

Anyway, last Friday, we all got up early at the hostel to catch our bus. It was freeeeezing in Dublin, so I had to bundle up. After a three hour bus ride, we arrived in Galway. Once again, we were getting confusing and contradictory answers from waitresses about which menu we were allowed to order from at that time of day, but the third restaurant we went to gave us a great lunch. We walked around a bit, and also booked tours for the next day. We split up into two groups, because Matt, Sean, and Paige were planning on staying in the Galway area all day and catch a bus back to Dublin at 2 in the morning and wait at the airport for the flight back, while the rest of us had to be back by 6 to catch the bus back to Dublin and stay in the hostel there again.



Galway was small and clean and had a great vibe to it, unlike Dublin. We were only there a short time, but I liked it.



For some reason I enjoyed this. Guinness has a quality team that it sends around Ireland to make sure all the taps and pipes and everything in pubs are cleaned and working properly.



Anyway, after we strolled around Galway city for a while, we hopped on a bus out into the country to get to our hostel. The women sitting next to us heard we weren't sure where we were going, and told us exactly when to get off. She asked us where we were from and when we answered she replied, "Boston? I lived there for 20 years."
Anyway, we arrived at the hostel and the place was amazing. It was big, the old couple who run it were amazingly nice, and it was very clean and comfortable. And it had a bathroom with a nice hot shower right in the room! This was the view outside the room:



There was this huge kitchen, so we decided to get some food to cook. The grocery store was at least a mile down the road, but we just hiked down there and back and got a whole bunch of food and walked back. It took forever - it must have been longer than the man estimated - but the views made it worth it.




Everything was in Gaelic, and most of the people were heard were speaking it to each other, but would randomly slip in and out of English. I looked this up, and I think it means 'Watch for children at the intersection"



After coming back, we made our dinners and hung around the hostel for a while. We were the only young people there, as everyone else had a car and tended to be in their mid 30s or older. That made it better. The woman who lives there answered all my questions about catching the bus in the morning and chatted with me for a long time about Boston (they had also lived there for something like 15 years) and our trip. Later, a few of us walked down this country lane to the water and just took in the view for a long time, until it got dark.





We caught the bus back to Galway at about 7:30 the next morning and were very sad to leave the hostel so soon. I wish I could go back.



We got back to Galway about 90 minutes before our tour bus was supposed to leave, so we had a nice extended breakfast and hung around Galway a little. Then, it was on the bus and around the countryside.
This was a castle we stopped at before anything else. Apparently, on the west coast of Ireland, none of the castles really have much history, outside of the fact that they are old. All the fighting that happened in Ireland I guess went on in the East, closer to England. In Scotland, no matter where we went, our driver would tell of us of an incredibly bloody battle or massacre that happened in the area. Anyway, this was nice to see, regardless.



We then toured all over the Burren, which is just a really rocky area south of Galway. I don't have any real good pictures of it, but here's one anyway. The little wall you can make out on the hill serves no purpose whatsoever. Apparently, during the famine, the lords decided to help by putting people to work. They must have not needed anything to be built, so they had people build useless walls and roads on the tops of mountains, just as a way to get people paid.



Anyway, we eventually got to the main attraction, the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are about 700 feet straight up above the ocean at their highest point and stretch for a long distance along the coast. There is a little visitors center built into the hill near the cliffs, and then a walkway up to the edge, where there is a wall to keep you from the edge as you walk up to the highest point on the cliffs, where there was a little tower.



However, if you walk the opposite way along the cliffs, there is a point where the wall ends, and you supposedly can't walk any further along the cliffs. However, there's a spot on the wall that it is easy to climb over, and past that point there is no wall between the path and the edge. There's a big sign warning you not to go past, but people were streaming past it. It's pretty clear that the people who run the tourist site are covering themselves from any liability, while still allowing people to walk near the edge.



This is about as close as I went to the edge, though some people were really getting right up close to the edge. We saw a woman who was pushing a STROLLER along the path. It was empty, but her husband was holding this tiny child as they walked along the path right along this 400-foot drop. Some people.....



After that, the tour was basically downhill. We got back just in time to catch the last bus back to Dublin at 6 p.m. We were checked in at our hostel by 9:30 and had dinner at a little fast-food type place - almost nothing is open that late in Dublin except maybe bars. Very odd.
We shared our room with 3 guys at the hostel, but we were asleep before they got in. Adrienne had to get up before 6 to catch their 8:00 flight. My flight was at 11:40, so I got to sleep in a bit later and took the bus to the airport and met up with Matt and Sean. They had taken the late bus from Galway, as I mentioned before, and had been at the airport for hours. It was before 10:00 when I got there, and they were already drinking pints of Guinness. After all, it wasn't morning for them. I opted for a coffee and a bagel with egg instead, and we hung around until it was time to get our flight.

For the record: I wasn't sure if Ireland or Scotland was going to turn out to be better. I loved Ireland and miss it already, but I think I like Scotland slightly more. Edinburgh is probably the best city ever, and the countryside is even more beautiful than Ireland's, which is an impressive feat. Still, go to Ireland. Do it.

Éire pt. 1

So, long overdue, here is my entry about Ireland. I am tired and it is late, so I may only get to cover part of the trip in this post. I'll get to it all though, I swear. I went to the British Museum today, so I kind of wore myself out walking.

Me, Evan, Adrienne, Matt, and Sean took the shuttle from London to London Gatwick Airport, which is more than hour away from the city. Luton and Stansted airports are even further away. We took RyanAir, which is super cheap and is totally no frills. We had no complains at all, though. We paid a total of 9 pounds for our flight from London to Dublin - not too shabby. It was a very interesting group - very much a group of people with different interests and styles who would have maybe not ended up together at all if we didn't happen to all be in London and looking to go to Dublin. Sometimes, that made it hard with six of us wanting to do different things, but sometimes it made it much more fun.



We decided to take a taxi into town, because it wasn't too far and with five of us splitting the cost, it ended up being about the same as taking a bus. Our hostel was right in the middle of town, near the Liffey. Matt's Boston friend Paige (I think it's spelled like that) was randomly in the country for a wedding, so we met up with her there. We dropped off our stuff and then decided to walk to the Guinness factory for the tour we'd already booked on the internet.



The tour wasn't bad, but of course the best part was having a pint all the way at the top floor of the building. They have this big circular bar set up with huge windows in all directions so you can see the whole of Dublin. It was great.
I'd heard people say that Guinness is better in Ireland before, but didn't really believe it too much. It's totally true, though - especially right at the source. The pint was so smooth, creamy, and sweet. That first sip is just something else.




After that we set off to find a place to eat, which turned into a grand misadventure. First, we tried to eat at Dublin's oldest pub, which was apparently originally founded in 1145 or something absurd like that at the same site. That was too full, kind of expensive, plus offered no options for Adrienne and Evan, who are vegan.
So, went right across the street to a place that looked pretty decent. We checked the menu and everyone approved, so we walked in and sat down. We look at the menu for like 5 minutes and are about to order, but the waitress came up to us and said, "Oh sorry, those are the wrong menus for this time of day. Use these." She then handed us a tiny menu with almost no options and nothing for the vegans at all. Since they wouldn't let us order off the other menu at all, we had to leave.
We then spent like 30-45 minutes walking around in the rain trying to find a place to eat. Matt and Sean really wanted to eat at a very 'Irish' place, but there was only ever meat on the menu. We finally split up into two groups.
I went with Adrienne and Evan and we went to a place that had a veggie burger that sounded really good, with a very long list of delicious-sounding toppings listed on the menu. We go in, and I order a veggie burger and some corn on the cob, which they had listed as a side. The guy stared at me while I repeated "corn on the cob" a few times slowly before he just said "What is that?" I said "umm.. corn?" Apparently, he got that, but had to go check if they had any. They did not. He wasn't a non-English speaker or anything. Just apparently didn't know what corn on the cob is. I then order a pint of Smithwicks to drink, because they had the tap right there. "Sorry, we don't have any more." So I try to get Bulmer's cider, also on tap right there. "Sorry. None on tap." I eventually got a bottle of cider and we all sit down to wait for our food. Right then, an awful bar band started to play. The singer was trying to belt out some blues tunes about living in Mississippi or something and they drummer simply could not keep time to save his life.
Eventually, after a long wait, the food came. The veggie burgers were just bad garden burger patties with a slice of cheese and some iceberg lettuce on top and a side of fries - nothing at all like what the menu listed. Adrienne and Evan just scraped the cheese off as best they could, but Evan got indigestion later because he hadn't eaten dairy in years. He also got a side of baked beans, and they gave him this tiny little plastic spoon that was literally large enough to hold a single baked bean. He ended up basically just drinking the beans out of the bowl. It was the worst experience ever at a restaurant - so bad it was actually really funny. Adrienne couldn't stop laughing the whole time, especially the band that was playing. Here is the spoon in question. It actually somehow looks bigger in the picture, but I meant it with no hyperbole. It simply couldn't hold more than one bean at a time.



After we hightailed it out of that place after dinner, we met up with the others and headed back to the hostel to get to bed early. We were exhausted and had to be up to get on a 7:00 bus to Galway the next morning. The hostel wasn't great, but was clean enough. They had computers with internet access, which sort of worked. I skipped a shower that night, but those who did said the shower was not warm and you had to hit this button every 30 seconds to keep the water running, like the faucets in airport bathrooms. The beds weren't very good and the pillows were wafer thin. I don't mean to complain - it was pretty cheap and we didn't need to spend much time there. But the place we stayed near Galway the next night was cheaper and simply put it to shame.
I'll write more about Ireland tomorrow. It's time to go to bed now. I'm doing something or other in London with Nicole and whoever else tomorrow. Not sure what yet, but we're in the middle of a huge city. We'll figure something out.

Scotland

Okay. I said I was going to write this yesterday, but I didn't get around to it. I'm tired now, but I'm not going to get a chance to write before I go to Ireland this weekend. I just got to this now because I saw Gnarls Barkley at the Astoria 2 here in London. One of the best shows I've been to lately. I just got their second album this past week and I've been listening to it repeatedly since then so I already knew most of the words. Brilliant.

Anyway, Scotland was simply sublime - how else to say it. Last Thursday, Matt and I left our house at about 10:45 PM and met Sean at the train station. Our train pulled away and headed North at 11:45 PM and we did our best to catch some sleep on the train. The seats were relatively comfortable, but the train was freezing cold - until of course they put on the heaters, at which point the train became unbearably hot. Oh well. I got a few Z's before we arrived in Edinburgh at about 7:15 in the morning. I took this right when we got out of the station:



Our room was empty at the hostel, so they let us get our keys at like a quarter to 8 in the morning. We set off and found a place to eat breakfast - overpriced and not that good. Oh well. We walked down the main road (the Royal Mile) downhill. At the bottom was the Scottish Parliament, which was right near these hills and hiking trails.




Right across the street, there was some big event going on. Matt went and asked a cop what was going on, and apparently the Queen was in town. We saw some people with fuzzy hats and kilts march around and play music near the palace there in Edinburgh, but no sight of the Queen.



Next we walked back uphill along the cobbled road toward Edinburgh Castle.



At the castle we FINALLY saw a guard in a big hat who couldn't move. It was funny, because his body was stock still, but his eyes were always darting around.



The view was great from the castle. I made another panoramic picture from the top, but facebook didn't let me upload it. Here's one of the pictures.



These cannon was called Mons Meg. It shot these absurdly huge balls made of stone for more than two miles! Cool to look at.



Next, we actually went to find a tattoo parlor. Sean was getting a tattoo of part of his family seal (Scottish, of course) and wanted to get it in Scotland. He made an appointment they fit him in that day. The artists turned out to be really good, and his tattoo came out really well. No pictures, though, sorry. After, the guys there recommended we go to the steak house across the street because they said it was the best they'd ever been to. Oddly enough, half the menu was vegetarian (what a country, the UK). Sean ordered a small order of haggis (!) with "neeps and tatties," which is turnips and potatoes. I get the same thing, except I got the vegetarian haggis. Apparently, they've been making it for like 40 years and now the kind without meat is considered pretty legitimate in Scotland. Haggis is supposed to be the heart and lungs of a sheep boiled inside of the sheep's stomach (or other kind of casing) and served like that, but the only haggis I saw there wasn't served in any casing at all. Anyway, Matt and Sean tried both the meat and veg haggis. They actually liked the meat one, but both said the meatless version was a lot better. Not positive what was in it, as all the recipes are different, but it was a bit nutty and had a little spice to it - there might have been pieces of peppercorns in it.



Next, we took a rest at our hostel, then took a walk through the park in the middle of the city. The sun was out and this park was so nice, it was truly hard to believe. Apparently, there used to be a loch in the middle of the city by the castle, but it was drained and the park was built in its place.






Finally, we went to a pub for a few pints and headed home by 11:00. It wasn't even dark by 10:45! Proof:



We got a few hours sleep, but had to be up before 7:00 to get cleaned up, have breakfast, and get to the tour bus that was taking us around the highlands and up to Loch Ness by 8:00 or so. As we walked onto the bus, the driver / guide handed each of us a nip of Famous Grouse whisky and said "Here's breakfast." So funny.
Anyway, our driver had been giving tours for more than 30 years and knew absolutely everything about every single place we drove and everything that had ever happened there in the last thousand years. One funny thing was 'the Wee Shop,' which is the smallest store in the world. They sell land, and it's basically just a little closet with a desk, a phone, and a computer. I don't remember most of what the guy said about the various things we saw. But it was all just staggering to look at.






When we finally got to Loch Ness, the sun was coming out and it was very sunny. Perfect. Here's Urquhart Castle on the Loch. The bus stopped here and let some of the people off to see the castle and then take a 30 minute cruise. Sean did that, but me and Matt decided to only take the longer cruise. It wouldn't been nice to see the castle, I guess, but the long cruise was so great that I regret nothing.








The water on the Lock was so dark and was very odd to look it. Apparently, the water picks up dark color from moss as it comes down from the mountains. It was like floating on a lake of Guinness. Dark black.
Anyway, the way back to Edinburgh was less pretty than the way there. We took a more direct route on the highway and it started to rain. Still, it was beyond anything I'd ever seen. Also, there were a lot of golf courses.



We got back to Edinburgh at about 8:30 and went back to the hostel for a lie down after the 12 hour marathon of a tour we just went on. After some rest, we got back up and went to a different pub. We hung out there for a while and then went to bed early again. Once again, we had to get up early, though this time it wasn't until about 7:30 or 8:00 until we got up. It's funny that I sleep in on days I am working and get up early when I'm on vacation.
Our hostel had a cafe next door that sells cheap, large breakfasts to people staying there. Of course, you pay about 3 pounds for the huge breakfast, but then coffee costs 2.50 pounds. They always find a way to get you.
Our train left at 10:00 and we arrived home in London in time to watch the tennis match. Fantastic.

Well, that's it. Time for bed.

Tennis

We got back from Scotland today in the afternoon, and the Wimbledon final was on. When we started watching, Nadal was up by one set. He won the next set too, but then Federer took the next two sets in tie-breakers. Nadal won it 9 games to 7 after they traded games the whole time. Probably the most ridiculous game of tennis ever. We were all yelling.
Anyway, that's what I've been doing all day, so I'm not going to write about Scotland until tomorrow.

Comments

I've changed the settings so that anyone can now post comments without a google account.