Day 9 of the trip was an interesting. We were planning to take the ferry back, then train to Cardiff to see the castle there… but it took a lot longer than we had hoped.. and in the mean time, we met an Irishman named Morris. He was an interesting one, and stuck with us for a good chunk of the day. We did indeed make it to Cardiff, and had a few more random adventures while walking around the city that night. Pictures tell the story as well.

6/11 Ferry to Holyhead

We’re on the Ferry to Holyhead. An interesting morning: We got up at 6:30 , and took the train/tram to Don Laoghaire, where the ferry harbour was.. so we arrived at about 7:30… only the dude at the train/tram stop said it didn’t open til 8:30, so we were stuck sitting for a while .. and it was really windy therefore cold… So we were sitting around outside… and Robb went walking around town for a short bit trying to see what he could , while we just kinda sat around waiting. At some point this guy came walking past asking when the thing opened.. and we said around 8:30… .. at that point he remarked about my teeth, and how white they were… and that lead to a conversation on American teeth, and how important having white teeth is to Americans, and how Irish/English teeth were nasty… at which point he references the Simpsons episode where Burns build a Casino with Brit-land, filled with ladies with Nasty teeth. So we talked to him for a while about everything: Bush and the War, what we’re up to (He seemed quite disappointed that we hadn’t gotten laid on the trip… he asked about it 3 separate times… apparently Scottish women do it rough… remind me to return to Scotland.) We also talked about what we did for a living, and he was filled with stories, so he kept right on going… Turns out he was headed to england to live. He was moving in with his girlfriend, and leaving his hometown in Ireland for good. Thus he was “shitting a bit about it”. After a time his brother-in-law showed up, and pulled him aside and tried to get him to not move… to no avail.. it was at that time that we found out that the ferry wouldn’t be leaving til 11:00. That was a problem.. as we were trying to get to the castle in the capitol of Wales before afternoon.. and that ain’t going to happen now. Anyway, finding out that, we decided to go get a bit to eat.. and headed off to a breakfast cafe across the way, and all had wonderful breakfasts of scrambled eggs, ham, sausage (with some tomato – ketchup “relish”) and Coffee [big-ass espresso] We sat there for about an hour, talking about all sorts of everything.. a lot of movie quotes and so forth… He’s a pretty funny guy. We talked about Irish history, and the European Union, and the switch to the Euro, and all sorts of stuff.. It was kewl. After that, he was going to head back to the boat harbour, and we were going to head off to the shopping mall he pointed to, so I could look for a gift for Rachel… it was her birthday on the 7th.

That mall kinda sucked… it had plenty of things I could have gotten at Rivertown… but sadly nothing distinctively Irish, that would make a crappy gift seem somewhat less crappy. (“Oh, it’s a crappy necklace! oh wait, it’s from Ireland… so suddenly it’s a nice necklace.”)

We left the mall early and headed to the harbour.. got our tickets and got into the waiting room…

Morty. (his real name) [He was talking to me as I was writing this, so I stopped and talked to him for a while, and occasionally jotted things down that caught my attention as being kinda kewl or funny:]

“knobheads” “cute”, “bollocks”
["knobheads" I think is more or less self explanatory, but "cute" was interesting... He was talking about Ashton Kutcher, and said "he's a cute guy... you know what cute is, right?" So I made the obligatory gay joke... and he eventually explained that there "cute" was used to describe someone who is clever, or particularly savvy (smart and able to make money at it.. that kinda thing). At that point I noted my disdain for Mr. Kutcher. And I just like the word "bollocks" cause I think it's funny.]

6/11 Train to Crewe

Well, so we’re on the train to Crewe now.. Morris is with us.. He’s anxious about moving, and pretty much wants to blow time until he has to show up in England.

So.. back to the story.. .We were in the waiting room of the Ferry boat, and then we were let on, and found a good spot to sit, and I toured around the boat for a short bit, looking around for a better spot… but didn’t find one, so I returned to the spot, and Morris was there with Joel… So I hung out there for a bit, hit the gift shop to use up the last of my Euros, then hung out at the table with Morris as Joel and Robb took off for a bit.. Joel returned, and Morris bought us 3 a beer.. which was awesome. So we hung out some more , talked about movies (I’m Richard Dreyfuss.. I was in Jaws!). every once in a short while Morris would take off to smoke, then return.. (Andrew McCarthy was the dude in Pretty in Pink… Morris saw him once, and the dude that plays Dr. Cox… oh.. and everybody from the states is “Your man [so-and-so]“.])

Eventually we pulled into the harbour, and Morris was a bit nervous about everything and all, so he joined us… eventually joining us on the train to Crewe….

So we played a few card games… A game just like Uno, but with a deck of playing cards… then a game he called “Greedy Neighbor”, which was just Egyptian Ratscrew without the slapping… so I added the slapping part, and then I kicked some ass… So then we took out the slapping part, and I kicked ass. I rule at that game. [Hurray for amazing skill in a game of complete chance!]

There’s no smoking on the train, and Morris is going slightly crazy about it… [so he ended up smoking in the corridor]

It looks like we’re not going to have time to hit the castle at Cardiff before it closes today… which throws a bit of a wrench into our plans.. Now we’re thinking about hitting the castle tomorrow morning, then Bath, then end up in London.. Then on Sunday we’d hit Oxford, then Stonehenge.

6/11 Train to Cardiff

Okay, so we’re finally on our way to Cardiff.. We are now without Morris, who left us at the station… weird happening, that. We were running around trying to find where the train to Cardiff was, and he was following behind us.. then we went down a flight of stairs to see the TV monitors with all the train times on it, and he stayed at the top.. and at one point he apparently motioned something to Joel, then took off.. so that was it for Morris I guess. Anyway, a pretty kewl guy, all in all.

So now were [supposedly] on the train to Cardiff.. I’m not yet completely certain that that’s the train we’re on, mainly cause it’s really small, and they haven’t mentioned the word Cardiff yet. Perhaps I just don’t understand the Welsh accent well enough, but I didn’t think I heard it when the conductor was mentioning stops on the loudspeaker… Admittedly, everything sounds like the teacher from Peanuts cartoons, but still, you get the idea.

So we finally figured out that our train would be leaving at around 17:20.. and it was about 16:20ish, so we sat around the station, and all got some food… Also, When we were on the train before, Morris said he’d paid for his ticket.. only they didn’t accept Euros, only pounds… Well, his bill was 21.50, and I had a 20, so I gave it to him, and he gave me 25 Euro..so I got the short end on that one.. but he paid extra for breakfast, and bought Joel and me beer, so I think it all works out alright.. only now I’m stuck with 25 Euros that I neither need nor can use. I’m assuming I’ll just trade it in back home for real money. (Zing on the E.U.)

So I opened the door for this lady, and she said “Thanks, love.” It was one of the most fulfilling relationships I’ve ever had with a woman.

Seriously… too many New York Yankees hats.

An addendum to the Morris story: Turns out he’s not really moving to London… he’s just surprise visiting. He said he hadn’t been to England in years (since grade school, or 13 years ago, or something like that) and his girlfriend, who lives in London, and visited him a bit in Ireland said something about him coming out to London… So he kinda spur of the moment decided to head out to London to surprise her and stay with her… but had no idea for how long, and she had no idea he was coming… That’s… either ballsy or really, really stupid. But, as we said in conversation before he took off, Love makes you do all sorts of stupid, stupid things… and even after being kicked in the nuts repeatedly, you still find yourself trying again. And with that, Valentines Day gets the finger yet again.

It would appear that many pictures have been taken of me either while I am sleeping or when I’m huddled over for warmth. Nevertheless, I am a very attractive man.

Thus far , Wales looks quite a bit like Ireland, only a bit more organized.(Like, square fields verses fields that wind around all over. Straight roads versus winding meandering roads) Lots of green, lots of hills, lots of sheep, lots of cows… The houses look a bit more modern, and look like houses from the states, really.

6/11 Train to Cardiff II

Morris told a few jokes:

I’ll nutshell one of them for you: An Irishman saw information about the Zulu tribe on TV, and decided he wanted to become one.. so he heads out to Africa, and searches all over, and is eventually captured by the Zulu.. He says he wants to join the tribe, and they say in order to do so, you have to pass 3 trials. 1st, you must drink 12 pints of their strongest liquor, [this stuff was just plain toxic, and a glass is enough to kill a man], Next, you must go into a cage with a hungry lion that hasn’t eaten for 4 weeks, and pull out one of its teeth. Then, the final trial, you must take the lovely princess of the tribe, and have sex with her for 4 straight days. “Right,” he says, and heads into the tent. He drinks down the first pint, and nearly dies… but he keeps at it, and drinks them all down… then comes staggering out, and heads off to the lion. He goes in, and you can hear him struggling with that thing.. hour after hour…and for days he’s struggling, fighting, screaming….. finally, he comes out, and says “Right… so where’s the girl with the sore tooth?”

I thought that was really funny.

6/11 Hotel in Cardiff

I’m lying on the floor at a hotel in Cardiff. We did indeed eventually make it to Cardiff, though the train ride was quite long, and tiring. When we arrived, we saw a map of the city, and there were two fairly straight streets leading towards the castle, with a number of hotels on these streets. Now the castle was closed for the day already, so our main goal was to find a place to stay. We had already decided we’d be going with a hotel today, perhaps as a reward to ourselves for surviving 3 days with the Russians…. Anyway, that was the plan…

When we got off the train, and started walking towards the castle, I noticed that there were an unusually high number of fairly attractive women made up all fancy like walking the streets… This trend continued, with girls appearing pretty much everywhere. and ranging from somewhat pretty, to very pretty, to not pretty and dressed like whores, to kinda pretty, but dressed like whores. Walking down the street, there were bars and clubs everywhere.. The atmosphere reminded me of a really lively downtown GR on a Friday, with all your “dudes” and hoochies headed down to the clubs to look popular and be jackasses. Eventually we spotted a hotel, and Robb and Joel checked out prices while I searched the lobby for a map of Cardiff.. We were given a pretty good rate, and decided we’d try a few more, then head back if nothing better came up. We made it down to the castle, saw nothing better, and headed back to get the room.. Robb tried to get us a better deal, but apparently she had already spotted us a price less than half the normal rate, [and quite frankly, I believe her] So we took the room…

We were given a key and headed to the place.. Room #6. Joel tried the key, but couldn’t get the door open..so Robb gave it a shit, and had troubles as well… but Robb was determinded… so he kept at it for quite some time…. make some slight progress, it seemed… .. until Joel read the receipt, and advised us to head to our real room, Room #9. Woo!

We found that room, and I walked right in.. it was unlocked. the room was gorgeous… TV, Coffee pot, closet with additional linens.. nice looking gbathroom… Ironing board and fan… Quality. We set down our stuff, and decided to go out to see the city.

first stop was the train station, where we grabbed schedule times for departure, so we’d be sure to get the right train to Bath tomorrow. Then we headed on back, and the number of scantily clad women just continued to increase, as did the number of packs of dudes, dressed in what can best be described as “boy band” type clothing (We would have also accepted “gay”). The girls were occasionally pretty, but more often than not just kinda slutty (e.g. a group of girls dressed as little devils, with one dressed as an angel.. each girl having to constantly tug on their skirts to keep it covering their asses. ) Many, Many girls failed the Rule of “if you don’t have the stomach for a stomach exposing outfit, please don’t wear an outfit that exposes the stomach.” Honestly, no one wants to see that.

We walked by what I guess was a strip club, and some lady clad in leather invited us in for lap dances… What a country!

We made it past the club scene, and noticed there was also a decent population of people dressed in highly formal wear (tuxes and fancy dresses) We wondered why…

We saw the castle again, and walked past that to see the City Hall building, and a number of parks. The first park featured what we assumed to be a group meeting for a coven of witches that seemed to have strange powers over our cameras, and most of the photos I tried to take surreptitiously were blurry to the point of being unrecognizable. Lousy witches with their blurriness spells.

We eventually made it to another park, where the formally dressed seemed to be congregating… we walked on in, and found there to be a giant tent with music loudly playing. Inside seemed to be a giant banquet of some type. Then some weirdness.

6/11 Hotel in Cardiff II

As we approached the tent area two guys around our age yelled out to us: “Hey..you there… come here… come here.. come on, it’ll be worth your while.” We reluctantly walked over there. “You guys want charlies?”.. Whuzzah?” “Charlies… you know.. Coke?” “Oh, no.. thanks. Sorry.”

Yes, that’s right, I apologized for not purchasing illegal drugs all of 10 feet from some cops. I’m ever so polite.

Shortly there after (read like, 45 seconds) we came upon a scene of an obviously pissed of girl in a formal gown approaching a fairly detached looking guy in a tux. the girl was p-i-s-s-e-d!. We walked on past, and I continued to crane my neck to watch the girl remove a necklace she was wearing, and hand it to the guy. this was obviously not a good night for that happy couple. they continued to stand near each other.. the girl with arms defiantly folded at her chest, while we walked further into the garden.

Soon thereafter we realized (well, Joel and I realized.. it took Robb some more convincing..) that the park’s other entrances/exits were closed, so we’d need to head back to where we came from… so we began to walk back, and eventually passed that same girl (some ways closer to the exit now) standing, in tears complaining through sobs to the guy that he was obviously angry at her” I didn’t catch any more of that conversation, sadly.

We waked out of the park, and had a long conversation about how to make scrambled eggs, and omelets, and now I’m very excited to cook some of that stuff up again. (well, omelets again, and scrambled eggs for the first time. with HAM!) eventually we made it back to our hotel. but grabbed some food (fast food chicken sandwich type place… and Pepsi tastes absolutely amazing!) Then we headed on up.. watched some UK COPS!-esque show (they were in York, and Edinburgh.. we thought that was neat.) Also, I guess you can say Fuck on British TV.

And speaking of that, in the last 2 days I’ve heard 3 cell phone conversations end in “Fuck off!”) And the F-bomb abounds here.. you can’t go more than 4 steps without hearing it somwwhere… and morris was certainly a fan of it.. It flowed in and out of conversation like the letter E..

Tomorrow we get a free big old English breakfast thanks to this snazzy hotel… so with that, i will go to sleep, as it’s 1:00 am,an now ROBB is snoring…. what is the world coming to?!?

We’re on to Day 8, and this was one of my favorites. We went to Western Irealand to see the Cliffs of Moher, and they did not disappoint. I took many, many pictures. We also spent a lot of time on the train, so I wrote quite a bit about random stuff, like the phrases we’d been saying quite a bit, and what I was looking forward to getting back to.

6/10 Train to Galway

We’re currently waiting for the train to depart from Euston station in Dublin toward Galway. This morning went off more or less without a hitch. We woke up early, and were out the door by 6:30… I think it was bright out by around 4:30, so it looks like midday outside, and it’s 7:25. Only in America… wait, I mean..

So we got up, and were out the door, and after walking to the Dart station (the public transportation something or other… tram maybe? I dunno) we were told the best way is by bus.. so we went to the very nearby bus stop, and waited there for about 10 minutes, and the bus (another double-decker) arrived, and rapid gas/slam braked us all the way to the station.. we got in, and walked strait to the platform, and now we’re just leaving.

We got the 5 day flex pass for BritRail, which is supposed to give us any 5 days of travel on the train lines, and we can travel as much as we want during those 5 days… Well to record, I guess you’re supposed to write in the dates on your ticket each time you use it… I filled in the first day.. and since then have just left it blank, and the ticket checkers and platform attendants just wave me on through… I could travel for the next month for free …

I’ve just spent the last approx. 2 hours sleeping. turns to I was really tired. i couldn’t get to sleep quite fast enough last night, and then had to try to sleep to the snoring, which I’ve already explained I suck at. Anyway, I’ve been sleeping on the train, and it feels really nice. Outside it looks dark, cold, and ominous. Robb and I are wearing hoodies, and Joel has a long sleeve shirt. I would very much like it to be sunny and warm by the cliffs.

Popular sayings/quotes from the trip: We were at the station in Belfast waiting for the train to Dublin when this little boy (part of that field-hockey team), having watched almost half the team’s female population head to the bathrooms shortly before they were told to get on the train. [In a thick and therefore amusing Irish accent] “Why does everyone have to go to the bathroom?” It just sounded funny, and therefore we’ve latched on to it, and said it on occasion. Robb is still very much pushing the “We Built this City on Rock and Roll”… I can’t explain that one.. you just have to Know Robb, and then it makes sense. I’ve had stuck in my head since the ferry ride StrongBad’s techno song, with “The System is Down! The System is Down!” So I’ll start up the techno beat, then occasionally I or Robb will add in the synthesizer noises, then break into “The System is Down.”

Occasional Jim Gaffigan quotes are thrown in, much like a normal day back home.

Almost all day yesterday I had stuck in my head Craic Wisely singing “In Dublin’s Fair City, Where the girls are so pretty, I first set me eyes on sweet Molly Malone..”

“Give us a song, Paddy.”

Perhaps the most common “Who invited him!?” said from one to another in reference to the third. It’s been said by everyone about everyone at this point.. many, many times.

[An aside, it now looks lovely and Blue outside, and I very much hope it stays like this.]

[Another aside: All the signs here are written twice, once in English, and once in Gaelic]

So here’s something for you… we’ve been stopping at different stations along the way, then driving along through long fields with cows and sheep, etc… And I’ve been having Craic Wisely songs in my head for the last two days, and I’ve mentioned… Anyway, I started thinking “I wonder if any of these fields are Athenry” [Craic Wisely sings a song about/called the Fields of Athenry]. I kid you not, the very next second, the conductor announces “Next stop, Athenry” So we’re now speeding through the Fields of Athenry.

The weather s constantly switching between dark and Ominous an Sunny and Blue. We’ve not hit any rain yet, though, so I guess that part is good.

Another note.. never let Robb know you’re taking his picture… He’ll find any way he can to make his face look rediculous… It’s very funny.

6/10 Train to Dublin

Spectacular!

We’re now on the train back to Dublin.. it hasn’t yet left the station.

So when we arrived in Galway, it began to rain..ike the second we stepped out of the train car…. so we made it over to information, and found out that there was a train leaving for the Cliffs of Moher at 10:30. It was around 10:25… So we got tickets, and headed on to the bus… The bus ride would take about 2 hours 15 minutes or so, I guess… and we had to leave at 1:30 in order to hit our train (the train I’m on currently.. which still isn’t moving.) As the bus continued we kept going from bright blue skies to dark rainy dull skies… and then back again. eventually we got out near the water, and it got very scenic… tall hills mixed with vast green fields crisscrossed with old timey stone fences, and littered with cows, sheep, and horses. As we started heading up these hills, the road started to snake.. and soon got really, really tight. The road itself was very narrow, and up the hills it would be hairpin turn after hairpin turn… The kind of turns you wouldn’t expect a bus to be able to make…. The kind of roads you thought only existed in luxury car commercials and The Long Long Trailer with Lucille Ball. But the bus made it through all the turns… Any time the bus approached another vehicle, especially another large vehicle like a truck or bus, it’d slam on the brakes and slow way down, and the two vehicles would pass with no more than a few inches tops between them.

Around now, the dude in front of my, [later identifying himself as Tyler] started talking… He said something to me about how he didn’t believe we were going on this road [with all the sharp turns and all] Joel said something like “yeah.. I didn’t think buses were supposed to do that.”.. and that was that. So his name is Tyler, and he comes from Scotland. he speaks quite good English, especially the swears. Anyway, his goal was to live in Ireland for a year, and travel all over, from North to South, and East to West… only the lady in charge of letting him in (not immigration, but something like that) said he didn’t have enough money.. so she’d only let him in for a month… he was pissed, but was now making the most of it. He asked about Dublin, and the Guinness tour, etc.. and we talked for a bit… and then we arrived at the Cliffs.

Spectacular!

There are some things that you see pictures of and think “wow, that’s beautiful, I’d like to see that someday.” Then you go, and it’s really not all that great. It looks like the picture, sure, but then that’s pretty much it. Then there are other things, where you see a picture and think “Wow, that’s beautiful, I’ll have to see that some day.” And then you go, and it blows your mind. The Grand Canyon did that for me when I saw it… and the Cliffs of Moher just did it as well. They were spectacular. Huge, and gorgeous, and just breathtaking.

We arrived, and after a quick pits stop, we headed up one side.. It was really, really windy, but not raining (Yea!), and you could see for quite a ways (Yea! again) So we headed up one side, and took a ton of pictures. There was a fort or tower of some sort at the peak on this side [O'Brien's Tower], but they wanted money to go to the top, and quite frankly, the view seemed better from outside it. Also, we were in a bit of a time crunch, as we arrived at around 12:15 and had to leave at 1:30. So we headed down that side (which was shorter than the other) and headed to the other. On the way, I saw this old woman totally bite it trying to climb the stairs… but she was okay.

In between the 2 sides was a rock platform (if you cut through a small opening in the rock fence) where you could stand out over the cliffs, and make your way to the edge and look down, so I headed there. (Conquering my now mild fear of heights in one determined step.) We took a bunch more pictures there, and I laid down to look over the edge and got a shot of that as well. It was dizzying, but really beautiful… and very very high.

6/10 Train to Dublin II

That section conquered, we started to ascend the other side. we all quickly noticed that there was no railing, no wall, no nothing between the path and the cliff itself, and at times, the path was within a couple feet of the cliff wall. So a bad step or two, and you’d be done. Such a park would not be allowed in the States, eh? Joel wondered aloud how many people have died up there… [or more accurately, Down at the bottom] I’m quite curious myself.. At least a few must have..

So we ascended the other side, taking pictures and videos every short while. This side jutted out and back in at the face of each cliff, and so we made it a decent ways in, finally reaching one of the juts and calling it good, as we had to head back to the bus at this point. I think we could have hung out there all day.. I know I certainly could have.

We’re now at Athenry station again.

So we headed back to the bus, and were eventually let on, and began heading back. I fell asleep fairly quickly, but was woken up when the bus hit the brakes kinda hard… There was a semi trying to go up, and we were trying to go down at one of those tight turns… So we ended up having to head back in reverse for a while and let him pass. That adventure behind us, I watched out the window all the way back to the station.

Once we made it back to the station we saw that we had about 2 and half + hours left before the train left, so Robb led us on, and we hit the city. We walked through some small streets packed with shops, and a singer/guitarist murdering such hits as “Hit the Road Jack” and “another song I can’t freaking remember now and it’s driving me Crazy” Classic. So we headed on through, and made it to a church (Galway Cathedral, I think).. So we went on in, and looked around [no charge] and took a few pictures. From there we headed on through town to another large church. inside this one, a kid (maybe 12ish) was playing the organ (seemed to be getting lessons. ) I thought he was quite good, though I’m by no means an expert on what is and isn’t complicated on an organ.. Leaving there, we started heading back, and eventually found a nice looking Pub/Sandwich Bar, and went in there for lunch. I had a small pizza, and it was wonderful. Joel had a chicken sandwich, and Robb had a Steak sandwich with a baked potato he made sure he got [The server was handing him his plate with the sandwich on it, and Robb said "And I'm supposed to have a baked potato" as the server was reaching for the next plate.. that was, in fact, Robb's baked potato..2 baked potatoes to be exact.

We ate our food, and listened to some less than classic songs ("I Want It That Way" and "In Your Eyes" were among them.) then headed out to the station, and hopped on the train, and that leads us to now.

I'm quite tired.. Robb looks pretty tired as well. Joel is writing in his journal, but seems a bit tired as well.. I dare say tonight will be an early evening. We have our plan for tomorrow: We wake up early, head out to a Dart (train) station, and head out to the harbor, and get a Ferry to Holyhead.. From there we get a train to Cardiff, the capitol of Wales, to see the castle there, and probably spend the night there.. then the next day we'll hit a train to Bath.. spend a short time looking around there, then hit Stonehenge, then move on to London, where we already have a Hostel booked for the next two days. The Next day (Sunday) we hope to hit Oxford and/or Cambridge, and perhaps some other place (of not both of the previous.) then head back to London at night. Then Monday (the day we leave) We're going to get up early, and go to Westminster Abbey, tour that for a while, then see the changing of the guard, and then hit the Underground to the airport, and head on home. Woot!

6/10 Hostel in Dublin

We decided to walk from the train station to the Hostel... the trip was uneventful, and Robb [and Joel] seems to have a good handle on where everything is. Honestly, I’ve just been following along much of the trip, which I’m fine with, and assume that Robb and Joel are fine with. I get the impression Robb likes to plan things, and he’s done a ton of research, so he’s fairly fit to lead us from place to place. I’m also fairly easy going as far as what we do.. there were a few key things I very much wanted to see: the Cliffs of Ireland was my Number 1. (and we did that today, and it was well worth the whining/demanding) I wanted to see the famous stuff in London: the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, London/Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, and the changing of the guard. and we saw (at the very least the outside of ) all of those, save for the Changing of the guard, which I’m fighting for, and I’m quite certain we’ll see Monday before we leave. Other than that, all i wanted was castles and suits of armor, and we’ve got both of them no problem.. Everything after that is just frosting. Oh, also.. Beer. I wanted to hit some pubs, since that was the original reason for the trip, and we’ve hit a fair number already. that all being said, I figure leaving the leading to others who want to pack more into each day makes sense, and Robb has been doing a fine job.

So anyway, we walked back to the hostel, and were chastised for taking the key with us.. apparently we were supposed to leave it here when we “popped out”.. can’t say I feel all that bad about it… I still don’t trust the Russians. Lousy communists.

The shower in this place has no real temperature adjuster.. it has one setting: way too freaking hot. The nice thing is that you don’t need soap… you just walk in and it vaporizes the first 5+ layers of skin right off.. The not so nice thing is that your entire body then bursts into flames, and you melt down the drain… I’d imagine other people, whose average shower temperature is not quite as scalding as mine tends to be, would find it even more troublesome.

We’ve been noticing that in every picture taken that features me with someone else, I look like a dwarf compared to them I’m thinking it has a lot to do with perspective, them standing closer to the camera added to my poor posture… also, I’ve been shrinking about 3 inches ever day. By the time we head home, I’m going to fit in Robb’s carry-on bag.

We managed to get by on just one meal today.. things are starting to feel more like home.

I cold go for some grape juice.

Grape Juice, and then Prime Rib. I’ll be going to Outback when I get home, and you should come with. We can split a Bloomin’ Onion.

Joel’s hair is long.

Looks like we’re planning on waking up early again tomorrow (6ish) So in theory I should go to sleep soon. All that riding in trains and buses apparently took it out of me.

An aside: 7.4 cent razors with one cheap blade and no shave gel suck big time. I’m chopping myself to pieces each time.

That’s all.

Alrighty, we’re on to day 7. This was our first full day in Dublin, and we got to see quite a bit. We toured Trinity, then hit a number of churches around town, then tourned the Guinness storehouse, closeing out the day by hanging out in the park. As always there are pictures you can check out. This was all written in the hostel that very night.

6/9 Dublin Hostel

Joel‘s taking his shower.. I just finished mine. It’s about 11:15.. We spent all day in Dublin today, and tomorrow we plan on getting up early (6 am) and taking the train to Galway, then from there finding some way (Bus?) to the cliffs on the Western shore, and checking them out.. then return to Galway, then head back to Dublin, to stay here in this room again tomorrow night. That’s the plan.. and it’s a good one. The only real fear at this point is finding the way to/from the cliffs, and making sure we get back in time for the last train to Dublin (6 pm, I believe.

But that’s tomorrow, this way today. We got up, and Robb lightened up his pack a ton (took out all the clothes) and Joel and I left ours here . I hid all my electronics in secret compartments/my sleeping bag, just in case the Russians tried to steal them. Lousy Communists. We headed out, and walked towards the city center. On our street there was a pub with a TON of kegs in front of it.. we’re talking well over 30.. It was nifty. Anyway, we headed to the city center, and our first stop was Trinity College. At Trinity college was the book of Kells, which I believe is the oldest surviving book in Western history.. Maybe it’s not.. I dunno.. let me check… Well it didn’t say, but the book is from around the 9th century, so at the very least, it’s over 1000 years old, which is pretty impressive. it’s a copy of the gospels written by monks… so it’s got the whole Big letter starting off the chapter, and pictures drawn in certain places, etc.. It’s really quite impressive.. and the museum surrounding the book of Kells (and other books of similar type stored in the museum) told all about the history, and ways these books were created. It was pretty interesting. Worth special note was one section that noted that sometimes monks would jot comments in the corner or margin… and there was an example where some dude wrote something about how the color ink he was using would become famous, cause he was using it so much. they’d eventually find a pile of bones with that ink pen attached to the end of the hand, or something. Those zany monks!

After the museum, we toured the campus for a little while, then headed off to the castle of Dublin. We toured around the outside of that for a bit, then hit a park… then hung out there for a bit, then returned to the castle.. but they weren’t letting people in for another half hour (the next tour time) and the description of the inside didn’t seem completely worth sticking around for (more like exhibitions/art stuff than castle stuff) so we kept on going.

Our next stop was Christ Church, which was another large Catholic Cathedral. We headed on in to this one, and viewed the inside for a while. My favorite part was a small wall section dedicated to “The Cat and the Rat”. The story goes that the former was chasing the latter, and both got stuck in an organ pipe, and were mummified… So they have the mummified remains displayed on one of the walls. That leads us nicely into the crypt, which was below… and filled with a number of tombs to important people of the church/town, and the treasures of the church. Most notable among the treasures was the giant gold plates and Eucharist serving dishes given by the king. They were shiny.

Leaving that church, we hit St, Patrick’s Cathedral.. another giant church… this one had a giant park along side, where we hung out for a little bit, but soon we were back to walking.

We grabbed some food, and continued our walk to… [wait for it]… The Guinness Storehouse! And there was much rejoicing. We downed out food, and headed on in. Upon entering we were greeted by some lovely Guinness greeting ladies. I quickly became of the opinion that every place I enter should have a lovely greeter lady.. most notably my bedroom.

6/9 Dublin Hostel II

Anyway, I will be unable to do this place justice, but I enjoyed it very much. the bottom few floors had a full museum about the brewing process, and the history of Guinness.. from the beer itself, to its transportation, to marketing/advertising/corporate identity/etc.. It was really really kewl. Up a few more floors, and we were in the gravity lounge, where we were given a “free” [with purchase of ticket, but considered free by us now, cause we're morons] pint of Guiness… they even made the shape of a shamrock in the head of it.. it was sweet So you’re treated to a 360 view of the whole city of Dublin, while drinking down a delicious Guinness. it was great. Joel pointed out that the very center of the building itself (where the lifts were) formed a giant Guinness glass as well.. and it totally did. Very clever.

We headed off to the gift shop after downing our drinks.. Joel and I were on the lookout for gifts for people back home… but it turns out that if you don’t know what to get someone back in the states, it becomes doubly hard to pick out something elsewhere.. when you have a ton of crap to sift through, along with the idea that 1.) you gotta get this thing on the plane without breaking. 2.) you gotta fit this thing in your pack without leaving anything behind, and 3.) you gotta carry the damn thing the rest of the trip, unless you want to mail it home, in which case 4.) you gotta sell everything else you own to pay for shipping. Woo!

So… we ended up both getting shirts for ourselves. Hurray for us!

Leaving the storehouse, we headed out again, and walked for quite some ways before we got to the Museum of Modern art I will give that place this: it was better than the Serpentine one… but not by much… this one we didn’t see much of, but what we did see didn’t impress me. One room was showing a video of a person dressed in an giant ant suit,, pretending to be like an ant.. the video lasted 37 minutes. I did not stay for much of it. Maye it got a ton better near the end, with lots of explosions and hot chicks. But I kinda doubt it. Next was a series of rooms filled with paintings of the same slightly ugly looking woman in various stages of undress… from fully clothes, to sitting down with her pantyhose around her kneees… to pants-less lying on a bed.. to just plain naked. Here’s the deal.. someone might be a decent painter.. but that doesn’t mean that what they’re painting doesn’t suck anyway. These paintings, for example, where kinda good in that I could recognize what the image was supposed to be (unless there was some whole other layer I was missing that DIDN’T just look like fairly crappy soft-core porn), but that doesn’t make that art good… I’m going to stick with my original impression: It sucked.. and sucked quite hard.

We left there fairly soon thereafter… and walked through a long grassy park which was quite nice, then headed off towards Stevenson’s Park, another large grassy area with benches and some flower gardens/ponds/fountains. While sitting around there (we had walked around a LOT this day, and near the end we very much enjoyed the comfort of park benches) it began to rain..so we went under a gazebo for a little while, then it let up (it never got worse than a sprinkle) we found a bench by a pond (and a nasty nasty scum filled pond at that) and sat there, and watched people feed the birds/ducks. We stayed there for quite some time, relaxing and talking. Robb began asking questions about who the first person to ever sit down was.. and who was the first one to invent a chair.. etc.. Joel and I searched for someone to take Robb away.. but alas. No one came.

In time we decided to jet.. and began the long journey home. We eventually found a nice looking brewery/restaurant, and ate there.. Joel and I tried there house Porter, and I thought it tasted quite a bit like Guinness (though a bit more bitter, I thought). I got a giant bowl of Fettuccine, and it was delicious [I can't believe I ate the whole thing]. Robb had Cod, and Joel had chicken

6/9 Dublin Hostel III

Joel also got the House Ale, and spilled that last bit of it on his pants. he was not pleased, and I laughed at him. When we left/were kicked out of there, we walked back to our place, and stopped off at an Internet cafe, where I updated my blog with a quick message about being in Dublin, sent off an email or two (if I didn’t send one to you, it means I obviously don’t love you), then checked work email, and the Cubs standings (they’re 3.5 games down, and in 4th place, and I blame everyone but me. I forgot to check how Prior did on his first day back. but I’m forced to believe he pitched perfect game, and batted for the natural cycle.

We finished up at the Internet Cafe, and headed back to the hostel, where I watched the contents of two beers quickly leave my body… then we took our showers, and that brings us up to right now.. Robb and Joel are asleep, so it’s time for me to turn this off and sleep as well. Tomorrow ought to be excellent.

[Spider update: As I was working on this, the spider came back, and ran across my arm, and completely freaked me out. I chased after him and swatted at him, but he got away again, and again disappeared. He's really fast, and doesn't so much run as he seems jump with big bounding leaps. He is the most evil thing I've ever encountered.]

And after a short break, I’m back with more vacation journals. This is our first full day in Edinburgh, and it was an excellent day. We visit Edinburgh Castle, go on a tour with a really sweet old woman at the Museum of Scotland, and then walk the city, ending up with a spectacular view of the place. At some pint, there will also be pictures.

6/7 Hostel in Edinburgh

I’m now back in the hostel.. Joel an Robb are downstairs trying out the Internet again. It’s about 9:00 I think… Today was a very long day, again. I saw Robb wake up about 4 in the morning.. and check his watch… and I thought it was time to get up.. I was not pleased… then I saw him go back to sleep.. and I was very pleased. Anyway, we got up around 9, and headed down to get some free breakfast around 9:25,, and the thing closed at 9:30, so we had to eat quickly.. Rice Krispies.. After breakfast we headed out, and walked a long ways and finally arrived at Edinburgh castle… and this thing was a real castle.. I was jazzed. We had gates, and ramparts, and all that good stuff. When we arrived we saw construction of what looked like bleachers all around by the front of the castle, covering up statues and everything, which seemed odd… We learned later that they’re setting up for the “Military Tattoo” which is a big military parade or something, that has performers and all sorts of stuff, and tons of people come out for that, and that’s why they needed the bleachers.. I thought that was sometime near the start of August. Anyway, we get in, and the view around this place is amazing.. the castle is up on top of this hill (Volcano plug), so you can see all around the city from up top. Anyways, we get to the opening, and there are two statues, one of each side, of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. That’s freaking rad. I’m a big fan of Braveheart.. so no matter how many things I hear about or read on this trip that point out things that contradict the movie, I will still hold that movie as a fine historical depiction of what happened back then.

So those statues are there… We arrived just in time to follow a tour (Yeah for tours.. they provide you with interesting information!) And so he lead us around, showed us the different gates and buildings and structures all around.. and told of the different sieges and so forth.. It was really quite interesting. When he was done, we walked around each section an checked it out. Quite kewl stuff.

They’ve got this thing where every day at 1 o’clock they shoot off this cannon to mark the 1 o’clock bell (According to the guide, they chose 1 o’clock cause it’s a ton cheaper than shooting off 12 shots at noon)… anyway, it was nearing 1 o’clock so we decided to go out to see it, and so did everyone else in Scotland.. so we’re sitting there waiting.. and we’re all trying (Joel and me for sure) to capture this thing on [digital] film. So I’m sitting there patiently.. and Meanwhile I’m burning through 20 seconds clips left and right… (My camera does them at high quality for 20 seconds, or low quality for 45, I think… and I wanted to capture this in high quality, obviously) So I’m waiting, and constantly waiting for it to save so I can start it up again.. and then, just as I was busy saving the last 20-second clip, *!BA!N!G!*. It scared the shit out of me. I have a clip of me videoing the sky, cause my arms went flailing.. yeah.. it caught me so off guard. Joel did much better, I believe.

Another thing to mention… When we were in London Joel noted this kid getting his picture taken (and perhaps other people as well, i don’t recall now) holding his hand up as if to wave at the camera.. and we found that quite funny, so now we’ve been doing it… it’s to the point where any time we want to take a picture one of us is doing that pose, and tries hard not to laugh until the picture snaps. Fun stuff.

After the gun shot, it was getting kinda chilly, and very windy up there, so we started heading back.. We stopped at a few gift shops, where Robb struggled mightily each time to ultimately decide to buy nothing… it helps that all the shops were the exact same… We also found out where we could get some stamps, and then purchased those… then made it back to our hostel.

6/7 Hostel in Edinburgh II

At the hostel I grabbed my sweatshirt, cause I was getting really cold.. We all grabbed our postcards (their’s were all filled out.. I quick wrote the addresses on mine, and we headed out. We were going to go to the Museum of Scotland, and the Royal Museum of Scotland. they are connected, but deal with two different things, apparently. Anyway, on the way, they tossed in their post cards, so they were off to be sent. We made it to the Scottish Museum first, as there was to be a guided tour right around the time we arrived. So we walked in, and where the tour was supposed to meet we saw nothing… nothing but a sweet old lady standing by the pillar. So we kept on walking, and in the next room we stopped, and talked, and decided that 1.) She was the tour guide and 2.) We should take the tour. So we returned to the old lady, and mentioned that we’d like to take the tour..

Now the tour she was supposed to be giving at that time was a special “themed” tour which only hits a small portion of the full museum.. but since we were first time visitors, she thought it would be better if we took a broad look at the entire museum. We agreed… So we waited a little bit to make sure no one was going to show p for the “themes” tour, then we headed off.. to the 5th floor. the museum is set up vertically by eras.. so the very top is the modern day, and is in fact the roof, showing a spectacular view of all the surrounding Edinburgh. She pointed out different areas of interest, including the castle, which we had just been to, and another hill to the right of the castle which appeared to have some pillars on it, And a tower called Carlton’s tower. She also explained the difference between the Royal Museum of Scotland and the Museum of Scotland. the Royal Museum deals with science and technology, and kinda everything else about everything that Scotland had anything to do with…and is linked somewhat closely to the University, which it sits right next to. So you have all these educated people from the 1700′s-1900′s getting sent out all throughout the world, and they were told to send back anything of interest that they could from those regions, and that’s what makes up the Royal Museum of Scotland. The Museum of Scotland, on the other hand, deals solely with the history of Scotland herself.. Her people, her land, technology, etc..

So, our guide was explaining all of this when she was informed that there were two ore people joining the tour… and soon they arrived. They were two upper-middle aged women from Carolina.. and they had T-H-I-C-K Carolina/southern accents.. Not the occasionally charming Southern Belle accent, but more of the “I’m a hick” southern accent. Anyway, they joined us, and the tour continued. We headed down a floor (moving inside, and back in time.) to the 4th floor, to talk about .. Um. Scotland’s history.. we skipped the 5th floor which was the 19th century, which was fine. Anyway, she brought us around, and was really quite interesting, and just all around a very knowledgeable , sweet old lady with a charming Scottish accent. After a little over a half hour or so, we were on the main floor, and the tour time was up.. We thanked her, and headed off to see some more of the museum.. there was a section on William Wallace and Robert the Bruce that I was interested in.. then we hit the basement to find out about Prehistoric Scotland… there they had a lot of information that Answers in Genesis would not approve of. I found it quite interesting.. Sadly, there is not much evidence to suggest that the Plesiosaur is also the Loch Ness Monster. the fact that the Plesiosaur is long since extinct might hurt it a bit too.

So after checking out that room for a while, I headed back up, and worked on postcards for a little bit, then met up with Joel, and eventually Robb.

6/7 Hostel in Edinburgh III

After we left the Museum of Scotland we headed over to the Royal Museum of Scotland, but got distracted by what I assumed was a kid’s exhibit (and it was).. it had all sort of little games and things, including one where you had to see how long you could balance on this platform (turns out, not long at all) and this basketball type game where different goals had different point values (And I totally ruled at it).. We messed around there for a while, then headed in to the Royal Museum of Scotland.. There was a little technology section that was kinda interesting, but then we got into a whole section that had animals (dead and stuffed) all over the place.. and we’re talking all sorts of animals… Extinct animals, endangered animals.. it was an Impressive collection…. but as we were going through, the place was closing , so we ha to jet from there. At some point during the day we also went in to the Scottish Parliament building, which was kinda neat.. the visitors section just had a bunch of information about the Parliament and all that (They formed the current Parliament in 1997, I think), but we didn’t get to go and see the floor where they debated or anything…

After all that, we headed out towards that Carlton’s Tower the guide had pointed out.. but first we saw an add for food that seemed pretty good, so we stopped in, and I had a really good pork chop with potatoes, beans and squash. Robb got fish and chips, and Joel got some pasta something or other.. All quite good. Joel and I had another pint with this meal, and Joel splurged on some dessert as well.

After dinner we walked across town to some Big palace house thinger whose name I can’t remember.. we couldn’t get in, but we could see it pretty good. And after than we headed off to Carlton’s tower.. once up on top of that hill, we were presented with another amazing view of everything.. so we hung out there for a while.. and did our waving picture taking and all that. Then we decided to head back towards town, and I was on the lookout for a place to buy a shaving razor, cause i want to shave… We also needed to swing by the train station to get some information about trains tomorrow, etc… Well we made it to the train station,a nd got some information (and I got a snickers cause I’m freaking hungry all the time now), and then we walked through another park (kinda dirty and litter filled) then I bought a hot dog (All the freaking time I tell you.. Check this.. on the plane, I ate Rice… and not just ate, I wolfed that stuff down right quick. And I hate rice… so yeah.. I became instantly starving the minute we left Newark.. Most odd.) Anyway, then we walked for a ways… Robb tried to do more souvenir shopping.. with no luck, and I came up empty on my razor search.. We returned to the hostel, and back up to our room to find some dude staying in this room with us… That’s when Robb and Joel went down to use the Internet, and I started writing… Now the dude is trying to sleep, and I’m still here.. I told him I’d be happy to go out to a different room to type, but he told me not to, that it was fine, etc… But now I feel kinda guilty, and very filthy (as in dirty from the walking outside, etc.. Not from typing while so dude is trying to sleep) So I’ma take a shower now.