Rubber Ducky, You're the One...

Well hello again, avid readers! I honestly thought that it would be longer before I regaled you all with another tale of running joy and woe, but apparently, I am insane. Or something very close. And there's significantly less woe in this particular tale than there are in some of the others.

Just this very morning I had the pleasure of running the Rubber Ducky Half Marathon, which is 2 laps around the picturesque Burnaby Lake in the heart of the greater Vancouver area. Why, you ask, did I decide to run this seemingly unknown race? Well, the Royal Victoria Marathon was at the beginning of October, and due to a lengthy vacation in the UK in which I did absolutely no running, I was in no shape to be there for the fun. I wanted to be, but alas, I was not. I might mention at this point that I will never again take a vacation in which I do very little physical activity. Not at all owing to the vacation itself, but to the fact that getting myself back to my regular pace and endurance level afterwards is nothing short of hell. Next time I shall be packing my running gear. That said, after missing the RVM, I was feeling a little lazy and a bit left out. I felt as though I needed an event. A race I could run with a whole bunch of other crazy people. So I went online last week and found the Rubber Ducky Half, and took about 5 minutes to decide I wanted to sign myself up.

I went into this race with full knowledge that I would not be gaining another personal best. It just wasn't gonna happen today, and it didn't. But having known that going in, I am totally satisfied with the way the race turned out. I took almost a full month of holidays without running even once, and have been working my butt off since. The first few weeks after I got home, actually ended up being some of the slowest runs I have ever done (for those that know pacing, I was doing about 7:20 km's, I coulda cried). So crossing the finish line today to find that I had run solid 6 minute km's the entire race made me feel pretty damn good. I'm back, baby!

It still didn't feel like enough. As I have said in this blog before, and as most of you know, my favorite distance is a full marathon. It has been since I ran my first in 2007, and I think it always will be. Halfs are good, they just aren't really long enough. So today's race just reminded me of that. Not that the 21.1 km's were easy, but it was that feeling of crossing the finish line and thinking, "is that it?" So when's the next marathon, then?

It was a good race, and I was in a reasonably good mood for most of it, so I don't really have much to report. But I do have a few things, so here goes.

The Lulu girl. Oh, yes, there was one in today's race. You may remember my nemeses from this year's Vancouver Marathon, but if you don't, scroll back to that particualr blog and you shall understand. It wasn't the same girl, but she was wearing the Lululemon running shorts and bouncing around for the first few km's like she was all that and the expensive shoes she was wearing. Well, I passed her, in all her tiny shorts and new shoes glory. Me, in my Brooks shorts and shoes that needed replacing several months ago. So take that, Lulu girl. Eat my dust, as it were.
The terrain. Normally, a race would be run on asphalt and pavement. On the street somewhere. But this race was run on the trails around Burnaby Lake, thus essentially making it a trail run. Which, if you're a runner, makes a gigantic difference. Unlike pavement, trails wind through the trees, have tree roots and other debris on the actual trail, and they aren't flat. Burnaby Lake, in particualr, is in no way flat. It can't even see flat from where it's sitting. This isn't to say that it's a hilly course. It's not, far from it. There are no siginificant hills, it's just that the trail undulates up and down with very small hills. And there are ruts on the trail that make it difficult to pick where on the trail to run, especially since the ruts keep moving. And there are spots along this trail, some of them cover several hundred metres, that are squishy. It's a boggy area, so that makes sense. But when you're running, and you need the ground to be reasonably hard so you have something solid to push off from with your next step, when the ground is spongy it doubles the amount of work you have to do with each step. Energy sapping squishy ground. It's a nice course, but you just have to go into it knowing it's a trail run, which fortunately I did know thanks to my previous forays to the lake.
Glen and the camera. As many people know, Glen is my pit crew. And he's normally an excellent pit crew. He's ready with extra water bottles, chapstick, or anything else I might need when I see him along the way. Well he lost it today. It was 2 laps of the lake, so he saw me start, then go by once, then at the end. Well, that was the theory anyways. He did see me start, and he did see me on the first lap, though he was a little slow on the uptake, since when I was going past he was half-way across a field 'cause he thought I'd take a little longer than I did. Then at the finish line he totally missed me. He said it was because with his calculations I was going to finish at 2:15. Oh Glen, how wrong you were. He missed me by a good 10 minutes. In fact, I was just finishing off my second delightful orange slice when he came waltzing along to the finish line. I have no idea how he figured this 2:15 out, since every time I passed a km marker I saw that I was running solid 6 min km's. Like, seriously solid. I think I was off by a few seconds near the end, but only in the last couple km's. So there's no victorious picture of me crossing the finish line from this morning. But I think I may take this as a sign that he needs to start running his own half-marathons. He just doesn't know it yet.

So that's one more adventure for me. I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the next one!

Final Thoughts.

Well, I've finally gotten around to this, sortof. After some re-reading I don't really have a huge amount to add to my previous posts in terms of opinions and the like. Well, I have a few, so I'll share what I do have. And, as always, the disclaimer that these are, in fact, my opinions on my own personal experiences. You may feel totally different about the exact same place, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Everybody's different.

I hate London. Okay, hate might be too strong a word. I greatly dislike London. Here's why. I grew up in Canada, where things are green. I like green, probably for that reason. There is a serious lack of green in London. Yes, there is the occasional tree, and the occasional patch of grass, but those are rare, and for the most part it's a concrete jungle. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, basically is how it went. You could walk for several city blocks and not see a single tree or patch of grass. Seriously. And when you're from Canada, where even apartment buildings have lawns, it's hard to get past the grey of the concrete. It's very monochromatic, and almost irritating.

But it's not just that. It seems that most of the UK didn't get the "smoking causes lung cancer" memo, so nearly everyone smokes. Or it seems that way when you walk down the street. I will give them credit for banning smoking in restaraunts, pubs, and other public spaces, though. But they don't have the 6 metre around the door rule, so the get out of the restaraunt or pub you have to walk through a plume of cigarette smoke. Yuck. And everyone walks along the street smoking, so it's a constant barrage of lung-clogging stench. I swear just walking around in London for an hour is like having a pack-a-day habit. And because they all walk around polluting the air, there are cigarette butts everywhere. Which makes the place seem dirty. Now if you threw a few trees in there for some greenery it might not seem so bad, but there aren't any trees, thus you feel as though the cigarette butts are as endless as the concrete. So London came off as dirty and smelly to me.

The Underground is fantastic, but needs some ventilation. The Underground, or the tube, if you like, is fantastic. We took it from the airport and then back at the end of our trip, and it was cheap and really quick. There are tons of stations everywhere, so wherever you might want to go, you don't need to go far to get to a tube stop. They've also made it very easy to use by coming up with the Oyster card. It's a card with a chip in it, and you tap it on the turnstyles when you enter the station, and then tap it on the out turnstyles when you leave. You can load it up with as much as you like, and it makes it really easy to get from place to place without having to figure out how much change you need for a ticket or how many zones you need to pay for. They need to ventilate the stations and the trains, though. There was absolutely none when we were there. The second you step into the tube station, you break out in a sweat because the air is hot and stagnant. So they also smell a little funny. And on top of that, if it's busy at the time, you're shoulder to shoulder with other sweaty passengers. It ends up as a big, sticky, uncomfortable mess. And you feel that way when you get off. But really, a little A/C or some fans and the problem would be solved.

London is expensive. Don't let anyone tell you different. Sure, you can save with "budget" accomodation, but even the hostels charge upwards of 30 pounds a night. Do the conversion. That's $60 Canadian. For a shared bunk bed and shared bathroom. The food isn't any cheaper, either. You could eat for maybe 3 pounds if you needed to, but you're not exactly getting a fantastic, filling meal for that much. And do the conversion, and that 3 pounds becomes $6. You can get a footlong sandwich at Subway for that much in Canada. And good luck finding a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate for less than 2 pounds. Yeah. It ain't cheap. But if you know that, and you go mentally prepared for it, then it's really not so hard to suck up the exorbitant prices. That said, you can sometimes get a pint of beer for 2.50 pounds, which is still $5, but if you consider that some places in Canada are now charging $6 for a 355 mL bottle of beer, a 500 mL pint for $5 really isn't that bad. And it's actually borderline cheaper than water in some places. And given the choice, who would drink water?

I really sound like I'm running London down, but after the second time I decided I didn't really like the city. Mostly it was the lack of green. I figured that out when I spent a couple hours wandering around Hyde Park and my mood improved greatly. I'm Canadian, and I like the wide open, green, natural spaces. Give me trees or give me death, apparently. It's who I am, and I'm okay with that.

You know what else I noticed? When they want to memorialize someone over there, they build a statue. Or a fountain. Or a big fancy building that has little purpose other than just looking pretty (the Scott Monument comes to mind). Or some other structure that requires concrete, stone or metal. You know what Canadians do when they want to memorialize someone? We plant a tree. Or name a mountain after them. Or a river. But it generally involves the natural landscape in some way. I think I like that. Instead of changing the environment to remember someone, we just make them a part of what's already there. I'm not saying building a statue isn't a good way of keeping someone's memory alive, it's just that if someone were going to remember me, I think I'd prefer a mountain or a tree. I think I might be a tree-hugger.

Oh, that brings me to another point. Okay, I get that you built a statue, but why did you put it on top of a huge pillar so no one but a giant could see it? They've done that everywhere. There's a life-sized statue of so-and-so, but it's on top of a 30 foot column, so you can't really tell how beautiful or detailed it is. I don't get it. If I were an artist, I think I'd be a bit offended, 'cause no one would be able to see my work. You stand on the ground, stare up at it, and wonder if you should bother trying the zoom on your camera or just not bother taking a picture because it's so high and the angle is so weird that it's not really worth it. It just doesn't make sense. If anyone knows why they do this, please tell me, because it's very perplexing to me.

Overall, I had a fantastic time in the 24 days I spent in the UK. I did a lot of stuff that I never thought I would, and saw so many places I've nearly forgotten about some of them already. I saw famous places that I've always wanted to see, and a few hidden gems. It was definitely a good trip, and I'm glad I went. Now, on to the next adventure.

The Last Few Pictures.

Here are the last few pictures from the big UK trip that I thought were probably worth posting. Enjoy!Haggis! At the Drover's Inn, a very cool place that actually makes fantastic haggis.

Me with our driver/tour guide/music junkie Russell.

At Albert Dock in Liverpool.

The first Lambanana sighting!

Stonehenge, in the event you didn't know what it was.

Me listening to the audio tour at the Roman Baths in Bath.

Must...keep...house...from falling over...

Inside Shakespeare's Globe.

In the Natural History Museum in London.

The gate to the Egyptian Avenue at Highgate Cemetery.

The end is Nigh!

Hello again, avid readers! Well, it appears that yet another of the YHA hostels we've ended up in demands a far too great sum of money for me to bother paying for internet. Though, there is a pub within walking distance that has free WiFi for customers. So, I can either pay the YHA for internet, or go down to the pub and have a pint with my internet for the same price. Which would you pick? Exactly. That's why this particular post isn't proper with pictures and all. Now, on with the show.

We've spent yet another day in London, and this time we started with the Museum of London. Thankfully, because it's a museum, admission was free. I'm learning to appreciate the free where I can get it, 'cause this city is damn expensive. It was another museum. It went through the history of London since basically before time, and then right up to the present day. There were artifacts in glass cases and whatnot. And a lot of info boards. I think after this trip I'm gonna be info boarded out for at least a year, if not more. That's really all I have to say about the museum of London. Some of it was interesting, some of it wasn't. It was a museum. We then proceeded to have lunch on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, since we were nearby anyways. Despite that being the 3rd time we've done that, it has yet to get old.

Next was Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. No, it's not the original one, but it's a replica made in excatly the same fashion. If you've seen Shakespeare in Love you know what it looks like. Round building, open to the air, 3 stories, thatched roof. Very cool. I took the tour and saw the exhibition. I didn't really learn a lot, though I did learn that they signal they're showing a play at 2 pm by running up the flag. Apparently they used this because the majority of the population lived across the river and this was before newspapers where you could check to see if there was a play that afternoon. So they'd put the flag up the flagpole and people across the river would see it and know they could go to the theatre that afternoon. There was also some information about the roof over the stage but that was really only relevant if you got to see it.

Then at 2 pm we went in to actually see a play. Yes, it really is a working theatre. And a good one, at that. We saw As You Like It, which is apparently the play all the good Shakepeare quotes come from. Remember “all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”? That's from As You Like It. It really was an excellent play, and very enjoyable to watch. The acoustics in the theatre are amazing, too. You could hear nearly everything the actors were saying despite the fact that there's no roof and there were planes going overhead. Really, the sound was just fantastic! The atmosphere was amazing, too. Sitting in an open-air venue seeing a classic play where the actors actually come out into the audience was probably one of the highlights of this trip for me. It was just something about being there, getting absorbed into the surroundings and the words and the costumes. If you are ever in London, go see a play at the Globe. You will not be disappointed. Though I would recommend biting the bullet and actually paying for a seat. When they say standing room around the stage, they really do mean standing room. April and I were watching them from our seats and were very grateful we didn't have to stand for 3 hours. Oh, and get the back rests. Worth every penny, man.

This evening we also managed to get our first drink-in-the-street pint. Oh yes. You go into the pub, order your pint, then take it back out into the street and just stand there as you're drinking it. It's the weirdest thing to see to someone who grew up where you could literally be arrested for having open alcohol in the street. Well tonight we finally got to do it. It was a little strange, especially since they let you take the actual glass glasses out there. You think more would get broken, but apparently not. And you can just leave them there, too. You don't have to take the glass back inside, you can just set it on a window ledge or on the sidewalk next to the building, and they'll send people outside every now and again to pick up the empties. It's weird, but fun to someone who's never experienced it before.

That was our day, today, and I know this won't get posted until tomorrow, so I'll get back to you then.

Well, we've come to our final day in the UK. Tomorrow we fly out of Heathrow around noonish, so it's up and to the airport first thing. So here's what I did on my last day in London.

First up, April and I went to the Natural History Museum. Again, museum=free admission. And I have to say, it was highly enjoyable. Should you be headed to London at some point in the future, it is not to be missed. And I'm not just saying that because they had Charles Darwin finger puppets in the gift shop (I wanted the bigger doll but couldn't justify the expense or the luggage space). It was all about the earth, plate tectonics, minerals and gems, dinosaurs, the human body and how it works. Basically all the things I love and then some. Plus they have a statue of Darwin right in the main hall, you can't miss him. Did I mention I'm a fan of evolution and natural selection? Anyways, it was a really good museum. I suggest you go and see it.

After that April and I parted ways for the afternoon and I took the tube up to Highgate Cemetery. Yes, it is, in fact, a cemetery. But I've wanted to see it ever since I read Necropolis by Catharine Arnold. A little morbid, but this is me we're talking about. I'm a little off to start with. They run tourist tours through every weekday at 2 pm, so I got there at one and wandered around the east side, where you don't need to be with a tour guide to see it. Karl Marx and Douglas Adams (Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy) are buried there. Marx has a big, monolithic tomb, whereas Douglas Adams has a tiny little tombstone with little more than his name and dates he was alive. Though someone did leave a little dolphin toy on top of it. The east side was cool, all crumbling gravestones and creeping ivy. They've really crammed them in there, too. The graves are pretty much shoulder to shoulder with no room in between. At 2 pm I went on the tour of the west cemetery, which you can only get into as a visitor with a tour guide. It's a creepy, overgrown place that's all shadows and vines. Very atmopsheric. And very cool. It was THE place to be buried back in the 1800's, and a good chunk if high society is buried or entombed there. Right now they're working on conserving it, since it's been in total disrepair for a good 100 years. It's a very cool place, made all the better by how exclusive it seems it is to get in. The guides are very respectful of the fact that it is still a working cemetery, and you aren't allowed to have bare shoulders if you're going inside. I was fascinated, but it wouldn't be that exciting for most people. Oh, and apparently in the new movie Dorian Gray there's a scene in a graveyard, which was filmed at Highgate. I have a picture of the exact spot.

After that I headed down to wander through Hyde Park, which is just one huge green space. But it's a very welcome green space given how much of a concrete jungle London is. I managed to find the Diana Princess of Whales memorial fountain, which I dipped my feet in because the sign said you were allowed to do that. And if the sign says you can do it, that's pretty much an open invitation to me. I also got myself a flake ice cream before going into the park, which was delicious. The guy that sold it to me was a little bummed 'cause it was his birthday and he was working, but he was very much excited about seeing his team play Croatia in a soccer match at Wembley tonight. He looked the football hooligan type, I think. I really enjoyed walking through Hyde Park. After 2 more days of the crush of people that is London it was nice to hear and see trees for a little while.

On the way back to the hostel I stopped in for the spectacle that is Harrod's. And a spectacle it was! You could definitely spend a lot of money in there if you were looking to spend money. I found a mini cupcake in the food court they were charging $5 for. A mini-cupcake! That's one bite! Ridiculous. But it was working because there was actually a line for them. It's the first place I've been in that's sold authentic Gucci stuff. So a little too high-brow for me. But it was worth going in just to see what the other half spend their dough on.

Tomorrow we're back on a plane and back to reality. I plan on posting again with a few more pictures and some final thoughts, but I've no idea how long that's gonna take me, because as soon as I get back there's my brother's wedding. And then I'm headed to Vancouver with Glen. So I can't promise any decent timeline. But just stay tuned and I do promise I'll be back at some point.

An update from the UK! Finally!

Well, we've somehow come to another free WiFi void, so you'll be reading this the day or more after the actual writing, since I've decided I'm too cheap to pay for internet tonight.

This morning we set out to explore the Isle of Sky. There's really not a lot of touristy places on it, just a lot of amazing scenery. The whole day basically made me wish I'd brought my hiking books and waterproof gear and had several days to just wander aimlessly. We went to quite a few picturesque places, but they all had Gaelic names so I really can't remember any of them anymore. Well, I really couldn't have repeated any of them 2 seconds after he said them, 'cause the Gaelic language is, well, not at all phonetic. Anyways, we saw a lot of really cool places, one of which was apparently where the movies Highlander and Stardust were filmed. Very cool. And very pretty. I felt the wanderlust there, just needed more time and my hiking boots. Next time. For I will definitely be back.

Oh, our first stop was this random river, where we all got out of the bus and Russell told us this story about it. I'll try to re-tell it, but I can't guarantee accuracy. If you want the more accurate story, take a tour to the Isle of Skye with Haggis Adventures. Okay, so there were 2 clans on the island that were constantly fighting each other. The chiefs of these clans finally decided that this was ridiculous, and figured if they started intermarrying with each other the fighting would stop. So one chief offers up his daughter and the other offers up his son. The daughter, who was apparently wicked beautiful, heads for the church on her wedding day on a donkey, followed by her servant boy and a little dog. On the way to the church she falls off the donkey and smacks her head on a rock (sounds like a Sara thing to do), slicing her face open and breaking her jaw. But the boy convinces her to keep going, get to the church and go on with the wedding. So she drops the veil over her bloody face and gets to the church. The groom then decides that, since he's never seen this woman before, he'd like a gander before he goes through with it. He lifts her veil and sees her, gets enraged and races out of the church, stabbing a bunch of people (including the boy, the donkey and the dog) in the process. The girl then heads away from the church and ends up at this river where she meets the Fairy King (whose name I can't remember). He tells her the river has magical properties and if she dips her head in the water for 7 seconds she'll have eternal beauty, or something to that effect. She figures she's got nothing to lose, so she goes for it. When her head comes back out, voila, all is returned to it's former beauty! So the donkey, boy and dog all follow her, and all their wounds are healed as well. So now, before you cross over the bridge, you have to stop and dip your face in the water for 7 seconds so you too can have eternal beauty. I was convinced right there, but then Russell said that if you cross over the bridge without dipping your face in the river you'll be cursed with 7 years bad sex. And no one's gonna risk that, so we all looked like whack jobs leaning over and dipping our faces into the river for 7 seconds. It might feel silly, but would you risk 7 years bad sex for 7 seconds of dignity? I think not.

Next we stopped at a little town where they brew Isle of Skye beer. And we had some, because though you aren't allowed to drink on the street there, you are allowed to drink on the bus. So we drank on the bus as we headed off the island. We made quite a few picture stops after that, but not really anything of too much note. This evening we're settled down in Oban, where we all headed to a chelidah (that may be spelled completely wrong, but it's pronounced kay-lee). It's basically a party with music and lots of dancing. This one was more of a show with audience participation, but it was still fun. There was plenty of hand-clapping and foot-stomping. And I even managed to get up and dance with one of the other girls from the tour for the last audience-participation song. I believe it was called stripping the willow, but I could be wrong about that. It was wicked fun! It starts with spinning your partner at a ridiculous speed, then spinning the next person in line, then back to your partner, then one more down the line and so on. So much fun! I just wished they would've kept the song going a little longer.

Tomorrow's the last day of the tour, so I know we end up in Edinburgh, but I've no idea how we're getting there or what we're doing along the way. As Russell, our current guide would say, how exciting! So until next time!

Well, as it turns out, yesterday brought us to yet another free WiFi void, so here I am updating yet again without being able to post. And this time I've no idea how long it's gonna take 'cause we're on our own again, with no more tours to go on. Well, there's one, but it's just a day tour, so we'll be in the same hostel the day before and after. We've only got two hostels left, actually, and then it's back home for another wedding for me. But we'll get there, don't worry.

Let's start with the obvious. I don't want to leave Scotland. It's fantastic here. The accents are, shall we say, very pleasing, I love the weather (though I could understand how most wouldn't with all the rain and cold), there's lots to see, and we had a wonderful tour over the past 5 days. We really did have a fantastic group of people on our Haggis Tour, and I have to hand it to Russell the driver for picking what was (in my humble opinion) some pretty fantastic music. Couldn't quite figure out some of the band names, though. There was a good one I plan on downloading when I get home called Frightened Rabbit. Where did they come up with that? I've no idea, but as long as the music's good, I guess the actual name of the band is rather inconsequential.

So yesterday...we did a lot of picture stops. The only real thing we did of note was see the William Wallace monument in Stirling. It was big and grand. We didn't go inside, though, since it was rather expensive and probably not much more than a museum with info boards inside. So we saved ourselves the 6 pounds or so and just walked up to take pictures of the outside and enjoy the view. The picture stops were good, but like I said before, all the names are in Gaelic, so I forgot most of them three seconds after he said them. That's if I actually understood them in the first place. But names aren't really that important as long as you're enjoying yourself, I've decided. So, many a picture stop and the William Wallace were done yesterday.

Oh, and we stopped at a really, really cool place for lunch. I believe it was called Drover's Inn. It's in a national park so it's a little quieter, which was nice, but you almost have to see this place to believe it. It's old. Like, several hundred years old. And they haven't done any renovations or redecorated since. Apparently it's where Rob Roy MacGregor used to go as his local pub. Animal lovers beware, though, 'cause for you it might just be a house of death. There are stuffed animals (whole or in parts) everywhere. Right inside the door there's a reasonably-sized fully stuffed black bear. Naturally there was a delightfully dorky picture taken of me with said stuffed bear. And this, my friends, is where I finally tried haggis for the first time. Oh, yes, that delightful concoction that apparently has meats such as liver, spleen, gall bladder, and any other disgusting or disturbing meat you can think of, all ground up with spices and oatmeal. And you know what? It was good! I was a little leery, knowing what liver and gall bladder actually do biologically, but you only live once, so I had to try it. It was really spicy and very filling, and they'd plopped it on top of mashed potatoes and smothered it in gravy. Yum yum! So as long as you can get past what it's made of, haggis is actually really good.

We got back to Edinburgh around 5:30 pm, so we managed to do our laundry in the hostel before we met everyone from the tour for a pint or two on the Royal Mile just to say goodbye. Hopefully that's the last laundry we'll have to do before the end of the trip, but the best laid plans often go awry, right? Normally I wouldn't have been so keen on going out with people I'd just been stuck with for a week, but like I said, we had a really good group and I genuinely liked the people on our bus, so I actually wanted to go. And I'm very glad we did. I found a delicious beer called MacEwan's Lager, which I know they probably don't sell in Canada but wish they did. The company was fantastic and when the live music started it was actually stuff we all knew so we could sing along in obnoxiously loud voices. There was also this really crazy guy who's name I think was Ewan, who was pretty much in a kilt whenever we saw him. He's got this crazy long hair, and April decided she needed to have a picture with him, so she asked. Then, completely out of nowhere, he literally picks her up off the floor damsel-in-distress style and holds her while I take a picture. It was totally random and completely awesome. It really was the perfect sendoff from Scotland, which has basically become our favorite place on this crazy whirlwind trip so far.

So while I've got the time, being on a train for 2 ½ hours at the moment, I'll try and come up with everyone's favorite little Sara-style tidbits of my impressions of Scotland. And again, the disclaimer, these are really just my own personal impressions and should no way influence how you feel. Everyone sees the world differently, and you might have a completely different experience should you ever decide to visit this fantastic country.

Kilts. Oh. My. God. I love a man in a kilt. I don't quite know why. There's just something rather drool-worthy about it. April was quick to point out that my love for the kilt basically means I like men in skirts, but you know, I think I'm okay with that. It doesn't even matter what the guy looks like. Old guys, young guys, throw and kilt on them and picture me with a bit of drool coming out the side of my mouth. I am personally of the opinion that my husband would look fantastic in a kilt, but I refrained from buying him one because I'm pretty sure he'd never wear it in public. And if he did he'd get stared at in Canada. Tragic, but true. Our tour guide wore a kilt the last day, and one rather amusing thing April and I noticed was how he had to sit down when getting into the driver's seat. You see, the stick shift was in the way. We've all seen women gather their skirts to sit down or get around something, but it was a little funny seeing a guy do it. I still love the kilts, though.

The Scenery. The scenery in the highlands reminded me a lot of home. But that's a good thing, because I really, really liked it. I've said before that I wish I'd had my hiking boots and several days just to wander and that's still true. I'll be back to Scotland someday for that. It might take another 40 years (that road in Bolivia's still calling my name, so that's first on the list) but I'll be back. And I'll have my boots and plenty of time.

The Weather. I thought the weather was fantastic, but in case you missed it earlier, I love the rain. I love the rain and the misery and the low cloud cover and the damp and all of it. I just love it. So Scotland was good for me, weather-wise. I imagine (and was told many times) that it gets really cold in winter, and I believe it, but the summer weather was just right. We were very fortunate, though, since we had a few days of no rain and almost sunny skies. Though the sun just really didn't seem right at the time. But I was happy when it was raining.

The Sheep and the Hairy Coos. Sheep are everywhere here, like they were in Ireland. They're just so cute you want to go out in a field and squish a few 'cause they look so fluffy. But this is coming from a former Albertan who's used to seeing nothing but cattle out in the pastures, so I guess sheep should look cute and fluffy to me. They also have Highland cattle in Scotland. But they're more commonly knows as Hairy Coos. They're pretty much just regular cows with longer hair and horns. But they're cool-lookin', so I figured they were worth a mention.

The accent. Oh yes, the accent. April and I have decided that the Scottish accent is by far our favorite, and also the most sexy we've heard thus far. I can't put my finger on why, it just is. Maybe it's something to do with the way the word sexy actually comes out. I don't know. Though the Scottish do have very dark senses of humor and they can get pretty raunchy, so that definitely helps their case. I'm sure not everyone feels this way about it, but it's just my personal opinion that the Scottish accent is the sexiest I've heard to date. You can quote me on that, if you like.

So now we're on a train Liverpool bound. We're staying there for a night and then it's back to London for a few more days.

Well, as it turned out, Liverpool was yet another free WiFi void, and I 'm starting to wonder if this is actually going to get posted before I 'm back in Canada. Though maybe we'll search out a pub with free WiFi when we get to London. Anyways, we got to Liverpool and actually managed to find the hostel relatively quickly and without getting lost at all, which may be a first for this trip. We just might be getting the hang of this navigating thing. We ditched our bags in luggage storage and then promptly went exploring. Liverpool, I read, was supposedly a cultural Mecca, but I don't really understand why. They have the usual museums, which are all free, but other than those and the Beatles Story, there's really not a lot there.

We went to the Beatles Story first, which is basically the whole reason I really wanted to go to Liverpool. It was interesting to find out where they started and how they ended up so famous. It was quite interesting and had a lot of information I didn't know before. I also managed to get a little Beatles swag whilst we were there, so I'm happy. Next we checked out the Maritime museum and the customs and immigration displays they had there. Interesting stuff, though we may have been a little too tired for just reading info boards that day. The customs displays were the best part, actually. It showed all the strange and innovative ways people have tried to smuggle drugs and the things that have been confiscated by customs over the years. Someone even tried to use a shipment of innocent garden gnomes to smuggle weed. A travesty, I tell you! Poor innocent gnomes.

There is also a monstrously huge pedestrian shopping area in Liverpool. It covers several square blocks and has every store imaginable. And this, my friends, is where we saw our very first Lambanana. Yes, you read that right, Lambanana. My brother was in Liverpool last year for work and he told us all about them. They're just statues all over the place that different people have been given to paint different colors. It's the body of a lamb, but with a banana basically coming out it's butt instead of a tail. They're almost cute, once you get past the weirdness of it. The one we saw was in a Liverpool FC store, and was decorated all in white and red. I may have been a little too excited about my first Lambanana sighting. We were going to try and find the original Super Lambanana (yes, that's actually what it's called), but then we found out they move it around the city every now and again, and we didn't really feel like wandering around for hours trying to find it. But I went to Liverpool and saw a lambanana. My life may now be complete.

The hostel that night was, in a word, fantastic. Originally we were supposed to be in a room with a bunch of other girls, but when we got into the room they had their stuff all over and on the beds April and I were supposed to be in. So we asked to be moved to another room (which was nice because the girls in that room appeared to have converted it to a pigsty rather quickly). We ended up on the ground floor in the handicapped room. And it was lovely. We had real individual beds! No bunk beds, and you don't realize how much you miss individual beds until you have to sleep on bunk beds for 3 weeks. It's a treat not to have either someone sleeping directly over you or having to climb a ladder to get to your bed. And the room was good and spacious. Not only that, breakfast was included in the price, and it was a fabulous breakfast indeed. Sausages, toast, orange juice, eggs, hash browns, cereal and yogurt. Mmm mmm good.

We're now on the train back to London, where we'll be spending another 4 days before heading home. There are still a few things to see there, and we have much shopping to do, so I'll leave it at that.

We're back in London now and it's all coming back to me. The concrete jungle. The crowded streets. The cigarette smoke. The exhaust fumes. And the lovely men on motorcycles. I do love a man on a motorcycle. Especially when he's all decked out in full motorcycle kit...oh, back to the topic at hand, then. We're staying just off Oxford Street this time, which is cool for the shopping but bad for the pocketbook. Yesterday we wandered around and bought a few things, and I promptly decided I don't, nor will I ever, understand fashion. It's quite bizarre and completely not functional anymore. So I give up. T-shirts and jeans it shall be for Sara from now on. Well, sweaters too, since I get cold really easy. We also wandered down to Picadilly Circus, which is apparently just another shopping area that happens to have a few neon signs. Way overrated. But we went and we saw.

This morning we embarked on a single day bus tour of Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle. Stonehenge was fantastic! We got there just as they were opening it up, so there were so few people we felt like we had it to ourselves. You can't go right up to the stones anymore, but they've put the ropes close enough that it's not really a big deal that you can't touch them. I liked it because it still really has that air of mystery. We can do all the research we want on it, analyze it to death, bring it back to life and analyze it again, and we'll still have no idea what it was really used for. It's an amazing place because of that, and you can almost feel the mystery in the air. It's palpable, and it's awesome.

Next we went to Bath, where the attractions are the Roman Baths. They're the only natural hot springs in England, and when the Romans showed up they built a bath house around them, and the waters have been thought to have magical properties ever since. People ever since have been coming from all over to test the healing properties. They aren't used anymore, since the water is, well, completely disgusting, but they're still flowing out all piping hot. There's also an info center and excavations all about how they were used in Roman times. Pretty cool. And for 50 pence you can drink a glass of the water (purified for safety, of course). A lot of people were saying it was disgusting, but how often am I gonna be in Bath? So I plopped down my 50p and my leprosy is miraculously cured! Well, maybe not. It was pretty much the same as drinking a glass of warm water from my Dad's tap, which is well water and tastes a little off. How about that, Dad? You could sell your tap water as a miracle cure! We also did a little wandering around Bath before the bus picked us up again.

Last but not least was Windsor Castle. The queen was not in residence that day, so we got to tour the royal apartments. Very swank, if you don't mind your wall decorations being centuries old and looking rather musty. Lots of guilt gold, too. The chandeliers were the beast part, really. Beautiful and sparkly...very sparkly. It was also fun playing spot the hidden doorways. We found at least 5. The castle itself is huge, and there was a lot we weren't allowed to go into. Actually, while April and I were looking into the rose garden that surrounds the castle and getting closer and closer to one of the barricades, there was one guard who looked like he was about to tackle us to the ground if we took another step. We stopped to save ourselves the embarrassment. While we were there we also saw St. George's Chapel, which is huge and very ornate. But it's royalty, so did you expect any less than the best? Again, it's a church in England, so we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. Just trust me when I say it was very fancy. I could've spent several hours lying on the floor just staring at the ceilings. Though that might've gotten me tackled as well.

Well, I'll end it there. We have plans to head for the pub with free WiFi for a pint, so hopefully this gets posted tonight.

Where to start...where to start? Well, I'll start with yesterday since that's where I left off. I woke up and off we headed down Loch Ness for more seeing of sights. We did make a quick photo stop at one point along the lake, so the above picture is me with me feet in Loch Ness. Squint and you might see the famous Nessie. But probably not. From there it gets a little fuzzy. I think it means you've been travelling too long if you start forgetting what happened the same day it actually happened. Well, anyways, the next thing my camera shows we did was head to the battlefield of the battle of Culloden. That might mean something or nothing to you, it depends how much history you know. I can't quite remember why this place was so important, I just know that it was. Really important. Like, changed the face of history important. But I can't remember exactly why. Next we stopped at a prehistoric grave site, which really looked more like a pile of rocks now, but the rocks look like they actually have a purpose. They're in a circle with a path to the center and a small circle in the center you can stand in. Smelled a little funny in the center, though. After that we went to Fort William, which is still a working English military base. It wasn't particularly interesting. We capped off the evening ending up at a castle that's been converted to a hostel. It was actually given to the hostelling association by the family that owned it, and the get to keep it as long as they continue to use it as a hostel.
That's it in the picture above. It was an actual castle! Complete with awful pictures and nudy marble statues. It's also supposed to have been haunted. Pretty cool. A big group of us all went out that night to the "local" pub, which we learned this morning was opened specifically for us. We had a pretty good night, made even better when a couple lovely boys in kilts showed up and played the bagpipes for us. Ahh, kilts. Insert smile here. It was awesome!

This morning we started out on the road again and made many stops to take pictures. Other than the picture stops we didn't do much except stop at Eilan Donnen Castle for a quick tour. It's apparently been in many movies, most recently "Made of Honor" with Patrick Dempsey. I might have to actually see that one now.
Now we're on the Isle of Skye for the evening, and the local pub with live music is beckoning, so I'm signing off for now. Until later!

Cheers to Scottich Whiskey!

Yesterday brought us to another day in Edinburgh, and one more day to explore the city. April and I started out by going to Holyrood Palace, which is the official residence of the Queen while she's in Scotland. Ooh-la-la. April didn't want to go in, whereas I did, so we decided to split up for the day and meet back at the hostel that night. I went first into the Queen's gallery, where they display art from the royal collection in a somewhat rotating format. It's currently "Conversation Pieces", which are paintings designed to be discussed when you hang them. Some of the details in some of them were just amazing. After that I went on a tour of the palace, which was exactly as described, a palace. Complete with ridiculously elaborate bed. Actually, they still have the bed and all the hangings from the bed Mary Queen of Scots slept on. It's preserved and sits in a hermetically sealed room. It's a bit creepy if you ask me. There are gardens that are open in the summer, too. Which are, as expected, totally perfect. Apparently the queen spends at least one week a year there. No one's quite sure why.

From there I went to the Our Dynamic Earth science show which is basically right next door. It's similar to the Space and Science Center with more focus on biology, ecology and geology. It was awesome, but I have a strange obsession for science, so I might be a bit biased. Then I wandered up the Royal Mile, which is the mile that leads up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. It's the oldest part of the city, and at the moment the bottom floors are mostly kitsch and kilt shops. But a good place to find a cheap kilt (which I jut happened to do).
There are all kinds of little alleyways coming off the Ryal Mile called closes that you could wander into for hours. Some of them lead nowhere, some of them have little gardens or courtyards. It's fun to just wander. I happened to be wandering by just as a haunted/ghost tour was starting, and it was free, so I tagged along. It was fun, and he told all kinds of stories of famous murders and the like. Well worth the price tag of nothing. Then I went into St. Gile's cathedral, which isn't really a cathedral because the Church of Scotland doesn't have cathedrals, but apparently it's called that because the town council decided they wanted to call it that. Weird.
Then I wandered around the base of the castle lazily trying to find my way back to the hostel and just enjoying the scenery, and stumbled upon a huge funly gold fountain. Not sure why it was there, but I took some pictures anyways. I also stumbled upon the National Gallery of Scotland, which has free admission, so I went in. Lots of cool paintings, some even by artist I'd actually heard of. There was this one really cool one I liked of a wave on the ocean, but I can't remember who painted it now. I think his last name started with a "C". After that I went back to the hostel and we spent the rest of the night chilling.

Early this morning we were up and met our group for the start of the Haggis Tour of Scotland. We have a lovely bus with "Haggis Tours Wild and Sexy" in bright red along the side. Classy. We drove directly into the highlands and stopped at a couple pretty little lakes and a statue to commemorate the commandos that trained here in the highlands. Along the way we stopped for lunch, where I managed to actually find a beer called "Sheepshagger". No, really, I'm not making that up. We made a couple more stops along the way, two of which we ended up with tastes of real Scottish whiskey. It's wicked stuff. The second time a couple people didn't want theirs, so a few of us had to take one for the team and have two. April and I did our part for team Canada and each had two. Which lead to me being a little tipsy at 4 in the afternoon. Oooh, Scotch whiskey. Evil stuff.
Before dinner we went to a short show on what life was like in the highlands before the modernization. I've gotta say, it sucked. "Sexy Ken" also showed us the different weapons they used and how they used them. Not pretty, they were. Apparently the Scots were the most fearsome and strongest hand-to-hand fighters in the world. Owing in no small part to the fact that they had very little regard to their own lives. It was an excellent show.
Tonight we are spending the evening along the southern shores of Loch Ness, which is pretty cool. Hopefully none of us end up being dragged away by any prehistoric creatures that reside in the lake. I've no idea what's in store for tomorrow, so you'll just have to tune in later and find out with me!

The Tail end of Ireland and the Beginning of Scotland!

Well, I won't be posting this until at least tomorrow, but I should probably get it out whilst I still remember what the feck went on today. This morning we hopped on the bus and headed straight for Dunluce Castle. It's this really wicked castle basically built on top of an amazing rock island that you have to cross around a 20 foot wooden bridge to get to. It's a ruin of a castle but it's still amazingly beautiful and you can see why they put it where they did. It's supposed to be the most romantic castle in Ireland, but the guide reckons that's because they have a lot of marriage proposals happen there. An interesting story about it, is a couple hundred or more years ago, while the inhabitants were having a party, they heard a large crashing sound come from the kitchen. They all rushed there only to find that the kitchen was literally gone. The cliff underneath it had collapsed and it had literally fallen into the ocean, cooks, cutlery and all. A little freaky. Though the guide assured us that the ground underneath the castle has been stabilized many times over now. It's a pretty cool castle and the nice thing about it is that they let you crawl all over it, and go where you please (within reason). He even told us a story about the Irish banshee. It was this 16-year-old girl who had an affair with a soldier. Her parents weren't happy about this and had the soldier killed. She ran screaming to her room in one of the towers and tried to escape the castle via the bedsheet-out-the-window trick. Only she hadn't tied the sheets tight enough and fell to her death. Now she apparently haunts the castle, and every now and then you can hear her screaming as she runs into the tower. She also apparently shows up as a ghostly figure in some photos taken from a certain spot. Spooky.

Next stop was the Giant's Causeway, which I have to say is the coolest thing we've seen so far. Some geological event has caused a whole bunch of hexagonal basalt columns to form right on the coastline, making a weird sort of pavement and it's really cool to walk and crawl all over them. I got a book on how they were formed so if you really want to know ask me in a couple months, I should be an expert by then. Unless, of course, you believe the legends that it was the remains of a bridge built by a giant who wanted to go to Scotland to find a wife. I think that explanation suits me better. There's also a little hike you can do up and around the corner, which takes you to the amphitheater, which looks exactly like it sounds. It's a steep, bowl-shaped spot that I couldn't really capture on camera. But it was amazing to see. It also had some incredible views of the coastline and cliffs around the area.

The last stop before we ended up in Belfast was the rope bridge. It started out when the fishermen realized that the salmon always hung out on the far side of this one tall island. So instead of always having to get in their boats to fish, they built a rope bridge so they could fish right off the island. It's been improved and fixed a lot, but the idea's still there. Plus it's over a chasm that drops about 60 m, and the bridge sways pretty good when you're walking over it. You get some amazing views once you get to the island, so it's well worth the 3 pounds you pay to cross the bridge. I might add that the bridge is still actually made of rope, and only rope, with a few boards to walk on, so the whole rope bridge idea hasn't been torn completely to bits.

This evening we're calling Belfast home, and tomorrow it's back to Dublin, and then off to Scotland for another tour!

Well, I didn't get this posted for reasons that I can't quite remember, so I'll continue on from where I left off. The night in Belfast went all right. We were in a very large dorm room, though, and it ended up being co-ed, which is fine. Right up until you find out the showers and bathrooms are shared, and there are no locks on the shower stall doors. No, really, I'm not joking. You have to hang your towel over the door to show it's occupied. Classy.

The next morning we took a black cab tour of Belfast. It was really a political tour, but I'll get to that in a minute. A black cab, for those who haven't seen one, is about the size of a Honda Fit, only a little taller for more head room. They seat 7 passengers and a driver. Seriously. There are 3 across the back, 3 flip-up seats facing the rear behind the front seats, and one more passenger seat up front. You might be squished in like sardines but you all fit. The tour itself was an explanation of the violence and political unrest in northern Ireland in the past, what happened in the past, and what's going on now. So I'll give you my personal cliff notes. This is what I've pieced together from what we were told by our guide, several other guides and the taxi drivers that morning. It may or may not be correct, but this is how I understand it.

Way back a few hundred years ago, there was a dispute in Ireland as to who actually had rule over the island. So the 2 sides went to England and asked them to settle the dispute. This caused England to claim that Ireland was really part of their territory, and they promptly decided to take over. Somehow, at some point, they reached an agreement that England would get rule over 6 counties in the north, and the Republic of Ireland would be formed in the south. This is where it gets confusing, because it started as a political thing and then ended up as a religious problem. At the time, most of Ireland, it seems, was catholic. Then England started shipping protestants over to the 6 counties they had control over and gave the protestants all the power and land and jobs, leaving the Catholics with very little. Thus, chaos ensued. The Catholics (the Republicans and the political party Sinn Fein if that rings a bell) want all of Ireland to be united, but the protestants (the Loyalists, who are loyal to the crown) still want England to have rule over northern Ireland, because the protestant population was led to believe that the Catholics would run the country if they let the Republic of Ireland take over. That, by the way, is the reason northern Ireland uses the monetary pound. This isn't really the case anymore, as religious equality is getting much better and the positions of power are equalizing.

That said, there is currently, what the locals call “peace” in Belfast. This is not what you'd expect peace to be if you're from Canada or any country where you're free to roam wherever you like and free to have whatever religious and political affiliations you want. Belfast is, almost literally, a divided city. There is a wall separating the catholic population from the protestant population. A literal wall. I have a picture of it. The cab drivers call it the peace wall. But it's a necessary evil. They've even had to build the fence up taller because of the bombs and debris that were being thrown over the wall. The houses right up against the wall on the catholic side literally have cages around their backyards because of the amount of times their homes were damaged from stuff being thrown over the wall. The wall also has gates. They're closed at 6:30 at night and opened at 6 the next morning. The gates are closed on weekends. And after thinking about it, I still don't understand how they can call it peace when there's a physical wall dividing them, but I do believe it's better this way. No one's dying, no one's terrified they'll be bombed in their home at night for what they believe. It's a peace of sorts. The protestant side of the wall has been graffitied with messages from people around the world wishing peace and love for Belfast and north Ireland. It's still gonna be along time.

The driver told us that over 60% of the people from one side of the wall have never had a conversation with someone from the other side of the wall. He had a 14 year old son, and someone asked him what he thought of his son never speaking to someone from the other side. He said it saddened him, but at the same time, he didn't want to tell his son to go out and make friends with people from the other side, because it's still not totally safe. He'd rather his son come home safe at night than have him mingling with the other side. So it's perpetuating itself. It's a really heartbreaking situation and standing on a street that could be a street anywhere in the world and hearing that in this day and age the people on either side of that tiny slab of concrete just couldn't cooperate with each other. And standing there hearing someone talk about it with a little twinge in their voice when you ask them a question almost brings you to tears. And I don't cry easily.

But enough of the serious stuff. After we left Belfast we stopped for lunch and were supposed to continue on to a photo op spot with some Celtic crosses. This didn't happen because our bus ended up with a flat tire, and we had to wait for the tire repair guy. But once that was done we just headed straight for Dublin, since we were running low on time and one girl had a plane to catch.

We stayed in the same hostel we had before in Dublin, but were very disappointed when we found out we couldn't get our clothes washed there. We were both out of clean clothes and getting dangerously low on clean underpants. But we managed to wait one more day. We had a plane to catch at just before 7 this morning, so we were out of bed at 4 and catching a bus to the airport. Then it was off to Scotland!

It was too early to get our room at the hostel, but they were kind enough to let us use their laundry facilities. Ahhh, clean jeans. There is no sweeter a feeling. Once our stuff was clean and dry we headed off to catch a hop on-hop off bus tour of the city. We hopped off when we got to the stop for Edinburgh Castle and headed up to see the castle. I hate to say it, but it was a castle. After about 5 or 6 of them, they really all start to look and feel the same. But we did get to see the crown jewels of Scotland, so that was cool. When we left the castle we walked down what's known as the Royal Mile. It's a hoarde of old, historic houses along the same street leading away from the castle. And it's the mecca of kitsch shops. Glen is definitely getting a kilt. It's just a question of color now.

After we hopped back on the bus and finished the bus tour, I went up the 287 steps to get to the top of the Scott Monument. It's this wonderfully huge, gothic looking structure in the middle of town devoted to Sir Walter Scott, one of Scotland's famous writers. The thing is just massive, and it's all curls and stonework. It's really cool lookin'. It's even cooler inside, as long as you don't get claustrophobic. The stairs in this thing put the stairs in all the other spots I've been in so far to shame. The stairs at some points are so narrow I literally had to go sideways, and duck my head so I didn't smash it on the ceiling. Now throw in some people trying to come down as you're going up, and you'll get how squishy it was. At one point near the top I thought we were all going to get physically stuck inside the thing. Or that someone was going to lose it inside the stairwell. But I made it out alive, and it was totally worth it for the views of the city. Oh, and it gets wicked windy up there. Windy enough I was afraid of losing my hat, or the bag of souvenirs I was carrying. Windy enough to be glad there were railings to keep me from getting blown off. It was awesome.

Tomorrow it's more sightseeing and then first thing Monday morning we're off on a wild and sexy Haggis tour of Scotland. I'm not sure when you'll hear from me next, as free WiFi seems to be getting a little scarce (hence the lack of pictures in today's post), but I'll do my best.

Waxing Poetic with Yeats.

Ahh, let's see, where did our intrepid traveler last leave you all? Ennis, right. We were in the town of Ennis. From Ennis we headed towards the cliffs of Mohar, with a few stops along the way. The first stop was a stone portal that used to sit in front of a tomb, but the tomb is long since gone. So now it's really just a couple of upright stones with a cap stone on top. I don't tell the story very well, it sounded much better coming from our guide.

The next stop was a fairy ring. Originally they were temples built by people, but after they were abandoned, the fairies took them over and started using them. Under no circumstances are you to enter a fairy ring, or very bad, catastrophic luck will befall you. You are, however, allowed to walk around the outside and look in, which is what we did. And once you leave the fairy ring, if you make a point of saying thank you to the fairies in gaelic, they may grant you a wish. Our tour guide taught us how to say thank you in gaelic, but I've forgotten already.

From the fairy ring we went to the cliffs of Mohar, which are amazing. They're these 700 or so foot cliffs that just drop right into the ocean, straight down. Apparently the newest Harry Potter movie was filmed there, and I actually think I kinda recognize it. From there we went to Galway, where we spent the night. April and I even decided it was time to go out for another couple pints, so we headed to the Quays pub, where I discovered my new favorite beer, Smithwicks. Good stuff.

The next morning we hopped on a shuttle bus that took us to a passenger ferry that took us to Innismor, one of the Aran islands. They're these barren, rocky islands just off the coast that are really quite beautiful. Once we got there the tour guide fixed us up with bike rentals, because that's the best way to explore the island. We went to a few different graveyards, and finally made our way to Dun Aengus, a centuries old fort that sits right on the edge of a 300 foot cliff. And the best part is that you can actually go right up the edge of the cliff and look off. And there's no hand railing. People literally crawl right up to the edge of the cliff and hang their heads over the 300 foot void. I did. It's like hanging your head off the edge of the world. It's terrifying and exhilarating and amazing all at the same time. It was awesome.

I might also add that the bikes we had weren't exactly in top condition. We literally couldn't change gears because the chains would fall off. After fixing them several times we pretty much just picked a gear and then walked them up the steeper hills.

Once we go back to town we went to the Aran Sweater Market. I'd been coveting the Irish wool sweaters for days, and there I finally managed to find one I liked. It's green with a hood and a zipper front. And it's so comfy. Thought it's currently living in April's pack, as mine has mysteriously run out of room. I think my stuff is multiplying without my knowledge. That night we had a free BBQ courtesy of the kind Italian man that runs the hostel there, and drank a few pints with the rest of the people on our tour.

This morning after a quick ferry ride back to the mainland of Ireland, we did a lot of driving. We stopped for lunch, then stopped again at the final resting place of the Irish poet, WB Yeats. After that we were headed for this evening's accomodations in Derry, with a side trip up a windy, steep country lane to another ring fort that gave us an amazing 360 degree view of the county and beyond.

Once we got to Derry, we took a walking tour of the wall and got a lot of political and other history of the city. Derry is the city where a lot of the "Troubles" (as the locals call them) took place over the last 40 or so years. It was also the place where Bloody Sunday occured. Yes, the one from the U2 song. It's hard to explain without taking up too much space, but you can Google it if you'd like to know more. Sufficed to say that the "troubles" are now over and all the people here are very, very glad for it. And it is a wonderful city with quite a bit of history, so if you're ever in Ireland, make a point of coming to Derry. You won't be disappointed. Derry is also the only intact walled city left in Europe, which is pretty amazing considering what the city's been through.

That's about ir for today, and I should probably stop since all my bunkmates are trying to sleep and my clacking of keys is probably keeping them awake. But there's a good full day booked for tomorrow, so keep checking for updates!

A Few Days in Ireland.

Well, here we are on our Shamrocker tour of Ireland, at last! After a fitful night of sleep in Dublin (and some Irish guy's continuous renditions of Metallica songs at the bar next door 'til one in the morning), we were off first thing Saturday. We piled on the bus and headed out into the Irish countryside. It's pretty, and shockingly looks exactly like it does in the movies. The fields are separated by these rock walls that are all grown over by various types of foliage giving it this wonderful old-worldy feeling. The roads are narrow, windy and bumpy, but you get used to it after a while.

Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel. Kevin, our lovely Irish guide (you have to picture me saying that in a very convincing Irish accent), told us a whole bunch about it's historic significance, all which I no longer remember, and that was only yesterday. All I know is it looked damn cool, and was, what I considered, the first real castle we've seen so far. It was wicked cool, with turrets and towers and all. You could even see an old celtic stone cross just on the other side of the wall. We didn't have time to actually go inside, so we just stood outside and took picutres. But it was still exciting.Our next stop was the Michelstown caves, which I unfortunately don't have pictures of, owing to the fact that you aren't allowed to take pictures inside them. They were caves, really. Caves are pretty cool in themselves, but these ones had these funky staligmites formations called curtains that hung down from the ceiling. They literally look like a solid set of curtains hanging from the ceiling. They're apparently formed from the water dripping down just like staligmites, only the water runs down a little before evaporating, and forms a little curtain-type thing. There were also your regular stalactities and staligmites (apologies if I got the terms wrong, I'm not exactly a cave expert), and a bunch of smooth formations where the water was flowing down over the walls. Not an exceptional stop, but still something to see.

Next up it was Blarney Castle, which was the definition of awesome. First thing we did there was go and give the Blarney Stone a big smooch. It's notexactly as you'd expect it to be. It's attached to a part of the top of the castle that hangs over the open air for a couple hundred feet. There are bars to keep you from falling down, though. First, you get in a queue. Then when you get there, you lay down on your back while this old fellow hold onto you to make sure you don't fall. Then you grab 2 railings over your head, hang your upper body over this couple hundred foot chasm, ans stretch out to smooch a random stone on the lower part of a turret of the castle. It's very odd, but there it is. I might add that height is an advantage in this case, since the taller you are, the less hangs over the edge. April had almost all her butt hanging over the edge. If it weren't for that guy holding her, she would've been a little smear on the rocks below. So now both of us should have the gift of the gab. We'll see. Oh, and you'll be happy to know that he does, in fact, disinfect the Blarney Stone after every few people. So hopefully I won't die of any weird mouth diseases anytime soon. The picture below is of me just after smooching the Blarney Stone.
After that it was off to Killarney for the night. We were set free on the town, and April and I managed to find a place to get soup and a sandwich for relatively cheap. That night we went out and had our first and last pint of Guiness. One of the girls in our tour group described the feeling after "as though you've had a bowl of soup and a thick buiscuit". I'd have to agree. A pint would be a meal in itself. It's really bitter, too. April said the aftertaste was like cold coffee, which is exactly what I thought, though I'd also add stale in there as well. So after that we're sticking to Bulmer's. It's Irish cider, which really tastes more like the champagne form of beer than beer. It's really sweet, though, so I kept it to one pint and headed back to the hostel for the night.

The next morning it was wonderfully dreary and rainy. Everyone else complained, I was pleased as punch. I love the rain. We set off to see the coast and the islands beyond. Well, we saw the coast, but no islands. Too foggy. We made a couple of picture stops, though few of us actually got out into the rain to actually take a picture. The one below is of me at the most westerly point in Europe. Then we were back in Dingle for a quick lunch. In Dingle, April and I actually managed to find a place that served Tim Horton's coffee, tea and hot chocolate. So naturally we had to buy some. A little piece of home in a foreign land.
In Dingle there's apparently this dolphin named Funghi that likes to hang around the bay and pander to the tourists. He does tricks and all the like, and they theorize that he escaped from a zoo in Whales somewhere. Apparently he likes people more than he likes other dolphins. And he's become a tourist attraction, so they put a statue of him down by the water. Below is me riding him, Timmy's cup in hand.
From Dingle it was off up the coast to our final destination for the night, the town of Ennis. The hostel here was just renovated so it's really nice, and there's free WiFi, hence the actual decent layout of this blog. April and I went in search of a supermarket for food, and managed to find the Ennis Franciscan Friary, which was free of charge to get into today. So we went it. It's very cool inside. It's really just an old ruin, but I still find it fascinating that they let people crawl around all over the ruins here. Especially since it's so much more fun that way.

It's off for a shower and bed soon, but I'll share a little bit about my experiences in Ireland so far.
It's a really colorful country. Everything that's alive is green, and all the buildings are painted bright colors. There are tons of ruins of old buildings, and they're all fascinating to look at. The roads are, for the most part, windy and very narrow. We've had to stop the bus more than once to wait for vehicles going the other way to pass. The buildings in the towns we've been in so far are really close together, which makes it very convenient if you're on foot, since everything becomes really easy to get to. And if someone asks you how you're doing, no matter how you actually are doing, you must respond, "grand, thanks. And yerself?". I'm honestly having a little trouble not mimicking the accent when we're out. I predict it's going to get me into trouble at some point. I'm getting a little sleepy, so that's all I've got at the moment. But stay tuned for more. I'm told there is internet at all the hostels on the tour, so it shouldn't be long before you hear from me again. Cheers!

More little tidbits from London.

Well, I've finally got a good few minutes to sit down and regale you with more than just the stories of the places I've been over the last few days. We're on the train to Holyhead right now, and if the battery indicator on my laptop is to be believed, I should have around 2 ½ hours typing time before I have to go dark again. It was quite the thing to actually get where we are right now, so I think I'll start there. First we packed upp our stuff absurdly early and left the hostel, only to discover that we couldn't actually get on the tube at St. Paul's station between 7:30 and 10 am. Okay, fine. We then walked to Bank station. Well, the walk took us 10 minutes or so, then once we actually went down the stairs and through the turnstyles it took us another 15 to actually get to the train platform. At this point we're thinking it would have almost been quicker just to walk to Euston station. So we finally get to Euston station and manage to get our BritRail passes validated. Then we stand in front of the boards and wait for the train we need to take to be assigned a platform number. Once that happens, we, and a whole lot of other people, make a mad dash for the train. Neither of us had any idea how it worked and we both ended up sitting down in what were probably the wrong seats, so when April asked we ended up having to move. It's all very confusing but we did manage to get seats and now we're on our way to the ferry terminal in Holyhead. So now on to my own personal impressions of London. Keeping in mind that I was only there for about 3 days, these are my own personal views and should no way influence how you might feel about the exact same places. Everything changes day to day and your own experiences might be totally different from mine. So this is my own, totally biased view. Enjoy!

Garbage cans. Do the English have something against garbage cans? Do they really want us to just give up and throw our litter in the street? There are a serious lack of garbage cans everywhere we've been so far. It seems like every time one of us has something to throw out, we end up spending 10 minutes or so just looking for a stupid garbage can. You never realize what a convenience these are until there are none. Just this morning we each spent a good chunk of time wandering around the Euston rail station looking for a single garbage can. And you know what? There were none. Not a single damn one. We ended up just leaving our garbage on a counter in the cafeteria because we couldn't find one. Who builds a cafeteria with no garbage cans?

Ventilation. It seems as though no one who ever built a building in London ever thought about creating some sort of ventilation system. This goes for the entire Underground system as well. As soon as you set foot in a tube station you break out in an instant sweat. It's swelteringly hot and humid, and gets very uncomfortable very quickly. I've no idea how you could do that on a regular basis. The rooms, bathrooms and shower stalls are no exception to the no ventilation rule. It's fine if there are windows in the room (that's if you can get the other people in your hostel room to leave them open), but in the bathrooms and shower stalls the air just sits there, heating up and stagnant. And if the person in the bathroom before you left a parting stench, there's nowhere for it to go, is there? So you're left to either wait for another stall (not an option if you're in a line waiting, which there always is), or hold your breath and pee quickly. It's even worse in the showers, where the steam has nowhere to go. So you get out of the shower and start sweating now that you're clean, because the simple act of you being in the shower and using even lukewarm water has heated the shower stall up. I'm hoping that it's not this bad everywhere in London, that it's just the hostel and all the tourist traps, but who knows?

Noise. It's noisy in London. Very noisy. I'm sure April is already irritated with me for all the times I've said “what?” while we're standing somewhere, walking somewhere, or sitting somewhere. I theorize it's because of all the taller, stone and brick buildings. Sound echoes and has nowhere to go, so it just bounces around and amplifies a lot, thus making it noisier than it really is. It might help if there were a little greenery to absorb some of the sound, but trees and other plants are pretty scarce, nearly nonexistent, thus the sound just keeps on bouncing around. I thought my hearing was pretty good before we got here, but now I'm starting to wonder. Or maybe it's just the ambient noise is so much that I can't hear myself think. Either way it's irritating.

Other Hostellers. I'm sure this will change as we go between hostels, but there are always personalities that grate against each other. There was one girl in our hostel room I dubbed “Hair Spray Girl”, because each of the mornings she was up before us she'd use copious amounts of hair spray from an aerosol can. You'd be interested to learn that sound can actually wake you up at times. She was a bit loud in the mornings, too. None of the other women in the room woke me up when they were getting up and leaving, but Hair Spray Girl managed to get me out of a deep sleep each and every time she left the room or got out of bed. And she thought we all shared her views on the windows being closed at night. She would actually come into the room and close all the windows before she went to bed. So she may have been comfortable while the rest of us sweltered. Finally one of the older women actually asked her to leave them open because it was so hot. She was from Alaska, so she was even worse off than us in the heat and humidity. Hair Spray Girl also thought it appropriate to dry her cleaned underwear on the window hook. While I might not have done this for fear of my underpants flying out the screen-less window and ending up in the street, she seemed to have no problem with it. She also felt it necessary to yell at the older woman from Alaska at one point because she was snoring and keeping Hair Spray Girl awake. As though yelling at her could get her to stop, because she could magically control the snoring somehow. The other hostellers in our room were actually pretty cool. One woman was apparently on her way to New York to meet a guy (April suspects she met him on the internet), and was very apologetic about the smell her hair dye was making in the room, even though neither of us could smell it. And despite the snoring, Alaska-Lady was also very nice.

That's been my impression of London so far. As for travel updates, we've made it to Dublin after a relatively uneventful train ride and ferry ride. I will say that the Irish Ferries are pretty impressive. A lot fancier and bigger than the BC Ferries I'm used to. This evening we went to a pub nearby and had meat pies and beer. I can't remember the name of the beer I had, but it was pretty good and was going down way too easy. I'm sure there will be plenty more of that later.

I'll do my best to keep the updates coming, but I can't guarantee anything because we're off on our bus tour tomorrow and I'm not sure what the internet access would be like. So keep an eye on this URL...