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...

Pictures of London!

Riding the underground for the first time from Heathrow to the hostel near St. Paul's.
April at the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.
April on a sketchy narrow London street.
Enjoying a little street meat near the Parliament and Big Ben.
Resting in the cloisters in Westminster Abbey.
Waiting for a Beefeater tour inside the Tower of London.
The Tower Bridge just outside the Tower of London.
Me looking exhausted outside the British Museum. Do you know how big that place is?

Being a Tourist in London.

Well hello again from London! I'm afraid there's still no free internet so you'll have to settle for just my witty remarks for the time being. It's been hot and ridiculously muggy here in London for the past couple days. I was expecting it to be cooler, but of course we decide to come during a heat wave. Yesterday it hit 28 degrees. And I didn't pack shorts, since I was pretty sure I wasn't going to need them. I was wrong. Though I did make myself some makeshift capris yesterday by rolling up the legs of my jeans. Classy. It finally clouded over today, so it was much more tolerable, and I hope it stays like that for the rest of the trip. I want to experience rainy London. We've done so much in the last couple days that I think I need to split this into sections based on place. So here we go...

Buckingham Palace. Oooh, a castle! And a big one at that. We got there just in time to see the changing of the guards, which we didn't really see, since it all happens behind iron gates, and unless you get there at least an hour ahead of time and get a spot on the steps, it ain't happening. And being as it was 28 degrees, sitting in the sun for an hour in jeans didn't really appeal to either of us. We saw a little when the guards came in, but promptly gave up and left after they went behind the gates. It's an impressive sight, the palace, so we took a bunch of pictures, even managing to find the “Canada” gates. I was wearing my Canadiana garb at the time so that should be a gooder. After that we walked through Hyde Park, which is a welcome green space compared to the stone and iron of the rest of London.

Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. We stumbled upon these as we were looking for Westminster Abbey, and had apparently turned the wrong way. We didn't even know it was Trafalgar Square until we looked at the guidebook. There aren't any signs, and it's just a square with statues and fountains. We thought it would be bigger, really. We only really went into the National Gallery because it was free. It's just paintings, which are cool, but can be a little boring room after room.

Westminster Abbey. This was my favorite place so far. It's a huge chapel with tons and tons of memorials and tombs. And you aren't allowed pictures, which is a little irritating. But I bought postcards so at least I have something. There's this really amazing part of it called the Lady's chapel which was built by Henry VII, and it's so detailed and intricate you could just stare at the wood and stonework for hours. We got audio guides so we learned (and promptly forgot) all the history as we walked around. Narrated by Jeremy Irons, too, so it was pretty pleasant to listen to. Issac Newton's in there. I also pointed out to April how ironic it is that Charles Darwin is entombed there given the church's view on evolution. And the Abbey is a church, after all. It's a little irritating, really.

The London Eye. After we stopped at a pub for a pint and some fish and chips, we got on the London Eye for a good view of the city. It's this giant ferris wheel that hangs right over the Thames. I think they destroy it in the new Harry Potter movie. The view is really amazing, but I was almost more interested in how the thing worked and was was built. I looked for a book on it 'cause I thought Glen might like it, but couldn't find one.

The Tower of London. We went first thing in the morning and were glad we did. The guidebook says get there at 9 am and go straight to the crown jewels, and for good reason. The line gets HUGE. After that we took a free Beefeater tour, which was hilarious and far too informative. We've forgotten most of that already, too. There's an inner and outer wall in the whole structure and 10 towers in total, though they're not as “tower-esque” as you'd expect. They're, at most, 5 stories. But all built so long ago that the place just looks really old and cool. There are all kinds of chambers you can explore and learn more about the kings and people who stayed, died and were executed there. There's just too much information to put here, so you'll just have to go for yourself someday. We did learn something I thought was really cool, though. The Beefeaters (Yeomans, officially), actually live in the tower. They have their families, pets, everything right inside the walls. And there's a curfew. They lock the gates after 10 pm. It's really strange to think about. How would you tell people where you live? Where do you address the post? White Tower, Tower of London, England?

British Museum. April wanted to go here and I wasn't going to argue since admission is free. It's a really big museum, and she was keen to see the Egyptian section. They have a lot, and it's all very impressive, but I couldn't stop thinking how much better it would all be if it had been left where it was found. The tablets, statues, and everything else would be so much more interesting in situ than sitting in a museum in Britain. We also saw the Rosetta Stone, which was basically the stone piece that has allowed us to figure out what Egyptian Hieroglyphics mean. It's a pretty impressive rock, and the detailing on the letters is amazing. We pretty much wizzed through the rest of the museum because after about an hour, it gets a little tiring reading all the plaques and looking at old pieces of clothing and artifacts. But we went and we saw, so there it is.

That's been the past 2 days. Tomorrow morning it's off to Ireland for more fun and excitement. So until I manage another internet connection!

I'm in London!

Greetings readers! Well, here I sit in my hostel in London. Finally! We arrived here at 7:30 this morning after a long and restless flight, first from Calgary, then from Houston. We took the Underground (or the tube), from Heathrow to our hostel after first purchasing out Oyster cards at the station at Heathrow. We're not sure if they really get us a better discount or not, but it's a lot easier having a prepaid card than having to worry about exact change for fares all the time.

I first must apologize for the briefness of this post, as the internet at the hostel is not complimentary and parting with 4 pounds for an hour of internet wasn't very pleasing. So I promise to include pictures in later posts when we get to a place that has free WiFi.

Our first stop after the hostel and a shower (14 hours worth of planes leaves one feeling dirty and cranky), was St. Paul's Cathedral, which is all of 2 blocks from the hostel. It's an amazing building with tons of ornate carvings, statues, and paintings. I have no pictures of the inside of the cathedral because you aren't allowed to take pictures inside. Though many people were blatantly ignoring this, April and I followed the rules like good Canadians. We also climbed around 300 stairs in some very sketchy stairwells to get to the very top. Totally worth it! The view of London from the top was amazing.

After the cathedral we pretty much just wandered around for a while. So far we've seen the outside of Big Ben, the Parliament \buildings, the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, the Court House, and a ton of other ornate buildings of varying importance. London is an amazing city with a lot of history so far. We also walked for quite a ways along the Thames, which was pretty cool. We're still adjusting to the cars driving on the opposite side of the road, because it effects which direction you look to see if it's safe to cross the street. I never thought of that before, but it does.

It's been a long day so I'm going to call it a night. I promise more detailed blogs later in the trip when the internet is cheaper and I've got a little more time to write.

Oh, and Todd is having a lovely time.

Mechnical Bull, Anyone?

As promised, here is the video of me on the mechanical bull. And yes, I already know that I suck. There's no need to tell me.

Jana's Bachelorette/A Weekend at the Spa

Since I am the official Maid of Honor at my sister's wedding it was thus up to me to plan her bachelorette. And since you only get married once (or you should only get married once), I figured it really needed to be more than just a couple hours at a bar one night. And Jana loves camping, so I thought maybe we could go camping somewhere for a weekend. Then Christy suggested that we go down to the "Spa Farvolden" for the weekend, since that's always a fun alcohol-filled extravaganza. So I emailed the management (Aunty Cyn and Uncle Andy) and we set it up for the weekend before the wedding itself. For anyone that doesn't know about the "Spa", it's really just my aunt and uncle's house in Calgary. But it's not just any house, they have an outdoor pool, hot tub, ginormous kitchen, delightfully well-stocked bar, bathrooms that are bigger than most people's bedrooms, and all the food and snacks you could ever want. So we call it the "Spa Farvolden", 'cause it's like going to the spa for the weekend.

Mom and I hopped in the van on Friday and picked up the first bridemaid, Diana, from work. Then we proceeded through the hoardes of construction that is Edmonton right now to get the bride herself. From there it was back to Mom's house to get the final bridesmaid, Christy. We made a quick stop at the Mac's for slurpees before leaving town and heading out down the Queen Elizabeth highway for Calgary.

When we arrived at the "Spa" we were greeted with some delightful pizza and the first round of cosmopolitans, which are known in our family as "cosmic"-politans. At which point we were told by Uncle Andy that the limit in one day for cosmic-politans is 9. After the first one went straight to our heads, Christy and I were pretty sure that there was no way we'd make it to 9. In fact, even between us we couldn't make it to 9 that night. But we did try. Really hard. We capped off the evening with a hop into the pool and hot tub.

I might also mention that there were treat bags for those that came. They included a lovely penis straw, a star light and noise-making stick, fuzzy handcuffs, feather boas, and a couple other little things I thought were amusing at the time. Jana also got a couple extras, like a lovely illustrated edition of the Kama Sutra. Yes, the real one.

Saturday morning began with a lovely breakfast of whatever we were willing to scrounge out of Aunty Cyn's kitchen, which was really less scrounging and more there's too much to choose from. Then, without delay, it was into the pool!
Once we all had our fill of floating aimlessly around, it was definitely time for a game of pool volleyball. The interesting part of the Spa's pool is there's a shallow end and a deep end. The deep end, however, has a ledge all the way around the outside, so if you were on the deep end team you didn't have to tread water the entire time. Not that the ledge helped that much, since the deep end seemed to lose most of the games.

There was one point during the day when Jana mentioned to Aunty Cyn that she really wanted to try a mojito. At this, Aunty Cyn got very excited, because evidently she'd been dying to try and make one and hadn't had a reason yet. So she snipped some mint out of her herb garden, and whipped together some other ingredients, and we had our mojitos. But not just any ingredients. All fresh. Nothing but the best at the spa, I tell you. Fresh limes with freshly grated zest, mint straight out of the garden, and all blended to perfect deliciousness with ice. And I think after that first one, we've all switched to mojitos as our favorite drink.
After the first one, we decided we needed more, so Aunty Cyn called Uncle Andy to pick upa couple ingredients from the store. Then when he came home che put him straight to work making lime zest and we had a second batch just before heading out to dinner. I think the second batch was even better than the first.
Oh, after the first or second pool volleyball match (I forget which one now for obvious reasons), Christy and I were discussing the Spa's tequila selection. And I do mean selection. I think I saw at least 4 different kinds behind the bar. Well, not more than a few minutes later, a tray appeared poolside, and we were all doing shots. And we didn't even have to leave the pool! There was salt, limes, and after all that, chips and salsa to top it all off. How can you argue with service like that?
After we were all done baking in the sun, we were chauffered to Joey Tomatoes for dinner, where we had lovely meals and many a confused look from the other patrons when we kept turning on or flashing star devices.
To cap off A fantastic Saturday, I finally managed to convince everyone to head out to a bar, spearheaded by my friend April who lives in Calgary and knows where to go. We ended up at Ranchman's in Calgary. Though I suspect that was solely because of the fact that they have a mechanical bull there. As part of Jana's fun, I gave her a white t-shirt and told her I'd give her $1 for every phone number she got. I ended up only owing her around $3, but you can bet those 3 guys were pretty happy to get in on that action. I think the picture below demonstrates quite nicely. I might add that we specifically looked for a group of guys in cowboy hats. Save a horse, ride a cowboy, you know.
Jana, April and I did, in fact, ride the mechanical bull. We have the bruises to prove it. My thighs look like I was whacked repeatedly by some very angry gnomes with sticks. And it's harder than it looks. I have a lot more respect for bull riders now. But we did it. I may get ambitious in the future and upload the video to YouTube. Though it is a little embarassing. We'll see. April was more than kind enough to drive our drunk butts home, which was amazing considering Christy and I had been drinking since noon and were getting to the end of the evening feeling a little queasy. Though we both managed to keep down our dinners.

Sunday we all got up a little late, but were treated to a fabulous bacon and egg breakfast a la Aunty Cyn. My mom even chipped in and made some of her patented toxic toast (she likes to put a LOT of butter on toast). Then it was pretty much back in the van and back to Edmonton, with a quick slurpee stop at 7-11.

Overall, I've got to say it was a fabulous weekend that could not possibly have gone any better. The weather cooperated, no one got sick, and we all had a good time. I'll be booking my next trip to "the Spa" soon, I expect.

The Alberta Sports Weekend Extravaganza!

Greetings again, avid readers! I'm sure you are all extremely curious as to my crazy misadventures over the past couple of months because I've been rather neglectful in updating you all. But in my defense, I've been extremely busy trying to sell a house, pack up said house, move all my stuff to Alberta, find a potential job in Alberta, quit my job at the Campbell River Hospital, plan my sister's wedding shower and bachelorette, and do it all while my husband is working at a temporary job in Burnaby 3 hours away. So life's been a little crazy.

So my last day at the CR hospital was July 18th at 7:30 am. I drove myself, my clothes, and the two little furry creatures that live with me to Alberta starting on Monday the 20th, with a one night stopover in Burnaby to spend the night with the aforementioned husband. The second day I drove all the way from Burnaby to Spruce Grove in one shot. It was awful, and I will never do that again. I literally had edema in my feet for two days from keeping them in the same position for 12.5 hours. The following weekend promised to be busy, as I had signed up to run the 5 Peaks Trail Run at Chickakoo on Saturday morning, and then my future sister-in-law's bridal shower was that same afternoon. The next day I would be off to Morinville for the Tour de l'Alberta, a 100 km bike ride. Then it was back to Burnaby with my Dad's 15-passenger van and trailer to pick up Glen, then to Campbell River to get the rest of our stuff out of the house and then back to Alberta again to drop it all off. So away we go then...

The ride back to Alberta. It was relatively uneventful with the exception of the length of the drive. My feet were literally swollen for two days. And that's never happened before. Though after the past couple weeks I now know that 5 hours is about my driving limit before that happens. It's pretty uncomfortable. The cats were actually pretty good for the drive. They only made noise for about the first half-hour before they stopped and the rest of the time they just sat there and stared at me. Pickles did give me the stink-eye when I left her in the car on the ferry to go to the bathroom, but she got over that pretty quick when I came back. I've also learned that I have a horrible lead foot. Going over the Coquihalla I glanced down at the speedometer a couple times and had to take my foot completely off the gas I was going so fast. Miraculously, I somehow managed to not see a single police car for the entire trip. That's probably a good thing considering I would've gotten a fairly hefty ticket.

The 5 Peaks Trail Run. This was a 7.4 km trail run on the trails out a Chickakoo lake, which is a recreation area about 20 minutes west of my Mom's house. My Mom used to take us there as kids, and from what I remembered, I thought it would be a pretty easy run. Thought is the key word there. There were hills. Lots of hills. And really steep ones, at that. The hills were steep enough and long enough that I actually had to walk up some of them. And I've never walked in a single race to date. But after the first hill I gave up and walked. I decided it was better to finish the race than die in the process. In my defense, though, it was probably 32 degrees out by the time the race actually started. My sister's finacee, Jonathan, was also running. We stayed together for about 2 km, but I lost him on one of the uphills at that point and didn't see him after until the finish. At which point he came up to where we were waiting and said (and this is a direct quote): "I'm never running again!". The funny part is that he's signed himself up for the half-marathon in Iceland in a couple weeks while he and my sister are on their honeymoon. Oh, my time was 50:17, which was 10th of 25 in my age category (toot toot!). Jonathan finished in 1:01:13.

The Tour de l'Alberta. A bike ride starting in Morinville and touring around and through a bunch of the French communities in that area. There were a few different distances we could've ridden, but my friend Kristi had chosen the 100km, and I was good with that. It's farther than I've ever ridden on a bike, which was challenge enough for me at the time. I did, in fact, train for this ride in advance for about 2 months, and I'm glad I did. It would not have been pretty otherwise. Kristi and I were both on mountain bikes, which are not ideal for road riding, but at least we still went. That and we got to ride right by all the road bikers who had to stop to change their tires because of flats. Ya gotta love mountain bike tires. It wasn't a race, just a ride, so there were no times and no prizes, but it was still fun. There were a few rest stops along the way, so we could refill our water and gatorade bottles, and they also had snacks at all of them. There was also a lunch stop with sandwiches and other tasty treats. Kudos to the people of Legal for that one. I stopped at all the rest stops, but didn't really want to stay long. I'm pretty hard core in that respect, I'd rather keep going than stop and then have to regain my rhythm. You've probably read my marathon blogs by now and know all about that. So after the lunch stop I left Kristi and the others in my proverbial dust and went out on my own. I was riding quite a bit faster than they were and waiting for them at every rest stop would probably just irritate me. Not their fault, but a bad habit I find difficult to break. It was a fantastic day weather-wise, thus I managed to get quite a lovely sunburn on my back. I should've reapplied the sunscreen, but hindsight is 20/20, right? At the end there was a pretty good meal, but the highlight was the cake. I freakin' love cake. Especially after 100km on a bicycle. Overall, it was an excellent ride, very well organized, and if I have the chance I may do it again. Though next time it'll have to be the 180km ride with a road bike. If you're gonna go, go far, right?

A couple days after the ride it was back to the island for packing and all our stuff. Glen and I somehow managed to pick the hottest couple of days of the entire year to do our packing. It was somewhere around 35-39 degrees in Vancouver and CR. So I picked Glen up at his apartment in Burnaby and we set out for the ferry terminal. Except that we made it to Horseshoe Bay only to learn that all the ferries were full, but there's a "chance" we could get on the 9:45 sailing, the last one of the night. So we turned around and headed to Tsawassen. Only we somehow got lost in Horsehoe Bay itself for about 20 minutes. In my Dad's 15 passenger van with attached trailer. Not fun. Picture teeny little roads and big giant van.

When we finally got out of Horseshoe Bay, we headed for downtown, since that was the easiest way to get to the Tsawassen terminal. Ha! We got stuck in downtown Vancouver traffic for about 2 hours. We moved, literally, 15 blocks in 2 hours. It sucked. And it was 35 degrees and we'd run out of water. On one corner there was a woman selling hot dogs off a cart, so when we got there, I leaned out the window and bought 2 bottles of water off her. Through the window of the van. You know you're desperate when...

We finally got to Tsawassen and managed to get on the 8:15 sailing, which was much better than "maybe" getting on the 9:45 out of Horseshoe Bay. We made it back to CR at around midnite and crashed. We were up early the next morning and spent all day packing. Somewhere around 5 pm I decided there was no way all our stuff was going to fit in just the van and trailer. There was just way too much stuff. We needed a Uhaul. But it was 5 pm, and everything was closed. So the next morning we were at the rental place just as it opened. All the trucks had been reserved for in-town moves, but apparently Uhaul has this policy where if you're dropping the truck somewhere other than where you picked it up, they can rent you one and whoever had the reservation is out of luck. If I were the one with the reservation I'd be pissed, but that day that was the best news I'd heard in a long time. So we had our Uhaul.

We loaded up the Uhaul and got out of CR around noon. We caught a 4:15 ferry from Nanaimo, which we thought was rather miraculous, given that it was the Friday before a long weekend, but we weren't complaining. The rest of the trip was pretty unevetful. We spent the night at a campground in Hope and made it the rest of the way to Edmonton the next day.

So now Glen has taken a permanent position with Autopro in Burnaby, and we have to move everything back. But at least it's already in boxes. And at least Glen has a job. Oh, and on August 5, I went to an interview with Dynalife labs here in Edmonton. It apparently went well, because they called about 3 hours later and bascially offered me a job. Which I had to turn down because Glen had literally just signed his papers. And our house has sold, which we also found out on August 5. So all is reasonably well with us now.

And the cats seem to not mind living in my Mom's house for the time being. Though Pickles seems to have developed a strange fascination with my Mom's hair...