That's right, I'm too lazy to re-narrate what I have already narrated. So behold, something everyone has already read! Just here for posterity, so that years from now when I'm remembering the salad days, I have something to look back on... *sigh*
I can't seem to remember if I emailed you guys about London... Wait, I
think I sent out a general notification about the pictures and that
was it. Well, I had an excellent time there, I really nerded it up
with Luc and because we only had 2 1/2 days there we did the balls-out
tourist thing and saw as much famous stuff as we could in our limited
time. To that end we went to the National Gallery, the British Museum,
the Cutty Sark, Greenwhich Village (home of the prime meridian),
Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and walked
THROUGH a lot of famous areas, like Soho and Covent Gardens. It really
is an amazing city, and Luc and I agreed we've got to go back - we're
planning to meet there again in May when the Globe Theatre opens again
(the season was over when we were there) so we can take in some
Shakespeare. The tickets are super cheap, just a few pounds. One of
the best parts of that trip was my walk from Waterloo Station, where
Luc left, to Baker St, where I was to catch my bus. It took me about 3
hours in total, basically spanning the entire city, and it was really
nice to just walk around and see it without any sense of direction or
urgency. Also, as you can see from the pictures, my award for arriving
was a flock of Canadian geese. So exotic.
Anyway, I got home Monday at midnight, spent 2 1/2 days going to
classes and frantically doing my readings, because we were leaving for
Ireland Thursday afternoon. I was a little nervous about the Ireland
trip, to be honest, just because a lot of things were up in the air,
and three people were coming along who I'd never met before, plus we
were supposed to hook up with this Irish guy named Damian who Carrie
met in New Zealand, which sounded like it could potentially be pretty
sketch.
HowEVER, it turned out to be one of the most amazing weekends of my
life. By the time we got through airport-everything and arrived at our
hostel it was about 9:30. On the way there we got a call from two of
the three other people supposedly travelling with us, saying that
surprise! they weren't coming after all, and could we just cancel all
those hostel beds we had booked for them. Boo. I don't know these
people but I hate them anyway. However, the other guy, Ben, who is
also a student at the uni here, arrived safely and met us at the
hostel. We ate a quick dinner at some burger place (which had the
cutest security guard I have ever seen, even if Geeta does say he was
way too old for me... whatever...) then met up with Damian. He, as it
turns out, is the cutest (and littlest) Irish boy in the land, with a
tiny little faux-hawk. You'll see pictures of him when I eventually
post them, but for now I've used up all my bandwidth on flickr and I'm
apparently cut off. Anyway, he took us to Temple Bar to have our first
guiness, which was very touristy and silly, and Geeta (who is from
Texas and has an uncanny knack for attracting all Americans in the
immediate vicinity) met a bunch of Americans... however, Damian's
older brother Dave showed up shortly, and they decided that place was
too touristy and instead took us to a local-er place a few blocks
over, where there was some trad being played in the basement and no
other tourists. I switch from guiness to whiskey (because everyone
insisted I drink something local but guiness is just too much man for
me) and we sat around getting to know each other and listening to the
trad. Damian and Dave turned out to be the nicest guys, and they told
us all about their various travels; Damian is a sound
engineer/musician and Dave is currently a computer programmer, though
he used to be an acupuncture therapist which I think is uber cool.
Anyway, Thursday night was a relatively early night as that pub closed
at midnight, and they both had to work the next morning.
SO, the next morning we went BACK to the airport and rented a car
(Carrie knows how to drive standard and drove on the left side of the
road in New Zealand, making her the most useful girl in the world) and
set about with our wacky Irish roadtrip.
This was the best part, because, since we were in a car, we could get
off the major bus/rail/plan tourist routes and see some little tiny
towns that were perhaps a bit more "authentically" Irish. We drove
from Dublin (east coast) to Galway (west coast) in about four hours,
and that was with a length lunch stop in the middle. Galway is a sweet
little town but still quite touristy, lots of the same shops as Dublin
and lots of kitschy Irish restaurants. I was getting really tired of
eating Irish food, since the vegan options tend to be potatoe with a
side of more potatoe, so I put my foot down for pan-asian, which made
me very very happy.
I had also been responsible for booking our hostel that night (since
everyone else was strangely afraid of making phonecalls, I did all of
the bookings and cancellations the entire weekend), and had chosen a
cheap place in this little town called Oughterard, apparently 25
minutes outside of Galway. It actually turned out to be more like 45
minutes, down very dark unlit windy roads, and the hostel itself was
in the middle of this big unlit field, which was at the same time
beautiful and creepy. It was actually mostly beautiful, though,
because we could see all the stars out there.
Once we had checked in (an easy process, because he required no ID, no
deposit, handed us a key and went back to bed) we went into the centre
of town, which was basically a bar/restaurant/hotel (all one
building), a grocery store, and a hardware store. Oh, and a church. I
mean, we were in Ireland after all. So we went to the bar, which was
advertising - what else? - live music, expecting some more trad...
turned out to be this Irish singer songwriter who'd just gotten back
from a tour of the States, but was from Oughterard, and when he's home
he performs at this little local bar every Friday. He was very good,
and a lot of people from the other little towns around Oughterard had
come in especially to see him; the place was crowded, and everyone was
up jiving and swining (couples dancing only, because everyone was over
50). We were the only tourists there, as well as the only young people
there, and we had an absolute blast, swing-dancing with the old Irish
men at their wives' insistence and singing along to all the american
covers he was playing especially for us (I complained that I wasn't
american so he sang a Neil Young song for me - yay!). It was an
amazing night - the Irish are so generous and welcoming and FRIENDLY,
everyone seemed to love us just on account of our being guests in
their country, and we weren't allowed to buy our own drinks all night.
After a very good night's sleep in the hostel (four people in a 12-bed
dorm room means lots of pillows for all!) and a very good shower, we
headed out for some adventures on the Irish coast. We ate a quick
traditional Irish breakfast at the bar/restaurant (where we saw some
old Irish men drinking guiness at 10 in the morning - I'm still not
sure how I feel about this). As you can imagine, vegan options were
not plentiful, so I ordered the vegetarian breakfast hold the eggs,
and got 1) the weirdest look from the server ever and 2) a big plate
of beans and toast. Aw, well. It was cheap.
We spent most of Saturday driving around the coast of Western Ireland
(if anyone is consulting a map while reading this email, we drove from
Oughterard to Clifden, which is a coastal down, then south along the
coast until we got back to Galway). I have never seen a landscape more
beautiful than western Ireland. You all have to see it; it literally
took my breath away. I took about a thousand pictures, which you'll
see once flickr stops being such a douche. Anyway, these were all tiny
towns, no tourist-attractions or interest in tourists at all, because
they're so far off the main transit routes. At one point we stopped in
a little town to get lunch, and they were speaking Gaelic to each
other in the grocery store. Apparently in most of these little towns
gaelic is the first language, though everyone of course spoke english
as well. Once again, everyone was very friendly, though also really
surprised to see this carload of university students unloading into
their sleep irish town. I'll let the pictures do most of the
describing for me, but it really was incredible; the landscape is
rough and rocky, and full of incredible blue lakes; the inlets to the
ocean (Atlantic, of course) are all silver and full of these long
fingers of rock. There are tiny white houses dotting the hills, and
sheep and cows everywhere, wandering without fences or regard for cars
(as we learned). The highway is just a winding single-road street
where you have to full off to let another car pass, with all these
tiny stone bridges going over various streams and rivers. You all have
to promise me right now that you will go to Western Ireland at some
point in your lives - it was amazing.
Unfortunately, we eventually had back to Dublin because Damian and
Dave were expecting us. We crashed at Damian's place that night
because his housemates were away and because he didn't have to work
the next day; so we dropped our stuff off at his place, changed and
tidied up, and then hit the town. It was about ten this time when we
ate dinner (at this place called Abrakebabra, which sold a lot of
donair - I had a veggie burger, possibly the grossest thing I've ever
eaten). After that we went to a bar called Toast, which was an old
converted firestation (I asked if the name was a clever pun but Dave
said no, just coincidence - I'm unconvinced). Something I have learned
about the Irish: they really like buying drinks for their guests. I
managed to buy one round through a combination of sneakery and
physical force, but it was no easy feat. Dave and Damian must have
spent a fortune that night, because every time I finished a drink,
there was another one miraculously sitting in front of me. We stayed
at Toast until about midnight, then went to this nightclub (I can't
remember exactly where it was) and drank some more, and danced, and
met a whole bunch of Damian's drunk-out-of-their-minds Irish friends.
After the club closed we went to Damian's friends' house, where there
was a DJ table and (gulp) more alcohol. I promise I was good - I
practiced my best nursing-my-drink skills, and a new houseparty
technique I call "oh I have a drink I just left it in the other room).
I also went outside every time someone wanted a smoke break, which
bought me a lot more time. There's no way in hell I could keep up with
these Irish boys, they were drinking at a completely alarming rate;
however, the drunker they got, the more jovial and hilarious they
became; no one was a sad, mean or weird drunk, they were just really
happy and friendly. Eventually, maybe around 5ish, the party moved
back to Damians, where a couple of guys pulled out guitars and we all
started singing songs that nobody could remember the words to, because
everyone was drunk out of their minds. Carrie drunk-texted her new
crush, Geeta intensely made out with an Irish boy, and I met another
Irish boy with an almost-creepy interest in Canada. It was probably
just drunken-intensity speaking, but he was SO sure that Canada held
all the secrets to his happiness, he just needed to get there first. I
feel very bad for his inevitable disappointment. Anyway, we all
crashed around 7:30 or 8 (after watching the sun come up, which was
pretty cool because we were in a warm house instead of a cold bus
stop, with the prospect of bed coming up soon) - there were plenty of
beds to go around, thankfully, and I actually didn't end up having to
share with anyone. Yay me!
So, that was my night of drunken revelling with Irish men, and brought
home the brutal truth that I am just not much of a drinker. Meh,
whatcha gonna do? I still had a lot of fun, and decided that I need to
make more Irish friends (Jessie, you're clearly not satisfying all my
Irish-related needs).
We woke up around 3 that afternoon, and after much showering and
eating of bread to settle stomachs, we (meaning me, Carrie, Geeta,
Ben, Damian and Dave) went for breakfast/lunch/dinner (first meal of
the day, 5:30 pm?), at my insistence, at Wagamama's. Ladies, it is
every bit as good as you remember and then some. I was SOOOO happy. I
ate the biggest bowl of soup in the whole world. We spent the evening
at this pub in the hills south of Dublin called Johnny Fox's. It was a
beautiful drive up, and from the top of the hills you could see all of
Dublin, which was lovely. We made an early night of it because we were
all pretty exhausted, and also because we had to wake up at 4am to
catch out 6:30 plane back to Edinburgh. Before leaving, though, we
made Dave and Damian promise to come visit us in Edinburgh, both
because they were so awesome, but also because, between the four of
us, we owe them about 30 drinks a piece and maybe 4 or 5 packs of
cigarettes.
So what is the moral of this little tale? I like coastlines more than
alcohol and Irish boys more than no Irish boys. Yeah, that sounds
about right.
My next adventure will be next weekend, Halloween weekend to be
specific; Emily is coming up to visit me and we're going to party it
up Scottish-style. Maybe I'll finally see some of the sights of this
town I'm living in, once I have someone to show around.
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