pictures

The rest of my Ireland pictures are up on webshots.  I’ll get posts put up on Thursday — getting sick this week in conjunction with spending as much time with Frank as possible has meant I haven’t really had time to get everything caught up like I thought.  But for now, pictures are done for webshots — I’ll get my photo portfolio (flickr) updated with the best of the best (some of which aren’t on webshots) within the next couple days, at least within the next week.

Also, so one thing about having a really really really busy life, is that you blink you’re eyes and suddenly you and your boyfriend have been together for two months.

Oops

So yes, I am back in the states, and I have been really really bad about updating.  I’ll get all caught up with Ireland stuff maybe Tuesday or Wednesday.  In the meantime, I actually came home to Boston two days early.  After seven straight days of pouring rain, all my clothes were drenched, I was getting sick, and I was exhausted and homesick — and broke!  Took 22 hours to get from Dublin to Boston via Chicago, but I am here and have been spending most of my time with Frank, his brother (who is here for the summer), and his roomies.  It’s very, very strange to be in Boston when most of my friends are not, but I’m enjoying the week and a half of having NOTHING that I have to do.  I’ve started knitting again, working on learning more advanced stitches.  Have cooked a bit, too (made fiesta chicken for Frank and Richard last night and they loved it, which is aways a GREAT response.  Came over a few minutes ago to find them arguing over leftovers in the kitchen.  Success!)  Today we are making quiche and tomorrow blueberry pie, and possible going to the beach if it’s warm and sunny.  Anyway, just having a fun time running around Boston, doing whatever I want, whenever I want.  Though I will admit, I’m homesick for the south, and were it not for Frank being here, I would already happily be home (and working, making some money!)

Anyway, am actually at Frank’s right now, just chilling.  I’ll try to be better about posting; I’m not at my laptop hardly at all lately, hence the lag in updates.  I’ll get everything caught up Tuesday or Wednesday, though, and finish posting pictures (if I remember correctly, through Belfast are posted on my webshots, but I still need to put up my three days in Galway-area, as well as update my photography portfolio with the best of the best.)

Giant’s Causeway

The tour I went on Friday was actually awesome.  Giant’s Causeway is interesting enough on its own, but we also stopped in Carnlough (little fishing village), Cerrickfergus Castle, Dunlance Castle (inspiration for Cair Paravel!!  I nerded out, haha), and the Carrick-a-rede bridge, which was used by Irish fishermen to catch Salmon.  All of it included lots of awesome commentary from our rad tourguide (who was actually Scottish), beautiful cliffs, and lots of fields.  And man, so many great animals!  Scottish cows, all kinds of sheep and little lambs, swans, horses, mini ponies, etc.  The cliffs anywhere in Ireland are gorgeous; it really does make it feel like the island just burst forth from the sea (burst, Frank, burst :p ).  Oh, as for Giant’s Causeway, y’all can look at my pictures once they’re up, but basically it’s this weird, huge collection where the rocks split into hexagons.  What it LOOKS like though is that someone made these piles of hexagonal rocks.  It’s found only two places in the world, on the shores opposite each other from this spot in Ireland and Scotland.  From here comes the legend of Finn McCool and Cuchulain’s fueding, and legend has it that Finn McCool used these rocks to build a bridge to Scotland, and Cuchulain then destroyed it.  It’s hard not to believe it; the rocks are way strange.

I made friends along the way, namely Steve (from Austin) and Joran (from the Netherlands, who is biking around Ireland for two months; how Dutch!!)  Steve bought a round of pints in the pub at Giant’s Causeway, and so I can mark “drink Guinness in an Irish pub” off my life list of things to do.  It was awesome to get out of the city, and also to get some more background about C. S. Lewis and Winston Churchill’s lives here, etc.  The Hotel Europa (this is for you, Mom) was the most bombed hotel in the entire world, according to World Records, until four years ago: now it’s in Beirut.

I guess the problem in general with Belfast is that it’s not really ready for tourists yet.  The ENTIRE city is under construction; Joran was bemoaning that he couldn’t take a single picture downtown with nine big cranes in it.  Even the Ulster Museum is closed for several years for renovations.  It’s cold and rainy and you have to make appointments to do anything, which is nearly impossible for backpackers or those who can’t afford cabs.  Maybe in 10, 15 years –maybe even less– Belfast will be great.  In the meantime, it feels like England’s kid brother that they only want around as a landing point to go visit the coast.  The only good news is that Belfast is overall pretty cheap.  With British pounds, I was expected London prices, but it’s not bad at all. 

Am now in Galway, which is really cute.  It reminds me of a cleaner Brussels meets Freiberg meets Ljubljana.  Small, quaint, clearly kept up with tourists in mind but also still maintaining more uniqueness than Dublin.  I mean, it’s very small, and you can’t really get around the fact that they are used to tourists here.  The main little shop street is cute but jampacked with souvenir and trinket shops.  But the river is pretty, I went inside a beautiful church, and there are enough distinct buildings or ancient things to appease me. 

It’s five now, and I’m probably in for the day.  Which is lame, I know.  But I think I might be sick — which isn’t surprising, seeing as the rain has been following me around, and at times my clothes aren’t warm enough.  Besides, tomorrow I do another day tour which INCLUDES visiting an Irish family farm (the tourguide’s), drinking his mum’s tea (really?! YES), visiting some caves and a few other things I can’t remember, and the Cliffs of Moher.  I’m thinking Monday I might actually linger and do another tour, either out to some Islands, or up Connemara.  Then off to Cork, but probably only for a day in order to visit Blarney Castle, because I’ve been warned Cork is uber lame, even lamer than Dublin.  That still would give me one day to play with, either down to Kinsale (which I’m only considering because it’d be cool to say I’ve been to all four Irish coasts, but there isn’t much to do there except eat), or maybe over to Kilkenny to see the castle and I think there’s an abbey there, too.  I don’t know, though; a lot will depend on how I feel and how much money I have.

Now . . . I am chilling in the kitchen of my hostel because some people are cooking, and if I have my choice between a room with a TV or a kitchen with cooking going on, I would rather sit in the kitchen.  Kitchens in general are just very comforting to me.  Except now that I am typing this, it is making me homesick . . .

Cross your fingers the weather clears up!  It would be really, really nice to be able to go outside without getting drenched.   I’ll work on getting Howth pictures up tonight, I think.

Blefast isn’t

all that great.  I’ll write more later.  Right now I am tired and have to get up early for a long day tomorrow.

In the meantime, pictures from day one in Dublin are up in my webshots album (link to the right).  Tomorrow I’ll start adding pictures from Howth, and then Belfast.

DEATH

accidentally went on a six-hour hike today.  Granted, it was along the Howth coast and absolutely BEAUTIFUL (for roughly half of it, then there was some forest, then some windy fields, then some random scrubby areas, and then across a GOLF COURSE where I got scolded by two haggish old women), but once the beautiful part was over, I still had a 2.5 hour hike back inland, and I seriously, truly, honestly, with everything in me thought I was going to lay down and die.  I started verbalizing my will and was going to make a video of it (I didn’t have the energy to write) so that when my dead body was found, so would it.  Did I mention that all I ate prior to my hike was two pieces of toast with butter?  BAD.  It was BAD.  If I had known how much worse it would get while still hiking up and down and up and down and up along the cliffs along the sea, I probably would have thrown myself off to be dashed against the rocks.  That’s much more romantic than collapsing in an overgrown field and my decaying corpse getting eaten by bumblebees the size of my FACE.

And btw, whoever Fingal County (trust me, Final County, I also rehearsed a charming letter for YOU about your “follow the white stone path” sign which was actually NOT referring to the path made of white stones directly in front of the sign [which led me into the pathway of golf balls, and thus resulted in the rude lecture from old ladies] but rather a helter-skelter line DIRECTLY across the golf course marked by occasional spray-painted bricks, pieces of wood, of patches of concrete that you can’t see until you are on top of them) hired to figure out their trail times is functioning on a different minute than the rest of their world.  Because from the point where it said “1 hour and 45 minutes to trailhead” TO the actual trailhead, it definitely took me almost three hours.  And I am a big time hiker/walker with legs of steal.  The two little girls hiking behind me fell behind.  And I won’t be surprised if they are never heard from again. 

Alas, I did survive, and am now back at the hostel, resting my weary feet.  I SHOULD go out and do something else tonight with my last few hours in Dublin . . . but my body hurts and Dublin’s really not very impressive of a city anyway. 

In other news, off to Belfast tomorrow, and on Friday I booked a tour (oh my gosh, yes, *I* am taking a tour, I who hate tours with all that is in me; but I have to do it if I want to see Carrickfergus Castle, the Rope Bridge, and the Giant’s Causeway, which are all 1.5 hours outside of Belfast). 

But seriously, aside from fearing death and contemplating death and wishing for death so the pain/hike would end, the Irish coast really is beautiful.  Very romantic.  Definitely preferred the little fishing town of Howth to big city Dublin, but that really isn’t surprising; I tend to prefer smaller towns while traveling to big globalizing cities. 

On another note, because I”m on a roll and doing a pretty long blog entry right now, there are TONS of redheads here.  Like, tons.  I thought it was a stereotype.  All this time I’ve been all smarty-pants, telling people “Actually, Irish tend to be dark-haired; there are more redheads in Scotland.”  Maybe there are, maybe there aren’t, but there are definitely many, many natural redheads here.  Especially children.  Judging by families, it looks like lots of kids are born redheads and then their hair turns darker when puberty hits.  But still, my hair plus the fact that I’m carrying a purse instead of a backpack means a lot of people keep thinking I’m a local and then are severely disappointed when I start speaking. 

Also, Howth is a fishing village, and I got to walk around the pier and along this seawall thing, where the wind almost blew me into the water.  And seafoam kept flying up and drifting and then landing, all congealed, on the sidewalk.  I didn’t realize seafoam congealed like that.  But then it just makes me think of the Little Mermaid (the REAL one, by Hans Christian Anderson, not the happy Disney movie), and so I was afraid to touch it. 

ALSO, interesting observation: not many dogs here.  There are some; I saw some in Howth.  But as for Dublin, hardly any at all.  Very unlike England and mainland Europe where there are dogs EVERYWHERE.  Possibly because there aren’t many parks in Dublin; I suppose if I chilled by St. Stephen’s Green longer I’d probably see more.

Okay, naptime.  Geez, 7pm already?!

am here

Have arrived safe and sound in Dublin, where I’ve spent the day walking around, taking pictures, and wearing myself out.  Am about to go upload Dublin pictures so y’all can see what I did with my day.  As always with trips, I’ll come back afterwards and draw on my travel journal (which I’m not doing a very good job of writing in) to give a fuller picture of everything I see; while I’m actually traveling, I only post brief notes or anecdotes until I can understand things in a wider context . . .

or, well, you know, because I’m lazy and tired. 

 

EDIT:: Okay, so my internet speed here makes dial-up look lightning fast.  For that reason, photos will not be up tonight.  i’m working on it, but I’m also exhausted.  I’ll get back to uploading tomorrow night and see if I can’t get at least Dublin posted.

^Dublin Castle, which is actually really unimpressive except for this photo.  Come on, Ireland; you of all places should not have unimpressive castles!

travel tip #54

okay, I don’t actually know the number, but if I ever write a travel book (which I would love to do), this will be number #54:

Have you neighbor on the plane wake you up when meals are being served.  Eat and/or save every thing.  Even if you don’t really like it, save it, because there may come a point in your near future where you are willing to eat your shoe, and suddenly that bland, hard roll is going to look real good.

o’hare pt. 2

I left my Emerson sweatshirt on the plane.  My favorite one.  The yellow one that everyone hates except me, that is one of the warmest pieces of clothing I own.  The flight attendants did not leave it at the gate.  I’ll call lost and found, but for some reason it is not open on Mondays.  That is ridiculously stupid.

Also, O’Hare does not have outlets at the gates.  So me and like seven other people are camped out in this long tile walkway, sitting on the cold floor, so we can power up.  Really, O’Hare?  This is the 21st century and you are a hub airport, which means people have long layovers.  Get with the times.

o’hare

Currently 11:35pm.  Flight to Dublin is at 7:10.  Have been here since 10:30am.  Just ate an early, early lunch that  I didn’t even really want because I was momentarily so overwhelmed by O’Hare and frustrated about not knowing what terminal my flight is out of to set up camp, and just needing a place to sit down.  A $2.99 glass of iced tea, though?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

Money troubles escalated until Frank just had me write him a check and gave me cash, thereby serving as my own personal . . . erm . . . check casher.  We then rode the subway together for four stops, he on his way to work, me on my way to the airport.  When we got close, I cried like a little girl.  He got out, then ran with the subway for a couple seconds as I moved off, looking like a fool but making me extremely happy.  This boyfriend is continuous amounts of win. 

Flight from Boston to O’Hare was uneventful.  2.5 hours, and I slept uncomfortably pretty much the entire time.  Super chatty guy beside me whom I chatted with as we took a three-mile taxi to the termimal (seriously, I thought they were driving me to Ireland). 

Now . . . I have a hell of a lot of time to kill.  What to do?  I’ll go exchange currency.  Then I guess get a bottle of water and set up camp at my gate, or wherever nearby I have a plug.  It’s been over a year since I’ve been in a place of transit for this long.  Oh, and thanks to Blake for pointing out that my layover is actually about the same amount of time as both my flights combined.  Grrrreat.

So, off to do nothing!

on your mark

So finals and the semester are finally over.  YAAAAAAAAAY.  It was an awful month with too much stuff to do.  Why do teachers act like they don’t know how long the semester is and then suddenly everything is due because they’ve run out of time?  Look at the academic calendar!

In other news, I’m (hopefully) off to Ireland on Monday.  Slightly nervous because it’s been over a year since I’ve been abroad (LAME!), and I’m basically using the very last of my money for this trip (also LAME), and it’s the first time I’ll have been away from the boyfriend for very long (lamest), and oh, did I mention that I don’t have a debit card anymore?

Yeah.  That’s fail.  The credit union accidentally sent me a new card so I trusted them and cut up my old card.  Turns out, it was an error, and so I  don’t have a functioning physical card until basically I go home to Texas, since it’s getting mailed there.  So I will have to use my Amex wherever it is accepted, my debit card only for online stuff (because most online Europe things do not accept Amex, only visa), and cash, whcih I can only access BEFORE I go to Ireland, unless they have Amex offices.  I’ll have to look into it. 

I have my tentative schedule set out.  I’ve already figured out bus and train schedules, booked the hostel for my first two nights, figured out transport to and from the airport in time for my flights there and back.  As is, I’ll be spending two days in Dublin, two days in Belfast, two days in Galway, two days in Cork, one day in Kilkenny, and then back to Dublin for a night before I fly back.  What might change is if I really want to spend another day somewhere, I’ll cut Kilkenny out.  I don’t fancy I’ll extend the trip, but that’s always a possibility, I guess.  Unless I run out of money.

Also, good news, I forgot Ireland is on Euros, not pounds.  Good news because Euros are about the easiest currency in the world to manage, AND the exchange rate is better than pounds.  Thanks to Mom, Dad, and Jerry for the birthday money which is financing this, and to Adobe, whose refund it also thrown into the pot.  Afterwards, I will come crawling home broke to work my ass off for two months making as much money as I possibly can.  I mean, I could have probably done both Poland or Guatemala (the other two I was thinking of) for quite a bit cheaper . . . but I have been trying to go to Ireland for three years now, and I just can’t let this trip get pushed back yet again.  Maybe, depending on just how much money I make this summer, there will be another trip made in August.  Would be AWESOME.

Anyway, so that’s what’s up with me.  Downside is that getting into Chicago is nearly impossible (I change flights there to Ireland), and there’s the possibility I’ll have to take like a 6am flight to Chicago.  My Ireland flight is 7pm.  I am DETERMINED though to get to Ireland, even if I wind up spending seven hours in O’Hare.  I mean, my travel length times are wonky anyway, though.  I’ve been on trains for 36 hours straight, so a day in O’Hare could be worse.

Well.  Off to get ready for my Friday night which will be WILD AND CRAZY!  . . . right.  Dinner at Uno’s with some of Frank’s friends (that’s right; I said your name; I titled you the boyfriend; happy?), and then probably like a movie or Rockband, haha.  Maybe some writing.  Tis a wild life I lead . . .

 

I’m going to Ireland!!!  I’ll finally get to actually use the Ireland tag I created three years ago!!!