We're getting ready to head to the airport to come home.
There are new posts below.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
No Sheep? No problem.
Monday morning, we woke up bright (well, gray) and early to leave London and catch our Ryanair flight to Dublin. Ryanair is basically the Southwest of Europe. You board like old Southwest way – a cattle call to find the best available seats. Hey, who can blame us? Our tickets were about $100 for both of us. Anyway, the hour and a fifteen minute flight flew by and before we knew it, we were in Ireland.
The Brazen Head. The oldest pub in Ireland. Founded in 1198.
Gallagher's Boxty House. Freakin' delicious.
We walked around a bit. Monday was Scott’s day to be grumpy. He complained about his feet and back hurting to no end.
We saw the famous Molly Malone statue, with her heaving breasts and cart full of shellfish.
She wheeled her wheelbarrow, through streets broad and narrow...
...singing "Cockels and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"
Again, per Kyle’s recommendation, we made our way by train to Dun Laoghaire to see rolling green hills and sheep. I think there may have been some miscommunication on our part – we didn’t see any green or sheep. In fact, this is the only green we saw.
Coming back into Dublin, we went down to Temple Bar to find an authentic Irish pub for dinner. We ended up eating dinner at some pseudo-Italian place in an alley. All the while, an entire row of Irish bars made up the next street over. Oh well, live and learn.
After dinner, we settled on a bar with real Irish music. It was packed. It was fantastic. People were clapping and singing and even dancing to the music played by two old Irish chaps. Again, fantastic.
This morning (Tuesday), we went back to Temple Bar to explore more of the city.
Taking a break from Guinness to salute my good friend, Eileen, with a half-pint of Murphy's.
We walked down Grafton Street toward St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful (and crowded) park smack dab in the middle of the city.
Grafton Street at midday.
St. Stephen's Green
Then we walked to take a tour of the Guinness factory. This was definitely one of my favorite things. Guinness = deliciousness.
Outside the gate at St. James's. Yes, James's is how it's spelled.
There was a whole section dedicated to Guinness advertising through the years.
Slainte!
"I love Guinness. And grandpa sweaters."
We ended the evening with dinner and drinks in Temple Bar.
Sorry this is short and sweet - but I need to hit the hay.
Slainte!
Scott and I enjoying our last pints of Guinness on this trip.
Short video of the music we've heard the last two nights.
The Brazen Head. The oldest pub in Ireland. Founded in 1198.We made our way by cab (with the world’s oldest cabdriver) to our hotel – which we both had concerns about. Obviously, we had never seen it in person, and the hotel’s site make it look glamorous. Again, we got this on the cheap. Turns out, it’s actually pretty good. We have a 2BR apartment with a washer/dryer, kitchen, dining area, living room and balcony that looks toward a church built in the 11th century.
At any rate, we dropped our stuff off and headed a half kilometer down the street toward Temple Bar, per Kyle’s recommendations. Walking down the street, people said hello and smiled at us – a stark contrast from London. Even our waitress was nice – then we found out she was three weeks in from Slovakia. No difference. The lesson here is that Irish people are much nicer than English people.
Gallagher's Boxty House. Freakin' delicious.We walked around a bit. Monday was Scott’s day to be grumpy. He complained about his feet and back hurting to no end.
We saw the famous Molly Malone statue, with her heaving breasts and cart full of shellfish.
She wheeled her wheelbarrow, through streets broad and narrow... 
...singing "Cockels and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"Again, per Kyle’s recommendation, we made our way by train to Dun Laoghaire to see rolling green hills and sheep. I think there may have been some miscommunication on our part – we didn’t see any green or sheep. In fact, this is the only green we saw.
Coming back into Dublin, we went down to Temple Bar to find an authentic Irish pub for dinner. We ended up eating dinner at some pseudo-Italian place in an alley. All the while, an entire row of Irish bars made up the next street over. Oh well, live and learn.
After dinner, we settled on a bar with real Irish music. It was packed. It was fantastic. People were clapping and singing and even dancing to the music played by two old Irish chaps. Again, fantastic.
This morning (Tuesday), we went back to Temple Bar to explore more of the city.
Taking a break from Guinness to salute my good friend, Eileen, with a half-pint of Murphy's.We walked down Grafton Street toward St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful (and crowded) park smack dab in the middle of the city.
Grafton Street at midday.
St. Stephen's Green
St. Stephen's Green
Then we walked to take a tour of the Guinness factory. This was definitely one of my favorite things. Guinness = deliciousness.
Outside the gate at St. James's. Yes, James's is how it's spelled.
There was a whole section dedicated to Guinness advertising through the years.
Slainte!
"I love Guinness. And grandpa sweaters."We ended the evening with dinner and drinks in Temple Bar.
Sorry this is short and sweet - but I need to hit the hay.
Slainte!
Scott and I enjoying our last pints of Guinness on this trip.Short video of the music we've heard the last two nights.
Crazy Lady Headquarters
Sunday morning we jaunted out to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. It was nothing short of insane. It's basically an area where anyone can get up on a soapbox and start ranting about whatever they choose. A crowd forms, they argue or heckle with the speaker, and everyone else enjoys this. Think of it as a live-action Jerry Springer show, only with British accents and crazies hosting the show. Our favorite (Scott nicknamed her Crazy Grandma) thought everyone was going to Hell except for natural-born, white English people. She was great. She called us stupid Americans. Another man said that women were stupid. Another guy said that Muslim women (he was Muslim) were basically second-class citizens. All good fun. Scott can elaborate much more on this, as I think Speakers' Corner turned out to be his favorite part of our entire trip.
We had a quick jaunt over to see Westminster Abbey, which we somehow missed - even though it's right by Big Ben/Parliament. This evening, we headed back to Speakers’ Corner to here a new crop of crazies. Scott ended up chatting with a group of Muslims for about an hour. I wandered around and made a new friend named Jounaidi. Then this crazy lady pushed a kid out of his wheelchair (both of his feet were in casts). Then she called everybody liars and screamed about theft. Again, good times.
We packed up our stuff tonight, a bit bittersweet to leave London.
We had a quick jaunt over to see Westminster Abbey, which we somehow missed - even though it's right by Big Ben/Parliament. This evening, we headed back to Speakers’ Corner to here a new crop of crazies. Scott ended up chatting with a group of Muslims for about an hour. I wandered around and made a new friend named Jounaidi. Then this crazy lady pushed a kid out of his wheelchair (both of his feet were in casts). Then she called everybody liars and screamed about theft. Again, good times.
We packed up our stuff tonight, a bit bittersweet to leave London.
NFA = No Fixed Address
This will be short. We're still catching up on our posts and Scott likes to upload 16 videos and 35 photos, along with a short novella of what we've done, which ends up eating four hours of time. I'll keep mine short and sweet.
We spent Saturday morning in an area called Camden Town. It was filled with booths and little shops filled with all sorts of things you don’t need but totally want to buy. I had pictures, but my camera decided to delete them all.
It was also the area of town where punks lived. We then touristed it up down at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.
We then had a couple pints at Blackfriars Pub and met some lovely fellows with, between the two of them, about four or five teeth.
We walked across the River Thames to have dinner at a dim sum place, where Scott tried to talk to our tablemates. They snubbed their noses at them. Skanks.
After dinner, we ended up back at Shepherd Market to find out what a jacket potato is and eat one or two. But we were too late – the kitchen had closed. We ended up walking down the alley to another pub. The bartender and servers there were finally nice – the first genuine English pub workers we’ve found to be as polite and nice as those in the States. Good times.
We spent Saturday morning in an area called Camden Town. It was filled with booths and little shops filled with all sorts of things you don’t need but totally want to buy. I had pictures, but my camera decided to delete them all.
It was also the area of town where punks lived. We then touristed it up down at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.
We then had a couple pints at Blackfriars Pub and met some lovely fellows with, between the two of them, about four or five teeth.
We walked across the River Thames to have dinner at a dim sum place, where Scott tried to talk to our tablemates. They snubbed their noses at them. Skanks.
After dinner, we ended up back at Shepherd Market to find out what a jacket potato is and eat one or two. But we were too late – the kitchen had closed. We ended up walking down the alley to another pub. The bartender and servers there were finally nice – the first genuine English pub workers we’ve found to be as polite and nice as those in the States. Good times.
Park sex, Punk Rock and the City of Brotherly Love (and hate) PT.1
It’s Monday nite as I sit and write this…Friday, Saturday, and Sunday have come and gone without me writing about them. That being said, this post will probably be a let down. The good news for you, faithful readers, is that Glenn will also be filling in the gaps, and he’s a much better writer than I. Besides that, he’ll also show you the touristy stuff, so I’ll try to show you some of the things that I found interesting…the real London. My apologies for the lameness of the following….
Friday was the day that we both blew our wake up time. We were supposed to be in some nerdy class that Glenn registered us for, but we never made it. So instead we went to Buckingham Palace. Buckingham itself was kind of lame (sorry Shareen, I know that your British president lives there) but the walk to the palace turned out to be pretty interesting. Turns out, that in London, it is completely appropriate to make love in public parks. No kidding. This is what we saw on our walk through St. James Park on our way to the palace:
These two started going at it right there in front of us. They did not care that the kids in the park could see them or that I had a camera on them the whole time. Didn’t matter. It was time to get down. Brown chicken brown cow.
We continued on to the palace and wrestled our way through the crowds just in time to see people yelled at by the Bobbies and the changing of the guards. The changing of the guards was cool, but it was soooooooo loooooong. It seemed like every jerk in London was trying their hardest to body check their way closer so they could get a view of what was going on or to get their chance to breathe thier hot breath down my neck. Turned out all we could see was this:
Glad I was almost crushed to death for that.
Meanest cop ever.
As we started to leave I heard two notes of a refrain I had heard many, many times before. I said, “Dude, Glenn, I think they’re playing Star Wars.” He looked at me, like he has so many times on this trip, and just shook his head. But, believe it or not, they were playing Star Wars.
(Check Glenns post for the video) Turns out that the Queen is a huge sci-fi nerd. Not long after the band started to jam the theme song from a galaxy far, far, away the Queen came out in her wookie suit, did the wookie wave and started to sign autographs. She also said that she’d be in Louisville for Wonderfest next month and gave me her number saying she’d like to have a pint with me while discussing which was the better British actor: Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. I’m looking forward to it. She seemed like a really nice old lady.
Afterwards we back tracked through the park and…guess what? That couple was still going at it! A whole hour had gone by and they were still groping each other for the world to see.
Go for what you know bro! Nice!
(As we discovered later, this is acceptable behavior. Seriously, these were only the first couple that we discovered shared a love for public exhibition. We saw at, at least, 3 more couples doing the same thing.)
Then it was on to Piccadilly for some shopping. We had some Malaysian food and saw this:
‘nuff said.
After ward we got on like five trains that took us to the far side of London so I could buy my dad a Harley shirt. (Love ya’ dad.)
I can’t remember what this area was called, I just know that I will thank God daily for sparing our lives. I’m sure that this area was crawling with the crazies that Glenn is so preoccupied with.
As scary as this place was, we also saw another Ferrari. Over the next few days my tally would eventually come to this:
Ferrari: 4
Lamborghini:1
Bugatti:1
Rolls:1
Lotus:1
Smart cars: Like 100 or something
Cabs with my name misspelled:1
A note to my faithful readers: My apologies for the lack of substance/humor/intelligent observation in today's two part post. I'm behind and trying to catch up. Glenn's getting hungry so were off to eat. I'll get part 2 up later.
Friday was the day that we both blew our wake up time. We were supposed to be in some nerdy class that Glenn registered us for, but we never made it. So instead we went to Buckingham Palace. Buckingham itself was kind of lame (sorry Shareen, I know that your British president lives there) but the walk to the palace turned out to be pretty interesting. Turns out, that in London, it is completely appropriate to make love in public parks. No kidding. This is what we saw on our walk through St. James Park on our way to the palace:
These two started going at it right there in front of us. They did not care that the kids in the park could see them or that I had a camera on them the whole time. Didn’t matter. It was time to get down. Brown chicken brown cow.
We continued on to the palace and wrestled our way through the crowds just in time to see people yelled at by the Bobbies and the changing of the guards. The changing of the guards was cool, but it was soooooooo loooooong. It seemed like every jerk in London was trying their hardest to body check their way closer so they could get a view of what was going on or to get their chance to breathe thier hot breath down my neck. Turned out all we could see was this:
Glad I was almost crushed to death for that.
Meanest cop ever.
As we started to leave I heard two notes of a refrain I had heard many, many times before. I said, “Dude, Glenn, I think they’re playing Star Wars.” He looked at me, like he has so many times on this trip, and just shook his head. But, believe it or not, they were playing Star Wars.
(Check Glenns post for the video) Turns out that the Queen is a huge sci-fi nerd. Not long after the band started to jam the theme song from a galaxy far, far, away the Queen came out in her wookie suit, did the wookie wave and started to sign autographs. She also said that she’d be in Louisville for Wonderfest next month and gave me her number saying she’d like to have a pint with me while discussing which was the better British actor: Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee. I’m looking forward to it. She seemed like a really nice old lady.
Afterwards we back tracked through the park and…guess what? That couple was still going at it! A whole hour had gone by and they were still groping each other for the world to see.
Go for what you know bro! Nice!
(As we discovered later, this is acceptable behavior. Seriously, these were only the first couple that we discovered shared a love for public exhibition. We saw at, at least, 3 more couples doing the same thing.)
Then it was on to Piccadilly for some shopping. We had some Malaysian food and saw this:
‘nuff said.
After ward we got on like five trains that took us to the far side of London so I could buy my dad a Harley shirt. (Love ya’ dad.)
I can’t remember what this area was called, I just know that I will thank God daily for sparing our lives. I’m sure that this area was crawling with the crazies that Glenn is so preoccupied with.
As scary as this place was, we also saw another Ferrari. Over the next few days my tally would eventually come to this:
Ferrari: 4
Lamborghini:1
Bugatti:1
Rolls:1
Lotus:1
Smart cars: Like 100 or something
Cabs with my name misspelled:1
A note to my faithful readers: My apologies for the lack of substance/humor/intelligent observation in today's two part post. I'm behind and trying to catch up. Glenn's getting hungry so were off to eat. I'll get part 2 up later.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Ireland
**I posted about Friday below.
Hey all.
Sorry for the lack of posts - we had a busy weekend.
Anyway, we're in Dublin, about to head out for the day. We'll both post a ton tonight.
Hey all.
Sorry for the lack of posts - we had a busy weekend.
Anyway, we're in Dublin, about to head out for the day. We'll both post a ton tonight.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Wicked Royalty
After missing our seminar, we came back to the hotel and changed to go out into the city.
Because our hotel was so close, we set off on foot to see the Queen and Buckingham Palace. It turns out she's not out on the lawn playing croquet and eating biscuits all the time. Instead, we came upon a horde of people from around the world crowded in front of the palace, all pushing each other to get closer.
I'm 76% sure that's not real gold.
Horses!
(Side note: What exactly does the Royal Family do? I have never been able to figure this out. How can Elizabeth (or Lizzy as I like to call her) be Queen of England and still have her face on Canadian money? Also, can she just do whatever she feels like doing? I don't get it. But they worship her. Oh, and Princess Diana. There are memorials and commemorative plates everywhere. She must've been really nice.)
So, there was this band in front of the Palace playing British stuff, when all of sudden, we here Scott's anthem. It's in the video below.
At least they did better than this girl.
On the way to/from the Palace, we came across this bird that we nicknamed Oppy, because he hops. Scott scared the crap out of him.
In honor of one of our favorite Brits (Shareen), we ate at a delicious Malaysian restaurant. Scott's food looked good.
My food looked better.
That night, we dressed up like we were going to prom and headed off to see the show. It was pretty incredible - totally changed the way I perceive one of my favorite movies. You should see it. It's coming to Louisville in January.
Because our hotel was so close, we set off on foot to see the Queen and Buckingham Palace. It turns out she's not out on the lawn playing croquet and eating biscuits all the time. Instead, we came upon a horde of people from around the world crowded in front of the palace, all pushing each other to get closer.
OMG! The Queen! Calm down. It's not like this is Christina Aguilera's house.
I'm 76% sure that's not real gold.
Horses!So, there was this band in front of the Palace playing British stuff, when all of sudden, we here Scott's anthem. It's in the video below.
On the way to/from the Palace, we came across this bird that we nicknamed Oppy, because he hops. Scott scared the crap out of him.
We ended up visiting Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square, picking up some cheap souvenirs and tickets to see Wicked in the West End.
My food looked better.
That night, we dressed up like we were going to prom and headed off to see the show. It was pretty incredible - totally changed the way I perceive one of my favorite movies. You should see it. It's coming to Louisville in January.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)