Hello! I am typing this, not from my laptop in a Starbucks in Hammersmith, but from my actual home computer! I can scarcely believe I am home. It is a strange feeling.
My flight was originally supposed to leave around 11 this morning, but when I did the online check-in yesterday it said the flight would leave at 13:15, which is fine, I got some time in the morning for one last Full English Breakfast before I left.
EXCEPT for two small problems:
1) My brain is no longer functioning at 100% capacity (based on average norms, not on any assumption that my brain has ever run at full capacity); and:
2) The London Underground chose a most inopportune time to finally fail me.
I got on the Tube to go to Paddington station and pick up the Heathrow Express, a 15-minute express train. However, about 3 stops into the journey I realize that I am instead retracing the route to Euston station, where I had gotten off the Caledonian Sleeper yesterday morning. There is no Heathrow Express from Euston. I'm going the wrong way!
Quickly jumping off the Eastbound Piccadilly Line (to Cockfosters) to the Westbound (which actually goes as far as Heathrow but takes significantly longer than an express train), I made for the South Kensington stop, where I could change to the Circle line to get to Paddington. But no, the Circle has chosen this particular Tuesday morning to experience catastrophic crippling delays, and as an alternate route would I please take the District line in the opposite direction for a few stops then get back on the Circle line going in the opposite direction to no no no I am going to miss my flight that is way too far out. Back to the Piccadilly, where I took my chances timewise. I ended up getting through Security with little time to spare.
The plane ride was significantly better than last time, mostly because of the entertainment system. The little TV was a touch screen and there were a lot of different things to watch and you could make your own music playlists and wow it was mind blowing. Since the flight was 7 and a half hours, I had time to watch almost three films. Appaloosa was really good. Ed Harris is one of those actors who never gets enough credit. City of Ember, which I thought might be crappy but took a chance on, was significantly better than I thought it would be. How To Lose Friends and Alienate People was the one I didn't get to finish, but I'm not too worried about it. It gets plus points for having Simon Pegg, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges, but minus points for being not all that funny really and having Kirsten Dunst in it. Seriously.
In between all these films, I found that they had some episodes of that old Paddington Bear stop-motion show. I've been looking for a DVD of these forever, so this was probably one of the highlights of my trip (which sounds like my trip must have been awful, but you underestimate my love for stop motion Paddington). I was watching Paddington doing "Singin' In The Rain" and I was seriously thinking that my plane could crash directly into the ocean right then and I would just have a big stupid grin on my face the whole time. SERIOUSLY.Thank you, YouTube, for illustrating my point.
Anyway, I'm not going to complain about the airplane food, everyone does that (but a salmon & cucumber sandwich? Really?), but I will reveal that there was a famous person on my flight today! I walked down the ramp right behind her! We waited for our luggage less than five feet from each other! She smiled at me once because her daughter said hello to me! ZOMG I WILL NEVER WASH THESE EYEBALLS AGAIN!
Gwyneth Paltrow is prettier in real life than in the movies, and her two kids are a handful, like most kids their ages. Where's Coldplay Guy? Probably stealing bass lines from Les Claypool or something. I kid! I like Coldplay, but they're so incredibly pretentious. Still, "Clocks" is seriously a great song. But yeah, Pepper Potts herself. New York is pretty great.
The subway ride home was interesting, since I had the privilege of making a direct comparison between it and the Tube. My comparison is this: the Tube has been around since the 1800s. It is the oldest subway in the world. They have escalators all over the place. They have mostly fabric-cushioned seats. The New York subway is dirty, smelly, and has no escalators that I've ever encountered. There is a lot of work to be done here.
I swore I'd get a pizza tonight and I ordered one on the train ride home. I tore it up, there's like two pieces left. Modern is great! I haven't driven in like two weeks, and it's not like you forget but I was a little nervous. I was driving too fast. It'll come back. On the way home I had to stop to get milk and almost paid with pounds (crap, I still have pounds!), then when I did pay with dollars and got my change, instead of saying thank you I said, "Cheers, mate," like I was back in the UK. I don't think the clerk heard me. I hope not. I expect that sort of thing will happen here and there for a few days. And jet lag, aaaaarrgh, it's like almost 3 AM for me right now.......
I'm happy to be back home to see my friends and eat pizza, but I miss being out and about already...and it's so cold...so cold here...
23 February 2009
Things To Do In Inverness When You Have A Full Afternoon Free
1) Go to local mall, find Starbucks, run laptop battery down in a feverish attempt to update blog/Facebook/check email.
2) Catch a football match in a pub; have lunch in same. Celtic and Motherwell played to a 1-1 draw, in case you were wondering.
3) Take some pictures of the town.
4) Wait for over three hours in the Inverness train station (it's not even a nice train station!) for the Sleeper.
Drum wasn't very cold, even at night. This is probably due to the loch. Inverness was stupid cold. Like low 30s cold, which I am now no longer accustomed to, apparently! I think it really wasn't that cold but the wind was insanely cold. And out here, train stations are enclosed but the tracks lead into the station, so the station is effectively open to the cold and wind. So I was sitting inside but not really. An old drunk guy asked me for 50p, and I gave it to him. I have so much change now it's ridiculous.
The last hour or so of waiting, I conversed with an old lady named Chrissy who was going back home to some town out in the suburbs somewhere. She was coming back from her sister-in-law's funeral up near John O'Groats, which is well known as the furthest place north you can drive in Britain. She was pretty cool. She was telling me how she's never been on a plane before, but her son is taking her to Chicago and Minneapolis in June. Sounds like fun!
I liked the sleeper train, but I bought a single ticket and got a cabin with two bunks. This got me wondering - did someone buy the other bunk? Is some strange person going to be joining me in this cramped cabin, trapped in a room with my farts all night? Well, the sleeper stopped making stops around midnight, so I was able to get to sleep eventually.
Next morning, it was off the train before 8 and off to drop off my bags at the hotel. Through some stroke of good fortune, I was able to get my room right away instead of waiting until 2:00 for check-in. HOORAY FOR SHOWERS.
After that, it was breakfast and back to the British Museum for some photos and stuff, saw stuff I missed earlier. The original Hokusai Great Wave print they had on display has already been rotated out for the work of another ukiyo-e artist. Oh well.
Stopped at some souvenir shops. Now I'm sitting in Starbucks, checking in for my flight tomorrow, and getting you all up to date. Maybe I'll post tomorrow before I leave.
I WILL BE HAVING PIZZA FOR DINNER TOMORROW NIGHT, I'LL TELL YOU THAT RIGHT NOW.
2) Catch a football match in a pub; have lunch in same. Celtic and Motherwell played to a 1-1 draw, in case you were wondering.
3) Take some pictures of the town.
4) Wait for over three hours in the Inverness train station (it's not even a nice train station!) for the Sleeper.Drum wasn't very cold, even at night. This is probably due to the loch. Inverness was stupid cold. Like low 30s cold, which I am now no longer accustomed to, apparently! I think it really wasn't that cold but the wind was insanely cold. And out here, train stations are enclosed but the tracks lead into the station, so the station is effectively open to the cold and wind. So I was sitting inside but not really. An old drunk guy asked me for 50p, and I gave it to him. I have so much change now it's ridiculous.
The last hour or so of waiting, I conversed with an old lady named Chrissy who was going back home to some town out in the suburbs somewhere. She was coming back from her sister-in-law's funeral up near John O'Groats, which is well known as the furthest place north you can drive in Britain. She was pretty cool. She was telling me how she's never been on a plane before, but her son is taking her to Chicago and Minneapolis in June. Sounds like fun!
I liked the sleeper train, but I bought a single ticket and got a cabin with two bunks. This got me wondering - did someone buy the other bunk? Is some strange person going to be joining me in this cramped cabin, trapped in a room with my farts all night? Well, the sleeper stopped making stops around midnight, so I was able to get to sleep eventually.
Next morning, it was off the train before 8 and off to drop off my bags at the hotel. Through some stroke of good fortune, I was able to get my room right away instead of waiting until 2:00 for check-in. HOORAY FOR SHOWERS.
After that, it was breakfast and back to the British Museum for some photos and stuff, saw stuff I missed earlier. The original Hokusai Great Wave print they had on display has already been rotated out for the work of another ukiyo-e artist. Oh well.
Stopped at some souvenir shops. Now I'm sitting in Starbucks, checking in for my flight tomorrow, and getting you all up to date. Maybe I'll post tomorrow before I leave.
I WILL BE HAVING PIZZA FOR DINNER TOMORROW NIGHT, I'LL TELL YOU THAT RIGHT NOW.
The Highland Search For Our Underwater Ally
So I arrived in Inverness early on a rainy, cold Friday afternoon and decided that all my clothes were smelly and I needed to find a laundromat. (BTW, over here they are called launderettes.) After consulting my Lonely Planet book and taking care of THAT problem, I hopped another expensive taxi to the lovely village of Drumnadrochit. Say that ten times fast. Don't even try; even the locals just call it Drum.
I stayed at the Benleva Hotel, a charming b&b (dogs welcome!) with a great central location in Drum. They are well known locally for their bar, which is pretty much full of locals all day long (and I do mean all day). On Friday night, I talked to a local woman who was Irish and had been to Connecticut and a lot of other places, including the Middle East. She was a nurse and told me how much better the healthcare system is here in the UK and how they recoil in horror that Americans only get two weeks vacation. Then again, they have a 60 hour work week here, but it still sounds like a fair trade. I dunno what I would do with 6 weeks off. Probably be a happier person, I guess.
The way people I’ve met have been talking, it’s clear that the world at large was pretty embarrassed (for Americans) that we had a president as retarded as the last guy. Also, people out here were not sure if Sarah Palin was supposed to be a joke or not. But they all feel bad for Obama because of all the stuff going on now that they feel really isn’t his fault. The more I read in the paper, the more I think that everyone at the SEC has been playing Spider Solitaire for the past ten years.
This lady also advised me not to have dinner at the Benleva, but instead to take a walk down to the Loch Ness Inn down the road. The Loch Ness Inn has a very cute logo but was way more expensive then the Benleva as far as accommodation, but the attached restaurant was really good, and reasonably priced.
There’s not much going on here in Drum apart from all the Loch Ness tourist centres competing for my attention. Up the road a bit is Urquhart Castle, where many of the Nessie sightings have occurred. I walked there (about 3.5 km away) Saturday morning. It was pretty neat. It’s a ruin, not a proper castle, but you can walk up the tower and stuff. There was also a very large gift shop.
A few words about the loch: I could immediately see why so many people have said they’ve seen stuff in the loch. There are so many random factors that can cause you to see stuff. First and foremost are the waves. The loch has some serious chop, all the time. Little whitecaps top all the waves, and they go in various directions. Add to that schools of fish, swimming deer, sturgeons, eels migrating up from the Sargasso Sea (Loch Ness opens out to the ocean), floating tree trunks, and summer heat mirages and Loch Ness becomes the perfect place to see whatever kind of mysterious creature you're looking for.
I was supposed to go on a pony trek Saturday afternoon, but I decided instead to take it easy and do as little as possible (since I've had little time on this trip to JUST RELAX), so I hit up the better of the two Loch Ness centres. Their museum-quality multimedia presentation concludes that no, there probably isn’t a creature in the loch BUT THEN AGAIN WHO KNOWS. There are an obscene number of Nessie Beanie Babies in the gift shop (which I’m sure are now worth less than nothing), and if I had $200 I could have gotten a really nice kilt. I got a few neat souvenirs for you guys but sorry, they didn’t have any remote-controlled or even inflatable Loch Ness Monsters.
After that I popped off for dinner down the street at the Loch Ness Inn again. Once dinner was finished, it was back to the Benleva for a few pints. A bunch of the regulars came storming in after bowling all afternoon and kept the place lively. Good bunch of people. Apparently a guy from Drum is stationed in Syria with the military and he’s getting married and a bunch of the locals are going out to Syria for the wedding like it’s no big deal. Syria! Sure, just pack a bag and go to Syria for the weekend. People in the UK just travel anywhere. Anyway, at around 10:00 it was off to bed.
Things I learned: I am not allergic to dogs (hooray!); I am too fat to go pony trekking anyway (how many people weigh less than 160 lbs?); Urquhart Castle was blown up on purpose.
Things I saw: a dreadlocked Scotsman named Alex; a museum-quality trebuchet; sheep; more kilts in one room than I ever thought I would see; the Loch Ness Monster; highland cows.
I stayed at the Benleva Hotel, a charming b&b (dogs welcome!) with a great central location in Drum. They are well known locally for their bar, which is pretty much full of locals all day long (and I do mean all day). On Friday night, I talked to a local woman who was Irish and had been to Connecticut and a lot of other places, including the Middle East. She was a nurse and told me how much better the healthcare system is here in the UK and how they recoil in horror that Americans only get two weeks vacation. Then again, they have a 60 hour work week here, but it still sounds like a fair trade. I dunno what I would do with 6 weeks off. Probably be a happier person, I guess.
The way people I’ve met have been talking, it’s clear that the world at large was pretty embarrassed (for Americans) that we had a president as retarded as the last guy. Also, people out here were not sure if Sarah Palin was supposed to be a joke or not. But they all feel bad for Obama because of all the stuff going on now that they feel really isn’t his fault. The more I read in the paper, the more I think that everyone at the SEC has been playing Spider Solitaire for the past ten years.
This lady also advised me not to have dinner at the Benleva, but instead to take a walk down to the Loch Ness Inn down the road. The Loch Ness Inn has a very cute logo but was way more expensive then the Benleva as far as accommodation, but the attached restaurant was really good, and reasonably priced.
There’s not much going on here in Drum apart from all the Loch Ness tourist centres competing for my attention. Up the road a bit is Urquhart Castle, where many of the Nessie sightings have occurred. I walked there (about 3.5 km away) Saturday morning. It was pretty neat. It’s a ruin, not a proper castle, but you can walk up the tower and stuff. There was also a very large gift shop.A few words about the loch: I could immediately see why so many people have said they’ve seen stuff in the loch. There are so many random factors that can cause you to see stuff. First and foremost are the waves. The loch has some serious chop, all the time. Little whitecaps top all the waves, and they go in various directions. Add to that schools of fish, swimming deer, sturgeons, eels migrating up from the Sargasso Sea (Loch Ness opens out to the ocean), floating tree trunks, and summer heat mirages and Loch Ness becomes the perfect place to see whatever kind of mysterious creature you're looking for.
I was supposed to go on a pony trek Saturday afternoon, but I decided instead to take it easy and do as little as possible (since I've had little time on this trip to JUST RELAX), so I hit up the better of the two Loch Ness centres. Their museum-quality multimedia presentation concludes that no, there probably isn’t a creature in the loch BUT THEN AGAIN WHO KNOWS. There are an obscene number of Nessie Beanie Babies in the gift shop (which I’m sure are now worth less than nothing), and if I had $200 I could have gotten a really nice kilt. I got a few neat souvenirs for you guys but sorry, they didn’t have any remote-controlled or even inflatable Loch Ness Monsters.After that I popped off for dinner down the street at the Loch Ness Inn again. Once dinner was finished, it was back to the Benleva for a few pints. A bunch of the regulars came storming in after bowling all afternoon and kept the place lively. Good bunch of people. Apparently a guy from Drum is stationed in Syria with the military and he’s getting married and a bunch of the locals are going out to Syria for the wedding like it’s no big deal. Syria! Sure, just pack a bag and go to Syria for the weekend. People in the UK just travel anywhere. Anyway, at around 10:00 it was off to bed.
Things I learned: I am not allergic to dogs (hooray!); I am too fat to go pony trekking anyway (how many people weigh less than 160 lbs?); Urquhart Castle was blown up on purpose.
Things I saw: a dreadlocked Scotsman named Alex; a museum-quality trebuchet; sheep; more kilts in one room than I ever thought I would see; the Loch Ness Monster; highland cows.
Scotland is Also Cold
I made it to Glasgow, though if I’d started out earlier in the day like I was supposed to (thanks a lot, soft ocean sounds outside my window lulling me back to sleep!) I could have made it to Inverness, but as it stood I didn’t have reservations there until Friday anyway, and I figured I’d go to Glasgow and either stay there or see where I could go from there.
Glasgow is ok. It’s not spectacular or anything. I think I’m getting used to all these old cities. The architecture’s pretty great, but honestly it's not far off from being in New Haven, with Yale's old-style buildings up against the modern stuff. It’s a city and it has lots of stores and about 50 McDonalds just like every other city. I blame America.
Also, for the record, the McNuggets and fries taste exactly the same out here. Also, there are no McNuggets on the Pound Menu (yes, they have a Pound Menu). Actually, their entire menu has much less selection than back home; I can only get a 6 piece McNugget. This annoys me.
So I wandered around Glasgow for quite a while. I figured it would be a good town to get lost in, so I set off in the right general direction and tried to find Queen Street, since that’s where the trains out north depart from. Well, guess what? Glasgow defeated me, but it didn’t play fair. Like many British cities, they don’t have street signs on corner poles like in the States. They have signs on the sides of buildings or fences on the corners. In London, they’re pretty big. But in Glasgow, they are literally like the size of a piece of paper. 8½ x 11. Placed conveniently about 2 stories high. And I now officially need glasses for distance. I was hoping it wouldn’t bite me while I was out here, but it did. So thank you tiny Glasgow street signs for making me get lost and not actually finding the station.
As a side note, I have had to ditch my scarf again in Glasgow. There are a lot of Catholic/Protestant problems here, centered mostly around the city's two football teams, Celtic and Rangers. The also have things called "orange parades" which frequently turn ugly when Rangers fans bust them up. My scarf is orange. It's staying in the bag.
I did get to Queen Street Station eventually, by finding my way back to Central Station where I’d come from (I was never 100% lost, I always knew how to get back to my start point. That’s Rule #1 of not getting hopelessly lost; I don't travel thousands of miles from home on my own so I can have some Glaswegian punter bash my head in bec ause I got really lost) and taking a taxi. The driver was the first grumpy guy I’ve met. He didn’t want to talk or anything. So I found a train to Edinburgh and got on. I thought I might make it to Inverness by midnight, though I wasn’t crazy about the idea. I have no reservations until Friday night, and I’d have to find some random place. Inverness is pretty far up to have a lot of decent choices.
The problem with my train was that I had gotten on the wrong one, sort of. Once it got moving, they announced the stops and the line ended at Stirling. Now, Stirling is a fine town, I’m sure, but seriously, Stirling? So, I start rationalizing, I figure I can stay in Stirling, whatever. The goal is to get as far north as possible, to make tomorrow’s trip to Inverness as short as necessary. Stirling is some progress. I guess. But then they stopped at Croy, where they announced a connection to Edinburgh. So I could indeed get to Edinburgh! So I got off and waited half an hour at some godforsaken, freezing cold train station at Croy for the train to Edinburgh. I arrived at Waverly Station in Edinburgh thinking that maybe this was it, I’d have to get a room…wait…no, there was a train in half an hour going out to Aberdeen! Hooray! And I’d be in Aberdeen by midnight! Wonderful. So here I sit, in a lovely hotel room in Scotland’s biggest industrial port city early Friday morning, where The Scottish Animals Board has apparently replaced all the sheep with seagulls and I feel like my room is in the aviary from Jurassic Park 3. It’s a nice room, though. Here is a picture of Aberdeen from my hotel window:
Aberdeen is also the coldest place I've been so far, by the way. Colder than Croy!
Glasgow is ok. It’s not spectacular or anything. I think I’m getting used to all these old cities. The architecture’s pretty great, but honestly it's not far off from being in New Haven, with Yale's old-style buildings up against the modern stuff. It’s a city and it has lots of stores and about 50 McDonalds just like every other city. I blame America.
Also, for the record, the McNuggets and fries taste exactly the same out here. Also, there are no McNuggets on the Pound Menu (yes, they have a Pound Menu). Actually, their entire menu has much less selection than back home; I can only get a 6 piece McNugget. This annoys me.
So I wandered around Glasgow for quite a while. I figured it would be a good town to get lost in, so I set off in the right general direction and tried to find Queen Street, since that’s where the trains out north depart from. Well, guess what? Glasgow defeated me, but it didn’t play fair. Like many British cities, they don’t have street signs on corner poles like in the States. They have signs on the sides of buildings or fences on the corners. In London, they’re pretty big. But in Glasgow, they are literally like the size of a piece of paper. 8½ x 11. Placed conveniently about 2 stories high. And I now officially need glasses for distance. I was hoping it wouldn’t bite me while I was out here, but it did. So thank you tiny Glasgow street signs for making me get lost and not actually finding the station.
As a side note, I have had to ditch my scarf again in Glasgow. There are a lot of Catholic/Protestant problems here, centered mostly around the city's two football teams, Celtic and Rangers. The also have things called "orange parades" which frequently turn ugly when Rangers fans bust them up. My scarf is orange. It's staying in the bag.
I did get to Queen Street Station eventually, by finding my way back to Central Station where I’d come from (I was never 100% lost, I always knew how to get back to my start point. That’s Rule #1 of not getting hopelessly lost; I don't travel thousands of miles from home on my own so I can have some Glaswegian punter bash my head in bec ause I got really lost) and taking a taxi. The driver was the first grumpy guy I’ve met. He didn’t want to talk or anything. So I found a train to Edinburgh and got on. I thought I might make it to Inverness by midnight, though I wasn’t crazy about the idea. I have no reservations until Friday night, and I’d have to find some random place. Inverness is pretty far up to have a lot of decent choices.
The problem with my train was that I had gotten on the wrong one, sort of. Once it got moving, they announced the stops and the line ended at Stirling. Now, Stirling is a fine town, I’m sure, but seriously, Stirling? So, I start rationalizing, I figure I can stay in Stirling, whatever. The goal is to get as far north as possible, to make tomorrow’s trip to Inverness as short as necessary. Stirling is some progress. I guess. But then they stopped at Croy, where they announced a connection to Edinburgh. So I could indeed get to Edinburgh! So I got off and waited half an hour at some godforsaken, freezing cold train station at Croy for the train to Edinburgh. I arrived at Waverly Station in Edinburgh thinking that maybe this was it, I’d have to get a room…wait…no, there was a train in half an hour going out to Aberdeen! Hooray! And I’d be in Aberdeen by midnight! Wonderful. So here I sit, in a lovely hotel room in Scotland’s biggest industrial port city early Friday morning, where The Scottish Animals Board has apparently replaced all the sheep with seagulls and I feel like my room is in the aviary from Jurassic Park 3. It’s a nice room, though. Here is a picture of Aberdeen from my hotel window:
Aberdeen is also the coldest place I've been so far, by the way. Colder than Croy!
22 February 2009
The Trouble With Scotland is It's Full of Awesome
Note: Due to there being a general lack of readily available internet access in the Highlands region (in Drumnadrochit I didn't even have a phone in my room!), it has taken me a while to put up some new posts. This post is up to date to Thursday. I'll get the blog back up to date tomorrow.
So I took the train to Belfast. On this train I saw many sheep. Similar to Wales. Sheep every place. Upon arriving at Belfast, I got a taxi to the harbour. The driver and I discussed the economy. There’s a lot of building going on in Belfast, lots of skyscrapers going up, and the driver told me that all that was started before the downturn, so Belfast looks to weather the economic storm at least until the buildings are up. It looked like a cool town to hang out in; maybe next time.
I picked up the ferry and once again, it was as well-appointed as a cruise ship. I got a bit of sleep and checked Facebook (yes, you can get the internet even on a ferry in the Irish Sea), changed my euros for pounds for an exorbitant fee at the bureau de change JUST IN CASE, and landed in Stranraer.
The taxi ride to the Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel was 100% dark (zero streetlights and only unilluminated fields of green along the roads will do that) and the road was a winding, one-lane affair that my driver was only too happy to take at top speed. The Lighthouse was a pretty great place to stay at, but since I’d spent the last two days hanging out with cool human beings, I kind of missed not having other people around. Also, it was the kind of place my grandparents would have liked, and that thought left me a bit down as well. The dinner at the lighthouse was amazing, (though I'm amazed how much lamb these people make without using garlic. They have garlic around here, they just don't seem to use it with lamb at all...still good, though) but then it was off to bed.
The best thing about the room I was in was the view from the window in the morning.
Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that? After a splendid breakfast, it was back to the rails again. The taxi ride back illuminated all the scenery I’d missed the night before. And the sheep. Again, sheep and beautiful green hills everywhere. Although, my driver warned, people from London are selling their pricey houses down in England and buying big plots of land up here in southern Scotland for cheap. It’s the same everywhere.
So here I am, typing this missive at the rather spartan train station here in Stranraer, waiting for my train to Glasgow or Inverness.
So I took the train to Belfast. On this train I saw many sheep. Similar to Wales. Sheep every place. Upon arriving at Belfast, I got a taxi to the harbour. The driver and I discussed the economy. There’s a lot of building going on in Belfast, lots of skyscrapers going up, and the driver told me that all that was started before the downturn, so Belfast looks to weather the economic storm at least until the buildings are up. It looked like a cool town to hang out in; maybe next time.
I picked up the ferry and once again, it was as well-appointed as a cruise ship. I got a bit of sleep and checked Facebook (yes, you can get the internet even on a ferry in the Irish Sea), changed my euros for pounds for an exorbitant fee at the bureau de change JUST IN CASE, and landed in Stranraer.
The taxi ride to the Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel was 100% dark (zero streetlights and only unilluminated fields of green along the roads will do that) and the road was a winding, one-lane affair that my driver was only too happy to take at top speed. The Lighthouse was a pretty great place to stay at, but since I’d spent the last two days hanging out with cool human beings, I kind of missed not having other people around. Also, it was the kind of place my grandparents would have liked, and that thought left me a bit down as well. The dinner at the lighthouse was amazing, (though I'm amazed how much lamb these people make without using garlic. They have garlic around here, they just don't seem to use it with lamb at all...still good, though) but then it was off to bed.
The best thing about the room I was in was the view from the window in the morning.
Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that? After a splendid breakfast, it was back to the rails again. The taxi ride back illuminated all the scenery I’d missed the night before. And the sheep. Again, sheep and beautiful green hills everywhere. Although, my driver warned, people from London are selling their pricey houses down in England and buying big plots of land up here in southern Scotland for cheap. It’s the same everywhere.So here I am, typing this missive at the rather spartan train station here in Stranraer, waiting for my train to Glasgow or Inverness.
Paul Sarah Dublin
After an uneventful journey on the ferry from Fishguard Harbour (I was just a bit seasick; not nearly enough to get physically ill, mind you, just enough to prevent me from wanting to eat anything), I arrived at Rosslare Europort with absolutely no itinerary. I knew there MUST be a train to Dublin after the ferry arrived, though I couldn’t find anything on the train tables. Because of this, I had no reservations anywhere, but I had a Lonely Planet book for reference if I needed to find something.
I walked over to the Rosslare train station, and there was a couple standing around waiting. I took this as a good sign. I knew that if I got to Enniscorthy, I could get a connecting train to Dublin, so I managed to ask them if the train went to Enniscorthy. It did, and we started talking. The train came, and they invited me to sit with them.
We talked for a while about stuff, then the guy asked me what religion I was. When I told him, he laughed and said he knew I was either that or a Mormon. The girl was also very pleased, since one of her best friends is a Witness. After that, we got on like a house on fire. Paul and Sarah were their names, and they had decided on the spur of the moment to head off to Dublin from Wales. Paul was in home renovation and joked endlessly about how he, like all good Welshmen, was in love with his sheep; Sarah was allergic to work and very, very witty; and they were both looking to get their minds off their troubles for a few days.
One thing Rosslare didn’t have, which I found both amazing and alarming, was a cash machine. I could have used the bureau de change on the ferry, but their commissions are insane. What this meant was that I was on a train with no way to pay for it (my railpass is not valid in Ireland and they only take euros). Paul traded me some pounds for euros and I was good to go. Thank you, Paul!
We made the transfer at Enniscorthy, where we learned that due to a rockfall, the line was closed between Greystones and Bray. We would have to take a connecting bus between the stations. This extended our trip by probably half an hour, but it was cool to see a random Irish town. It looked pretty much exactly like you’d think it would, just like the pictures.
We got into Dublin pretty late, around 10:30, and I was immediately glad to be with some people. Right from the train station, you can tell that Dublin is insane. There were kids jumping the till, driving the stationkeepers crazy. Dudes and ladies running around, laughing, being slightly drunk or more than slightly drunk. What you might expect from Dublin. Paul and Sarah told me that their hotel was pretty cheap and I should stay there if there were any rooms available there. So we caught a cab to their hotel. Their hotel was actually full (on a Monday night!), but I was directed to another one down the street that was much less of a deal but actually had rooms available.
On my way to this hotel someone yelled “BASTARDS!” and threw an egg at me. Not sure if it was meant for me (I was alone at the time, and the yelling of “bastards” was clearly plural), but I got a bit on my shoe and a bit on my suitcase. It came off pretty easy, no harm done. But still. It could have been worse, I suppose. Paul said maybe they threw stuff at me because I looked like such a tourist. Unfortunately, he’s right. What he doesn’t realize is that this is how I dress every day. It’s sort of like walking into Texas dressed like Jeff Goldblum in Buckaroo Banzai.
Well, it’s not that bad. I have seen some locals dressed like me. Old guys walking around with pipes in their mouths and newspapers under their arms, maybe walking a well-behaved Jack Russell terrier. It’s typical, I suppose, that I would regularly dress like an old man from another country. So I toned it down a bit for the rest of my Dublin stay.
The next day I slept late enough to miss breakfast, at which point I realized it had been more than 24 hours since I last ate. I was so hungry my stomach had given up trying to send me signals and was too busy gnawing away at its lining to worry about anything else. I met up with Paul and Sarah again and we walked around Dublin for a while.
Dublin is a beautiful city, with the river Liffey bisecting it. There is a lot of tourism there, though. Once again, not many service industry people spoke English as their native language, and I didn’t hear anyone speaking Gaelic except occasionally on the radio. A lot of the city is old, or at least made to look old, but there are new buildings going up all the time as well. We took a walk through St. Stephens Park, which was beautiful. There were swans and tourists and park benches and grass you weren’t allowed to trod on. We got some lunch. I got an overpriced steak that was pretty good for my first meal in 28 hours. We did a bit of shopping. I got some seasick pills for the ferry ride to Stranraer, just in case. At around 4:00, we went to the Temple Bar section of town for our first pub. (Temple Bar is referred to in my Lonely Planet book as Temple Barf.) 
I’d had a Guinness with lunch, and it did not taste any different from the norm. So at the pub, I switched to Murphy’s, which was pretty great. After a couple of those, we switched pubs to The Temple Bar, which had an indoor smoking section for Paul and adequate seating for Sarah, and we planted ourselves there for the balance of the evening. It was my intention to try a lot of different beers, but I think I stuck to just Guinness or Murphy’s. I had meant to try the Smithwick’s but I’d overheard someone complain that the line needed to be rinsed. No thank you. Paul was disappointed that every time he tried to chat up a girl she didn’t speak English. Maybe they did?
I was very disappointed to see that Budweiser is readily available in even the most Irish of pubs. American culture’s existence here in general kind of irks me, but to go to the drinking capital of the world and see the most mediocre beer in the world as one of the major choices is annoying at best.
Had an Irish whiskey to top it off, then off to bed to sleep it all off. Paul was pretty drunk, Sarah was ready to get some sleep, so we promised to meet in the morning and I went back to my room and posted the previous blog entry. Then I got some sleep.
Next morning I had a hearty breakfast, checked out of the hotel, met up with Paul and Sarah again and we did some more walking around. We found Connolly Station, where I would be heading out to Belfast from, and we stopped off at one more pub for one last pint. The Celtic was one of those real local Irish pubs, not a tourist attraction like in Temple Barf. Out in Temple Bar, every pub seems to have an even bigger gift shop attached to it. This place out by Connolly actually gave me a Guinness with a Perfect Pour, something apparently the tourists in Temple Bar are not ready to wait for. So after one last pint came some sad goodbyes and I left Paul, Sarah, and Dublin behind.
Things I learned: Dublin is full of tourists, it is crazy at night, it is probably the last place in the world you’d want to get in a barfight with someone, and it is quite possibly the best place to party in the world. Also, Radiohead was right even if they were being sarcastic; Meeting People Is Easy.
Things I saw: lots of pretty girls (possibly more than I’ve ever seen in one place); shamrocks (definitely more than I’ve ever seen in one place); old guys dressed exactly like me; lots of Garda everywhere to keep things safe, especially in Temple Bar; a street sign that said Disc Machine, though I know not why (I think it's something to do with parking discs).
I walked over to the Rosslare train station, and there was a couple standing around waiting. I took this as a good sign. I knew that if I got to Enniscorthy, I could get a connecting train to Dublin, so I managed to ask them if the train went to Enniscorthy. It did, and we started talking. The train came, and they invited me to sit with them.
We talked for a while about stuff, then the guy asked me what religion I was. When I told him, he laughed and said he knew I was either that or a Mormon. The girl was also very pleased, since one of her best friends is a Witness. After that, we got on like a house on fire. Paul and Sarah were their names, and they had decided on the spur of the moment to head off to Dublin from Wales. Paul was in home renovation and joked endlessly about how he, like all good Welshmen, was in love with his sheep; Sarah was allergic to work and very, very witty; and they were both looking to get their minds off their troubles for a few days.
One thing Rosslare didn’t have, which I found both amazing and alarming, was a cash machine. I could have used the bureau de change on the ferry, but their commissions are insane. What this meant was that I was on a train with no way to pay for it (my railpass is not valid in Ireland and they only take euros). Paul traded me some pounds for euros and I was good to go. Thank you, Paul!We made the transfer at Enniscorthy, where we learned that due to a rockfall, the line was closed between Greystones and Bray. We would have to take a connecting bus between the stations. This extended our trip by probably half an hour, but it was cool to see a random Irish town. It looked pretty much exactly like you’d think it would, just like the pictures.
We got into Dublin pretty late, around 10:30, and I was immediately glad to be with some people. Right from the train station, you can tell that Dublin is insane. There were kids jumping the till, driving the stationkeepers crazy. Dudes and ladies running around, laughing, being slightly drunk or more than slightly drunk. What you might expect from Dublin. Paul and Sarah told me that their hotel was pretty cheap and I should stay there if there were any rooms available there. So we caught a cab to their hotel. Their hotel was actually full (on a Monday night!), but I was directed to another one down the street that was much less of a deal but actually had rooms available.
On my way to this hotel someone yelled “BASTARDS!” and threw an egg at me. Not sure if it was meant for me (I was alone at the time, and the yelling of “bastards” was clearly plural), but I got a bit on my shoe and a bit on my suitcase. It came off pretty easy, no harm done. But still. It could have been worse, I suppose. Paul said maybe they threw stuff at me because I looked like such a tourist. Unfortunately, he’s right. What he doesn’t realize is that this is how I dress every day. It’s sort of like walking into Texas dressed like Jeff Goldblum in Buckaroo Banzai.
Well, it’s not that bad. I have seen some locals dressed like me. Old guys walking around with pipes in their mouths and newspapers under their arms, maybe walking a well-behaved Jack Russell terrier. It’s typical, I suppose, that I would regularly dress like an old man from another country. So I toned it down a bit for the rest of my Dublin stay.The next day I slept late enough to miss breakfast, at which point I realized it had been more than 24 hours since I last ate. I was so hungry my stomach had given up trying to send me signals and was too busy gnawing away at its lining to worry about anything else. I met up with Paul and Sarah again and we walked around Dublin for a while.
Dublin is a beautiful city, with the river Liffey bisecting it. There is a lot of tourism there, though. Once again, not many service industry people spoke English as their native language, and I didn’t hear anyone speaking Gaelic except occasionally on the radio. A lot of the city is old, or at least made to look old, but there are new buildings going up all the time as well. We took a walk through St. Stephens Park, which was beautiful. There were swans and tourists and park benches and grass you weren’t allowed to trod on. We got some lunch. I got an overpriced steak that was pretty good for my first meal in 28 hours. We did a bit of shopping. I got some seasick pills for the ferry ride to Stranraer, just in case. At around 4:00, we went to the Temple Bar section of town for our first pub. (Temple Bar is referred to in my Lonely Planet book as Temple Barf.) 
I’d had a Guinness with lunch, and it did not taste any different from the norm. So at the pub, I switched to Murphy’s, which was pretty great. After a couple of those, we switched pubs to The Temple Bar, which had an indoor smoking section for Paul and adequate seating for Sarah, and we planted ourselves there for the balance of the evening. It was my intention to try a lot of different beers, but I think I stuck to just Guinness or Murphy’s. I had meant to try the Smithwick’s but I’d overheard someone complain that the line needed to be rinsed. No thank you. Paul was disappointed that every time he tried to chat up a girl she didn’t speak English. Maybe they did?I was very disappointed to see that Budweiser is readily available in even the most Irish of pubs. American culture’s existence here in general kind of irks me, but to go to the drinking capital of the world and see the most mediocre beer in the world as one of the major choices is annoying at best.
Had an Irish whiskey to top it off, then off to bed to sleep it all off. Paul was pretty drunk, Sarah was ready to get some sleep, so we promised to meet in the morning and I went back to my room and posted the previous blog entry. Then I got some sleep.
Next morning I had a hearty breakfast, checked out of the hotel, met up with Paul and Sarah again and we did some more walking around. We found Connolly Station, where I would be heading out to Belfast from, and we stopped off at one more pub for one last pint. The Celtic was one of those real local Irish pubs, not a tourist attraction like in Temple Barf. Out in Temple Bar, every pub seems to have an even bigger gift shop attached to it. This place out by Connolly actually gave me a Guinness with a Perfect Pour, something apparently the tourists in Temple Bar are not ready to wait for. So after one last pint came some sad goodbyes and I left Paul, Sarah, and Dublin behind.
Things I learned: Dublin is full of tourists, it is crazy at night, it is probably the last place in the world you’d want to get in a barfight with someone, and it is quite possibly the best place to party in the world. Also, Radiohead was right even if they were being sarcastic; Meeting People Is Easy.
Things I saw: lots of pretty girls (possibly more than I’ve ever seen in one place); shamrocks (definitely more than I’ve ever seen in one place); old guys dressed exactly like me; lots of Garda everywhere to keep things safe, especially in Temple Bar; a street sign that said Disc Machine, though I know not why (I think it's something to do with parking discs).
17 February 2009
If it's Ddyd Llun, it must be Cymru
Note: Local terms are in parentheses.
So I spent Sunday night at Craig Y Nos Castle. It was pretty neat. I spent most of the time I was there at the hotel bar, knocking back Guinnesses (the best of the castle’s draft (draught) selection; Carling isn’t fooling anyone and I don’t mind cider but if I have to choose between Strongbow and Guinness…) and taking advantage of their free wifi. Free wifi in a castle! Will wonders never cease? It’s not a castle like you would think of a castle; no battles were fought there or anything, and it’s really more like a mansion than anything else. The interior is all done up modern, with wood floors and what not. It’s a really nice place, but it’s not like there’s shields on the walls everywhere and knights’ armor mounted on stands at every corner.
Anyway, the castle (like all castles in Britain) is supposed to be haunted. I took this with a grain of salt, since they make a lot of their money with the haunted house schtick. But I think it might actually be possible that there’s some messed up stuff going on there. There was some weird looking knick-knack on the dresser in my room that I wasn’t at all comfortable with, so I put it on a table in the hall. I tried to take a picture of it with every possible camera setting and it always came out blurry.
SPOOOOOKY
Also, at about 5 in the morning, there were footsteps running up and down the hall. Now, the lights in the hallway were on all night, and I didn’t see any shadows running past. Also, the only other people there that night were two older couples, and I made it to breakfast before them, so unless they like to run around castle hallways like children I don’t think it was them. Who was it? I DON'T KNOW.
But all of this was worth putting up with because I got to accomplish two of my lifelong goals – to spend the night in a castle and take a bath in one of those really big bathtubs. It was pretty great. Nice to relax a bit after all that running about in London. It’s all running about from here on in, at least for a while.
In the morning my taxi took a while in arriving, so I had to go with my backup rail itinerary. This means that I was unable to return to Cardiff (Caerdydd) to find out what the deal was with BRAINS. But I found out anyways. It has to do with beer. Of course.
The cab driver (who charged an obscene amount, by the way) was apparently a really big fan of wrestling. He likes the Undertaker the best. I was unable to get involved in an in-depth discussion of the intricacies of the WWE (nee WWF) though, since much of my knowledge of wrestling deals with the Hogan/Piper/Andre the Giant era, and he seemed to have not even heard of any of them. The dude was in his 50s, it wasn’t like he wasn’t around, right? I dunno. Whatever. He was cool, and he got me to Neath (Castell-nedd) Station. That is the point.
Anyway, I left Neath (Castell-nedd) and headed to Swansea (Abertawe), then Llanelli (Llanelli), then finally to Fishguard Harbour (Porthladd Abergwaun), where I picked up the ferry. That’s where the above paragraphs were typed. I am currently crossing the Irish Sea in a ferry that is appointed almost as well as a cruise ship. Hopefully, I will not get seasick. They have stabilizers and etc., but who knows. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, just in case!
Note: This post was written Monday afternoon. I can't be bothered to post my Dublin adventures yet since they are still happening and also I have more important things to do. Like tipping the glass.
So I spent Sunday night at Craig Y Nos Castle. It was pretty neat. I spent most of the time I was there at the hotel bar, knocking back Guinnesses (the best of the castle’s draft (draught) selection; Carling isn’t fooling anyone and I don’t mind cider but if I have to choose between Strongbow and Guinness…) and taking advantage of their free wifi. Free wifi in a castle! Will wonders never cease? It’s not a castle like you would think of a castle; no battles were fought there or anything, and it’s really more like a mansion than anything else. The interior is all done up modern, with wood floors and what not. It’s a really nice place, but it’s not like there’s shields on the walls everywhere and knights’ armor mounted on stands at every corner.
Anyway, the castle (like all castles in Britain) is supposed to be haunted. I took this with a grain of salt, since they make a lot of their money with the haunted house schtick. But I think it might actually be possible that there’s some messed up stuff going on there. There was some weird looking knick-knack on the dresser in my room that I wasn’t at all comfortable with, so I put it on a table in the hall. I tried to take a picture of it with every possible camera setting and it always came out blurry.
SPOOOOOKYAlso, at about 5 in the morning, there were footsteps running up and down the hall. Now, the lights in the hallway were on all night, and I didn’t see any shadows running past. Also, the only other people there that night were two older couples, and I made it to breakfast before them, so unless they like to run around castle hallways like children I don’t think it was them. Who was it? I DON'T KNOW.
But all of this was worth putting up with because I got to accomplish two of my lifelong goals – to spend the night in a castle and take a bath in one of those really big bathtubs. It was pretty great. Nice to relax a bit after all that running about in London. It’s all running about from here on in, at least for a while.
In the morning my taxi took a while in arriving, so I had to go with my backup rail itinerary. This means that I was unable to return to Cardiff (Caerdydd) to find out what the deal was with BRAINS. But I found out anyways. It has to do with beer. Of course.
The cab driver (who charged an obscene amount, by the way) was apparently a really big fan of wrestling. He likes the Undertaker the best. I was unable to get involved in an in-depth discussion of the intricacies of the WWE (nee WWF) though, since much of my knowledge of wrestling deals with the Hogan/Piper/Andre the Giant era, and he seemed to have not even heard of any of them. The dude was in his 50s, it wasn’t like he wasn’t around, right? I dunno. Whatever. He was cool, and he got me to Neath (Castell-nedd) Station. That is the point.
Anyway, I left Neath (Castell-nedd) and headed to Swansea (Abertawe), then Llanelli (Llanelli), then finally to Fishguard Harbour (Porthladd Abergwaun), where I picked up the ferry. That’s where the above paragraphs were typed. I am currently crossing the Irish Sea in a ferry that is appointed almost as well as a cruise ship. Hopefully, I will not get seasick. They have stabilizers and etc., but who knows. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, just in case!
Note: This post was written Monday afternoon. I can't be bothered to post my Dublin adventures yet since they are still happening and also I have more important things to do. Like tipping the glass.
15 February 2009
It’s Called New England For a Reason
Since I didn’t really meet up with any locals on my tour yesterday (though I did meet some awfully nice Australians), I decided not to try to go to the meeting on Sunday in order to ensure that I make my train to Swansea. Which I did. This left me some time in the morning to get some photos with Buzz and Woody. I figured I’d take them up to Cockfosters, since everyone seems to think the name is hilarious. Nobody goes to Cockfosters, by the way. It’s at the end of the Piccadilly line and takes forever to get to.
Anyways, one I checked out of my hotel, I got on my train and headed to Swansea. There are some beautiful scenic views of West English countryside, I mean absolutely stunning. I wished I could have stopped the train and gotten some pictures. Much of the area is still relatively green (green enough for sheep to graze), though there were patches where snow is still stubbornly refusing to melt completely. Then again, I did see automotive junkyards, high power lines, and areas of urban sprawl as well, so it isn’t all amazing. But it’s good to know that those rolling green hills where sheep and horses graze are still in existence on the English countryside. It looks an awful lot like New England, only less built-up. The main difference seems to be that the trees are all twisty and gnarled and there’s a whole lot more brush and vines and briars.
Also, just so you know, first class rail travel is great.
I like Wales from the window of the train, but once the exorbitantly-priced taxi was taking me out to the castle it lost a lot of its romance. Driving through all the beat-up little towns that look like they haven’t been maintained since 1845, you see some beautiful neighborhoods and some that are less awesome, shacks with aluminum siding for a roof and that sort of thing. The kind of thing a neighborhood association would never allow.
Wales is also friendlier than London by the simple fact that I have actually had two conversations in the course of three hours, and only two in the previous three days while in London. But it’s still pretty restrained. Looking forward to Ireland’s much-reported hospitality!
Overheard on the tube:
Boy: “What is our stop? Is it Artist Grove?”
Daddy: “We’re going to Covent Garden today.”
Mummy: “And that station’s called Arnos Grove. Arnos, like Davros.”
Boy: “Davros! You are arrogant, Doctor!”
Girl: [cackles madly]
Boy: Silence, Dalek Caan!
Moments later, an Eastern European (we’ll say Russian for simplicity) couple next to me:
Man: “russianrussianrussian Davros russianrussian”
Woman: “russianrussian Doktor russianrussian”
Both: “hahahahaha”
Doctor Who has, apparently, completely permeated British culture.
Things I saw today: a guy who looked like what would happen if David Cross ate too much Burger King; bilingual signage for monolingual people; a bowling alley in Bristol called the Hollywood Bowl (get it? GET IT?); a building in Cardiff which said BRAINS in huge letters on the side. Hopefully I’ll figure that one out tomorrow…
Things I smelled today: the New Haven Coliseum. The walkway over Neath Station had the exact pigeon-poo/rotting concrete/decaying steel smell as the Old Barn (I have never called the Coliseum “the Old Barn” until just now).
Anyways, one I checked out of my hotel, I got on my train and headed to Swansea. There are some beautiful scenic views of West English countryside, I mean absolutely stunning. I wished I could have stopped the train and gotten some pictures. Much of the area is still relatively green (green enough for sheep to graze), though there were patches where snow is still stubbornly refusing to melt completely. Then again, I did see automotive junkyards, high power lines, and areas of urban sprawl as well, so it isn’t all amazing. But it’s good to know that those rolling green hills where sheep and horses graze are still in existence on the English countryside. It looks an awful lot like New England, only less built-up. The main difference seems to be that the trees are all twisty and gnarled and there’s a whole lot more brush and vines and briars.Also, just so you know, first class rail travel is great.
I like Wales from the window of the train, but once the exorbitantly-priced taxi was taking me out to the castle it lost a lot of its romance. Driving through all the beat-up little towns that look like they haven’t been maintained since 1845, you see some beautiful neighborhoods and some that are less awesome, shacks with aluminum siding for a roof and that sort of thing. The kind of thing a neighborhood association would never allow.
Wales is also friendlier than London by the simple fact that I have actually had two conversations in the course of three hours, and only two in the previous three days while in London. But it’s still pretty restrained. Looking forward to Ireland’s much-reported hospitality!
Overheard on the tube:
Boy: “What is our stop? Is it Artist Grove?”
Daddy: “We’re going to Covent Garden today.”
Mummy: “And that station’s called Arnos Grove. Arnos, like Davros.”
Boy: “Davros! You are arrogant, Doctor!”
Girl: [cackles madly]
Boy: Silence, Dalek Caan!
Moments later, an Eastern European (we’ll say Russian for simplicity) couple next to me:
Man: “russianrussianrussian Davros russianrussian”
Woman: “russianrussian Doktor russianrussian”
Both: “hahahahaha”
Doctor Who has, apparently, completely permeated British culture.
Things I saw today: a guy who looked like what would happen if David Cross ate too much Burger King; bilingual signage for monolingual people; a bowling alley in Bristol called the Hollywood Bowl (get it? GET IT?); a building in Cardiff which said BRAINS in huge letters on the side. Hopefully I’ll figure that one out tomorrow…
Things I smelled today: the New Haven Coliseum. The walkway over Neath Station had the exact pigeon-poo/rotting concrete/decaying steel smell as the Old Barn (I have never called the Coliseum “the Old Barn” until just now).
What is Decided Upon is Desolations
I spent much of Saturday at the British Museum. The tube was extremely crowded due to closures on the Jubilee and Victoria lines, so it was much less fun than normal. Arriving at the Museum, I met up with the tour group and we went on our first Bible-centric tour, entitled “Choose For Yourselves”. The tour dealt with the various pervasive influences the Israelites had to deal with in trying to maintain a good standing before God. It was a very good tour and I can probably re-create it upon request when I get back, since I took pictures. The guide, I forget his name, was very good and gave us little earpieces to wear so as not to disturb those around us. It is a museum, after all.
One thing that annoys me about museums is the glass. Whenever you try to take a picture of something, you get that big flash reflection marring your picture. If I turn off the flash, I get blur from my pre-Parkinson’s. Very annoying, but I think when I’m in London again on Monday I’ll get some more pictures there and hit up the gift shop. If anyone wants a Rosetta Stone paperweight or a t-shirt or something, please let me know.
The second tour was one I had been hoping to get, “This is History Written in Advance”. The guide, a quick-witted guy named Justin Moss, spoke as loudly as possible to draw attention to his awesome material and went over all the stuff in Daniel chapters 6 and 7 dealing with the Greek and Roman empires. He highlighted the fact that the book of Daniel was written 200 years before any of the subjects of the prophecies were even born, and how the prophecies were coming to pass right down to the first century. I’m sure he could have gone further, but the scope of the tour ended with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem. Really cool stuff, even better if you’ve seen I, Claudius because you can recall how crazy John Hurt's Caligula was.
After that I got some dinner, had a few pints, and turned in early at about 9:00. I’m not sure my body has fully acclimated to the time change yet, and I’ve been walking everywhere, so I was pretty tired.
Yes I realize it's Saturday night in London, what do you expect me to do, go clubbing? Seriously? Do you even know me? Clubbing?
One thing that annoys me about museums is the glass. Whenever you try to take a picture of something, you get that big flash reflection marring your picture. If I turn off the flash, I get blur from my pre-Parkinson’s. Very annoying, but I think when I’m in London again on Monday I’ll get some more pictures there and hit up the gift shop. If anyone wants a Rosetta Stone paperweight or a t-shirt or something, please let me know.The second tour was one I had been hoping to get, “This is History Written in Advance”. The guide, a quick-witted guy named Justin Moss, spoke as loudly as possible to draw attention to his awesome material and went over all the stuff in Daniel chapters 6 and 7 dealing with the Greek and Roman empires. He highlighted the fact that the book of Daniel was written 200 years before any of the subjects of the prophecies were even born, and how the prophecies were coming to pass right down to the first century. I’m sure he could have gone further, but the scope of the tour ended with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem. Really cool stuff, even better if you’ve seen I, Claudius because you can recall how crazy John Hurt's Caligula was.
After that I got some dinner, had a few pints, and turned in early at about 9:00. I’m not sure my body has fully acclimated to the time change yet, and I’ve been walking everywhere, so I was pretty tired.
Yes I realize it's Saturday night in London, what do you expect me to do, go clubbing? Seriously? Do you even know me? Clubbing?
14 February 2009
Hey I Am Still In London
Note: I wrote this yesterday but didn't get wifi access until this afternoon. Sorry for the delay. Clearly this will be an issue going forward. For once technology is actually behind my needs instead of ahead.
The two biggest news items here were the 13 year old boy who is now a father with his 15 year old girlfriend; and the 9/11 widow who died in a plane crash. That crash seemed to make all the international news stations. Couldn’t tell you if they all went with the 9/11 angle, because I only speak English. It's a sad story, but everyone seems to be focusing on the tragic irony instead of the bigger picture.
Anyways. So I went to check out the British Museum. It’s a bit like the Met in New York, just without so many paintings. I hung out there for about an hour, took some pictures. I’ll be back tomorrow. I figured I’d stop by St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren’s masterwork, but they wanted £11 admission and you couldn’t even take pictures. NEVERMIND. So I kicked around on the tube for a while and then got some lunch.
It was more like an early dinner, actually, since it was like 4:00 or so. But why on earth would I go to the Burger King across the street? Because I didn’t feel like getting wifi from the Starbucks next door, so I figured I’ll just pick it up through the wall while I have a Whopper. After this utterly familiar meal, I checked out the Museum of Science, which was incredibly boring. I mean super boring. LOOK A STEAM ENGINE
HOW EXCITING! And for me to say it was boring…
The Museum of Natural History is a very interesting place. The new wings are pretty typical, but the old museum is basically Darwin Cathedral.
Seriously.
They had some good dinosaur skeletons, though.
Then I decided to kick around the tube a bit more. I was going to see a few sights, but it was getting dark. At one point, I found myself at Paddington Station, which was AWESOME. When I was on my way to Hammersmith, I noticed out the window (that part of the Hammersmith & City Line is elevated) a huge Westfield Shoppingtown (you can run, but you can’t hide from the Westfield conglomerate), where I decided I might find a watch. I found a Swatch that didn’t look like it was from 1988, so now that problem is solved. Some more aimless tube riding, a few pints in the hotel bar, and in bed by 11:30.
Save some fun for tomorrow, hahahahaha!
- The commercials here are insane, but not like you'd expect. I’ve seen tourism commercials for Azerbaijan, Croatia, and Nigeria. They made the places look nice, at least. But come on, Nigeria? There was also a slick-looking ad for Zenith Bank, Nigeria’s #1 bank. All I could think about is whether that was the #1 bank used by those guys who always need YOUR HELP MY FRIEND TO TRANSFER MY MONIES FROM THE COUNTRY. Ray Parker Jr. appears in a commercial for the 118 phone service. Huey Lewis needed some cash, I guess. I'm sure we'll soon be adding "I ain't afraid of no goats," to the Obscure Catchphrase Lexicon very soon.
- Apparently CNN now thinks that showing Australian newspaper webpages on the TV screen is good television news reporting.
- Walking – on the left or the right? I’m still confused. I’ve been trying to walk on the left when possible, but sometimes there is confusion. This probably has to do with the fact that at least 60% of the people walking around here are tourists. There are a few signs on the tube steps about keeping left, but on the sidewalk all bets are off.
- Things I saw today: a family of redheaded French people, four pigeons that tried to dive into my head (one inside Paddington Station, one trying to keep me out of St. Paul’s), the Elgin Marbles, and the inside of a Tesco.
- 1 in 4 people in London is apparently a university-age Asian girl. So if that’s your bag, come to London but remember that all Asian girls are looking for black guys because they're really into the whole ghetto thing.
- 1 in 3 guys around here look like that dude from Coldplay.
Overheard: an older gentleman who said to his wife, “Bloody hell’s bells!” in a way that I only thought could be uttered on television or in film. People here really do talk like that.
Note: Not sure if I'll be posting tomorrow. I may not have time/access/ability until I get to Dublin on Monday or Tuesday, so if I don't update until then don't worry! I am enjoying all the comments and etc. Please keep them coming!
The two biggest news items here were the 13 year old boy who is now a father with his 15 year old girlfriend; and the 9/11 widow who died in a plane crash. That crash seemed to make all the international news stations. Couldn’t tell you if they all went with the 9/11 angle, because I only speak English. It's a sad story, but everyone seems to be focusing on the tragic irony instead of the bigger picture.
Anyways. So I went to check out the British Museum. It’s a bit like the Met in New York, just without so many paintings. I hung out there for about an hour, took some pictures. I’ll be back tomorrow. I figured I’d stop by St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren’s masterwork, but they wanted £11 admission and you couldn’t even take pictures. NEVERMIND. So I kicked around on the tube for a while and then got some lunch.
It was more like an early dinner, actually, since it was like 4:00 or so. But why on earth would I go to the Burger King across the street? Because I didn’t feel like getting wifi from the Starbucks next door, so I figured I’ll just pick it up through the wall while I have a Whopper. After this utterly familiar meal, I checked out the Museum of Science, which was incredibly boring. I mean super boring. LOOK A STEAM ENGINE
HOW EXCITING! And for me to say it was boring…The Museum of Natural History is a very interesting place. The new wings are pretty typical, but the old museum is basically Darwin Cathedral.
Seriously.
They had some good dinosaur skeletons, though.Then I decided to kick around the tube a bit more. I was going to see a few sights, but it was getting dark. At one point, I found myself at Paddington Station, which was AWESOME. When I was on my way to Hammersmith, I noticed out the window (that part of the Hammersmith & City Line is elevated) a huge Westfield Shoppingtown (you can run, but you can’t hide from the Westfield conglomerate), where I decided I might find a watch. I found a Swatch that didn’t look like it was from 1988, so now that problem is solved. Some more aimless tube riding, a few pints in the hotel bar, and in bed by 11:30.
Save some fun for tomorrow, hahahahaha!
- The commercials here are insane, but not like you'd expect. I’ve seen tourism commercials for Azerbaijan, Croatia, and Nigeria. They made the places look nice, at least. But come on, Nigeria? There was also a slick-looking ad for Zenith Bank, Nigeria’s #1 bank. All I could think about is whether that was the #1 bank used by those guys who always need YOUR HELP MY FRIEND TO TRANSFER MY MONIES FROM THE COUNTRY. Ray Parker Jr. appears in a commercial for the 118 phone service. Huey Lewis needed some cash, I guess. I'm sure we'll soon be adding "I ain't afraid of no goats," to the Obscure Catchphrase Lexicon very soon.
- Apparently CNN now thinks that showing Australian newspaper webpages on the TV screen is good television news reporting.
- Walking – on the left or the right? I’m still confused. I’ve been trying to walk on the left when possible, but sometimes there is confusion. This probably has to do with the fact that at least 60% of the people walking around here are tourists. There are a few signs on the tube steps about keeping left, but on the sidewalk all bets are off.
- Things I saw today: a family of redheaded French people, four pigeons that tried to dive into my head (one inside Paddington Station, one trying to keep me out of St. Paul’s), the Elgin Marbles, and the inside of a Tesco.
- 1 in 4 people in London is apparently a university-age Asian girl. So if that’s your bag, come to London but remember that all Asian girls are looking for black guys because they're really into the whole ghetto thing.
- 1 in 3 guys around here look like that dude from Coldplay.
Overheard: an older gentleman who said to his wife, “Bloody hell’s bells!” in a way that I only thought could be uttered on television or in film. People here really do talk like that.
Note: Not sure if I'll be posting tomorrow. I may not have time/access/ability until I get to Dublin on Monday or Tuesday, so if I don't update until then don't worry! I am enjoying all the comments and etc. Please keep them coming!
13 February 2009
Thursday
So I got up from my nap around 8 (a bit later than I’d hoped) and it was snowing, those big, wet flakes that only fall when it’s like 32.5 degrees. So of course, I decided to go for a walk. I needed to figure out where the British Museum was, apart from it being at the Russell Square station. So I found it a few blocks from the station, walked around aimlessly for a while (well, not entirely aimlessly; I need to find a place to buy an umbrella), then went back to the hotel to get some dinner. When they brought my bottle of Newcastle, I found out that in the UK they have recommended daily allowances for alcohol! Pretty neat.
I was unable to find a hall last night, but I'm sure I'll figure something out when I go on my British Museum tour tomorrow.
My cellphone is completely useless here. Not only is it out of service, I can’t charge it through my laptop like I thought I could (what’s the point of a USB cord then? Well, aside from data transfer) and it is apparently not even all that great at figuring out what time it is locally. So now I need to get a watch.
I don’t want a watch. Looking at it becomes a nervous habit for me, and I’m trying to reduce the number of nervous habits I have (I think I’m down to 37). However, I need to do things like make it to trains, ferries and planes on time, and a watch is probably going to be helpful in that respect. But I haven’t found a store that sells watches yet. If I want a laptop or a camera or a PDA, there’s about a billion of those stores around, though.
Best thing I overheard yesterday:
"Gelato now!"
"You're not getting a gelato I just got you one!"
Everything else I heard during the day was in other languages. Seriously. There are so many people here speaking every language you can imagine. Also English.
On the schedule today is checking out the British Museum for a bit, maybe peeking into the Natural History museum (they have a Darwin exhibit! WOW), then maybe doing some semi-touristy things. I dunno.
I got a full English breakfast. No black pudding, but there was an interesting egg. Now, I've eaten a lot of eggs prepared in various ways, but never one that was impervious to my fork! I had to use my knife on it. Pretty crazy.
Well, I'm off for now! Wi-fi is rare and expensive!
I was unable to find a hall last night, but I'm sure I'll figure something out when I go on my British Museum tour tomorrow.
My cellphone is completely useless here. Not only is it out of service, I can’t charge it through my laptop like I thought I could (what’s the point of a USB cord then? Well, aside from data transfer) and it is apparently not even all that great at figuring out what time it is locally. So now I need to get a watch.
I don’t want a watch. Looking at it becomes a nervous habit for me, and I’m trying to reduce the number of nervous habits I have (I think I’m down to 37). However, I need to do things like make it to trains, ferries and planes on time, and a watch is probably going to be helpful in that respect. But I haven’t found a store that sells watches yet. If I want a laptop or a camera or a PDA, there’s about a billion of those stores around, though.
Best thing I overheard yesterday:
"Gelato now!"
"You're not getting a gelato I just got you one!"
Everything else I heard during the day was in other languages. Seriously. There are so many people here speaking every language you can imagine. Also English.
On the schedule today is checking out the British Museum for a bit, maybe peeking into the Natural History museum (they have a Darwin exhibit! WOW), then maybe doing some semi-touristy things. I dunno.
I got a full English breakfast. No black pudding, but there was an interesting egg. Now, I've eaten a lot of eggs prepared in various ways, but never one that was impervious to my fork! I had to use my knife on it. Pretty crazy.
Well, I'm off for now! Wi-fi is rare and expensive!
12 February 2009
The Story So Far
So just before I left, my man Randy said that two of our friends wanted to go to the UK, so I brought them along.
They preferred to stay in my bag for the trip, but they're pretty jet lagged right now so no real photo ops yet.
I'm pretty jet lagged myself, but here are a few observations from the trip so far:
- It was super warm yesterday, but it's in maybe the 40s here right now. It was sunny when I arrived, but now the sky has that hazy grey that only seems to happen when it's about to snow. It is hilarious, there are lots of people dressed reasonably, but therre are also a lot of people wearing eskimo parkas and furry hats and whatnot.
- I was worried about finding my hotel from the Underground, since the only directions I had said to get off at Gloucester Station. So I figured I'd end up figuring it out...sure enough, it was right outside the station. I can see it from my window!
Pretty neat!
- The flight was uneventful. The most notable experience was probably the luggage carousel. WILL I GET MY LUGGAGE BACK??? The answer was Yes, but the baggage handlers do like to keep you in suspense.
- As we were boarding at JFK, I met an American Japanese couple who were very friendly and appreciated my Joy Division shirt. The guy was saying that he wore his similar (but better, his wife added) shirt to a Killers show (who covered Joy Division's "Shadowplay" to great radio success) but no one commented on it. Kids today don't know their history.
- Airplane food is pretty consistently terrible. But the flight did have an audio station featuring the best of New Order, so that was nice. I must have gotten maybe 3 hours sleep on the flight, but not what one would consider quality sleep.
- London's Underground reminds me of a cross between Boston and Toronto. It's about as clean as Toronto (so far), and a lot of it is overground like the T in Boston. There was a busker who played a violin jig version of the James Bond Theme, but at the time all I had was 20s in pounds and some dollar bills that he probably didn't want. Maybe I'll see him once I break these 20s.
Anyway, I'm going to take a nap and then see if I can find a hall around here to go to.
They preferred to stay in my bag for the trip, but they're pretty jet lagged right now so no real photo ops yet.I'm pretty jet lagged myself, but here are a few observations from the trip so far:
- It was super warm yesterday, but it's in maybe the 40s here right now. It was sunny when I arrived, but now the sky has that hazy grey that only seems to happen when it's about to snow. It is hilarious, there are lots of people dressed reasonably, but therre are also a lot of people wearing eskimo parkas and furry hats and whatnot.
- I was worried about finding my hotel from the Underground, since the only directions I had said to get off at Gloucester Station. So I figured I'd end up figuring it out...sure enough, it was right outside the station. I can see it from my window!
Pretty neat!- The flight was uneventful. The most notable experience was probably the luggage carousel. WILL I GET MY LUGGAGE BACK??? The answer was Yes, but the baggage handlers do like to keep you in suspense.
- As we were boarding at JFK, I met an American Japanese couple who were very friendly and appreciated my Joy Division shirt. The guy was saying that he wore his similar (but better, his wife added) shirt to a Killers show (who covered Joy Division's "Shadowplay" to great radio success) but no one commented on it. Kids today don't know their history.
- Airplane food is pretty consistently terrible. But the flight did have an audio station featuring the best of New Order, so that was nice. I must have gotten maybe 3 hours sleep on the flight, but not what one would consider quality sleep.
- London's Underground reminds me of a cross between Boston and Toronto. It's about as clean as Toronto (so far), and a lot of it is overground like the T in Boston. There was a busker who played a violin jig version of the James Bond Theme, but at the time all I had was 20s in pounds and some dollar bills that he probably didn't want. Maybe I'll see him once I break these 20s.
Anyway, I'm going to take a nap and then see if I can find a hall around here to go to.
06 February 2009
My Hotel
After much deliberation, I have chosen to stay at one of the UK's finer hotels. A lot of research went into this choice, and many factors including distance from important landmarks, cost, and amenities were considered. I now present to you the place I will be staying at for my first few nights:
03 February 2009
Snowfall!
So I said, "You know, I want to go somewhere neat and get away from the snow. Maybe I'll go to the UK, since it mostly rains there in the winter and I've always wanted to go."Yeah, right.
Of course, about a week before I head out there, the UK gets bombed with record snowfalls. And of course their transport infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle it. I knew I should have gone to Australia...
The best part of this news story is this sentence:
Roads have become impassable and more than 250 schools have been closed across the counties after some areas, mostly in the west and north, were under 10cm of snow.
Guys, 10cm is like 4 inches. Britain has been brought to its knees by 4 inches of snow.
In Kentucky, USA, the governor had to call in the entire state's National Guard to handle the mess after the snowstorm last week. The problem stemmed from the accumulation of ice on all the trees, which caused tree limbs to break to such an extent that almost all the roads were impassable. According to emergency personnel, it really looks as if a bomb had gone off; most trees and power lines are on the ground in pieces, and no one can get anywhere because the roads are so full of trees and tree limbs. Can you imagine not being able to get anywhere, not because of the snow, but because there's too many branches in the road? Just goes to show you that the weather can (and will) find unexpected ways to screw with you.
I wonder what kind of crazy weather pattern global warming/climate change/whatever it is will award the northeast with this year...
Hopefully the retarded weather in the UK will stop after this week!
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