Scotland Day 5 + Start of Germany
Our last day in Scotland wasn’t too crazy. We decided to do our own Harry Potter tour.
You see there’s a cafe were J.K. Rowling wrote some of the first Harry Potter book. There’s also a graveyard in Scotland with a grave that says Tom Riddle on it, very close to this cafe. Also, the school that inspired the concept of Hogwarts is also in Scotland. These were our site plans and mission for the day.
Our plane left out of Glasgow at 8:55am. We needed to take a bus from Edinburgh to Glasgow then to the Glasgow airport. The last bus out was at 11:59 or the first was 5:00am. It takes at least hour and half to two hours to get there. So as you can see we opted for the midnight one and getting to the airport early. Cause of that we decided to do a little bit then rest before our adventure at midnight.
The Elephant House. This cafe was so cute! It was red and even had a sign out front, stating how proud they were about J.K. Rowling being there. Holly and I weren’t hungry, but how do you not eat at this cafe?! It’s not very often I find myself in this situation and to our delightful surprise it was relatively cheap! My meal was great- just a baked potato, bacon and Brie. We too pictures, soaked it in and headed out to the graveyard.
This graveyard was huge. The tombstones look like the ones in Harry Potter movies, or any movie for that matter. If I ever needed to film an eery, foggy, and dark graveyard scene for a movie, I would pick this one. We walked around what felt like forever in search of the grave. We had absolutely no luck. Between the amount of graves, how old they were, and placed in no methodical way, we were hopeless. But it was great to explore and see none the less. We had decided not to go back to the school because it was much farther than we realized and we had seen it previously on our highlands tour as a drive by.
At this point we headed back to the hostel where we killed time before we left. Showering, packing, relaxing in the lobby and Holly napped. 11:15 came and Holly and I stepped out into the night, beginning out next adventure.
This trip we have been making a habit of traveling at night. I haven’t figured out why yet. Either between finances and timing it worked out better or Holly and I secretly have an evil desire for adventures and stories.
We get to the Edinburg bus station, grab our bus and are on our way to Glasgow. Because I hadn’t slept at all, I was exhausted. I made attempts to sleep on this bus. I was determined. But by the time I did, two hours had gone and we were in Glasgow. It’s now 2 in the morning and we are at a bus station. You can guess how many people weren’t there. We walk up to a sign to check the time when the shuttle will leave for the airport. As we approach the area we can see one man standing there with bags. We don’t say anything and proceed to read the sign. Next thing I hear is, “Ya’ll know if this bus is going to the airport?” I look up, smile, and answer proudly with my west coast accent and say, “I sure hope so.”
The guy smiles and says “Who would have known! Two in the morning, I’m stuck at a bus station in Glasgow, Scotland and I run into two Americans!”
This was Mike. Mike from Tennessee. The spunkiest person we have met this whole trip. He was in the army, on his way back home to his daughter and wife. He was mighty awake for 2:00 in the morning. The three of us talked and talked, killing the time waiting for the bus and on the bus. This guy shows us pictures of his daughter, told us about his first Hostel experience (which sounded like something you would see in a movie) and we were cracking up. He was open and friendly, but just winging his whole trip home.
Finally we get to the airport. It’s 3 in the morning and everything is closed. We look around to find everyone around us sleeping. I, determined to sleep, make shift my own bed. As my mom says, I can’t sleep anywhere.
At 6:55, two hours to our flight we were able to check in. While I was checking in, a woman went up to the counter and seemed rather distressed. She asks the attendant how much a flight to Dublin is because another airline said it was £199 (which is insane!) And the person said they only have flights to Belfast. So I looked at her and I said “you can take a bus and a ferry, it’s much cheaper” and she looked at me and said “are you American?” I said “a huh” and she just started to ball her eyes out crying. Ami brought her son to London for his 18 birthday and was suppose to leave on Sunday but because the baby was born and other mishaps she was now in Scotland and missed her only possible flight because the bus driver took smoking breaks and was now stuck in Scotland.
We spent about an hour helping her find a cheap flight to Belfast and a bus to Dublin because the ferry would be too late. She was so grateful and added us on Facebook. She’s like I need to know people like you guys! It was great, she’s still trying to get out of Dublin (where we explained how to get to) but she’s enjoying it now! It was crazy.
Holly and I go through security, get on our flight and I pass out. I slept before we took off and woke up when we landed. We even landed 30 minutes early.
We make the trek to our hostel, check in and take a long nap. Our first official day wasn’t too eventful, it was tiring!
Our next first full day in Berlin Holly and I walked all day. All day! We walked to the Berlin Wall, which I touched! We saw the wall, went to check point Charlie and just all over. It was fun!
We went to the Topography of Terror. I have no words. Just pictures to explain. Ill post it separately.
The cool thing is, well one of many, the two bricks along the ground are placed where the Berlin Wall use to stand.
Also, much of the Berlin Wall is painted on and used for graffiti art. The part I’m in front of is the only part of the wall left that is not allowed to be touched.
Scotland Day 4
Holly and I woke up at the crack of dawn, booked it out to Starbucks than waited for our tour bus. We were taking a tour of the West Highlands, Lochs, and Castles.
This tour was through a company called Rabbies. We get on our bus to find ourselves with maybe 10 other people and Shelby. Shelby Shelby Shelby.
Best. Tour. Guide. Ever.
She was wonderful. I’ve never seen anyone speak more passionately and honestly about their home. She said she only has one day to make us fall in love with her beautiful country. She was hilarious and brilliant.
She knows so much about Scottish history. She told us about how when the English came–
I’m gonna digress for a minute. There seems to be a lot of tension when it comes to the English. So many counties, including our own, don’t like the English. It just seem to be a common trend in Irelad and now Scotland. Even though they say “no hard feelings. It’s the 21 century” they really still crack jokes and aren’t fans. I think it’s funny. America is nosey and puts our nose in everyone’s business to help. At least we don’t try to take over and make you our property, eh?
Anyways, English come into Scotland with their Protestant ways. They cause clans to turn on clans and kick them off their land. Because of this, many Scottish people fled the country, moving to our new land. This is why there is such a huge population of Scottish blood in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and randomly South Africa.
She asked if anyone on the bus had
Scottish blood and I raised my hand. She saluted me and said “welcome home.”
You could definitely see the difference between the highlands and the lowlands. Cattle were everywhere and the mountains came out of nowhere filled with trees, flowers and just green. It was beautiful. We stopped at a few castles and lochs. For anyone who cares a loch is a lake. Loch Ness is the most famous
Loch because of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster.
We learned loads about castles. Many people still live in them. If a family can no longer afford a castle, but willingly open it to the public (whether it’s a fee entrance or free) Scotland will maintain it. They want to preserve as much history as possible. I thought that was way cool.
By the way, Scotland has the cutest cattle in the world. I wish they all looked this way!!!
Through this entire tour we got so much history of Scotland and how she fought to get her independence back. I would tell you the awesome things she told us but it is so much history and all intertwined and would take forever to tell.
We learned all about Mary Queen of Scots. About becoming queen so young, being sent to France, Queen of two lands, having her husband killed, her son not caring if she got killed. It was fascinating.
We also learned all about Scotland’s true Braveheart is Robert the Bruce, not William Wallace like Hollywood had depicted. That was a great piece of history. Even drove past the battlefield. Like it was no big deal!
I can’t even explain how great this tour and history was!! She even played music. Each song was relevant to what we were talking about or where we were. It was fantastic. I knew one song! Haha! Thank you Made of Honor.
We stopped at Kilchurn Castle which is on Loch Awe in Glen Orchy. It’s now a ruin castle that was built in 1449 I think. This was owned by a man who belonged to the Campbell clan. I will talk more about that clan later. It was a beautiful.
So many pictures. It was beautiful! I loved it. From there we went to this cute small town for lunch. In this town was a castle that was used for a Christmas special in Downton Abbey, which I love!!
The family was home and still lived there so no exploring took place. It wasn’t worth the money for a few rooms.
This castle was also owned by a man of the Campbell clan. This clan was a clan that turned on another clan after being bribed by the English. In Scotland there’s a well known overall gentlemans agreement, you could call it. If the weather is shitty, you will take a person in, friend or enemy. The weather is so unpredictable that this was widely followed and recognized in Scotland. So enemies would be camped out 500 feet from each other or in someone’s home and battle would be put on hold for a better day. I think that’s very honorable.
This clan though took advantage of that and killed much of another clan. The clan was about 300 big, the one that was killed. They had refused to sign a allegiance to the English so the English wanted to prove how powerful they were. No one knows if they chose that clan because the chief signed a day late or because they were small with only 300. Either way, the Campbell clan signed allegiance to the English and then attacked this clan in their sleep. After spending 13 days being taken care of by them. Horrible!
A breaking of this understanding happened again with Robert the Bruce. The final battle, Scotland was out numbered. They were forced into war because Robert the Bruce’s brother told the English to give back the last castle that Scotland had to take back for victory or they would bring hell upon the castle and take it by force. Well the English decided to send over a thousand soldiers. Robert the Bruce thought his brother was an idiot but he had no choice but to fight.
The Scots knew they were out numbered. No matter how strong you are or weapons, numbers matter. Robert the Bruce was riding around on a small pony on the eve of battle, trying to give the best pep talk to his men. As I said before, your enemy could be camped 500 feet from you. An English soldier was practicing his jousting on his horse and looked over to see the King of Scotland without armor or weapons so close. He charged, his joust aimed at Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce saw him out of the corner of his eye and waited until the last moment. He had his horse side step having the man ride past him and then he pushed up so hard and high and pulled out his favorite weapon that no one could see and bashed his head in half.
Scotland won the war the next morning.
They say the soldiers fought like lions, and numbers meant nothing. Scotland had her freedom.
It was such an epic story I thought I was watching a movie. The detail, I could see it all. Shelby was a great story teller!
Our last stop was at Loch Lomond where I put my feet in the water- check! We stopped at sterling castle’s base and then headed back.
Once back Holly and I grabbed grub and passed out! It was a long day, but beautiful!
Scotland Day 3
Our third day in Scotland was our last day with Raya. I’m totally sad she is going and am gonna miss her!
We slept in late, but eventually we all got up to find Edinburgh gloomy cold and rainy. We headed out to get some food. After the three of us ate and did some shopping, we decided to take the walking tour. We figured it was cold and rainy, there couldn’t be too many people.
This tour was a free walking comedy tour of Edinburgh. Our guide, whose name I don’t know, was pretty funny. He was dressed in a traditional kilt, which we have actually seen a lot of around here.
He was great, explaining he would tell us whatever he knows and if we ask a question he doesn’t know the answer to, he simply will say he don’t know. In the beginning asked if anyone in the group was a smart ass. So I raised my hand. He said “Great! Haggle me. I love it, but I will haggle you back.” Fair game, challenge accepted.
Our first stop was in this car park between a bunch of fancy buildings. He said raise your hand if you have a gym membership of any sort. People raise their hands while Holly, Raya and I look at each other like “ha! nope.” The guy sees this and calls on Raya. There was a gold box on the ground in the middle of a parking space. He asks her to go on it and do jumping jacks. Raya, being a good sport does. Then he asks her to dance, he dances with her and also yells at her to stay on the gold box. Everyone is laughing. He asks us if Raya is a law abiding citizen. I mean we have only known Raya for 3 days. Well, in that time, we happen to have discovered the answer to that question. And now this is where I don’t tell you the story.
The guide thanks Raya and she comes back, everyone is laughing. He then tells us Raya has just broken the law and committed high treason. “No, you don’t get arrested for dancing in the street. But you do get arrested for dancing on a mans grave and you Raya have just danced on top of the grave of John Knox. A very important man to Scottish history.” Her jaw drops and everyone is kind of laughing. I chime in with a “And he’s burried in the middle of a car park?” He laughs. “No worries though, you are not Scottish therefore you can’t commit high treason so you will not be hanged.” He says. Everyone is laughing now.
He goes on to explain it use to be a cemetery and is now the court rooms. The highest profile cases were done in a building close to us. He also explains to us about the statue we are standing near. It was pretty cool. If, at least here in Scotland, a man is upon a horse as a statue and the leg is raised of the horse, he died a hero in battle. If all legs are down, he was a brave hero but died of natural causes. That was actually a really interesting fact to be able to note about every statue we saw.
He told is how the statue is made of lead and over the years the acid rain caused it to erode and make a hole in the mans head. The statue was filling up and beginning to move because it’s off balance so they drilled a hole for the water to go through. In the penis. “Ladies and Gentlemen the worlds only peeling statue!” He yells. Everyone is cracking up. He tells us how it’s hilarious they did this because on in Scotland media is not allowed into court rooms. So the set up outside and this statue is directly out front of the high profile case room. He said there’s been many times on the news you will see them reporting about a huge case and this statue in the background. He said one time there was a man who had been dropping his pants and walking around all over Scotland. Like this huge case of indecent exposure.. So the news is outside reporting on this and it rains a lot in Scotland and all you can see is this statue in the background with the horse looking like it’s peeing. Everyone at this point is cracking up. He says we can YouTube it, it’s true.
We continue our tour about the first fireman and how he invented the fire helmet. How he quit the army to be a fire fighter and originally it was looked down upon. The statue was near a church when we were looking at it but apparently back in the day they had it on a big hill. Then in 1996, I think, an episode of the Simpsons aired and Bart cut off the head of a statue. Two days later this guys head was cut off and missing.
To this day, they don’t know where the original head is. After this happened, for 4 years they would profit from this headless statue by charging people and allowing them to climb up and place their head on the statue and get a picture. After a while the council thought it was disrespectful so they gave him a new head and a new home. Haha!
We moved on to an area where he began to talk about torture and killings back in the day. He called upon Raya again and handcuffed her with old handcuffs. He began to explain about all the witch killings that happened in Edinburgh. As well as various ways they use to torture people. The Scots were brutal. He said they would handcuff your arms above you (using Raya as his example) and put you in a coffin fit for the body and shut the door. This door had twelve long spikes on the inside.
If that doesn’t do it for you, they upgraded. They had a similar device but with 24 spikes that when closed would stop about a foot from your body. Then, a man would crank a wheel on one side that caused the spikes to slowly move forward. He would crank it until it was about an inch into the body and then stop. Imagine, stuck in a box. Spikes in you at 24 different points on your body. Only an inch in, so you’re still alive and the man stops. That’s horrible enough. But not for them. The man would leave for 2 hours with the person left in the box. What would he do? Go out and sell tickets. Tickets to the towns people to come and crank the other side of the machine which caused the spikes to slowly expand outwards. There was a little box on the front so people could see the face. That’s absolutely horrible.
Another form was they would put a rat in a box with you, your arms handcuffed up. They would make it so the rat felt danger and the only way for the rat to escape would be to burrow it’s way out. Through your stomach. To your chest. Out your mouth. But if you did something really bad they would put two rats in. Adding competition of survival to the rats.
Ever wonder where “the rat race of life” expression came from?
Yes, he’s holding a fake rat in front of her as he explains. I know it’s gross but it’s what we learned. He said he or anyone from Edinburgh alone is not proud of what happened but they can’t pretend it didn’t.
He was also very serious when talking about what happened with witches. Vague as well. They killed more witches in the city of Edinburgh alone than all of Europe combined. He wouldn’t tell us the exact number. He said numbers don’t matter because then it becomes a competition and all those people just become numbers. The true travesty of what happened gets lost.
He let that sink in. From the tour overall, by piecing it together, I gather it was millions.
There’s even a sign apologizing for killing the good witches.
In this tour I was also to realize there was a lot more literary history in Scotland than I ever realized.
There use to be a man in this city who by day was a good man. Donated to the church, would help anyone. A model citizen. By night he was a druggie, gambler and spent time in hostels.
They say the book Jackal and Hyde was written off this man. The idea of good and evil. But our tour guide doesn’t agree. Every villain has a good counterpart. They don’t walk around the city during the day screaming “I’m a bad guy!” No, he thinks Jackal and Hyde (side note since I didn’t make it clear, it was written here in Scotland) was based on the city. In the tour we got to see both the good and bad about Edinburgh. Both Jackal and Hyde. That it is in this time the city is choosing which side they want to be. And now it was our choice to decide where we thought Edinburgh fell.
It was a phenomenal tour. And free! The guy was so passionate about this city and Scotland.
That’s one thing I’ve noticed about the Scottish. They are so proud of who they are and their Scottish background. More than proud, they are honest. Whether it’s good or bad, they own up to it all. I got that not only from this tour but every interaction with Scottish people here. It’s quite admirable the pride and love they have for their country. Good and bad included.
I loved the tour.
Afterwards it was raining again so we grabbed dinner from an Italian place and then tea from Starbucks and went back to the hostel. Holly and I had an early day the next day. Tour to the highlands that required an 8:15 leaving time.
Second Day in Scotland
In our hostel we have 8 beds again. This place is much nicer than Dublin’s hostel, I actually think it’s my favorite hostel so far on this trip. We have made friends with Raya, a 22 year old from New Zealand who lives in England nannying. She actually has a really cool story, especially in regards to traveling and what she is doing. Her Dad is from Boston, giving her duel citizenship so she completed University in Virginia. She’s very nice and has an insanely cool story, much more than I’ve explained now.
Yesterday the three of us woke up early to go to the farmers market. The receptionist at the hostel said there is one not too far on Saturdays that she loves so we decided that it sounded fun. We walk all the way to this farmers market at 9:30 in the morning only to find ourselves facing maybe 20 booths on each side of a walk way. Needless to say we were kind of let down. We walked through it, looked at everything and decided to go for breakfast. We found some pub and the food was quite good.
We decided to go do the free walking tour but when we got there, there were SO many people. They turned us away because there was just too many people. We decided we would try a different day and began to walk around the city again. There doesn’t seem too much to do here but shop. There are tours and such too, but the prices rip a hole in your pocket 1) because it’s touristy season and 2) because it’s all in pounds. And pounds are horrible.
We wander into this store called Primark. Oh, Primark. I think this store was placed on Earth because somebody hates me and makes me want to buy great things. This store would be so bad for me in the U.S. it’s like target meets Forever 21. It’s mostly clothes but cheap and so cute! We spent time in there, Raya left to meet up with some other friends and then Holly and I looked up some info about tours.
We all eventually meet back up at the hostel around 4. We go to get info about a highlands tour but we couldn’t decide which one. Loch Ness is popular because of the Loch Ness monster, but you can’t actually do much. Holly and I eventually settled on a West highlands tour for Monday. Unfortunately Raya will be leaving Monday. The three of us decided to do Mary Kings Close which is an underground tour of Edinburgh, the history a bit, visuals of how Edinburgh use to be and supposedly a bit scary! We booked it for 9:30 that night.
We had time to kill so we started to look for food when it started to rain. Now we were running around Scotland in the rain. We were looking to grab a bite to eat before the tour and live music, but we found the closest form of shelter instead and ate at a place called Maggie Dickons. We left there, headed back to the hostel to get pants and jackets because we were all in shorts as it was hot that morning and underground tours sound cold.
The tour wasn’t what we expected in terms of fear. The lady who recommended it to us made it seem much scarier. This just told of old stories and one ghost story about a girl named Annie who tugs on people’s shirts sometimes. Because we learned that and because Raya is a little bit of a nervous nelly, Holly and I later tugged on Raya’s shirt which actually turned out to be quite funny. She got a bit of a scare before realizing it was us. We weren’t able to take pictures on this tour, so I’ve got nothing to show!
It was really cool, learning about how the Black Plague worked and how it affected Scotland. There was some cool stuff but not what we had expected. That’s okay though, we had fun.
Since earlier we had struggled so much to find live music, we decided now it was only 10:30, so we would go grab a pint and try again. We were wandering around confused a bit because there didnt seem to be any people anywhere near us. Not like the night Holly and I came in. But it was a Saturday night. Confused, Holly asked a guy who was a bike taxi who pointed us to a different direction.
Boy we found people.
It was mostly clubs and dancing, not what we wanted. Everything here says they have live music but no place actually did. It made me miss Ireland so much. As we are walking past the place where we ate before headed down the hill, a guy comes up to Raya, from behind kind of places his hand on her back and says “hello miss, I’m not going to hurt you” very nicely and of course Raya jumps, Holly and I look over like what is going on to see the same guy jump when Raya jumped. We were all still kind of walking when this happened so it kind of looked like a movie how it all happened. I know typing this out, it sounds much creepier than it was. We were on a main street with loads of people around.
Back to my story, so I make the comment of “well that wasn’t creepy!” And we are joined by another guy. Everyone is kind of laughing now, the guy keeps apologizing, sorry for scaring Raya. We are calling him creepy as he is explaining he just wanted to talk to her. We keep walking down this hill and they’re asking what we’re doing and if we wanna join them to the club.
We talk about how we don’t know them so they take time to tell us their names and we spend about 15 minutes while they try to guess our names. They got Holly’s randomly first guess first try but took forever to get mine and Raya’s, clearly. But long story that sounds creepy and isn’t, short, we had just met Jordan and Stephen. Probably the two funniest Irishmen in Scotland. Yep, they were Irish.
They’re 20 and 20 something, I can’t remember, living in Scotland for a bit doing electrical work. The five of us ended up going back up the hill to an Irish pub for a pint. This place was packed! We had a blast. Met two girls from Texas, cowboy boots and all. The DJ played born in the USA and I’m pretty sure everyone who wasn’t born in the USA knew the words better than us Americans.
The DJ played loads of fun music and everyone was just dancing around. There were random people singing with us, dancing goofy, and Holly even got the two Irishman and some other random guy to sing along and to us a Westlife song. Now, Holly and I have no idea who Westlife is but from what we have gathered its basically an old British boy band equivalent to the backstreet boys.
It was a blast. No body cared how they look in this pub. Not a soul. After that place closed we ended up going to the club for a bit. Mind you, we were still in what we went to our tour in. So leather
Jackets, pants, cardigans. Raya was just in shorts and a t shirt! We stood out but it was good fun.
Walking home Stephen and Justin were asking if everyone was happy and we said yes. Then I ask if he’s happy. Just replies with “Yes I’m happy. We’re Irish, we’re always happy.” What a great life philosophy.
Hello, Scotland
This picture was taken at 10:30 at night in Edinburgh.
To get to Edinburgh involved a bus to Belfast to catch a bus to the ferry to take a ferry to the boat. The boat to another bus to walking to our hostel.
Holly and I were VERY tired. We got on our bus and after some funny shenanigans, we were on our way. The drive up to Northern Ireland was gorgeous. It’s what I think of when I think of movies. Green grass and sheep on hillsides. Absolutely gorgeous. But British flags appeared and the differences between the North and South became evident.
We got on our “ferry” to Scotland. I say ferry in quotes because what they call a ferry is what I would call a mini cruise ship. This boat was unbelievable. Free iPads with free wifi to use. Xbox systems with Kinnect set up, free to use. Movie viewings, all free. All kinds of comfy seats and areas to relax.
We get to Scotland and the view is outstanding. So much more green and trees than Ireland I think. We get on our bus and the drive was a long the water and gorgeous. But because of this it was windy roads, so I thew my headphones in and shut my eyes to sleep. But before that I was listening to the Scottish people on the bus talk. I have to PAY attention when they talk. If I didn’t, it didnt even sound like English. Those accents man!
I wake up when we stop, as does Holly and everyone seems to be getting off. We get our bags and walk in to the bus station almost instantly to realize we are at the wrong station. We immediately turn around to watch our bus drive away.
Here we are again, finding ourselves in a transportation pickle.
In that moment a man I a uniform is passing us. Holly stops to ask him and clarify of we are in fact at the wrong place. He confirms it and tells us his bus is going to Edinburgh and thinks we can join his. In that moment another worker walks up eating a burger and asks what’s going on. Holly says we got off at the wrong stop, I say we’re tourists and he was so nice he said “ah! Don’t worry about that.” That bus driver tells that worker and the worker says “yeah, that should be fine. We can do that if they can each pay 100 pounds each” and he shoots a look at me. I could tell he was just kidding but I give him the face of yeah right. I look at Holly who has the kind of smile on that says “I can’t understand what he is saying but I don’t want to be rude.” She couldn’t understand his accent. Then the worker, driver and I all laugh. I say “point me in the right direction, I’d rather walk there” and then the worker laughing says “no, that should be fine, no problem. Maybe not 100 pounds but a kiss for the driver!” Holly understood that part. We all laughed, and Holly and I got back on track.
We get to Edinburgh at 10:30. We need wifi to get the directions to the Hostel. We are trying to connect. We also need to convert money because we have to pay the hostel in their local currency. That wasn’t happening that late. Tensions were a bit high. But eventually we got the directions to the hostel and just needed to find the starting point. So we are now walking out of the bus station, ready to pick a direction to walk when a man passes by and asks if we know where the bus station is. We laugh and say yes and point to where it is. As he begins to walk away, I say “hey wait, worth a shot, do you know where Princes street is?” he laughs and says yes. He points to it, says he has two maps, pulls them out, orients us and lets us keep the maps. What a nice guy!
It’s so late now but because Scotland is so North of the equator, it’s still very light out! It’s crazy. That’s when I took that above picture. We turn on princes street and there are people everywhere! A busy busy city. It was so exciting!
We make it to our hostel, check in, and leave to find food. End up eating pizza because it’s the only thing open and call it a night.
Today, our first full day, we do what we have been doing everywhere and just explored on foot! This morning in the hostel we made friends with Andrew from Utah and he joined us for the day. The buildings here are unbelievable. The architecture everywhere is gorgeous. I did some family research since I Scottish and found which clan my family belongs to, so that was awesome! We watched a street performer, went to dinner where the waitress thought my first name was a last name. After we ate, we went to a marker to buy water where the Scottish man behind the counter bopped me on the head with a plastic hammer after learning we were American and thanked us for not voting for Romney because he would have started world war three. I swear this happened.
Tomorrow we are going on a walking tour and to the farmers market tomorrow!
Last Day in Ireland
Today Holly and I are taking a bus tour to the Rock of Cashel, the Blarney Stone, and the city of Cork. It’s actually raining in Ireland today, finally! Every Irish person we met thought the apocolypse was coming because of their “heat wave” which means like 75-80 degrees.
Our first stop was at the Rock of Cashel. Cashel is a huge stone and castle that was built in AD 1500. I was kind of asleep when the guide was talking about it, it was 7 am! I know Queen Elizabeth visited it. They framed the guest book she signed and the pen. I know they are trying to remove to salvage the artwork on the walls without damaging the walls. I also know it has what people say was once the most well kept cemetary in Ireland.
A saxton (graveyard guy) took care of it for the lady he loved.
This girl loved Timmy. Timmy didn’t have a penny to his name but they loved each other dearly. The father was trying to marry his daughter and he wouldn’t let her marry Timmy. Tommy from the other town had 300 sheep. “Who cares about love when you can have 300 sheep?” He said. One day the father told the daughter he would take her to town for the fair where we can marry Timmy. She was excited and they left and she noticed they were going the wrong way. The father said he just wanted to stop and see a friend. After a long while she knows they’re going the wrong way and the father admits he is taking her to marry Tommy. They were arguing and the father took a wrong turn toward Cashel and didn’t notice until late evening. They decided to stay in Cashel and the daughter ran away in the night but the father noticed and chased after her. They fought on and fell into the river and both died. They were burried at Cashel. Timmy got word and came to visit her grave and when he did they say her ghost came to him and asked him to stay and watch over her grave. So he did. And that’s why Cashel has the best kept graveyard in Ireland.
There wasn’t much signage in the castle, especially because it was being excavated so I made up a tour for Holly. It included archways blessed by the pope, the table where Kate Middleton’s baby was born, and a various other stories and memorabilia that I created, all in good fun.
Our second stop was Blarney Castle and kissing the Blarney stone!! This was the only thing I wanted to do in Ireland. Kissing the Blarney stone has been on my bucket list for a long time and I honestly thought there was about 50 other things I would knock of my list before this one. But my new years resolution was to knock at least two things off of my list this year and I’ve done one already!
It started raining even harder at the top of the castle. The castle was huge and the history is insane. Climbing the stairs to the Blarney stone is like climbing the stairs to the top of the tower on top of the Cathedral in Florence. If you have ever done that, I know you know what I’m talking about mom! It was like that but not as many stairs. However a lot of stairs, narrow and spiraled.
I got to kiss the stone so in theory now I have the gift of eloquent speech for the next seven years. Huzzah! The legend of the stone is this (keep in mind this is my rendition of the story): A rich king committed a horrendous crime. He was sent to trial but did not want to be sentenced. In search for what to do he asked a witch and she said when you wake up in the morning, kiss the first stone you come across. The king said thanks for the load of rubbish and left. The next morning when he was walking to his trial he thought “well why not” and kissed a stone. He went to his hearing, spoke his bit, and walked out a free man. The court knew he did something horrendous but couldn’t understand why they let him go free. The King ordered the stone he kissed to be removed and taken to the castle, voila the Balrney stone.
People from that town say they don’t speak of what the king did because it was so awful. Our tour guide thinks that he just spoke, confused, and bamboozled the people so much they just don’t remember.
Anyways, the grounds of the castle are huge! It has so many areas. A poison garden, a waterfall area, gardens- so much! They have wishing stairs that if you walk up and down them backwards with your eyes closed and think of the same wish and only that wish the whole time, will come true. I did this. Slippery stone stairs in the rain. I hit my head on the ceiling turning around, but I kept going haha! They so have a witch stone where they say a witch (some said who was the one who told the king about the stone) is trapped in a rock and her spirit comes out at night. It was amazing. We did not spend close to enough time there.
Then we went to the city of Cork. It wasn’t that exciting to be honest. We went to the English market where we had some bomb food. I ate a tart of mozzarella, pesto, and tomato with green olives on the side. It was delicious. After that we took the bus back to Dublin!
We decided to do a pub crawl, as it was our last night. Ireland was so good to us. Lets just say it was a grand ole time. We made lots of friends. It poured rain. I don’t want to leave.
Ireland Day 3
Our third day here Holly and I took a tour. It’s free from our hostel because we are staying so long.
Our first stop was at Glendalough. There is a Cathedral that was once one of the largest early Christian church in Ireland. It ceased being a Cathedral in 1214. The stones that make up this once Cathedral date back to the 10th, 11th, and 12th century.
To give some history about Ireland, when the English came to take over and rule Ireland, they began to name the cities based off the phonetic sounds of what the Irish would call the cities. So Glendalough is actually a different word in Irish, that sounds similar but it translates to land between two lakes and that’s exactly what this town is.
It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen with my own eyes. I can’t even begin to explain the beauty, the sounds, the smells. You will just have to look at the pictures that do no justice.
There was also this cemetary. The latest stones I saw dated back to the 1800’s, the most recent being 2003. It felt so…invasive. It was beautiful and historcal but I almost felt wrong. There were so many children on these stones. Men, women, young and old alike. And these are peoples families. With all these tourists just walking through and taking pictures. I felt very conflicted, but it was beautiful.
There was also a little old woman singing and playing one pipe as we walked in. It was so peaceful and calming. I bought a CD I loved it so much.
Our next stop was to Dolman Chnoc an Bhrúnaigh in Gaelic or Brownshill Dolmen in English. I had a huge headache by the time we got here. Tiny windy Irish roads in a big bus and the driver was jerking and braking hard. That’s alright though. It’s this huge giant wheat field. It’s actually probably more than one, probably several, but I’ve never seen so much wheat.
What it was most known for is the Brownhill Portal Tomb. This tomb has not been excavated so they don’t know much about it. In other tombs they have found artifacts. They also know other tombs have had burnt and unburnt burials. A portal tomb is called a portal tomb because the entrance to the tomb is noted by two huge tall portal stones and has a huge single capstone one on top and slopes down towards the back of the tomb. The capstone on this weighs about 150 tons alone and is said to be the heaviest of it’s kind in Europe. It’s hard to say when this tomb was built here but if they had to guess base on the artistic touch, this tomb looks as how it may have looked around 5,000 years ago. Pretty neat.
From here we traveled and went to the small town of KilKenny. The highlight of the town is KilKenny Castle which was built around the 11th and 12th century. It was owned by the Butler family, a wealthy family. They had a line of Earls. The castle changed hands a few times, being renovated and updated many times. Eventually after the castle had been abandonded and left, the last owner sold the castle to a restoration cpany for 50 pounds. Since then they have been working to restore the castle to it’s various original states and is also used as a hotel. Across the street the old stables have become shops but if you walk through and past the stables you will fine the Butler family home and garden. The Garden was huge, beautiful and had like no flowers. Holly explained about how she took a Brit Lit class and had to learn about how with different time periods came different kinds of gardens. She couldn’t remember the name of that type, everything was asymetrical, but it was still interesting to learn and beautiful to see. We chose to lay on the grass a bit before heading back to the bus and going back to Dublin.
That night we decided to go to a pub and listen to live music after a cheap meal. We went into Trinity, a pub Holly had been to before. It was pretty empty, it now being a Monday night and all. People work and have jobs so they were all back on their daily grind. It was cute intimiate setting with everyone and enjoyable. This guy kept staring at me so I kept moving my seat, eventually to where he couldn’t see me. I don’t think he meant to come off creepy, he clearly has a mental disease of some sort, but it was still uncomfortable having a pair of eyes just staring at me. The waiter who kept running around was named Maciej (sounds like magic). While the live musician was taking a break, a song came on that I recognized as did Holly but we didn’t know who sang it. I asked Magic who went to the back to look for me. He came back with a name on a piece of paper and I said “I can’t pronounce that” he said Im not sure and then spelled it out I’m sure because some of his C’s and L’s looked like the same letters. Holly didn’t really realize his writin but responded with “I know how to spell” and he got this “oh okay miss sassy” look on his face and crumpled up the paper. We laughed and I said “no I will keep this since Holly can spell.” he laughed and asked if we wante other drinks and told me mine now cost 5 euro which was a guiness and 5,50 when I got my first one and said Holly’s was 5,50 still, haha! He was just joking with her.
Eventually our live singer comes back and he’s a nice guy. He’s 26, cause Holly so directly asked, and very talented. He was taking requests all night so when he came back Holly said “she wants Taylor Swift” and pointed to me because I had been joking about making that requst.
The singer said “Taylor Swift?!” and Magic yelled from behind the bar “Who asked for that?” my response was “The speller!” and of course we are all laughing. The guy performing says “I would rather do Spice Girls than Taylor Swift.” and that’s when we got the all accostic Irish rendition of “If You Wanna Be My Lover” it was sooooooooooooo funny, I wish I had recorded it. The entire pub applauded at the end as we all laughed.
He was a good singer. Played all sorts of music and requests. At the end of the evening everyone kept chanting one more one more and he ended up singing like five more. He ended with Champagne Supernova by Oasis.
It was great. We headed home and Holly meowed Ho Hey by the Lumineers. Ridiculous and too funny.
Ireland Day 4
Now, our fourth day here I love this place so much! I’m so terribly sad we aren’t spending more time here. Today Holly and I decided to take a free walking tour of Dublin. It’s a two hour where we are to learn about the history of Dublin. This was a free tour. Oh, and keep in mind it was a free tour. Did I mention it was free? Emphasis on the free.
We show up to the meeting point to find our tour guide. He is a pure-bred, born and raised, lived his whole life in Ireland, strong Irish accented, Irish man. Who is Chinese. Named Andy.
Looking back, it’s hilarious. In the moment when he commented on it at the beginning of the tour I was thinking to myself “why is he making a point that he is Chinese with an Irish accent?” I guess I forget that I come from LA where a Chinese man with an
Irish accent is actually probably NOT the strangest thing I have ever seen. But, in thinking more about stereotypes of Ireland and Irish people, it actually is really funny and totally makes sense.
Andy was…..interesting. We definitely learned a lot about Irish history. But I also learned that Andy was hungover. Andy had just smoked like 10 cigarettes. Andy hadn’t eaten all day. Andy had been gone for three weeks touring Europe. In touring Europe, Andy and his friends had a booze fest. In Berlin, someone put drugs in Andy’s drink that cause him to, and I’m quoting my Chinese Irish friend when I say this popular American phrase “trippin’ ballz.”
Really, Andy was a great guy. Clearly a young college kid looking for a few extra bucks. For as much as we learned about Andy’s personal life and how much he struggled to remember his script, we did in fact learn a lot about Dublin.
We learned a lot about the history with the Anglo-Saxons, Viking, and
English invasions. We learned the truth of Saint Patrick.
Saint Patrick was actually Scottish. He had been captured in Scotland by the English and sentenced to hard labor and shipped to Ireland to serve his sentence. Originally he was athiest, but in order to believe in something and have hope during his hard labor he saught religion. He became Catholic. Eventually he escaped and fled back to Scotland. Instead of living a low life of a man who just escaped from capture, he wanted to become part of the clergy and spread the word of Catholocism, so he did. He eventually came back to Ireland and tried to convert the Pegans. Peganism believes in many Gods like the god of the Earth, the Sun, the Wind, etc. So when St. Patrick (who’s real name I can’t remember) came to them trying to convert them they said to him “you believe in one God. Why should we believe you when we have many gods and you only have one?” St. Patrick picked up a three leaf clover to help demonstrate and said “my god is three gods in one. The father, the son, and the holy spirit. He is so great that he is three Gods in one.” Well, that was enough aw and convincing that many of them became Catholic and that’s how the clover became significant and how St. Patrick “drew all of the snakes out of Ireland” for you Catholic folk who know what Im talking about. You see there has never actually been any literal snakes in Ireland. One of the biggest symbols in Peganism is the Serpant. Serpant being a snake, St. Patrick turning Peg’s into Catholics, hop skip and a jump he “drew all the snakes out of Ireland.”
Speaking of the Irish and religion. Let me back track a bit. Now when King Henry the 8th ruled England and they had taken over Ireland he hated Catholocism. He banned anyone from being Catholic. He burned churches, killed preists, would throw people in jail or have them killed just for wearing a cross.
So when that ban came to Ireland, naturally rebellious as they are, this caused the Irish to become stronger in their beleif of Catholcism. Now 70% of Irish people are in fact Catholic. And strong ones at that.
Anyways, we learned all sorts of fun stuff like this. Loads about Dublin castle, the many colored doors of Dublin, the name Dublin. Which was giving by the Vikings and means “black pool” because there is a river that runs through the city that use to come from high in the mountains that as it came down collected all sorts of minerals and rubbish to make the water black. So when the Vikings came it was a black pool of water. Alas, Dublin got it’s name.
Learned about the Irish independence of 1922. The IRA, how Ireland is divided now, the history and war behind it all and the role America played in it.
Fun fact we also learned today, the Irish police don’t carry guns (unless they are carrying/transporting something important. They only carry batons. Because they feel they shouldn’t have the power to kill if the people don’t have the power to. Meaning
Irish people can’t own guns, so why should the police be able to. They level the playing field this way. So unlike America- ha!
I could go on forever about the Irish history we learned today. It’s so fascinating but I won’t bore you with it all. Ireland has been wonderful. The lifestyle, the music, the people. I think every Irish person is universally required to be sweet. I think the
Irish are the nicest people in the world, seriously. It’s truly noticebale.
After this tour we did shopping, go souviners and went back to the room to relax. We weren’t hungry but we knew we had to eat cause it was getting late. Oh! Another thing that blows my mind here. Ireland is so north of the equator and I’m not use to it! It will be9:30 at night and still light outside! Crazy!
We set out to find something close and not so touristy. We walk into a place called Lanigans. Truly a hidden gem in
Ireland. It was one of the best choice we have made here, thanks to Holly for choosing it!
I’m going to be honest now. If you know me well, you know I don’t like beer all too much. I stick to the same few I like and am not adventurous. We have been in Ireland now for 4 nights. The past three nights in a row, I have had two pints of Guiness. The beer is delicious. It’s amazing to me how much I like it. I love it. I absolutely love it. I’m told I will hate it when I go home.
Anyways we are sitting in this pub, Lanigans. and it has the most eccentric things hanging everywhere. It was really interesting. A bit darker in this pub, but perfect nonetheless. We sit, order a guiness and a bulmers which is like a cider that Holly loves. We order food and get it, seriously this food was so good! I paid 7 euro and got a club sandwhich but four sections, salad and fries. It was a great deal and the food was delicious. Half way through my food I told Holly I loved this place and wanted to come back.
Our waitress was wearing a golden harp necklace. The harp is a big thing here in Ireland but we have yet to figure out why. We haven’t heard too much about it on our tours so I decided to ask the waitress. Turns out, even though she sounds Irish, she is American. Kelsey from San Francisco, and now Dublin. She’s 21.
Once we learned this, it began a whole new conversation. We talked about her picking up the accent, she had been here twice in the span of a year and then officially got a holiday work visa 10 months ago. She explained that it’s just like picking up words with who you hang out with. You pick up words and how they’re said and before you know it you’re talking the same and you can’t even tell until someone tells you. We asked her how she ended up here and my favorite question: what it takes to get a visa and live here. She launched into what I could tell would be a huge story. So I asked her if she had time to explain it all and she said of course we did and that she was off in 30 minutes if we wanted to hang around (we were just paying). She said she loves talking to Americans because it’s a little bit of home to her.
So she launched into what did in fact turn out to be a huge story. She started by explaining the different visas, the processes, how it’s hard, and what you have to do or accomplish to make a permanent move. She wrote all of it down and was so nice in helping us. She had to go finish up her shift and walked away.
Holly and I didn’t want to leave at all. But now it was 10:15 and we had to be at our tour the next morning at 6:40 in the morning. We loved the place and talking with Kelsey so much we decided to just suck it up and stay, so we ordered two more guiness’ and hung out.
Eventually Kelsey’s shift ended and we all sat at the bar where she finished her story. She explained how she was lucky to come across the job at that pub because she had spent so much time in the pub in her two previous visits the manager remembered her and offered her a job. She has been working their since. Oh, I should probably introduce Keith and Connor at this point. They are the guys working behind the bar. They’re chatting a bit with us, working, and quoting lines from Monsters University. Well, Keith was doing Sully dance moves from the movie. Now you also gotta understand how they look. Keith is probably your average height guy 5’9 ish and standing next to you he doesn’t seem short at all. Standing next to Connor behind the bar though, he looked like he was way short. Connor has got to be over 6’3. The guy is really tall. So that was funny for the evening. Anyways after a while of chatting a man walks in and Holly and I see Keith gesture. Our Deaf alarms are going off as we give each other the “I think he’s Deaf look” We look at the old man and he is gesturing too. At this point were excited so we pick up our stuff and move over near him and begin with the gesturing, paper writing and finger spelling. The Irish ABC isn’t too different from ours so it was easy to pick up on. Many signs were similar but it was great fun. Turns out Keith’s girlfriend’s parents were Deaf, so he knew minimal signs and it turns out that this older Deaf man is named Bob. Gesturing and trying to understand each other Holly at one point says to me “ahhhh! Now I know what people feel like when trying to talk to Deaf people at home.” In the moment, I thought that was a bizzare comment. “Of course that’s what it’s like Holly, that’s how it was for us once when we were learning, this isn’t new to us” I thought to myself. I did not realize what I just realized now. For those of you who don’t know, Holly’s parents are Deaf. Holly’s first language is sign language. Holly has never had to feel frustrated or bad in trying to learn to sign with Deaf people because she’s been doing it her whole life. Of course that moment was a new experience for her! Of course she would make that comment! It all makes sense now. Back to Bob. Our conversation was short, he was getting food to go, but we did learn that that pub hosted a Deaf gathering every Sunday for all the local Deaf people. As if Holly and I weren’t already bummed we were leaving, Bob asked if we were around. I’m so bummed were gone and I’m sure Holly is too! Bob left, giving us both a lovely hug.
Holly and I stayed at this pub until 12:30-12:45. Long after they had closed. Holly, Kelsey and I sat at the bar talking and drinking. Kelsey has us try an IPA (Irish not Indian) called Galway Hooker. It wasn’t too hoppy, a red ale that we don’t have a lot of in America. Not my favorite, but the names funny it was bareable. We sat and talked about language, about Holly’s life, where Kelsey provided free advice. Eventually Keith and Connor were done and grabbed drinks themselves and there we all sat at the bar. There were two other women sitting at a table in there too, minding their own. Kelsey asked where we were staying and what we were doing the next day. We are going to the Blarney Stone tomorrow and tomorrow night we were thinking about doing a pub crawl. Now we are definitely going to go back to Lanigans. Serendipity was at our sides last night as we were only planning to grab a bite to eat and sleep early.
It has been another memorable evening in Ireland and tomorrow should be just as well!
Ireland Days 1 & 2
Ireland has been amazing. We got here four days ago and I am so in love with it here. Wifi in our hostel is horrendous so that’s why I haven’t been able to post so now Im gonna play catch up. We didn’t do too much the first two days. The first day was more our travel day so we didn’t arrive until the afternoon. We just checked into our hostel, grabbed some dinner and explored Dublin on foot.
Our first night in this hostel was hilarious. We are staying at a place called Paddy’s Palace. We pay 10 euros a night for an 8 bedroo mixed dorm that smells like human pee- all the time. Grand hostel. As Holly said, it gives us a reason not to be in our room. As if Dublin isn’t enough! Anyways our first night here we find ourselves in a room occupied with Mark the Aussie, Carmen the Chinese girl, and Frances the German girl. The room was also shared by two girls who spoke a dialect of Spanish. Couldn’t tell you their names or where they are from because they were in and out of the room in 2 minutes and all they said was Hi and
bye and spoke spanish for the other minute before going out for the evening. There was also a Chinese boy staying here too, Alfred, who was a friend of Carmen but he disappeared for the evening. So Holly, Carmen, Frances, Mark and I had a whole party by ourselves. Frances was trying to go to bed because she was going home to Germany in the morning at like 6. Mark was catching a flight to London early as well. But neither of them could really sleep and we all just kept talking and laughing so much, how could they?
Frances was talking about how she struggled in Ireland because she couldn’t express herself the way she wanted through English like she could in German, makes sense. Whatever she says about not being able to express herself, she is by far the funniest person I think I’ve met this entire trip. She was cracking me up. Frances, Carmen, Mark and I are all 22. Alfred and Holly being 23.
We seriously all sat and laid in our beds, shooting the shit. Talking about here, home, our lives, languages, loads of stuff. Frances taught Holly how to say her last name correctly because it’s German. The conversation went like this.
Holly: My last name is German but I’m sure we say it wrong.
Frances: What is your last name?
Holly: Kerker.
Frances: *giving Holly a puzzled look* ..what?
Holly: Kerker. It means dungeons
Frances: Oh!!! Kerker!! (obviously said the German way)
We all laughed and began to talk about funny words we have heard. Frances was laughing and making fun of how we say apple stroodle (she makes it sound wayyyyy better than we do) and I told Mark how I was laughing at Jade for using tanty where then mark kept mocking toats and other funny things. We kept talking about funny words. Fun fact, the Irish word for fun is craic. This is pronounced crack. So for all of you who thought quickly and are now laughing, yes. It is perfectly accetable to go up to a police officer and say “I’ve had so much craic tonight!” and that officer would be perfectly delighted for you. Phrases like “I’m having craic.” or “A load of craic that was!” are completely normal here in Ireland. They also advise you if you live in the states or Europe not to use that word at home, haha! Back to my funny words story, Holly says she is trying to think of a funny sounding English word. Well, I instantly think of one of the funniest English words I know and say it. Well, that opened a whole can of worms, let me tell you. My funny word of choice was spelunking. Now, if you don’t know what that is, I guess you could say it’s synonymous to caving. If you want an exact defintion, I don’t have one but dictionary.com will. So I say spelunking and Holly says what?! Holly doesn’t know what it is so I start cracking up. Frances is cracking up and instantly pulls out this nifty little device that is a text translator. It even gives the different words for American English and British English, it’s pretty sweet! She busts out this thing, begins translating words, and laughing at their German versions. She said she’s been in Ireland for weeks and all the sudden tonight she is translating and looking up more words than ever talking to us! We were all laughing so much. I was so sad that they were all leaving.
Mark begins to talk about Australia and home. He is a bouncer at a club but if you were to look at him you wouldn’t think so. In talking about what he does, he also mentioned he snowboard and worked at a ski lift for a bit. We began talking about weather, each where we live and Mark makes the comment that it doesn’t snow in Australia. Obviously it does in some parts but he meant for a majority of it, it doesn’t and it’s rare.
Mark: It doesn’t snow in Australia.
Frances: What?
Mark: We don’t get snow in Australia.
Frances: What?
Holly: Snow, like you know when it’s winter and cold and the white stuff falls-
Frances: I know what snow is.
Holly said it in the kindest way possible, thinking she didn’t know what snow was and Frances’ response wasn’t rude, it was sarcasticly nice and the moment was hilarious for everyone. Holly felt so embarassed but everyone was cracking up and Frances even thanked Holly for trying to explain when she thought she didn’t understand the English word. It was classic.
So many of these moments happened. Frances looking out the window just randomly says something along the lines of “did you notice the Irish girls get dressed and look like sluts?” and it was the lit fuse to an explosion of laughter which then sparked a whole new conversation.
That was how our night went. Carmen brought a surge protector that she so nicely shared with everyone because eight people had to share two plugs. Carmen and Frances were laughing that the English word was outlet for the.. Well.. Outlet.
Eventually we turn off the light thinking that will help everyone sleep. Ha! Now how this room is set up is it’s got 4 walls (go figure) one door (no way) and 4 sets of bunk beds. Two on each side of the door, one in front of the other agaisnt two walls of the room. I slept on the bottom bunk (Alfred above me) across slept mark, Carmen above him. Adjacent to mark slept Frances, across from Frances was Holly’s bed (making her adjacent to me) and above them both were the spanish girls. On Frances and Marks side there are two huge windows. I mean huge. No screens, just green cloth as the curtain. This cloth isn’t long enough for the window. So, we turn off the lights and I look over to notice there is a lovely amount of light projected into the room from the outside streetlight on to my wall, just perfect enough for shadow puppets.
So what do I do? Play with shadows. I’m telling Holly to look cause I’m laughing and it’s funny and next thing I know Marks hands are up because he is across from me and his bed is right under the window. We must have played with shadows and shadow puppets for like 15-20 minutes. Busting up laughing. It was ridiculous, Holly was watching and commenting and we were just going to town having so much fun with it.
It seriously was a great first night in Dublin. I was so sad to see them go! We had Carmen and Alfred for one more night. Then last night at like 10pm, two Canadian girls checked in and were checked out in the morning. Since then
We have had this 8 bed room to ourselves.
Our second day we did a bit of shopping and some more exploring all day. Looking at the beautiful buildings, Trinity College, and worked on booking our transportation to Scotland in a Starbucks because our hostel wifi isn’t so great. We found a quaint little bookstore where I bought the book that German man recommended to me at the beginning of the trip. I can’t wait to read it!
That night we went out to dinner where I ate Bangers and Mash. I know it’s mashed potatoes, sausage, and some kind of sauce. I don’t really know what is in it, but it was delicious. I don’t even like sausage that much and it was soooooooooo good. Even though it looks awkward.
After we ate we went down to the bar where we listened to the live bands play all night. The only song I wanted to hear played in a pub here was Galway Girl and it happened, twice! The performers rotated in our time of being there and both sang that song! In this bar I decided to order a Guiness. They say Ireland made Guiness (cause it’s from here) is different than any other in the world, so hey, when in Rome right? I had two pints and got a high five from an Irish man named Finn. He was sitting at the bar when I went up to order my second one. I order and then he turns over and says “excuse me what did you order?” and I told him. He said “wow, not many girls order that” and me being me loving when people challenge me replie with (unoriginally in my opinion, but whatever) with “Im not like many girls” and he got a big smile on his face, laughed and gave me a high five of acceptance. I felt like I had just passed a test I didn’t know I was taking. He said his name was Finn and he was from Dublin. He asked where I was from and I answered “the states” but I think the look on my face said “that was funny/stupid question” because the next thing he said was “that was a dumb question, I can hear your accent” and all Im thinking was “yeah, buddy, my voice screams American” and I told him my name was Desiree. He said he had never heard my name before. I laughed and that was that. I took my beer back to Holly where we sat and listened to music. Oh! There was also this guy from Holland who talked to us for a bit. Well, more me cause Holly struggled with understanding his accent. He told stories of his girlfriend and traveling, and how he got put in jail in France and hates the French. It was a great night out relaxing!
The Wandering Sandals 