Second Day in London

Happy 4th of July!

I've been on my own for the most of the day, walkin around. I was without the camera which was stupid, but there you are. London is an enjoyable place to walk if you can look past the rain.

I'm going to celebrate this anniversary of the birth of the United States on King's Road in the Texas Embassy, an American bar full of expats, students, and like. The camera is definitely coming along. Pictures are forthcoming (I feel like I write that every day).

PICTURE UPDATE:



It was strange to be in London yet be in such an American atmosphere. Also, never call holding two drinks "double fisting" in the UK. They don't have a name for it...just don't say anything.



John Nelson is on the right and his buddy Mike (a New Yorker and big Yankees fan) is on the left. The English like drinking almost as much as the Irish. Much love to John Nelson. It's a shame I'm not gonna be here longer to hang out with this guy. Andy, you are a bad brother for skipping out on London when you come to Europe. Your bro is disappointed. I think he's decided never to speak to you again.



Here's John's British buddy Mark chowing down on the food they finally decided to serve us. It was impossible to get anything to eat because of the huge crowd in the restaurant. We had given up and were going with a liquid dinner until a nice bartender took pity on us.

After a long conversation about the different British accents, I decided to walk home. The tube was a disaster. The ticket machines didn't work so I was let in for free. The train wouldn't come but I couldn't get out again since you need a ticket to get out. I argued my way out and just walked home. I would say it was a straight shot down Strands/Fleet St, but in my case it was a bit more zig-zag.



Where am I?!

London

We arrived in London today (Gatwick) from Shannon Airport via Ryan Air, the cheapest airline I've ever heard of. It was something like 15 Euros per person. Unfortunately, with all the taxes, it ended up being more like 40. Speaking of getting the price jacked up on you, it turns out that castle WAS too good to be true. They tricked us by showing us a brochure with off-season rates featured prominently (with the in-season ones down at the bottom). Did they mention anything about this when my mom and I were discussing the prices with them? No. I retract my previous comments about Irish hospitality. It's certainly no better than anywhere else.

London has been calm. We got to the hotel, ate, have been watching free PPV -- not sure why we got it, and chilled. My mom has a bunch of business to take care of so it looks like I'll be on my own tomorrow.

Several things:
- Hot Fuzz is one of the greatest movies ever. Maybe not, but it IS damned funny.
- British people are weird. I got assaulted by a (very rich) drunk guy at the concierge desk. He told me (in no particular order) "I tell em my cock is 12 inches, when it's really more like 2, hah!", "[pointing to his Lithuanian girlfriend/money order wife/escort as she walks away] what do you rate that ass?", "Are you American? Of course you are, fuckin yanks. Do you know who Ira Hayes is?" (more to come as I remember them)... he then tried to drive away in his Mercedes. The hotel staff was having quite a time dealing with this guy.
- Is it an oxymoron to say you serve the best of British Food? I mean, even if it is the best, it still sucks. We ate Italian tonight. From a cheap Italian chain (Strada). It was the best food I've had in days.

My arms and shoulders are going to fall off from schlepping the bags from Gatwick to the train, to the tube, to the hotel. Sleep time.

Last day in Ireland!

We're getting out of here tomorrow around noon and heading to London. I think we'll stay there until Thursday and take the train to Paris. From there, things are still up in the air. Andy Nelson is coming out here soon so I will probably try to meet up with him after his arrival to Paris on the 13th. I should see his brother, John, in London tomorrow or the next day. Brady Weissbourd, on the other hand, decided to skip out to Florence. Unfortunate timing, Brady. I will be sure to punish you the next time we meet wielding clean bars. That, or I'll make you do 100 pause squats. You choose.

So what happened today? I woke up at noon. That was amazing. I've been so tired lately. Not much sleeping.

We prayed to the Sun God (successful yet again) and headed for the Cliffs of Moher. Since I can't currently upload the photos, I'll hold off until then. Suffice to say, they are bigger than anything I could ever imagine. They are almost 800 feet high at the highest and 6 miles long. Right down the coast was a decent surfing beach too.

PICTURE UPDATE:



It's hard to capture how massive the cliffs truly are. I wish I could offer better perspective.



Here I am climbing up the wall for a better look at the cliffs. Note the sign.



And here's the following sign (as if you were totally unaware of the consequences of your climbing).

I came back, worked out (FINALLY), and ate more than the waitress thought any reasonable person should eat (interjecting "the stew is quite filling" when I ordered my second entrée). Pfft. After eating my fill and drinking two pints, I'm ready to sleep. This will be finished tomorrow. Good night.

Random Thoughts:
Coming Soon - Road Construction and the future of Ireland
Preview - Every road in Ireland is under construction. While it lost something like 60% of it's population over the last half-century, it will surpass that number and more in the next 30. In the meantime, it makes driving a bitch. Gaelic only signs? Not so nice either.

Ireland Day 6

We headed up out on the Dingle Peninsula to try and beat the rain (once again, lucky sun in the morning). On the way, I made a friend.



Right after I met this nice creature, he proceeded to violate his pen-mate. Not so nice I guess. Much braying ensued.

After a quick hike up the mountains, the weather started turning and we ran down quick to beat the storm. The roads were absolutely treacherous. They are only big enough for one car really. It's not fun to have to deal with other cars, trucks, cyclists, people, and animals all vying for space on this tiny, unmarked piece of pavement.



All those tiny white specks are sheep. They are hilarious. Unfortunately, they are all spray painted funny colors.



Silly sheep.

The rain prompted a quick retreat to a magical far away land. In a castle. Time to relax. Thank you mom. You are amazing. [edit: In retrospect, I should have enjoyed the castle more given how expensive the the place was. Conniving Irish.]

Ireland Day 5

This will probably have to wait to tomorrow to be completed because once again the Internet connection is shoddy. I love how they advertise it in their brochure but don't REALLY have a connection. This guy assured me they had Wi-Fi...but unfortunately it doesn't reach my room. Great. I'm writing this on the stairs down the hall. Also, while most of the Irish are incredibly hospitable, wonderful people there are certainly some crabby ones. Why would you run a B&B if you didn't like people?

On the bright side, I finally found the cute girls. They were all hiding in Dingle (that sounds weird, doesn't it?). Mary Mooney, I found your twin and sisters and cousins. Creepy. Once again, I didn't have the camera with me but it would have been obnoxious anyway. The bar was crowded and raucous. There was good live Irish music and Guinness. What more can you ask for? I know, a drunk old man dancing and knocking over stools!

Off to sleep. I keep waking up for breakfast without getting a good night's rest. One of these mornings I'm not going to make it. And I'm going to be upset. If only I had something to help me sleep...

AND THE REAL POST:

RIP José Félix Alegría. I'll miss you bro.

The morning in Kenmare was uneventful save for the obnoxious British tourists eating next to us. They were only interested in picturesque spots and admitted that Ireland "isn't quite as good as England". They did offer some pretty good advice, though. We jumped in the car (I'm just about done with the car...we'll hit 1,000km in the next days or two) and headed up the coast toward Dingle.

Killarney National Park was unexpectedly on the way so we stopped off for a quick hike to break up the driving.



The sun makes me happy. Somehow we've brought sun with us all the way despite warnings of sudden torrential downpours forecasted all week. I really don't remember exactly where this is because it all looks like this. Really.

When we hit the Dingle peninsula, the first place we stopped was a beach. It was a random stop and lo and behold:



Surfing. It does exist out here. So do the same stupid vans. It's like Scripps all over again.



Here is someone trying to surf the white water. There probably aren't too many good surfers out here yet. I guess these people didn't realize you were supposed to surf the outside waves. Sorry about the crappy photo...

The beaches are beautiful and relatively pristine. This particular Dingle beach extends for miles in both directions. The development is generally kept quite far back, away from the water. You can drive your car right up on the sand, though. Kinda cool.



There was a better view of the swells coming in but I was unable to get the shot from the moving car. It looked longboard-able and fun with the waves peeling about 100 yards both ways. The wind was strong onshore but didn't blow it out too much. I would call it waste high (maybe slightly bigger) on the sets.

When we finally made it to Dingle we ended up in a pretty shite B&B called "Fiúise". The man who ran it was an ornery old codger. His wife wasn't much better. We got suckered in thinking they had internet service, which, as I already described, wasn't much. Live and learn. Stay away from houses that look too new.

The Dingle Pub in town was the best pub we've been too by far. It had crazy music, tons of local people, and an actual vibe. The musicians looked all punked out with tattoos and piercings but were playing traditional Irish music punctuated by goofy interludes and drunken antics by the bar-goers. The bass player kept leaving to order beers and kept stalling the show. The other guys would just yell at him and play pieces of songs when they grew impatient.

In case you didn't know, people in Ireland bring their kids to pubs. It's part of life there. It's no wonder it has the highest highway death rate of any country in the EU.

I'm getting ready for a change of scenery...

Ireland Day 4

[This is going up a bit later than I had planned. The sun was unexpected so we took advantage before the rain came down again.]

I woke up this morning to the sun pouring through the windows! Great success!

We ran out of the hotel as fast as possible (note: more of a hurried shuffle, but those packs are heavy) in the hopes of making it to the coast quickly before the inevitable "showery"-ness. We hit the beach in about five minutes to a glorious display of sun and shiny sand. Strangely, I was the only person in shorts. Irish people don't believe in them.



The beach was nice but it was in a protected bay so I couldn't see any sort of swell despite strong onshore winds. I bet somewhere up North we'll hit decent waves.

The next stop was Cobh (pronounced "Cove", used to be called Queenstown). It was the embarkation point for most of the Irish heading to the US to escape the potato famine. It was the also the last port of call for the Titanic AND the home port of the Lusitania. Given all that history you'd think this place would really be something, neh? Neh...



Here I am with my luggage ready to emigrate to Boston. Oh wait, I already did that...

And yes, I rep HMV til I die. Full practice gear FTW!

The next significant stop was Blarney Castle. While overrun with tourists, the attention is well deserved. The castle itself is massive walls and parapets with little passageways and rooms that they let you climb over, into, and all around. It's a little kid's dream (or mine...). I even got to crawl into the dungeons, or at least as far as I could without a flashlight. You go up one of those cool spiral staircases all the way to the top to kiss the Blarney stone (it bestows eloquence to whoever kisses it). I had imagined a special stone out in the country somewhere, but it's placed square in the wall of the castle at an odd, particularly low, place requiring you to lay on your back, grab the rails they've bolted on, and be lowered by someone to reach it. You can tell it's the right stone because it's discolored from everybody kissing it. I'm sure I now have traces of every communicable disease in the history of man on my lips. Sorry Kat.



The castle.



Me in the old guard dog kennels. Woof.



My future summer house in Ireland. Where do you summah?

Random Thoughts:
The radio here blows. I don't understand what would make people actively enjoy this kind of entertainment. One of the self-promoting advertisements even replayed a listener's testimonial of how much she enjoyed a good balance of chat and music. Balance? It's all trivial, meaningless chat. They don't shut up. Not only do they not shut up but if/when they finally do shut up they play the shittiest music ever ("umbrella ella ella" or that one Journey song about the uptown girl, really?). Oh, Justin Timberlake is coming to Ireland? Thank you for reminding me 93 million times. They play his songs non-stop on every radio station except the yokel Irish station and classical station. Speaking of the hick station, the DJ has a lisp. I'm not kidding. Is that not the one job you can't have with a lisp? It's not nice traditional Irish music either. It's an inbreeding of bluegrass, country, and Irish to form possibly the worst music I've ever heard. Conclusion, the Irish have no future in radio.

On the road in Ireland

(This is posted from yesterday since I didn't have an internet connection in Youghal. Tomorrow's post will go up tomorrow morning since my battery is down to 26 minutes and I think the owner of this B&B wants me out of her living room -- it's midnight here.)

We got up early this morning to grab breakfast, jump in a rental car, and drive to Cork in the South of Ireland. We loaded up the packs and made our way toward Trinity where we thought the rental car place was located. After not finding the place for 15 minutes, my pack started to gain a few pounds every minute. By the time we found Thrifty, with a little help from the whelp working at the nearest Internet Cafe, I was carrying at least 900 pounds.

On a weird, but related, tangent, the super-heavy pack seems to help my hip problem. I have a slightly shifted right hip due to a nasty skateboard fall. It has caused all sorts of issues. Anyway, the weight of the backpack sitting on that hip has forced it to shift in the correct direction. It's fairly painful and causes weird shooting pains but so far I feel a hell of a lot better (when not wearing the pack of course).

The car we got was a tiny VW golf with a manual transmission. The combination of a right-situated steering wheel (gotta switch hands to drive stick) and driving on the left side of the road has been...fun. Luckily, I haven't had to try my hand yet but my mom assures me it's harder than it seems. You are fighting every instinct you have behind the wheel. At least the pedals are still the same. Maybe I'll just stick to navigating.



The madre driving us (even being lefty wasn't helping the driving situation much).

We had no plan as to where we were going to try to end up so we just drove toward Cork (why not?). On the way we stopped all over the place. The unfortunate but constant "showery" weather made the trip more difficult than need be but the countryside is nice to look at. They weren't joking when they said Ireland is the Emerald Isle. It's the greenest place I've ever seen. There's nothing but green for as far as you can see. There's a scant house or farm but generally nothing between the little towns and villages.

At one particular stop, the Moone High Cross Inn, John, the proprietor, tried to convince me to stay in Ireland. It's a fast growing country with tons of potential he said. Tech is making a comeback he said. They are hiring like crazy he said. Too bad it's "showery" 12 months of the year. I mean, they do like surfing but that's outweighed by the girls, literally. Did I mention that a third of the young women I see (maybe 18-25?) have babies? Who would impregnate them? It must be their impeccable style (Juicy suits anyone?).

The next significant stop was Ring, in the southern, Irish (Gaelic) speaking part of Ireland. The bartender at Mooney's looked exactly like Will Reppun. Maybe I was one Guinness too deep but he even talked like him. Will, you need to meet this dude. He is your long-lost Irish brother. He's 28, wears a beanie with a brim, served me beer, loves the water/lives by the beach but doesn't really surf, and ends most of his sentences with "ya". Unfortunately, I never got his name and felt weird taking a picture (I think he's the owner's son). I probably sound in the love with the guy. Only as much as I love Will, which on a scale of 1 to 10 is "amazing". Also Andy/Seamus, he lived in IV in SB for a year. Yes, I got his full life story. And no, there was no one else in the bar except for cranky old Irish men watching a soap opera.

Also, surfing is huge in Ireland these days. I should have brought my 7/6 and board from Boston. Too bad that would've taken up my entire backpack. Weak sauce.

Later in the day, we got lost trying to find this Mahon bridge but stumbled across Mahon Falls. It's a misty mountain with three waterfalls flowing into a river in the valley. There are sheep everywhere. We hiked around for an hour or so right up to the falls. Keep in mind, the only way we found this place was by taking a random right of the main road.



It was misting pretty hard (can that even happen?). To be more clear, it was REALLY windy and slightly misty.



This sheep was delicious.

The long day ended in Youghal at Aherne's (highly recommended via Ring). I was so tired and hungry that the couple of pints there did me in. Or maybe it was the Irish coffee. There were a group of elderly people seated next to us, almost too drunk to get up. Apparently one of the women owned the pub across the street. She admired my attack on the whole Sea Bass I was eating (quite thorough job I must admit) and then proceeded to tell me something about Tiger Woods. Irish people are hard to understand. Drunk Irish people are impossible to understand.

Random Thought:
People don't immediately think that my mom is my mom. I know she looks young but comon... I guess moms here look more like moms than mine does. Anywho, made for some awkward moments.