6 posts tagged “travels”

On Tuesday evening-ish we headed to Henley-on-Thames, on the recommendation of Angela.  It was an adorable little town and I kind of wish I had money to take advantage of all the cute shopping.  Mostly the rare and antique book shop.  And the boots.  Ugh!  The boots. 

We got there a little bit on the late side, having come by train from Paddington Station.  Our room was absolutely heavenly (especially after our smelly hole in London, which actually was probably a steal considering how much we paid for it).  We stayed at a place called Milsoms, which was another Angela recommendation.  It was sort of between a pub and a restaurant, like you walked through a pub and on the left was the reception area and straight ahead was this gorgeous restaurant.

Our room, and our bathroom which was up some steps from the room:

We ate at the restaurant downstairs that night, a bit pricey but totally worth it.  They catch everything in the river about a hundred yards away, or at least that's how I understood it.  Also enjoyed a whole bottle of house wine and this orange chocolate tart that was fantastic.  I forgot to take a picture of my fish until it was half eaten, and nobody wants to see that.  Well ok, you get to anyway:

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And then that night we watched a bunch of silly BBC stuff and slept SO well in our quiet little hotel room.  Next morning was breakfast at the same little restaurant:

and YES that is butter in a seashell.  A real one.

So when you walked out the door of our hotel, to the right was this view (1st picture) and a bit down the street on the left you'd hit the river:

So we walked around a bit and went to this park, which was so nice and the first quiet place we'd seen since being in the UK, really.  They had an obstacle course thingie and a big wide field with a great view of the town.  It was also the first place we'd been in days where I could set my camera timer thing and not worry about somebody grabbing it and running, so yay for pictures of both of us:

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From there we walked around a bit more, through some adorable residential areas and past a secondary school that was letting out or in or something, we couldn't quite tell, and some more shopping, and then we got back on the train and went back to London. 

That night we stayed near the airport at a really American-y hotel that had a full restaurant, a pub with pub food, a full cafe, a playground, a projector screen with the Manchester U game on, and a convenience store all in the lobby.  Some British HGTV and this awesome sort of talk-faux-quiz show with Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry, and then to sleep.  Next day we tried to blow the last of our pounds in Heathrow (which is totally not hard, btw), and then HOME! 

And that is the end.

P.S. Dane has a lot more (and some much better) pictures here. And also tons of pictures of me, including whole action sequences of me doing riveting things like putting my hair in a ponytail or reading a book or going up an escalator. 

SO!  Friday night we took a flight to London, were picked up at the airport by Nick and Angela's friend Bakhir or something (not sure how it was spelled), and off to their apartment.  Some drinks and some catching up, and then to bed. 

Saturday morning we had breakfast at a little stand (me) and a little cafe (Dane and Angela) and Nick headed off crazy early for a retreat thing.  Then we went to a market, not sure what it was called, but it was near Kensington Station.  Here's us at the market:

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They had tons and tons of really cool stuff, street bands and antiques and handmade jewelry and stuff from all over the world, even adorable mod/60s dresses and stuff that I totally almost bought but then got yelled at by the guy.  But it was fun.  Angela treated us to the second most delicious cupcakes I've ever had in my life, after Susanna's of course, from this place:

From the market, we went to a place called something like Wagamama or something and had really good Asian.  It was kind of pan-Asian, sort of like a Pei Wei.  Then to Angela's to chill for a bit, then we went to see Young Victoria with Emily Blunt at this cool little theater, which turned out to be great because over the next few days we saw tons of stuff about Victoria and Albert and I have to be honest, I didn't know a ton about them before the movie.  So that kind fo helped with a lot of historical context, etc.  And it was a good movie.  We talked about how it sort of lacked a lot of narrative tension, not a lot of conflict in it, but it was kind of nice to see a British monarchy movie that wasn't totally depressing and dark and about horrible selfish ambitious exploitative people, a la Other Boleyn Girl or The Duchess.  Then we went back to the Chadwicks' and made quesadillas and salsa and guac:

And then maybe we watched The Devil Wears Prada, after eating dinner at like 11.  Because you can't have just one Emily Blunt. 

Sunday we got up and went to Angela's church, where she works as one of their video producer people.  It was really cool and kind of similar to a lot of ones over here.  I think I expected it to be more different, but not really.  Main difference: it was in this super old fancy cathedral.  But other than that, pretty modern, a lot of the same songs and stuff that we do.  The sermon was on service and was really good.  People were super nice and I saw approximately 97 pairs of boots that I would absolutely buy in a heartbeat.  Seriously people, London is like the City of Amazing Boots. 

We had lunch at Angela's and sort of just hung out for most of the afternoon (Dane and I, after breaking our necks trying to see everything in Edinburgh [City of Ridiculous Amounts of Stairs/Hills] in 4 days, and looking forward to doing the same thing in London, were up for a true, restful Sabbath.)  Nick got home and we went and had dinner at their little local pub, like a block from their flat, which was adorable and homey and so refreshingly not touristy at all.  It was quiz night.  I had a few (read: one, but kind of fast) and accidentally sort of yelled out the answer to a particularly American question, being all proud that I'd know it.  It was embarrassing.  Then we played Scrabble, I won once and Angela won once.  A tie-breaking final round will have to wait 'til they move back stateside. 

Here's my Sunday roast, and us and our lovely hosts:

From there, that night, we found our way to the Royal Eagle near Paddington Station and Hyde Park, where we'd stay for 2 nights.  It was...  a hotel.  With... a bed.  And running water.  That kept us off the street.  For that, I suppose, it was worth the money.  It was also teense and kind of musty and had a horrible, no, I mean HORRIBLE smell coming from the bathroom.  Not sure what it was, not particularly sewage-y or mold-y or dead-thing-y, just weird and gross and on all the towels.  It worked for a couple nights, but I can't say I was sad to leave.

Monday we walked through Hyde Park and to Buckingham Palace and watched the changing of the guards.  It was all so posh and military and precise, until the marching band pulled out their music stands and made a little semi-circle and played a show tune medley for the gathered crowd.  Which, even though the gay American couple in front of us was cracking up and seemed maybe a bit disillusioned, I thought it was really fun and showed some personality.  Some pics:

From there we saw Westminster Abbey and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, (those pictures are better than any I got) (and you've probably all seen what they look like) and then we went to meet Angela for lunch, and to see where she works, which is this church with like 200 full-time staff members.  It was really cool.  From there we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is not actually about Victoria and Albert at all, but was built under their reign.  It was interesting and free and you could take pictures, so we liked it. 

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From there we made our way to Leicester Square to see about getting tickets for a musical.  We saw the Odeon where all the big London movie premiers are, which might not interest some people but I loved it.  You always see pictures of it in movie news.  We got tickets for Billy Elliot the musical and walked around, and then went to Piccadilly Circus, which was absolutely nothign like I remembered from when I went when I was 10.  I had this sort of like relief carving thing of it way back then that I hung on to for years, and it was a lot bigger and more crowded and less fun than I remember.  But oh well. 

Ok a couple of those are from in front of the National Gallery, which I LOVED, especially the impressionism.  There was an exhibit of J.M.W. Turner in Dallas for months, and I kept hearing about it on NPR and totally tuning it out, and I'm kicking myself because they had like 3 of his paintings there and I absolutely loved them.  We also saw a bunch of the super famous coasters-and-t-shirts Monets, and a bunch of other really cool stuff.  We were making our way chronologically and got kicked out (it closed) before we got much farther than impressionism though. 

From there, we grabbed dinner on the run and made our way to the Victoria Palace Theatre for the musical.  Aside from our "view obstruction", which we were told was absolutely no big deal and only mattered if you were like less than 5' tall (which was actually a giant brass bar straight through our line of vision), it was really great.  It's one of my absolute all-time favorite movies, and it took a bit to get past a few huge differences.  One of the absolute best parts of the movie is the T. Rex soundtrack (with a little Clash thrown in), which I listen to all the time and kind of missed.  That and the Julie Walters character I thought was totally miscast, but I probably would have with anybody but Julie Walters.  I looooved the '80s British political comedy, I think my favorite song was one called "Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher", and the like 12-yr-old Billy was amazing.

This one is a bit wordier, isn't it.  I didn't take as many pictures in London so I just have to tell everything.

These are a bit out of order, but the Odeon and the Victoria Palace Theatre:

Tuesday we went back to Westminster Abbey because it had been closed the day before for some event.  We then (after the whole trip) found out it costs like 12 pounds to get in, meaning like over $30 for both of us, and settled on a commemorative book instead.  Then we went to St. Paul's Cathedral and sang Mary Poppins songs, of course.  Here's it and a cool-looking fence with dead things and a statue that I really liked that's right next to it:

Long tube rides with no other passengers = fun with cameras.  I think this was actually before St. Paul's but I'm not sure.

We also hit the Museum of London, which was like 100x fancier than the Museum of Edinburgh but not proportionately more interesting.  Just more high-budget, for sure.  It had exhibits and recreations of stuff from prehistoric times up through I think like the 17th century.  The more modern stuff was being renovated.  It was also hosting some elementary school field trip thing, and we learned that their accents make out-of-control British kids cuter than out-of-control American kids, but only for like 5 minutes.  Then they're about the same. 

Lunch at Pizza Express, which was not very express at all but actually kind of fancy and expensive.  I had bruscetta. From there to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge:

And from there, to pick up our bags, and to Paddington Station:

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So the next day, Thursday, we went on the bus tour of the northern part of the city.  It was kind of less exciting than the other one, but it was still cool.  We went up to the Firth of Forth and saw some really cool architecture.  For some reason I took almost no pictures on that tour.  Oh, I remember.  The first tour, we went on the top level of an open-air-top-level bus.  It was a taaaaaaad cold.  So for this one, we went on one where half of the top was covered, which was nice, but there were windows and poles in all the views, so I think that's why I didn't take many pictures. 

Here's one though.  I don't know what it is, I think it's gardens around Holyrood Palace.  The next one is the Queen's bath house, where she'd have to run from the castle in the cold to take a bath, or at least that's what our tour guide said.

After that tour we went to the Castle.  Here's the front, a view from the sort of walkway thing that's in front of it, and us:

A view from inside the gates, the entrance to the dungeon, and the inside of the feast hall.  And yes, that is snow.

A couple of sweet views from the castle walls, one of them I think you can see the water, all the way over New Town on a cloudy day.  Edinburgh really isn't that big, at all.

Then we went on this thing called a Vault Tour.  So the short version: The hill that the castle is on was basically carved by glaciers, like, hundreds of thousands of years ago.  There's the big giant hill made of rock, then what they call "the tail", which is what the royal mile is on, that goes out like the tail of a meteor from one side.  So going any direction from the Royal Mile, basically, you have to go down into a valley thing before you go anywhere else.  Somebody built a bridge south over one of those valleys hundreds of years ago.  The bridge was on pillars that made really tall arcs.  A short version and a sort of diagram is here.  People sort of filled them in and made this whole labyrinth of little rooms underneath the city.  They weren't really owned by anybody, so there were a lot of squatters, bootleggers, brothels, and other shady stuff.  And also parties.  Anyway they got closed up for over a hundred and fifty years and accidentally discovered by this ex-rugby player who bought a pub, and tried to knock out his walls to make more storage space.  The tour people were the first ones to go in and sort of clear them out in the late 1990s.  Now they do these tours and tell stories of murderers that lived or worked down there and the kinds of things that went on.  It was really interesting and entertaining.  The vaults, our lovely tour guide, and some cubby holes used for storing moonshine, children, etc:

This is this really cool-looking graveyard where Adam Smith is buried (and I just love old graveyards):

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We also went to the Museum of Edinburgh that showed all these plans for the city and artifacts.  I kind of loved it for how smallish and podunk it was.  Especially after going to the Museum of London, which was extremely fance.  Dane's favorite part was the hundreds-of-years-old potential plans for the New Town, seeing the one that had won out, which is now a big chunk of the city, versus what it could have been.  It was really interesting.

Then we went to the Museum of Childhood, really briefly.  They just had all these examples of lessons or toys or games or clothes, all kinds of things from all different eras having to do with children and how they lived.  We got there with only about 30 min left 'til closing, so we didn't spend a ton of time.

St. Giles by day and by night (once again, basically right out our front door):

Fish, aged cheddar and tattie cakes, with greens, at Deacon Brodie's Pub and restaurant.  From there we had drinks at a little place I think called Tass?  They had live Scottish bluegrass, I swear like a 9-piece band, which was about 55% of the people in there.  It was so nice.  Dane tried Scotch (for the second time).  Fun fact: Deacon Brodie was this guy who was a successful businessman and widely respected town council member in the 18th century.  He was a cabinetmaker.  When working on people's cabinets, he'd make copies of their keys and he turned into a quite successful theif by night, to pay off gambling debts.  The dual-life aspect of the whole thing was Stevenson's inspiration for Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. 

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Some views and political art from St. John's Cathedral:

Friday we dropped off our bags on the other side of town after we had to check out of the room.  Then we went to St. John's Cathedral (above) and to the Dean Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art, on the western side of town near the Leith River.  The Dean:

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View from the MoMA, and a cool tree that we saw during the (short) walk between them:

A little walk along the Leith, just for grins:

St. Mary's Cathedral, on our way back, along with its cool doors (one of these is for you, Susanna):

Another REALLY cool graveyard:

And then that night, after a Wannaburger (which was like 2 more pounds to eat IN the tiny fastfood place as it was to eat OUTside the tiny fastfood place in the freezingness), we got on a plane and flew back to Heathrow and were picked up by an extremely friendly "broad Egyptian" guy friend of the Chadwicks', and then back to their place.  We'll pick up there in EPISODE 3.  If you can stand the suspense.

This will likely be a couple of parts, because PICTURES!  I have a lot more pictures that I'll probably put in my Kodakgallery but it's just not really feasible to put them all here.  Like, pictures of almost every single meal and of like a skillion buildings.  I can email those albums to anybody who asks. 

First of all, this is all we took for 11 days, two people, in the winter:

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Flight was long but not too bad.  We got to Heathrow at like 8am and had an 11am flight to Edinburgh.  I think it hit Dane harder than me.  Watched Doubt on the flight, interesting movie.  Not quite what I expected.  Also I read a book called Neverwhere over most of the trip, by Neil Gaiman.  It's a silly fun adventury book, but it's set in all these specific places all over London and kind of either describes or assigns these really fun atmospheres/personalities to them, mostly the Tube stations.  So it was a good London trip book.

 Day 1, sprinkly-weather-hair, our first glimpse at old town and the Castle:

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First lunch, this sandwich was amazing. At a place called Pret A Manger, which it turns out is this huge chain of sort of semi-organic freshly made sandwiches and stuff.  Corned beef, mustardseed mayo, pickles, spinach, on a baguette.  Delicious.

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Me on the bridge in front of Old Town:

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This is the back of Dane, the sort of back/side of the National Galleries, and a decent view of New Town from near the Castle Hill (the real one, with the castle on it, not the one in Carrollton, ha ha.)

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This is Dane hauling our stuff up two lengthy and super-windy flights of stairs to the apartment we stayed in while we were there.  Literally like a 3-minute walk from the castle gate-thingie, on the royal mile.  Also: the stairs, and the view from our balcony:

Our bedroom (with not-all-that-Ltd Edition Jetlag Dane), and our living room:

Out our building and onto the Royal Mile, take a left, maybe 10 more feet and here's your Royal Mile view, including St. Giles Cathedral:

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So that first day we walked around and then moved into our apartment, then went and had dinner at the Filling Station (which, as it turns out, even though it's right in the middle of all the quaint little pubs and super historical stuff, is a chain.  One that happens to be sort of Friday's-esque, and also themed around the US and Route 66.  Disappointing.  Good fish and chips, though.) 

Then we went to this tiiiiiny pub that was literally right below our apartment, kind of tucked into one of the little archways a few feet off the main road, the Royal Mile.  It was called the Jolly Judge.  There, we had our Guinnesses.  They were good.  And also, Dane got the wi-fi password from them, which just so happened to work in our room, as long as you hung your arm off the right side of the bed at just the right angle.  You can thank them for most of our tweets from the first part of the trip.  If you go to that link, the entrance to the pub is down the stairs, but the entrance to our apartment was right behind those picnic tables.

Then we went home.  I slept for 13 hours.  Yeah yeah, sue me.

Wednesday we took a bus tour of Old town and first New Town, or whatever it's called.  There are, like, phases.  Kind of the main stuff.

This is St. Andrew Square, in New Town:

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Edinburgh Castle from below the hill.  You can tell why they put it there:

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Entrance and some tour bus pictures of Holyrood Palace, which is evdidently where the Queen stays when she comes to Edinburgh:

After the tour we went to the National Gallery art museum.  I wrote down some of my favorite stuff, but I don't have it with me right now.  Oops.  This particular gallery kind of said it was impressionism but also it had about a skillion of the Madonna-and-Christ-and-hairy-baby-John-the-Baptist paintings, Titian etc.  I think every museum in Europe like has to have a bunch of those unless they're specifically Modern Art.  It was really sweet though. I have to be honest, we went to a lot of museums, some history and some art, and I can remember very vividly certain things about artworks and artists but I can't really remember which of the museums they were in.  My favorites, I think, were the Dean Gallery and the MoMA near the Leith.  Those come later.

We went and ate at the World's End, which used to be the end of the city.  You can still see remnants of the old wall there from like over a thousand years ago.  I had steak and ale pie, chips, and a beer.  It was goooood.  Those following me on twitter will remember my beautiful Scottish scenic view as well.

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  Then, (THEN!) we went to the Elephant House, which is where a near-destitute Joanne Rowling first dreamed up Hogwarts and Voldemort and little Harry Potter over coffee and a gorgeous view of Edinburgh Castle.  The nerd in me freaked out and squealed a little.  The outer me had a really good latte and shared a piece of cake with Dane.

Lately I'm just dying to travel again.  Why does it have to be so EXPENSIVE????  I guess so that people don't do it 48 weeks out of the year.  I guess. 

We recently bought our tickets to go to Britain in the spring (and possibly Ireland, not sure) so at least I have that to hang onto for dear life.  And planning that trip might be enough to tide me over until we actually go, looking at places to go and hikes (hopefully) and hostels and stuff.  I think we'll do Edinburgh, London, and possibly some other little coastal towns in England that were recommended by some friends who live there.  Can't be sure if we want to do Ireland, I've already seen so much of it and it's just a lot of time spent in transit.  We will see.

And THEN when I was looking stuff up, I also found this hiking tour that basically goes all the way around the entire coast of Cornwall, on foot.  Which my mom and I are already planning for possibly 2010. 

But I wanna go NOOOOOOW.  And something is telling me lately that my lovely husband could seriously use a trip like that right now as well.  He doesn't quite know how much, but he does. 

I'm not one of those people that thinks Europe is like infinitely unbelievably magically greater than the US, I just think it's good for the soul (or something) to be a foreigner every so often. 

Oh, and I also get to go to Ecuador in like a month!  Good thing I almost totally forgot about that.  Altogether different kind of trip, but I'm super excited about that, too. 

So, backing up a bit. 

When I first left for my semester in Europe, I went to Ireland for a couple of weeks before heading to Spain.  I flew from DFW straight to London, then to Dublin.  I got off the plane, went and waited at the baggage claim for just about forever, and still no bag.  So I went up to the little desk, registered my lost suitcase, and got the complimentary overnight bag (tiny toiletries, standard fare, and then an absolutely ENORMOUS, practically see-thru, white t-shirt and some equally enormous white unisex underwear.)

I walked out the doors of the airport, my first time outside a building on the continent of Europe (this time around anyway), and was greeted by enormous thick clouds of cigarette smoke.  I remember thinking "yes.  I have arrived.  I'm really in Ireland."  BUT, I then found out that they had recently passed this ordinance that made smoking in ANY enclosed space illegal unless it was your own home.  Like, including restaurants, bars, even clubs.  It was kind of crazy, and kind of nice, but you also realize that the smoke was kind of a nice buffer to the sweat and b.o. smell in most clubs, and I just might prefer it in that case.  But anyway.

So I went and found my hostel on Merchant's Quay on the Liffey, went into my room (which had six beds), and met this girl Emily from Australia who was the only other occupant in the room that night.  It was mid-morning and I decided I needed to adjust my clock and everything, so I was going to go look around and make myself stay up until a normal bedtime.  I found a little independent theater tucked away in this little artsy part of downtown, and they were showing the Donnie Darko Director's cut that night (which had just been released), so Emily and I went that night, and I can't remember ever being so completely and utterly tired as I was by the time it was over.

So the next day I woke up, still no suitcase.  With the time change and the trans-Atlantic flight and all, it was Wednesday morning and had been Sunday night the last time I showered.  So.  That was lovely.  I tucked that white shirt all the way down to my knees and put a little jacket on over it, and headed out.  I got a day pass on this tour bus thing that was a hop-on-hop-off, and took you to all of the good places, so I kind of just used it as a bus pass around the city.  I can't remember what exactly I did on what days, but I saw a good bit of Dublin. 

I LOVED St. Stephen's Green and went there a bunch just to read and sit around.  I also would go to this coffee shop/bookstore/crepe shop thing across the Ha'Penny Bridge from my hostel, it was tiny but 3 stories high with this rickety winding staircase and this amazing cafe at the top.  I also discovered the magical combination of Club Orange and salt and vinegar crisps.  Mmmm.  And how an entire half of Dublin smells like a giant bakery thanks to the Guinness brewery.  Which is, fyi, only the second largest brewery in the world.  The only one that tops it is the Guinness brewery in Lagos. 

The last night before I left, I went out with a bunch of Australian kids from my hostel (I guess most Aussies and Kiwis take about a year or so to travel between college and the real world.  Something about being thousands of miles from anything else but ocean, that'd be my guess.)  We went to the Boar's Head (I think, it's been a while), the oldest pub in Dublin.  It's been there since I think the year 1190.  If memory serves.  That pub is 300 years older than America. 

About a week in, I went to Donegal to see my friend Micheal.  I definitely took the wrong bus line and ended up on the COMPLETE opposite edge of his county from where I was supposed to be.  Luckily, Ireland is about the size of Grapevine Mills Mall and I was only about 45 minutes away.  So anyway I waited in this little pizza place for him and his buddy to come and pick me up, then drove to their town, Teelin. 

Micheal lived on the coast, like a few minute's walk from the cliffs and the Atlantic.  One of the days I was there we walked up and saw this old World War II signal tower thing where people would camp out and light a fire if they saw the enemy, then the next guy down would light a fire, etc.  It was kind of crumbling, but we sat in it for a while and it was gorgeous. 

Oh, and there was actually another girl living in the house at the time, Rebecca.  Rebecca was American and had met one of Micheal's brothers in Dublin a couple of years back, and just really hit it off.  She had gone back to the States, tied up a few things, finished school, and moved to Ireland full-time.  She was living at their house (even though the brother was in Scotland at the time), until she found a job nannying nearby.  She was suuuuper cool and it was this nice surprise to have an American, almost-my-age buddy up there in the middle of nowhere Ireland.  I pretty much totally wanted to be her. 

Ha, so I was staying in Cormac's room which was all old and comfy, and in this cold house with HOWLING wind all around you but these huge thick comfy old blankets and stuff, I don't think I've ever slept better in my entire life.  The first morning, I wake up to Micheal standing there with a cup of tea, and he's like "breakfast is ready.  I caught it this morning."  So I go in and there's these fish fillets and granola and boiled eggs on those tiny little stands, which I proceded to peel, (all the while wondering how on earth I was supposed to eat it on a little stand), which drew extremely quizzical but polite glances from mine hosts, who were finally like "um, what are you doing?" and whacked off the top of theirs with their spoons.  Bizarre people.  Oh, but so I was like "did you seriously go catch this this morning?" and Micheal's all "hahaha, no.  Silly.  I caught it yesterday." 

One of the days I was there we drove up to Derry just to look around.  Derry's on the border of Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and had probably the 2nd most violence during the Troubles, next to Belfast.  It's also where Micheal grew up, for part of his life anyway, and where his dad Mic used to teach history.  They had vendors on the street, and literally like on one side of the street they'd take Euros only, and on the other side, pounds sterling.  Half of them called it Londonderry, half Derry.  We walked along the Derry wall, saw a march of the Orangemen, and even heard a controlled detonation of a car bomb that the police (Garda) had found.  It also had these amazing political murals on the ends of the buildings, and I think they weren't even supposed to be there, some guy did them all in the middle of the night but they were phenomenal. 

The whole town of Teelin is like a butcher shop, a pub, and a post office.  I saw some signs up at one point for a town fair, (I think that's what they called it) and I was like "oh, we should go!" Micheal looked at me like I was just about crazy, and I was like "what, are they not fun?" and he goes "um, people bring sheep to sell, or they go to buy sheep.  There's just sheep." 

We also went one day to visit Kitty, kind of the town matriarch.  She had a bunch of sons that I guess had turned into like the town butcher, the priest, the barkeeper and the whatever, so that pretty much everything in the town came back to her.  She was hilarious, and about 95 years old.  And smoked like a chimney. 

So my second-to-last night there, one of the girls in town was having a birthday party.  So we went to the pub, and pretty much the ENTIRE town was there.  Every age, from little kids to Kitty, all just knockin' em back and having a blast.  After a few (read: probably at least 10) Guinnesses, Micheal's inner songwriter came out (by popular demand), and he treated us to some of his songs, which were toooootally hilarious.  One was about his friend Eamonn who had bought a ram at a fair one year for like 250E, and woke up the next morning and it was dead.  It was called "Eamonn's Ram".  Another was called "Suicidal Sheep."  Theme, yes.  He had this guitar that he had to be holding to perform, and occasionally at random intervals he would strum, but he had no clue how to play any actual chords. 

Later, Eamonn, who was already about 6'5", had this gorgeous smile and thiiiick curly hair, decided to go out and get his plasterer's stilts from his car and wear them into the pub.  Stilts, on an already extremely tall, extremely drunken, Irishman.  So we ran out and got them and (team effort) strapped them on, and then I was lucky enough to be his escort back into the pub.  We all danced for hours or just sat around. 

And with Rebecca and me being the only American girls most of them had seen in a veeeeery long time, let's just say I was more than taken care of and never paid for a single drink.  Oh, that, and for some reason rural Ireland is like 85% male.  They were all consummate gentlemen, of course. 

Around 2 or 3 in the morning, it started to kind of die down, and they started singing.  One of Kitty's sons, Paddy, got out a guitar, and they sang some songs in Gaelic and some in English, some of them funny poem-y songs, some really sad and sweet, some that only the really old people knew.  It was incredible. 

Then we drove (yikes!) home.  Not that anybody was really in danger except for sheep and possibly Micheal's bumper.  There aren't really "neighbors" in the sense you come to understand in American suburbia, and I doubt we saw the better side of 15 mph. 

From there I went to Galway for a couple of days, mostly just walked around and shopped and read by the river.  There I stayed in a hostel with 20 girls in my room.  Rebecca had started dating this Teelin guy Frank, and they had both headed to Galway about when I did.  I think he was going back to school.  Anyway, we hung out a little bit, went out to eat, got shown around by Frank.  The last night I was there, I was in bed asleep when the front desk guy from the hostel came and woke me up and said I had visitors.  Frank and Rebecca decided they couldn't just let me leave without really going out, so we went to this club (me in my glasses and a sweatshirt over my pjs), and had a ton of fun. 

The next day I left for Spain. 

Running out of time, I'll add in pictures later.